What does it mean when your coach would say "Winning is %90 mental!" while he was talking about football or soccer or hockey? What the hell does my brain have to do with it, I'me gonna smash people and hit things? Well, I will tell you what my experience has shown me.
Imagine your first fight, you are walking up to the ring or cage and all around you are screaming people, card girls, tough guys, cameras etc. Now you step up onto the floor of the ring and you know that this is it, the time to put up or shut up. Like diving off a diving board, there is no turning back. Now, you look across at the guy you are here to fight and you see that he is big, mean looking and covered in ink! Between the crowd and the violence that is about to happen, your adrenaline is threatening to push your heart through your spine and cause you to vomit on the reff. The bell is sounded and suddenly your feet won't respond, your hands feel like coleslaw, all the training you have been doing is out the window. MAYBE you should have been doing some mental prep!?!?
I think that the mental aspects are more important in the fighting sports than any other. After all, you are all alone up there in front of many people with another trained fighter ready to take your head off!
I spent about a year with a mental coach and I would recommend it to anyone. Areadne Sawyer of Peak Performance Coaching ( http://www.ariadnescoaching.com/index.html ) helped me so much and gave me an entire toolbox of skills to learn new and better mental habits.
If you want to see a good example of a fighter who is very well prepared emotionally and mentally for the sport, look up Chris Horodeki on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQt0IgXn67A
By for now,
Coach Toby
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