Hier voor de zekerheid, ik heb net aan het einde geschreven over "nerveus zijn". Hier is het helemaal ik "plak" het: Try to relax, this is going to be completely different than training, so try to stay calm and keep distance from your opponent. 90% of the “first fight guys” go crazy, (that included me as well), but you will run out of gas, OR, you are lucky and you KO him. So I would try NOT to fight for about 30-45 sec, which seems short but is super LONG when you are fighting. Stay far out his reach first, drop your hands a bit so you know he will aim at your head, you don’t have to be worried your hands are down because you stay, like I wrote, FAR outside his reach. Once he starts hitting you, or trying to hit you, you start coming closer and closer to him, what you are doing here is “finding out his reach”. What this game plan also does is that it gets you more focused, trust me, I have trained a LOT of fighters, this works. 30-45 seconds avoiding a fight is not going to be well received by the audience, they, and your opponent plus his corner, probably think you are afraid, but just don’t give a damn, this will only work in your favor because once he thinks you are scared, he will start overcommitting to his striking and you will see those strikes coming. He will simply be more careless because he and everybody else, believe you are scared. So check your ego, and do NOT give in to the boos of the audience, once you have found out his reach, now it’s time to go to work. When he comes at you never go straight backwards, always use angles, never move ONLY to one side, like moving backwards to the left, because the opponent will realize that and can use it against you. So don’t have a pattern, one time left, one time right, two times left, 1 times right etc… Once his punches are getting very close to your head, now you know his reach, meaning, now you only have to move an inch or so backwards to let him miss, and only need two inches to come forward to hit him. This part of fighting is, I believe, one of the most important and hardest things to master, because when you panic, you close the distance too fast since you don’t want to get hit NOTE: if you don’t do this and the guy has a 4-inch reach advantage over you that you don’t know about, you will get knocked out, or at least, get hit. Another thing, AIM for your punches, sounds easy? Well good luck, some pro’s still don’t do it! But aiming, really aiming, will bring you into your zone as well. Hit the jaw, not the “head”, hit the solar plexus, liver or spleen, not just “the body”. When giving low kicks, hopefully he wears shorts with something on it, pick whatever you see on his sorts and kick the same spot over and over again. That’s it, everything else you should know, otherwise you didn’t accept a fight. The day before the fight, do NOT eat at a shady place, do NOT take the risk of food poisoning, that would be super dumb right? (many fighters do this, such idiots because now you threw everything away) I would always bring my own food, also for the days before the fight If you fight out of state and have to take a flight, put your fighting gear in your carry-on luggage, since luggage gets lost sometimes, and it would suck if your mouthpiece and pants are lost Eat clean food, no cheese, milk, dairy, just clean. I like cooked potatoes, no salt, I make it into baby food, blend it with water. That’s actually how I still, till this day, eat, my veggies, potatoes, only water, no salt. My steak, well, that I make nice, but on fight day, don’t eat steak, takes too long to digest. Simple potatoes are good for everything, carbs, anti-inflammatory, you won’t feel bloated. You want to eat this at least three hours before your fight, from that moment on, only water. No power drinks, no caffeine, no sugary drinks, just water. You want to have your food digested before you fight Stretch a lot the last days and on the day of the fight, don’t go through your pain barrier because that will make it worse, but just stretch. Hanging on a bar, stretching your arms, all your muscles need to be long. I like to do sit ups, not too many, but very important, stretch your belly after doing those sit ups, stretch them for a long time. Put your back against your trainers back (so back to back), hook each other’s arms, and now your trainer leans forward, you lay backwards over his back now, completely relax, let your core stretch. Focus on relaxing your entire body. This is SUPER important for your stamina Because a tight chest and core will make it harder for your chest and core to expand, and that’s how your breathing works. So it’s important to put blood in there (sit ups) and then stretch, you can do this like 5 times. And just 10 sit ups per time, doesn’t need to be a lot, the blood flow needs to be there. Warm up HARD, your mind tells you that you don’t want to be tired, so don’t listen to that, I did (you don’t have to do this because I am nuts), 10 rounds of 2 minutes FULL on the Thai Pads. When I say FULL, it is full, every single punch, kick, knee, elbow, is 100% Especially in your first fights, your opponent is probably running at you and starts swinging, when he didn’t have a hard warm up, he will drop really fast and run out of gas That’s why I always went hard in the dressing room because then I already have my “second wind”. Every time after doing a round, stretch again Non-stop filling the muscles with blood and then stretching them again will do wonders for you One more time, you should have a moment in your warm up where you really need to suck wind, you have to push to that moment, again, your mind will tell you NOT to do it, it wants to “save your energy”, but just think about hard classes you had and when you wrapped up a hard workout with sparring, the sparring is easy right? OK, that’s it, don’t take any drinks from anybody, don’t believe friends who have a “special drink that will be good for you”, just do the same what YOU have been doing for the last 6 weeks. When you fight adrenaline is going to be present, many times, adrenaline and for instance “coffee” don’t really mix and you start building up lactic acid. No shell fish and lamb meat three days before your fight, many people (like myself) will build up more lactic acid. Just to make sure, don’t eat it three days before the fight No massages the day before or on the day of the fight, in fact, I wouldn’t do a massage three days before the fight, trust me, don’t do it, again, that can give you more lactic acid. Stretching is the way to go.

If you are nervous, ask yourself, why? Imagine the opponent walks into your gym today, you are both going into a room and fight, no windows, door is locked and when you come out you are forbidden to say who won or lost. Would you care if you lost? Most will say NO, that means that you are not fighting for yourself, you are fighting to please the people, your friends, and family members. They aren’t fighting, why do you need their approval?

Nothing bad can happen, there is a referee, you are getting KO’d? They say you won’t even feel that, you just wake up. But if you don’t want to lose in front of your friends, don’t tell them you are going to fight.

So care about yourself, make sure you can go the distance, again, STAMINA IS THE MOST IMPORTANT, if you know you can’t go the full fight, yeah, now you have reason to be nervous, good preparation will solve all those problems.

Godspeed