Stress Training

There is no subsitute for experience. You can prepare as much as you want, but it's still going to be a shock when the bell rings and that big dude (who I swear looks 20 pounds heavier than he did yesterday at weigh-in!) comes across that cage looking to tear your face off.

Get him a fight he can win. Give him a simple strategy he can execute. Plan on that "oh, shit, I'm out of it!" moment and have a fall-back-and-recover-your-brain position that he can defend blindfolded and half-asleep.

Chances are he'll pound the dude silly in about a minute and not remember a thing. Or he'll choke. No telling until he steps inside. But that's the great thing about amateur fights. You're going to lose a few. Just keep getting back in the ring. After a dozen or so, you turn pro, and you're 0-0 again.

No experience here with cage fighting. Or any kind of actual fighting, to be honest...

But some of that stress I experience whenever I go to a tournament (which is not that often anyway...).

One way we train our colored belts (or at least introduce them to the stress) is having them do their forms in front of the whole class, with the same formality (bowing in, introducing themselves, etc.) we expect at the tournament. The simple fact of having a bunch of people they know watching is already often quite daunting.

Another thing is our belt tests. Formality is cranked up for those, and we usually run them pretty hard. As mentioned earlier, you probably can't train for cage fighting unless you actually step in there. But having people practice stuff they know in an unfamiliar/formal/public fashion might help a little with stress.

That's my opinion. As I said, no real experience here.

Thanks for your comments Michael and Katz.

I came to roughly the same conclusion that experiance was everything and its tough to try to simulate this senario. I will just try to boost his confidence at every opportunity and work him double hard in the dojo to give himself the best chance of success.

Thanks Again.

Wayne