1. This is not a contest.

2. But since you’re a knuckle head, let’s limit the competitive aspects to scoring with combinations rather than power and to scoring with a slower hand than your partner – you want to hit him in slow motion while he’s moving at normal speed.

3. Use hockey gloves for sparring.

4. Wear elbow pads. I’ve sparred for three years without elbow pads so that you wouldn’t have to.

5. Big fighters get hurt more because they stretch out their gear, and the air brake function fails to work. Keep this in mind when you work with them. This applies to anyone with a big head when wearing fencing masks. If God’s design for the skull conflicts with the design of the fencing mask, causing a pressure point, then use a hockey helmet or WEKAF head piece. If the big boy decides to bully you in training, hit him in the thighs. Don’t break his hands, and don’t give him a concussion.

6. When sparring with boneracks or twerps, be careful hitting the shoulder. Coming down hard on a shoulder that is not covered in muscle is debilitating. Remember this when you are attacked by those skinny hoodrats.

7. Moving to his shoulders, whether on the outside or the inside, should be your instinct. Just as in boxing, you want the angle, two feet against his one, two hands against his one.

8. Remember, he’s your sparring partner, you’re on the same team, when he makes a mistake, just tap him, again and again and again, until he gets it.

9. Since he’s just tapping you with his stick, if you grab it – don’t act like it’s a disarm. Let it go and keep up your rhythm. Disarms are the holy grail in non-contact stick fighting, but we do not practice that oxymoronic art, and real disarms only account for about one in 10 victories. So the key is grabbing the stick, and if you let it go, you get a chance to try grabbing it again and getting more practice, not at the speed you need, but at least at the angle. Don’t be a dick wrestling for the stick.