Issue 050
June 2009
Coach Greg Nelson knows what it means to fight. In the days before MMA existed as a defined sport, he competed internationally in wrestling, boxing, Thai boxing, shoot wrestling, submission wrestling and Brazilian jiu-jitsu. In his own words, he was “just having fun!”
An impressive medals haul (including gold in the jiu-jitsu Pan-American Championships) combined with his almost endless list of instructor’s certificates and black belts laid the foundations for his success as a coach. His Minnesota Martial Arts Academy has become one of the top production lines for MMA talent in the world, with fighters such as Sean Sherk and Brock Lesnar picking up UFC championship belts under his guidance.
But the fight of Greg’s life was to be held outside the ring. In 2000, he was diagnosed with cancer. “I was running in Thailand and I remember thinking, ‘Gosh, I don’t have any wind anymore, I wonder what’s going on? Maybe it’s my age?’ - because I was 37 at that point. I had what’s known as large B-cell lymphoma and it was a tumor on my liver. After that went into remission it drifted into my sciatic nerve and basically took out my legs. I was an invalid for six months, couldn’t walk, and they didn’t know anything about it until they did a biopsy. At that time there were zero survivors of that type of cancer. They only knew of 33 cases: 32 had been found in post-mortem and the 33rd had been diagnosed but died. I didn’t know any of that and I told my wife, ‘Don’t tell me the doom and gloom, just tell me what I gotta do.’”
It was to be the making of Nelson as a coach. “Before that I was a competitor and you don’t know when to quit sometimes. I was forced to quit. In a sense, it was what really turned me from a fighter into a coach. Now I could put myself in situations that I never would have if had I still been competing: Letting myself get armbarred in a certain way, sparring in certain ways. Now I was free to study, to mimic other fighters, to allow myself to hold pads the way my fighters needed, to throw ego out the door and fully be there for the fighters.”
The experience gave Nelson a unique perspective on the value of mental strength, something he feels is essential for MMA success. “The cancer I had was very painful. They said that most of the people had most likely died from the pain, just given up. Due to the fact that in wrestling, Thai boxing, MMA, you’re always dealing with pain and just getting through that one more round, it’s how I mentally went through the cancer too. When I was doing certain MRI scans, in a lot of pain and wanting to grab my feet but having to lie flat, my brother would always say ‘This one’s gonna be two rounds, you gotta last two rounds,’ and put it into those terms so I knew I could get through it. It was another opponent, another training session, but one that never ended. It’s like being put through the most physically exhausting workout that you’ve ever done but it never ends, and you can never recover, never get your wind back. When fighters tell me how tired they are I can tell them, ‘It’s really not that bad. You can keep going, believe me.’”
That ‘keep going’ mentality is something that Greg rates above all others when it comes to forging winners. “It’s easy to see someone come in and say ‘Wow, they’re a super-gifted athlete’, but for me a champion is made from discipline and patience. He needs the ability to not just work hard but also open his mind and say, ‘What do I need to do?’ I see more people with just the talent than just the mentality. You look for the guy who puts in the extra time, keeps pushing himself beyond what the other guys are doing. That’s the guy who becomes the champion. Everyone has talent at a certain level. But who has the ability to push themselves furthest?”
Despite the brutal work ethics of fighters such as Sherk and Lesnar, Greg doesn’t feel he is a taskmaster in the gym. “Some guys need it and when it’s time to push, I’ll push ‘em. But when it’s time to pull, I’ll pull ‘em. I feel my greatest strength as a coach is the ability to look at a person and honestly see what they need to work, not what they want to work, and develop a program for that, not just run them through a cookie-cutter system.”
Nelson’s experiences have left him refreshingly free from machismo and ego, but his relaxed and easy-going demeanor cannot hide the fierce will to win that still motivates him. “Seeing my fighters getting their hands raised, that’s why I still do it. That’s one of the best feelings there is.”
For details on training with Greg Nelson see www.bcnma.com (Europe) or www.mmaacombatzone.com (USA)
