Issue 101

May 2013

Chartered sports psychologist Joe Bell is one of the few mental performance coaches specializing in combat sports. Here he explains how to feel, not think, the fight.

Having been baptized in the fires of the most efficient martial arts on the planet, it’s an indisputable fact MMA is the most complete of all combat sports. The success of mixed martial arts lies within its given name ‘mixed’ – the sheer range of styles accessible to a fighter is the simple reason for its effectiveness. 

The core of MMA as a combative form shares one of the legendary Bruce Lee’s fundamental concepts; fighting should not limit itself to one way. “Don’t get set into one form, adapt it and build your own, and let it grow, be like water,” he taught the world.

However, as we move into a new era of MMA, it is argued among experts that the hybrid art is in danger of suffering the fate of so many traditional martial disciplines, especially for proficient practitioners; it is on the verge of developing a style of its own. 

The threat of mixed martial artists becoming a symmetrical, ordered, and regimented combative system is very real. The fallout is straightforward: fighters will anticipate one another easier as fighting patterns become more predictable causing more fights to become deadlocked, meaning more judges’ decisions. 

Brick wall 

Make no mistake it takes years of sacrifice, heart, and dedication to develop a proficiency in tactical intelligence, athleticism, and fighting ability worthy of competing at a good level in MMA. 

But when fighters find themselves bordering combative expertise, which psychologists estimate requires around 10,000 hours of training (10 years or just over one year nonstop) for each discipline, all will hit a plateau. 

Bruce taught us, “There are no limits. There are plateaus, but you must not stay there, you must go beyond them. A man must constantly exceed his level.” 

Don’t think

Only a few standout fighters, it would seem, have been able to use their plateaus as a springboard to exceed their ‘individual level.’ 

What these unorthodox warriors share in common is the courage to utilize MMA as it was intended, by channeling all that they have learned into a free-flowing form. 

We identify them as ‘asymmetry fighters’ for example, Anderson Silva’s unmatched head movement, or the revolutionary signature moves of Anthony Pettis, or the ‘faster than Apache helicopter blades’ spinning elbow of Jon Jones. 

During heated combat they have learned to stay composed, allowing finely tuned responses to happen without stopping to analyze the situation, in psychology we call this ABC thinking: action before cognition. 

According to Bruce “a good martial artist does not become tense, but ready. Not thinking, yet not dreaming. Ready for whatever may come. And when there is an opportunity, I do not hit. It hits all by itself.” 

The science

Those on the receiving end often state in the aftermath, ‘I didn’t see it coming.’ And there is truth in this statement. In the perceptual warfare of conventional MMA, proficient fighters have the ability to read how an opponent’s cues relate to his intentions. 

In the terminology of sport psychology, they have honed anticipatory skills. However, the problem is unless sparring partners fight like asymmetry fighters or imitate similar patterns of movement, response selection performance drops off because it is a struggle to predict which actions are most likely to follow which cues. This hinders tactical decision-making, leaving them wide open to attack. 

Catch-22

It boils down to a simple analogy for the proficient fighter: ‘Do I or don’t I?’ The rational will always argue, ‘It’s too risky.’ If you find yourself in this camp, it’s in your interest to stay there. By questioning yourself you’re doubting yourself and this requires time for the mind to process, causing hesitation. And hesitation leads to cost. 

The gutsy argue fortune favors the bold, and the success rate of asymmetry fighters is hard to contend. The choice is yours, but to truly tap into your potential and exceed your individual level you have to learn to let go of convention. As Bruce Lee said: “Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless — like water. Now you put water in a cup, it becomes the cup; now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.”