by Dim Mak » Thu Mar 01, 2007 8:36 pm
Hi, I'm new here and I realize this is an extremely late answer to the initial question, but I find that the best way to ease people into sparring is by starting with slow sparring. Start at about 25% speed; no power. Just focus on your own relaxation until the point of impact, focus on breathing deep so that the abdomen expands instead of the chest, and focus on footwork. Continue this for a while. Then warm up with slow sparring 25%, and move up to 50% when you are loose, and try to remember to focus on the same issues as above. Then in a couple of weeks or so move up to 75% and then 90%. In this way you can program your muscle memory to react the same way no matter what speed. As many of us know, it is much better to slowly build good habits, than it is to quickly build bad ones and spend months trying to overcome them. Anyway, just my opinion.