jpbentley

Thanks, NewThai, I'll check those out. I agree, Fighting Frog. My coach says, aside from the benefits you listed, he also wants us to take a few hard shots to the face before we fight. He's usually very conservative when it comes to sparring so it's not like he's encouraging us to brawl. He just doesn't want our first time getting hit hard to be in the middle of a fight (we're all first timers). Anyway, thanks for the well wishes! I'm excited for the fight... and also glad that I have plenty of time to prepare.

Yeah, that makes sense. Thanks for the input. We could be getting too boxing-specific with footwork and head movement. At least it seems to me. I'll check in with my coach and see what he says.

I've been training for a little over a year and I'll be having my first fight in December or January. (I'm in the US, by the way.) We have a couple other guys at my gym who are gearing up for fights next month so I've been doing more sparring with them. Thing is, the schedule our coach laid out for us has us sparring Western boxing a strict three days a week. We're supposed to fit at least three rounds of MT sparring into each session but that hasn't been happening so far... at all. I'm going to ask my coach about it tonight but I'm wondering what you all think about the apparent emphasis on Western boxing. My understanding is that a lot of gyms in Thailand dedicate one day a week (if that) to hands-only training. What is your experience with this?

I'm still trying to find that happy medium between going too hard and taking it too easy. Light sparring seems to mean "slow" in my mind. So I'll relax and take it easy when cued by a trainer, but then slow way down, eat more shots and miss everything I throw. Good times.