YinvsYang

When I went to college in the mid 90s, I had a very good friend I met in my freshman dorm.  He was an Armenian young man, strong as an ox with an unmatched resolve.  He was also incredibly smart at anything he put his mind to.  However, the one thing I learned from him more than anything else is how to read people.

My friend had a gift for it.  He seemed to know things before they happened.  He was like Vito Corleone telling his Consigliore Tom exactly what every gangster would do before they did it.  He opened up my mind to a whole other world of communication I had no idea existed.  It consisted of reading others body language, responses, and actions. It was honestly the single most important thing I learned in my two years at the University of Maryland.  It is a skill I have been developing ever since.

All it requires is that you pay attention more to what people do and what they say.  Then you simply remove all your expectations, judgments, and innate feelings.  If you are able to do this, you will observe all of the expectations, judgments, and innate feelings in others.  You will begin to see who acts the part and who is the part.

Over my experience, I have come up with a few lessons to help you better read people.  I can’t say it is a fact with proven results.  I can only say, that they are lessons I believe with every ounce of my mind to be true.

People always make the most ‘noise’ about what they fear the most.

For example, picture a guy with cut off sleeves, jacked biceps, tattoos, & a goat tee walking around with tight clothes, clenched fists, & an angry look on his face.  This guy’s entire demeanor reads ‘don’t mess with me!‘  To me, if his demeanor is screaming ‘don’t mess with me,’  than that is what he fears the most.  He does not like to be messed with, simple as that.

He has learned, that if he walks and acts like this, he will avoid the average person messing with him.  This is his defense to the world.  He also gets the ‘tough guy’ attention he loves.  He probably promotes himself to girls as a guy ‘no one should mess with.’  Chances are that is not the case.  This guy simply wants nobody to mess with him.  He likes to play the ‘tough guy’, cause chances are, he is not tough at all.

In Jiu Jitsu and MMA, we get a lot of guys like this. They come into the gym with their new ‘Tapout’ gear on, goat tees, tatoos, and dirty looks for everyone.  Some have even fought before.  It is these guys that usually get wrecked.  They have a problem with their ego they have not worked out yet, therefore they need to look the part, in order to feel the part.  It stunts their training growth, because they believe they are tougher than everyone else, and not that they have more to learn.

However, we also get some people who are exactly the opposite.  They come in, are friendly, knowledgeable, and completely humble.  It is these people that are the scariest.

A great example of this is the last pro fight I cornered in Atlantic City, NJ.  My friend and training partner Ricardo, who is 5-0 in pro MMA and the light heavyweight champ of Louis Neglia’s Ring of Combat, was 4-0 at the time.  He had walked through every opponent.  None had made it past the first round.  None had even challenged Ricardo.  He is that good.

Fighters always arrive at the fights a day early for medical stuff and the weigh ins.  You always run into the guy you are going to fight because you are all eating and staying at the same hotel.  It is very common to have the elevator door open, and have to get in next to your opponent and his entourage.  Every fighter deals with this differently.  Many try to look tough, and stay silent.

Ricardo’s opponent was named Constantinos.  He was a pro boxer from Greece.  He had never fought in an MMA fight before, but had been training with a top school for awhile.  Each time Ricardo ran into him, he was nice, smiling, and genuinely kind.  He was not the slight bit nervous at all.  In fact, he was almost as calm as Ricardo.

I said to my fellow cornerman that I thought this was going to be a tough fight.  He looked at me like I was crazy.  And for good reason.  Ricardo is almost inhuman.  He destroyed some of the top fighters in the Northeast in under a round.  He was a division 1 wrestler who was ranked 10th in the country at one time.  He is one of the calmest people I have ever been around.  You would never know he was fighting if you hung out with him that day.  He is so mentally strong, that he is completely relaxed.

I noticed this trait about the other fighter though, too.  My fellow corner man, Chris, thought logically that this was Constantinos’s first fight and it was against a champ.  I thought differently.  This guy was too calm to be scared.  And if he is not scared of facing the champ in his first fight, than he must be tough.  Chris and I made a gentleman’s bet on it.

In the first round, Constantinos knocked down Ricardo, but then Ricardo took him down, mounted and controlled him for the majority of the round.  In the 2nd round, Constantinos nearly knocked out Ricardo.  The ref was a half step away from jumping in, when again, Ricardo took him down and controlled him.  In the 3rd round, Ricardo took him down and maintained control the rest of the fight.  It was, by far, the toughest fight Ricardo has ever had, and he was a second away from losing in the 2nd round.  I didn’t even have to tell Chris “I told you so.’  His body language said it all.

The bottom line is, it is important to read people’s body language, and not just use logic.  Logic said Ricardo would dominate, but logic only goes so far.  By reading this fighter’s body language, I was able to tell he was mentally ready.   And anyone mentally prepared for a pro fight is going to be a tough match for anyone.

Reading people’s body language, their statements, and their traits, is a great way to get an edge in life.  Sometimes logic is not enough because every situation is unique in some way.  The best way to prepare is to learn to pay attention to how other people work. It opens up the door to a whole new world of communication you may have never realized existed.  It is a language much more truthful than any language we speak.

I guess my early college days were good for something.  Tune in tomorrow for part two.