A lot of people believe in a sort of magical X factor in fighting — some call it grit, heart, spirit, etc.
I believe in it too. I just don’t believe it’s magical.
It can be broken down and systematized, just like strength training and technique. 🧵
Most of this is mental, which means that the only way to really put in quality reps looks a lot like “woo” nonsense.
But it’s not — and, critically, the only way for training to work is for the trainee to fully buy into it.
Warrior rituals across historic civilizations were basically ways of unlocking that “X factor.”
And those sorts of rituals are reflected today, among many fighters.
Mike Tyson was hypnotized. McGregor meditated and visualized the fight. Prochazka does… this.
There are a lot of different aspects to what that “X factor” actually is, but usually it’s a flow state.
Perfect focus; meditation while moving. Time slows down and actions seem to happen via pure will.
That’s an actual thing you can train yourself to access and do.
Besides that, it’s physical.
“Tendon strength” is a real thing; so is muscle memory. And you can only get there via repetition.
That repetition also feeds into the mental side of things. It’s why having training routines and rituals is so important.
In fact, a lot of modern sports psychology is just finding ways to re-arrive at historical rituals and knowledge via scientific materialism.
Half the time it’s just reverse-engineering Germanic berserking or elements of samurai Zen Buddhism.
We’ve pretty much come to a consensus with various pre-scientific societies on how to prepare somebody to go into hand-to-hand combat:
Brief removal from society, meditation, visualization, repetition, ritual.
Personally I think that’s insane
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