WOW
Opportunity, Training, Strategy and Execution. That's how it went for Frank Saturday night. It was very very exciting to watch this unfold from behind the scenes and then in action.
About a month before the fight Frank called me and asked me to come out for some Ground n Pound & HIGH GEAR review. We had done a lot of the basics on the TUF show, but that was months ago when the fight was a date, now it was around the corner.
Arrived in Vegas wed night went right to Striking Unlimited to see Frank. He had already finished training and was just stretching.
Frank looked good, relaxed. Im often asked about pre-fight rituals and have written on the subject before. In truth, every fighter prepares differently for their fight. In the last 17 years of being around professional MMA fighters, I've seen everything...extreme nervousness, cockiness, intensity, pacing (all of the above).
One of my favorites stories is of Maurice Smith, who was totally relaxed, you wouldn't know he was about to fight. I asked him once if he felt fear before a fight.... He paused, then asked me if I was afraid to go to work - "no", I replied. "me neither", he answered and smiled. "fighting is my job".
Of course that mind-set and approach would get a lot of fighters stopped in the first round.
Pre-fight rituals should resonate with the fighter's personality and of course, they must support the outcome...
In other words, if the athlete isn't 'also' winning, then something is askew with the mix.
The mind truly navigates the body and the pro athlete must find a coach and ritual to help access the skills forged in the weeks, hours, minutes leading up to their test.
I'll check in later
Tony
Life on the road. Over the years I've had the honor and privaledge to meet, train, and get to know some of the greatest fighters of our era. Its an awesome experience. While some may see this as social, I draw a lot of input, insight and feedback from my talks and drills with some of these warriors and inject that into our mind-set and training portions of our PDR & SPEAR System classes.
My name is Tony Blauer, I am a personal defense & combatives consultant. I travel internationally sharing my research with military & law enforcement training units. As well, I work closely with professional self-defense experts & protection specialists. I'm enjoying using social media like Stumble, Twitter & FaceBook to connect with people all over the world. I look forward to connecting with you through the internet or in person at one of our courses.