Thoughts On Max Holloway Advising Fighters NOT To Spar + How Often I Spar

I had to chime in on this topic because I've been speaking about it to younger athletes for years. I don't 100% agree with Max but I think he does have the right idea.
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[iChefTheImpossible]

I’m ok with heavier shots to legs and body, but not the head. You can only take so impact to the head.

[mmareviewer.]

Max Holloway Advising Fighters NOT To Spar hard is a smart thing say. Training smart and not always hard actually goes a longer way.

[genises]

My professor had a great teaching. Just have a friendly game of tag. No punching but taping with the fist. Play fighting like a kid. Never enough to shake the head and if they walk into a jab understand how little power was needed to push the head back!

It helped control stamina and focus on skill and help not flinch for new commers and protects the brain! Different from the heavy bag you can move around, cut corners, and basically more benefits than hard sparing.

[LocoIV]

Just take a look at wanderlei Silva and the way he spars and then look at how he ended up

[stevenshar]

Max's style also benefits from not doing hard sparring and recovering

[pointfire]

It comes down to mutual respect between sparring partners.

[datdeoquoc]

fighting is ez, but sparring is hard. In fighting, all you want is to get the win. In Sparring, it's about improving you and your partner while minimizing the damage we inflicted on each other. So it does takes (a lot of) time to learn how to spar properly!

[davecrain]

This happened to me about two or so years ago when I had my last match. I was getting ready and there was a young guy in the gym. Only 18 years old but had a lot of promise and was built like a 5 foot six tank. I’m 5 foot 11 and we were in the same weight class. He agreed to go rounds, we touched gloves, and I threw a question mark Kick which dropped his left guard and let his head exposed but I PULLED THE KICK and made no contact. What does he do? There was an immediate hard barrage of hooks Silva style at me just try to decapitate me. When I was younger I would’ve just kept rolling with him. Instead, I finished out the three minute round and put it on him pretty hard and then said afterwards on the break hey. I’m not going to spar with you anymore if you’re going to go like that. He actually got upset and put his head down on the corner of the ring and I was like what the hell man and I said no. I’m not 17 fucking years old. Learn to control yourself

[mcbutter]

thank you for teaching my boyfriend not to spar so hard all of the time

[Laze]

At some point in my life I just got sick and tired of hard sparring all the time due to the constant headache after every session and the I realized that doing hard sparring is not a smart move for me especially considering that I am a heavyweight and the damage is considerable and accumulates after some time. Then I started picking my opponents and establishing a mixed approach which was: "go hard to the body but go moderate and light to the head". After all injuries are the worst thing to go through when you are hooked to the training and allowing yourself and your partner of injury free training is a gift for both parties. Thank you for your channel Gabriel this is some good content!🥳😁

[nathanieldravis]

Spar all you want just be very light. The Dutch and Thais are perfect examples, the Thais keep everything super light. The Dutch go hard to the body and legs but less than 50% to the head. Hard sparring just for camps to get the feel of a real fight.

[guachingman]

Kudos to you Gabriel, every gym needs a voice of reason like yours, I stopped going to my local gym because nobody seemed to understand simple concepts like this, made sparring not enjoyable at all, it went on with bjj as well, yanking arms and what not, very irresponsible and quite pointless really, also coaches should keep an eye on this issue.

[Nenad-ICXC-Shuput-GFAMMA]

Balance is the key in everything you do in life not just fighting, Sparing, and all training too.

[martialartsunlimitedvictoria]

Another great video.

We have been able to "spar hard" without sparring hard due to the trust we have built with each other. We rarely throw anything stiff to the head. If something lands, there's always a nod to the person who landed instead of a "gotta get him back" type thing. We also discuss how we're feeling and establish how intensely we want to train before we get started... every... single... time. It's important to consider the sparring culture of the gym you train at and then even within that, the personalities of each of your training partners. Some people just can't help themselves and it's important to know who those people are in your chosen gym. Anyone who has trained for a while knows that person who says "let's just go light" and then you suddenly find yourself fighting for your life... If you don't already have a foundation of trust with your sparring partner, it's probably best to discuss pace before starting the round and to just go light unless you have Gabe's almost impenetrable defense to keep you safe. When you spar light you can spar far more often and accumulate those precious rounds that most closely mimic our actual sport. Accumulating concussions in training is a sure way to shorten your career considerably.

This channel is really giving the goods and is quickly becoming one of the best resources a young kickboxer could hope for. Stoked to watch it grow!

[kylewilde]

I recently started sparring, so I'm getting hit with a lot of things for the first time with force behind them. I got domed by a shin pretty hard 2 weeks ago, and even though it hurt I felt I could have continued the round, it felt more shocking than painful. I think I realized that continuing would have just been to prove to myself how tough I am and satiate my own ego, so I took 3 rounds to deal with the shock. It taught me a lot about dipping down(I dip too much) and distance management(I like to crowd)

[danharrington]

I really like your channel and came across it thanks to your recent feature on the modern MMA artist channel.
I'll be looking out for your fights now and routing for you 👍

[ryudru]

Sparring means teaching with contact. As a heavy 260 -280 I always pull my punches except when going to the body. All punches are centered to the forehead and pulled or speed only no push thru. That is what mitts and body pad are for. Learning to control yourself is how you win fights with your mind and stamina and footwork. Hard sparring leads to hard fights which leads to short careers. I let my guys go hard as they can on me because I trust my emotions and my defense. It’s not about sparring it’s really about who you choose to spar with and what the gameplan is going in. I always make it clear to them to not hold back because I’m a heavy and I can take it and I still do all the time and it’s helped me a lot ! I can spar anyone now without losing control and it’s helped me gain great experience and free sparring in many gyms !

[micahasher]

I prefer running drills with the coach. Like where he literally bops you on the head when you’re not expecting it to keep your hand on your cheek. That helped me out a lot. I don’t like sparring with strangers too much because it won’t be sparring, it will be a real fight. Even if you take a knee they might take advantage of that and KO you. Sparring sucks.

[chronometa]

If your job is to fight then you should get there safely.

Intensity should be saved intermittently.

[itaygershon-]

I'm really like this channel, so much wisdom.
Thanks🙏🏼