Advice please.

Ive been going to thai boxing for a few months and last night was my 3rd sparring session. (Its only my 3rd as i had to take a month out due to an injury when i got slashed, some of you may remember me posting about this.) I'm an ex- boxer, but have been looking for other styles, but decided to stick at thai boxing a little longer to give it a chance (i was unsure whether i was going to as i find it very similar to boxing and wanted something completely new) so went training last night and was asked if to spar so agreed right away, as you do.

Anyway, the lad i was sparring with has been going for about 4 years and is pretty good. He was slaughtering my legs with shin kicks, and both legs felt dead after some particularly hard kicks across my thighs, but as i'm not one to cry **** about things like that i just got on with it. The sparring got quite rough, but not out of hand. At this point i did what i usually do and slipped into boxing mode (this tends to happen a lot, no matter how much i try to avoid it) got in close to go to the body and limit his ability to kick me. After a reasonably rough exchange i caught him with an uppercut that put him down on his knees, but as i didnt think i'd caught him flush and just figured it was a flash knockdown, i expected him to jump straight back up. He tried but his legs were gone and he was all over the place so the instructor stopped the session.

I then took some fairly heavy criticism for going too hard, at which point i tried to explain that i hadnt and that if anything it was the fact he dipped towards me (i'd just dug 2 left hooks to the body) as i threw the uppercut. The end result is that he's banned me from sparring until i can control myself. I find this hard to take as i'm no kid and boxed for almost 30 years (started training when i was 6 and competed from age 11 to 32) and have plenty of self control and certainly don't take liberties when sparring. I also feel this reaction wouldnt have happened in the boxing gym as this kind of thing happens regularly.

The thing is, this has bothered me and i spent much of last night going over it in my head, analysing whether i had gone in too hard. but i still feel i didnt and that its just one of those things. I expect some of you will think i did to pay him back for the dead legs, but thats not me. i'll take my lumps with the best of them and dont take it personal. I understand the styles are different but i dont feel i did anything wrong, and feel its wrong to be punished for it. The lad was ok at first, until the instructor started then he started acting like he agreed. I dont feel i can leave now because of this, whether or not i find something i like better or not as i dont want it to look like i'm running or feeling guilty etc. But ive a feeling i'm in for an uncomfortable time for the next few classes at least. I can handle that, but still feel its unfair. Some of the other lads told me in the changing room that i did nothing wrong and to forget it, but its still grating on me a bit. What should i do?

I'd appreciate any feedback lads.

cheers

Sam

 

It does seem a little harsh. A quiet word should probably be enough IMHO. It's not like it's an established pattern of behaviour on your part.
But an uppercut hard enough to make someone wobbly on their legs after the initial knockdown also seems a tad hard for general club sparring if I'm honest. Not entirely out of order but it probably was a bit hard (unless the lad has a glass chin).
In general I'd say in Thai, contact to the body and legs is seen much more favourably than contact to the head. Sore legs only last a few days but a mild concussion (which is what you gave the lad) can have knock effects. I could be wrong of course.
Playing devil's advocate perhaps the coach is seeing something from outside that you may not be seeing/feeling?
Perhaps some of these lads have fights coming up and he doesn't want them injured/KO'd before the event?
I'd say...put it behind you, keep your head down and carry on training. Seems you have a good attitude and it'd be a shame if that was thwarted by a slightly dodgy coaching decision.

 

He's only 2 years younger than me mate, so puts him at 34. and we were pretty evenly matched size-wise etc. And yeah i agree with what your saying, but its not a concious decision to revert to boxing, just something i cant help doing at the moment, no matter how hard i try. Old habits die hard.

I did this mate, apologised to him and the instructor and tried to explain that i hadnt gone in too hard but he just doesnt seem to believe me. I'm going to give him a day or 2 then go see him before the next class and see what he says then, but its likely i'll go back to boxing if i cant spar as i use it a lot for conditioning etc. I still dont feel i did anything wrong though.

 

Thanks for that mate. You could be right about the instructor seeing something i'm not etc, but i honestly don't feel i banged the uppercut in hard and was surprised as anybody that he went down. We all know the feeling when you connect solid and their going to go, but it just wasnt there. And that's precisely why i dont go in too hard when sparring, for the reasons you've mentioned, so maybe the lad just cant take a shot, unless its barely touched him, but having watched him spar before he does seem pretty good so i dont know what to think right now. I'm used to hard sparring, as some of the boxing gyms ive used in the past sparring sessions have been pretty wild, but ive not brought this with me to MT. From now on i'll take your advice and just work the body.

Thanks for your comments on my attitude. I may be new to MT but i'm not new to combat sports/sparring etc and have never been the type to take liberties. Its sparring, its ment to be controlled for a reason, otherwise nobody learns from it right? I dont want this to put me off, but i'm starting to think maybe i'm simply better suited to boxing.

Cheers

Sam

 

Thanks mate, and yeah i'll do that.

cheers

 

Can be a couple of possibilities really

The most usual is that you were, whether you were aware of it or not, going too hard. What may have felt like heavy shots to you from the other guy could've been simply very well placed with technique and a lot of beginners tend to get a little flustered and respond with pure strength. The end results are usually that the experienced guy can match your strength, usually resulting in you getting injured at his fault, or he can try to weather the storm which is soemtimes a difficult thing to do if you're trying to avoid damaging your sparring partner yourself.

The next most likely one is simply that your coach is a douche bag. It happens in every sport.

Another likely one is as has been previously mentioned, if the guy is up for a fight soon then the coach will be very angry with anyone who damages him, intentionally or otherwise.

On a side note, I've found this before with boxers making the cross over. Typically speaking, they'll punch much harder than someone who's only spent a short time in thai boxing and it will look bad if he's beating you with thai technique and you resort to knocking the guy out with boxing. Whether you meant it or not, that's the way it probably looked.

 

Also...if I saw someone knock down someone else after only sparring a couple of sessions I'd probably automatically assume they'd gone in hard. Just because frankly, most people at that stage don't have the skills to do that to another person on well placed technique alone. So the only thing left is going in hard.
I'm sure he know's you've got some experience but maybe not the full picture?
Maybe he's not expecting you to be able to be that skillful so is making assumptions?

As Betty said about heavy shots...if I see someone with a few weeks training make someone limp badly with a leg kick is it because they went in hard or because they placed it perfectly and hit just the right spot?
Without the full picture I'd assume the former just to be on the safe side and ask him to reign it in a bit.

 

I suppose you caught him a little offguard mate, you know, theres a comfort zone when sparring, You actualy did him a favour id say.

 

Not really. Sparring should never reach the power levels required to knock someone out.

 

Nah, he tilted his head forward a little after the rib shots which got a little connection with the uppercut. The guy said the impact was minor. He lost his legs for a bit but wasnt ko'd.

cheers mate

 

That's a KO in my book. Certainly a TKO.

 

Spose, No worries guys.

Sam, can i ask, was he going for the grapple?, im thinking he may have tried to reach for your head after the body shots which left his chin open for uppercut, maybe?

cheers

 

Whichever way you look at it, you hit him hard enough to put him down. That's too hard. Whether he dipped into it or not, it was still too hard.

Consider it from your instructor's perspective - the new guy, a former boxer, just laid out a classmate and doesn't even think he hit him that hard. Can you not see why that might make him wary of you sparring until he's happy you know how to hold back? If a guy laid me out and then said he didn't hit me hard, my first thought, after I didn't know he had a twin brother would probably be 'Holy hell, what would have happened if he did hit me hard'.

 

I think that I pretty much agree with that...

Also I'd add that any time (ANY TIME) someone is knocked unconscious there is a degree of irreversible damage to the brain - this is why the cumulative effects of multiple KO's are so dangerous. So if I was the instructor, I'd be trying to avoid the level of power where people were knocked out in sparring matches within my club.

 

Besides, as anyone who's ever knocked someone out before will tell you - it never feels like you hit them that hard. It's the first thing everyone says after they KO someone for the first time.

 

Funny... I've never said that after a KO. The shot has to be timed right and hard enough in order to get a KO... especially on an opponent with a good chin. Timing is everything but the shot has to have weight to it. You can't just hit them with cottons swabs.

Maybe inexperienced fighters who've not had a lot of KO's or are not used to the timing involved might say that if they are surprised when they KO someone... but I don't think it's some sort of ground rule. Most good fighters will know the difference in muscling a shot and a well timed and powerful shot.

@ the OP...

I think you're going to find a pretty big difference between boxing and muay thai in terms of the snap in a shot. Boxers most times are going to have far more power in their shots than most nak muays. It's pretty hard to get someone from just about any other background to dig shots with the same type of torque and timing. I've seen it plenty when boxers try to transfer into Muay Thai... big difference in what is acceptable in boxing sparring and what gets passed off in a lot of Muay Thai gyms these days.

 

I'll pass along what I've heard from someone who was a boxing trainer. Uppercuts in sparring are just not appropriate. Way too easy, as you found out, to take someone out even if the power was not there.

 

Ok mate cheers for that. As far as the kicks, yes he was placing them well with good technique (he's actually helped me a few times regarding kicking technique and finding my range with kicks etc), but i didnt get flustered and certainly didnt resort to boxing with the intention of knocking him out or repaying him for the dead legs. I'm no stranger to pain and consider myself to have very good levels of self control.

The coach seems like a good guy, although young and only in his first year as an instructor, but he was reccommended by a friend so i went along as i'm always willing to try new stuff. I had the opportunity to train at one of ronnie green's clubs, something i'm beginning to regret not doing now, but ive made my bed so to speak.

The guy has no fights coming up as far as i'm aware so i think you may be right, and that it looked like i chinned him in retaliation for the kicks, but this simply wasnt the case. But if the coach is thinking this then it makes little difference anyway and i expect i'll have a job on convincing him otherwise.

cheers mate