There are hundreds of sparring techniques and thousands of variations of them but the best tip I know of, for sparring, is: learn your basics. Basics come before techniques or combinations or tactics. Basics are the foundation you rest your skills upon. What are they?

1. Stance
2. Distance
3. Attack
4. Defense

Now, obviously you can't just decide to drop everything until you've perfected these (or your instructor might get a little upset with you) but until you do get them perfect, all the flying kicks and combinations in the world won't help you against an opponent who DOES have them perfected.

Why stance? Your stance is your starting point. It is from there that you move. If your stance is not strong (and I don't mean tense, I mean stable), then your movement is affected. You have to have to move to block, parry, kick, punch, lock, retreat, jump and all the other techniques you can think of. Sports people may refer to it as their form or body position. For sparring, its how you stand, where your weight is, where your guard is, where your eyesight is trained, the angle of your feet, the angle of your legs, arms, etc. A technique lasts as long as it takes to a) start moving, b) deliver the technique, and c) return to the starting position so that you are READY TO MOVE AGAIN. This means from stance back to stance. If you want to know what every martial artist who is very competent at sparring has in common with each other, it is that they have their stance sorted out. The importance of a strong stance can almost never be over-emphasized. Everything starts from stance.

Distance is next. If you've ever seen a sparring match that looked like a bar-room brawl (in other words, messy), chances are it was because one or both of the opponents did not have their distance set correctly. Before you go on to effective attack and counter-attack techniques you have to have some reasonable idea of distance. Too close and your hits won't be as effective (if at all), too far and your hits won't hit (it is easier to see attacks coming when they are further away) and you can tend to over-extend, and if you over-extend then you'll be the one getting hit. What's too close? It depends on your particular art, but say for a kicking art, your opponent's front leg fully extended in a stationary position (supporting leg not moving) should not be able to reach you. If you are further than two stance widths apart, you are too far away.

What about attack and defense?

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