Nerves before you compete

Nerves are your body preparing: heart rate up, blood to the muscles, senses sharpening. That is the same chemistry as being ready. Fighters who feel nothing before a fight usually perform worse, not better.

The goal is not to feel calm. It is to be able to work while feeling that.

Uncertainty is what turns nerves into anxiety. If you know what you are doing at every point of the day — when you eat, when you wrap, when you warm up, what your first thirty seconds look like — there is far less room for the mind to invent things.

Use the same routine in training. A ritual invented on the day is not a ritual.

• Slow the exhale. Four counts in, six or eight out, for a minute. It is the fastest lever you have on your own heart rate.
• Narrow the task. Not "win the fight" — "land the jab in the first ten seconds". A small job you can actually do gives the mind somewhere to go.