How to control fear and axiety leading up to a fight.

One of the most important pieces of the training puzzle and one that is most overlooked by fighters, is the so called "mental" aspect. You know: "one part physical, three parts mental" - bla-bla. What does any of that crap mean? Try to visualize your next fight, or for that matter, your last fight; picture all the hours of training technique, strength conditioning and sparring as well as dieting your butt off!

See yourself warming up in the dressing room then walking down the isle towards the ring or cage suddenly feelings of self-doubt and fear as you look at the size of the crowd and the dude you have to fight and realize that they are all here to watch you either do your thing or get yer ass kicked! We didn't think about this very much when we were training did we? I have seen it all, from fighters with supreme confidence to outright paralyzing terror. Sometimes these feelings start much earlier in the training building to a crescendo on the night of the fight.

Depending on how green you are as a fighter but also affected by the amount of time since your last fight your level of fear is variable. It is almost not fair when you have had a one year hiatus between fights and you are thrown into the ring with a guy who has been fighting regularly, you feel like a rooky all over again. They call this "ring rust" but it feels more like "shit my pants".

I have been in these situations and spent a great deal of time trying to understand the mechanisms behind the sensations and trepidations and also, how to deal with them, possibly master them.

"Why do some people seem to have no fear while most of us have a hard time getting one foot in the water? What can I do to get past this issue? Does it ever get any better?"

We have to be honest with ourselves, first of all, and admit that we are not all Thor, god of thunder and rock-n-roll! The guy standing across from you probably had his own diaper to change on the way to the cage!
I spent some time working with a mental coach and I also studied NLP ( neuro-linguistic programming) as well as trance induction and hypnotherapy techniques. I have used many forms of meditation from different martial arts and Yoga etc. I am going to lay out my secrets and tips in the next series. I believe in coming up with tools, be they drills to build skills or simple techniques to create new constructive habits.

In The next few weeks I will be posting some of the techniques that I use myself or that I encourage my fighters to use for the purpose of gaining control of fear and anxiety as well as focusing the mind on the task at hand (breaking some dude's face).

Please send me your feed-back and let me know if this is useful to you. I understand that some of you may find all this too esoteric and fluffy but give it a shot, you might be thanking me next time you roll up to the battle front!


Tool #1. Mental relaxation:
This technique has to be practiced on a regular basis. The more you use these methods, the more you reinforce the structures in your brain and create strong pathways. I break the technique into 2 separate parts a) for relaxation and b) for focus.
The technique for achieving mental relaxation is basically the same as the technique for learning focus. We can never have too much focus, if anything, we are a very scattered species!
Think of something that you do very well, a hobby or something job-related that you are very good at. I will give you an example;
I have been a tradesman drywall, paint carpentry for many years and I am quite good at all of these things. I think that anyone could possibly be good at painting, especially the rolling part!

a)I like to picture an enormous black wall and a huge pan full of white paint. I proceed to mentally roll the entire wall over with paint and then roll again until the wall is stark white in my mind.

b) Then I take a huge paint brush and a can of red paint and start painting the numbers from 1 to 10 in massive violent strokes. Keep going from 1 to 10 for as long as you wish but the longer the better. If you feel a slip in your focus take it back to step a) and start over as often as you want.

Try these 2 techniques out for a week and see how your focus and concentration improve and how you feel more mentally relaxed. Keep following for the next few weeks for the next tools I will be posting regularly.

Learning how to kill shit!

What is sparing and why do we include that in pretty much every class?
Think of it as play; a kind of thoughtful play.
Picture two lion cubs rolling around in the grass of the Serengeti, working those muscles, claws and teeth! In a controlled environment, with mom close by reffing, they are developing certain skills they will need to take down prey or a rival predator. Why do they play this way? They are LEARNING TO KILL SHIT! Without these skills they would never survive.
In combat sports this same method is used to learn timing, distance control as well as to get over the fear of getting hit. The idea that we can simply punch a bag (or a wooden dummy, or punch the air in the case of Katas) and learn all we need before climbing into the ring or octagon is ridiculous! Some martial arts were developed around a dance-like kata ie; Capoera or Tai Chi but remember that these were mostly produced in times of war to teach martial techniques without alerting the occupying armies or police-state forces. We have the advantage of multiple training partners in a safe,controlled environment - ring any bells?
Take advantage of this, don't just go through the motions of attending classes, assuming that you are a fighter just because! Class is for learning techniques and concepts then, put them to practice in specific ways through sparing.
Eg: Start with jab - one guy leads and the other guy counters. Do that for 2 rounds then do 2 rounds with both people leading and countering, then add one specific technique in random fashion as the conscious brain has a much easier time focusing on less than 3 things at a time.

Here are some examples of light sparing.