How intense is sparring supposed to be?

when you spar work on your openings and throw combinations, i walked on to a punch wendsday that cut my nose, if the guy would have snapped the punch it would have been KO time for me.

just work on your boxing skills, use your jabs, throw twos and three's, work on going in and out and avoiding the righthanders right by going in to your left and going out further to your left. opposite for southpaws, practice snapping the jab when your leading foot lands, make sure your happy with your stance. don't worry about the intensity of your sparing.

you need to practice snapping punches on pads, i never played golf in my life put i hit a straight and hard drive like 400 yards it just feels right, practice that on pads, if you snap a pucnh it will feel right and will KO your opponent its dangerous doing this in sparring, basically alot of people are inconsistent when the are sparing.

 

never underestimate the power of a good jab!
what he said about the snap stuff is ok ish, you should go full strenght with your weak hand and hold back a little with your power shots, but just give as good as you get and if your the one starting a war with someone be ready to assume the consequences....

 

Depends on the guy mate. If his got a bit of experiance and your pretty inexperianced, trying to load up your shots wont make a difference. A - even if his 20lb lighter, you wont hurt him; B - you'll tense up and loose hand speed, and wont tag him.

You can generally get a feel for how hard the sparring is going to be before it starts. Is he more experianced? Perhaps his a Pro and your an Am? Does he have a fight coming up? These would usually mean it'll be pretty tough.

Is he less experianced than you? Are you'se maybe from the same gym? At my gym, this would usually mean it'd be more held back.

But most of the sparring I did was more just for sharpening up. It was only when I was in with Pro's, guys who had fights coming up or if I had a fight coming up that it you really wouldn't pull your punches.. and that was understood by both of us.