Muay Thai without Sparring?

[wutang]

I just started at a local Muay Thai school that is TBA associated (I'm from a BJJ background primarily) and I found out from a guy there that has been training there for over a year that there is no sparring there. Is this common? If all you do is pad work or heavy bag training, will this give you the skills to fight? I'm all confused, I thought Muay Thai was tough because it was realistic and realistic means lots of sparring like BJJ.

[S.Anucha]

mate you dont spar heavy in Muay Thai, you do spar but not heavy.... the training and FIGHTING makes you tough, read : FIGHTING!

If they dont spar ask why, if he is a ripp of teacher change gym, we spar regularly with clinch and thai sparring.... it is integral to Muay Thai but not full on sparring

[Damian Mavis]

Hi there, I train at a TBA affiliated academy as well and I'm sure not all TBA schools are the same but I'll tell you my experience.

For the first year (approx) we almost never sparred IN CLASS. But I often went upstairs and sparred with people but I had to go out of my way to ask them or they had to ask me. Once I got to a certain level and was taking the advanced classes we sparred in class often. But again the majority of sparring I do is after or before class with other fighters or class mates. My academy puts out fighters at the amatuer level so not sure if that is common for all TBA schools.

Perhaps your friend is just not social enough to realise people spar on their own time? I would simply walk right up to your Kru and ask him the dealio, ask him if and when you should start sparring.

To me there is no Muay Thai without sparring. You can train without fighting, but you need to spar or you are missing half the training. Pads and bags don't hit back.

Damian Mavis
Honour TKD

[wutang]

Thanks Damian! I will ask my Kru but it sure seems strange that in a combat sport, the sparring is done "in secret". This seems counter-intuitive to me. One should not have to go "out of way" to ask people to spar, it should be a regular part of the curriculum. Like any other sport, you get good by doing it, not just by drilling. Just my two cents.

[Damian Mavis]

Ahhh but Grasshopper! You must learn to walk before you can run!... ok cheesy saying aside, seriously I can understand making people wait until they have the basics set before letting them wack the crap out of eachother. Like I said it's not until you join the advanced class at the academy I train at that you get to spar DURING class. But I also forgot to mention that even beginners are allowed to spar on Fridays under the supervision of the head Kru. Truth is the serious guys take a few classes during the week and come in several times for extra training and sparring as well.

Damian Mavis
Honour TKD

[jules]

Hmm.. have you ever boxed or legg sparred before? Because that's how we progress. Using Hands only, then leg sparring and at the end full sparring.

[doubleouch]

Waiting over a year to spar is bunk. You learn techniques through sparring. At straightblast gym we have students spar using controlled sparring right away. That's the only way to truly understand the techniques you are learning. I would say get out of there! My instructor says that you only learn a technique once you can pull it off in sparring.That means you haven't actually learned any techniques.

[gregimotis]

We also start sparring almost right away (within a week or two). It's pretty controlled sparring and as Mavis said, 'heavy' sparring (above 70%) is rare. A year before sparring sounds pretty sorry to me, but ask around and make sure you've got the full story.

[Chalupa]

wutang where are you located?

[kh_s]

I must be under estimating my old TKD gym, but it dun matter anyways cause I dun like TKD,but anyways I always see my class sparring (okay maybe not but like 1-2 times a week), except it has NO CONACT, but that was just beginner and after he taught us the basic kicks. I went to his advanced class and they sparred with some light contact.

Or am I just confusing his class as a kickboxing class?

[Tom Yum]

Sparring is important. How it is done is even more important.

Some instructors are really good at sparring on your level. They watch you work the pads, shadow box and spar with students so when they spar with you its instructional. They stop and show you things that you need to work on.

Sure you get hit, but its never full contact unless you have a large number of fights under your wing.

[Khun Kao]

Muay Thai without Sparring?

Kinda like Breathing without Oxygen....

[sercuerdas]

full sparring is not done. the ability to fight comes from a skilled coach wearing thai pads , belly ,and leg pads. the progress the drills up to the point of almost real. the big thing here is skilled coach. in thailand they are usually ex fighters who have the know how to progress you. alot of schools outside of thailand have equally skilled students trying to help each other learn.

[Damian Mavis]

I agree about the pad drills with a skilled holder attacking you between your pad hits but I'd like to point out one of the major differences between Western Muay Thai practitioners and Thailand ones.... In Thailand they get alot of their fight skills in the ring actually fighting for a living, over and over relatively often. In North America we should be training fight skills since we can't actually fight as often if at all and count on getting good from actually doing it. I've only been to a handful of camps in Thailand but only one did tons of fight skill drills as opposed to lots of pad holding drills and I loved it. I learned so much at that camp due to it's different approach to training. We would leg spar for 20 minutes, then box for 20 minutes, then clinch for 20 minutes, then a gauntlet where you had to fight all the other fighters one after the other and take turns, it was great! I think it had such a different approach because it was run by a foreigner and the students were all foreign fighters.

Damian Mavis
Honour TKD

[MuayThaiFighter]

Originally posted by S.Anucha
mate you dont spar heavy in Muay Thai, you do spar but not heavy.... the training and FIGHTING makes you tough, read : FIGHTING!

If they dont spar ask why, if he is a ripp of teacher change gym, we spar regularly with clinch and thai sparring.... it is integral to Muay Thai but not full on sparring

No offense budd but you are an idiot to make such a comment.

The opposite is true.

I fight Muay Thai both in class and competition and I can tell you that our sparring is always heavy infact we only sparr full contact.

Muay Thai is all about harsh technique,speed,power and full contact fighting.We don't believe in that bullshit point sparring that most other styles do.

Sometimes students go home hurt because of our full contact but that goes with the training so it's expected.I've gotten hurt from Muay Thai training but I've also gotten hurt wrestling from my head missing the mat and hitting pure concrete.

You have a better chance of getting hurt in Muay Thai then from doing karate,kung fu , tae kwon do,etc. due to its aggressiveness.