I have like 4 people I spar with now around my weight class. They are also around my level and every round usually results in only 3-4 clean hits on both sides. It makes sparring much more fun since you know you won't go home with a black eye or a headache because the other guy is throwing bombs and still have some great fights
I think it's crap personally. I can understand the logic of being comfortable with the environment, but any good coach should make that a priority to be honest. I look forward to travelling to other gyms/other gyms coming to our gym for sparring, rather than sparring with the same guys each week.
i can see it working out fine if you can keep mixing it up and have a goal for what you want to work on. Obviously that's going to be limited by their own skills but it makes sense to me at least. I'm sparring with a guy I work with who's also having his first fight in July at the base with me but he's in a weight class up.
I believe in sparring for the most part, with guys that are better/more experienced than you. I think you progress that much faster when you are constantly challenged. Some days you just wanna take it easier and that is quite understandable.
If they are better skillwise then yes but if they are better because they got a huge weight advantage then the only thing I get from those sparring sessions is bruises
I just thought I'd bump this thread with my experiences for today which proved exactly the opposite for me. On Wednesday this week I spent a whole session doing some light technical sparring with just mouthguard and no headgear with a guy who has a fight coming up - younger guy of 18 who doesn't hit hard and is real friendly. I came out of that feeling confident and great because we'd had some good back and forth and worked a few nice things out. Today, I sparred against a guy who I spar every week - smaller guy than me, stocky and been boxing a lot longer. Hits pretty hard and never tires. I actually finally managed to utilise my reach advantage, caught him a few times well and didn't shy away when he bullrushed me. Again, I felt real confident. Then... I go up to a guy who I don't really know but I knew spars towards the end of the same session, asked if he wanted to do some light technical sparring, practice some slips and counters etc. He says yeah, it starts off fine but picks up a little (as these things often do) and next thing I know I cannot hit this guy whatsoever and every time I try I'm eating the hardest jabs to the nose I've ever eaten. I've never thus far had to ask to stop, but after one round of this the guy said "Do you wanna stop mate?" and I had to say yeah, my nose was pretty busted up. Again, he was throwing down a bit too much and too hard for the drill, but me being uncomfortable with his style made me go from feeling confident in my ability to realising I had huge holes which my comfortable sparring partners weren't taking advantage of. Kicker to the story? I'm 22 years old and have been boxing since November last year, the guy I spar often who is shorter is the same age and has his first fight May 22nd. The guy who completely battered me is 15. Humbling experience to say the least!
yea you have to spar with experienced fighters. You'll see after sparring pros and you go down the experienced level, the fights are not bad at all
