The Goal of Sparring

A lot of people approach sparring like it's a fight.

You try to win. You try to make the other guy tap. You try to land more shots, take less damage, and prove that you're better than the person standing in front of you.

And I understand why. Sparring is supposed to be competitive. That's part of what makes it fun.

But if your goal every time you spar is to win, you're probably holding yourself back.

The goal of sparring isn't to win.

The goal of sparring is to get better.

That sounds obvious, but it changes the way you train.

Winning Can Become a Trap

If you're worried about winning every round, you're naturally going to do what you're already good at. If your jab is good, you'll use your jab.

If you're good at taking people down, you'll keep shooting the same takedown.

If you're good at passing someone's guard, you'll keep using the same pass.

And if something isn't working?

You'll probably abandon it.

That's a problem.

Because the things you're already good at don't need nearly as much work as the things you're bad at. If you're constantly trying to win, you end up protecting your weaknesses instead of developing them. You become really good at doing what you already know how to do. That's not the same thing as getting better.

You Have to Be Willing to Fail

If I'm working on something I'm not very good at, I'm probably going to get caught.

That's part of the process. Maybe I'm working on a new combination and I get countered.

Maybe I'm trying to wrestle from a position I'm uncomfortable in and get taken down.

Maybe I'm trying to escape a bad position instead of immediately giving up and accepting the position I know I'm good at escaping. Maybe I get submitted.

That's not necessarily a bad round. If I learned something from it, it was a productive round.

The problem is when people look at getting caught as failure.

If you're afraid of losing the round, you stop taking chances.

And when you stop taking chances, you stop learning.

Sparring Should Have a Purpose

You should walk into a sparring round knowing what you're trying to work on.

Maybe your goal today is to get your jab going. Maybe you're trying to work your low kicks.

Maybe you're trying to improve your takedown entries. Maybe you're trying to get better at defending the fence. Maybe you keep getting stuck in bottom side control and that's what you need to work on.

Then that's what you should work on. Even if it means you lose the round.

The person who "wins" the round by doing everything they're already good at may have gotten less out of it than the person who got beat up while working on something they needed to improve.

Your Training Partner Isn't Your Opponent

This is also why good training partners are so important. We're not there to prove who's better. We're there to help each other get better.

Sometimes that means giving your partner an opportunity to work. Sometimes it means making them work for a position. Sometimes it means pushing them outside of their comfort zone. And sometimes it means letting them catch you with something because you are deliberately working on a weakness.

That doesn't mean you aren't trying.

You should still be resisting. You should still be competitive. You should still make your partner earn what they get.

But the goal isn't to make sure your name is on the imaginary scoreboard at the end of the round.

The goal is improvement.

Sparring Is Where You Find Out What You Don't Know

Drilling can make you feel like you know something.

Sparring tells you whether you actually do.

That's one of the best things about it.

You find out what works. You find out what doesn't. You find the holes in your game.

And then you have something to work on. That's what training is supposed to do.

You don't need to win every round.

You need to leave the gym a little better than you were when you walked in.

Sometimes that means you had a great round and everything worked.

Sometimes it means you got your ass kicked because you spent five minutes working on something you suck at.

Both can be good training.

Don't use sparring to prove how good you are.

Use sparring to become better.