Sparring heavier opponents

Hi,

I've whinged about being a midget before but I'm having another whinge now - not because I'm getting bashed (because I'm not - I have good sparring partners) but because I've noticed my form against heavier people is not as good as it is against people my own weight.

All the sparring partners I have within my own gym are heavier than me so I'd like to be able to spar them without developing bad habits.

I'm finding I make the classic mistake of "fighting their fight". I slow down my rhythm and I am heavier on my feet. I move back more than I attack and predominantly counter fight even though I don't enjoy this as much as I enjoy attacking when I'm competing against someone my own weight.

I tend to want to throw more messy looking loopy punches perhaps because I'm off balance more and sort of swaying my upper body a lot to over-slip punches which I can see coming a mile away. I guess I kinda start slipping as soon as I see it but then over-slip rather than allowing it to just miss.

So is this just a bad mindset I have developed? What should I do to try to correct it?

How can I keep my own rhythm and style and speed despite my sparring partners? Surely I should be able to do this even against people my own weight since sometimes I might be faster but to be honest I've always fought at the pace my opponent sets. Looking for counters too much and not initiating enough perhaps?

Advice would be greatly appreciated!

I had this problem too, just sort of circling around the ring then standing and trading with them which suited them perfectly. Instead i just forced myself to box them, constantly moving in and out moving on my feet all the time trying to make new angles. Throwing a combination then getting out quickly, then launching another combination. Generally they will want slower paced trading as then their reach advantage comes in full effect. You have to start using your speed, make them off balanced by being unpredictable. Practise your footwork so you can turn your opponant and gain the middle. This is what my coach told me to do and it worked wonders for me against people heavier and lighter i was able to out box them and helped me personalise my style which suits me now. Fight your fight not theirs and you will regain your skill again.

CC Salty you have given me something to think about. For some reason i don't often try to take centre ring. I make a conscious effort to use angles which is the only way I ever land anything but I do float around the outside too much. I'll try taking centre ring and see how that changes things :)

I dont have video to work with so Im just going to have to make some assumptions here.What your probably doing is leaning out of your own shots in anticipation of their shot coming in.In other words because of the mental mismatch your worrying about what theyre going to do so much your not concentrating on what your doing.
Think about slipping and driving your shots more then strictly evading,now depending on how big the weight differential is,lets face it,youve got to deliver a dozen for their 1.But your never going to deliver that dozen falling backwards,and eventually theyre going to cut you off anyway

Yeah I get this two, because of my height there are reasonably few guys my weight in my gym. I always spar guys 5+ kilos over my weight.
In fact although I'm 70kg the guys I spar are 76kg, 78kg, 81kg , 83kg and 105kg.
I have a bit of power and maybe I'm overconfident in my ability to bang, but when I spar guys my own weight I feel that I remain in the slower mode I use to spar bigger guys.

Honestly, this sounds a little unfair and against Gym etiquette, but If you spar heavier opposition, you just have to force the pace and do them damage iF YOU WANT TO GET THE MOST OUT OF IT. i'VE FOUND MYSELF HELPING OTHERS OUT IN SPARRING, FIGHTING TO THEIR PACE SO THEY CAN LEARN, BUT FROM NOW ON i JUST HEAT IT UP AND IF THEY CAN'T SPAR AT A PACE THAT BENEFITS ME THEY SHOULDN'T BE SPARRING ME, i NEED TO LEARN TOO.

Aside from being heavier are they larger in that they have you outreached as well?
I always found that was the harder thing to get around, than just the added weight.
Your footwork takes you around the long road to compensate the reach and their pace and weight as a whole threat.
You find your disrupting your own natural patterns.
Sometimes theres a possibilty to give yourself added room but then take their punches at their elbow line as they come in, so that you are automaticly back into your reach with a disruption of their pattern .
You have come through their expected reach at that point; its nice to practice, cause you are set back into your distance as they are reacting to something unexpected.
You can attack it or just simply check it ;or control their arm,and attack them bodily or facially at your own distance around their reaction to your control.
Its provocing a reaction right in the middle of the bridge, instead of over your side or theirs ,as per usual.

CC Everyone - you've given me a lot to think about.

I'm not completely sure I understand what you're saying Andre but I have a feeling it will help me because they do have a slight reach advantage as well as the weight advantage. Do you mean follow their jab back in after they have thrown it or come in and throw something that smothers their punch before they can extend it fully - perhaps using angles as I do it so I don't get clobbered doing it :) I'd be really interested in some more info from you on this .....


Hitmandonny I do see your point. I guess I do slow my attack down for them sometimes when I'm sparring less experienced people. Perhaps not so much out of consideration for them but because I know that if I pressure them too much it's natural for them to up the power when they retaliate to something more than I can handle easily - even if I only up the speed and not the power. I guess I don't hurt them but sometimes fluster them and they are competitive too so they respond naturally.

I'm 54 to 55 kg and my other sparring partners within my gym start at 64-66 but are usually around 78 kg. For some reason we don't seem to have many long term fighters in my gym and at the moment there's no one who's both had more fights and trained for more years than me. I guess it's a relatively small sport here compared to where you are from although i can see you still know what I am going through!

A couple of the more experienced guys have taken time off and or have or plan to leave the gym so I don't get to spar them often. Even so the 2 guys I refer to there are 81 kg and it's practically impossible for us both to get good sparring work in together.

TM - I think I am doing that sometimes but I have other issues too. I noticed training on the weekend my heavier sparring partners are often too grounded and I'm too bouncy. They know they can push me around so they don't bother moving or staying light on their feet and I know I can't move them so i bounce around too much to the point where we both probably sacrifice a lot of our potential power.

I guess what I'm taking from all this is that I need to mentally force myself to throw more combos and up the pace. I will try to do that and perhaps ask my training partners nicely not to take it personally before we start! I don't think they'd mind as long as I don't up the power. I know I'm a bit hard headed so this is going to be challenging and I'll let you all know how it goes. :) Any more suggestions would be great!

A couple more things which i got from this forum actually was to occasionally punch at their lead glove if they were tagging me with it on my way inside. This i found works well against taller opponents. As to begin with it upsets their rythm and body mechanics as by the time that they can throw out that jab you are already inside and hammering their body where they can't hurt you. Secondly they start to realise that you will hit their glove on your way in so can work as a feint which you can then counter yourself as you know it will be coming. I think the main thing though is the mental aspect but you sound like you will have that under wraps in no time so let us know how you go with it :)

Thanks Salty

I have used that before and I think it worked well but for some reason I haven't tried it for a long time. Remembering that makes me think that perhaps i get mentally stale and spar the same way a lot of the time too. This is a good reminder to be a little more creative. I find it easy to think about the fitness side of things but as I've said before I'm a bit hard headed wih everything else! I think we're meant to be sparring tonight so I'l let ya know how it goes. :)

Ignore sad smiley above - still working them out ......

Last night I had an amazing sparring session. Me in the Ring with 4 Southpaws! Each were national Champions (2 European) and all I can say is I held my own really well, putting one down, scoring a lot on another and going to war with one!

Afterward I soarred a orthodox fighter and found it tremendously easy to land on him! Sparring is great!!!

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Originally Posted by hitmandonny

Last night I had an amazing sparring session. Me in the Ring with 4 Southpaws! Each were national Champions (2 European) and all I can say is I held my own really well, putting one down, scoring a lot on another and going to war with one!

Afterward I soarred a orthodox fighter and found it tremendously easy to land on him! Sparring is great!!!

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Good to seeya back on the forum and good to hear that the shoulder is doing it's job without too much stress! Now this sparring you did - it wouldn't happen to have been at the national titles now would it ........

I'm sorry i haven't asked how it's been going with that but I have been wondering and hoping it's all going ok!

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Originally Posted by Salty

let us know how you go with it :)

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So I think you made me think of a few things which helped in sparring last night. I only had one person to spar so I guess I'll get more of an idea of how it's going over the next few weeks.

I think it went well - or at least I made a start on correcting my lack of pace. I really enjoyed going fast and since I forewarned my training partner who also wanted to work on speed anyway I didn't get my head completely removed! :)

The double jab seems to work well defencively. I have been in the habbit of only throwing one punch at a time defencively and I'm not sure why.

I'm still struggling a bit to launch a combo offensively against a bigger person without walking into a jab myself which makes me think that maybe I allow too many pauses to occur in the round.

I think against a bigger person it might be more important to eliminate their resetting opportunities since as you said Salty i need to use angles but it's easiest to create those off of their attack. Thoughts on this anyone?

Also maybe because of some of the drills we use in our gym I'm in the habit of moving back from the first punch of a combo assuming my opponent will move foreward with a second and I'll sidestep that one. It only just occured to me how bad this habit is since sometimes they may only throw a single punch and instead of moving sideways I've just moved back and set myself up to have a hard time getting in again.

We often use drills sidestepping just single punches but if I don't know what they're going to throw in sparring (like i do in drill work) - I won't do it. I need to practice side stepping the first punch of a whole combo and staying in a bit more i think.

One thing I can say for us both though is it got a little messy! I'm thinking I have to practice sparring fast just to have balance doing it. I think when I move around fast i might move my head too far sometimes without my feet too.

Last night I was just moving around letting a little (only one smaller than me in the gym) begginner girl chase me (not punching her back) and she stepped on my foot and sent me flying halfway across the ring! Wouldn't have happened if I was balanced properly!

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Originally Posted by Sharla forgot password

Good to seeya back on the forum and good to hear that the shoulder is doing it's job without too much stress! Now this sparring you did - it wouldn't happen to have been at the national titles now would it ........

I'm sorry i haven't asked how it's been going with that but I have been wondering and hoping it's all going ok!

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Ha no worries. No it was just high quality sparring. Competition for the Nationalsd begins on Friday, weigh in 11 til 1.

Ironically Sharla, sparring against Bigger guys seems to have brought me the same habit; I'm not throwing combonations near as much as I should. Shadowboxing seems to be the cure...

Well it's great to hear that you're sparring well - that's got to make you feel confident heading into the nationals. Good luck - butI'm sure you're good enough not to need any luck at all! :)

You have a point about the shadow boxing - I usually do it only at the beginning of my trainings but perhaps I should finish my training with a few rounds on sparring days. Maybe that will help me to reinforce good muscle memory for throwing combos and give me a chance to review combos etc that I might not be able to land easily on bigger opponents?

I asked a number of guys about it over the past week and they all mentioned the same thing "muscle memory."
They said when you practise it enough the punches throw themselves.
I think from my own expierience there is a large amount of truth in this, as when i throw my one two the hook always itches to fly after the right!

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Originally Posted by hitmandonny

I asked a number of guys about it over the past week and they all mentioned the same thing "muscle memory."
They said when you practise it enough the punches throw themselves.
I think from my own expierience there is a large amount of truth in this, as when i throw my one two the hook always itches to fly after the right!

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Yeah I think you have a very good point there. I guess shadow boxing is the best place to practice it as you said too since hooks and especially uppercuts are always going to be a little more awkward on the bag.

Yeah, I use the bag pretty heavily usually and as a result I rarely throw any uppercuts. Thats a great point.

The best thing I find about sparring a bigger or heavier opponent is that it is easy to go to the body.

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Originally Posted by hitmandonny

The best thing I find about sparring a bigger or heavier opponent is that it is easy to go to the body.

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That's a good point you make there! I guess you could put that down as an advantage of sparring bigger people - I should use it to hone my body punching skills more! I'd never thought of that before!

Perhaps it's just a thing I notice, but I also find bigger guys, when sparring smaller opponents stand very square on as if over confident in their power. I find it makes for an especially big target on the abdomen and If you aim for that in the first couple of rounds their head will soon be neglected in order to cover the body and ribs.