boxing sparring should be 'lighter'

[proud chinaman]

i used to box for about a year. i quit before they put me in a fight. i had alot of reasons for quitting, one of them being the amount of injuries i got just from sparring. constant sore eyes, my nose was getting rearanged, headaches amoung other things. there are two other boxers, who are both good, in my wing chun classes, and they also quit cos of injuries from sparring. i started to hate it cos i was getting nothing from my sparring other than injuries. my coach put me in the ring against a scottish youth and army boxing champion when i had jus been boxing for half a year!! my coach told us to spar hard so when we have our fights they'll be easier, but i dont get the logic in making us spar so hard our brains and facial features need looking at. my coach was one of those old skoolers, and i dont think he gave a toss about our health in the slightest, he just wanted to see blood!! does anyone else have coaches like this, and find their sparring should be lightened just a tad? i mean sparring should be sparring, not the actual boxing bouts!

[Tom Yum]

I think a begining amateur vs army champion is a bit of a mismatch. Your trainer should pair you with someone about your level.

There's BJJ in Scotland? Learn something new everyday. Where's the school?

[jukado1]

Proud Chinaman: you are totaly correct, one of the greatest boxers of all time agread with you and when he sparred, most of the time trained very lightly, working on distance, timing, and skill training, this gave him the ability to handle many styles of fighters, his name was Muhammed Ali. on the other hand Joe Frazer made every workout a war. my felling is most of the time train light, work on killing the bag, but on occession test your self by sparring hard, but just occassionaly.

[doubleouch]

I agree with jukado. There is no reason to spar hard everytime. How hard do you need to be hit to realize that you need to keep your hands up? You do need some hard sparring to get the feel of it, but doing it too often can lead to a bad case of dain bramage!

[Great Sage]

A good boxing coach should know how to match sparring partners, asses skill level and prevent injuries. A person who’s not ready for sparring shouldn’t be made to spar. I think your negative boxing experience is relative to your coach. Certain gyms have boxing programs that don’t include sparring, or offer very light sparring, so maybe that’s worth looking into.

I only remember one particular time when someone was being badly outboxed... The coach stepped in right away and no one got hurt.