You have spent months learning Muay Thai techniques and practicing them with pads and bags. Now, it’s time for you to try it on a moving target that can hit back, through Muay Thai Sparring!
For a beginner, a sparring session in Muay Thai might be a terrifying but also an exciting experience at the same time. Sparring session is one of the key components for fighters to be able to improve their techniques and also gain an experience in a real-world combat situation. Muay Thai sparring is going to help you prepare to use your skills in a proper manner if and when the need arises.
So before you step into the ring with your sparring partner, here are some Muay Thai sparring beginner tips for you to know.
1. Put safety above everything else
The first and most important thing you should note before your first sparring session is that you should always put safety above everything else! A sparring session needs to be held in a safe and controlled environment so that you and your sparring partner can both practice your techniques freely without worrying about getting unnecessary injuries.
Using proper protective gear such as mouthguard, headgear, gloves, and shin guards is also a must. And the last thing, your sparring sessions need to be supervised by your coach and trainers who are going to watch over and guide you to make the training session more effective.
2. Prioritize on sharpening your technique
This is one of the most common and biggest mistakes that beginners made in their sparring sessions. It is very common for people who are just beginning to spar to get caught up in the competition mentality between themselves and their sparring partner. Having this line of thinking will make them overly focus on throwing big and heavy strikes at their opponent and not putting enough attention to improving their techniques.
Always remember that sparring is not a real fight! The primary benefit of sparring is allowing you to hone your Muay Thai technique for actual use. Therefore, instead of putting all your energy to throw heavy strikes, focus on improving your technique. Once you have that down, then you can start to gradually add power to your striking.
3. Choose an area to focus on
In your Muay Thai sparring sessions, you need to figure out what specific things you want to improve on. This is important because by defining an objective for your sparring, you will have a more structured training session.
Try and select a few key areas that you will focus on during a sparring session. For example, if you want to improve your elbow techniques, then you might want to try to execute more elbow strike variations and combinations in your sparring session. Doing this will help you to hone those specific skills more efficiently.
4. Plan your strategy
When you spar, it might be helpful for you to pretend like you are playing a game, and like every game, you need to have the right strategy to win.
Planning a strategy gives you the right direction to follow during your sparring session. In Muay Thai, the most basic strategy is to score as many points as you can without your opponent scoring points on you. You should also remember that in traditional Muay Thai, body kicks score bigger points when compared with other strikes such as low kicks, knees, and punches. You might also want to decide in advance whether you’ll play defense or offense.
5. Enjoy and have fun!
The last tip from us for your first Muay Thai sparring session is to try to have fun!
Enjoy the process and don’t take it too seriously. Be proud of yourself that you have the guts to spar. Always be friendly with your opponents and enjoy the new bond you’ll have with all your team of sparring partners!
Muay Thai sparring will not only improves your skills but also gives control over your body. There are lots of fighting techniques to use while sparring. But the 5 tips mentioned above are some of the basic techniques both beginners and intermediates can actually benefit from.
Ubud Muay Thai Bali provides Muay Thai classes specifically for sparring sessions! Our Muay Thai Sparring Class is designed to help members who are ready to take their Muay Thai fundamentals and apply them in controlled and supervised sparring sessions.
Get in touch with us to learn more about our classes and community!
