Good night of sparring

I had a great evening of sparring last night, which was a real relief because sparring has been a hard thing to come by lately. There were seven of us and for the core of the work we did a continuous rotation through with one person out in each round. This meant 6 three minute rounds with a new partner in each round. Some of my stuff was working but other things less so, and as always the only real way to determine what works is put it to the test intensely with someone else.

Things that worked:

Movement - I was able to use lateral movement and angle cutting to maintain pressure and push back even fairly aggressive partners and drive less assertive partners straight backwards. This was the case even when I wasn't pressing them very hard.

Low kicks - Even when I was over-matched by my opponents' boxing or straight-line kicks, my low kicks to the legs kept them off balance. This is something I have been focusing on so it was nice to see it work.

Clinch defense - For the most part, I was able to choose when to clinch and when not to clinch. I wasn't always as successful in the clinch as I would have liked but it was mostly my call whether we were in the clinch.

Things that did not work as well:

Combinations - A lot of the 4, 5 and 6 step combinations that I had worked hard on just haven't been working out, in part because they are too static. I fire from a position then cut an angle and fire more. The problem is that if someone goes backwards, as they tend to do, then the last half of the combination has nowhere to go. I think I need to adjust my approaches and movement to stay more closely in contact throughout. This is exactly what I faced in the Battle of Baltimore when my opponents simply retreated out of the fight area.

Pacing - I can't help myself and go flying into the first round, and (though my conditioning is good) I definitely have less left in the late rounds than I would like. Not sure what to do here, I feel like strong early rounds establish the "narrative" of the fight and I don't want to give that up. It may just be a question of more conditioning.

Altogether a really good evening's work, and judging from all the cuts, scratches and the bloodied nose probably something not to try to do every night.