William B. Cole Consultants
Testimonials for
Mental Game Coaching for Martial Arts

Bill Cole has coached professional fighters, US Open competitors, members of US National Junior Teams, US World teams, and state, regional and national competitors in martial arts. Here are a few comments from our Martial Arts coaching clients.

"Working with mental game coach Bill Cole was a life-changing experience. Bill helped me tremendously with my mental game. Fighting might be one of the ultimate mental sports. Bill showed me how to access my mental toughness in training and in competition. His mental game coaching system allowed me to access my greatness from within, unleashing incredible powers of focus and athleticism. His mental training program helped me win world championships.

Bill helped me understand myself more as a person and an athlete, which helped me navigate the stressful training period before my world championship fight. He taught me the finer points of the zone, and how to enter it, and stay in it. He is exceptionally calm and straightforward. He was very patient in understanding what I go through before and during a fight, and he came up with mental strategies to deal with everything I needed.

He was excellent at grounding and focusing the chaos that can come into my mind. I especially found him helpful in giving me mental techniques which helped to keep my mind focused. It was great to have something solid, positive and productive to focus on. As a very physical person I tend to function and perform better when I have asks to set my energy into, especially my nervous energy. I found that the techniques he gave me were perfect for coping with the pre-competition jitters. They helped me gain a focused rational mind more easily rather than riding the wave of my emotions and nerves as I used to do. This in turn set the stage for the experience of "The Zone." And I know that each and everyone of us, if we could, would live in The Zone. It is the perfect place to be. You feel no self-doubt. You experience feelings of perfect balance and complete power, effortlessly. You are aware of everything yet you're fixated on nothing. It is a long list of dichotomies.

Bill was also very good at reminding me about mental strategies and approaches I already knew. This especially resonated with me because I believe we all have innate powers of strength, focus and wisdom, which we sometimes forget, that need to be woken up. Bill certainly helped me to waken my "sleeping giant." I want to thank Bill so much for all his expert mental game assistance! It is wonderful to have him as part of Team Miriam."

Miriam Nakamoto, four-time world kickboxing champion.
She became the first U.S. woman in history to hold the WBC Muay Thai World title.

	Four-time World Kickboxing Champion Miriam Nakamoto, after winning the WBC World Kickboxing Championship, in China, becoming the first U.S. woman to hold the WBC Muay Thai World title, and her Mental Game Coach, Bill Cole, MS, MA.		The WBC World Kickboxing Championship belt Miriam won in her title fight in China.

"MMA is a very mental sport, particularly once you step into the ring. In a contest, the importance of the mental component might be well over 80-90%. A fighter needs strong reserves of mental toughness, focus and the will to win.

My MMA coach and I realized I needed to raise the level of my mental game, so he found the best trainers, coaches and consultants around to work with me so I could prepare optimally for my televised fight coming up in three weeks.

For mental training, he called Bill Cole, The Mental Game Coach. I can't thank Bill enough for all his help.

The mental game training I did with Bill Cole on my mental preparation was an important part of my overall training program for my win (second round TKO) at The Awakening, the World Combat Sports Challenge (WCSC) MMA event in San Francisco. I won the WCSC California State MMA Middleweight Title in front of a crowd of over 5,000 people.

Bill went to work with me right away. I worked with him almost daily over that time. He coached me on simple and easy to use mind techniques I could apply right in the gym, at home, in the locker room before the fight, on the walk into the arena and even once my foot hit the canvas.

Just as you need to be dedicated in the gym, in running, in eating right, and in training all aspects of the MMA game, you need to cover all the bases by training your mind. A fighter can lose the contest before they even step foot into the cage or the ring. They can defeat themselves mentally before the contest even begins. Ignoring the mental game is old school now for anyone who wants to excel at the fight game.

Just like you train your standup game, your wrestling, or your Jiu Jitsu, you need to train your mind. Mental game training is an area that many fighters talk about as being important, but few know how to train for, other than working with intensity and dedication in the gym. Having a strong work ethic will get you to a certain level of mental toughness and confidence, but the mental game is far more than that. A well-prepared fighter needs focus, relaxation under pressure, killer instinct, control over his thoughts, and control over his emotions. Bill helped me take all these things to the next level in my game.

Now I have a focused and extremely effective pre-event mental readiness system that gets my mind, body and spirit ready to fight. He helped me bring out the mental toughness and focus I needed to achieve greatness in a pressure situation.

MMA is very much a mental game. Bill is an indispensable part of my training arsenal. If you want to see what improving your mental game can do for you as a fighter, I strongly suggest you give Bill a call. He is a great investment."

Jesse Gillespie, Winner of the WCSC California State MMA Professional Middleweight Title

Bill Cole, MS, MA and Jesse Gillespie, with Jesse wearing the Championship Belt, just after winning the WCSC California State Professional MMA Middleweight Title, in San Francisco, CA, May 30, 2009.

"I have followed Bill Cole's outstanding work in mental game coaching for many years and have been privileged to have him as a Guest Expert on our international coaching web site for martial arts practitioners and coaches, and military and police professionals.

Bill regularly provides amazing peak performance insights and leading-edge ideas and principles to the world of martial arts across these performance arenas. He has helped us understand and apply the concepts of mental toughness, mental training, concentration, focus and mental readiness for sports competition and law enforcement and military applications. Our clients must have mental toughness to be able to operate in these very difficult, and often dangerous environments. Bill gives us the mental tools we need to navigate those challenging assignments. In this regard, Bill Cole is a mental toughness master. He's our mental game guru.

While many sport psychologists offer standard peak performance theoretical concepts, Bill goes far beyond that, and knows what actually works in the real world. He teaches new ways of looking at old problems, with expert mind game solutions that really work. His understanding of the mind-body processes in peak performance and how to manage them, in learning, and pressure performance situations is simply uncanny. His background as a top athlete, researcher-writer, teacher-coach and businessman blend together to create innovative and highly practical success strategies. His teaching system for mastering the mental game is beyond compare.

I have studied the mental game extensively over the years, and have worked closely with other international sport psychologists, and it's clear that Bill Cole is a major thought leader in sport psychology. We are fortunate to have him as our Guest Expert.

Bill Cole is a world-class mental game coach who gets world-class results. If you are considering bringing Bill in to speak, coach or consult, I know you will be thrilled with the results he brings to you and your organization."

Rodney King, Performance Enhancement Coach - Johannesburg, South Africa
Founder and Director of the Street Tough World Alliance, represented in 15 countries around the world and leaders in innovative e-training martial arts solutions for business and life.
Voted one of the top 20 martial artists in the world by Black Belt Magazine.
www.coachrodneyking.com and www.crazymonkeyuniverse.com/

"I am so grateful that I found Bill Cole! I had just a few short months to go before grading for my black belt in kempo jujutsu. I was at my wit's end with my training. I knew that I needed something drastic to pull myself out of the slump I had fallen into. I suffered from constant choking-the kind that was paralyzing my performance. I was really entertaining thoughts of quitting. I took the 'mental game of sports assessment' on Bill's website and realized that my underlying problem was that I didn't really have a "mental game" at all. Right then and there, I made the decision to do coaching with him - and I am so glad I did.

Bill helped me put together a plan of action that got me out of my slump and back on track in martial arts. He made his techniques easily accessible to my style of learning. He frequently drew parallels between other areas of success in my life that I had missed.

Because of the sessions we did together, I performed VERY well at my black belt grading. As we say in my dojo, "Mizu no kokoro", which means heart and mind like water. I am no longer under the trance of negative, rigid thinking about my sports performance. I have a newfound awareness and fluidity of thinking about myself as an athlete. I now have a strong mental game and I am looking forward to future success in my sport.

Domo arigato. Many, many thanks to you Bill!"

Brandi L., Kempo Jujitsu Practitioner-Black Belt
Denver, Colorado