The Superman punch is one of the good examples of how I try to fool my adversary, to keep him guessing. It’s a great tool because it’s not part of most fighters’ codes (more on “codes” later). Most fighters are not accustomed to seeing it in practice, and that affects the brain’s reaction time. They don’t recognize it well. It’s the kind of maneuver that starts in one body part but finishes in another. Tactically, there are at least six ways to start the move, and ten different endings. You can begin with a takedown feint and finish with a punch—it doesn’t matter how or where it starts, because it can end in so many ways.
People think athleticism is just physical, but it’s not. It’s connected to the brain and how the brain can learn to execute and see a movement or not. Especially at high speed. Being athletic is not just jumping and running and being powerful. It’s the the nervous system that guides the body. The muscles don’t decide anything. The brain decides and makes things happen.
MASTER: Georges is the hardest-working athlete I ever knew. But he’s hardly the only guy out there with good work ethic. Almost every guy out there works hard. Jon Fitch is notorious and probably, in terms of hours, outworks Georges, yet we all know what happened when they met. It’s not just his work ethic that makes his great; it’s his depth of insight that gives direction to his work that makes him great.
It was my favorite fight. Fitch kept on attacking me. He just kept on coming. No matter what I did, no matter what happened, no matter where I hit him or how hard, he kept coming. He’s the most resilient opponent I’ve ever faced.
I saw him coming too. I saw his face and what he was thinking. I was faster and stronger that day, I was always a step ahead of him, but he refused to accept it. He refused to accept my dominance. He refused it by relentlessly moving forward, one step at a time. And I hit him. I hit him with my right, and his jaw jutted away from his face, and the sweat leaped off his head into midair, and he staggered back, stunned. I watched him.
Some opponents, you break their will and they lose their desire. They no longer try. They no longer can. The fight is gone out of them. They are defeated and waiting for the fatal blow.
Not Jon Fitch. He never broke.
Repeatedly, I hit him hard, and it shook his entire body. He shook, but I could never let my guard down. I knew he’d be capable of anything. So when I hit him, well and hard and directly, and he staggered back, I did not pounce, I did not leap. I evaluated. I calculated the proper next steps and carried on with my plan. Because that is the way of my fight. There are fights when you feel like you’re in a bubble. The world evaporates and slows as every gesture, every movement, is performed correctly. It feels perfect in terms of execution, even though perfection is impossible. This was, at moments, one of these fights.
Fitch kept coming. And for every single attack, I returned an answer.
MASTER: If I asked you to run through a brick wall, it would be hard work, not smart work. It wouldn’t make you better. Hard work doesn’t necessarily garner results, and hard, stupid work gives you negative results. As the great Benjamin Franklin once said, “Never mistake movement for action.”
Bruce Lee is one of the greatest martial artists there ever was. He was the first to try and accomplish so many new things. He took the word artist beyond the known boundaries of the word. Bruce, for example, was the first to train his muscles not for power but for functionality. He understood very early on that real physical power complements other skills that are more important, like strategy and technique. He believed that total fitness was the perfect combination of many things: flexibility, strength and a strong respiratory system. He found that real strength was found in connective tissue—which holds muscles on the human frame—more than muscle size or muscle mass. In fact, Bruce Lee believed that bigger muscles could actually be bad for martial artists because they limit movement and fluidity. He saw that big muscles actually make people slower and reduce their mobility. For Bruce, everything had to be fluid.
Fluidity made Bruce Lee who he is, and had a huge impact on my development too. It shows the human and philosophical side of the ultimate martial artist. Here’s something he said about being fluid:
Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle. You put it into a teacup, it becomes the teacup. That water can flow, or it can crash. Be water, my friend.
I’ve learned that a thing is perfect only if it’s perfect for you. For me, that comes from being fluid, from being open to ideas and better ways of doing things. Think of Bruce and the water analogy: sometimes you can see through water, and other times it clouds and you can’t see anything. Sometimes water can drill through the hardest surfaces, while other times it can just go around them. It can erode rock over thousands of years, or it can carry tiny pebbles away.
In other words, water constantly changes shape and consistency, it’s essential to survival and it chooses its own shape. Life is like that too. To control it, you have to master it and learn the source of its power and the nature of its course.
I like to think I’m like water that adapts to its surroundings and eventually finds a way in. It’s certainly how I train, and how I’ve seen other great fighters evolve.
MASTER: Every mixed martial artist will affirm that strength and conditioning is one of the cornerstones of conditioning. Georges shocks people when he tells them that strength and conditioning is probably the least important part of his workout, by far. If you look at the evolution of his strength and conditioning workout, it’s not at all like so many young men of his generation with, basically, a bodybuilding workout. But as a young man, that’s exactly what he would do: lift weights, do bench presses. Over the years, he went through more and more sophisticated approaches to conditioning. He’s had a tremendous number of different workouts, different approaches. Each one was a significant improvement on the previous one.
I didn’t understand this before I changed my way of thinking, before I became interested in tactical and technical questions. I surfed on talent and physical ability. When I lost, I realized the status quo had to change. I realized I had no choice but to ask myself real questions. And the best question in the history of the world is also the simplest: Why and how did this happen?
MASTER: And the study of gymnastics has brought Georges to a level of athleticism that is better than at any other point in his career.
He was never just satisfied with hard work. Bodybuilding is hard work—you lift those weights and you feel exhausted—but it’s not smart work. It’s not going to make you a better athlete or a better mixed martial artist. And so Georges didn’t just stay with the hard work; over a decade, he has constantly refined and rejected, moved on, rejected and moved on—until he found the apex of athleticism, which he believes is gymnastics. This is just one example where you see Georges working hard with a sense of vision.
When “normal” athletes do a backflip or a somersault, at the end of the move they see little stars against a black background for a fraction of second. Try it: do two or three cartwheels in a row. Blackout and stars, like when you stand up too quickly after lying down on the sofa for too long.
When gymnasts do much more complicated, intricate patterns on the mat or the rings, they don’t see any stars. They just keep on spinning or leaping or twisting. They’re so used to the motion that their head stays the same. Their stability is consistent throughout their exercises.
This is important if, like a gymnast, you’re going to be doing ten consecutive somersaults. Flips and head-over-heels turns happen in mixed martial arts as well. So it’s really important if you’re going to fight Josh Koscheck, because you don’t want to lose one one-hundredth of a second in the octagon against that guy. A split-second blackout is the difference between avoiding an overhand right and having it connect. The difference is winning and losing—it’s as simple as that.
MASTER: Too many people in mixed martial arts talk
about hard work without intelligent hard work. It’s the depth of insight that matters. What gives work an intelligent direction is what makes it useful. Georges is restless in his desire to find the most efficient use of that hard work. He’s constantly looking for ways of improving his workout, constantly looking for new ways of applying rules to increase their efficiency rate. That is what makes him unique: his depth of insight and vision. Not just athletic ability and work ethic.
I like to watch the best athletes in other sports and how they react or move in certain situations. It helps me understand my own movements better. I break down their processes, their reactions, their movements. They perform certain tactics at speeds that are far greater than my own. It is good to see them perform at these speeds, and to improve my ability to follow their progressions.
I’ve watched many champions, but Amir Khan, the great British pugilist, is my favorite, and his sparring is on another level. So fluid, he never, ever stands in front of his opponent. He always chooses an angle with which to confront his adversary. He seldom is ever hit by an inferior attack, and his counterattacking is simply sublime.
At home, I also watch former world champion wrestler Gia Sissaouri, an unbelievable athlete. He’s so fluid and his combinations are so well organized and sequential, it’s like choreography. He puts everything together seamlessly. When he attempts a single move, he’s always ready for the counteraction. He’s always ready to adapt, to move with the flow of power and use it to his own advantage. His incredible energy keeps him one step ahead of the opponent. The movement is so ingrained into his mind and body that it’s subconscious. It’s natural, a part of how Gia lives.
I like to watch Freddie Roach. Besides the fact that he’s the best boxing coach in the world, in my opinion, I like the way he does what he does. I feel like I get better just being around him and listening to him coach his athletes.
I have often gone to Freddie Roach’s gym and watched other people fight. Just walking into his gym feels special. You know, coming in, that it’s about one thing in that place: boxing at the highest level. No cameras, no glitz, no bullshit. That’s how a boxing club should be run.
Going to his gym is one of the rare times when I can actually sit still and just let my mind wander. Usually, I have trouble sitting around doing nothing. I’m just no good at it. I like to do two, three, four things at once. It drives some of the people around me nuts. Rodolphe is always trying to get me to stop texting or simply sit down. But I can’t. I have to move. I can’t stop myself. I’m addicted to movement and occupation of time and space. The only time I understand how it is for those without the same predisposition is when I’m around Freddie, because somehow, Freddie calms me down.
When I was recovering from my knee surgery in early 2012, I frequently went to visit his gym, the Wild Card, as often as I could. I didn’t know what I was going to do at first, but Freddie told me, “Just come and we’ll figure it out.” He probably had a plan, because he always has a plan. He’s that kind of guy—his vision and his understanding of things is completely unique. So I decided I was going to follow his advice and go visit him in his club.
“Sit there, and watch what they’re doing,” said Freddie, referring to the other fighters. “Watch their feet. Watch their hands and their hips and their heads and the movement they create. And learn from it.”
So I decided to give it a try. Thank goodness I did. I discovered something amazing on the very first day: that I could learn from watching, not just doing.
My whole life has always been about building a knowledge base from doing—executing and repeating movements. Developing technique in a hands-on way. Feeling the evolution of movement with my own hands, and transmitting that to my brain so it could remember. But going to Freddie’s gym showed me there are other, different ways to learn. It proved to me that the myelin sheath, which Rodolphe goes on and on about, works when it senses movements and not just when it executes them.
In fact, I think that watching others train helped me better understand technique and how to execute movements the right way. Many times, I felt like I was spying on two fighters who didn’t know I was there, and taking their secrets with me. Sometimes it would be a local guy working his way up, and other days it would be Amir Khan. Just watching these guys, these expert boxers, move and be fluid helped me improve my own technique. I’d watch them perform, and then I’d close my eyes and see myself moving better, punching more fluidly, absorbing blows more naturally, and it made me better. This technique is called visualization, and it turns out that it’s quite detailed and specific.
Visualization is about imagining how something relates to your senses—feel, smell, taste and sound. It’s not something you just decide to do by sitting there a few minutes—like all good things, it takes practice and an open mind. But when you do it right, your imagination makes it seem so real that it can trick your body into thinking it is reality. This is a very good thing.
How it works is pretty straightforward: you imagine good things happening in your mind, and you let them happen. After a while, they’ll actually start happening in your life. For an athlete, this will be much more specific to performing an athletic feat, but it applies to all facets of life in my opinion, and you won’t know or be able to judge it until you actually follow the rules and give it a try.
Using your own imagination to create mental images stimulates your mind, helps organize your life and keeps your focus in a particular direction. It allows your unconscious mind to work toward the image you have created, the goal. It’s about understanding the life you want to live, and seeing it unfold before you.
Anyone who concretely visualizes a realistic and more immediate goal when planning for long-term success has a vastly better chance at change and achievement. When we realize the smaller successes, when the stepping stones are reached and become our new platform, we feel good about ourselves. We feel energized, like things are working right and we’re making them happen. Eventually, this pushes us on to greater visions, greater goals, greater ambition. There is nothing more satisfying and more personally empowering than realizing a goal. This just puts a smile on my face.
It doesn’t mean it’s easy. How I adapt and change when confronted with something unexpected is important because life is unpredictable. Seeing tough situations as opportunities should be refreshing.
Again, no matter what is thrown into your path, with training and self-discipline, with clear focus and confidence, problems can be overcome and can even lead to unexpected gains. The edict “Learn one thing, learn one hundred thousand things,” from the Japanese martial classic Book of Five Rings by Musashi Miyamoto, is perfect in this situation because it helps us to deal with the unexpected. This may not fall into the actual category of visualization, but perhaps by constantly practicing visualization, we can enhance our ability to think on our feet, to react in a calm, controlled way, no matter what happens.
It’s important to visualize every fight, every opponent. You size him up, you look at him as objectively as possible, you look for real strengths and weaknesses, and if you’re lucky, you discover the things your opponent wants to conceal. And then you keep going: you prepare your attack diligently, train to the utmost in the key techniques, select the right mode of attack. You visualize the fight and how you want it to go, seeing the defenses mounted in front of you, the attacks coming at you; all the while, you wait patiently for the hollow, the weak point, to develop. When you see it happen, the opening, you close in without revealing your intentions. When the time is right, you strike critically, decisively, with the confidence and power you’ve derived from constant training in body and mental awareness. Every step is visualized as realistically as possible.
Watching athletes who, in their own right, outperform me on many levels helps me improve my own visualization. It’s never a bad idea to imitate the best of the best, or simply choose the best part of their lessons for your own benefit.
There are techniques for pun
ches and kicks, but in my opinion they are only the beginning. Everybody is different, so the key isn’t to force yourself to do the kick the way everybody else does it. The secret is in repeating the kick—or the punch—the best way you’re able to do it, and then repeating it thousands of times. In the gym, in your own mind, at all times.
Do you watch too much TV? See yourself reading books tonight, the only thing to switch on being the lamp beside you. Eat too much fried food? See your lunch tomorrow full of healthy greens. Worried about that presentation and want to put it off? See yourself standing confident and knowledgeable in front of your audience, delivering and answering questions. It is no different from how I visualize myself, my opponent, the octagon and victory.
As you’ll discover, Rodolphe is constantly talking to me about the brain’s myelin sheath and its impact on my technique. To be honest with you, I don’t really care what it’s called; I care that it works. But if you ask Rodolphe, he’ll explain it in relatively simple terms: the myelin sheath is a layer of matter around the axon of a neuron that helps increase the speed of brain impulses. It records movements. It’s like an old vinyl record with layers of information layered into it—except that you can keep adding layers and improving the sharpness and crispness of the sound. Applied to sport, whether you’re practicing a jump shot or a roundhouse kick, it works the same way: the more you repeat a movement exactly the same way as before, the better you become at mastering the movement. What happens, eventually, is that your body—thanks to your brain and the myelin sheath—remembers exactly what needs to be done without you needing to remind it. Like a needle that plays a record, the song remains the same. Automatic.
I reflect on my movements. I replay them in my mind. I think about them—situations and scenarios. I believe that the brain needs this kind of practice and gets better even when I’m thinking of the move instead of doing it physically. It’s perfect execution. I’m thinking about this stuff all the time. In fact, every day, I get lost in thought to the point that people talk to me and I’m not there. They have to snap me back into the present.
The Way of the Fight Page 9