Martial Arts Training – For Life!

Martial Arts Training – For Life!
(Article first appeared in Black Belt Magazine, June, 2008)

By Dr. Randy Borum

In their book, Martial Arts Mind & Body (Human Kinetics Press, 2000), Claudio Iedwab and Roxanne Standefer describe martial arts as “the original mind and body experience.” Historically, they say, striking and defense techniques in the martial arts were just a method or vehicle for learning to integrate mind and body. In essence, the martial arts evolved as a path to personal development, not principally as a technique-driven means to teach people to fight.

It makes sense to teach people to defend themselves. But research shows that most people seek out martial arts training – like motivations for other sports - looking for health benefits, social benefits, and skill development. Martial arts participants, however, - more than in other sports - tend to rate character development, increasing perseverance, and integrating mental and physical health as important reasons for their participation.

Some people who want to learn self-defense are seeking the confidence and inner security that comes from knowing they can do it. The late Ed Parker, founder of American Kenpo, has been quoted as saying: “It is not danger that causes us to be afraid, it is the fear of danger.” Self-defense students often want to know that they can perform under pressure and that they will respond to peril with courage and sound judgment. That’s a character skill that can come in handy in a variety of situations, not just a personal attack.

The Martial Arts are filled with skills and lessons that can enhance our general well-being and help us perform better in many areas of our lives. Have you ever set a goal to attain a particular ran, then made a plan and successfully followed through? Have you persisted in sparring or training when you were tired and just wanted to rest? Have you ever been frustrated with an instructor or training partner, but took a deep breath, put the emotions aside and continued working? Many of the demands and challenges you face in your gym or dojo require the same skills as the challenges you face at work, in the classroom, or in social interactions. The lessons you learn in martial arts training can teach you something about life.

Rodney King – founder and director of the Crazy Monkey Defense Program (crazymonkeydefense.com) – believes in using martial arts – not just for fighting or self-defense- but as vehicle to help his clients face challenges more effectively and achieve to their potential. King has recently developed a program called Martial Arts-Life (MA-Life) to span the gap between martial arts teacher and life-skills consultant. At the heart of King’s coaching program is what he calls the G.A.M.E. approach, which has Grounding in the client’s existing strengths; develops Attitudes that build resilience and facilitate peak performance; and helps clients boost their Motivation to prepare and Execute a personal plan for success.

Does the integration of self-defense and life skills signal a new trend in martial arts training? I don’t know. Rather than paving a new path, in many ways, it seems to bring martial arts back to their conceptual origins.

Consider the journey of Kano Jigoro, a pioneer in creating the modern discipline of Judo in 19^th Century Tokyo. As a frail and physically slight teenager, Kano was often teased and bullied and wound up on the losing end of many scuffles. He resolved to learn jujutsu to defend himself. As Kano evolved as a student and teacher – assembling elements from existing arts ultimately to create his own – he insisted that the word Judo was not only a “martial art, but names a principle applicable to all aspects of human existence” and that the ultimate goal of training should be to “perfect oneself and contribute something to the world.” Through his own training, Kano had learned to use martial arts both as a metaphor and a vehicle for personal development and social consciousness.

In the modern era, numerous research studies in psychology and sport science have shown that lessons learned in martial arts can apply to life. Among the physical benefits – aside from fitness - studies have shown that martial arts training may improve body image and enhance physical self-confidence. Research evidence also shows improvements in self-esteem, autonomy and positive response to challenges. All of these things may also contribute to well-being.

Importantly, research on martial arts training has fairly consistently found positive benefits on “self-regulation.” Psychologist Roy Baumeister calls self regulation “the process by which the self alters its own responses, including thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.” That concept is one the most important psychological processes in all human development. It is the foundation for our performance in nearly everything we do. It is the mechanism by which we think, feel and do the right things at the right time. Self-regulation also drives “self-discipline,” which many psychological studies have found to be perhaps the single most important ingredient in determining success – more than self esteem or even pure intellect. And martial arts can help us develop this.

At the end of your next training session, try a quick exercise in reflective learning. First, write some notes to yourself about what you learned that day – maybe that includes technique and strategy, but reflect also on what you learned about yourself and how you perform. Then, think through some non-training situations where you could apply those lessons - maybe to improve your mood, to perform better, or to navigate a particular relationship. Use your martial arts training not just to feel confident or to defend yourself, but to learn to succeed in life.

You Gotta’ Have Faith

You Gotta’ Have Faith

(Article first appears in Black Belt Magazine, May, 2008)

By Dr. Randy Borum

“Whether you think you can or think you can't - you are right” Henry Ford said. Our expectations for success and belief in our own abilities have powerful effects on our performance.

In the early 1970s, psychologists conducted an experiment in which they objectively measured the strength of each participant. Each person was assigned to arm wrestle another participant. Both participants believed that the objectively weaker one had a clearly superior level of strength. In 10 of the 12 arm-wrestling matches, the objectively weaker opponent prevailed. Their beliefs about who had superior strength mattered more than their real physical strength.

So, we need confidence, right? Yes, but the top martial artists and competitors have more than that. They have faith; a solid foundation of self-belief that transcends the outcome of any given performance. It is close to what psychologists call self-efficacy -a belief in one’s ability to successfully perform a task or action. It is task specific and it is grounded in self-belief.

Self-efficacy works together with skill and motivation to produce success. You have to want to achieve the outcome and have the ability to do so. When both those conditions are met, then the nature and degree of self-efficacy will often decide the winner.

Leading sport psychologist, Robert Nideffer, argues that the distinction between confidence and faith is an important one for the competitive athlete. While confidence can be easily shaken, faith endures. As Nideffer says, “Faith is believing in the absence of success.” If you are practicing a form, preparing for a rank testing, and you make the same mistake twice in a row, faith is what allows you to proceed confidently forward, assured that your next attempt will be successful.

In 1994, twenty years after losing his world heavyweight boxing title, George Foreman chose to re-enter the ring against the undefeated Michael Moorer. At nearly fifty years of age, many scoffed at the idea of Foreman competing, let alone fighting for a title. Moorer dished out a hefty dose of punishment on Foreman for nine rounds and seemed to be headed for a victory. Foreman, however, showed amazing heart and maintained faith in his ability. In the middle of the 10^th round, Foreman delivered a straight right to Moorer’s chin than sent him to the canvas. Moorer could not recover through the ten-count and George Foreman was, once again, the heavyweight champion of the world.

One of the reasons that skilled athletes sometimes “choke” in competition, is that they allow themselves to get absorbed in some mistake. Instead of re-focusing and driving forward, they allow themselves to react to the error emotionally and to entertain negative, self-critical thoughts like “That was so stupid”; “I can’t handle this pace”; or “I thought I was better than this.”

It is important for any martial artist or competitive athlete not to let mistakes damage their self-belief. You must prepare yourself to know that there will be time to process and learn from any mistakes, but that time is not in the midst of a competition. Your faith in your ability allows you to persist through adversity.

During the 10,000 meter track finals in the 1972 Olympics, 23-year-old Lasse Viren of Finland fell near the halfway mark. At this elite level of competition, such an error should have sealed his fate. But Viren maintained his composure, quickly got back to his feet and finished the race, winning the gold and setting a world record.

Viren stayed focused, kept his faith, and never even entertained the thought of not continuing. His faith in his ability to win was greater than any disruption, disappointment or embarrassment his fall could cause.

Even the greatest competitors make mistakes or suffer defeat. They do not cease to be great because they err, but they do continue to be great because of how they respond to their errors. A foundation of faith and self-belief can defend your heart and mind against negative, destructive thoughts that seek to undermine your confidence. Without negative thoughts interfering, you can fully commit to action without being burdened by the outcome. You can strive for excellence without being burdened by a need for perfection.

How does a person acquire this kind of powerful faith? By choice and commitment. The true martial artists must first acknowledge that the pursuit of excellence is her or his own responsibility. With the responsibility, comes the need to chart a course of action – a plan for how it will be achieved. Then, the martial artist must commit – continuously – to giving his or her best effort in following the plan.

Psychologist and pragmatist philosopher William James said: "There is but one cause of human failure. And that is man's lack of faith in his true Self." That faith is rarely, if ever, bestowed on anyone. It is cultivated and earned by daily choices. Choosing not to ruminate or tolerate destructive negative thoughts. Choosing thoughts and actions that will promote their best performance. Always moving forward, looking for opportunities to learn. Growing from mistakes, rather than suffering from them. Striving for your personal best, rather than for perfection.

“Runner’s High” Gains Traction

“Runner’s High” Gains Traction
(from Training & Conditioning - training-conditioning.com)

By R.J. Anderson

New scientific data supports the endorphin-releasing process that has long been hypothesized to follow intense bouts of exercise. The term "runner's high" was once considered folklore by some scientists, but an article published in the March issue of the journal Cerebral Cortex may prompt non-believers to adjust their thinking.

After completing a challenging, lung-burning workout, many runners and cyclists describe having a feeling of euphoria or a sense of calm that drapes their minds and bodies. Commonly called a “runner’s high,” scientists have hypothesized that running or intense physical activity can elicit a flood of endorphins in a person’s brain, producing analgesia and a general sense of well-being. Though it has long been accepted in the athletic world, the biochemical mechanism behind a runner's high has previously been elusive.

Now, for the first time, the theory of the runner’s high is backed by scientific data collected by researchers in Germany using positron emission tomography (PET) scans and newly available chemicals that reveal endorphins in the brain. In addition to proving how and why runners reach a euphoric state, their research could have even wider-ranging effects as these findings reach into the medical community, helping physicians understand the relationship between exercise and chronic pain.

Despite having countless athletes buy into the idea of runner’s high, many scientists have long been unconvinced by anecdotal accounts. Instead of an endorphin rush, many thought that a runner’s high was simply a byproduct of the mental good feeling that accompanies a sense of accomplishment, in this case, completing strenuous physical challenge.

But in March, researchers published an article indicating that when athletes are pushed beyond a threshold of intense physical activity, it can provoke a release of endorphins. The scientists, who work in the fields of Nuclear Medicine, Neurology, and Anesthesia at the Technische Universität München (TUM) and the University of Bonn, scanned the brains of 10 athletes before and after a two-hour run. Their data showed that athletes produced endorphins during workout and that those endorphins attached themselves to the limbic and prefrontal areas of the brain, which are associated with controlling a person’s emotions.

"We could validate for the first time an endorphin driven runner's high and identify the affected brain areas,” Professor Henning Boecker, who coordinated the research at TUM and who is in charge of the Functional Neuroimaging Group at the Department of Radiology at University Hospital Bonn, told the online magazine, Science Daily. “It’s interesting to see that the affected brain areas were preferentially located in prefrontal and limbic brain regions which are known to play a key role in emotional processing. Moreover, we observed a significant increase of the euphoria and happiness ratings compared to the ratings before the running exercise."

Professor Thomas Tölle, who heads a research group called Functional Imaging of Pain at TUM, says these results could unearth another tool in the battle against chronic pain.

“The fact that the endorphins are also released in areas of the brain that are at the center of the suppression of pain was not quite unexpected, but even this proof was missing,” Tölle told Science Daily. “Now we hope that these images will also impress our pain patients and will motivate them to take up sports training within their available limits.”

Boecker is investigating these possibilities as part of a follow-up study about whether running affects pain perception. Using PET scans to monitor 20 marathon runners and a similar number of nonathletes, Boecker is studying the test subjects’ perception of pain after running and walking.

One of Boecker’s goals is find out whether intensity of exercise affects levels of endorphins. By including nonathletes in the study, Boecker is looking at whether a love of exercise has anything to do with endorphin production.

“There are studies that showed enhanced pain tolerance in runners,” Boecker told the New York Times. “You have to give higher pain stimuli before they say, ‘OK, this hurts.’ ”


R.J. Anderson is an Assistant Editor at Training & Conditioning. He can be reached at rja@momentummedia.com

FREE Training Journal e-book for Martial Arts

Rodney King and I have just released a new resource for functional martial artists. The Official CMD Training Journal is a FREE eBook that has been created to help athletes develop greater focus in their training and to develop "deep learning" by systematically tracking some key mental, emotional and physical elements of their performance.

Not only is space provided to fill in and to track all this important information, but the journal also includes the ‘how to’ material to help you realize your ultimate training goals.

There are brief, quick-reference sections that cover:

• Goal Setting

• Recovery/Overtraining

• Taking Care of Your Body: Sleep, Nutrition, Energy

• Sharpening your Mental Game: Motivation, Focus, and Commitment

• Learning from your Training

The book is referred to as a “mixed martial arts” training journal, but that term is used very broadly here. It can be used for MMA training, but it is also very general and flexible, so that you could use it for virtually any kind of martial arts training. The “training journal” itself is just a record form that you can copy and use to track your progress and to monitor your individual patterns for success.

In an effort to give back to the martial art community that has given both authors so much, they are now offering the Training Journal absolutely free.

All you need to do to get your FREE copy is register (also free) on the Crazy Monkey Defense site.

We hope you enjoy it and that it will keep you focused, excited and motivated to train.

A Winning Mindset

A Winning Mindset

By Dr. Randy Borum

(Article first appears in Black Belt Magazine, April, 2008)

No competitor likes to lose, but the best competitors in virtually every sport seize a loss as an opportunity to improve. Even if you do not compete in martial arts, you can apply the same lesson to any challenge or undertaking: You are not shaped by a particular loss or failure, but by what you do with it.

Research conducted by Stanford psychology professor, Carol Dweck has shown that most people have one of two types of “mindset”: Fixed mindset or Growth mindset. Those with a fixed mindset believe that their positive traits and potential for success are essentially fixed. You have them – in whatever amount - or you do not. On the other hand, those with a growth mindset are more grounded in “possibilities.” They believe that positive traits and skills can be developed and that they can overcome failures to ultimately achieve success.

In rebounding from a loss, your mindset will affect how you understand and explain what happened. Developing some explanation – for yourself and for others - for the loss is usually the first step in determining whether and how you will move forward. Losing can be devastating for a fixed mindset competitor because they will assume they lost because they were “just not good enough.”

Georges St Pierre demonstrated the advantages of a growth mindset after losing his UFC title to Matt Serra. St Pierre consulted a sport psychologist who helped him realize that “it isn’t always the best team that wins the game, it’s the team that plays better." GSP modified his personal explanation for the loss, saying: "I truly believe I’m the best fighter in the UFC but, that night, Matt Serra fought a better fight than me."

When questioned about why he did not fight to his potential in that bout, Georges said: “I forgot what was my number one priority. My number one priority is to stay champion and being the best in the world. I forgot that. I paid for it, I made a mistake. But I'm the type of guy that never makes the same mistake twice." Remarkably, his conclusion: "I truly believe that this loss is probably the best thing that ever happened to me."

Being an effective competitor in martial arts (or doing any challenging task for that matter) requires that you develop faith in yourself and in your ability. Having faith means that you can believe in yourself when you are consistently landing your strikes and when you miss them. Faith “is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see” (Hebrews 11:1). Although you missed the last takedown attempt, you are confident that you will get the next one. The key to bouncing back from a loss is never to lose faith in yourself.

Different people recover from setbacks in different ways, but here is a quick formula that you can adapt to your own needs.

First, you will have to develop an explanation to “frame” and understand the loss. Try to explain it from a growth mindset, rather than a fixed mindset. It is natural and acceptable to feel disappointment, but keep it in perspective and try not to let yourself wallow in it. Disappointment, not devastation. If you let yourself spiral down into a self-critical cycle, it will undermine your faith and confidence. Maintain your core belief in your ability, grieve the loss, and move on. Some athletes say that if you have never lost, you are not competing against the best people.

Second, develop a plan for what and how you can improve. If you identified any “holes” in your game, work with your coach or training partner on strategies to fix them. Reflect on your loss – not the emotional or self-critical element – but like an objective observer. If you were coaching yourself, what would make you better.

Third, envision that plan working. Once you have a clear explanation of what went wrong and an account of what needs to change, then spend some time visualizing what your game will look like after you successfully enact your plan. In your mind, take time to see and to feel the success of your plan. Image what you will be like when you have taken your game to the next level, then step inside that image. Experience the unwavering confidence and faith in your ability.

Finally, move forward with confidence. The loss was an event. You disappointment was just a mental event. It does not define you and it does not determine your future. Part of the “envisioning” is to set yourself mentally on a forward-moving path. That vision contains everything you need to retain from the past event. It is over and reliving the negative emotions will not enhance your performance.

Your task is to implement your plan with faith and a positive focus. Scientists suggest that the human brain is naturally “wired” to be negative. If you do not take control of your thoughts, images and emotions, you might have to spar a couple of more rounds with the “what ifs.” But you can thoughtfully direct what you say to yourself and the emotions that you generate. Reduce the negatives and create positive messages, images and emotions. With resilience, you can grow as a martial artist and create a mindset that will accelerate your path to success.

Psychology of Teaching Martial Arts to Kids

Psychology of Teaching Martial Arts to Kids
(Column appears in Black Belt Magazine, March, 2008)

By Dr. Randy Borum



All advanced martial artists and martial arts instructors should invest in kids. Not just because kids will determine the future of our sport, but also because they will choose our nursing home when we get old. :-)

Anyone who has taught or observed a kids’ martial arts class, however, knows that they are not just “little adults.” They often get into martial arts for different reasons. They learn differently. And they stay in or drop out for different reasons also. Effective advertising and marketing may bring kids to your school, but their experience, the climate of the class and their relationships with the instructor and other students is what will keep them there.

Over the past 25 years numerous studies have explored why kids participate and continue in sports. Having fun is consistently at the top of the list. They also want to achieve and improve their skills and to hang out in a positive environment with other kids (and an instructor) that they like. Winning doesn’t even make the top ten. Young people enjoy the excitement of competition, but winning isn’t the most important thing or the “only thing.” In fact, most kids say they would rather get to play more on a losing team than have to sit on the bench more on a winning team.

Participation rates in youth sports peak between the age of 11 and 13, then steadily decline through adolescence. The main reason that kids drop out of organized sports, research shows, is that they are no longer having fun. The other specific reasons that kids cite include a perceived lack of ability, too much pressure, and poor coaching. All of those things might understandably take some of the fun out of sport participation.

Parents are also a big part of the equation. Studies show that when parents support and encourage their kids’ sport participation that the kids enjoy the sport more, and tend to have more positive feelings about their own performance. On the other hand, when parents create pressure for the kids, it reduces their enjoyment and increases their stress about how they perform – both factors that cause dropout.

What are the implications of this research for martial arts instructors and parents?

First, when teaching kids, consider how you might make learning fun and enjoyable. This does not mean that you only do “fluffy” drills or never critique students’ performance. It does mean that you can choose to create an instructional climate in which kids are more or less inclined to learn and retain what you are teaching.

Second, consider how you can provide regular feedback to students about their progress. As an instructor, you understand the difference between effort, skill and ability. Young kids often do not. They think if they lose it is because they did not try hard enough. Without correction, they may just continue to repeat the same mistakes but with greater effort. When they continue not to do as well as they would like to do, they may conclude, they just don’t have the ability…and drop out. Young people - particularly in a competitive environment – may only gauge how well they are doing by whether they win. As an instructor, you can help kids find other ways to monitor and assess their progress and give them specific feedback so that they can focus on their performance, not just on the outcome.

Third, remember the power of specific, positive feedback. Being specific is an important part of making feedback effective. If we equally praise good and poor performance and effort, then it loses its impact. This may mean that you will have to look more actively and more closely for specific signs of improvement.

Correction will also work better when delivered along with positive feedback. Some have recommended a “sandwich” technique in which corrective feedback is embedded between two positive comments. For example, an instructor might say: “You were giving really good effort right there. Remember to keep your hips low on that move. Your timing is excellent.” In general, you can consider the ratio of positive to negative comments you make in any given class or lesson, as well as the tone and manner in which they are delivered. You might even videotape a class and count them for yourself. If they are out of balance, try to even them out a bit more.

Some research suggests that positive feedback from the instructor may be even more important for male than female students. This may be – as other research shows – because girls’ sport participation tends to be more strongly motivated by intrinsic factors – like enjoyment – than is boys’ participation, which may be driven more by needs for achievement and status.

Finally, martial arts training provides a venue for kids to learn and apply important life skills. Instructors and parents will model these lessons whether or not they intend to do it. How we handle frustration, how we treat and speak to others, and how we exercise our authority will not only affect how kids learn martial arts, but also how they navigate the challenges of youth and develop their character.

Psychology With a Positive Focus

Positive Psychology in Action



Many people think the goal of psychology is to understand what is abnormal and to "fix" mental problems. Those issues certainly have gotten a lot of attention. But over the past 10-15 years, some psychological researchers have tried to balance the focus of the field. Instead of just studying depression, for example, they have begin to try to understand happiness - what it is and how certain people achieve it.

This relatively new line of inquiry has been called "Positive Psychology." It is not itself a theory or type of therapy, but more of a guiding philosophy. According to the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania:

"Positive Psychology has three central concerns: positive emotions, positive individual traits, and positive institutions. Understanding positive emotions entails the study of contentment with the past, happiness in the present, and hope for the future. Understanding positive individual traits consists of the study of the strengths and virtues, such as the capacity for love and work, courage, compassion, resilience, creativity, curiosity, integrity, self-knowledge, moderation, self-control, and wisdom. Understanding positive institutions entails the study of the strengths that foster better communities, such as justice, responsibility, civility, parenting, nurturance, work ethic, leadership, teamwork, purpose, and tolerance."

Developments in positive psychology have strongly influenced my thinking and work in mental skills training and applied sport psychology with combat sport athletes. I do not search relentlessly for "problems", but I seek to identify strengths and virtues within a fighter that can be used to enhance his or her performance. I may help to teach certain skills and facilitate growth and new learning - I may even offer advice or ideas for consideration - but fundamentally, the athlete must do the work and create the transformation.

Lao Tzu says in the The Tao: "It is said of a good leader that
 when the work is done, the aim fulfilled, 
the people will say, "We did this ourselves..”

Many of the greatest advances in applied sport psychology have not come from intensive study of "problem" cases, but from studies seeking to understand winners, success, and expertise. Some combat sport athletes never consider consulting with a sport psychologist because, they say, "there is nothing wrong with me." Remember the discussion of fixed vs growth mindsets? (see previous post). The BEST are always striving to improve, not just to "fix" what may or may not be broken.

Here is a practical exercise you can try: Think about your current game (in fighting, grappling, wrestling, or whatever you do) and identify two specific goals you would like to accomplish in the next three months (feel free to refer to the article on Goal Setting). Next, write down what you consider to be three of your greatest personal strengths. Then, write a plan for how you can use your strengths to help accomplish the goals you have set. Write so that the link between the strength and the goal is clear and direct.

You might also consider exploring some of your own strengths and virtues in more depth. The more you know about yourself, the better you will be as a competitor.

You may want to start by looking at the broad array of FREE tests available to you HERE.

For more information on Positive Psychology generally, I recommend visiting the Positive Psychology Center by clicking on the image below:

Perfectionists Deserve a Break…

Perfectionists Deserve a Break…

by Dr. Randy Borum

“Don’t be such a perfectionist!” Do you get tired of hearing this from coaches and teammates? Well, you may in luck. Researchers have been learning that perfectionism has a positive side too.

Over the years, research has produced some seemingly contradictory findings on perfectionism’s role in performance. While some studies show perfectionism to be a central quality of elite athletes like Olympic champions, other studies have found that perfectionism undermines athletic performance.

Attempting to understand these different results, researchers have found that perfectionism has at least two different parts (or facets) – each has somewhat different effects on performance. One facet is a positive striving for perfection, which is shown in “having high personal standards, setting exacting standards for one's performance, and striving for excellence” (Stoll, Lau, & Stoeber, In Press). The other facet has been called “self critical perfectionism,” which involves “critical self-evaluations of one's performance, concern over mistakes, and feelings of discrepancy between expectations and results” (Stoll, Lau, & Stoeber, In Press).

Studies have found that those who have a strong positive striving for perfection have a more positive mood, more endurance, better performance, less anxiety, and more confidence in competitive endeavors. But – and here’s the catch – those benefits can fizzle out for those who also possess a high degree of self critical perfectionism. That self-criticality has been linked to depression, stress, increased competitive anxiety, less confidence during competition, decreased performance, and burnout.

For the perfectionistic combat sport athlete, these findings suggest that you can keep your lofty standards, but consider cutting yourself a break when you err or fall short. If you tend toward perfectionism, work with it, not against it. Learn to control the stream of negative shouts that flow from your inner critic. Learn to learn from your mistakes, not to react to them. In competition, responding to your own mistakes with frustration, worry or anger will only distract you and undermine your confidence. Have cue words ready to quickly re-focus yourself on the strength – not the limitations – of your performance and on moving forward, not looking back. There will be plenty of time later to reflect, analyze and learn about what you could have done differently. But when someone is punching you in the face or bending your joints in unintended direction – that’s probably not the best time.

For those interested in reading more research on perfectionism and sport performance, here are some references:

M.H. Anshel and H. Mansouri, Influences of perfectionism on motor performance, affect, and causal attributions in response to critical information feedback, Journal of Sport Behavior 28 (2005), pp. 99–124.

D.M. Dunkley, D.C. Zuroff and K.R. Blankstein, Self-critical perfectionism and daily affect: Dispositional and situational influences on stress and coping, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 84 (2003), pp. 234–252.

J.G.H. Dunn, J.K. Gotwals and J.C. Dunn, An examination of the domain specificity of perfectionism among intercollegiate student-athletes, Personality and Individual Differences 38 (2005), pp. 1439–1448.

M.W. Enns and B.J. Cox, The nature and assessment of perfectionism: A critical analysis. In: G.L. Flett and P.L. Hewitt, Editors, Perfectionism: Theory, research, and treatment, American Psychological Association, Washington, DC (2002), pp. 33–62.

A.J. Elliot and D.E. Conroy, Beyond the dichotomous model of achievement goals in sport and exercise psychology, Sport and Exercise Psychology Review 1 (2005), pp. 17–25.

G.L. Flett and P.L. Hewitt, The perils of perfectionism in sports and exercise, Current Directions in Psychological Science 14 (2005), pp. 14–18.

G.L. Flett and P.L. Hewitt, Perfectionism and maladjustment: An overview of theoretical, definitional, and treatment issues. In: G.L. Flett and P.L. Hewitt, Editors, Perfectionism: Theory, research, and treatment, American Psychological Association, Washington, DC (2002), pp. 5–13.

Hall, H. K. (2006). Perfectionism: A hallmark quality of world class performers, or a psychological impediment to athletic development?. In D. Hackfort, & G. Tenenbaum (Eds.), Essential processes for attaining peak performance (Vol. 1, pp. 178–211). Oxford, UK: Meyer & Meyer.

J. Stoeber and K. Otto, Positive conceptions of perfectionism: Approaches, evidence, challenges, Personality and Social Psychology Review 10 (2006), pp. 295–319.

Stoeber, J., Stoll, O., Pescheck, E., & Otto, K. (in press). Perfectionism and achievement goals in athletes: Relations with approach and avoidance orientations in mastery and performance goals. Psychology of Sport and Exercise.

Stoll, O., Lau, A. & Stoeber, J. (In Press). Perfectionism and performance in a new basketball training task: Does striving for perfection enhance or undermine performance?
Psychology of Sport and Exercise.

Olympic Top Ten Principles for MentalTraining

Dr. Sean McCann provided the following article for the "Mind Games" section of the USOC Olympic Coach E-Magazine. You can find the magazine HERE

The article is written for coaches, but is clearly applicable to athletes as well.

USOC SPORT PSYCHOLOGY’S “TOP TEN” GUIDING PRINCIPLES FOR MENTAL TRAINING
By Sean McCann, Ph.D., USOC Sports Psychologist

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1. Mental training can’t replace physical training and talent.

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We haven’t seen any Olympic Athlete who succeeded without doing the physical and technical work, even though we have worked with some of the most mentally talented athletes in the world. The reality is that even an exceptionally talented athlete who has not prepared well physically loses confidence and is vulnerable in competition. The best and easiest confidence is that which comes from the knowledge that you are as prepared, or more prepared, than your competitors, and that you are physically capable of a winning performance.

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2. Physical training and physical ability isn’t enough to succeed consistently.

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On the other hand, we have worked with a number of athletes whose coaches called them “the most talented athlete on the team,” yet these athletes never achieved international success. These physically gifted athletes were not able to manage the mental demands of the sport. Some athletes can’t handle the focus and discipline of training, where others can’t handle the pressure and stress of competition. If you are lacking in either of these areas, you may succeed at times, but you will not succeed consistently.

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3. A strong mind may not win you an Olympic medal, but a weak mind will lose you one.

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It is very difficult to predict that a mentally strong athlete will win an Olympic medal, due to all the factors that play into winning a medal. There are so many variables—training, health, finances, coaching to name a few—to properly account for, that success for any athlete is never certain. On the other hand, one of the easiest predictions to make is who will fail under Olympic pressure. Athletes with an obviously weak mental game virtually never win at the biggest competitions.

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4. Coaches frequently don’t know what their athletes are thinking.

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While all great coaches pay close attention to behavior of their athletes on the field of play, very few coaches have a similarly detailed knowledge of what their athletes are thinking or should be thinking. Few coaches know enough about the specific mental “demons” all athletes have, so they are often unable to intervene when they need to at competition. We have come to the conclusion that like politics or religion, it is an area many coaches are afraid to ask about. While some coaches know that “psychological factors” were the cause of an athlete failing in competition, many of these coaches are not aware of the athlete’s mental state before they compete.

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5. Thoughts impact behavior. Consistency of thinking = consistency of behavior.

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It is a simple but powerful idea that all sport behavior starts with a thought. While much of coaching focuses on making sport behavior more consistent and controllable, much less of coaching focuses on making thinking more consistent and controllable. Because of this, many coaches are surprised by not only the difference between their athletes’ practice behavior and competition behavior but that the reason for that difference is due to how their athletes are thinking. One goal of sport psychology is to understand and control the thinking process, therefore understanding and controlling behavior.

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6. Coaches often have a different view of changing technical mistakes vs. mental mistakes.

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As sport psychologists, we are optimistic about the ability to work on mental mistakes. Thus we are often surprised when coaches are willing to write off an athlete as a “choker” when they repeat mental mistakes in competition. These are often the same coaches who will work literally for years with an athlete on a repeated technical mistake. To a coach who says, “I don’t think they’ll ever do it”, we ask, “How many times have you specifically worked on changing the mental mistakes? What drills have you tried? How do you give the athlete feedback on his mental mistake? Does the athlete know exactly how she should think? Have you had this discussion?”

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7. Coaches must be involved in the mental training process.

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Historically, in sport psychology, we have heard coaches say after a strong period of training before the season “Well, now it is all mental. Now it is up to the sport psychologist!” While it is nice to feel important to a team’s success, we have learned from hard experience that it is all wrong for coaches to “outsource” mental training and sport psychology to a sport psychology consultant. We have learned that many elite coaches feel out of their comfort zone when dealing with in mental training issues, and fear asking probing questions about how an athlete thinks and feels. We have also learned to push coaches to go past their fears and get used to coaching the mental as well as the physical athlete. If coaches don’t become the prime provider of sport psychology for their teams, all kinds of teaching opportunities and chances for excellence will be missed. At worst, coaches who are unaware of their athletes’ mental skill building will coach in ways that oppose or undermine the mental skills acquired. The bottom line is that coaches must be involved in mental training for it to be successful.

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8. Sometimes it is ok to force athletes to take the time to do mental training.

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The USOC’s Sport Psychology Department’s philosophy on this topic has evolved over the past ten years. In the past, we were unwilling to say that all teams should do some form of mental training. We had been fairly passive, waiting for coaches to approach us with requests for service. Unfortunately, many of those requests came from coaches who had seen their athlete melt down in the biggest competition of their life. Obviously, it is too late at that point!Surprisingly, many coaches seem willing to accept an athlete’s reassurance, “My mental game is just fine.” Why, when you wouldn’t ask the athlete to determine if his technique is “just fine”, do you let the athlete avoid working on their mental game for years until a crisis forces them to admit they need work? At the USOC, we are now quite comfortable pushing athletes into doing the mental training work, even if they don’t always see the value at first.

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9. Like any other skill, mental skills need to be measured in order to maximize performance of those skills.

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“What gets measured, gets done.” This old expression from business writer Peter Lynch is useful for coaching as well. Just as ski coaches time training runs, or basketball coaches calculate free throw shooting percentages, application of mental skills can be measured. Moreover, they MUST be measured if they are to change. Once you think of mental skills as behaviors to be measured, you can begin to use your own coaching creativity to teach, modify, and increase the use of, mental skills.

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10. Coaches need to think about their own mental skills

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Most coaches can readily see that the same skills they are teaching their athletes are also useful for their own work in coaching. With the amount of pressure coaches face, for example, the ability to manage emotions, control arousal, game plan, and simulate pressure are all useful for coaches.

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This is an excerpt from the Coaches Guide – Mental Training Manual, USOC Sport Psychology staff. This manual is available from the USOC for $24.95, call 719.866.4517 for more information.

Even Fighters Get the Blues

Even Fighters Get The Blues

By Dr. Randy Borum

'Even Fighters Get The Blues' was first run in Issue 30 of Fighters Only Magazine.

Fighters are known for their toughness. Either they have it or they develop it. They have to be tough to succeed in a sport that’s all about giving and receiving pain and dominating an opponent.

But fighters are also human, and fighting is an emotional sport. Fighters are at least as vulnerable as everyone else to experiencing depression and other psychological problems. At 6’2” and 270 lbs you can tell right away that Vincent Lucero – a professional mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter – is not a ‘weak’ dude. But when he is depressed, that is how he says he feels – “weak and pathetic”. Vince’s struggle with depression began when he was a child. At six years old, he can vividly remember wanting to die.

His childhood was rough. After authorities took young Vince away from his abusive parents, he bounced between foster homes and psychiatric hospitals. He was even abused by a foster parent who told him, “nobody cared for me or loved me, and if I said anything, nobody would care anyway.” All this before his seventh birthday. During his adolescence, he had “three ambulance rides and two helicopter rides” as a result of his multiple suicide attempts.

Even in his adulthood “the depression never left,” he says. When his first daughter was about two years old, Vince remembers calling on the phone to talk to her, “crying with a gun, thinking I’ll say bye and I’m done. But I would hear her, and she would say ‘I love you DaDa’, and I always put the gun down.”

Vince is a tough guy, with a tough disease that affects tens of millions of people every year – depression. He speaks openly about his struggle and is approached often by others who say they have endured similar challenges. One in four people in Britain who see a General Practitioner suffer from clinical depression. In the US, at least one in five people each year will have an episode of depressive illness. In some cases, the problems are obvious, but at other times people may be able to hide or cover their pain for years.

Dr. Margaret Goodman chairs the Medical Advisory Board of the Nevada State Athletic Commission. She believes that “Mental health disorders are just as important as any other health issue facing our boxers, but are frequently overlooked. Why? There is still a stigma attached to insinuating a weakness. This could not be further from the truth. Excuses come to mind like, ‘Oh, what do you expect. Of course he’s depressed, he just lost.’”

Depressive illness (or clinical depression) is different than a normal period of feeling down after being disappointed or after something bad happens. The symptoms are worse, they last longer and there are more of them. It is not caused by a weak will or personality. It is a serious health condition that can ruin relationships, careers, and lives.

Mike Tyson has publicly reported numerous bouts with depression, a condition he says he has battled all his life. Boxing great George Foreman is reported to have become severely depressed following his loss to Muhammad Ali. UFC fighter Frank Trigg, after losing his UFC 47 match against Matt Hughes, said he went into “a deep, deep downward spiral” that led to a “very severe…eight-month depression.” Even Fighters Only’s own heavyweight star Ian ‘The Machine’ Freeman has revealed that he is, in fact human, and had struggled with dark periods in his earlier years.

It may be harder sometimes to spot depression in men than in women. Studies usually show that women are more likely than men to be diagnosed with depression, but many professionals and researchers believe that men get it just as often. They suspect that men may experience and show depression differently than women do. Depressed women’s moods are often sad and they may be prone to frequent bouts of crying. The mood problems of depressed men, though, often appear in the form of irritability and anger.

Depressed men also may be more prone to have physical symptoms – unexplained fatigue, headaches, stomachaches, general soreness, pain and physical discomfort. Instead of appearing clingy or needy, depressed men tend to isolate themselves socially and try to keep their negative feelings inside. Some experts call it covert depression. One author calls it ‘Irritable Male Syndrome’.

Guys may also be more prone to cover or escape from their depression by self medicating with drugs or alcohol or even exercise. Physical exercise may help as a short-term strategy, but for some it becomes a compulsion. They cannot seem to work out hard enough or long enough, even when they are injured or their bodies are telling them to slow down.

Terrance Real, author of I Don’t Want to Talk About It: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression says that men often harbour a hidden depression. “One of the ironies about men’s depression,” Real says, “is that the very forces that help create it prevent us from seeing it. Men are not supposed to be vulnerable. Pain is something we are to rise above.” Some see depression itself as ‘unmanly’ or associate it with feminine emotionality. As a result, friends and family may not see sadness and tears, “What you see are the footprints of depression or the defences a man is using to run from it.” According to Real, those footprints usually involve self-medication with booze or drugs, risk taking (like gambling, driving fast, or womanising), radical isolation and lashing out at others.

Eventually, depression tends to break through these fragile defences. When it does, it can be overwhelming and shocking to nearly everyone. It may look like it came out of nowhere or be thought of as just a phase. Dr. William Pollack of the Harvard Medical School says “Boys are trained in ways that make it likely they get depression later. If it doesn’t destroy their relationships sooner, it shows up by midlife. Midlife crisis is euphemism for male-based depression.”

Though studies show that about twenty percent of people will have at least one serious episode of depressive illness in their lifetime, some people are at greater risk than others. Many fighters seem to have backgrounds that are loaded with those risk factors –having been abused as a child, bad childhood relationships with their parents, childhood loss of a parent, marital / relationship problems, and low social support.

Do fighters have higher rates of depression than non-fighters? No one has studied the issue, so we do not know for sure. Some pro fighters have said that boxing, wrestling or martial arts somehow provided an outlet for them when other parts of their lives were in chaos. No doubt, the strength and resilience that got them through adversity growing up also gets them through some tough times in training and competition. Former five-time world boxing champion Johnny Tapia, who recalls trying to end his own life at least six times, says he turned to boxing as an outlet for the frustration and anger he felt from a traumatic childhood. Former middleweight boxing champion Bernard Hopkins says it bluntly: “Boxing saved my life.”

Training and fighting may help some combat sport athletes cope with their negative mood states, but when depression goes untreated, it can also interfere significantly with athletic performance. Depression can disrupt concentration and focus. It can deplete energy levels and motivation. When people are depressed, they often are plagued by negative thoughts that can seriously undermine their confidence. Sleeping and eating patterns get disrupted. Motor skills and reaction times can slow down. It is a bad deal if you are competing or preparing for a fight. Few who saw it will ever forget watching former WBC heavyweight champion Oliver McCall as he refused to fight and began weeping during his bout with Lennox Lewis.

Despite the risks, researchers say that most people with depression never get the help they need. Some cases go unrecognised, but other times people feel too ashamed to reach out for help. Without treatment, those who have one depressive episode, are much more likely to have another. The disease may get worse. Depression may take its final toll – collapsing the fighter’s spirit and casting upon the mind a seemingly boundless shadow of hopelessness. In the US, someone commits suicide every 16.2 minutes. Eight of every ten of them are men. A half million people in America and over 140,000 in England and Wales alone attempt suicide each year.

The stakes are high, but there is good reason to be hopeful. Whether or not there is a ‘cure’, depression is very treatable. Success rates exceed eighty percent. Therapy helps many people. A new generation of medications are very effective and have far fewer side effects than the early antidepressants. They are non-addictive and typically do not cause people to feel out of it, just ‘normal’.

If you think someone you coach or train with may be struggling with depression, experts encourage you to reach out. If you are worried they may be thinking about hurting themselves, they say it is OK to ask. You won’t ‘put the idea in their head’. The key, professionals say, is to listen, express your concern, and encourage them to seek treatment. Ignoring the hurt or dismissing it – for example, by saying ‘It can’t be that bad’ – or talking about your own problems just adds to the feelings of isolation. By being supportive and willing to listen, you may be the key to helping a friend or training partner win the toughest fight of his life.

This feature was written partially in response to the death of IFL fighter Jeremy Williams. A fund has been set up to help support his family to which the author donated his fee for this article.

Notes from the Author:

The family of recently deceased IFL fighter Jeremy Williams has
announced the creation of a trust fund to aid Williams' young
daughters in their time of need. The IFL has received many generous
offers of support, and would like to direct those individuals looking
to help the Williams family to this trust fund.

To donate to the Williams family trust fund, log on to PayPal and
click "send money" to childrentrust@aol.com. Creating an account is
free, and will allow those wishing to send money directly and securely
to the Williams family to do so with full confidence and speed.

Growth Mindset v. Fixed Mindset

The following comes from "mindsetonline" which you can access HERE.



What is MindSet?

Every so often a truly groundbreaking idea comes along. This is one. Mindset explains:

• Why brains and talent don’t bring success
• How they can stand in the way of it
• Why praising brains and talent doesn’t foster self-esteem and accomplishment, but jeopardizes them
• How teaching a simple idea about the brain raises grades and productivity
• What all great CEOs, parents, teachers, athletes know

Mindset is a simple idea discovered by world-renowned Stanford University psychologist Carol Dweck in decades of research on achievement and success—a simple idea that makes all the difference.

In a fixed mindset, people believe their basic qualities, like their intelligence or talent, are simply fixed traits. They spend their time documenting their intelligence or talent instead of developing them. They also believe that talent alone creates success—without effort. They’re wrong.

In a growth mindset, people believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work—brains and talent are just the starting point. This view creates a love of learning and a resilience that is essential for great accomplishment. Virtually all great people have had these qualities.

Teaching a growth mindset creates motivation and productivity in the worlds of business, education, and sports. It enhances relationships.

You can test your MindSet online by clicking HERE.

Why Should Fighters Care About Sport Psychology?

Why should fighters care about sport psychology?

Dr. Randy Borum



Lots of people have said that combat sports and other high-level competitive activities are 10% physical and 90% mental. That's probably exaggerated, and of course there is no real way to measure the relative importance, but it does suggest - at least - that your mental condition and performance are critical elements of your game.

Research conducted with Olympic and other elite athletes shows that mental or psychological factors become more important as you reach higher levels of competition. Most athletes spend much more time on physical training than on mental training, but physical conditioning usually peaks out before mental conditioning. So improving psychological skills will probably yield greater benefits for professional and amateur fighters than for those who train just for fun and fitness.

Sport psychology applies psychological methods and principles to improve sport performance. It won't magically transform a bad fighter into a great one. Its fundamental purpose is to help athletes achieve their potential. That task may require removing (or treating) psychological barriers, building psychological skills, or a combination of both. If a fighter has some psychological disorder – like depression – which is interfering with his life and competitive performance, that condition obviously should be treated. This, however, is probably the narrowest and most infrequent application of sport psychology. Most interventions are designed to address some sport-specific problem like fight night anxiety or to enhance performance.

What fighters should understand about sport psychology is that there are many interventions that have been proven in research and in the ring, but that they rarely come in the form of a "quick fix." You might perfectly demonstrate and explain a "flying armbar" to a novice grappler, but you probably would not expect him or her to execute it flawlessly after one lesson. Fighters seem to understand that physical skills require practice, but seem often to assume that psychological skills like concentration, managing arousal levels, and mental toughness should come naturally – or even that they can't be learned. Not true. They can be learned, but mastering them requires practice.

At the most basic level, there are three components of your fight performance that are affected by psychological factors – you can improve all of them: Thoughts (Cognition); Feelings (Emotion) and Physical (Somatic). Each of these affects the other in different orders at different times. A random thought like "What happens if I lose? My family and students are here. I'll be letting them down and I'll be humiliated" can almost immediately cause feelings of nervousness and anxiety, which then produce physical sensations like shaking, rapid heart beat, hyperventilation or nausea. But that's not the end of the cycle. Your mind interprets those physical symptoms as signs that your body is in danger or trouble. You begin to think: "Oh sh**, I'm going to die…or at least throw up in front of God and everybody – then die of humiliation." This, of course makes you more anxious, which makes your body react more until you've spiraled down to get yourself in a pretty bad state.

It doesn't have to start with a thought either. It may begin with some feeling – maybe a lack of confidence – or a physical sensation, like "butterflies," but if left unchecked, the cycle can easily take on a life of its own, controlling how you perform. The solution – just like fight strategy – lies in preparing for what might happen and building a skill set to respond effectively. Sport psychology interventions help fighters develop competition-related control over their thoughts, feelings, and their bodies. In a match, you will know how to direct those processes, rather than just react to them. A good fighter would never walk into the ring or cage, not having trained and just thinking "I'll see if he attacks and if, so I'll just try to counter somehow. I'll worry about that if it happens." A good fighter prepares rigorously, develops plans for as many scenarios as possible, and develops the necessary skills to execute those plans before stepping in to fight. Psychological skills require no less preparation and deserve no less attention than other aspects of conditioning.

How do we prepare to "get in front of" the problem? One approach is what I call the "theory of mutually incompatible responses." There's probably a better name for it. I'll work on that and I'll discuss the basic principle in the next post.

Why Should Fighters Care About Sport Psychology?: Part II

Why Should Fighters Care About Sport Psychology?: Part II

By Dr. Randy Borum



In my last Bulletin I discussed how thoughts, emotions, and physical condition all affect competitive performance and all affect each other. I suggested that being proactive or getting "in front of" the problem were keys to promoting a positive – rather than negative – training effect. I referred to the process of doing this as one of developing and using "mutually incompatible responses." Let me explain.

When you *direct* your thoughts, feelings, and physical condition – and you definitely can learn to do that – you are less vulnerable to negative influence than if you are just reacting. Strategically, it's like setting the pace or making an opponent fight your fight. If you are actively engaging in positive self talk, it is difficult to simultaneously entertain thoughts of losing. If you are feeling confident, it is difficult to simultaneously feel anxious. If your muscles are relaxed, they cannot also be tense. And because we know the three components are inter-related, if you have positive control over one, you can often influence the others. Psychologist Edmund Jacobson once said: "An anxious mind cannot exist in a relaxed body."

Self-Monitoring Skills

If the fighter's goal is to control his thinking, emotions and physical state, he must first learn to be aware of them. You have to know how each component is operating before you can effectively change it. There are a couple of ways get started.

Some sport psychologists recommend that you vividly recall an episode of "best" and "worst" performance (obviously, not at the same time) and begin to "get inside" those sensations and the differences between them. How well this will work for you depends a bit on how well you can do guided imagery (I will do a post on sports imagery and visualization as we go along). The exercise would go something like this:

Recall a period of peak performance, preferably one from competition, but otherwise you can use a specific sparring or training session. This should be a time when you were at the top of your game, everything was flowing naturally, and you were feeling "in the zone." Close your eyes, take three of four deep breaths from your abdomen, relax, then begin to imagine the scene.

When the images first come to mind, you might be watching it from the outside – as if watching someone else or watching yourself on a video screen. You want to work toward stepping inside yourself so that you are experiencing the scene from the inside – as if you were re-living it. Once you have set a vivid scene – noticing the details of how things look, the sounds, and the environment, begin shift your focus internally.

First, notice how your body feels. Check your muscles – where they are tense and where they are relaxed. Check your overall energy level, heartbeat and how your are breathing. Think about whether - and the extent to which - your performance felt arduous, forced, or effortful, rather than natural, effortless, and flowing.

Next, get inside your head. Assess your level of concentration and ability to focus. Also, listen to your self-talk – Be aware of the nature of what you are saying to yourself and the thoughts that are coming into your head.

Finally, check your mood – emotions – how you are feeling. Think about what word best captures your mood – elated, proud, excited, etc. Assess your confidence level – how strong is your belief in you're your skills and abilities. Also think about whether – and the extent to which – you feel in control of your thoughts, body, emotions and overall performance.

Spend about 5-10 minutes doing this exercise with a best performance scenario. Make notes to yourself on the specifics and perhaps even use some checklist or rating sheet like the one below to record you peak performance observations. Then repeat the exercise and evaluation with a worst performance scenario. Compare the differences.

Checklist of Performance States

Fought extremely well 1 2 3 4 5 6 Fought extremely poorly
Felt extremely relaxed 1 2 3 4 5 6 Felt extremely anxious
Felt extremely confident 1 2 3 4 5 6 Felt extremely unconfident
Felt in complete control 1 2 3 4 5 6 Had no control at all
Muscles were relaxed 1 2 3 4 5 6 Muscles were tense
Felt extremely energetic 1 2 3 4 5 6 Felt extremely fatigued
Self-talk was positive 1 2 3 4 5 6 Self-talk was negative
Felt extremely focused 1 2 3 4 5 6 Felt extremely unfocused
Felt effortless 1 2 3 4 5 6 Felt great effort

The point of doing this exercise is to get you notice how your body feels, how you are thinking, what you are thinking, and how you are feeling at different points in time. It is called self-monitoring, and it is a skill that can be acquired with practice. You can also begin to monitor and record these things during training so that you can identify relevant triggers or cues that affect your performance. You might keep a log that you write in briefly after every practice to describe your thoughts, feelings, and physical states what happened immediately before they occurred, how you responded, and how they affected your performance. Self awareness will help you to identify positive psychological states that you can create, develop and build and to recognize negative thoughts, feelings and states that may interfere with your performance, so that you can develop a plan to correct them.

The Psychology of Fighting

Keep Them Out of Your Head: The Psychology of Fighting

By Dr. Randy Borum



The "stare down" right before the fight – the last chance to play mind games before the leather starts to fly. No contact. No talking. But there is definitely an exchange. Each fighter trying to intimidate the other before the battle begins. Sometimes it turns ugly – witness Heath Herring's pre-fight knockout of Yoshihiro Nakao after Nakao tried to mess with Herring's head by kissing him on the lips.

Fighters use different tactics to get into their opponents' heads. During pre-fight interviews they may talk about gaps in the other one's game. They may talk trash, boast about the pain they will inflict or the speed with which they will win. Your opponent may kick down the door to get in your head, or you might leave the door open and invite him in.

Whether your opponent does it to you or you do it to yourself, having him in your head – in a nagging, negative – way is a problem. Think of it as an attack on your confidence and focus. Your belief in yourself and your ability keep your head in the fight are two of your most important skills. You have to keep your guards up.

When you are making a plan to defend against these mind games, remember that confidence and concentration are skills. Sure, some people are naturally better at it than others. But they are skills that you can train and improve upon. Like all fighting skills they get better with practice.

Confidence

Confidence is usually defined by sport psychologists as an athlete's belief in his ability to perform a desired behavior. According to researchers, confidence improves your performance in many ways. Confidence causes you to set more challenging goals for yourself; put forth greater effort; have better focus and concentration; and become less anxious in threatening situations than people who feel less sure of the abilities.

Feeling confident reduces anxiety and "negative emotions," and it promotes positive emotions, which further boost performance. Confidence also gives a fighter a boost of psychological momentum that can keep him focused on fighting to win, not just avoiding a loss. All those benefits really stack the deck in your favor when you step into the ring or cage or onto the mat.

You can be confident without being a great fighter, but it is hard to be a great fighter without being confident. How do you build and defend confidence for a fight? The first requirement is good training and conditioning. Your confidence should be based realistically on how you have performed in the past and how you have trained to perform in the upcoming fight. Self-assurance, without skill to back it up, is just false confidence.

You are more likely to feel confident in you ability to work hard for three, five-minute rounds, if you have been regularly training at high-intensity for four or five, five-minute bursts at a time. The requirements of the fight should seem easier than what you have accomplished in training.

You can draw on your past successes. Think about the people you have beaten in the past. Think about training or sparring sessions where you completely dominated your opponent. Think about how much you have accomplished in training for this fight. Even if you are selectively focusing on your best moments, your past success will provide a very credible push to your confidence.

Visualization and positive self-talk also can be powerful confidence boosters. You can rehearse in your mind a variety of situations that you may encounter with your upcoming opponent, and visualize yourself working through each of them effectively. Mental practice is not as beneficial as actual practice, but it definitely helps. It can enhance your confidence in the fight because you will have met those challenges before in your mind.

Positive self-talk will also build confidence. You might develop a list of positive fight-related self statements based on how you see your strengths and abilities. You might have some statements that relate to your preparation like "I have trained well for this fight. I have met every training goal." You may have some that relate to specific facets of your fight game, like "I'm very comfortable on the ground. I can control my opponent from my back and dominate from the top." You may have some that relate to your self-image as a winning fighter, like. "I am an explosive, hard-hitting fighter. My hands and my takedowns are extremely powerful."

Notice the words "explosive" and "powerful." These are examples of emotional cue words – you may just have a list of these kinds of words you can rehearse in your head. They are quick and easy to use and will help ramp up your intensity and bolster your confidence.

With these strategies you are protecting your confidence by taking an offensive posture. You are not just trying to get rid of the sinking feelings of doom or the nagging thoughts as they creep in. You are no longer reacting, you are directing. You mind is not waiting for input, but you are actively engaging your mind about what thoughts to think and your body about what sensations to feel. It is much harder to worry over negative thoughts, when you are rehearsing positive ones. In fact, if you are in doubt about what do to, just act the way a confident fighter would act. Behave as a confident person would, and you may find that the positive thoughts and feelings follow more easily.

Focus

By allowing your opponent to live inside your head, besides losing confidence, the other hazard is losing focus. Concentration, like confidence is a skill you can learn. We are talking about your ability to identify and keep your attention on fight-related cues, and not to be distracted by irrelevant cues.

When fighters talk trash or intentionally behave in a disrespectful way, they often are trying to throw an opponent off his mental game. The goal is to get him thinking about things that are unrelated to his fight preparation or to arouse emotions that disrupt his arousal/intensity regulation. When you allow that to happen, you let your opponent have a degree of psychological control over you.

You know what is relevant. You know your optimal zone of arousal or intensity. By actively managing the perceptions that you control, you are not as vulnerable to having your opponent tamper with them.

Concentration is not just controlled by an on/off switch. You have to use it in different ways at different times for different functions. Sport psychologist Robert Nideffer says that concentration can be more broad or narrow in scope and more internal or external in its direction. A broad-external focus might be taking in all the sights and sounds of the arena as it is "on fire" before the fight. A narrow-external focus might be watching your opponent's hands. A broad-internal focus might be a "gut check" reflection on how you are feeling before the fight. A narrow-internal focus might be feeling the muscular tension in your shoulders and neck or hearing the voice that says: "You're going to lose."

Before and during a fight you will be constantly moving between different levels of concentration. As you wait backstage, you may be strategizing about how you plan to show a high level of aggression early in the fight (broad-internal). As you move around the ring during the fighter introductions, you may be visualizing the initial fight contact (narrow-internal).

This description may make concentration sound like a lot of work. In truth, with practice, your head will go to the right place at the right time and filter out the stuff that does not matter. You will be in the present, not thinking about what just happened or what is going to happen. This is the feeling of flow or being "in the zone." You are executing flawlessly, without consciously thinking about the steps, and without analyzing your performance. But it does take practice.

The visualization and self-talk strategies already mentioned can also be helpful here. For example, if you are hearing your opponent's trash talk, you might say to yourself: "That doesn't have anything to do with this fight. He's trying to distract me, so that must mean he's worried about pitting his skills against mine." You might also use your cue words. You might visualize yourself being calm and relaxed while you opponent throws a verbal fit or does something else in the ring or cage that is likely to distract you. You mentally rehearse staying focused.

Another drill you can use to improve distraction control during a fight is to intentionally use distracters during training. You might get a recording of a crowd – maybe cheering, maybe booing – or even get a group of other people from your school to watch and to yell. Another trick is to play irritating music or sounds very loudly during training. If you are having trouble thinking of any, National Public Radio has "The Annoying Music Show" that features some of the worst music ever recorded. After two rounds of Alvin and the Chipmunks or vomiting sounds or babies crying, a booing crowd or loudmouth fighter might not seem so bad.

We often use music to pump us up when we train. This exercise helps us perform when the environment around us is antagonizing. If you want to throw in an extra twist, you can designate a corner person to communicate with you through the distraction. Maybe see how well you can attend through the interference. You might try this first with high-intensity pad work, then work up to doing it during full-speed sparring.

When you take charge of your mind, it is tough for an opponent to get inside your head. Keep your confidence high, stay focused, and fight hard.



This article appears in Issue #2 of "Mixed Martial Arts Authority" Magazine
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