Post by Kanashimi on Jul 6, 2016 13:35:48 GMT -6
Course Notes for:
Tourney Fu – Thinking Like a Winner
Michael Hammer of God
Sword Knight Boot Camp 2003
We handed out the sheets and took the self evaluation from
www.jeffjanssen.com.
We got a show of hands on results and then I showed a stripped version of the
following:
Report that instructors averaged 79 with the least physically gifted even higher. I
got an 88.
It is all about Self-confidence. I will keep coming back to that.
The magic acronym is SPARK.
Set Goals
Practice and Prepare
Always stay positive
Relax and enjoy yourself
Key visualization techniques
Set Goals
Goal setting also gives you a realistic basis for and level of Self-confidence. It is
the achievement of goals that build confidence most readily. Thus the process
should be to set a goal, achieve it and then set another higher one. Goals should
be Tangible, measurable, and readily attainable. Large goals like ‘Becoming a
Warlord’ are not readily attainable. Break them up. Goals like ‘Get better’ are
very hard to measure. There are three types of fighting goals I see in Amtgard:
1. Tourney Goals – Beware of these becoming unattainable. Goals like placement in
some events or winning some number of fights are better than winning a tournament
unless you are already pretty good. Tourney goals are still important.
2. Practice goals - Practice goals are things like I will spar for four hours a week on top of
fighter practice and game day. Practice goals serve in two ways since they build
confidence and they build skills. Practice goals are also great because they are always
attainable. Whether you practice as much as you committed to or not is always your
choice. Fitness goals fit in here too..
3. Related but non-tourney goals – Other things that help you feel better about your
fighting and make you better without directly improving your chance in a tourney.
Dalos and Arthon have a contest to invent new spin shots. By definition the Dalos
Double spin will get you killed in a tourney but if he makes it work on Arthon he feels
better about his fighting skills. Fighting with disadvantages in practice (like short or
heavy weapons) also falls into this category.
4. Time Management - set a goal of time management for events and regular meetings.
Since I am a family man and can only attend events for so long, I make the most of it.
I plan on hitting the ditch field for most of the event. If there is no ditch, I occupy the
field and spar until enough fighters show up to ditch. Participating in battle games
would likewise be a non-tourney goal. It might not improve your fighting directly, but
it at leaves gives another avenue to fight.
Practice and Prepare
I break Practice and prepare into four sub headings.
1. Physical practice – Any exercise and conditioning is good. Things like drills, dynnabe,
racquetball and the like are better. Sparing is the best physical practice for Amtgard.
As already mentioned it builds confidence and skill set at same time. It also builds
instincts to keep you from having to think while fighting in tournament. There is not
time for such a distraction. Physical Practice is also the time to analyze your skill sets
and improve them. Don‟t spend time in tourneys thinking about where you went
wrong. Do that in practice.
2. While any exercise and conditioning is good and actually fighting is best, there is a lot
that can be done with choosing the best exercises. When I was king of the Celestial
Kingdom, I did a lot of traveling. I also stopped working out. When I did, I noticed
my fighting got a lot better. I couldn't figure out why. Eventually, I came up with the
theory that the exercise I was doing (building bulk) was interfering with my fighting
skill set. About three years ago, I hired a personal trainer and got three sessions. My
goal: to build speed and be competitive as a fencer. I was put on a "core building"
program. It worked really well for me. I came to the realization that I was the kind of
fighter that had to be in good physical condition to get to the next step. My body
adapted very well physical practice. I incorporated parts of Thor's footwork class into
my workout. I also began to compete in soccer, partly because I enjoy soccer and
partly to improve my mobility. My point: you need to know what kind of physical
practice to engage in, and stick with areas where you experience success and returns.
3. Proper planning - Planning can eliminate distractions, which may hurt you in tourney.
Make sure you have your own good equipment for the tournament. Looking for stuff to
borrow and using stuff you are not comfortable with is an avoidable distraction. Avoid
it. Have water on hand and get anything else that you might want to make a store trip
for. Trips in the middle of a tournament are also distractions that can be avoided. Other
Amtgard tasks like taking or giving reeves tests or judging quals should be avoided if
you want be your best in the tournament.
4. Mental Preparation - Spar before the tourney. Use best combo and do it to limber and
get confident. You will not do anything significant to help an area where you need
practice in a few minutes on tourney day. Take your best combo and just mow to make
yourself believe.
5. Have a specific plan for bad things that may happen in the tournament. Having a plan
allows you to shake it off. Bad things happen to all of us. Deal with it quickly and get
on with the business of winning. Examples of bad things are sluffers, bad draws, losses
that should have been avoided, bad reeves, etc. Think about how you have dealt with it
successfully in the past and seek to duplicate.
Always Think Positive
“I have lost tourneys I was sure I was gonna win but I never won one I thought I
was gonna loose.”
- Michael
1. Use specific positive phrases like: “I can beat this guy”, “I am on fire”, “Take it one
fight at a time”. From professional Sports the Colorado Avalanche won the 2001
Stanley Cup. Their playoff slogan was „Mission 16W‟ not „Mission Stanley Cup‟. (The
class then had to come up with two personal attributes that could help them win
tournaments. Positive personal attributes.)
2. Never use negative phrases like: “I am so dead.”, “I hate fighting Thor. He always
kicks my ass.”, “I can‟t believe I am loosing.”, "I always suck in tourneys.” “The
reeves are out to get me.” Negative thoughts are viscous too. I used to worry so much
about losing to "this" guy that I would get careless. I would hesitate instead of just
going through business as usual.
3. There is a cycle I've noticed: increased confidence leads to greater effort which leads
to better performance which leads to increased confidence. Getting the cycle started is
the only catch. You have to believe.
4. Be confident of what you can do. Think in terms of specific goals (I can get this guy
with this wrap shot). Overconfidence can be a mental flaw. It hurts later confidence.
Being positive always is good being wildly unrealistic is not. In addition to hurting
confidence it can make you stupid. I see three states, negative thinking, confidence,
and overconfidence or arrogance. Negative thinking is the worst since it is harmful in
the sort and long terms. Confidence is the best state and comes from positive phrasing.
Overconfidence comes where you force your positive thinking far ahead of your
abilities. Its bad because in the short term it can cause you to play with opponents or
be careless but in the long term is very dangerous because it can interfere with the real
power of positive messages because your mind knows when you are lying to yourself.
5. Psyching out the opponent – Part of your mental outlook depends on how confident
your opponent appears and vice versa. Remember he is probably equally nervous.
There are some old many tricks you can use. If any of these challenge your personal
code of honor don‟t do them. Still understanding them is important because your
opponent might want to use them. First start the fight with a firm handshake. It is a
great show of confidence and since it shows respect for your opponent it might reduce
the chance of him sluffing you in return. Dressing and acting serious will make it more
likely that you will be taken as such. Avoid jester‟s caps. Taking the field at the highest
point and with your back to the sun can give you advantages. You gain a psychological
advantage by increasing your perceived height as well as putting the sun in your
opponent‟s eyes to start off with. If you feel this is questionable honor-wise, then line
up side to the sun to make sure your opponent can‟t do it to you. It is also important to
look guys in the eye. It exudes confidence and it might scare your opponent. They
might betray actions with looks. You won‟t betray actions with looks as long as you
are looking them in the eye.
Relax and Enjoy Yourself
I break relax and enjoy yourself into two parts.
1. Learn to Relax – This happens beforehand. Deep breathing exercises, hot tubs, and
massages physically relax the body and also bring mental peace. Sir Rook of the CK
was a HS footballer in Texas where it is serious business. He did all many of these
relaxation things there and they carried right over to Amtgard.
2. Superstitions and pre-competition/tourney rituals (like the lucky t-shirt, always
wearing black, or whatever) are very common in sports because they help you get back
to a previous successful state. If you have a successful tourney copy small details the
next time. This kind of thinking builds focus.
3. Enjoy your self – This happens during the tourney. Find something you love about
tourneys and emphasize that element in your own mind and look forward to it at each
tourney. In general, warlords love tourneys. Everyone warlord I talked to loves
fighting and most love tourneys.
4. Remember what you love about fighting. There was a point where I was so worried
about the win, that I would avoid fighting someone I thought could beat me, not in
tourneys, but during regular days. I saw it as a precursor to an outcome at a tourney.
When I stepped back from the "tourney" mentality, I enjoyed regular fighting more. I
love flanking. I love taking down a side. I love making jokes, running around, even
getting killed. When I remembered what I liked about fighting on any given day, it put
me at ease on tourney day.
Key Visualization Techniques
1. Visualize Success – Use specific visualizations of past successes. If you beat a
Wolfram in practice with a wrap-shot over his madu take a moment before a fight with
him to visualize yourself doing it again. You might want to use a different move this
time but the specific visualization will build your confidence for any move. These
visualizations should be short term just like your goals. Picturing yourself beating your
next opponent works much better than picturing yourself as the tourney winner.
2. Visualize overcoming challenges – The specific bad things that can happen and which
you mad plans to cope with can also benefit from visualization. If your recovery plan
for a first round loss is to come back in the finals and beat the guy twice, then you
should visualize that.
3. Visualization works best when linked to belief. After that, I went years where I took
second and third place in tourneys. It was nice to have a two and a half year run on
consecutively finishing in the top three, but it hurt my faith in ever winning again. The
moment of truth for me: Rand told me at an event after a few rounds of ditching,
"you're already one of us, all you have to do is get the belt". It meant so much to me.
Being a sword knight is to belong to a peerage. It is a very much like an MVP club or
all star crew. To know that I was counted among that group made me believe that my
last tourney win was not only possible, but inevitable. I called my next tourney, and I
won it.
Link to Source
Tourney Fu – Thinking Like a Winner
Michael Hammer of God
Sword Knight Boot Camp 2003
We handed out the sheets and took the self evaluation from
www.jeffjanssen.com.
We got a show of hands on results and then I showed a stripped version of the
following:
95 to 100 | A Mental Champion. You know how to win the Mental Game. |
85 to 94 | On the verge of becoming a Mental Champion. |
75 to 84 | Improving your Mental Game will help take you to a Championship level. |
65 to 74 | Improving your Mental Game will significantly help your game. |
64 and less | You need to work on your mental game. |
Report that instructors averaged 79 with the least physically gifted even higher. I
got an 88.
It is all about Self-confidence. I will keep coming back to that.
The magic acronym is SPARK.
Set Goals
Practice and Prepare
Always stay positive
Relax and enjoy yourself
Key visualization techniques
Set Goals
Goal setting also gives you a realistic basis for and level of Self-confidence. It is
the achievement of goals that build confidence most readily. Thus the process
should be to set a goal, achieve it and then set another higher one. Goals should
be Tangible, measurable, and readily attainable. Large goals like ‘Becoming a
Warlord’ are not readily attainable. Break them up. Goals like ‘Get better’ are
very hard to measure. There are three types of fighting goals I see in Amtgard:
1. Tourney Goals – Beware of these becoming unattainable. Goals like placement in
some events or winning some number of fights are better than winning a tournament
unless you are already pretty good. Tourney goals are still important.
2. Practice goals - Practice goals are things like I will spar for four hours a week on top of
fighter practice and game day. Practice goals serve in two ways since they build
confidence and they build skills. Practice goals are also great because they are always
attainable. Whether you practice as much as you committed to or not is always your
choice. Fitness goals fit in here too..
3. Related but non-tourney goals – Other things that help you feel better about your
fighting and make you better without directly improving your chance in a tourney.
Dalos and Arthon have a contest to invent new spin shots. By definition the Dalos
Double spin will get you killed in a tourney but if he makes it work on Arthon he feels
better about his fighting skills. Fighting with disadvantages in practice (like short or
heavy weapons) also falls into this category.
4. Time Management - set a goal of time management for events and regular meetings.
Since I am a family man and can only attend events for so long, I make the most of it.
I plan on hitting the ditch field for most of the event. If there is no ditch, I occupy the
field and spar until enough fighters show up to ditch. Participating in battle games
would likewise be a non-tourney goal. It might not improve your fighting directly, but
it at leaves gives another avenue to fight.
Practice and Prepare
I break Practice and prepare into four sub headings.
1. Physical practice – Any exercise and conditioning is good. Things like drills, dynnabe,
racquetball and the like are better. Sparing is the best physical practice for Amtgard.
As already mentioned it builds confidence and skill set at same time. It also builds
instincts to keep you from having to think while fighting in tournament. There is not
time for such a distraction. Physical Practice is also the time to analyze your skill sets
and improve them. Don‟t spend time in tourneys thinking about where you went
wrong. Do that in practice.
2. While any exercise and conditioning is good and actually fighting is best, there is a lot
that can be done with choosing the best exercises. When I was king of the Celestial
Kingdom, I did a lot of traveling. I also stopped working out. When I did, I noticed
my fighting got a lot better. I couldn't figure out why. Eventually, I came up with the
theory that the exercise I was doing (building bulk) was interfering with my fighting
skill set. About three years ago, I hired a personal trainer and got three sessions. My
goal: to build speed and be competitive as a fencer. I was put on a "core building"
program. It worked really well for me. I came to the realization that I was the kind of
fighter that had to be in good physical condition to get to the next step. My body
adapted very well physical practice. I incorporated parts of Thor's footwork class into
my workout. I also began to compete in soccer, partly because I enjoy soccer and
partly to improve my mobility. My point: you need to know what kind of physical
practice to engage in, and stick with areas where you experience success and returns.
3. Proper planning - Planning can eliminate distractions, which may hurt you in tourney.
Make sure you have your own good equipment for the tournament. Looking for stuff to
borrow and using stuff you are not comfortable with is an avoidable distraction. Avoid
it. Have water on hand and get anything else that you might want to make a store trip
for. Trips in the middle of a tournament are also distractions that can be avoided. Other
Amtgard tasks like taking or giving reeves tests or judging quals should be avoided if
you want be your best in the tournament.
4. Mental Preparation - Spar before the tourney. Use best combo and do it to limber and
get confident. You will not do anything significant to help an area where you need
practice in a few minutes on tourney day. Take your best combo and just mow to make
yourself believe.
5. Have a specific plan for bad things that may happen in the tournament. Having a plan
allows you to shake it off. Bad things happen to all of us. Deal with it quickly and get
on with the business of winning. Examples of bad things are sluffers, bad draws, losses
that should have been avoided, bad reeves, etc. Think about how you have dealt with it
successfully in the past and seek to duplicate.
Always Think Positive
“I have lost tourneys I was sure I was gonna win but I never won one I thought I
was gonna loose.”
- Michael
1. Use specific positive phrases like: “I can beat this guy”, “I am on fire”, “Take it one
fight at a time”. From professional Sports the Colorado Avalanche won the 2001
Stanley Cup. Their playoff slogan was „Mission 16W‟ not „Mission Stanley Cup‟. (The
class then had to come up with two personal attributes that could help them win
tournaments. Positive personal attributes.)
2. Never use negative phrases like: “I am so dead.”, “I hate fighting Thor. He always
kicks my ass.”, “I can‟t believe I am loosing.”, "I always suck in tourneys.” “The
reeves are out to get me.” Negative thoughts are viscous too. I used to worry so much
about losing to "this" guy that I would get careless. I would hesitate instead of just
going through business as usual.
3. There is a cycle I've noticed: increased confidence leads to greater effort which leads
to better performance which leads to increased confidence. Getting the cycle started is
the only catch. You have to believe.
4. Be confident of what you can do. Think in terms of specific goals (I can get this guy
with this wrap shot). Overconfidence can be a mental flaw. It hurts later confidence.
Being positive always is good being wildly unrealistic is not. In addition to hurting
confidence it can make you stupid. I see three states, negative thinking, confidence,
and overconfidence or arrogance. Negative thinking is the worst since it is harmful in
the sort and long terms. Confidence is the best state and comes from positive phrasing.
Overconfidence comes where you force your positive thinking far ahead of your
abilities. Its bad because in the short term it can cause you to play with opponents or
be careless but in the long term is very dangerous because it can interfere with the real
power of positive messages because your mind knows when you are lying to yourself.
5. Psyching out the opponent – Part of your mental outlook depends on how confident
your opponent appears and vice versa. Remember he is probably equally nervous.
There are some old many tricks you can use. If any of these challenge your personal
code of honor don‟t do them. Still understanding them is important because your
opponent might want to use them. First start the fight with a firm handshake. It is a
great show of confidence and since it shows respect for your opponent it might reduce
the chance of him sluffing you in return. Dressing and acting serious will make it more
likely that you will be taken as such. Avoid jester‟s caps. Taking the field at the highest
point and with your back to the sun can give you advantages. You gain a psychological
advantage by increasing your perceived height as well as putting the sun in your
opponent‟s eyes to start off with. If you feel this is questionable honor-wise, then line
up side to the sun to make sure your opponent can‟t do it to you. It is also important to
look guys in the eye. It exudes confidence and it might scare your opponent. They
might betray actions with looks. You won‟t betray actions with looks as long as you
are looking them in the eye.
Relax and Enjoy Yourself
I break relax and enjoy yourself into two parts.
1. Learn to Relax – This happens beforehand. Deep breathing exercises, hot tubs, and
massages physically relax the body and also bring mental peace. Sir Rook of the CK
was a HS footballer in Texas where it is serious business. He did all many of these
relaxation things there and they carried right over to Amtgard.
2. Superstitions and pre-competition/tourney rituals (like the lucky t-shirt, always
wearing black, or whatever) are very common in sports because they help you get back
to a previous successful state. If you have a successful tourney copy small details the
next time. This kind of thinking builds focus.
3. Enjoy your self – This happens during the tourney. Find something you love about
tourneys and emphasize that element in your own mind and look forward to it at each
tourney. In general, warlords love tourneys. Everyone warlord I talked to loves
fighting and most love tourneys.
4. Remember what you love about fighting. There was a point where I was so worried
about the win, that I would avoid fighting someone I thought could beat me, not in
tourneys, but during regular days. I saw it as a precursor to an outcome at a tourney.
When I stepped back from the "tourney" mentality, I enjoyed regular fighting more. I
love flanking. I love taking down a side. I love making jokes, running around, even
getting killed. When I remembered what I liked about fighting on any given day, it put
me at ease on tourney day.
Key Visualization Techniques
1. Visualize Success – Use specific visualizations of past successes. If you beat a
Wolfram in practice with a wrap-shot over his madu take a moment before a fight with
him to visualize yourself doing it again. You might want to use a different move this
time but the specific visualization will build your confidence for any move. These
visualizations should be short term just like your goals. Picturing yourself beating your
next opponent works much better than picturing yourself as the tourney winner.
2. Visualize overcoming challenges – The specific bad things that can happen and which
you mad plans to cope with can also benefit from visualization. If your recovery plan
for a first round loss is to come back in the finals and beat the guy twice, then you
should visualize that.
3. Visualization works best when linked to belief. After that, I went years where I took
second and third place in tourneys. It was nice to have a two and a half year run on
consecutively finishing in the top three, but it hurt my faith in ever winning again. The
moment of truth for me: Rand told me at an event after a few rounds of ditching,
"you're already one of us, all you have to do is get the belt". It meant so much to me.
Being a sword knight is to belong to a peerage. It is a very much like an MVP club or
all star crew. To know that I was counted among that group made me believe that my
last tourney win was not only possible, but inevitable. I called my next tourney, and I
won it.
Link to Source