No sparring boxing

**pachanga** · Posted On: 2/04/2005 3:37am

Originally Posted by lifetime

Actually if there's a boxing ring in the gym, they have to do SOME sparring. Right?

Yeah, like I say if you pay for personal boxing training (which quite a lot of people seem to do - lots of rich City types) the instructors will spar with you. But that's far out of my league right now.

Thanks for the suggestions, comments etc. I think i'll carry on with it for the moment and when I feel like I've learned something about technique will look into organising a sparring class or going somewhere else, make my world title bid etc. I can use it to an extent in my Krav class as I said, but it will be a bit different from pure boxing sparring.

Cheers guys.

**Don Gwinn** · Posted On: 2/07/2005 9:24pm

Actually if there's a boxing ring in the gym, they have to do SOME sparring. Right?

Nope.

It'd be kind of silly, but there's certainly no guarantee that any particular piece of equipment is getting used just because they laid out a bunch of money to have it there.

For an illustration, check out the power/squat rack at most gyms. You might have to move some stuff to find it if you're not at your gym.

**Red Elvis** · Posted On: 2/07/2005 10:15pm

Da Komrads! There is somethink to be said about this boxing without sparring...

I just Kan't think of Enklish translation? Oh well.

**lifetime** · Posted On: 2/07/2005 10:38pm

In Soviet Russia, English Translates You!

**feedback** · Posted On: 2/07/2005 10:56pm

Cliche overuses you!

**lifetime** · Posted On: 2/07/2005 10:58pm

Yeah, kinda the message I was going for. It's subtle. I was trying to use it to be funny but also having a double meaning of being ironic thus people would understand it's not cool anymore. But bonus points for picking it up feedback, good job!

**pachanga** · Posted On: 2/08/2005 4:00am

Update on this: I went to my second class last night, and after the warmup and some footwork drills, the instructor split the class up by experience. The beginners partnered up to do some combos on focus mitts while the more experienced people got sent to do something else. I presumed it was bag work or skipping or something but I glanced over at them at one point and they were battering the **** out of each other. Maybe 50%-70% contact at a guess; I didn't get to watch them for long. So it would seem these classes do have sparring, making this thread a bit moot, sorry, but good news. I guess the gym sales guy claimed it didn't (I got told it was just about technique, while he told my wife it was "just an exercise class") to avoid scaring people away. Or perhaps he just didn't know.

Last night was very enjoyable, but mainly because I got paired up with this cool girl who really knew her stuff (she should have been with the experienced people by rights, but had been out of training for a couple of months so went with the beginners to ease herself back in). However there are too many people in the class IMO and it means you get little attention from the instructor; if I hadn't have been with her I wouldn't have learned 10% as much as I did. Also it bothers me that they sent us to hit the heavy bag on the first lesson without giving us any advice about wearing wraps (I wasn't wearing any; noone checked, and they didn't give us any supervision; now my hands hurt, probably more from bad technique than a lack of wraps as I don't hit that hard) and some other similar stuff. How concerned should I be about this kind of thing?

**VikingPower** · Posted On: 2/08/2005 10:06am

If all else fails, ask around and find some people who would want to spar and spar with them. I'm sure they wouldn't mind the additional training and you could at least spar every now and again.