Honing in on the Fighter's Attitude

Recently, I read the book A Fighter's Heart by Sam Sheridan, in which, Sheridan explores the means and way by which fighters (both professional and amateur) step into the gym or the ring day in day out, and remain motivated to do so.  The book itself is fascinating as Sheridan explores his own psyche to determine why he continues to explore fighting, and the desire to fight, while compparing and contrasting himself (an extreme amateur) with profressional and top-notch amateur fighters around the world.  The book goes into a number of different locales around the world, and a vast number of competitive fighting arenas ranging from muay Thai in Thailand, MMA and boxing in the US, and (il)legal dog-fighting all over the world.  The motivations for each fighter and trainer is dramatically different in the way they explain it, but at the end the thing that remains constant is the justification for a life of trial and imminent danger; that is love, it's all about love.  Love of your opponent, love of the contest, love of competition and more than anything else the love of the fight and the love shared by fighter and trainer.

Upon completion of this book, which I highly recommend to everybody, Sheridan explores less the physical and more the mental aspects of fighting with his next book The Fighter's Mind: Inside the Mental Game.  What motivates them, what pushes them and how do they think about fighting?  I'm currently still reading this one, but a couple of interesting questions have popped up in my mind that I felt needed addressing as I continue reading.

I've noticed many parallels between the way fighters feel or think and the way that successful people in all walks of life feel or think.  Sheridan talks about Miyamoto Musashi's Go Rin No Sho (The Book of Five Rings), and how Musashi's life wasn't based around the concept of winning points in his many duels, but about winning; clear cut victor and dead opponent.  You get the feeling that giving the option of winning to the opponent (by worrying about points), allows your opponent to have the openings to beat you with.

Now this applies directly ties to the concept of changing one's attitude to succeed in life, as well as in the varied martial arts arenas.  I'm going to talk about life first, and then continue with the more martial aspects of my life.

No one would ever, with any seriousness, call me overweight, I've always carried my weight well and have good posture so it's rarely easy to tell that I do have a bit of a paunch.  The fact remains, though, that by and large my weight as hovered in the 190lbs range...while not overweight, that is rather heavy for a frame that is made to be lean.  My weight shot up to near 200lbs during my college years, and I realized that I needed to make a change as soon as I found out my cholesterol levels had also shot up.  Since that day I've been struggling to make those lifestyle changes that illicit weight loss and healthy living...I've been mostly unsuccessful.  For all the fact that I spend a good amount of time working out in the gym, lifting weights and running, as well as spending at minimum 2 hours every night in the dojo working on my karate and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, my weight still remained at 185lbs.

Any health professional will tell you that being healthy is more about diet than it is about physical activity - I had decided to prove them wrong, but sadly that wasn't working for me.  So now I've begun to adjust my diet; I've increased protein intake, and cut carbs.  I avoid all the processed sugars that I can, and consume a healthy quantity of dairy products.  Now within the first week I was down to 181; 4lbs in one week!  Not unheard, and truth be told, it's likely all water weight, but it's progress.  Now it got me thinking about what I did differently, and it wasn't necessarily the dietary changes, but more a change in my attitude toward specific foods.

So now, we can come back to the issue at hand, fighters and training to fight. As I come down to the end of the book, I'm beginning to notice parallels between all the fighters and trainers that are interviewed by Sheridan. He also brings it all together in the last chapter after the final interview of the book. It all comes to the concept of mushin or "no mind." Most athletes describe there own feeling of "no mind" as "being in the zone." You'll hear it so often among basketball players when they make several shots flawlessly in a row. They almost transcend the realm of thinking about their actions and begin working without thought. It is very rare to see this happen, and many athletes that say that are, in fact, just very talented individuals I believe. At the same time, I can't call it all BS. Michael Jordan is a perfect example of this: during his comeback to basketball, Jordan was the top scorer for the Bulls with 50+ points. He accomplished this while battling the flu and a 103 degree fever. If that isn't a case of mushin then I don't know what is. Marcelo Garcia, one of the finest Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu practitioners in the world, says the most difficult part of getting into the zone, is having the methods to force your brain to go there. Force your brain into mushin without forcing it; each fighter has their ritual before a fight to focus their energies, determining your trigger is the trick.