Working the corner
When you have a fighter competing and you’re in the corner, there is a whole process involved. Since you go through the build-up with them, come fight time, you may as well be in there with them.
As a trainer, the first thing I am looking for is a desire to fight. It is important that they actually want to get in there, after that it is all attitude. At the end of the day, anyone can throw a punch, so the physical part is actually the easier element. The hard part is dealing with adversity and pressure. If they can handle both of those well, they have a good chance of having a successful experience of fighting. So, first things first, they show the desire to fight, now you put their name in for a show and, naturally, the training picks up. Then the fighter gets matched up with an opponent and all of a sudden, it gets very real.
At the level that most amateurs fight at it is hard to find a lot of info about the opponent. If you are lucky, there will be a fight on YouTube which you can start to plan with. Watching a video of a fight is good but their opponent is a big factor and when you are starting out you can improve a lot between fights. You watch the video and try to pick up consistencies in their game. This can be fight style, offensive, defensive, counter fighter, stand up, ground, wrestler and so on. Once you have the broad strokes covered then you can look at smaller things. Things like footwork, defensive style, pace of the fight positions they look to go to and so on. This sets the blueprint for your training.
Through all the years I’ve been doing this, there’s one thing I’ve learnt – you don’t always get the fight plan correct. But it is better having a direction and focus in your training than not. Yes, you want to have the right fight plan obviously, but things don’t always work out. If the fighter has their “go to’s” then no matter what happens on fight night, they can always fall back on their base moves/plan and then build from there. This means that if every session is around this plan, it should become natural for them by the time the fight rolls round. This means the plan is subconscious and they don’t have to think about what they are doing. This all starts with walking through the plan on the pads and getting it imbedded. Then it goes into sparring. Like anything new, it doesn’t always go well at the start so expect some frustration from a fighter. To be honest you want to see a bit of frustration, if they don’t want to get it perfect then you have to question the desire. From there you start to add more and more pressure on the system. This can be done in a number of ways; situation drills, time drills, multiple training partners (one after the other). The key with any of these drills is success, the fighter needs to be practicing winning. Yes, there will be losses in training, but you want them well outnumbered by the wins. The win is based on the drill, whatever the goal is, get the win and repeat. So, when the fight comes round, they have seen that situation when tired, sore, hurting and they have worked their way out of it so there are no surprises just success.
As fight day gets closer, it becomes more about mental and emotional balance. The fighter needs to be confident but still have respect for their opponent – prepared but aware they have to bring their best to get the win. The trainer needs to know the fighter well enough to know when their confidence or emotions is out of balance and what they need to get back in sync. This continues on fight day; all the hard work is done so it is all about keeping the fighter in the right mental state for the fight. The fighter is up and down all day, confident one second, and worried the next – I want to make it clear that this is very, very normal. At Lockdown, we just try and keep the fighter relaxed as much as possible. One of my favourite fight preps was with one of our fighters that was always confident (or at least appeared that way). But on this night during the warm up he just felt a bit nervous and tense. So, we ended up laying on the mat and talked about superheroes; debating who beats who if heroes were to clash in combat. Then it was time to get in the ring, he went out there and got the win in the first round via submission. Most the of the fights are more of less the same with the prep on the night. It is all about getting the fighter in the best frame of mind.
In the actual fight the fighter has picked the corner and has chosen the one voice that they want to hear, everyone else shuts up. The first round is always a worry as you don’t know what the other fighter is going to bring. When the first-round ends, all you do is give your fighter something to do and make it simple. Keep your hands up, throw that right hand, grab the single leg. Whatever it is, give them something to work towards. This may sound simple but some people give the fighter something to not do. Don’t drop your hands, don’t get taken down. Our brains cannot go away from anything only towards so when you say don’t get taken down – the brain goes get taken down. Rather, you want to say defend that take down, get back to your feet; whatever it is, just make sure they can go towards it.
In the fight you are in there with them, you win and lose together. For an individual sport, fighting is definitely a team effort. As a trainer you build very cool bonds with your fighters, there is a lot of trust from both parties involved and definitely one of the best parts of the sport is building those relationships that last for life.
Gareth Lewis
Head MMA Instructor