What goes through your mind when your about to enter the ring? Personally I get really nervous and wonder what I'm doing there. I usually suffer for it in the first round because my mind isnt all there but after I take a few hits I wake up. What do you guys do to psyche yourself up before a fight?
Hope this isn't lame, but I think of my daughters and and immediately the pissed of father in me comes out. Cause pretty much I'd do anything to protect them.
I have yet to box (but want to), but in all my years playing many sports, I never do all that bull**** "hype up" ****. It does nothing and it just makes you cocky. Just don't stress about it, and go in there and do business. If you've worked your ass off in training, you should be able to beat your opponent without getting cocky or "hyped up". You shouldn't need to hype yourself up for you to feel confident in your ability, whatever sport it is. Just don't think about anything but what your opponent may try to exploit. Try to think of things from his perspective, and try and point out your weaknesses in your head before fight time so you can bait him. I've never been the most athletic player in any sports I played, but I've always had success because I can anticipate what my opponent will do before he even does it. But yeah, just don't stress out, and don't worry about being hyped up. If you prepared for your fight right, you can just go in there and kick his ass. Don't need to be cocky, flashy, don't need to be hyped up, you don't need to be mad, none of that. Treat it as a job (but have fun, obviously).
Just stay as calm and neutral as possible. Try not to get 'involved' in the fight, because that gets you too worked up, and then you are inclined to do something stupid.
I get nervous as hell sometimes then other times I'm relaxed. My second last fight I spent a while just roaming around psyching myself up and felt great. My last fight I was nervous as hell for no particular reason and pretty much psyched myself up on the way to the ring.
I disagree that you should think about all of your weaknesses and how he may exploit them. If you spend time thinking about that you end up not concentrating enough on what you should be doing to him. You end up thinking '****, I wish I'd spent more time on head movement' for example and it really doesn't help.
Yeah, well that's just been my style before sports games. If I can anticipate what they'll try to exploit, then that helps me think about what I'm going to do to them, because I'll already know what they're gonna do.
This is true. A college basketball coach I spoke to said to me that getting nervous is simple, you're worrying about yourself. Take the focus off yourself, think about what you're going to do to your opponent, make them look silly. Incorrect anticipation is very costly because it greatly affects your response time, you can only program one response at a time. The correct anticipatory response increases reaction time. The more things you give your opponent to think about the more he will be unable to anticipate your movements. The more things he might have to respond to the slower his reaction times will be. Throw a variety of punches. There is also the psychological refractory period, what this means is if you can provide a stimulus 50-60ms before another movement then the person is still trying to deal with the initial stimulus so their response is far slower. 40ms before is too quick, your opponent deals with both stimulus as if they are one and greater than 100ms gives your opponent time to deal with both stimulus separately. That's how the 'fake' works, so make sure you learn how to feint
Before I started doing the old hype up get raging. Now I just chill right out, act normal and just be relaxed.
Also have fun, thats why we do what we do, if theyre giving you the eye just stare right through them, this helps me get less distracted and get into mindset and see them as a target or object rather than a person, look straight through them 4" past their face, coz thats where the straight rights are going lol.
Good post lefty, youve made me realise i may not be explaining feints and getting my points across in as great a detail as i could be, this is written very simple and easy to understand, a good way to explain in words what a feint is really about when the timing is just right. :good
