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.
