[What makes you happy during sparring/fighting?]

Being careful and technical in general.

Trying out knees and clinch with a 15-20kg heavier guy even though we (unfortunately) never practise that - but how can you possibly omit that in MT?!

Finding enjoyment in a somewhat harder sparring with one guy who I did not like to spar with previously because of that (also for other reasons).

Learning that it's bad for your nose if you turn your head sideways in boxing-only sparring.

Any learning/discovering something new experience that I can integrate in my fighting in general.

[How long before i get "good" at sparring?]

 how long until i stop being a human punching bag? :P

I've had a grand total of three one hour technical sessions, and followed by 3 hours of sparring. I think a lot of people will tell me i shouldn't be sparring so soon after only 3 hours of learning technique,

One can't give a generalized answer to this. Your BJJ training will surely be helpful in some way, but I would generally advise against continuing sparring if you are unfamiliar with even the basic techniques such as, presumably, checking a low kick.

[Things that make you mad during sparring/fighting?]

Most of the time we do timing sparring, though I do enjoy the occasional hard sparring session.

The thing that makes me rage is when someone asks to go light/do timing sparring and then proceeds to start going hard and fast to "get" something because their timing won't let them. It's probably unintentional, but SUPER annoying no less. 

Speaking of which, I love heavyweights. They have a tendency to be the best training partners, even if they have over 100lbs on everyone else. 

Agreed on all points and based on experience. Funny thing at my gym is there are two to three guys who have slightly above 100kgs compared to my ~84kgs, but due to being the closest to them in terms of height and weight, I spar with them mostly and it's also pretty good.

[Things that make you mad during sparring/fighting?]

 It's not unreasonable to practice your other "6 limbs" against him.

 

When I'm with newer people I often handicap myself and try to work on specific weaknesses of mine.

 Good advice there, but I really could not apply that in that session: We don't really do elbows and virtually no knees yet, plus the dude kept running nonstop, so I also could not use my fists. It was easily the most retarded 'sparring session' I ever had.

[Things that make you mad during sparring/fighting?]

Today during light sparring the trainer ordered me to spar around with a smaller and less experienced guy. I am normally very composed and controlled, as was also the case in my last round after that with a quite competent woman: I was super tender, also because I noticed inhibition in her, and told her that she could/should go harder against me next time (without having intention to go harder on her).

But this guy, oh boy: Not only did he turtle (i.e. fight defensive/reactionary) nonstop, but he also only one trick ponied, otherwise running all over the place (good luck trying that in a ring). So a "one trick turtle," combining two irritating things at the same time. His trick: trying to catch my kicks, otherwise literally doing virtually nothing. But it gets even more retarded: Not only did he not use any technique after his attempted catches - he simply plowed (against rules), bringing me to the ground 2 times that way -, he also (unintentionally) abused the circumstance that I was kicking without power and nowhere near top speed.

It did not take long for this (unintentional but nevertheless) jerk to get me mad (but still fairly in control). I was basically like: "So, the retarded and abusing one trick turtle that you are likes to catch kicks? Then how about those!" I in other words increased especially speed but also power, but still without going full power or without aiming for his head. Trainer was watching and soon kinda told me to slow down. I then settled for walking the jerk throughout the gym while he was backpedalling nonstop, and the round fortunately ended soon afterwards.

And what gets you mad during sparring/fighting?
 

[6 days/week training challenge]

So far we've spent the entirety of two two-hour sessions sparring, working specifically on my push kicks (ie getting me to use them more, trying to be quicker, using them in conjunction with other moves, etc etc etc). The first 45/60 minutes are being taken fairly lightly; then we move up the gears until the last five rounds are pretty intense.

 Wow, that sounds like a nice training session. I recently successfully encourage my trainer to do sparring regularly (plenty of beginners and weaker intermediates), but we never came close to even 1 hour; still too much groundwork to do from his pov. Also good luck with that challenge. ;)

[Where to look when sparring/fighting?]

I played soccer as a kid and learned to watch the hips because you can't move anywhere or anything without telegraphing there a little bit. So I look at kind of the hip/torso area. Sudsakorn told me to watch this area as well, although I've also been told to look at the chin and upper chest (like a rectangle that includes both those areas) because you can see everywhere from there. Namkabuan wanted me to look right in his eyes but I can't do it. With my own trainer I will occasionally look right in his eyes after a good shot or as a kind of moment of recognition when he or I get something good on each other, but that's based on years of becoming very familiar and playful with each other. I don't do that with anyone else.

 

The momentary conclusion, in other words, seems to be that there is no concensus on where to look even among professional fighters and legends. Rather interesting.

[Where to look when sparring/fighting?]

Sylvie's definitely a no-eye contact person, so this is a thing that she's wrestled with as well. Hopefully she's hop on and talk about it. But til then I'll just note that last week Chartchai, former WBC World Champion boxer, and former Muay Thai fighter told a friend of ours that best is to look right below the chin, maybe the throat or collarbone area. He said that a lot of fighters look at the eyes and end up with their punches floating up, missing high. If you look here though they land right on target. Believe me, he said.

Very unusual and unexpected advice. Thanks for that input, I will (attempt to) give it a try. On a related note: During a drill in my last session where we were supposed to reply to a standard mid-kick with a punch, I noticed that my standard mid-section look was too low as I did not have good vision of where my partner was moving his head. The Chartchai tip, which would mean looking up for me, might indeed fix this. On the other hand it might worsen my aim for mid- and low-kicks? Gotta experiment with this.

 

In my old gym, I was always taught to look directly in my opponent's eyes, so I got pretty used to that. It's weird to me now, though. In any case, I'm constantly trying not to look where I'm about to strike, so I don't tell them what I'm about to do. 

Yeah, if your partner/opponent telegraphs where he/she is attacking with his/her eyes - something which I noticed in an exercise with one partner - then that would be an overwhelming reason for (often) looking into the eyes. I don't think I am giving away where I am attacking but I could be wrong.

[Where to look when sparring/fighting?]

Personally, I am not a very eye-contact heavy person and when sparring I accordingly have a defocussed look which goes through my partner's midsection and with which I try to take everything in at the same time.

Would you rather generally recommend 1) this defocussed look or 2) looking your partner/opponent in the eye and why? Personally, I would still need to force myself to do the latter and should be doing it to experience the differences.

Furthermore, when do you recommend to deviate from either your 1) or 2) standard? For instance when looking at incoming attacks for optimal blocks? Do you switch from defocussed to eyes or vice versa when sparring/fighting?

[6 days/week training challenge]

Thanks everyone for your replies. :)

 

"I train 6 days a week for fights and the body surprisingly adapts to it ... it's almost harder to cut the training down to 3 days a week."

Agreed in both respects. Adaptation is a fundamental aspect of evolution and generally working also in this respect. And training 'only' 3 days a week would be strangely dissatisfactory for me right now on a psychological level; I just feel better on training days and hope that my body holds up.

 

Also @ bbf3: Did you feel that you were lacking endurance (or something else) in your fight due to 'only' training once per day? There must, after all, be good reasons why Thais do running and other endurance related exercises twice per day.

[Help starting over, getting motivated]

@ Lucy: I noticed that you automatically assumed that it must somehow be your fault, but it could just as well and probably even more likely be due to e.g. mental health issues of your trainer. And yes, definitely get that money back if he did not provide full services for it.

[6 days/week training challenge]

As most of you will know, professional Thaiboxers train 6 times per week and 2 times per day - with running sessions before the training sessions to boot (that at least is the standard training regimen in MT camps in Thailand).

As somone who is in his late thirties, who has continued with MT only at the beginning of June 2017 (I 'wasted' time with Taekwondo and something kickboxing-like before that with plenty of long breaks in between) and who finds the above training schedule rather awe-inspiring, I wanted to see what it would be like to train 6 times per week (only once per day for one week) and - successfully - challenged myself to do that last week (the week before that I went training 3 times).

My I guess hardest training week ever (2 hour sessions per day at the gym) went pretty well: No real injuries - just a minor liver ko from some guy who said he wanted to do sparring in a really relaxed manner (yeah right, but at least he apologized twice) and a bruise on my shin from a blocking experiment gone wrong. Knees also holding up well. Also no real fatigue; I always felt pretty fresh the next day in training but appreciated the Sunday off.

So for all those not already training like Sylvie or other pros, who do have the possibility to train 6 days per week and who have not done so yet, maybe challenge yourself to do that and write about your respective experiences here. Or if you have already done it, tell us what your first time training 6 days per week was like.