With a crew of my fighters entering the cage this weekend, I'm inspired to share what's been a persistent theme throughout my academy these last few weeks.
Namely, what are the POWER traits I feel every fighter should build?
Some of these are gifted by the Gods, others forged by the will, sweat, and blood of the fighter himself.
No matter how the athlete got these traits, they all matter...and they matter BIG TIME!
Let's face it, if you train violence every day, you're gonna get hurt.
You may even get injured here and there.
The POWER trait, however, lies in one's ability to address and overcome injuries when they pop up ( and not that they get any credit for it) a whole SH*T TON of LUCK!
I remember when, a few years ago, two of my active pro's went through what I begrudgingly labeled "Knee Season.” One of my fighters tore just about everything in his knee a week out from a fight during his LAST round of live training for the camp.
A powerful trait to a fighter's arsenal is that he can bring every ounce of his ability into the fray. No fighter's ever 100%, but I'll take damn close any day of the week!
I almost feel weird not listing this closer to number one on this list, but if there's one argument for listing it here, it's the relationship between how common an issue this is amongst aspiring fighters, and how simple it is to fix.
Yes, I'm aware I didn't say easy.
I define coachability as one's openness to allowing another (the coach) to make the calls at every stage of the fight and its preparation, aside from the fighting itself.
Probably the most common hurdle I've seen is the tendency for a young fighter to, and often with the best of intentions, be his own coach.
The issue with this, of course, is that a young fighter goes to a coach because he already understands that the coach has more experience than he does, can see what the fighter can't see from the observer role, and can provide an environment whereby the fighter has only to worry about doing the thing.
The allure is often the shiny new object syndrome suffered by a fighter when seeing success in other camps. Now don't get me wrong, if your guy sucks than you should find a more effective coach, but are you qualified yet to make that distinction?
Most times the fighter that leaves does so as a response to a loss he is responsible for. (Subpar conditioning, diet, etc...)
I've been coaching fighters for over 20 years. The best ones always listen.
This is probably the biggest "never woulda guessed it" traits on the list.
Functional flexibility (FF) is the ability to move muscles and joints through greater than average ranges of motion, PLUS the strength to protect that range of motion from injury.
No, it's not just the "I can put my feet behind my head" guy.
Those who possess FF are faster, last longer, and do not get injured nearly as much.
Luckily, it's a trait that even though some may have half of it (the flexibility half), EVERYONE needs to work to have it completely. The strength requirement in FF is impossible to bypass, and just because one's strong doesn't mean he's flexible at all.
So, speed, endurance, resilience, agility means Functional Flexibility, young fighters.
Get on it!
The debate about the value of absolute strength in fighting is a silly one.
If you have two fighters in a bout and remove all strength from one, he loses every time. If you have the same two and give one the strength of ten men, he wins every time.
It's really that simple.
What gets conflated by critics of strength training is the lack of flexibility, the imbalances created, and injuries accrued by those who haven't the slightest idea about how to build absolute strength.
But what is "absolute strength", you ask?
Translation: how much weight is on the bar?
I don't care about speed, bodyweight, or anything other than how much your body can move in space.
EVERY one of my pro fighters follows a strength routine.
EVERY one of my amateurs knows they better start if they ever plan on becoming a pro. Roughly 80% of them currently are. The other 20% we use as fancy punching bags.
Programs I've used and use are Rippetoe's Starting Strength and Wendler's 531 Program.
I don't really care which program you use, though. All I know is that if you run into one of MY fighters...don't say I didn't warn you!
From birth we are programmed with a whole assortment of reactions and preferred responses. We accumulate many more during our lives. These newer responses are the consequence of our experiences, namely the result of doing things repetitively.
The method of DRILLING gives us conscious access to this process.
Being that that's the case, if you want to be a great fighter, you'd better become obsessed with controlling as much of your "fight responses" as possible!
As the saying goes: DRILLERS MAKE KILLERS!
"Fatigue makes cowards of us all."
- Vince Lombardi
It's a quote that's as real as any concerning the preparation of man for any athletic endeavor.
Put simply, when you're tired, every fiber of your programming is warning you to stop.
In my experience, if I can push a fighter to the brink during his conditioning, I can see his character revealed right before my eyes.
If you can function when you can barely breathe, hear, and see...you're going to be able to break other, lesser men's wills.
I've seen too many effective fighters run from the pressure of a hard conditioning session and have that weakness exploited during a fight to think otherwise.
If you want to fight, get used to the pain of breaking your own body's will.
One of the most underrated traits of a great fighter is his ability to BE AT THE GYM.
In my generation of MMA, making a living off professionally it was unheard of.
Most guys I knew had a fulltime job and had to fit it in where they could. For some of them, add in a wife and some kids and the prospect of fighting at one's best was an even more truly daunting task.
I knew early on that running an academy would give me the chance to train, so I started one. It's a strategy that's lead me to hire many of my fighters of the years, creating every opportunity to level up in short bursts of maniacal training.
Every fighter who tells me he wants to become a pro must sit down, and we discuss many things, not the least of which is the ecology of his life.
These topics include:
Nothing happens in a vacuum, certainly not building a great fighter!
For a great fighter, adversity is the song to which he dances.
Let's face it, some guys are just flat out tough. Maybe it was part disposition, part life experience, but I've had a slew of guys walk into my gym that would've come out the other end of a meat grinder smiling!
I've also had students that looked like they'd call the cops on their shadow on day one who, after the forging process of training, looked like the next coming of Conan.
No matter what, if you're going to be a great fighter, you're a "hard man".
You can't be broken within the parameters of a fight.
You never feel sorry for yourself.
You work it like a job, no matter the obstacle.
Grit, like most traits on this list, is a rung on a ladder.
Wanna be tougher? Start climbing!
In everything you do, ALWAYS root for you.
I've never seen something affect a fighter's ability to win more than having an unbreakable belief in himself. To make the case for confidence, remind yourself that there isn't a man or woman on earth that can tell the future.
No, what will be is always influenced by what is.
It only makes sense, then, that we assume our most productive state as we influence the future as it unfolds, right?
Well, that most productive state is believing, seeing, feeling, tasting, touching, and even smelling...TOTAL VICTORY.
Stay on Mission,
MC
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