a fighters mentality

The mentality of a fighter is the key to success. Raw talent or technic is nothing without a good mentality. A fighters mentality affects his approach to a fight, the way he trains, how he rests, and pretty much everything. People draw these conclusions that a fighter has to be ferocious and fired up before a fight. Or that they have to be calm, cool and collected. The truth is it all depends on the person, people handle different things different ways. 

I know a lot of fighters who fight because it gets them attention. They don’t take it as serious as I do or other successful fighters. In this case the fighters who fight for the wrong reasons don’t really train as hard as some who do this cause they love it. At the same time you want to have a balance. A balance between hard training and rest, between focus and not taking yourself to seriously. If all you do is train, train, and train. It doesn’t matter how tough you are you’ll get burned out on it, and you wont enjoy training or fighting as much anymore. Lots of great fighters have “valleys” in there careers. A point where they fall, lose a fight, or just lose there edge. This is the defining moment wether you fight through or accept defeat. This is the part that tests your mind.   

Entering the MMA world

Becoming a fighter, its not as cool and fun as it might sound. If you want to become a fighter first you have to join a gym, memberships at fight gyms are very expensive. For most people in our local area to join a fight gym they would try to join the Peoria Athletic Club or PAC.  This gym is located between East Peoria and Morton but will soon be moving down by Bradley. PAC is a good gym with good trainers and a nice facility, but it is outrageously priced. For 100 dollars a month they will let you take there classes and you have to put up with the “know it all” gym owner. I personally will not step foot in this gym unless it’s a Saturday morning sparring, which is free, and the only day the owner isn’t there. The owner is a stuck up guy who has spent a million bucks to get his black belt, yet he can be submitted by people who don’t even have a belt.

Another gym it Central Illinois Combat Club, or CICC, which is a gym that I love. Located in Canton Illinois, which is a bit of a drive from Peoria but it is still worth the four day a week training program. The gym provides a great diversity of fighters/trainers. The owner, a man lets most of us train there for free doesn’t even take credit for being the coach. It is a family mentality, and whenever you came to train you also teach we learn from each other and there are no egos! We are all simply there to get better and train. If you are just entering MMA it will cost 30 dollars a month to train at this gym. These are the two main fight gyms in central Illinois, there are also programs at worlds gym, and align life chiropractic. But both of these programs are “run”, or comprised of fighters that also train at CICC or PAC . Entering any program will cost money, but once you become a good training partner, they might let you slide on the payments.     

Anybody wearing a Tapout shirt

Mma is a very fast growing sport but you’ve got to be careful of some of these “fans”. Personally Im a very competitive person I always have to win, be better than you, or be above you period. Now this is both a good thing and a bad thing its good because it drives me to be better, its bad because Im constantly comparing myself to people around me. 

Something that I’ve noticed about a lot of guys is they wanna be known as the tough guy to. I can’t tell you how many guys that say they are “fighters” and they train at these tough gyms. Which usually the “tough” gyms are the places I train and the fighters there are my friends. Somehow these guys will talk all day to people about there fighting and hard training. Then I try to talk to them about training and its pretty obvious that they have never stepped foot into a fight gym. Much less any of the gyms I train at. I don’t like to tell people that I fight until I get to know them or someone else I know tells them. My english class and part of my business class are the only people outside of my close friends and high school who know Im an MMA fighter. I don’t always like the attention and you immediately become a target for the guy in the class who thinks he’s the most macho. So if somebody is telling you how hard there training is, they could just be trying to be the “macho guy in the room”.      

fight video/competitive experience

Im waiting for seth to get back to me on a better way to post the link to my video, but if you aren't friends with me on facebook then you can't use the link that I've posted. Don't be shy I will accept your friend request if I cant get the other link up then you can watch the one on my facebook.  

Competitive experience is very important not always just in MMA. I plan to try and walk on and wrestle at the college level, I have a lot to learn about wrestling and I want to get my college degree. For me it is the best way to continue competing and training while in school and getting an education. I’m not very worried about making my way through the MMA ranks. Im the youngest fighter at my camp and one of the youngest period. I want to compete in boxing, wrestling and MMA, all for the end benefit of MMA. Im going to buy my boxing license either for 2011 or 2012 and get some competitive boxing in as well. People sometimes forget that life is about the experiences, and that while we are young experiencing things is the most important. Right now I enjoy training and competing after college I can pursue any kind of career I want but for now competing in all the sports and going to school is what i want to do. Once i put college behind hopefully I will know better what i want out of life. 

test

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=732142113#!/video/video.php?v=1390758781329

Post fight

It was a quick fight only about a minute and a half, he looked tougher then he actually was. He had an AK-47 the actual gun tattood as his side burn, and on the other side he had some Chinese writing down his other side burn. He didn’t belong in the cage with me I threw one punch and he dropped like a sac of potatoes, I was surprised when he shot in to take me down. I immediately reversed it and took him down, he began to stand back up so I picked him up and slammed him. During the slam I injured myself he landed on my shoulder, which kind of hurt and it is still a little sore today. After the slam he grabbed my head from the bottom position and began to squeeze. He didn’t have a choke or even a dangerous position he was just squeezing so I let him. I fought somewhat to get out of it but very lightly allowing him to wear himself out from holding me. Sure enough about 10-20 sec later his hold began to loosen and I could feel his arms getting weaker. I popped out of the hold and began to punch, he lost his cool and began to try and scramble away. Instead he allowed me to get to a better position and take his back, I kept punching as hard as I could, just instinct. Then my corner man yelled at me to stop hitting him and go for a submission so I did, I went for a rear naked choke which is a very simple choke. Once I got my arm under his chin though I realized he had no idea how to defend against the choke. So I transitioned into a short choke which is a simple version of a rear naked choke, he tapped almost immediately. He only hit me twice once in the face and once in the side, my face is fine not even swollen but I think if I had had more time I could’ve knocked that AK-47 right off his face.

Fight week

The nerves are here the stress is on the only thing thats a positive feeling is the excitement. The prospect of winning, getting my hand raised at the end of the night. Theres something magic about walking into the cage, feeling the canvas, and the bounce of the ply wood underneath my feet. It is a chaotic moment in anyones life, but out of chaos comes order a strange calm takes over. There's no reason to be afraid anymore theres no going back, he's only a man, and he has nothing thats going to stop me. Confidence is the biggest thing now no fear, no doubt, but your still nervous. You see your opponent across the cage staring you down like a bear looking at its meal. So many emotions going through me I don't know wether to smile or throw up, I decide to smile and stare back at him. The cage door closes you can hear the clank of metal, all of a sudden its just you him and a referee. My stomach feels light like its full of air, but there actually butterflies. The referee says are you ready? FIGHT! The bell dings, and any fear or nerves fade away.

 Only the weak minded are affected by a stare down, anyone can stare tough its backing it up thats what counts. Confidence, even false confidence, is needed to fight. I watch Muhammad Ali, Mike Tyson, all of the greats I watch them talk trash, and somehow in a weird way it builds my confidence. I put everything physically and mentally that I could into this, whats the worst thing he could do to me? The worst thing is he embarrasses me, but since I'm in there I wont let that happen. I fight on sat wish me luck(i hope my parents don't read this blog before then) but you will all find out how I do very soon.