Learning how to be a better coach/cornerman will help you improve your game, since you’ll be better able to spot opportunities or mistakes, and you’ll get used to thinking of solutions for them. Here’s some quick tips on how to be a better cornerman and give better instructions to your club mates – either while training in the gym or competing.

Short Instructions – Anything you shout at your athlete must be short and concise, be it either a general piece of advice (“Hips”, “Breathe”), pointing out an opportunity (“Guard’s Open”) or an instruction (“Armbar”). Personally, I find when I review the videos from training, I notice that I’ll repeat my order a few times. Your athlete may not hear you the first time, or the first couple of words, but if you shout at them to stand up three or four times, they’ll hear you.

Be Loud – You can always be louder! Whether it’s the music, the venue, the adrenaline, the crowd, or the other corner, you want to be the voice your athlete hears above all others

Mechanical Instructions – There are athletes you can shout instructions to like “pass guard”, or “take the armbar”, but most need to be told where to put what body part. “Hip down”. “Left hand at his near hip”, “Push your right arm deep through” – this is probably the most important advice of this article. When athletes are in action, their adrenaline is too high to think clearly, and they need clear instructions.

I learned this by accident shouting at “Rowdy” Owen Roddy during Ground Zero – the first MMA League. After I cornered him he told me how the simple things you forget and need someone in your corner to help you keep your head. Hey, we all know how Roddy turned out, so it must be good advice!

Cues are single words or short phrases that help an athlete correct a movement. If you’ve built up cues in your athletes in training, these can be useful in competition. For example “HIPS” is one we use in the clinch all the time. If you didn’t know, it means get your hips lower than your opponents and in tight.

Anti-Cornering: As a cornerman, you have the ability to impact your athlete’s opponent as much as you impact your own. Here’s a few examples:

• When your opponent is striking, you can tell your corner he’s throwing panic shots, and they aren’t making an impact. This mightn’t stop the shots hurting anymore, but there’s a good chance the other fighter will look to change position/tactics to land some really good shots. It’ during this phase that they’ll have stopped hitting and will be moving, so your athlete has a chance to improve their position.
• When your fighter is on top, or has just got a takedown, tell him how much that’s demoralised his opponent. If all he (your fighter’s opponent) can hear is you shouting he will feel alone on the mats, and like he’s fighting two guys. It will also begin to sow the seeds of doubt in his mind.
• If your athlete is near a submission start banging on the ground and shouting things like “he’s ready to tap!” – this both gives your guy the incentive to tighten up the sub, but also makes his opponent more likely to tap out.

(By the way, as an athlete, it’s important to build up the mental fortitude against anti cornering. You should work to only listen to one voice while rolling/competing.)

There’s a few things you shouldn’t do while cornering as well.

Constantly talking reduces the effectiveness of your cornering. After a while your fighter will stop listening – there’s just too much noise to concentrate and take it all in.

We also want to build up our athlete’s ability to act independently. Cornering (particularly during training) is a coaching tool and helps the athlete recognise and correct flaws in their game. If they are constantly being told what to do, they’ll become reliant on it and won’t be able to act on their own.

There should only ever be one voice coaching an athlete at any time. Other people can shout encouragement but only one person should give the technical advice. Two people cornering will only confuse an athlete as they’ll invariably differ in their advice.