Showing posts with label Mental Training. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mental Training. Show all posts

Sunday 30 August 2020

Kaizen - Constant daily improvement




One of the most important martial arts concepts which can also have a positive impact on your life away from the gym is the Japanese idea of Kaizen or continual daily improvement.

Constant gradual improvement even if only by 1% per day or week is much better than no improvement at all.

Two mistakes that newcomers to martial arts make are firstly believing that they do or don’t have any talent for martial arts or fighting. Secondly, the belief that if they go all out for a short period of time they will get a black belt or become a world champion within three years.

Firstly, there is no such thing as having a ‘talent’ for martial arts. Beginners often mistake having the ability to beat other untrained people as having a natural fighting ability. Being able to beat a trained opponent who is well prepared in a competition is much different from sparring with other beginners.

The skills and mentality to be able to compete and win against good opponents is not something that comes naturally to anyone. It must be developed gradually over months and years of training.

The second problem is with the idea of trying to do too much too soon.

I’ve been a full-time martial arts coach now for over ten years. I've had many students ask me what they need to do to get to the top level.

I explain to them that there are no short cuts. Come in and train every day, don’t take time off after fights, don’t go hard for a few weeks then slack off for two months only to repeat the cycle again and again.

If you stick to the plan you’ll be a top-level fighter competing and winning in the UFC in ten years.

Everyone who tries to take short cuts in their training, Looking for the martial arts equivalent of a get rich quick scheme always ends up quitting and never gets anywhere near their potential.

Forget about talent and shortcuts.

Focus on what you can do every day to make yourself 1% better. One year from now you will be 365% better than you are today. In ten years you will be a world champion.



 


Tuesday 11 December 2018

My MMA Journey - Part 2



After losing my pro MMA debut I was in two minds about about continuing in MMA or just focusing on the safer option of competing in BJJ and Grappling.


I continued training hard and also around the same time became very interested in the mental and psychological side of fighting, how to control my nerves and adrenaline before a fight or a match, visualising what I'm going to do and how I'm going to feel and also avoiding the dangerous feeling of 'I just want to get this over with'. I spent a lot of time researching and reading about sports psychology and mental preparation and tried out everything I learned in local grappling tournaments.


Towards the end of 2003 I got another opportunity to fight in MMA. This time the fight would take place in Italy. About a month before this fight I had started a new job at an advertising company right in the centre of London and was also in the early stages of studying for my chartered accountancy qualification, this meant I was very limited on time so I had to fly to Italy on the morning of the event, fight in the evening and then fly home the next morning. Also, as previously mentioned MMA was an unknown sport back then, I couldn't really tell my employers I was going to overseas for a no rules fight at the weekend so I just said it was a martial arts event.


The fight in Italy was pretty tough. I had no idea who I would be fighting until I got into the ring. There was no weigh in and my opponent seemed to have a considerable weight advantage over me. I could tell i was in better condition though and I could see that he was getting tired halfway through the first round so it was just a matter of hanging in there, not getting hurt and waiting for my opportunity. By the start of the second round I could tell that he was done so I got my takedown and won by armlock.


This fight was a great experience because I overcame adversity. I always preferred the fights where I was losing at the beginning and manage to come back and overcome the opponent rather than fights where I had everything my own way.


One of the biggest lessons that I learned from my fighting career is the importance of having a coach, and particularly a coach who is experienced, who cares and is invested in you. Throughout all of my MMA career I had good friends and training partners who would help corner me but I never had a coach who had actually fought and could tell me exactly what to do. Advice such as how to train, how to prepare for a fight, which fights to accept and which to turn down. I pretty much did all of this on my own but in the long term I feel it was beneficial because I've been able to pass on the lessons I've learned to my students and fighters since then.


Sunday 1 October 2017

Tough on your Team.




Popularity Versus Performance


One of the great lessons we learned from sports coaching expert Wayne Goldsmith earlier this year was that 'popularity is the enemy of performance'. 

Popularity is easy; performance requires honesty. If you want your teammates to perform at their best you need to be honest with them even if this will make you less popular. You need to be tougher on your team than their opponents will be.

This does'nt mean trying to knock them out or cranking on arm locks in every sparring session. That would actually be counterproductive, it will not allow them to improve and may lead to injuries, which could derail their progress. 

Being Honest with your Team-Mates


If you care about your teammate’s progress and success then you need to be honest with them about their training. If your training partner is on a losing streak and you don’t want to see them get knocked out in their next fight you need to be honest with them and tell them that training two hours a week then going for a run on Saturday isn’t going to get the job done.

Wayne’s point was that most people would not be honest. They don't want to offend their training partner so instead they just say ‘good job bro’, give them a high five and tell them we'll get them next time. 


The Reality 


The reality is that your next opponent doesn't care whether you are a nice person and doesn't worry about offending you. He is going to be brutally honest with you over the course of three five-minute rounds and will highlight the areas of your training where you took shortcuts

Popularity is easy; Performance requires honesty. The more you care about each other the harder you will be on each other.

Tough Coaching


The same is also true when it comes to coaching. Most fighters early in their career are open to advice and constructive criticism. They want to be told where they are going wrong and what they need to improve on. They realise that there will be a huge price to pay if they don't fix up the holes in their game. The job of the coach is to identify these holes and fix them before they can be exploited by a future opponent.


Coaches Versus 'Yes-Men'


If the fighter follows the advice of the coach he will usually experience initial success early on in his career. But this is when something interesting starts to happen. Often the fighters early success will cause him to develop an overblown ego, he decides he no longer needs to be told what he's doing wrong and instead surrounds himself with people who will constantly feed his ego by telling him what he's doing right and how great he is.

This is always a recipe for disaster. The new 'coach' will either not be knowledgeable and experienced enough to highlight the mistakes of the fighter or will just refuse to criticise him for fear of losing his meal ticket. Either way, it will lead to fighter going on a downward spiral of worse and worse results.


“A coach is someone who tells you what you don't want to hear, who has you see what you don't want to see, so you can be who you have always known you could be.”



Tuesday 12 July 2016

Mental Training

"How do I stop pre-fight nerves affecting my performance and ruining all the weeks of hard training and preparation before a fight?" This is a question that I often get asked by students before a fight or competition.

Everyone gets Pre-Fight Nerves

The first thing to remember is that everyone gets nervous before fights. The only people who don't get nervous are those who already know that they are going to lose. They have no need to be worried or put any pressure on themselves and already have all the excuses lined up for afterwards.
Even top level fighters are nervous and anxious before fights. There are numerous stories about top fighters such as Mike Tyson and Crocop being in tears and vomiting from panic and nervousness just minutes before stepping into the ring. Top level fighters have put in months and years of training and preparation and just have a short amount of time to make it all pay off. If top fighters appear not to be nervous it’s because they are acting in a confident manner knowing that appearing more confident will help them feel more confident.

Dealing with the Stress before it overpowers you

The first step to dealing with this stress is actually understanding what you are afraid of. You are not afraid of fighting. If you were afraid of fighting you would have many opportunities change your mind or find excuses to pull out in the weeks and days leading up to the fight.
The real reason fighters feel nervous before they compete is performance anxiety. You are afraid that you won't perform at your best and that all your training will be a waste of time. The problem is that this stress can make you feel weak, unfit, tired and nervous which can contribute to you not being able to perform at your best.

Get used to this Stress and Use it

The next thing to understand is that the nervousness won't just go away the more you compete. What actually happens is that you become better at dealing with it and using it to motivate you rather than negatively affecting your performance.
Getting used to the pressure doesn't happen overnight. You need to take small steps and set goals to gradually get better at dealing with the stress and performing at your best under pressure.

Steps to getting better at dealing with pre-fight nerves.

You need to spend as much time working on your mental skills as you do on your physical skills. It's good to find ways to combine both such as starting sparring from disadvantageous positions or pushing yourself to the point where you feel like quitting during fitness training to build your mental strength.

Mental Rehearsal - Don't put off thinking about the fight or match until it’s too late because then all the stress will hit you in one big rush. Visualise the fight in the weeks and days leading up to it so you will gradually get used to the pressure and stress in small doses. Visualise getting your hands wrapped, warming up, the ring announcer calling out your name. If possible watch videos of your opponent as so you know exactly what he looks like and how he moves, imagine yourself fighting him so that when you actually do fight it will seem that you're fighting someone who you've already fought or sparred with many times before.

Pre-Fight Routine - Have a few things that you do the day or night before every fight. For example watching the same inspirational movie, going for a walk on your own to think about the upcoming fight, listening to certain type of music. This will help build a feeling of consistency and familiarity to make you feel like you’ve been through all of this before. Don't do things to avoid thinking about the fight or take your mind off it. You need to stay focused on what you're going to do in a few hours time and make sure you are mentally ready.

Confident Mindset - Going into the match that you need a confident frame of mind. You need to be confident in your skills and ability and be positive and certain that if you perform at your best you will be able to win. The best way to develop this mindset is to think of previous times when fought really well or felt confident while you were in the ring. If you have never had an experience of feeling confident and positive in a fight then just think about a time when you felt confident in training.

Think of a time when everything went well and you were sure that you could rely on your techniques, where you felt fit and when your timing felt spot on.Try to remember how you felt during this time and the feelings and emotions that were going through your head. Then try to imagine you are back there doing the exact same thing. You need to practice this state of mind as much as possible so that you are sure that you can get back to it whenever you feel like it. The pre-fight routine mentioned above will also help you access your confident mindset more easily.

Attitudes to avoid

Just go in there and have fun’ - The reality is that you just have a short amount of time - 9 to 15 minutes to either win or lose the fight. That isn't enough time to 'have fun' and 'show what you can do'. What you need to be thinking about is going in and executing as perfect a performance as possible and not leaving anything to chance. What you need to be thinking is 'I've only got a short amount of time, I need to execute my game-plan perfectly and make my opponent quit.'
I just want to get it over with’ - This attitude shows that you aren't prepared to put in a big effort to win possibly due to the strain and exhaustion of all the training in the weeks leading up to the fight. What you need to be thinking is 'I've already put in all the weeks and months of preparation and I'm prepared to fight for as long as it takes to make my opponent quit even if that takes two hours'.
I deserve to win’ - All of the training that you did leading up to the fight or your performance in previous fights is no guarantee of how will perform in this fight. If you are not switched on enough and you opponent is then he may still be able to beat you even if he is less skilled.

Don't Run Away from it


Don’t try to avoid the stress - Just the same way that your muscles need stress from weights and resistance exercise to get stronger, the mental side of your fight training needs controlled amounts of stress to improve your ability to perform well in competition.



Sunday 23 August 2015

MMA Teamwork

How important is your Team for success in MMA?



Boxing Vs MMA : Teams


One of the major differences between professional Boxing and MMA is the emphasis on teams rather than on the individual fighters. In boxing everyone knows all about Mayweather and Pacquiao but not too much about their training partners. It's usually the opposite in MMA. If there is one successful fighter from a team there are usually plenty more where they came from.




This has been the case right from the start. The first major team that had a lot of success was the Lions Den which featured Ken Shamrock, Frank Shamrock, Guy Mezger and many others. Following on from their example many other successful teams came along over the years such as Miletich Fighting Systems (Pat Miletich, Matt Hughes, Jens Pulver), Chute Box (Pele, Wanderlei Silva, Anderson Silva, Shogun Rua), Team Punishment (Tito Ortitz, Chuck Liddell, Ricco Rodriguez) and Brazilian Top Team (Nogueria Brothers, Mario Sperry, Ricardo Arona).


The Team System


The team system has worked so well that pretty much all the successful fighters in the history of MMA can trace their success back to being part of a successful team. This has continued up to the present day with the results of teams such as Jacksons MMA, Roufus Sport, AKA and Tristar Gym.

The career trajectory of a professional boxer is usually a lot different. Boxers typically start off at an amateur club where they are taught by volunteers a few evenings a week. If they ever become good enough to turn professional they will need to hire full time trainers and managers. They will also  need to pay sparring partners to come in and help them prepare for fights. The big difference here is that in MMA the sparring partners are usually working together to help each other improve. Boxing sparring partners are just there for the benefit of the star fighter. The sparring partners are not told to ‘look after’ each other. In some cases sparring partners would get paid a bonus if they could knock out the star fighter in training.

Iron Sharpens Iron

MMA camps usually consist of teams of people who train together all year round not just before fights. All members of the team try to improve each other and develop the others skills especially in sparring. In the long term this will lead to each fighter having better and more skilled training partners to train with. In professional boxing all of the sparring partners are just there to improve the big name boxer. The star boxer isn’t really concerned with developing the skills of the sparring partners.

Right from the beginning MMA has been a team focused sport. Pretty much all the champions in UFC and Pride have come through the tried and tested team system. Over the years there have been a few examples of MMA ‘superstars’ who tried to follow the professional boxing model instead such as Brock Lesnar and Alastair Overreem. These fighters usually have very limited success when they try to break away from the team system and are eventually faced with either retiring from the sport or returning to a successful team.

Advantages of a Team

What are the advantages of a team? Firstly, you get out what you put in. If you turn up consistently and train hard with a good, helpful attitude you will have good training partners who will in turn help you to develop into an even better fighter. If you come to the gym sporadically, train with the wrong attitude and injure your training partners nobody will be willing to train with you. This will make it very difficult to be successful as a fighter. You will be faced with the option of having to pay sparring partners. However MMA fighters don’t get paid enough to justify paying sparring partners and there aren’t really any MMA sparring partners for hire like there are in professional boxing.

Another advantage is that it is possible to produce multiple good fighters using the team system rather than just being focused on one person. This is because the trainers, sparring partners, training systems and structure remain consistent and if they have produced good results for one person then they can continue to reproduce the same results and success for others.

When a fighter steps into the ring or cage they are in there on their own but what happens and how they perform once the bell rings is determined by the team that they have been surrounded by up until that point.



Wednesday 5 August 2015

Mental Toughness for Fighters


Here is a short interview which I recently did with one of my clients who is completing a sports science degree regarding mental toughness and mental preparation in combat sports. 


How do you define "mental toughness"? 

I would define mental toughness in sports as ability to reproduce an athletes best performance under adverse & unfavorable conditions such as stress, pain or fear of injury. 

What do you believe contributes to mental toughness (e.g. nature vs. nurture, experiences, environments, upbringing)? 

The main contributing factor in developing mental toughness is gaining experience in overcoming obstacles. When an athlete repeatedly comes up against tough experiences and is able to overcome them he will develop mental toughness & confidence which will help him overcome further challenges & tough experiences in the future. It is important that an athlete is gradually tested against tougher opposition. In terms of combat sports this would mean starting off sparring against opponents who are on a similar or lower level and then gradually increasing the level of sparring partners as the athletes confidence & ability increases. It is important that the athlete is not just continually sparring people who he can beat & don’t present a challenge. This may boost his confidence but will give him a false sense of security & his lack of mental toughness will be exposed when he comes up against tougher opposition. The other side of this is that if the athlete is sparring against opponents who are too experienced for him it may be detrimental and lead to him losing confidence in his abilities and ruin his potential for developing mental toughness. 

How do you try to instil mental toughness in your athletes? 

To help build mental toughness in my athletes I like to use several types of sparring drills & exercises, these may include. 
  • Line ups - these involve sparring against a group of fresh opponents one after another. This is tough for the athlete as he is already fatigued from the previous rounds & needs to still perform well against fresh opponents. 
  • Fight Simulation Drills / Circuits - This involves placing the athlete in a series of disadvantageous positions for a set period of time which he must escape from or complete a set task before progressing to the next station. 
  • Winner Stays On Sparring - This involves a group of sparring partners & an objective such as scoring a take-down or submission, this will result in the winner then having to spar against a new opponent & trying to stay in against new opponents for as long as possible. 
  • Conditioning exercises such as sprints or 'burpees' done at the end of the training session when the athlete is already fatigued and trying to get the athlete to keep going & outworking his training partners. 

Do you think there are any downfalls to being mentally tough? 

Athletes who are very mentally tough may be likely to push themselves to extreme lengths and may take excessive risks such as continuing to train or compete in-spite of injury. There is also a risk in combat sports that an athlete may allow himself to take excessive punishment rather than quitting. This is obviously very dangerous and can be fatal in some cases.





Thursday 30 July 2015

Improve your BJJ

Every JiuJitsu Student wants to improve their skill level and reach their full potential. Everyone has different goals and ambitions, they might aspire to be world champions, achieve a black belt or maybe just to land a submission on one particularly tough training partner.

BJJ is a very efficient form of martial art so it follows that if you keep training then you will improve and develop your skills but what if you want to maximise your potential?



The best case scenario:


The optimal conditions for BJJ training where an athlete has unlimited time, money and resources would be as follows :
· 6 hours of BJJ training per day 5 days per week (plus additional strength and conditioning training.)
· Structured one on one session with an experienced coach every day who analyses videos of your sparring matches and videos of upcoming opponents then shows you exactly what you did right and wrong and what you need to work on and improve.
· 2 hours each day practicing the techniques suggested by the coach with a drilling partner under the supervision of the coach to ensure you are performing every repetition perfectly.
· 2 hours of sparring against training partners of a similar or higher level than yourself. Using timed rounds to simulate competition conditions.
· Ideally you would be competing regularly (almost every weekend ) and periodising your competition schedule so that you peak for the most important competitions and use the smaller events as tests and practice matches. The reality:
However, the reality is that BJJ is an amateur sport with very few full time athletes. The vast majority of BJJ students and most competitors train recreationally so the conditions described above are usually impossible. The more realistic scenario is that...
· Most BJJ students are able to train a maximum of 3 times per week due to commitments like work and family.
· BJJ classes are not usually structured in a way that maximises competitive improvement for each student. Most recreational students want to learn new and interesting techniques each time they come to class. If each session was just focused on drilling the few high percentage techniques that win matches it would make the classes boring and after a few weeks students would stop showing up for class.
· There are so many positions and techniques to cover that there is insufficient time to practice all of them effectively. Your instructor may show an important guard pass at four sessions during the month, but if you miss one of those classes then you may only get to practice that important technique for a total of 15 – 20 minutes in one month which obviously isn’t enough.
· Most BJJ students don’t get the opportunity to compete very often. This makes it difficult to determine if they are improving and progressing. Sparring with your training partners is usually not a good indicator of progress.
· Most BJJ students don’t have enough time to attend classes as often as they would like let alone have enough time to do additional strength and conditioning training. How can the average student get the best results from their training?
In spite of these limitations some recreational BJJ players can still get impressive results. It helps if you are naturally athletic or if advanced students give you extra assistance and advice to help you improve. However, what about for the average beginner who wants to increase their rate of improvement? Here are some tips which you may find useful. Take Notes
Make notes on every new technique you learn, this will make it much easier to remember important details. Don’t assume being shown a technique and then practicing it a few times will be enough. Build Muscle Memory
When you learn new techniques you need to build the new complicated movement patterns into your muscle memory. This will allow you to access the techniques when needed in sparring. Here is a useful routine to help build a new technique into your muscle memory.


Coach shows a new technique:



Drill it with your partner in the usual way



At the start of the sparring rounds ask your sparring partner if you can practice the new technique on him for 2 repetitions to refresh your memory,



At the end of class try to get someone who isn’t in a hurry to leave and practice the technique 10 more times,



Go home and write notes on the technique



In the next class grab a partner and practice the move 10 times (this may be useful for the training partner too because maybe he missed the previous class and hasn’t seen the technique)

This method will help you remember new techniques much better than if you just drill it a few times then forget about it and don’t see it again for 6 months. Game-plan
Organise your techniques into a game plan. This will comprise of your ‘go-to’ techniques which you will always try to use in competitions or sparring. Get used to working off your game plan when you are sparring. This really helps because it cuts down on the time it takes to make decisions and speeds up your reaction time. You no longer have to sort through twenty different options of what move to go for as each position will dictate what technique you are going to use. Purpose
Set a purpose for each round of sparring. For example, one submission or guard pass which you want to use or a position that you want to practice escaping. This is more useful and productive than trying to win or to survive the round. Try to choose around three different things to work on in case your opponent makes it too difficult to practice certain techniques. It’s a good idea to not explain what you are trying to do to your partner as he may react in an unrealistic way or be overly compliant to allow you to successfully pull off the move. Just let them think it’s a normal sparring round. Video
Whenever possible video yourself rolling. This is very helpful as what you imagined you were doing during sparring and what you were actually doing can sometimes be very different. Analysing video of yourself sparring will help you pinpoint what you did right and wrong and how you can improve. Extra Training
For most beginners the activity that will give the greatest crossover benefit is to focus fitness and endurance. The simplest way to do this is by getting up 45 minutes earlier in the morning and go for a run. This increase in endurance will help you last longer and think more clearly during rounds of sparring which will help your BJJ improve. This is preferable to just lifting weights to get stronger which may make sparring feel easier but can lead to becoming overly reliant on strength rather than using technique. Goals
Set Goals for your training. Have specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time based goals for your training. For example, this month the goal is to learn two new open guard passes, practice them 200 times and pull each one off in sparring at least once per class by the end of the month. Don’t be too competitive
When practising new techniques in sparring you may risk ending up in bad positions or you may get submitted. Don’t let this deter you from attempting new techniques and don’t allow your ego to hinder long term improvement. Use the information to determine where you went wrong to improve for next time. Choose your training partners
Practice your new techniques against less experienced partners until you are proficient at them and then try them against more challenging sparring partners. If you try to use techniques that you have not yet mastered against experienced opponents you could easily get shut down and miss the chance to practice anything. Keep track of your progress
Finally, keep track of your progress and monitor what is working, what is not working, how many submissions, guard passes and escapes you are successfully pulling off. This will provide an idea of whether your training is moving in the right direction and what you need to change or do differently.


Long Term BJJ Training

Eleven years ago since I got my black belt and I thought this would be useful advice for anyone who is in the earlier stages of their JiuJi...

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