Y
ogi Bear may not be a
mathematician and you definitely
wouldn’t want him defending
you against a tax audit, but his
infamous quote regarding the importance
of the mental aspect of sport rings true for
mixed martial arts, perhaps more than any
other sport. Elite athletes outside of MMA
may see their batting average slip, throw
an interception or get dunked on at the
buzzer, but they probably aren’t waking up
wondering what just happened or potentially
losing their livelihood. And they usually have
the opportunity to redeem themselves the
next day or the next week.
For a fighter about to step into a locked
cage and do battle with another highly
trained athlete for 15 to 25 minutes or until
one of them taps or naps, the stakes are
dramatically higher. There is no teammate
to compensate for their mental lapse or
weakness and the results can be hazardous
to their health. And aside from a chosen few
at the very top of the game, every fighter
knows that they are a few scant losses away
from that dreaded phone call telling them
that their services are no longer needed by
the promotion. Now that’s pressure. If you
think the mental game only takes place
during the fight, you’re in for a big surprise.
Pre-Fight:
Training for Desensitisation
When most people think of a gruelling
training camp, the images of a fighter
sharpening his or her tools with untold
sweat-ridden hours of sparring, drilling,
doing conditioning work and hitting
pads comes to mind. But the goal for top
MMA trainer Greg Jackson goes beyond
perfecting technique and having his fighters
in shape to go 25 hard minutes. It is a
process of systematic desensitisation. “Every
human being has a breaking point. Our goal
in camp is to make that point so hard to get
to that it can’t be reached in the 15 or 25
minutes that you spend with your opponent.
The fighter has to get so used to duress and
exhaustion in training that they walk into
the cage knowing that nothing can happen
in there that we haven’t already put them
through. When we reach that point, there is
nothing to fear or run away from. They are
desensitised and confident that they aren’t
going to get caught off guard. It’s like the
scene in The Dark Knight when the Joker
tells Two Face that “If everything goes as
planned, no one panics.”
UFC fighter James Irvin found the need
to desensitise himself to his opponent
Houston Alexander before they met at
UFC Fight Night: Florian vs. Lauzon in- “I put pictures of that guy all over
my house. Houston was the first guy I
ever fought who looked more menacing
than me. He’s a scary-looking dude. I
wanted to get used to seeing him all the
time so that when I looked at him across
the cage it wouldn’t be a big deal.” It
must have worked. Irvin knocked out
his menacing-looking counterpart in
a lightening-fast eight seconds, tying
him for the fastest KO in UFC history.
In-Fight:
Breathe, Focus, Listen
One minute. That’s all the time a trainer
gets with his fighter before the next five-
minute battle begins. Some trainers will
start shouting instructions the second the
break begins, but not Greg Jackson. “The
first thing I want to do between rounds is
calm them down and help them focus on
getting their air back. If a fighter is frenzied
and trying to get his air, he’s not going to
hear what I’m telling him anyway. Next I
want to re-focus them on the task at hand.
I’m big on positive energy, so I’ll usually tell
them, ‘You’re doing this right but I’d like to
see more of this.’ I don’t overwhelm them
with 15 things because you have to be
realistic. It’s unreasonable to think they’re
going to retain a lot of information in 60
seconds.” And the soft-spoken trainer isn’t
against raising his voice when it’s called
for. “Sometimes a fighter gets mentally
locked or my advice doesn’t seem to be
getting through. That’s the only time I yell
and it’s never done disrespectfully. I’m using
my voice to shock them and get through
the block. The fact that I don’t do it all the
time makes it more effective. It touches
something deep in the psyche of a fighter,
kind of like when your dad might have yelled
at you.”Post-Fight:
Dealing with a Loss
UFC Welterweight Champion Georges St-
Pierre suffered what may have very well been
the biggest upset in the promotion’s history
when he lost to Matt Serra at UFC 69. How do“Ninety per cent of the game is half mental.”
“When I found myself
dominating him, I actually
had an internal conversation
that he was better than
me and looked for a way
to fulfill that. I was
sabotaging myself.”
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