How to improve your sparring

1/Get out of your comfort zone.

Try things you learnt in your pad work and drills.

If you get hit doing so, that’s the whole point.

Don’t leave it till the fight.

2/Create goals and objectives with less-skilled partners.

Think ->

• “This round I’m going to target his stomach”

• “This round I’m gonna work on controlling the centre”

• “I’m going to check every kick this spar”

3/Maintain your sparring mindset.

If you get clipped, maintain your cool, it’s not always best to rush for your revenge.

Check yourself, and then, move to your offence.

This stops sparring from escalating.

4/Change up your sparring with taps, technical, and hard rounds.

Switch up the tempo and save the hard rounds for fight camps.

Want to develop control? Try sparring without shin pads.

5/Defence should not require as much energy as offence.

Think of it as similar to pad work. The guy hitting the pads with 100% output, and the guy holding pads using 20-30% output.

Execute your checks and blocks with as little energy.