Reasonable expectations: Going into a bout of any kind there will always be huge amounts of uncertainty as to what will transpire. Nonetheless, No matter how uncertain the ultimate outcome and the action leading up to it may be, there are always going to be reasonable expectations that we can make about the upcoming match, based on the evidence we have prior to the bout. These reasonable expectations will determine the nature of our fight camp and even the final drills and warm ups just before the action starts. We begin with a detailed analysis of the opponent and match the strong and weak points we observe with what we believe are our own strong and weak points and start to devise a training program based around that preliminary analysis. Feedback from daily training sessions gives us an idea as to whether our program is going in directions we want and we make any necessary adjustments as time passes. Here you can see Gordon Ryan drilling with variations of heel hooks that we believed would be an effective part of the match based on what we observed and which would ultimately win his match with the great Keenan Cornelius. So strange to see this photo now and see the very move that would bring victory being rehearsed in front of Mr Cornelius immediately prior to the match. Photo by Luciana Marcos @to_fight_
