The BEST Way To Mentally Prepare For A Fight
A lot of people have different beliefs of the importance or function of the “mental” in martial arts. From breaking bricks, Katas, fighting for UFC titles, or protecting your life in the street, there is definitely a mental aspect to go along with the physical aspect of martial arts. Many people neglect the mental part of martial arts, training and preparing for a fight, but to be honest, the biggest reason people are weak mentally is because they are lacking in their physical preparation. The connection between being mentally prepared and physically prepared for a fight are very closely related, in fact I don’t think you can have one without the other.
In fact one without the other would leave the martial artist at a severe disadvantage. I am a firm believer that the best way to get mentally prepared for a fight whether it be in the cage, or the street is to be completely physically prepared. The more physically prepared you are, and that includes working on your techniques and your physical strategy as well as your strength, power, and your Cardio. There are all kinds of ways the coaches try to prepare their athletes mentally, in fact they even have "sports psychologist", and I'm not saying that that is not important, but to be perfectly honest, Unless something is wrong with the athlete mentally, their confidence, their mental preparedness for a match is directly proportionate to their degree of physical preparedness.
Now when it comes to becoming physically prepared for a sport fight, versus a street fight, the two are pretty much identical, however when it comes to being mentally prepared for a life or death street altercation, versus a sports fight, there is a big difference in preparing your sport athlete and preparing your martial arts student.
When mentally training your sport Sport Fighter it is all about strategy, mental toughness, and visualizing the goal. When training your martial arts student It's more about staying alive, getting more violent than most people could ever imagine, and their end goal, which is always getting home safely to their family. Both involve realistic drilling, role play and visualization.
