This week has been a good week. It’s been a full week of training and it’s good to be back at the gym and 150% focused on ironing out the creases and working on what I need to work on. As with most things, when it comes to improvement it’s an ongoing process. And more importantly it’s a fun one.

This week one of my trainers has had us focused on the fighting style of the legendary and sadly deceased Ramon Dekkers, Of course, it wasn’t all about emulating him, but really focusing on that ability to change the tempo of a fight.

I think really it’s something that’s down to mindset and mentality. If you think slow (over analyze rather than let it go) you fight slow.  But..if you switch it on and step it up then everything else follows suit. So did I get this element of my training nailed in one week? Well.. you know what I said about a ongoing  progress earlier? refer to that. But hey I’m just getting my groove back.

I’ve found as I’ve said before, that sparring in particular is improving and I’ve noticed  that ‘being spiteful’ as the great Barry Mcguigan would say is becoming an easier place to get to. I guess everyone has their own method of doing this, but for me it’s simply focusing my intention and committing myself to what I’m doing. A better way to describe it may be controlled aggression. (This doesn’t mean hammering your sparring partner but working at a good rate with a lot of focus.)

I think mindset is crucial to fighting and of course to training as well. My cousin, a BJJ and MMA guy said to me a while ago that fighting is 30% physical and 70% mental, and in hindsight and on reflection of my previous experiences I would have to agree. So I’ve learnt not just to focus on my physical training but on my mental training too.

There’s a few things that I do now to help me prepare for a fight that I will share with you at a later stage, but I’ve found that setting your intention at a very early stage is a very powerful tool indeed. In training we’re constantly reminded to be thinking about the fight the whole time with everything we do.

Part of this is learning how to flick your on/off switch, adopting a fighting mentality even when your working a bag is a winner’s perspective and I for one would rather train like I’m fighting next week than in a few months time. I’ll no doubt talk a bit more about mindset at a later stage, but for now I thought I’d leave you with a  video to watch. Ramon Dekkers highlights  doing what he did best, enjoy the combat, train hard and I’ll see you on the road.