Clare

I've been training both recently - mainly training without gloves when doing technical sessions or trying new things out; like you say, the transitions are much easier without the added bulk of gloves. However, I'm wary of becoming too comfortable without gloves so when we're doing more competitive clinch sessions we've been using gloves to get us used to the restriction of movement . My trainers tend to mix it up with us as well, although they don't split it directly between the technical/freestyle sessions and I've never actually discussed it with them. It may change but at the moment I'm happy with the mix - not using gloves makes me see how I want things to work and what my technical options are, but having gloves on allows me to have a more "realistic" experience of what I can physically achieve and adjustments I need to make. On a related note, I've found that training with gloves when clinching with guys that are bigger than me is easier than clinching with girls the same size - the size difference, especially when their technique isn't particularly strong in clinch, provides a lot more space for me to use for transitions and less for them. Again I'm wary of getting too comfortable so it's nice to get a balance of training partners of difference sizes as well as gloved/ungloved training.