The notion about gym wars and CTE?

[Replay19]

I've been sparring at an mma gym for quite a while now. each time I go, we spar different opponents rotating by rounds. Some guys are absolute killers, but know how to just spar technical and playful. Some guys, will literally brawl and try to knock you out. I had a few scuffles. I went from sparring 3 skilled technical guys, then one asshole outta nowhere wants to fucking brawl and caught me by surprise.

I do like hard sparring, I enjoy the adrenaline rush and the stress testing under pressure. However, here's the problem with some of these guys. They hit way too hard off the first 5 seconds, then they continue to try to knock you out. At that moment, I got angry and retaliated back and hit them hard back. but this only made them want to hit harder back, and it was nonstop. The worse of it all, is that I'm gonna see the same guy tomorrow, and he's already thinking about "getting me back" for yesterday, and the other previous times, and it's just endless war. It's fucking stupid, and it's not fun anymore. Once in a while is okay, but all the time? Everytime I see you I gotta brawl? Fucking annoying.

but my question is, at this rate isnt this how people get CTE? The constant need for the ego to prove its superiority and ignore technical skill and safety measures? I've seen so many MMA and boxing athletics so healthy and full of life, quick and witty early on, but because they've had so many hard sparring sessions, they just mentally declined. People have said that CTE comes more from your internal gym wars, rather than the professional fights itself, right? because professional fights are not as frequent as the reckless hard sparring sessions in your own hood?

 

[WDSTK]

The coaches need to speak on this but I will give my 2 cents. I had a similar problem in my 20s going a big city inner city gym. Sparring sessions were rough, unsupervised, all about winning and I learned nothing. The skilled fighters with potential got all of the instructor's time. The instructor needs to be monitoring the sparring, correcting any problems not in line with his training objectives and making sure it is teaching something other than giving and taking a beating.

I am old, do not compete anymore so I just want to have fun. I mostly spar the pros and ex-pros and it is mostly technical and fun. I make sure my sparring opponent understands the level of intensity I want and sometimes near the end of the round I ask him to go hard to try to see what works and does not under a more realistic environment. My instructor encourages me to try different things to see what works best for me. He counseled me years ago when he watched me go hard with a willing beginner and asked me "Did you learn anything". He said majority of sparring should be the time to try different things you were trained in and see what works, what doesn't work and get feedback to adjust your training to improve rather than focus on the violence. In round robin, he has kept me from sparring with bullies that are out to hurt someone but they do not last long at our gym anyway. Try to get an understanding from your sparring partner at the start of the round what intensity you want to go at. If you have a fight coming up, you may want that brawl to test yourself rather than wait to find out about it in your fight. I will testify the instructor and the gym environment he keeps is of the highest importance. A good instructor training me in his basement would be fine for me.

 

[Slothbroth]

Just ask them to go easier. I get that they are less skilled and train and fight like goons so it's hard when you consider them inferior but who cares? Like you said, even a less skilled guy who swings for the fences is still dangerous. Train the way you want and preserve your health.

 

[Replay19]

no some of these guys are well trained and experienced fighters that go unnecessarily hard. i think its just the culture here

 

[shunyata]

I do like hard sparring, I enjoy the adrenaline rush and the stress testing under pressure. However, here's the problem with some of these guys. They hit way too hard off the first 5 seconds, then they continue to try to knock you out. At that moment, I got angry

Aye.

There's the rub.

We want to be able to defend intelligently against this type of team mate.

But we don't want the wear and tear that comes with too much brawling and eating hits over time.

It's ok to get angry if you use that anger to make good choices, counter punches, controlling range in the clinch and keeping them outside with your jab, teep, legkicks. It's not ok to get angry if angry gets in the way of fighting these guys intelligently.

 

[DoctorTaco]

I've been sparring at an mma gym for quite a while now. each time I go, we spar different opponents rotating by rounds. Some guys are absolute killers, but know how to just spar technical and playful. Some guys, will literally brawl and try to knock you out. I had a few scuffles. I went from sparring 3 skilled technical guys, then one asshole outta nowhere wants to fucking brawl and caught me by surprise.

I do like hard sparring, I enjoy the adrenaline rush and the stress testing under pressure. However, here's the problem with some of these guys. They hit way too hard off the first 5 seconds, then they continue to try to knock you out. At that moment, I got angry and retaliated back and hit them hard back. but this only made them want to hit harder back, and it was nonstop. The worse of it all, is that I'm gonna see the same guy tomorrow, and he's already thinking about "getting me back" for yesterday, and the other previous times, and it's just endless war. It's fucking stupid, and it's not fun anymore. Once in a while is okay, but all the time? Everytime I see you I gotta brawl? Fucking annoying.

but my question is, at this rate isnt this how people get CTE? The constant need for the ego to prove its superiority and ignore technical skill and safety measures? I've seen so many MMA and boxing athletics so healthy and full of life, quick and witty early on, but because they've had so many hard sparring sessions, they just mentally declined. People have said that CTE comes more from your internal gym wars, rather than the professional fights itself, right? because professional fights are not as frequent as the reckless hard sparring sessions in your own hood?

If you have a 20 year career, amateur and professional and only ever go to decision you will fight roughly 500 rounds.

In that same amount of time if you spar twice a week every year and still take a total of 6-8 weeks off annually for injuries, camps, fight week, vacations, etc you will STILL rack up over 10,000 rounds of sparring.

Hard rounds in the gym is absolutely where the damage is done.

 

[4daLuLZ]

Hit ‘em with teh yab.
Yab, yab, yab. All teh time ye yab.
Dat’ll slow ‘em down. Den you yab ‘em again.

 

[biscuitsbrah]

He’s just using you to practice his offense. He’s basically a bully who is treating you like a heavybag, not a valued training partner. A lot of people are like this. Honestly I would just avoid until you are much better. Then he will have to respect the firepower back and can’t just bully you.

If he goes up to you just say you’re resting this round lol. I’m basically the king of ducking bad training partners. But sometimes you do have to throw yourself into the fire to get better. Take some good ol fashioned concussions to really up your game. Go with guys that really make you nervous and your adrenaline spike. I don’t like getting hit or getting injured more than the average fighter, so I really have to force myself to go with the more dangerous guys.

But yeah, just avoid for now. If you are more assertive then when they ask to partner you can just say: “nah I’m not trying to go hard right now”
and they will say: “no we can go light” or “I don’t/wont go that hard”
That’s when you hold your ground and be like “nah bruh you’re strong and go hard bro I’m good haha”.
You can hit them with a “maybe next time” but only if you mean it lol.

And that’s the end of that

 

[SummerStriker]

Gyms where the head coach permits brawls have a lower average value for new people.

Sometimes those gyms produce some killers because practicing hitting is nice, but the weaker and newer people will quit or fail to improve. I now believe gyms where this is going on are a bad value and basically a red flag. I'd bounce if I were you to a better gym.

If you just love them gym and feel like you have to spar the guy, tell him to take it easy, and persistently repeat yourself every time you need to, even if you have to make a scene. Some people are dicks but only need to be corrected once.

 

[DoctorTaco]

Gyms where the head coach permits brawls have a lower average value for new people.

Sometimes those gyms produce some killers because practicing hitting is nice, but the weaker and newer people will quit or fail to improve. I now believe gyms where this is going on are a bad value and basically a red flag. I'd bounce if I were you to a better gym.

If you just love them gym and feel like you have to spar the guy, tell him to take it easy, and persistently repeat yourself every time you need to, even if you have to make a scene. Some people are dicks but only need to be corrected once.

We don’t go hard often, but when we do it’s at someone else’s gym. We’ll head over to one of those knuckle head gyms and get after it.

 

[SummerStriker]

We don’t go hard often, but when we do it’s at someone else’s gym. We’ll head over to one of those knuckle head gyms and get after it.

Yeah, I did a lot of "open sparring nights" back in the day. People do not like outsiders coming in and doing well so it could be a little sketchy. lol

 

[DoctorTaco]

Yeah, I did a lot of "open sparring nights" back in the day. People do not like outsiders coming in and doing well so it could be a little sketchy. lol

Closest thing to a fight you can get without actually competing, lol.

Irony is we go to a few gyms where I’m friends with the owners, so while we are catching up on wife and kids and how the programs are doing our boxers are fighting to the death

 

[SummerStriker]

Closest thing to a fight you can get without actually competing, lol.

Irony is we go to a few gyms where I’m friends with the owners, so while we are catching up on wife and kids and how the programs are doing our boxers are fighting to the death

Sounds like an awesome time. Im jealous honestly. Right now I just do BJJ a little bit one day I hope to be in the drama again

 

[Ogata]

The coaches need to speak on this but I will give my 2 cents. I had a similar problem in my 20s going a big city inner city gym. Sparring sessions were rough, unsupervised, all about winning and I learned nothing. The skilled fighters with potential got all of the instructor's time.

This is the main problem!

Boxing coaches have serious issues. Not all of them but lots that I met in my province have serious alcoholism, anger problems or have terrible nature in terms of not having an issue sacrificing someone to take a beating so that their golden boy gets a "confidence boost' before a fight and that shit is fucked up!

I was a security guard in 2010 and this dude who lived in the building was talking about Kung Fu and that his master and grandmaster told him not to spar until he mastered the fundamentals of his physicality. I thought he was being delusional but now I am seeing the importance of this 14 years later.



Great boxing coaches I met start off small. Like start off with jab sparring and you add things. The idea is to have a great jab and footwork. Although things are changing and most commercial gyms realize that paying customer= attention and that means every trainee is entitled to proper instruction regardless of their aspiration. Main issue is that lot of boxing coaches have that old school "toughen up" mentality and lot of these tough guy coaches are not living lives that screams inspirational or impressive.


You would literally be better of training hard and then having a fight bi weekly. This way might actually be healthier and you will have a fighting record.

 

[trendnick]

If you have a 20 year career, amateur and professional and only ever go to decision you will fight roughly 500 rounds.

In that same amount of time if you spar twice a week every year and still take a total of 6-8 weeks off annually for injuries, camps, fight week, vacations, etc you will STILL rack up over 10,000 rounds of sparring.

Hard rounds in the gym is absolutely where the damage is done.

I do that 10 years + now... 3 times a week (boxing and since 1 year muay thai once a week too). At 99% all is okay here. If the other one goes too hard i tell him not to. Nearly all of them are okay with that. The other ones u should give them some harder shots as an answer (they should eat them). If this is what the other one wishes, avoid him the next time. Tell him NO and turn your back. FCK him off.

 

[4daLuLZ]

Defense is spelled with an S, and pointing out your schizophrenia is a bit more level headed than your "it's still real to me, dammit" argument.

If the voices in your head have actually convinced you that Donald Trump, while talking about China exploiting trade loopholes, just randomly blurted out right in the middle that he also has plans to slaughter people in the streets, then went right back to talking about trade again, it's because you need to have the dosage adjusted on your medication.

We don’t go hard often, but when we do it’s at someone else’s gym. We’ll head over to one of those knuckle head gyms and get after it.

Yeah, I did a lot of "open sparring nights" back in the day. People do not like outsiders coming in and doing well so it could be a little sketchy. lol

I prefer to go the club Friday night, throw my hat down in the center and call out all challengers.

The senior citizens club.