The Matrix

The Matrix is about a computer hacker who learns about the true nature of reality.

Release Year: 1999
Rating: R
Length: 136m

For more information, view its pages at the Internet Movie Database and Rotten Tomatoes or purchase it from Amazon.

The Karate Kid

The Karate Kid is about a young boy who learns from a master the physical and mental aspects of karate.

Release Year: 1984
Rating: PG
Length: 126m

For more information, view its pages at the Internet Movie Database and Rotten Tomatoes or purchase it from Amazon.

Anger and Fighting in Competition

Editor’s Note: This blog has been a bit dormant for a while, but apparently some people are still discovering and finding it useful. I thank you for your kind comments. Despite our low activity, we were recently named among the “Top Martial Arts Sites” by The MMA Zone. I was grateful and honored by the recognition and thought I would try to revive the site - if only temporarily– until reality sets in again. So, here goes… Paddles…. CLEAR … BEEEEEEP…

Optimal arousal (heh, heh… you said “arousal”, heh, heh) is a key to performing effectively in competition. But what is “optimal”? Excellent question. Some of you might remember the old “Inverted U” hypothesis. In psychology books, it is known as the Yerkes-Dodson Law. The basic idea is that anxiety (or physiological arousal, more generally) in small to moderate doses tends to help competitive performance by accelerating your drive and energy. But at a certain point, arousal becomes too high and it begins to impair performance. When arousal is working for you, that’s being in “the zone.” Crank it up past that point, and the upward line in the upside down “U” begins to turn downward. Pretty basic.

But if you watch combat sport athletes, you’ve probably noticed an incredible range in emotional intensity – even among the winners. That seems to defy the idea that there is one optimal point for everyone.

An alternative to the Inverted U is the Individual Zones of Optimal Functioning -or IZOF model. The IZOF model suggests that “the zone” of optimal emotional and physiological intensity varies for each individual athlete. One of the areas where I’ve seen this most clearly with fighters specifically is in how they handle or use anger.

Anger generally tends to charge your arousal level. Your thoughts are racing. Your body is revved up. And your emotions are running high. Is that a good thing? That depends. It depends on who you are and how you handle it. I remember chatting with one young fighter – a super nice guy who was not naturally aggressive - saying how he was trying to work himself up to “hate the guy” who he was opposing in the cage. He thought that he needed hate and anger to tap into his inner barbarian .. or something like that.

Anger can sometimes generate drive and energy. But it can also sometimes drain it. And it will often overshadow the part of your brain responsible for anticipation, planning and strategy. So there can be a steep cost as well.

Recently, researchers in Finland took a look at how anger affected the performance of 20 high-level (international) competitive karate athletes. They measured the athlete’s expression of anger and asked them to recall their best and worst competitive performance – before during and after. As the IZOF model would predict, responses were all over the map. Just over half had low anger in their best and their worst performances. For these competitors, anger was neither a handy tool nor an impediment.

Another group tended to notice a rise in anger intensity in their worst performances – more so in the pre- and post-fight situations than in the competition itself. What did seem to make a difference was the athlete’s ability to regulate or control his or her level of anger intensity and perceiving that he or she had enough coping resources to deal with the stress and frustrations of competitive adversity.

Here’s one way to look at these results: When you can selectively summon and carefully control your anger, you can use it as an energizing resource. But when anger is prompted by an opponent, it may signal to your brain that you are in trouble making it worry that you don’t have enough resources to cope. Becoming angry may be different than allowing an opponent to make you angry. When you react with anger you give up a measure self-control. You may get a boost of intensity, but you may also be more prone to tactical and strategic mistakes. Know yourself.

Ruiz, M., & Hanin, Y. (2011). Perceived impact of anger on performance of skilled karate athletes Psychology of Sport and Exercise DOI: 10.1016/j.psychsport.2011.01.005

The Psychology of Reality-Based Self Defense

The Psychology of Reality-Based Self Defense
By Dr. Randy Borum
(Article first published in Black Belt Magazine, October, 2008)

You have seen the advertising headlines. They prey upon the nagging fear that maybe you and your family will be violently attacked by a stranger “on the street.” They promise you life-saving “secrets” that will give any middle-aged business traveler the defensive acumen of an elite military operator. All contained in a set of DVDs. This has become the marketing platform for many of the so-called “Reality-Based” martial arts programs. Can the promises live up to the hype? Here are a couple of ideas to consider:

Learning to defend yourself requires training for self-defense: This may seem like the ultimate obvious point, but it carries two important implications. First, effective self-defense preparation requires actual physical practice – quite often, a lot of practice – to assure proper execution of even a couple of basic maneuvers. Based on what is known about human performance and motor skill learning, it would be nearly impossible for someone simply to read about a technique in a book or even watch it several times on a video, and then be able to perform the skill correctly. When you factor in the stress of being in a life-threatening situation, the chances of doing it right dwindle even further. Repeated and ongoing physical practice is a necessary condition for self-defense training. The DVDs may contain some great moves, but without a lot of physical practice, they probably won’t work for you when you need them.

The second implication is that training to defend your life can be quite different from training to master a particular martial art or fighting system. There is a mythical motto often heard in law enforcement and military combatives training that “under stress you will revert to your training.” This is only partially true. Under stressful or threatening conditions, your dominant response emerges. Getting the trained response to be the dominant response takes practice.

Just knowing a technique will not make it an automatic response. It is quite possible even to train a skill, but not be able to perform it if attacked. When I was a police officer (before I was a psychologist), I knew of multiple situations where a professional who had demonstrated classroom proficiency in defensive tactics and qualified as “expert” on the range could not apply either skill under high-risk conditions. Law enforcement has since moved to using more active, dynamic, scenario-based training. This is essential for transferring defensive skills to unpredictable, life-threatening encounters.

Self-Defense requires learning how to respond to an attack: We have established the point that getting your body to respond properly to defend you will require that you engage in physical practice and train under dynamic, unscripted conditions. Your brain has to work too, though. An advantage of training in reality-based systems is that you can gain experience getting hit and attacked. Believe it or not, this is an incredibly valuable experience – at least from the perspective of self-defense training. In a violent encounter, fear is not necessarily your enemy. Panic or “freezing” might be. You definitely need to keep your head in the game.

For most Americans, the statistical likelihood of being violently attacked by a stranger is is pretty remote. And most of the good people who read Black Belt Magazine certainly aren’t going to go looking for a fight. But some coward, drunk or bad guy hunting for trouble may cross your path, and chances are they will not be looking to fight fair. For many normal, law-abiding people, the experience of being hit in the face the first time is shocking and disorienting. Those moments of dismay when you are reflecting on the pain in your cheek or asking “What the hell????” are the moments your attacker is delivering the second or third blows. You may have lost before you even have a chance to think of that super-cool move you just learned on your new DVD set. If you are attacked, keeping your mental composure is every bit as important as knowing self-defense techniques. You must prepare to act under attack.

Find out what works for you. Some reality-based programs tell you that they are based on “natural” or “instinctive” human reactions. Others claim to have universal principles that are guaranteed to work in any situation. The reality (pun intended) is that situations vary and people who want to defend themselves are different from one another. When it comes to learning self-defense, one size does not fit all. Human beings are pretty complicated. Not everyone has an inner, violent barbarian just waiting to be unleashed. History is full of examples where armed people were killed by their attackers, even when they had opportunity to use their weapons.

If you are shopping for a self-defense system, you need to set realistic expectations about what you hope to accomplish based on the time you are willing to invest in training and on what feels right for you. Remember the power of the dominant response? Psychological theory and research show that people decide whether or not to act depending on whether they think can execute a skill effectively and whether doing so will cause them to be successful in accomplishing a goal. You need to develop confidence that you can respond in a particular way to an attack and a belief that it will work. This is part of what you hope to accomplish through repetition and practice in dynamic scenario-based training. Does it feel “natural” or do-able for you? Can you see yourself responding in this way under an actual attack? If not, perhaps that particular system is not a good fit for you.

There is no quick fix, or one-size-fits-all system for effective self-defense. Even carrying a weapon does not assure your survival. If your goal is self-defense, you should train specifically for that skill – not just for practicing an art. Regardless of the method or system you choose, it will be important to consider the critical role of maintaining mental composure and preparing to survive and respond to an attack. Finally, you should make sure that you have confidence in your approach to self-defense and in your ability to use it under the most stressful conditions. That is when you will need it most – really.

The Science of Excellence

The Science of Excellence

by Dr. Randy Borum

First Published in Black Belt Magazine, August, 2008

Sport psychology is only one of the sport science disciplines to advance remarkably over the past 25 years. Mental skills training can improve any martial artist’s performance, whether for a beginner or an experienced practitioner. But the competitive “edge” is usually most significant at the elite levels of competition where fractions of a second and fractions of a point determine the winners.

Elite athletes are generally defined as those who compete professionally or on National and International teams. This designation suggests the individual has acquired a high level of expertise in his or her sport. Sport expertise is a topic of great interest to sport psychologists. But what creates “expertise”? Research shows that some of the key factors are: Lots of deliberate practice, high-level coaching, ongoing 360-degree view of the athlete, and a supportive yet challenging training environment.

Deliberate practice: Training and practice only facilitate expertise when certain conditions are met. It is true that expert martial artists probably practice more, than novices, but achieving optimal results from training time requires quality, not just quantity. For practice to produce maximum benefit, the martial artist first must be motivated to attend to the task and also be working actively to improve performance. It is also critical that the practitioner receive specific and immediate feedback about her or his performance and that the same or similar performance tasks be repeated frequently. Practice may not count when you are just bouncing with a beat, singing along, running through the day’s “to-do” list in your head. Deliberate practice requires that you maintain focus, monitor and modify your behaviors, and really work to improve your skill.

High-level coaching: Martial artists who seek to be the best often seek out the best possible instructors and coaching. Expert coaches tend to have higher levels of domain-specific knowledge in their art, and tend to plan and structure practice sessions more carefully. With regard to martial art knowledge, coaches at the elite level have in-depth knowledge of the tactical, technical and general aspects of the art and can adjust the type of instruction to the practitioner’s needs and skill level. With athletes who are more advanced, they tend to spend a greater proportion of time discussing tactical instruction, rather than reviewing fine points of the fundamentals. As for structuring practice, Joseph Baker and his colleagues from Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada conclude that: “Meticulous planning of practice is one hallmark of coaching expertise. Voss (and colleagues) found that expert coaches spent more time planning practices and were more precise in their goals and objectives for the practice session than their non-expert counterparts.”

360-Degree athlete monitoring: It typically takes much more than desire to build an elite-level martial artist. It requires a systematic and ongoing assessment of all key domains of human performance and the resources to meet the needs. The sport of mixed martial arts, for example, is generating more and more professional fighters, but many of these athletes and their schools are not prepared to support elite-level training. Consider the US Olympic Training Center or the Australian Institute of Sports – these institutions have created an infrastructure to nurture excellence with the best knowledge and resources that the sport sciences have to offer. Their services include sports medicine, physical therapies, strength and conditioning, sport/performance psychology, nutrition, biomechanics, and physiological testing. Each athlete is assessed in each domain. Their status is monitored, and their training plan is modified accordingly within a long-range plan to prepare them to perform optimally during competition. Someone has to be looking at the “big picture” for every athlete all the time and have access to specialized resources to respond to specific needs. Life also overlaps with training, so that changes in family relationships, school, work, finances, or health can substantially affect an elite martial artist’s competitive performance. Hence, the need for 360-degree monitoring – viewing simultaneously all aspect of the athlete’s life, capacity, status, and behavior.

Optimal training environment: Constant surveillance over all aspects of the athlete’s training, life and status - with unrelenting pressure to perform - can be extremely stressful. Managing that pressure is one of the skills elite-level athletes must acquire. But coaches and others responsible for training also must be mindful and thoughtful about the culture or climate of the training environment. Studies indicate that athletes believe the coach is the primary force in creating the motivational climate of training. Research has also shown that elite-level athletes tend to prefer and respond best to a motivational climate that emphasizes mastery (learning, improving, gaining competence) over performance (outcomes, winning, gaining superiority). Elite athletes should be surrounded by others who are supporting their efforts to excel and who share their commitment to high-level learning. They want to be challenged, but they also want support. They want to get better, not just to be “broken.” Of course, consistent with the 360-degree view, elite level competitors must also be confident that their basic needs (and those of their families) will be met. It is difficult to focus fully on training when one is uncertain about the stability of her or his housing situation, financial preparedness, or pressing medical bills.

Wrestling, boxing, judo, taekwondo, and karate are all recognized Olympic sports with National team martial art practitioners competing at elite levels. Mixed martial arts is growing quickly as a professional sport, but often without the infrastructure or resources available to our Olympic athletes. Excellence is a team effort. Coaches and athletes must recognize and use the skills and expertise of sport science professionals to support, motivate, and nurture the next generation of elite martial artists.

Ronda Rousey Makes Judo Olympic History

America's Vegan MMA Judo Sweetheart

By Dan Steinberg
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 14, 2008; Page E09

A few minutes after Ronda Rousey became the first American woman to win an Olympic medal in judo, she was asked what she would do next.

"What am I gonna do?" she repeated. "As of right now I am a vegan. I put that off until after I was done with this tournament."

Some athletes go to Disney World; Ronda Rousey gives up dairy products.

"And then I'm gonna go home and I'm probably gonna take over the loan on my step-dad's Prius and I'm gonna drive a clean car," the bronze medalist continued. "And I'm gonna get a surfboard and learn how to surf, teach myself. I made up this long list of stuff that I couldn't do while I was training that normal people do. It's kind of too late to go to prom, but you know, I'll find something to make up for it."

Rousey's history-making day in the 70 kg competition was marked by a thoroughly odd mix of drama and comedy. At one point she dissolved in tears after losing a meeting with 2005 Dutch world champion Edith Bosch. A reporter later asked her how she recovered from that disappointment to rally in the loser's bracket; "I drank an iced tea," she said.

After her win by yuko in the bronze-medal match, she handed out enthusiastic hugs to every coach on her team; she was later asked to describe her winning throw.

"Don't ask me about terminology, I'm horrible," she said. "You're supposed to learn all that stuff to get promoted, but I never did."

She talked happily about her plans to go out in Beijing tonight, and then ran off to get the flag that was placed on her father's coffin after he committed suicide while battling a blood disorder 13 years ago this week.

None of her quirks are exactly hidden, thanks to her blog, where she has revealed that she sleeps with a stuffed ewe, is turned off when she can beat up a guy easily, looks like Julia Styles Stiles, dances naked in her living room every morning and eats imitation crab meat like string cheese. Her mom--a former U.S. world champion judo player with a PhD in education psychology--has a blog too.

"We're kind of a geeky tech family," AnnMaria De Mars said. "When I married Ronda's dad, instead of an engagement ring he got me an engagement Macintosh."

And then there's the vegan MMA thing. A reporter asked De Mars how a vegan lifestyle would squared with a violent sport like judo; "I mean, we're tough but we don't kill our opponents and eat them," she pointed out.

Rousey, 21, plans to take a year off from competition to try out college, at either Southern Cal, Pepperdine or Loyola Marymount. She said she still might try to return for the 2012 Olympics. Of course, several of Rousey's close friends from the competitive judo world have gone into mixed martial arts--Manny Gamburyan and Roman Mitichyan, for example--and they've asked her to try that as well. She's thinking about it.

"I might learn how to throw a punch, but I'm not making any promises," she said. She was asked whether she'd have the guts for that brand of fighting; "look at my face, does it look like I can take a good hit right now?" she replied, pointing to her red and battered cheeks.

De Mars, though, still needs some convincing.

"She's really smart, see that's the thing," she said. "I think if you're really really smart and you could maybe discover a new drug that cures AIDS or something you should go and do that, and let other people punch each other in the face."

Fighting for Success: Lessons from the Cage Applied to Life

Fighting for Success: Lessons from the Cage Applied to Life
(Article first appeared in MMA Authority Magazine)

By Dr. Randy Borum

Today’s mixed martial artist has become an icon of the modern gladiator. For centuries, combatant athletes and their sports have captivated the public’s interest. The events are exciting, of course, but the fighters themselves symbolize the virtue of an indomitable spirit. The mindset and character traits possessed by successful fighters can cultivate achievement in other areas of life as well.

Think about that project you have to manage, the deadline or quota you have to meet, or the critical presentation you have to deliver at work. Each of these tasks requires preparation, planning and personal readiness. You will probably encounter glitches and obstacles that you will have to overcome. Success is your ultimate goal. This is all true for fighters as well.

In this article, we will look through the eyes of a fighter to find out what it takes to succeed in whatever you do.

Make a Game Plan:

Chinese general and military strategist Sun-Tzu said: “Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.” Planning and preparation are the cornerstones of success in nearly any endeavor. Great fighters set goals for themselves to guide their training. Each goal is embedded in a larger overall training plan. Goals give a competitor something specific to strive for. Research shows that having a specific aim enhances performance beyond what you get with an unfocused, but still “go hard” attitude.

Effective goals are driven by your motivation Proper motivation provides your will to win… or to succeed. Whether you are a fighter or a businessperson, you have to understand what drives you if you are going to excel. It’s not enough just to want it, you have to be able to tap into a source of inner strength that will propel you in the direction you want to go.

Human motivation can be complex. We are drawn – simultaneously - to strive to achieve and attain our desired outcomes, while avoiding undesirable outcomes. Our driving motivations may come from within - like feelings of accomplishment or fun – or come from outside- like money or praise. Psychologists often refer to the internal motivators as intrinsic and the outside motivators as extrinsic. The top achievers in nearly every endeavor – even if they desire and receive fame and fortune – also possess a high degree of intrinsic motivation. They have the “fire in the belly.”

Ask yourself when it is that you feel most successful in what you do. What gives you the greatest feeling of joy, pride or satisfaction? What kinds of experiences make you say to yourself: “I love this stuff”?

When you understand your motivation, think about your short and long-term objectives. Think about where you want to be in your chosen field one year from now. Then chart a course – marked by a set of short-term goals – to make it happen. You may, for example, want to increase your sales volume by 10% each month for four months before asking for a raise.

A popular formula used for effective goal-setting in business and in sports in the SMART model. This suggests that your goals should be:

- Specific – because studies show that specific goals exert a greater effect on motivation and are more likely to be achieved. A specific goal might consider a time frame, units of change or other particular elements of task-related behavior.

- Measurable – because you should have a way to judge whether or not you goal has been achieved. Think about what it will look like when you meet your goal, then write it down and use that written description as your measure of success. You should also state your goal positively, stating what you WILL do, not what you WON’T do. Telling yourself what not to do almost never works.

- Attainable – because although people who set more challenging goals do tend to accomplish more than those with easy goals, the goals still much be realistic. Set yourself up to succeed.

- Relevant – because you are more likely to persist in working toward a goal that is meaningful to you. You should choose goals that are consistent with your values and priorities, so that you will be motivated to press toward them.

- Timely – because it helps to set timeframes or deadlines for specific goals, rather than just thinking it will happen “whenever.” Putting a timeframe on your goal will help to keep you focused. You can modify it if necessary, but don’t abandon your deadline without first setting a new one.

OK. Let’s say you set a goal, but you miss the mark. What do you do? Re-group, Re-formulate, and Renew your commitment. Plans are valuable. Goals are great. Their primary purpose, however, is to guide and motivate you. Let them work for you even if you do not reach them. “A goal is not always meant to be reached,” Bruce Lee said. “it often serves simply as something to aim at”

The process of planning helps you to create a blueprint for success. It focuses your mindset on victory even before you enter the ring or the boss’ office. Goal setting promotes success in a variety of ways. General (and later President) Dwight D. Eisenhower once commented that: “In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.” Do not get overly wrapped up in the outcome.

Get Tough

One of the most inspiring qualities of champion fighters is their mental toughness – the ability to persist through adversity; to never quit. In a study of the psychological characteristics of ten Olympic champions (who had accumulated a total of 32 medals), mental toughness was the most frequently mentioned trait (along with focus) by the athletes and their coaches. Many sport psychology studies highlight its importance in sport performance, particularly among elite-level athletes.

What is mental toughness? Well, it carries different meaning to different athletes. Researchers have even conducted surveys just to better understand how to define it. One of these studies conducted by Jones and colleagues and published in the Journal of Applied Sport Psychology came up with the following proposal:

“Mental toughness is having the natural or developed psychological edge that enables you to:

1) Generally, cope better than your opponents with the many demands (competition, training, lifestyle) that sport places on a performer; and,
2) Specifically, be more consistent and better than your opponents in remaining determined, focused, confident, and in control under pressure.”

For more than a hundred years psychological researchers have recognized the importance of qualities related to mental toughness. Through the years, in-depth interviews have been conducted with those considered to possess “genius” in the fields of art, music, finance, business, science, law, medicine and others. Consistently, the “stand out” performers are the ones whose passion and commitment allow them consistently to persist through adversity.

More recently, researchers in the field of “positive psychology” have explored a similar idea that they call “Grit.” University of Pennsylvania psychology professor Angela Duckworth has pioneered this line of research on “grit” without even drawing on sport psychology studies of mental toughness. But many features are remarkably similar. Duckworth defines grit as “perseverance and passion for long-term goals. Grit entails working strenuously toward challenges, maintaining effort and interest over years despite failure, adversity, and plateaus in progress.”

One of the most remarkable findings from the research on grit is that it appears to be just as important as – or perhaps more important than – IQ (natural ability) in predicting grades among Ivy league college students, retention among West Point cadets, and achievement in the National Spelling Bee. If grit and mental toughness are that important in determining who will achieve in such “intellectual” tasks, and it also consistently distinguishes top-level athletes, it probably deserves attention from anyone who wants to perform at their peak.

When a fighter has been dominated for two rounds of a three-round bout, what makes him want to continue? If an MMA fighter loses his first three professional bouts in a row, what would drive him to keep training? When you have worked tirelessly on a business proposal or project only to have it “shot down” by your supervisor, what makes you want to continue working on an idea you believe in and press on to make it better?

Recall that the research definition marks mental toughness as a natural or developed psychological edge. Mental toughness is, indeed, a skill. One that can be developed and trained. How do you develop that kind of resilience? Through preparation and practice.

A first step is learning how to pull yourself through the rough spots. As Winston Churchill said: “If you are going through hell…keep going.” This ability to transcend adversity is a key element of what psychologists call resilience. It is as important to success in business as it is in fighting.

Learning to modify and control how you think about a bad situation can really help to take the edge off of its negative effects. The best fighters don't ruminate endlessly over a loss or repeatedly beat themselves up over it. They develop an explanation that makes sense to them about "what happened" – then they figure out what they need to work on to keep that from happening again.

They console themselves with the realization that an occasional loss is virtually inevitable when you are competing at the highest levels of your sport. They do not define themselves as a “loser” simply because the lost a particular match.

When bouncing back from a loss, those with well-honed mental toughness will typically find a way to accept the loss, keep their confidence up, and develop specific, measurable goals they want to achieve in moving forward. They then get swiftly to the task of working to achieve them. Looking forward works better than continuing to look back.

Rely on Work, not Talent

Have you ever watched a co-worker deliver a pitch or conjure up an amazing report on short notice and envied their natural talent? And have you ever watched a talented fighter who doesn’t seem to work hard enough to get better? Raw talent or natural ability is not the best predictor of long-term success. And if you think it is – talented or not - you will probably limit how far you will go.

What does it take to be a champion? What separates the good from the truly great? Why do some succeed and move ahead while others are left behind? How you answer those questions probably reflects your mindset about human performance. And your mindset will drive your confidence, effort, persistence, and – ultimately your achievement.

In the book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success Stanford professor Carol Dweck contrasts two basic mindsets that people bring to learning or mastering a task. She calls them the fixed mindset and the growth mindset. The basic difference is whether you think a person’s ability to do something is determined more by talent or by hard work. Those who give priority to talent tend to have a fixed mindset. They believe their success comes from a fixed trait that they either do or do not possess. Those with a growth mindset view natural talent just as a starting point – not an end point. They believe ability can be improved through commitment and hard work.

Have you ever wanted to do something but thought that you were just not “cut out for it”? You could be falling prey to a fixed mindset. If you let it take hold, it will cause you to avoid challenges, to sulk over obstacles, to moderate your effort, and to eschew criticism or feedback from others. It will actually prevent you from growing, from learning, and from getting better.

If you don’t already have a growth mindset, can you develop one? Absolutely. But you have to take responsibility for the choices you make and for how you think and act in challenging situations. Dweck says there are four steps to creating a growth mindset. First, you have to recognize the self talk or inner voice of the fixed mindset. When you hear it tell you something like: “Don’t even try that move” or “Don’t even share that idea”, “You don’t have what it takes to make it work,” label that in your mind as the fixed mindset talking. Second, recognize when faced with a challenge you have a choice. You must acknowledge that you will choose whether to listen to the fixed mindset or challenge it. Third, talk back to the fixed mindset with a growth mindset response – like “It takes courage to try. By trying, I’ll make myself better.” The fourth step is to act on the growth mindset voice. You have muster faith and follow-through. By consistently making choices to listen to the growth mindset voice, it will become your more natural voice. Your mindset will encourage, rather than limit you.

There are other things you can do too to facilitate a growth mindset and to bolster your inner climate of success:

Keep a positive focus: The best fighters never let their doubts take over. They maintain a faith in their ability and steadfast confidence. They constantly look for positive cues in their environment and say positive messages to themselves. As a result they are less often bothered by negative thoughts, they are happier, and they perform better.

Control your intensity: Champions have learned to play or fight “in the zone.” They know how to keep their mind calm and their body energized without amping up to the point of feeling “jittery”. It takes fine tuning, and a strong awareness of your own body, but you can lower your heart rate with deep breathing, release tension from your muscles, and quiet a worried mind – all with a little practice.

Manage distractions: As you cultivate a growth mindset, you are learning to filter through negative messages from the inner “fixed” voice and buffering external distractions that do not facilitate your best performance. You might develop positive “cue words” to help yourself quickly get back on a positive track. Or you may just drown out the distractions with your own growth-oriented messages of confidence. Either way, you will be increasingly focused on what is important and indifferent to what is not.

Prepare to perform: Prepare to confront expected challenges. Sometimes challenges catch us by surprise. At those times we need to work quickly to recognize and act on our choices. But often we know in advance about an important meeting, presentation, sales pitch….or match. This gives us an opportunity both to practice and to create an inner climate for peak performance. Run through the task several times in your head, watching it go well every single time. Listen to the positive voice speaking to you. Feel the sensation of confidence and the inner calmness. Delight in the flow of being “in the moment.” And when “you’re on” in a real situation, your brain and body can respond as if you have been there and done this before.

The greatest athletes, the greatest performers, and those who excel in business – or nearly any task – use some common strategies. They set goals for themselves so they have a game plan and a roadmap for success. They learn to be tough and resilient – persisting through adversity and disappointment and pressing ever forward. And they constantly seek to improve their skills, while always working to get better. They surround themselves with the best people and listen to what they have to say. Whether in or out of the cage, these strategies – combined with your passion to achieve – can take you to the top.

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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Keeping Your Head in the Game

Keeping Your Head in the Game

By Dr. Randy Borum



As you walk out, the music is blaring. Hundreds, maybe thousands of spectators are screaming. Colored lights are flashing and darting around the arena. Sights, sounds, sensations…..distractions. How do you keep your head in the game when there is so much going on around you?

Focus is an important part of your fight game. You need it stay on plan, to find openings, to anticipate your opponent's action, to get out of bad situations, and to hear your corner. If you get distracted in the middle of a fight, you might wake up asking the fight doctor "Who won?".

The human brain manages lots of sensory input all the time. Right now, your eyes are moving as you read the words on the page; your fingers are feeling the texture of the magazine you are holding; your body is making contact with the surface on which you are sitting; there are sights and sounds around you that are unrelated to this article. Yet you manage to read and comprehend these words. Your brain has figured out how to filter out the stuff that does not matter at this moment, and to attend to what is important.

You can learn to improve your focus, to control distractions and - as a result – probably fight better in competition. The first step is to figure out where you want to focus at different points in the match. At any given time, the direction of your focus may be more internal or external and the scope of your attention may be more narrow or broad according to Robert Nideffer, a leading U.S. sport psychologist.

When your attention is internal, you are focused on thoughts and sensations "on the inside." Broadly, you may be running through strategy in your head, or more narrowly you may be tuned into your muscle tension or heart rate or thoughts like "My grip is giving out. I'm about to lose this choke."

When your attention is external, you are focused on the sights and sounds in the environment around you. It may be broadly targeted on the noisy, busily-lit arena, or more narrowly focused on your opponent's hip movement as you look for cues to his next move.

Think about the different facets and phases of your fight performance and which dimension of attention fits best. Generally speaking, you probably should save most of your internal focus for backstage and pre-fight preparation and keep a predominantly external focus during the fight itself. Effective concentration requires energy. You will be more efficient when you plan ahead for where and how to focus.

But what about the distractions? The second step is to identify the sources and types of distraction that are most likely to give you trouble. These predictable distractors affect different fighters in different ways. Some fighters may be sidetracked by the cheers or boos from the crowd. Others may be thrown-off by an opponent's antics. But if you can tag them in advance, you can prepare for them. Your overall distraction management strategy will include techniques for changing both what you attend to and how you interpret or react to it. You may not be able to control the spectators' comments, for example, but you can learn to mostly filter them out and to keep them from affecting you emotionally. That is the next step - learning to manage the distractions. Here are a few suggestions:

Develop a Pre-Fight Routine: It almost always helps to have a plan. Planning out what you are going to do in a given period before the fight can help keep you focused. Your mind is less likely to wander or get snarled in distraction if you are following a specific routine. Plan what you are going to do backstage, in the walkout, during introductions, and as you come out for the fight itself. That may involve listening to certain music, doing relaxation exercises, pummeling, mitt work, rub-downs – whatever works for you. Have a routine, run through it in your head several times, then follow it before the fight.

Use Cue Words to Redirect Your Attention: If you get slightly off-track, using "cue words" can often get your head back in the game. A cue word is a simple one-word instruction that interrupts the distraction and signals your brain back to the present. It should be simple, direct, and consistent with your fight plan. You might use words like "focus" or "present" or "now" or "on plan" – experiment during your training sessions to see what kind of cue words work best for you in different situations.

Cue words are particularly helpful if you catch yourself in a narrow-internal attentional state. Apart from the outside sights and sounds of the fight show, your own thoughts or self-talk can sometimes be a source of distraction. Usually it is because you start thinking about something that has already happened – like a mistake you made – or something that might happen in the future – like "I'm gassing. I'm going to lose." Cue words can help redirect you to the present and get your mental game back on track.

Practice With Distractions: Once you have identified your likely sources of distraction, incorporate them systematically into your training. That's right. Embrace what bothers you most. As you do, you will "habituate" to the distraction so that you are less likely to attend to it and you can practice controlling your negative reactions when they do creep in.

If crowd noises distract you, play a loud recording of crowd noises while you train and spar. Better yet, maybe add some of your team members to gather around and yell stuff at you at the same time. If lights distract you, then train with flashing, bright, or colored lights. If you feel yourself getting annoyed by them, you can immediately redirect your focus using cue words.

Expect the Unexpected: You can and should plan for the distractions that you think will happen, but sometimes the unexpected event can send us into a spiral if we are not prepared to handle it. Maybe, when you start to bang, you discover your opponent hits harder than you thought or has a better take down than you anticipated. Maybe he unexpectedly rocks you with a strike that seemed to come out of nowhere. That kind of distraction can undermine your confidence and hurt your performance if you give it any air time in your head.

You can prepare for the unexpected, by building unpredictable distractions into your training and sparring. Some unexpected events will occur naturally, of course. Use these as opportunities. But also work with a coach or training partner to use distractions that you do not know about specifically in advance. As with the planned distractions, you can use lights and sounds and reactions from other people. You also can use physical distractions. For example, while you are sparring, have an extra training partner who may be throwing light strikes from the back or side. When you are on the ground, a third training buddy may poke at you with a 16 oz. glove on a pole or a pugil stick. Your task is to maintain your composure, to continue to breathe, and to redirect your focus.

You can train your mind to filter out a lot of unnecessary input, and you can discipline yourself to stay focused in the present. Practice these skills, and do what works for you to keep your head in the fight.



This article appears in MMA Sports Magazine (Issue #5)
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Fight News Unlimited Interview with Dr. Randy Borum

AN INTERVIEW WITH RANDY BORUM ON THE MENTAL ASPECTS OF FIGHTING:
Fight News Unlimited



FNU: How important is psychology for an athlete, especially a fighter?

RANDY: Many of the best combat sport trainers and athletes have said that 10-20% of success in those sports comes from physical factors and 80-90% comes from mental factors. Pat Miletich said it about MMA. Freddie Roach said it about boxing, and Dan Gable said it about wrestling. In reality, there's no way to precisely measure these things, but it does all point to the fact that psychological factors are critical for effective fight sport performance. It may be particularly important at the elite levels because fighters are already matched up on size, experience and skill. Sport psychology won't magically transform a bad fighter into a great one, but it can help most fighters to achieve their potential.

FNU: How does a fighter maximize his or her psychological approach to prepare for a fight?

RANDY: It's interesting that most fighters will tell you that mental skills are the most important, but in their own training, they spend nearly all of their time on physical training and very little on enhancing mental skills – even though physical conditioning usually peaks out before mental conditioning. Maybe that's because some don't realize that psychological skills can be trained and developed. They don't have to come naturally.

FNU: What happens in the brain when a fighter gets psyched up or psyched out and why?

RANDY: Well, the brain controls all behavior. And basically there are three behavioral components of your fight performance that are affected by psychological factors: Thoughts (Cognition); Feelings (Emotion) and Physical (Somatic).

Whether and when a fighter gets psyched up or psyched out depends largely on what's happening with his thoughts, feelings and physical responses. Each of those factors can affect the others in different orders at different times. A negative thought like "I'm gassing- I won't make it to the end of the round" may lead to feeling discouraged and having physical sensations of fatigue. On the other hand, rehearsing confident thoughts like "I am strong and powerful and completely prepared for this match" may lead to feelings of excitement, which produce physical sensations of energy.

The solution – just like fight strategy – lies in preparing for what might happen and building a skill set to respond effectively.

FNU: What is your background and what kind of consulting have you done with MMA fighters or boxers?

RANDY: I am a Professor at the University of South Florida where I teach and do research on violence and terrorism. I have a doctoral degree in clinical psychology. I am a licensed and board-certified psychologist and have been recognized as a "Certified Sport Psychologist" by the National Institute of Sports. For several years, I was a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS) through the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA), and I did some strength coaching for my University's Boxing Team back when it was active. I was a police officer for a while before I was a psychologist and I began studying sport psychology and motor behavior principles back in the mid 1980s to help understand how they might be applied to help police officers perform well (mentally) in high-stress, high-risk situations.

Apart from the writing I do for MMA magazines, I do a very limited amount of performance enhancement consulting with combat sport athletes – mainly pro MMA fighters, but a few boxers as well. The issues range from managing pre-fight jitters, to confidence building, to managing distractions, to visualization and other related issues.

FNU: What kind of pieces have you written about the psychology of fighting?

RANDY: I have written articles for Ultimate Grappling Magazine, Tapout Magazine, MMA Sports, MMA Authority and I do a column for FightZone magazine, which is a sport psychology column focusing exclusively on combat sports. The articles have provided information about how to assess your own mental skills, improving focus, building confidence, developing mental toughness, keeping your opponent from getting inside your head, psychological fight preparation and even depression.

FNU: How should a fighter adjust his thinking after a loss?

RANDY: In my experience, the best fighters don't ruminate over the loss or repeatedly beat themselves up over it. They develop an explanation that makes sense to them about "what happened" – then they figure out what they need to work on to keep that from happening again; they make a plan to do it; and they follow through. Some fighters develop an explanation of the loss that works for them, but that others may see as an "excuse." Allowing yourself to wallow in a loss will sap your energy and undermine your confidence. Losing a fight doesn't make a fighter a "loser."

When bouncing back from a loss, what I've seen work for most is to accept the loss, keep their confidence up, and develop specific, measurable goals they want to achieve in moving forward. They then get swiftly to the task of working to achieve them. Looking forward works better than continuing to look back.

FNU: What is the best advice you could give someone trying to focus before a match?

RANDY: That depends. The best approach for a fighter to prepare psychologically for a match has to be tailored to that individual's needs. In general, though, some common factors seem to be setting challenging and measurable goals, monitoring mental performance in your training log, and making necessary adjustments to build the skills you need and to remove any barriers to optimal performance. For fight-day preparation, many fighters find it helpful to structure their day in advance, do some exercises to get them in a very positive state of mind, then to monitor and adjust their level of emotional intensity or arousal through the day so they're feeling good at the start of first round.

I guess my general advice would be to set and follow a schedule for the day. Keep your thoughts positively focused, using positive self-talk. Try not to allow the "what ifs" to creep in. Drown them out with your confidence. As you get closer to the fight, you will narrow the focus of your thoughts and mental images toward the beginning of the fight. Also do a gut check on your arousal level. You want to achieve your optimal state as the fight starts. If you are too revved-up, then do some breathing and relaxation exercises to settle down. If you are feeling drained or lethargic, then get your body moving or listen to some motivational music to kick it up a notch.

FNU: What role do visualization and positive reinforcement play in a fighter's development?

RANDY: Fighters use visualization in different ways. One way is to use it for mental practice. When you are first learning a technique you can do hundreds of repetitions of it in your head even if you're not able to do as many in training. Physical practice works best, of course, but mental practice works too – particularly when you are imagining yourself actually performing the task, not just watching yourself do it "from the outside." Research shows that that mentally rehearsing a physical skill activates the same neural pathways as when you actually perform that task. Another way to use visualization is for specific fight preparation. You can visualize yourself fighting a particular opponent – performing exactly the way you want to and successfully defending against his attacks. Psychologically, you are building a history of having successfully done it before, which boosts your confidence.

FNU: Are there any mental exercises a fighter or athlete can do to prep for competition?

RANDY: Absolutely. Like anything else, though, developing mental skills take practice. Certain exercises are pretty fundamental like progressive relaxation, positive self-talk and imagery (visualization). Other exercises depend on the individual fighter's needs and capacities. We can often get pretty creative in helping to build psychological skills for competition.

FNU: Do you think psychology is under appreciated in sports? In fighting?

RANDY: Sport psychology, as a field, is definitely growing. Psychologists have been studying sport performance since the late 1800s, but they really didn't begin performance consulting with athletes until the 1960s. The U.S. Olympic Committee only hired its first full-time sports psychologist in 1985.

As for its application to fighting and combat sports, I don't necessarily think the importance of psychology is underappreciated, but it certainly is not used as systematically or as effectively as it could be. With FILA's recent recognition of grappling and the explosive growth of Mixed Martial Arts in particular, I hope there is an opportunity to make sport psychology a regular part of combat sport training. A number of MMA fighters, professional boxers, and Olympic wrestlers and judoists have consulted with sport psychologists over the years, but most have not.

FNU: What is your ultimate goal in psychology?

RANDY: Well… in advancing sport psychology for combat sports, I don't have a specific "ultimate goal" in mind. I do the writing and work I do in this area mostly because I love the sport and I enjoy helping fighters achieve their potential. I'm not trying to build an empire or even a cottage industry. What I have been doing is just trying to share information and ideas about how psychological principles might contribute to combat sport training. As I said, I think that people know the mental side of the game is important, and they may even know how to discipline themselves and be tough, but they don't necessarily know how to assess and build a mental skill set to complement the strength, conditioning and fighting skills. Some don't even know that factors like concentration, confidence, relaxation, and mental toughness are skills that can be learned, practiced and developed. So I guess my goal is get more fighters and trainers to think systematically about their mental game in the same way that they think about fighting skills, conditioning and nutrition as parts of the big picture. Many elite-level fighters or fight camps have a strength and conditioning coach or a sport nutritionist that they consult with – but how many have a sport psychologist? Sure - psychologists can help people who are depressed or who have serious psychological problems, but those with an understanding of sport psychology can also do so much more – not just to provide treatment, but to enhance performance and to take their fight game to the next level.

FNU: What's been your best moment in the field?

RANDY: I don't know that I can identify a single moment, but I always find it to be incredibly rewarding when I can consult with a fighter who is genuinely interested in improving his game or who is struggling with a particular problem that is holding him back – then he follows through on what we discussed and comes back to say: "That really worked" or "That was really helpful." This is one of the few things I do professionally where I get feedback at the individual level. For me, those are probably the best moments.

FNU: What was your toughest moment?

RANDY: It can be really tough hearing people struggling with serious depression or other emotional problems…their feelings of hopelessness ….hearing about the horrific childhood or life experiences that they had to endure – things no child so have to go through. I am constantly amazed, however, at the personal strength and resilience that people find within themselves, in their faith, or through support from others that help them overcome incredible adversity

FNU: What makes a fighter's mentality different than any other athlete?

RANDY: That's a really interesting question. I don't know that there is any "right" answer or that the answer is necessarily the same for all fighters. Many of the skills are similar, but they have to be applied differently. For example, focus is important both in tennis and in fighting, but how you focus and where you focus and the timing of that focus and the nature of the distractions are very different for each sport. One factor that I think is somewhat unique to MMA is the very personal and physical nature of the battle for dominance. It is one of the only sports I can think of where people typically lose because they are hurting so badly they have to quit or because they have been pummeled so badly a referee has to stop it. People get injured in a lot of sports, but those injuries are incidental. In MMA it's not a part of the game, it is the game. So one of the things that is different about an MMA fighter's mentality is that he or she has to develop an adaptive way to respond – cognitively, emotionally and physically – to the fact that they have an opponent who in most cases is trying to hurt them. Different fighters develop that adaptation in different ways, but you really have to find a way to deal with it as a sport or professional exchange, not just as a bar fight.

FNU: What can trainers and coaches learn from having a better understanding of psychology?

RANDY: I think this is really where sport psychology has such great potential to be infused into combat sport training. If the coaches and trainers recognize the value, they can use it, and they can make sure it is given proper time and priority in the training regimen.

There was a survey done several years ago of wrestling coaches in which nearly all of them rated mental skills as being highly important, but very few of them felt like they knew how to teach them. I think coaches and trainers can benefit from sport psychology in two ways. First, they can apply the principles to their coaching of each athlete–to understand his learning style, to better understand what motivates him and how to help him achieve his goals. Second, they can use knowledge of sport psychology to assess their fighters' mental skill profile, so that they understand the strengths and weaknesses in the mental game and integrate that into training in the same way they do with the fight skills.

FNU: Anything else you want to add?

RANDY: Just to thank you for your interest applying psychology to combat sports and for giving me an opportunity to share some information. I am not trying to step on toes or launch the next big thing – just offering some ideas for consideration. I would welcome any thoughts from fighters out there about how these ideas do or do not fit with their experiences or whether they make sense from their perspective. I'd like to think we're all learning together.

In Defense of MMA

Some of you have read Professor Gordon Marino's article and other editorials on MMA published recently in the Wall Street Journal.

I sent the following response to the WSJ. They chose not to publish it, but I post it here for you perusal and comment:

In his article: "In the Fray: If Birds Were Doing It, It Would Be Banned," Professor Gordon Marino proffers a seemingly ethical indictment against the sport of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA). While citing research suggesting that the risk of severe head trauma in considerably less in MMA bouts than in the widely accepted sport of boxing, Marino argues that "injury risk may not be the best indicator of the level of violence in a sport." He concludes by asserting that "Instead of asking if mixed martial arts is a sport, it might be more useful to ponder whether it is a sport that ennobles or imbrutes participants and fans."

As I understand his argument, it is the "violence" within the sport - by whatever definition he finds acceptable- to which he objects. Whether or not injury risk is the best measure of violence in a contact sport, it certainly is a relevant one to consider from a public health perspective. The study on injury to which he refers found that the overall injury rate in MMA bouts is comparable to that found in other contact sports (not just fighting sports) and that knockouts occur only about half as often in MMA as they do in boxing.

Brain injury is arguably the most serious type of contact sport injury. Yet some studies have found that NFL body hits have a greater force impact on the brain than do punches from professional boxers, let alone MMA athletes. The one-pound gloves used by boxers protect the puncher, not the one being punched. In fact, the heavier gloves (as opposed to the usual 4 oz. MMA gloves) allow the punch to carry even greater force, potentially causing greater trauma to the brain. That fact, combined with differing rule structures between pro boxing and MMA, may make MMA a safer sport in many ways, at least with regard to brain trauma.

While numerous boxing-related deaths have occurred over the years, there are no known deaths arising from MMA-related injury. Death, of course, may not be the best indicator of the level of violence in a sport. I do not know that we can all agree on a specific definition of violence, but I suspect that many would acknowledge some distinction between antisocial and prosocial forms of aggression. Contact sports have generally been regarded as manifestations of prosocial – or at least not antisocial – aggression.

MMA is now well-regulated in the U.S. The athlete-participants are not the barroom brawlers of the early "Toughman" competition. There are rules and weight classes and athletic commission safety regulations. No promotions to my knowledge permit – as Marino's note implies - strikes to the throat and head kicks when a fighter is on the mat. If Professor Marino or others want to argue against all sport contact on a public health or humanitarian basis, I may disagree, but I would at least see the integrity of that position. I do not, however, know of any evidence to suggest that MMA "imbrutes" participants or fans any more than boxing or even sports where contact is central or common, such as football, hockey, or basketball or of evidence that any of these sports necessarily have an ennobling effect.

Dr. Randy Borum is a Professor and violence researcher at the University of South Florida.