Top Tips for Tournament preparation.

We spoke to Kyokushin Tournament Champion Pete Parson about his top tips in preparing for a Kyokushin knockdown tournament, and this is what he had to say.

1) Learn how to breath.

Air is a very valuable thing when you are halfway through a fight. Knowing how to control your breathing, and gaining oxygen during those moments when the fight stops is critical.

2)Recovery.

Often you think you are tired because you have trained hard but more often than not it is because you haven’t recovered properly.

3) Diet / supplements. What you put in is what you get out, if you are wanting your body to perform then you need to feed it the correct fuel at the correct times. Get professional advice from someone that is trained in this area, but you're involved in a high performance event so you need to supply yourself with the right things.

4) Sleep.

This is a vital part of your performance. The body does much of it's repair work during sleep and if you're not getting regular quality sleep, you won't perform well, or be more prone to contracting an infection because your immune system needs good sleep.

5) Fitness. Make sure that you are fit for fighting, work your fitness around what you will be doing. for example you can be running fit, but you won’t necessarily last long on the mat.

6) Muscle memory. It may be boring but there is no substitute for doing the correct technique 1000’s of times.

7) Learning a technique. Practice what you enjoy doing, you’re more likely to use it on the day. Learn it first, then when (during a fight) you want to use it, and practice it over and over.

8) Strength. Strengthen the weapons you need, not what looks good. Endurance is needed but so is power. Don't ignore the basics

9) Pain. You must be able to operate and operate well when pain is present. Its up to you how well you operate and under how much pain. One of the reasons you need to participate in dojo fighting is to train your mind to expect and understand the pain from a strike.

10) Mind training. What percentage of achieving something is mental vs physical? Is your training a reflection of that? How do you train your mind like a muscle to be strong, fit and conditioned? And do something each day to build on this

Happy training.

OSU!