What Is Truth?
Very often, it’s only when tournament results repeatedly bring disappointment in spite of rigorous training, that mental blocks start to reveal themselves. At this stage, it’s not necessarily clear what the nature of the block is. The only thing that is certain is that it’s not related to the fighter’s technical knowledge or physical condition, nor their dedication to the sport. This is all...
The mat is a very specific realm where strength seems to be an obvious quality. Strength is visible, it’s advantageous, and it helps you to win. Overall, it’s, indeed, what we expect it to be: synonymous with physical and technical strength. It can be an eye-opening experience, however, to see champions struggle to manifest their knowledge off the mat regardless of their known strength...
Good intention alone is rarely enough to guide students through the crowd to reach the championship. Differences between body types as well as personality types require expert knowledge on how to tailor support and class structure to help trainees get the most out of instruction. Not all clubs, however, have a firm grasp on what constitutes suitable support. In many cases, any study on coaching...
Mental toughness is often misconstrued as withstanding hardship and abuse for as long as possible. It comes from the military, where in a combat situation one is put under massive pressure for a limited period and needs to weather that pressure – no matter the cost. In the context of coping with life in general, this definition of mental toughness is not applicable. It’s simply not...
This chapter of The Brain and Combat: Brain science in Grappling Competition, is dedicated to the topic of understanding the role that losing a fight plays in building mental toughness. We'll make an inventory regarding the costs of a competition that are evident right after the fight. We'll also look through the less obvious psychological losses that impact us in the long term. By the end of...
In the sixth chapter of The Brain and Combat: Brain science in Grappling Competition, we explain the phenomenon of the silver plateau, which effects a lot of regular competitors. With the help of the saturation graph of life, we showed how the game changes from technical to psychological from the cross point on the graph and what you can do to keep progressing towards the gold. It won't be an...
In this fifth chapter of The Brain and Combat: Brain science in Grappling Competition, we go through the short-term mental preparation techniques intended to help you maintain optimal conditions on the day of the tournament as well as to control what reaches you in the competition environment. We also introduce alternative training options to increase the efficiency of your game. Some of these...
This forth chapter of The Brain and Combat: Brain Science in Grappling Competitions about long-term mental preparation methods is undoubtedly the most important one with the biggest impact on one’s tournament performance. We went through the components of the Tournament Preparation Model for Grappling Arts® (Ydus, 2022) and discussed the available methods to get into the best condition for a...
In the third chapter of The Brain and Combat: Brain Science in Grappling Competitions, we'll take a very close look at the events happening in the brain during a grappling competition, from evaluating the opponent to dealing with the result. You'll have a clear picture of how the stress response is driven by you observations and personal history. We'll go through the exact changes of the body...
In the second chapter of The Brain and Combat: Brain Science in Grappling Competitions, we'll learn that confidence is a 'proof of doing' and should not be mistaken with positive self-talk or arrogance. We got to know the multi-layered system of the brain and how it operates during the process of building confidence. We went through the blockers of developing or manifesting confidence. We also...
What Is Truth?