No Sparring In Mt?

[HungFut66]

I've been going to a Muay Thai class for sometime now at a TBA school and I have yet to spar. We only hit pads and do drills but no sparring. Is this normal?

[pittbulldog]

Sparring

How long have you been training? A lot schools make it policy that lower level students do not spar, because of the risk of injury.

[Khun Kao]

It depends on a lot of factors. What is the age, experience, and/or skill range of the students in your class? For instance, you may be gung-ho to spar, but the others in your class may not be.

For about a year in my current Muay Thai class, there was no sparring because I didn't have anyone that I TRUSTED to spar (predominantly young teens).

Have you approached the instructor about your interest in sparring?

[chalambok]

Mostly it depends on your instructor whether there is any sparring at all, whether there is 1 or 2-step sparring (set-up sparring), full boxing, Thai Boxing with shin pads and head gear, or hard hand-sparring but very limited leg sparring. Master Chai told me he personally does not like his students to leg spar because of the chance of a fight-preventing bruise, and because he does not want students learning to hold their kicks back, but he does like them to box hard. When I watched classes in Thailand, I never saw any full sparring. What I did see was, the last hour of the class, the number 1 student would get in the center of the ring and one by one the other students would plumb with him until someone was thrown down, then immediately the next in line would grab the standing man and it would start over.

[JIMI]

Although I am not a MT instructor myself, I do not agree completely with what everyone here is saying. I for one trained at a facility that would throw you in the ring to spar very soon, after developing a very basic knowledge of how to throw a kick and block a kick. I completely agree with this method of rapidly putting people in to spar. Kicking a bag and pads, can only get you so far. Some people will pick it up more quickly when putting it into application by sparring. Sure its silly sparring and mostly consists of "Tit for Tat" type sparring, but it eventually gets the students thinking much more about what they need to do, and how to do it. I hope this makes sense.... it did for me at least.

[Garland]

Okay...
I've been training in muay thai under different instructors since I was about...I guess it was 13 or so.
My first instructor was a guy from Malaysia who worked at my parent's restraunt, the first things he taught me were how to knee (not the typical knee, but Khao Katung, a type for half kick/half knee, which I suspect was also supposed to help me get the correct hip motion for throwing kicks, which he taught me later) and basic punching techniques. After about 4 or 5 backyard 2 hour sessions he had me spar with him, just boxing. I trained this way for about 3 months before it came to an end...I can't remember why exactly, but I know he was having some family problems.
After this guy went out of the picture, I picked up my training with Khuen Khru Bernales at Kalista Academy. Of any of my instructors TO THIS DAY, Khru Will taught me in the most technically sound, generally enriching, and savvy manner of anyone I've trained under. Every technique he taught me used proper body mechanics, maxumizing power, speed, and efficiency and economy of movement.
When my old instructor learned I had taken up muay thai again, he brought me to another local gym that he had started teaching at, and had me spar some of their fighters to "see what I'd learned", I did alright, so he took me in as sort of a private pupil.
Again, this eventually dropped off, and I trained exlusively with Khru Will, until Sakasem came to town, and then, for a short period of time, about a year, I was training with Sakasem, my original instructor, Khru Will, and a few times at seminars with some top talent.


Of all of these instructors, each had their own way of teaching, and their own little tricks and variations. They also had different ideas when it came to sparring.

Khru Will would make sure that we understood techniques and had a decent repoire with each other so that we would spar cooly, with a reasonable amount of force, not just tapping, but letting the other person feel it alittle. I think I learned the most technical and ring skill here, excellent method for learning timing, distancing, and utilizing what you've learned. He would also break it down into; prummb, boxing, kicking, and kickboxing.

Khru Sem would have us knee spar and box, sometimes he would do thaipad rounds like a TBA level test, just not as grueling...i.e. kick, move your other leg before he chops it off with a cut kick. The students at his gym that were training to fight were completely disrespectful, thuggish (or wanna-be gangsta type attitude) brutes, who insisted on going full force...from this I gained durability, ability to calm myself when I get hit and rebound, and negatively, a little gun shy. Because of the different methodologies, I always felt, if you hit somebody who's going at you sparring hard, you'd simply aggravte them and maybe end up with a full blown brawl on your hands. I got over this gradually when I figured out that some of these guys training with me WERE hitting me with all they had, and if I fired back, and they got it, they would first cringe, than get a deer in headlights look on their face and would either calm right down or take a knee. Naturally I didn't try this with everyone, just a few troublesom guys who always went harder than they should've. It went both ways, I remember having to run to the restroom several times to clean blood out of my nose and mouth...hell, I've got a little elbow shaped scar on my shin from the first time my old instructor brought me to that gym to test my heart.

My old instructor would go rounds with me. Sometimes, it was cool, but towards the end, we'd go at it. I remember him hitting me so hard with a right cross he chipped my front teeth. I also remember wanting to take a knee from catching a kick along the back (it felt like I'd been hit with a bamboo whip). Sometimes I'd get him alright, though, I remember giving him bloody noses a few times.

what I'm saying is, from a variety of different perspectives, sparring too hard-core is silly, because eventually technique goes out the window. You need to vary it a little bit, and you don't want to get so hurt training that you can't fight.

[EmptyneSs]

yeah i know what ur talkin about garland. ive only been training for about a year in muay thai in boxing. i started sparring after about 3 months, when i had all the basics down. when i spar at my school, me and most of my classmates spar light, because we arent here to try n be tough or beat people up. we want to learn and practice and gain skill. u dont need to spar hard all the time, u can spar light and be relaxed and fluid, working ur skills and techniques to learn and improve. sadly theres always a few people who would rather just brawl and feel the need to prove themselves to others and go too hard when we are just trying to work on our form and techniques. i dont mind going harder with those that want to, but im training to learn and get better, not to because i want to beat on someone or show others im tough. if i wanted to do that, id go to smoker matches or compete. i dont want to get knocked out or break my nose when im just trying to train. i think when u spar with people, u have to work with them , and they have to work with u if u are trying to gain skills and better ur techniques. my instructor likes to pair me with people of lesser skill and athletic ability sometimes when we spar because he knows i wont just pummel them, ill work with them and let them develope skills and give them tips. not everyone has the same views i guess when it comes to learning, training, and sparring.

[Garland]

Exactly man...who wants to hurt their sparring partner. Save it for a sanctioned bout or something with a little more sustanence to it.

Sometimes a little hard sparring session can be cool, so long as both people can keep up with each other and have enough respect for each other that they can calm down afterward, but maybe only once a week, tops, and never less than 2 weeks away from a fight...trust me, getting hurt and having an injury prevent you from competing is not fun. It's just like going, oh, hey, let's just toss my months of training out the window .

[Guido Reimann]

First it is very important for a beginner to learn all the techniques. But why not sparring right at the beginning? Of course it is the free decision of every beginning student to take part of Muay Thai sparring or not.

I can only bring my experience into this thread.

I was the co-head coach in a big Muay Thai Gym in Germany before and responsible for the beginners. We let them spar also but it was very different to the advanced students (fighters included). One of the Gym goals was to bring out good fighters. But we had very different motivated students there, so sparring was only a must for the fighters class.


It is the coaches responsibility to observe and control them very carefully and to put more sensibility into the students, which isn´t that easy. Beginners cannot control their power or their techniques like advanced students, so the risk of insuries is very high.

During the sparring we stopped the training after every mistake or wrong technies the students made to explain them what went wrong. And of course we watched very carefully that the sparring isn´t goin to be very tough and to hard.

In the case of protection. Everybody had to wear Shin Protectors and of course the normal Muay Thai Equipment. To wear Head Protectors was also needed, but just for the beginners.

Sparring should be a part of the whole training session in Muay Thai both for beginners and advanced students.

Just my 2 cents.


Best regards
Guido

[HtTKar]

Sparring should be a part of the whole training session in Muay Thai both for beginners and advanced students.

Sparring should be a part of EVERY martial art. Otherwise you might learn dozens of techniques but never have used them.
HungFut66, does anybody spar at your dojo? Maybe they are just being safe and want to make sure you're not going to hurt anybody before you spar.

[silapathai]

*sigh*

The best fighters in Muay Thai spend more time on pad work, bag work...and I must stress, pad work..The way pad work is done in Muay Thai is if the person holding the pads is your opponent. Yelling out combos for you to throw at beginner levels and at more advanced levels you know what combos to do by how the pads are being held. You get hit by the pads if you make a mistake(like dropping your guard) and also will have the pad holder throw kicks, knees, punches, etc for you to counter with. This builds up your muscle memory for techniques and improves on your countering skills.
There is a happy medium to sparring; the first Muay Thai gym I joined was crazy enough to let me start sparring within the first week or two which I was lucky enough to survive(came from a karate background).
I know one instructor that only lets his students spar once or twice a month; I myself feel that one day a week designated for sparring is fine. The first year I was in Muay Thai was with a young Kru just starting out that I guess was eager to prove himself so we sparred almost every day we trained and "sparred" hard. I guess I gained some good experience from all this sparring but I also got bad habbits from sparring so much without much focus on thai pad work that I had to later fix.
When I was younger I loved to spar and probably made this my main focus in martial arts...throughout the years I have found that you should only spend about 30% of your time training on sparring(if you're in a stand up art like muay thai).
p.s. I liked hearing about Chalambok's experience with Master Chai not wanting students to spar with leg kicks...great idea since I and many others I have known have had bruises from this before a fight. Only bad thing is that I think it will deter a person from wanting to throw a leg kick in a fight.

[thaibxr]

I got to fight the first class I had because the intructor wanted to see were I was at with my skill. As for pad work don't complain about that its one of the main ingredients,just hang in there youll get your chance hes probobly just making sure your readyto protect yourself.