Many of you are now getting close to taking your first grading at K-Star Legacy Muay Thai Gym.
Part of the criteria on the grading is sparring, which is something we have been covering recently on the beginners class.
As expressed during the training sessions the idea of sparring is to improve your defensive and offensive ability in a safe and controlled fashion.
There is no need to spar hard as you will see more progression in your reactions and awareness if you concentrate more on getting your technique and timing right.
The extract below is taken from a blog I wrote on my personal website which explains in more detail the benefits of sparring lightly.
One of the biggest downsides to going hard in sparring is that you will get into a false sense of security. If you continuously go hard the chances are your partner isn’t really trying to do much other than survive the round, you will end up thinking you’re Superman when in reality you are not. All you will be used to is people running away from you, in a real fight this will not happen, that person has come to fight and you will not have the know how to deal with him.
You’re better going at about 50/60%, if either your partner or yourself gets caught with a good shot you can analyse how and why you were caught and address it, rather than being scared of being knocked out for making the slightest mistake.
If you are interested in reading the full blog you can read it here on www.damientrainor.com