Sparring with PUNCHES

[bobby rivers]

I usually establish a punch intensity that I am comfortable with ahead of time with the partner and go from there, depending on my mood and energy levels its usually 10%-70%. I actually am much less urgent once im set-up somewhere (RG, guard, mount) because the other person will be out of energy pretty quickly. About 3 minutes tops usually. I do believe in actually making contact though, some people like to throw off-center punches, I think this screws up the realistic punch angles.

Does anyone find that too much non-punching sparring makes different reflexes? I recently was sparring with someone with punches and they established a decent base, I found myself going for an open guard sweep instead of focusing on the upcoming GNP. Lesson learned but I was a little alarmed.

The urgency I was referring to is to get to a safe clinch and fast. And when someone is trying to punch me my objective is to negate all punches throughout the 10p guards as it teaches.Moving around a clinch forcing him to defend his base or get toppled. Not to mention straight breakin his ass down in rg.

I got my ass kicked in bottom half for a min. Then i learned the whole theory bout the 5.0 and life is better for now.

Damn I love this game.

[Jesse_Fairburn]

i find facemasks on headgear solves that problem. when we train, sometimes we spar standup only, bjj/wrestling, and then everything full contact. i had my partner in full mount landing punches and elbows at around 75% and he felt fine, other than getting rocked a bit. i dont encourage facemasks all the time, cuz theres no pain and it tends to build a false sense of security. karatesupply.com is where i got mine, but therees other sites out there. now often i spar just with mma rules, using mma gloves, and its great. i can implement every aspect (standup, clinch with knees and elbows, takedowns, gnp and subs) in my training in one spar session.