What is your experience sparring other styles? How in your experience do participants of one style compare to those of another in their sparring style?
For example if you do muay thai have you sparred kyokushin fighters, krav maga people, taekwondo fighters etc... And how do they compare to each other and how you do things?
Posted Feb 2, 2020, 4:15 PM UTC
BJJ guy going up against judo guys.
Obviously I trash them on the ground. They don't really understand guard passing right out the gate so they aren't always mindful of your hooks. So you can sweep them real easy. And if you're doing BJJ, you should have a pretty good understanding of transitioning to pins to the back so that ends pretty quickliy.
But I'm not really that interested in trashing someone on the ground when they're better than me standing up. So of course I'm going to stand up.
Okay so the guy was obviously being really nice to me. In the same vein that I can bum rush someone, immediately pass their guard, consolidate side and secure the choke. This guy could you have yanked me around by my gi and immediately thrown me. But he didn't because he was pretty nice. He did however trip me every single third step and that is really disorienting. I'm pretty used to people shooting hard on me and I stiff arm them away. Judo people who are pretty good with their gi work are pretty good at sweeping my feet. So there was a lot of me trying to dance around them and just falling flat onto the ground. I'm sure he could have hit me with a bigger throw but I guess at that time he didn't have to.
BJJ guy going up against wrestlers.
Similar story except because their gi work isn't so good, you can stuff their stand up with a stiff arm on the lapel. A lot of wrestlers have commented, "Oh uh, I'm surprised the grips change so much of the dynamic." No gi, I'm going to get run over. But in the gi, because wrestlers don't grip fight, I can stall a lot of them out. They also don't really worry about someone reaching over their back and grabbing their belt so I've gotten a lot of really picture perfect Harai Goshi's on them starting with the georgian.
Wrestlers tend to leave their necks open a lot. So you can guillotine them if you were good at them. I'm not so good at them but I was able to loop choke them from every single angle imaginable. Respect the collar grip guys.
One thing I will say though is that these people seem to be MUCH HARDER to sweep than judo people. I'll get 80% of a butterfly sweep set up and that will topple almost everyone. But wrestlers have a balance just good enough where if I;m a little bit sloppy, they don't get swept. Against a lot of new people, I can just sweep them without an issue. Against wrestlers, my technique has to be on point. For whatever reason, I have found guard passing to be easier for wrestlers to pick up than judokas.
Oh, one more thing. Wrestlers like go belly down and go for the single and the double. I've gotten pretty good at attacking from front headlock as a result.
BJJ guy going up against tkd....in BJJ.
I do a lot of stand up in general I think compared to most BJJ people so I can actually foot sweep people. Against new people it's usually the one I go for because much like the judo guy I talked about earlier, there is no need to kill someone the first day they start. TKD guys are surprisingly good at defending foot sweeps and I think it is a general balance kind of deal. I'll get my grips, I'll pick up their foot, and I'll get it 50% of the way across their body and they'll just move their foot up and out of the way.
I have to do everything to trip up a tkd guy with a foot sweep with very little margin of error. Pretty good for a guy who hasn't seen footsweeps at all.
Somewhat interesting note
The one and only takedown that I have which seems to work on everyone of every style is the fireman's carry/kata garuma.
This was a great breakdown.
I did some backyard MMA with my buddies when I was younger (around the time UFC started and I learned about the idea).
I had an awesome coach who was able to teach me taekwondo kicks for MMA although he wasn’t as good at coaching the other aspects of sparring. One buddy was a wrestler at school, 1 buddy was a power lifter, and the last guy was just a big and untrained guy.
Im Taekwondo but sparred muay thai guys, they aint all that
oh my well hahaha
well lets say i learned hard way in mma that karate's low guard is fucking stupid
I'd say the only pure other style I've sparred with is Muay Thai. With them I have to be twice as tricky, I tend not to like staying in a head to head engagement anyway but against MT its basically suicide.
In my own sphere I fight kung fu guys with more technical boxing and grappling and I fight JKD guys with weird kicks and trapping.
I also train against a Judo/Kung fu practitioner pretty often and she's interesting because the best way to fight here is at mid range where she can't commit to either grappling or kicking and I can dominate with my hands.
I train Muay Thai. Ive sparred PLENTY of Boxers and karate guys/kickboxers and TKD guys..not to sound like a braggart jackass but Ive never had the slightest issue sparring other guys from other styles in the least bit, I actually usually gotta tone it down significantly to avoid hurting them. My primary sparring partner whose been with us for a year started off as a Boxer; he had 2 years of pure Boxing experience when he joined us, and now over a years worth of Muay Thai training(I personally have over 3 years on continuous Muay Thai training under my own belt, and BJJ but that doesnt have anything to do with this) and we spar every single class literally multiple times per class on average I spar him most out of anyone else, and almost always get the better of him. Even my boxing is better than his, at least for the purpose of what we do; both because of how much time I spend training outside of the gym AND in the gym shadow boxing mostly, and also cause I am far more relaxed fighting than he is and I can confident in my defense, my guard; though he has better head movement than me(and head movement isnt exactly the best thing to use when Kicks are involved lol). I kick him in the leg like every time we engage lol, so hes hesitant to engage me. With Karate and other kickboxers like that, their hands flat out SUCK and though they can do side kicks and spinning kicks they just amount to push kicks or teeps as far as I am concerned, and I have to tone it down heavily to avoid causing injury to those guys, but still fighting/sparring seriously.
They arent used to face hits at all, ya know, punches to the head or face and thus cannot defend well vs them, they panic instead of simply intercepting incoming punches to the face or head on their guard like I do and other guys used to this do; like my boxer sparring partner, and other boxers in the past Ive faced, even if they dont block my hits all the time, its cause of my timing and frankly my experience and skill and punch/kick selection, not due to their lack of skill in defense; but karate guys and TKD guys lack defense against face hits to such a degree that it SERIOUSLY hurts their fighting ability. Because face punches, and face hits, head hits, are involved in Muay Thai obviously. Our hands arent idle like in TKD or karate(except for body punches but they arent even good at that honestly). I dont like it seeming like Im insulting other less efficient styles, but I can only speak the truth of what I myself have seen and fought and experienced myself in my own training. This is why I so strongly recommend Muay Thai to people. Its the way to go for striking; though kickboxing styles MORE SIMILAR to muay thai than to TKD(if they can check kicks and are used to boxing/face punching and defending) and throw roundhouse and front kicks/teeps) is also a good SECONDARY choice if no legit MT gym is available in your area. Boxing would be a third choice; but like I said its just not complete esp if you are facing someone with a complete style, or more than one style. But its FAR better than NOTHING.
Boxers stand in a more bladed stance even the guys with a more squared up stance(for boxing), which DOES NOT help them in either boxing let alone kicks or checking kicks, in Muay Thai. And they find that habit hard to break. One boxer left us because he didnt wanna have to switch to a more squared stance, and start relying on a different form of defence(based on blocking with the guard/forearms rather than slipping constantly and bobbing) and also couldnt deal with kicks and punches combined; he was overwhelmed but instead of staying and learning like the other guy I spoke of, he left us. With blocking you can absorb the strikes take ZERO DAMAGE and still move forward throwing your own punches and kicks the SECOND they begin retracting their last punch in their combo; this works VERY WELL for me). And this is merely a couple of examples of the techniques I use against guys of other styles, and also against other MT guys of course(just gotta be far more careful and smart against other MT guys) and use my full abilities than just relying on a handful of stuff that hardcounters boxers and karate/TKD guys. I havent even mentioned the clinch yet lol and I wont this post would become too long. Theres COUNTLESS ways for a MT trained fighter to easily defeat someone who isnt well versed in all the aspects of standup fighting which a MT fighter is trained in, including Boxing(and defense) and kicks and knees and so on.
My main style currently is Savate, I also practice in a JKD class, and am starting to dabble in Judo. The JKD class is especially interesting, between the guys who only practice in this club (which is already pretty good, since the head instructor was a Savate competitor back in the day, and also did Muay Thai, and the other main instructor trained in MMA for quite a few years), and those like me, who train in another club on top of this one.
I am thinking more specifically of a good friend who trains Muay Thai, we learn from each other, I am more mobile than he is, and he is improving on that, however, he is pretty good at catching my kicks (especially sidekicks and front kicks), which forces me to be faster on the return. Also makes me consider crosstraining Sanda or Muay Thai instead of the JKD class next year (mostly because I have a harder time going there these days), the first option appeals to me more, since I won't get confused with my kicks (Savate forbids both kicking and blocking with the tibia), and it would also allow me to spend more time working on the transition between striking and grappling.
I do muay thai spar with gugs from tkd and karate regularly. Have also sparred kickboxers.
Most tkd and karate guys i've sparred have been above black belt level and they seem to panic a bit in sparring. I go easy on them throw some light techniques cos their looking uncomfortable and they throw hard techniques back at me. So in general i go light and keep distance as they look like they have the fear of god in their eyes and are unpredictable
There is a 3rd dan black belt tkd guy who has been doing muay thai for a year he can relax way more and make his tkd work and it's always fun to spar with him.
As for kickboxers. They have great boxing i wouldn't want to exchange hands with them but i use leg kicks as they try to enter with their hands and it seems to work well.
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I've done it plenty of times, normally with good results.
I'm mainly a grappler, Bjj and Judo, I do some striking too but far less often.
Grappling;
Against the Judo guys in a new club I just joined at the beginning of January it's fairly even on the feet until I go against the black belts, then I get thrown easily. In the ground they're completely lost. They have the basic puns they go for but have no idea how to deal with any kind of hooks, knee slide pass works every time and it's very easy to take their backs. Submissions are easy to set up because they really don't see then coming and they tend to panic and tap fairly quickly when they are caught.
I rolled with a Shinken-Do black belt in Bjj, it's based on JJJ, Karate, Aikido, Wing Chun and a few other arts, they have a lot of joint locks but don't train under any resistance. He could see things and knew what to go for but by the time he made a move for anything I already had him caught. He did a lot worse than the Judo guys.
Striking;
I went against a TKD black belt and was amazed that he seemed to have no idea how to throw a punch. He had nice kicks but once you got in close and used boxing against him he couldn't handle it.
In one Shinken-Do club they decided to introduce sparring to make it more effective, I'm a green belt and went against another green belt. He had no other experience so all I needed to do was jab jab jab and then throw in a few straights, hooks and leg kicks. He was like a rabbit in the headlights.
I got my ass handed to me against a straight boxer, he had a longer reach and I couldn't get past it. He was a karate brown belt too so when we changed to kickboxing for the second round I didn't do any better. I went home with my head ringing and my legs pretty sore from getting kicked around the place.
Karate (Me) vs Boxing Got alot of kicks in but got rushed and bodyshotted to another reality Karate vs Wrestling Durable but easy to but once I picked up the pace I double legged into the earth
If you can get the other person out of their element, you can pretty much walk all over them.
My school does Taekwondo and Hapkido, plus I've got a few years of wrestling. 95% of our students have only done the Taekwondo. When we do "freestyle sparring" (as opposed to Olympic-style TKD sparring), it is very easy to control them with my grappling skills.