Thread: Navigating sadistic heavy hitting sparring partners as a noob, any advice?

So 1st question, I like my face I want to pull women, is keeping a reasonable face out of the question in boxing? Or will I get dents in my face, cauliflower ears, and a flat bent nose?

Second question there are some hard hitting experienced guys that enjoy beating the crap out of new guys in my gym, I hit hard as well fortunately but I lack the defensive skill and all around experience/skill that they have. How do I stay as safe as possible from a broken jaw/nose/knockout when facing these guys? (Im a southpaw if that makes any difference)

learn to duck.

Why is your trainer putting you in with these guys?

Sparing partners are like gold dust.

Very rare and valuable, I would just say I do not want to spar with someone taking liberties.

Part of being a man is living a good life, a decent human who boxes knows how to scale a sparring session to his partners abilities.

If he is being a dick or a bully say to the coach you do not want to spar with him.

In regards to your first question, you will not do any harm to your face in boxing, you may get one of three things a black eye, a bust lip or a bloody nose, none of these is major or painful after you get over the initial shock.

You need to put you foot down and spar with someone who is going to help you improve.
Being a doormat or punching bag for a bully is not going to benefit you so stop this behaviour.

I can personally spar with children, women, competitive athletes, Olympic boxers, former professional boxers, bouncers, old men ect ect.

I do not take advantage of them like a bully to boost my ego.

You get dick heads everywhere in life and you will find them in boxing and you will find them in pubs/clubs and even in McDonalds or in a park walking a dog.

Originally Posted by ryanman

Why is your trainer putting you in with these guys?

I'd say no decent trainer would do that, no decent sparring partner would do that UNLESS you go in winging away and catch them and even then they're likely to give you a little clip back not look to take your head off.

Learn to duck is no joke. One of the biggest problems I see with lots of fighters coming a long is they are too comfortable getting hit. So it's all about hitting back, harder, better. Yes, ofc , choose appropriate sparring partners and speak out when way uncomfortable and , no one likes a chip on shoulder douchebag likes delivery pain to newcomers, but for the most part common sense will get you past that. Not enough people focus on not getting hit. Like, how your post began, "I want to stay pretty." lol....nothing wrong with that.

Work on that shit, your defensive game, like no one else in your gym. It'll pay off down the road as you are laying a foundation now, and not getting hit a in the face a nice part of it.

Originally Posted by boyla

Sparing partners are like gold dust.

Very rare and valuable, I would just say I do not want to spar with someone taking liberties.

Part of being a man is living a good life, a decent human who boxes knows how to scale a sparring session to his partners abilities.

If he is being a dick or a bully say to the coach you do not want to spar with him.

In regards to your first question, you will not do any harm to your face in boxing, you may get one of three things a black eye, a bust lip or a bloody nose, none of these is major or painful after you get over the initial shock.

You need to put you foot down and spar with someone who is going to help you improve.
Being a doormat or punching bag for a bully is not going to benefit you so stop this behaviour.

I can personally spar with children, women, competitive athletes, Olympic boxers, former professional boxers, bouncers, old men ect ect.

I do not take advantage of them like a bully to boost my ego.

You get dick heads everywhere in life and you will find them in boxing and you will find them in pubs/clubs and even in McDonalds or in a park walking a dog.

Great post.

I really appreciate all the answers guys thankyou very much!!!

Sometimes walking over and saying to the person "Mate you have nothing to prove by beating me senseless you are miles ahead of me skill wise, Would you mind helping me out and point out any thing you see Im doing wrong or if you can spot any faults?
Feel these kind of fools out. Sometimes if you ask questions of dumb fuckers with giant egos they think you respect them,they like that and getting them to like that gets them to like you and that makes you smarter than them.

Like Youngblood says make them miss.

Yea Andre, a conversation before a spar can and should help. But things can still go sideways. I'll elaborate a bit. Last year I physically grew a metric fook ton. Naturally. Like grew 3 inches and gained 40 lbs. So most of my regular sparring partners who are well-skilled I had be conscious of it and just take the power down a notch or two and it went off splendidly.

Where the problem was was with newer boxers of near the same or approximate size,but not skill level. They'd be all nervous and shit. Be like, "Go easy on me man!" So you do. Then as soon as the bell rings their nerves take over and they run over and start trying to take your head off lol. And non-skilled or not, that can still hurt. So you let one fly and drop em...and feel bad.

So really, the newer the person, the slower the pace needs to be. Like, yea, good communication before hand, but also whoever is running the show needs to be ready to step right in and slow things and control those spars more than anything. It's harder to do when you're in there getting fed.

Hi OMGWTF,
You asked:

is keeping a reasonable face out of the question in boxing?

No, it isn't. You just need to put in the time and effort to develop a good defense/counter-offense.

You also asked:

Second question there are some hard hitting experienced guys that enjoy beating the crap out of new guys in my gym...How do I stay as safe as possible from a broken jaw/nose/knockout when facing these guys?

Plain and simply, don't spar with them.

If you've got dickheads like that at the gym you train at, go find a new gym along with a new trainer. Any trainer worth his salt wouldn't send you to the wolves. That's bullshit.

Now, if you happen to be a self-delusional guy who's really full of himself, well, I can see a trainer occasionally putting you in against guys like that to humble you and bring you back down to earth. Anyway...

Take Care,
Lito