Sparring on Thursday was undeniably a fun one, but a bit frustrating in that I once again started out too nice. I’ve sparred this guy before and he tends to go VERY light, to the point that I had to recalibrate my power because I’d just got done doing hard rounds with someone else. This time, it started out that way but he soon switched to harder shots that caught me by surprise. A few times my defense fell apart when he flurried as I fell back into that dumb habit of trying to parry multiple punches, but because his guard was always low, I caught him with a lot of jabs, crosses, and hooks as he was rushing in. We both ate a lot of shots to deliver our own.

My corner coach was the uncle of my previous Muay Thai coach so that was awesome. He advised between rounds to get low and dig to the body because his elbows tend to flare out. I ended up catching him with some hard body shots at the start of round 3. After taking a few of these he surged forward aggressively, some of which I blocked and others that I ate, but he slowed down a lot after this. I heard his corner coach yell out that the round is almost over and to make things count, but he didn’t really come alive after that early round flurry while I ended by peppering him with 1-2s.

My cardio held up awesome. Didn’t get tired and wanted to go more rounds.