Preparing for Combat

 Part 1 - An Interview with Lee Hasdell

By Idai Makaya

Article from MAI January 2010 Issue

This month’s article is the first in a series of two - both of which will look at conditioning for full contact fighting - a discipline where every small advantage counts greatly towards a fighter’s survival and success. The main focus of the articles will be on a recent interview and training session I held with Lee Hasdell, a former world champion kick boxer and professional mixed martial artist, who many regard as one of the true pioneers of British mixed martial arts. It is my belief that the experiences and insights of professional fighters such as Lee can often be translated to good use in the general training and conditioning programs of all martial artists – if viewed from the correct perspective.

Lee Hasdell (white trunks) prepares for battle...

This month’s article will look at Lee’s general beliefs, insights and experiences around conditioning for professional martial arts and the second article next month will focus on Lee’s favourite conditioning drills for professional martial arts. We will also identify the role for conditioning in martial arts and the different types of conditioning fighters need to focus on.

The average amateur martial artist will not have the same amount of time at his/her disposal to do everything the professionals do, or to be able to recover adequately from the burden of heavy training that the professionals do, so I will not bother to give all the small detail of a professional fighter’s weekly regime (lest an inexperienced beginner reads it and mistakenly believes that by trying to copy it he/she will be able to reach the highest levels in the sport). What I do think the average martial artist (and also the very experienced) will find useful is the thinking behind the methodology of a professional, like Lee Hasdell.

The beauty of training for professional full contact competition is that the fighters are forced to focus on training that actually works. This does not mean that their training is always efficient (some conditioning practices common among the professional MMA competitors can still be improved upon greatly) but even those sub-optimal practices are still reasonably effective. The professional athlete has the time available to be able to afford to take on a small amount of inefficient training practice – a luxury most amateurs actually don’t have because training and recovery time is considerably more limited for most non-professional martial artists.

In my view the aim of conditioning for amateur martial artists should be to develop a training system which is as efficient as possible and which takes up as little time as possible in the training week. However, the key to such a conditioning program should be effectiveness. Only the most effective exercises which deliver the highest returns should be considered.

Play Lee Hasdell Tribute video above...

A similar analogy to what martial artists should do to make their conditioning practices as effective and efficient as possible can be found in motor sport – or even in the military. At the top level of motor sport (or military warfare), mechanical equipment is designed to be as effective as possible, with little attention paid to the cost of achieving this. However, such top-end technology often becomes more commonplace with time and filters into normal community everyday usage. Once translated to normal day to day usage, high level mechanical technology must become more practical in terms of convenience, cost, sustainability, etc.

In martial arts conditioning we make the same translation of training technology/methodology from the professional ranks to the everyday amateur ranks.

We need to pick out the conditioning practices which take up the least time and produce the greatest overall results.

My time with Lee Hasdell was aimed at identifying such drills. Lee and I got together just two nights before Christmas 2008, alongside a small group of dedicated mixed martial artists who train regularly with Lee. The aim of our meeting and training session was to cover Lee’s favourite conditioning practices for professional martial arts fighting and also to get more insight into the workings of the mind of a professional fighter who has plied his trade for decades. I think Lee’s insights into conditioning and fighting will be useful to all martial artists in one way or another.

Before we actually cover my discussions with Lee it’s pertinent that I briefly introduce Lee and highlight his career thus far. Lee Hasdell’s biography in brief would look like this:

• Born in Northampton, England, in 1966.
• Began martial arts training in 1979.
• Styles studied include Taekwondo, Karate, Boxing, Thai Boxing, Jujitsu, Kudo and MMA – all of which he holds Black Belts in.
• Pro Thai Boxing debut in 1989.
• Began campaigning at super-middleweight and eventually built up to heavyweight.
• Has won titles in Kickboxing, Thai Boxing, Shoot Boxing, Vale Tudo and Brazilian Jujitsu. Has fought matches in K-1, Pain & Glory, Rings and Cage Rage.
• Has won British Kickboxing Championships 3 times (under different rules) and won WKA world championship in April 2000.
• Lee has challenged for European, K1 and World championships and has been up against fighters such as Renato “Babalu” Sobral and Mirko “Cro Cop” Flipovic (who have headlined UFC bouts in recent years).
• Has promoted numerous MMA bouts in the UK (both amateur and professional), which led to a media uproar in the 90s about the legality of cage fighting. Hasdell’s promotions were, at the time, compared to the UFC - which didn’t have many rules in the 90s – although Hasdell had always been strict about rules to protect the fighters. Hasdell made appearances on a range of news and TV programmes, such as Trevor McDonald’s Tonight Program and Johnny Vaughan’s Big Breakfast, to try and counter such criticism - but this was to little avail and the row only really died down when the UFC in America became more mainstream in the new millennium.
• Lee now runs the SSJ studio in Milton Keynes, which trains a host of champion fighters. He recently moved down to light heavyweight (in his forties) and still fights occasionally under banners such as Cage Rage, etc.

Now for my interview with Lee - conducted after a lengthy training session covering Lee’s favourite conditioning drills (which will be highlighted in my next article):

IM: Hi Lee, thanks for taking the time to do this interview. First of all, what motivates you to be a fighter and how have you kept yourself going all these years?

LH: I found that if I did a lot of regular competition that kept me motivated. Recently I’ve fought very little (since I turned 40) and it shows. I lost the last two fights I was in because I had been out of it so long I no longer felt at home in the cage. In the past, I could work on things quickly from fight to fight and get that continuous feedback which leads to continuous improvement.

Getting to the root of your question I think fighters are driven by emotion. To make the most of yourself as a fighter you must really want to do it and you must have held this desire for a long time.

(IM: Something for readers to note is that when you are training - and trying to push yourself to new limits - whether it is in a specific exercise or in a brutal sparring session, there comes a point where only desire will take you further. There is no enjoyment to be had from brutal training - only satisfaction and pride if you actually complete the workout).

LH: To build on the theme of driving oneself emotionally I believe to meet your goals and ambitions as a fighter you must be surrounded by the right people, people whom you can feed off and who can inspire you. I would go as far as to say be absolutely ruthless as to who’s company you choose to keep. Make no compromises, if they do not support and inspire you they need not be around.

IM: I like that one, Lee – that really applies to all forms of ambition in life, doesn’t it? I concur. How then would you define a complete fighter?

LH: The best fighters, in my experience, are the ones who are most committed – physically, mentally and emotionally. All 3 areas are crucial and must be developed maximally.

IM: Readers, please note: I find it interesting that Lee focuses on this psychological aspect because just a month after my interview with Lee I had the pleasure of attending a seminar held by Sir Clive Woodward - the Manager who developed and led the England Rugby Team to victory in the 2003 World Cup in Australia.

He had a very similar “success philosophy” to Lee’s (you’ll see why below), which he said was developed from trial and results and also from the use of military simulations. Lee is also keen, coincidentally, on drawing from military simulations. Sir Clive was keen to stress the importance of willpower in the success equation during his presentation and drew on quotes from the likes of Muhammad Ali - who believed that skill and will are both required to succeed, but there must be even more will than skill to be great.

The reasoning is that conditioning is a necessity to be able to perform at a high standard. However, most good fighters will be adequately conditioned on the day of their fight to act out their own strategy for the fight. The deciders of victory will often be tactics, confidence, relaxation and mental preparedness.

LH: To put more detail into it, I’ll explain my methodology more closely. I believe in creating positive stress in the fighters I train. This means that they need to learn to relax under considerable stress - which is artificially imposed by the instructor and training situation (IM: Sir Clive Woodward referred to this as “stress-testing”).  So I sometimes add an unexpected relaxation spell into a brutal training session, when the fighters least expect it. On the other hand I also believe in stressing the combatants through combat performance training - during which unpredictable stresses are imposed unexpectedly on the fighters during their training - to keep them out of potential “comfort zones.” (IM: Sir Clive Woodward referred to this as “meticulous preparation” in his seminar).

IM: In fights there are no such things as “comfort zones,” are there? Please expand on the concept of combat performance training for MAI readers.

LH: Combat performance training is a concept which assumes you will only produce 50% of your true capabilities during an actual performance. In other words, if you were ambushed in a dark ally, on a rainy day, wearing your jeans - your kicks will probably only go half as high as you’d normally kick during training. To summarise - you go into training assuming you will feel twice as tired in the real situation, in only half the time it would normally take you to tire during training. The way you feel after just one round in a full-contact kickboxing match is similar to the way you’d feel after many rounds of full-contact sparring (because of the context of the situation and the associated stress/pressure).

IM: I tend to agree with you on that point, Lee. How did you shape this philosophy?

I learned it from the United States Military. Their pressure/stress testing and situational analyses have shown that the 5 senses deteriorate under the influence of adrenalin – which dominates the bloodstream under genuine stress.

You cannot do very complicated things under great pressure.

IM; Once again, I am with you all the way on that one. I firmly believe that conditioning must focus on the most basic movements and drills - which can easily be “hard-wired” into the nervous system for “programming” purposes. Keep it simple.

LH: That’s right. Fighters need to be developed in steps so that they get used to increasingly high levels of stress and enhance their situational conditioning. Mentally they need to be conditioned to the situation they are likely to face.

IM: In conditioning terms, what does this translate to?

LH: It’s simple. Keep increasing the complexity of drills as the fighter gets better - to make everything second nature - but never ignore the basics, as I said earlier. Learn technique without power so you get used to doing things correctly without hurting yourself. Also learn to maintain technique under fatigue.

IM: I’m a great believer in that too. What is your overall take on conditioning for fighters?

I believe conditioning has reached its Zenith. We are not likely to get any more out of fighters physically through any sort of special conditioning methods. To get any better we need to explore and remedy the mental and emotional aspects – while obviously keeping conditioning at its apex. Hypnosis and relaxation techniques are coming to the fore in martial arts once more.

IM: another note for readers - That last comment really made me think and, you know what? – I agree with Lee. Physically, all the tools we need to condition ourselves optimally are probably available to us now. The determinants of how far you will actually go (physically) are your mind, your motivation, your emotion and – perhaps just as importantly – the conditioning choices you make from the start of your career.

The more accurate your choice of conditioning programmes is at the beginning of your career, the better you are likely to become by the end of it. But this assumption doesn’t account for your mental and emotional durability, which make up at least half of the equation. However, time wasted training wrongly will never be reclaimed and the more incomplete your training is today, the less of your potential you are likely to have harvested by the end of your life.

The second part of this topic will look more closely at Lee Hasdell’s favourite conditioning drills and techniques and provide deeper insight into his philosophies on those drills and how they relate to actual fighting. I hope you have enjoyed this article (I certainly enjoyed the process of putting it together). Until next time… train hard, train smart and never stop searching for your ultimate truth. Happy training until then!

For more information about martial arts fitness and conditioning contact Idai.

To read a BBC article featuring Lee Hasdell click here.