Brain Transplant

Another powerful technique is
called “Resetting”. Resetting is when you have a certain
ritual that resets your system, much like resetting a computer,
and gives you a fresh burst of energy and focus. For me, my
reset ritual is slapping my face with both hands – for you it
can be anything. Some reset rituals I’ve seen include raising
the rear hand up and touching the forehead with the back of
the hand, biting down on the mouthpiece, punching both fists
together, and oddly enough, I knew one fellow that for some
reason would grab his front teeth as a reset (don’t ask me
why). The point is that ANYTHING can be a reset, it doesn’t
have to be cool – it just has to work.

So how do we make our ritual work into an effective reset?
You first need to decide what is your reset ritual. When you
hit the wall and feel like quitting, you then need to have
enough awareness to execute your reset ritual… which should
bring upon you a sense of awareness. This awareness should
shake off any discouragement you may be feeling at the moment
and bring upon a surge of energy, or as I also call it, shaking
the bear off of your back. When you get fatigued, sometimes
it feels like you got a bear on your back, weighing you down…
the reset should shake him off and get you back light on your
feet with energy.

The biggest program in the beginning with executing a successful
reset is learning to have enough control over your own mind
to have enough awareness to his your reset… a good coach can
help with that. Let your coach know what you have in mind
with the reset exercise and when he notices you are failing,
he needs to yell, “RESET! RESET! RESET!” and that will be your
cue to snap out of it and execute your reset ritual and shake
the bear off of your back! After some help from your coach,
you will develop the ability to do it on your own when you
need the boost – but if you are a competitor, you should always
have a coach in your corner who understands the reset concept
and knows the specific instructions or phrases that you would
like heard to initiate it. For me, my brother knows that when
I’m fading to yell, “YOU GOT TO WANT IT! YOU GOT TO WANT IT!”
and for me, that initiates my reset. I’ve been using that
phrase to initiate my reset since I was competing in high
school and currently in my MMA in gym in Miami, FL
– it is ingrained in my brain. The reset is also a
very important technique for combat and we will revisit this
technique later with more detail.