Greg Jackson on fear, meditation, and pressure
Greg Jackson: “Unless you’re a complete sociopath, there’s always going to be an element of fear with it. Some guys deal with it better than others, but everybody feels it.”
Steph Daniels recently conducted yet another one of her famous interviews, this one with the winningest coach in mixed martial arts, Greg Jackson. The entire interview is awesome, so skip the excerpts below, and click the link at bottom.
Right in the middle of the interview, Daniels informed Jackson that Jon Jones had tested positive for cocaine metabolites. The coach coolly continued for another 17 minutes.
SD: You talk a lot about meditation. Is there a specific form that you yourself practice?
Greg Jackson: Yeah, I do enjoy meditation. I was very lucky to grow up with my best friend since I was about 7 years old, Dave Rutschman-Byler. He and his brother, Mark are both Zen monks in San Francisco out at Green Gulch. Over the years, I’ve been very fortunate in that they’ve shared information with me. Just the basic stuff; I’m nowhere near their level. I understand the basics and how they apply to combat.
What I’m really into is focused object meditation or awareness meditation, which are the two main styles, and how they apply to the ability to refocus if you’re losing it and controlling your consciousness and sub-consciousness so they work in tandem together, that way when your sub-conscious mind sees patterns, your conscious mind can solve them.
SD: Do you find that some guys have an unreasonable amount of fear to overcome before getting into the cage and fighting for the first time as a pro?
GJ: Fighters at any level experience fear before a fight. It’s a very scary situation. You’re putting yourself on the line, in front of millions of people, to either win a fight or get your butt kicked. Unless you’re a complete sociopath, there’s always going to be an element of fear with it. Some guys deal with it better than others, but everybody feels it.
You have to learn to keep it in control and be able to compete despite the fear. The hardest part of the fight is getting to the cage. Once the fight is on, you focus on that, because there’s not a lot of time to think about anything else at that point.
Before the fight, all you think about is everything that could go wrong. There are sleepless nights involved, there’s ‘How did I get myself into this’ kind of thinking…some of those guys never get rid of that. They have it all the time. It’s another thing to respect these guys that do this. They have something in them that allows courage to overcome fear, because it takes a courageous person to do this.
SD: What do you find that athletes have the most difficulty with when they reach the elite levels in the sport?
GJ: It’s not a technique or anything with training. It’s usually the stuff outside the cage they have the hardest time with. By the time they get to the elite level, they’ve got the physical aspects down. It’s the partying lifestyles and things outside that bring the pressure.
It’s a very intense culture. The internet really breaks down everything you do, all the time. In my opinion, the biggest hurdle that I have to overcome is just dealing with guys that either their heads blow up too big or the internet will kind of pound them down too much. The outside-the-cage shenanigans are the Number One problem, as evidenced by what you just told me.
If you are a pro fighter or even an experienced amateur have your management email jacksonsmaf@gmail.com or do it yourself. Greg explains that they take a look at everybody, and don’t turn away a ton of people…