On fighting hurt

This post was written on Friday, September 9, but will not be published until a later date, for reasons that are about to be obvious. I've mentally committed to myself that I will hit the publish button on this post whether I win or lose this fight, and regardless of whether or not it happens.

Friday, September 9:

On Wednesday - two days ago - I sprained my ankle in practice. It was an unlucky accident. My partner and I were doing fairly light wrestling drills with only 50% resistance. He attempted a takedown and I stumbled backwards and just fell with all of my weight on my bad ankle.

A strange weight cutting decision

Today I woke up to a strange announcement for the promotion I'm fighting for in two days:

Summary: In the last 18 months they have had three fighters hospitalized due to weight cuts. So for this card they have decided, with about 30 hours before weigh-ins, to increase everyone's weight amount by 3.5%. Instead of fighting at 125 lbs, I am now fighting at 129 lbs. Guys scheduled to fight at 155 are now fighting at 160, and so on.

This is really bizarre. If you watch the video it's a claim about fighter safety, but if they just start implementing this policy frequently, you'll simply have people moving down two weight classes instead of one. What I suspect has actually happened here is that there are a small number of individuals on this card who expressed that it will be difficult to make the weight, and that they were worried about those fighters' specifically having to cut a bunch of weight.

On one hand, I'm always happy to cut less weight. It means I won't have to be in the sauna tonight, and 129 is a very easy weight for me to make. On the other hand, it encourages guys who should certainly be fighting at 135 to drop even further. On the gripping hand, if other organizations aren't following suit, then I might not get fights at my proper weight class.

Weird stuff. In general I'm very happy to see a movement towards less weight cutting in MMA, but this is a very bizarre way to go about it. Will be interested to see how it goes forward.

My next fight, and my future in this sport

I'm excited to be returning to the Battlefield Fight League cage on September 10! My opponent this time is Vaz Lep. He trains out of Titan MMA/10th Planet in Coquitlam BC. I know that he's been around for a while; here's an amateur fight of his from 2011.

This is the only video online, but I haven't bothered to study it. It's unlikely that his game in 2011 looks anything like it does in 2016. My first amateur fight was also in 2011, and I know my current game doesn't look anything like the 2011 version. I expect him to be a tough opponent and that's that.

Fight day

I made weight yesterday officially at 134.6 lbs, and went to bed at about 141. My opponent weighed in at the limit of 136.0 lbs, and presumably went to bed probably a little heavier than me.

I've talked about how difficult this road is, and how much I've given of myself to be here. But I am also extraordinarily lucky to be able to dedicate this much time, energy, and money in the pursuit of my passion.

I am grateful to training partners in Vancouver, Las Vegas, Hong Kong and beyond, who have sparred with me, held pads for me, worked techniques with me, or even just had some words of advice or encouragement.

I'm calm, I'm ready, and I feel great. It is these moments that I love.

Audio interview with me ahead of Saturday's fight

I did a 30-minute interview with Battlefield Fight League's marketing guy, Jamak Golshani, ahead of my fight this Saturday. Check it out here!

Info on buying tickets to watch live, or purchasing the pay-per-view, are available here.

And speaking of podcasts, I'll be the lead host of the 2+2 PokerCast tomorrow for the first time ever. In fact it'll be the first time in the history of the show that neither Mike Johnson nor Adam Schwartz will be sitting in the big chair. I'll be joined by Mazin "MSauce" Khoury in the studios, and that show will be out late Tuesday evening.

Why Fight? Part 2: The Reward

If you ask any fighter -- indeed, any athlete in any sport -- they'll mention the importance of the mental aspect of the game. Follow the game plan. Be confident, but not cocky. Respect your opponent's strengths, but don't fear them. Be mentally tough.

Training as a competitive athlete must necessarily involve going farther than the brain wants to go. Many people are tremendously self-motivated individuals who will work until exhaustion daily. Others need to be pushed by coaches and training partners, to be broken down by them, so they can be rebuilt stronger.

In my previous entry, I talked about the difficulty, toil, and investment a fighter makes in his training camp. Surely if someone voluntarily goes through something so hellish, there must be a powerful reward on the other side.

Rewards of the fight game

Why do people participate in dangerous sports? There are a variety of reasons, but this article touches on the subject. Summarizing:

• Extreme sports release dopamine, which triggers the reward system by making the person feel good. This creates an addiction to the feeling, and by association, the sport.
• Extreme sports are transformative, and those who participate in them may exhibit a higher capacity for humility and courage.
• Those who participate in extreme sports understand intellectually that these things are dangerous, but that fear is something to be overcome, not avoided.

Fighters will often say that the fight is the reward for the brutality of the training camp. That like sex, months of discomfort are traded for minutes of enjoyment (except the causal direction is reversed).

As someone who has stepped through the cage door four times, it's hard to dispute this idea. Putting all that training to use in a live combative situation, in front of a screaming audience, is a great feeling. While Mexican or Thai boxers fight to escape poverty, fighting in most of Western society is a first-world luxury. If you do it, you do it for the love of the game.

I try not to think of the fight as the reward, and take a somewhat more zen approach of the reward the journey rather than the destination. I have written before about the value of being uncomfortable, and doing things that are hard, simply because they are hard. 

But don't get me wrong. Fighting and competing is fun. This will be my fifth MMA fight. I've also had an amateur boxing match, two kickboxing matches, and probably about 20 grappling competitions. (Grappling is a fight sport where it is reasonable to be a dabbler, since getting tapped out is orders of magnitudes less bad than getting knocked out.)

Confidence

Confidence is another positive product of the grueling fight camp. Again there is a paradox at play here. Throughout training camp, the fighter often suffers crises of confidence. As he gets beat up in sparring, he can often question his own skill, and his confidence may wane. He may become self-defeating. I have thought to myself many times, "I suck at this. Why am I doing it?"

And yet other days, the fighter is supremely confident. On those days where things feel good and the fighter feels sharp, he feels nearly invincible, ready to take on the world. Today, as I'm writing this, it is how I feel. I feel supremely confident that on May 30, I will enter the Battlefield cage at the River Rock Hotel and Casino and put a beating on Blake Sigvaldason of Terrace B.C.'s Dungeon Fight Team Ali Wasuk out of Clinch MMA in Port Coquitlam, B.C. I feel like no other outcome is possible. Whether or not this is a rational response is another question -- I know nothing of the man other than watching a few fights he had well over a year ago. I don't know how strong he is, how athletic he is, how developed his skills have become. I have never put hands on the man, nor has he put hands on me. Yet right now, as my fingers touch this keyboard, I believe fully that there is no way he is ready to compete against me in that cage.

This stems from the incredible commitment required of a competitive fighter, which I touched on in Part 1. The fighter thinks, "I am spending so much time and energy on this fight. I am doing everything right. I am working with great coaches and training partners."

There is a tremendous optimism bias when one goes through a hard training camp. The thought is simple: "There's no way that this guy has put in what I've put into the fight. There is no way he is this obsessed with winning. Therefore, I will win."

Camaraderie and the Team

Finally, it is worth mentioning the team aspect of fighting. There are very few rōnin left in combat sports; even the most gifted fighters are now part of a team, training under a competent trainer. The relationship a fighter develops with his coaches and training partners is fraught with contradiction. The MMA coach borders on sadism, often pushing the fighter far beyond where he wants to go, throwing exhausted fighters into the shark tank to spar against completely fresh opponents. But the great coach does not simply break the fighter down; he builds his fighter back up.

The training partners beat up their teammate as hard as possible, though ideally without injuring him. The training partners are simultaneously your best friends and your worst nightmares in the gym. Because of them, you are battered, bruised, and often injured. But without them, you cannot succeed at the sport. The beatings that teammates give one another foster a tremendous sense of camaraderie and brotherhood (and sometimes sisterhood; I use non-neutral pronouns out of convenience, not disrespect). No one knows what a fighter goes through better than another fighter, and so fighters are surprisingly empathetic creatures -- at least when it comes to fighting. The punches to the face are always followed by fist bumps, hugs, and pats on the back.

Personal conclusions

It's my hope that this brief series answers some questions about the precarious balance between the costs and benefits of fighting as a passion, or vocation.

Fighting is not safe, and it is not healthy. It costs money, but even more so, overwhelming amounts of time. It is mentally draining. It has the potential to put valued relationships on rocky ground.

On the other hand, it also fosters and creates new relationships. Competition keeps me optimizing my own human performance. Training camps have taught me humility and perseverance.

Sixteen days until my dopamine receptors get their fix.

Why fight? Part 1: The Investment

People I know from the poker world, or from regular society -- or from any place other than the inside of an MMA gym, really -- often think I'm crazy for being willing to get in a cage and endanger myself by fighting another man until one man quits or is rendered helpless against the assault of the other.

The truth is, however, that fighting itself is not the crazy thing.

The crazy thing is what fighters do in order to fight.

For the last five weeks (and the next two), I have faithfully shown up the at the gym to take my daily beating. I have done this voluntarily and in full control of my own faculties. I do this without being bound to any contract, and without any financial incentive.

For these weeks I have felt exhausted throughout most of the day. I have woken up many mornings feeling like I have been hit by a car. I'm a morning person and yet I am often forced to train past 10pm, eat dinner around 11 and fall asleep well after midnight. But since I seem to have developed the lark chronotype, I have trouble sleeping past 5am.

Though I haven't tested them, I am sure my cortisol is elevated and my testosterone is lowered. In health terms, those are bad things -- they lead to increase in fat, decrease in muscle, decrease in sex drive, insulin resistance, cravings, bone loss, and illness.

Indeed, being a competitive athlete is not nearly as healthy as most people think that it is. Of course, it is better than being sedentary. But too far in the other extreme can be unhealthy as well. Being a serious competitive athlete means doing a lot of things that trade health in favour of performance. The athlete trains hard and risks injury and overtraining. All athletes train while injured; the only difference between athletes is how injured is too injured, necessitating a missed practice or competition. Virtually every serious athlete practices and competes through minor injuries, and many (most?) compete through more serious injuries. A typical training camp always involves a handful of small injuries. No one ever enters a fight at 100%.

Combat sports are worse than most in terms of training through injury, stress, and fatigue. Part of it is the inherently macho aspect of the sport itself. But some of it is simply the incentive/disincentive mechanism. The boxer, wrestler, or MMA fighter considers a day off of training to be a day that his opponent is gaining an advantage on him. And there are real consequences to being less trained than your opponent. The athlete who loses at a big swim meet or baseball game surely feels bad about his performance, and wishes he trained harder or better. The unprepared fighter, on the other hand, can find himself dominated, brutalized, and concussed. The soccer player misses out on a trophy. The fighter can end up in the hospital. This is not to put fighting on a pedestal or claim it is a more noble or tougher sport; it is just reality.

Thus overtraining and injury are too often ignored. It is a rare day that the fighter is seen outside the gym during fight camp. Fighting is not a sport for to dabble in. It's all-in, or fold.

And yet, injury is the most fearful part of a training camp. I know that every day I show up, I have a small percentage chance of suffering an injury which will prevent me from fighting on May 30. That percentage on any given day might be just 2-3%, but still with 8-10 sessions left, these odds might be as high as 1-0.97^10 = 26%, still nearly a 1-in-4 chance I won't get to fight.

That's scarily high! It is hard to express how much it means to get through each day without suffering a major injury. Although I know it's not true, I feel like the world would end if I didn't fight on May 30. This is why fighters fight hurt. A fight camp demands so much of the fighter emotionally, psychically, and financially. Fighters spend so much time getting psyched up about the fight. They endure the beatings in the gym knowing that when they leave, they are one day closer to the fight. They sell tickets to their family and friends. They have told everyone around about their fight. To not fight feels like a crushing defeat, far worse than stepping in the ring and coming up short.

When one has a fight lined up, one obsesses about the fight. The fight not only occupies one's thoughts all the time, it also dominates one's activities. I wake up in the morning and do mobility exercises, yoga-like movements that will lower my chances of getting injured, and make me more powerful. Many people are happy to get an hour a day to exercise. I spend at least an hour a day getting ready to exercise.

I run. I lift weights. I'm getting extra private lessons. I bought a Compex stimulator unit and use it daily. I plan all of my meals meticulously and carefully -- protein and fat in the morning, carbs at night. I schedule naps, because as mentioned I only get 5 hours of sleep a night. I watch fight footage and technique videos in my spare time. I stalk my opponent on Facebook and Twitter.

In truth, I become a very boring person while fight camp is going on. I am about fighting, and nothing else. There is very little that I do in any given day that is not related to my goal of winning my upcoming fight. (I do watch a lot of TV, and read a lot. That is because those are things I can do with minimal effort, either physical or mental. Most of my day, I am conserving energy.)

The time that I am not spending on the fight, I try to use to take care of personal relationships. I began writing this post on Mother's Day, and I did my best to make my mom feel special that day. My girlfriend has been tremendously supportive of me through this fight camp, putting up with both my moodiness and low energy levels, and so I do my best to take care of her in turn. But personal relationships are surely compromised through a fight camp. I see friends and family much less often than I would otherwise. In truth, I see a lot less of anyone other than my training partners and my physiotherapist.

Fighting is pretty much a financial net negative for anyone but the top 1% of pros. Fighters not in that 1% would make far more money working in a trade. I have spent money on this camp on physiotherapy, acupuncture, medical tests, private training, equipment, high-quality food, and supplements. I am very fortunate that I am not under financial pressure and that I get to pursue my passion fully. For me, the opportunity cost is more significant than the actual expenses. I have passed up on money-making opportunities (consulting jobs, poker, DFS) because of a lack of time and energy to spend on them.

This is what choosing to fight really is, beyond what you see in the cage on the night of the fight. It is angst and difficulty.

If that's the case, why does anyone do it? I'll talk more about that in my next post.

ICYMI: Tickets and PPV for my fight

Sorry about the blatant self-promotion, but it does seem there are those who missed the first announcement.

I'm still scheduled to fight on May 30 at the River Rock Casino in Richmond, BC. Training is going well, and I am working insanely hard. My opponent is Ali Wasuk (2-0) from Clinch MMA.

You can buy tickets online here.

Once you buy the tickets, I would appreciate if you forward your confirmation to jgolshani@yahoo.com and mention my name. This will allow me to get credit for selling the ticket and drawing another fan in the door.

The pay-per-view will be available here. I don't get anything for PPV buys, but feel free to tweet @BattlefieldFL and let them know you're buying it to watch me!

Thanks for your support!

Back in the cage May 30!

It's been a long time -- two years and six months -- but I am returning to the Battlefield Fight League cage on May 30, and I couldn't be more excited.

2013 and the first half of 2014 was rough for my training with the Ultimate Poker launch as well as a series of injuries. But I've been pretty injury-free for over a year and training more intelligently than ever. I've learned a ton about combining strength and conditioning with MMA and avoiding overtraining.

Battlefield Fight League 36 is their biggest card ever with five title fights and the best prospects in British Columbia fighting. It'll be at Richmond BC's River Rock Casino theatre which makes me possibly the first person to both play a WSOP Circuit event and fight in a cage in the same room. Tickets are available on Ticketmaster and the fight will likely also be streamed on pay-per-view via Battlefield's website.

My opponent is Blake Sigvaldason. You can see his last fight by going to 25:11 of this video. As you can see it looks like he is a good wrestler with good guard passing and ground and pound. His record is only 1-3, but he is just 20, and seems to be improving with each fight. And there is a wrinkle: the fight is at 145 lbs, whereas I have previously fought at 125 lbs, so I'll be giving up over 20 lbs. I am very much looking forward to this challenge.  Edit: ack, late opponent change! I am now fighting Ali Wasuk (2-0) from Clinch MMA.

I'm expecting this to be my toughest fight yet, and I'm definitely training like it will be my toughest fight. This training camp will be in Vancouver at Lions MMA, who have a team record of 17-6-1 in Battlefield events. I am confident that with hard work, I will be better than my opponent in every aspect of the game, and I think it'll be a great fight.

So if you're in Vancouver on May 30, get some tickets and cheer for me at the River Rock!

Note: If you do buy tickets to the event, I would appreciate if you forward your confirmation e-mail to jgolshani@yahoo.com while mentioning my name. This will enable me to get a small commission and also show the promoter that I am a draw for the event. (I didn't even get a mention on their Twitter :( )

Twelve weeks for 70 seconds: thoughts from my latest fight

"So when are you gonna retire undefeated already?"

-- "North Shore" Mike McManus, my friend of 12 years, over dinner last Tuesday night.

This is a common question from many of my friends. Especially, of course, the ones who don't fight. The opposite feeling is best summarized by a conversation between two of my cousins, Calvin and Derek, back in September 2011. The conversation occurred a couple weeks before my first fight:

Derek: "So do you think this will be Terrence's only fight?"

Calvin: "No way. If he wins, he'll be addicted to it. If he loses, he'll want to redeem himself."

And so here I am, fifteen months and four fights later. I still haven't tasted defeat in an MMA cage or ring. And it is still an amazing feeling to be able to step into a cage after what seems like endless weeks of preparation, and emerge victorious.

As I wrote in my last post, I could not have felt more ready to fight on this past November 24. I had absolutely zero doubt in my mind that even as I approach my 32^nd birthday I am a better fighter now than I have ever been. The fight would be at flyweight, meaning for the first time I would be the larger combatant.

The cut to 125 was difficult, but not exceptionally so. My subsequent rehydrate and refuel went great and I was back to about 138 by fight time. I was in a great mood all day. I'm all smiles when I get to fight. I only do this because I love it, and I'll quit when I stop loving it. The preparation is the horrible part. It's where all the true pain lies. If you can survive the training camp – if you don't get injured, if you don't break down mentally – the fight is the easy part. So there's no reason not to be all smiles on fight day.

For those who haven't seen it yet, the video is below; my apologies for the lack of sound. The fight begins about 4:00 into the video.

Without giving short shrift to my opponent, you can see that this was pretty decisive. I was better in the standup and better on the ground. I launched a steady volley of knees in the clinch, but my trip takedown was countered and that's how I ended up on my back. I certainly didn't anticipate being on my back in this fight and I didn't anticipate winning by submission off my back. But being the smallest fighter in the gym usually means you learn to be aggressive off your back.

A lot of people asked whether I wished it had gone longer, whether I wish I'd gotten more out of it considering how much I'd gone through to get to that point. And I admit the thought has crossed my mind at times. I went through a hard second half of 2012 getting ready for this fight. I got beat up every single day. And going into the fight, I wanted a tough fight. I wanted to be pushed, simply because I knew that I had never been as ready for a fight as I was on that day. And I didn't really get it.

But at the risk of stating the perfectly obvious, fighting is dangerous. It may take weeks or months to prepare for a fight, but it only takes seconds to lose one. Any time feet and fists are flying, there is the potential to lose a fight in a split second. I've been submitted in grappling competition in matches that I should have won. That's why when you get an opening to finish a fight, you don't fuck around. I didn't intend to throw up that armbar. I really just wanted to sweep (reverse positions) or get my opponent off of me. But as I rotated perpendicular to him, I noticed I still had his arm trapped. With his arm trapped, I was in a great position for the armbar. And once I had that armbar locked in, I cranked it. I had it in deep, and I ripped it. Anyone who trains with me can tell you I am not an aggressive person in the gym. I don't “get mean”. On the continuum of sparring too hard and not sparring hard enough, if anything I am on the side of the latter. I've let up on more submissions and pulled more punches than I can count. But this time, when I knew I had it, I yanked on that arm like I was trying to take it home and frame it on my wall.

I confess to a certain level of satisfaction with one aspect of this particular win. As I said, I wasn't trying for the armbar. I was trying for something else, and the armbar was there. There was no conscious thought on my part. It's nice to know that I've put in enough repetitions now that under a scenario of extreme stress, my body will just do what it has done so many times in practice. When I scored an armbar victory in Legend FC earlier this year, the last thing I heard in the fight was “switch to the armbar!” Taking it on pure faith that my corner saw something there – as you simply have to do during a fight – I switched to the armbar, and it worked. But this time there was no command from either an outside voice or my own. This time, the armbar simply happened.

So I am happy for the win. Seventy seconds or otherwise, difficult opponent or otherwise. After all, I have always maintained that I fight to become a better fighter. Perhaps that borders on an iterative tautology which might not make sense to anyone else, but it makes sense to me.

But I also admit that part of me searches for that war. It seeks that challenge, the one that pushes me to the edge, where I am forced to empty the reserves and dig deep to a place inside me that I didn't know existed. A fight where I feel deep down that I am 100% prepared and where I need every last ounce of that preparation to emerge victorious.

I want to break someone, although I don't mean in a a sadistic or necessarily even violent way. A knockout or a submission is great, don't get me wrong. Finishing the fight should always be the goal. But there is something I haven't experienced in a fight yet, and that is the feeling of overwhelming someone. To overwhelm that person to the point he quits. Fighters like to say that they will never quit, that they will never stop. But everyone has a breaking point. People have varying levels of toughness, but everyone will break. It's just a matter of at what point. In my first fight, I beat the daylights out of the guy for two rounds, but he never quit; the referee had to jump in to stop him from taking further punishment. Since that fight I've made two opponents submit, but I've never made anyone quit. There's a big difference. I wanted this to be the first fight where I made someone quit. But I'm still searching.

But now I have to cut this train of thought short. I am encroaching the borders of hubris and arrogance. I am still a no one and a nothing in the MMA world. I am a babe in the woods. I am not in a position to decide whom to fight; that is the responsibility of my coaches. Keep winning, and you get tougher opponents. That's how it works. My job is simple: train hard, shut up, and keep winning.

And so, it's on to the next one. Sorry, Mike.

Two days to a fight

A week of weight cutting is about to approach its climax. On the weekend I began what's called a "sodium load", where you ingest a ton of sodium and water for three days, then rapidly remove all the sodium and reduce your water intake until the weigh-in. (Further details for those curious are available here.)

The first day of the sodium load felt awful. I think I probably overdid it with the sodium. I had some bad diarrhea and felt tremendously bloated. The second day was a bit of a "hangover" from the first, but not as bad. The third day I still felt bloated but it was tolerable. My heart rate variability measuring tool reported a terrible result after the first night but then got better.

I felt much better on the sodium de-loading days. I went into the gym to hit pads, roll light, stuff like that, and had definitely reduced energy, but I think I'm less exhausted than the other weight-cutters on the team. You definitely get tired much more quickly when you deprive yourself of all carbohydrates and sodium for an extended period of time.

It's almost 5pm on Thursday as I write this -- 24 hours before weighins -- which means this cup of black coffee in front of me will be my last intake of anything until this time on Friday. No food, no water. Tomorrow I'll wake up slightly dehydrated, then go dehydrate myself further in the sauna. At 5, I'll make it to the Shark Club Bar & Grill in downtown Vancouver for the weigh-in event, which will be late and full of cranky fighters who can't wait to get off the scale and down Pedialyte. It will also be at this time I stare my opponent in the eyes for the first time and try to get a sense of how he feels about stepping into the cage with another trained combatant.

I already know how I feel, and that's great. Nothing has changed since my last update other than another week of thinking positively about how well this is going to go for me. Mentally and physically I am in a great place, and I am prepared to deliver the best performance of my MMA career to date.

Also, two links to share:

• For those who are unable to attend the event in person but still want to watch, the fight will be live streamed on PPV for $7 Canadian.
• I'm doing a reddit-style "AMA" on 2+2 here. Obviously, I'll also answer questions here in the comments section.

Well, 5:02pm. That means the weight cut has begun. Thanks for the support!

Eight days from a fight and raring to go

What was probably my last sparring class is now in the books for this training camp, meaning that barring a tremendous freak accident, I have survived. Just surviving is huge. Most people think that getting into a cage and fighting another trained man until one of you quits or needs to be rescued by the referee is a dangerous thing. And it is. But the potential for injury is so much higher in training. Even though training is controlled and you are never trying to hurt your partner, it is intense. Even toned down versions of a fight, once repeated for multiple rounds a night, four nights a week for eight weeks, is likely to lead to injury. Long time readers will recall last year that I suffered a serious rib injury just 17 days before the fight. The injury was so severe that if I had taken a good shot to that side on fight day I surely would have lost.

This time around though, there are no significant injuries. Not only am I uninjured, I am in probably the best shape I have ever been for a fight. Not only am I in the best shape I've ever been for a fight, I am in the best mental place I have ever been in for a fight. The guys on my team at Universal MMA have been in fight camp mode since I finished with the WSOP, as there were two fight cards back in September and two again here in November. When I got back from the WSOP to train with the guys I was slow, out of shape and just generally shitty at fighting. But for the last four months I have taken my lumps, gotten totally dialed in on my health and nutrition and couldn't feel better. I train with a diverse group of fighters who all bring different things to the table, so even if I don't know much about my opponent -- I don't even know if I am fighting a left or right handed guy -- I feel as though I am prepared for anything.

I feel sharp. I feel I am as good a fighter as I have ever been, and I am going into this fight with very bad intentions.  I think anyone who knows me knows that I am not the cliché of a chest-beating, trash-talking, overconfident fighter. Thirteen years of poker have taught me about variance and that just about anything can happen in a chaotic world. And I know that every fight and every fighter is dangerous. And still I cannot picture in my head any outcome other than me walking into the Battlefield cage next Saturday and winning in an overwhelmingly dominant fashion. In eight days, I will think about every punch I've eaten, every kick I've absorbed, every takedown that's slammed me on my back, and every time I've tapped to a submission. And I will take them all out on this man by delivering him a hellacious beating. I can picture no other result.

Fight lined up!

Big news of the day: I'm fighting again on November 24 here in Vancouver! As with my debut fight, it will take place in Battlefield Fight League at the Vogue on Granville Street. The fight will be the first 125 lb fight in BFL history!

The fight is at 125 because my opponent's team does not want him to fight above that weight; they felt that last time out he lost because he was facing a much larger opponent (could be true because he weighed in at 132 while his opponent cut to make 140). The cut to 125 will not be fun -- I weighed in at 138 this morning with 20 days to go -- but it'll be nice to be the bigger man in the cage for the first time ever.

Other than that I don't know much about him. I just hope he's tough and he's ready. I want a tough opponent because I am feeling sharp, on-point, and in great shape. I'm injury-free at this moment (knock wood) and feeling great. I've got four teammates also in action on this card and another 5 or 6 fighting the week after, so we've been pushing one another very hard in training camp. I'm totally raring to go and I've had a big smile on my face since I got the news.

I will sort out tickets soon for everyone who wants them; you can let me know for now and I'll put you on the list.

My fight in pictures

Everyone keeps asking for video, video, video. Still none yet; Battlefield told me after November they can put it up on Facebook. Let's hope. Anyway, my old poker friend Kevin Wong is apparently now an MMA photographer. He was kind enough to send me close to 300 photos which pretty much sum up the event in pictures; I've selected a few dozen of them:

When one (cage) door closes...

One of the silly questions that people love to ask is, "what are you choosing for your walkout song?" Other than a few guys in the training camp, I kept the answer a secret. In fact, I did more than that; I had even concocted a tall tale, a cover story about how Battlefield wanted full control of production and would force me to come out to something of their choosing. But in my mind, I was never coming out to anything other than the classic montage song from the Karate Kid: "You're The Best", by Joe Esposito.

I chose this song in large part because I knew people would love it. But it also represents me well. The vast majority of people come out to heavy metal or hardcore hip-hop because they want something intimidating and aggressive to fire themselves up. If you know me at all, you'll know that's not me. "You're The Best" is a great song to get hyped up to, but I love that it is cheesy and decidedly non-threatening. No one who takes themselves too seriously is very likely to come out to this song, and so I'm happy to express that.

I walked skipped out to the song from the Vogue backstage out front with a big silly grin on my face. My song was playing, and it was time to have fun. I embraced my coaches and team, the official applied the Vaseline to my face, and I climbed the stairs into the Battlefield cage, and it was all just as I'd visualized it. I heard a lot of yelling. I was able to pick out a handful of distinct voices of friends, but once I was in the cage, I couldn't see anyone in the crowd. I was under the bright lights, but everything outside the cage was a big black void of noise.

The referee reminded me of some rules. I can't really remember which ones. I checked the firmness of the cage floor. It was softer than I'd expected, which was good given my injury. If we went to the ground with violent impact it was less likely to hurt me. I checked the give of the cage and the turnbuckles. As the first fighter in the ring, I had lots of time to do this while I awaited Tony's entrance. Paulie reminded me to "check my paces"; that is, how many paces (in stance) to the front or the back of the cage. I did all of this with a big smile on my face. There were still no nerves, just energy and excitement. After a rollercoaster eight weeks, this was really happening! It was really going to happen!

Writing this six days later, I remember a lot more than I could remember on Saturday night, but it's still not a lot. Once I see a clear video I'm sure I'll remember more. I remember the signal to fight, and Tony offering to touch gloves. I recall that we touched very conservatively, both of us making sure to protect ourselves as we did so. Little would either of us know that later that evening on a much larger stage in Las Vegas, controversy would erupt because Victor Ortiz would forget that cardinal rule and Floyd Mayweather would have no hesitation in exploiting that lapse.

I don't know who threw hands first, and I don't remember how we got into the clinch, but I know we were there and I took an uppercut from him. That uppercut was that punch I'd always heard about; the one that "lets you know you're in a fight". I cinched a rear waistlock and tripped him to the ground. He got up quickly and I again committed to another takedown, and this one solidified my position on top. As my team and I expected, I had a big advantage once I got to the ground in top position. It sounds bizarre, but there were actually times where I forgot to punch. It was my first fight, and I fought conservatively; there were a number of times where instead of punching I simply consolidated position first. Highly skilled and experienced mixed martial artists use strikes to set up their passes to dominant positions. I could strike, and I could pass, but it certainly wasn't as fluid as you see from elite level fighters.

But my choppy MMA ground skills were enough to get me to full mount, where I finally started to attack with some good ground and pound. My jiujitsu instincts kept me driving my knees into his armpits, making it difficult for him to escape. I felt him bridging hard and using a lot of energy, but I made staying on top my full priority. I transitioned a lot from mount to knee-on-belly and vice versa, those being the best striking positions. I tried to throw as many punches as I could, but Tony was doing a good job of tying up my arms and protecting himself. I was buoyed by hearing my name chanted throughout the crowd. Late in the round I crept up his torso and set up an armbar, but he was able to wriggle his arm free. From there I transitioned to a triangle but right as I locked it in, I heard the 10-second warning clap. I knew I wouldn't be able to finish it given that time so I transitioned the triangle back to an armbar and yanked hard. Unlike the first armbar, this one was very very deep and I was confident I was going to get the tap. Tony was in a lot of trouble and I was very surprised he wasn't tapping. The referee asked him twice if he was okay, and he didn't respond. I hipped hard into it but Tony was just incredibly tough and refused to tap, surviving to make it to the bell.

I really managed to fuck this up? Really?

I was tired and stayed on my knees for a moment, but then I noticed that Tony was still on the ground beside me, even though we were in my corner. He was too tired to get up, and that was a great feeling. I only remember saying to Paulie, "I'm tired, but he's more tired," and him responding, "fuck that, you're not tired." I don't remember anything else either he or our wrestling coach Sina said in that round break. The only other part of the break I remember was the "Seconds Out!" call and looking across the cage to see an exhausted Tony. That made me stand up immediately and start moving my feet. He'd shown fatigue and I wanted to show strength and further sap his will. The Round 2 bell sounded and I charged to the centre of the cage.

This time I didn't need to get punched to know I was in a fight, because I smelled blood. I shot in for the takedown and managed to press Tony into the fence. I was not very technical along the fence. My head was too low, which would not only put me in danger against someone with a good guillotine, but it also makes it hard to finish the takedown. I also took some knees and punches to the body; luckily the hardest blows landed on my uninjured ribs. Sina would later tell me that I was wasting a lot of energy against the cage. In truth, I figured I needed only one more takedown to win, so I was charging up for it. I can't tell you anything about how I got the fight to the ground in the second round; I just know I did. It was not anything technical; I simply grinded it out and got it there by being the fresher guy. The one thing I knew from the first round is that once I got the fight to the ground, it would be lopsided. Confident that I would not be reversed, I threw a lot higher volume of strikes in the second round in an effort to stop the fight. I had multiple opportunities to finish by submission, but remembering how resilient Tony was in the first round, I decided to keep flurrying with punches instead of taking the gamble. At one point I thought it was almost the end of the round and moved my hips forward for another armbar attempt but heard Paulie's voice cut through the noise with a sharp "NO!" and went back to the ground and pound. My arms were definitely starting to get tired from hitting him so much, but the referee was warning him to fight back -- ref code for "I'm close to stopping this fight." Hearing that was all I needed to get a little extra energy to continue firing hard punches. Paulie's voice rang out again, this time yelling "FIVE SECOND FLURRY". Dutifully following instructions, I postured up one last time for what would be the fight-ending salvo. The official result was a TKO (referee stoppage due to strikes) at 2:52 of the second round.

Late 2nd round, the beginning of the end.

It is, as you would expect, a tremendous feeling to feel the ref push you off your opponent to stop the fight. No matter how tired your arms are in that moment, the weight of the world has been lifting off your shoulders. I turned towards my fallen opponent and bowed, an homage to Genki Sudo's famous win over Royler Gracie. I trotted around the cage, not quite sure what to do. I considered scaling the cage, but my honest thoughts were, "I'm short, the cage is tall, and my legs are tired. I might make an ass of myself."

The Battlefield cameraman got directly in front of me in the midst of my celebration, clearly expecting something from me. It was at this point I finally did the one cliché thing and spouted some babble into the camera about how Battlefield fans can expect a lot more of that from me, or some such. I dunno. I can't be unique and self-effacing all the time. :)

Backstage, I was giddy. It was a tremendous feeling and I wanted it to never go away. I loved anyone and everyone. Everyone I ran into said, "great fight". I took some time to relax backstage and then went out to say hello to everyone in the stands who had come out to watch me. My handwraps were still on my hands. For the first hour or two, I simply didn't want to take them off. I was enjoying it too much. By the time I decided I actually wanted them off, it was the co-main event, everyone was gone, and we couldn't even find a pair of scissors. So I wore them all the way to the burger bar where I finally got scissors from one of the restaurant staff.

It was truly and unquestionably the best night of my life and just incredibly magical. It was just too much fun. Levon won his fight as well -- in dramatic and impressive fashion -- so aside from Zach's illness, it was a great night for the team. MMASucka.com called us "the biggest winner" of the night (and if you scroll down, you'll see I got an individual award too).

In truth, I could go on and on about what a great night it was for me. This is something I've wanted to do for so long, and in a sense going through the injury and the recovery and finishing up with the fight going exactly the way we'd planned made it even sweeter. I'd gone through the worst case scenario and made it through. I'd taken one thing I'd always knew I'd had, smarts, and combined it with the one I wasn't sure about, guts. It was a storybook ending.

Only it's not an ending. While I'm sure some readers out there would prefer I take this experience and walk away, that won't be happening. I'm officially hooked (if I wasn't already hooked long before the fight). I want to see where this thing will take me. I'm 30 years of age; not young, but not too old. In a few weeks I should be okay to resume full-intensity training. There's another Battlefield card in mid-November. If I can fight on it, great; if not, I'm okay with that too. I'm still a passenger on the ride, and I don't know where it's going next. But if last weekend is any indication, it'll be fun.

* Photo credits: Creative Eye Media, VanFighter.com and MMASucka.com

getting ready to ruuuuuumble

In my fight week post, I outlined my basic weight-cutting strategy, modified by little nuggets of information I would read here and there online. By Thursday morning, I'd cut as much sodium as possible from the diet and my water intake was minimal. I weighed 134 and felt good throughout the day, if perhaps a bit cranky. My friends started to filter into town and while you might think that would just add to the anticipation, they served as a great distraction from the event. They were also, of course, greatly supportive. Gavin Griffin's wife, Amy, compared my Saturday night to a bride on her wedding day, and "do you need anything, Terrence?" was perhaps the question I heard the most through Thursday and Friday.

I woke up at 133.6 lbs on Friday morning and headed out to the gym to cut weight. Due to a communication mix-up with the team I got there 90 minutes before everyone else. Aside from me, two of my Universal MMA teammates, Levon Kinley and Zach Koch, also fighting on the card. All three of us were within 4 lbs of our target weight on Friday morning. Zach preferred to lose the weight through exercise while Levon and I chose to wait it out and head for the sauna. After yet more somewhat stressful hassles, including a flat tire, we headed over to coach Paul's building to sweat out the last few remaining pounds. After about 30-35 minutes of misery in the sauna, we were on weight with about three hours to go to the weigh-in.

The weigh-ins were pretty uneventful. I'd cooked some food the night before and asked my friends to microwave and bring it to me. Though the weigh-in was scheduled to begin at 4:30, I stepped on the scale probably around 5:15. The scale was slightly heavier than the electronic one we'd been using to cut, and I had to strip down to my underwear to get to 131 lbs even, the absolute maximum allowed. I began to chow down and drink Hydralite, although to be honest I was unable to put back very much food or drink in that first hour. But by 8pm, I was pretty ravenous. Although I didn't weigh myself on Saturday, I probably stepped into the cage close to 140 lbs that night.

This is clearly my "Can I just go eat now?" face.

I fell asleep around 12:30am the night of the fight and woke up just past 8am, my first solid interrupted 7+ hour night of sleep in a few weeks. It felt wonderful and I was full of energy. I was ready to run out and get breakfast, walk around, be a Vancouver tour guide for my visiting friends, anything... but everyone was still asleep! I was stir-crazy in my apartment, just absolutely full of energy; all amped up and nowhere to go. But it wasn't nerves, simply anticipation. It was a lot like the feeling of waking up on the morning of a major final table and being in the chip lead, only better and more intense. Finally everyone was awake and we headed for some sushi. I ate a light meal, figuring undereating was superior to overeating.

At 4pm, I went to the gym and found out the awful news that Zach had gotten sick and would be unable to fight. It was a huge downer. The guy is just a beast in the gym who stomps all over me in every practice and I was stoked to see him fight. But I had to put that aside and focus on myself. We got to the Vogue Theatre and set up shop in our dressing room [pic], which was more functionally designed for touching up makeup than warming up fighters. Still, it was pretty cool, and I loved taking it all in. I wish I had taken more pictures or video, but with so much to think about, it never really came to mind.

As the first fighter on the card, I was worried that I wasn't going to have enough time to warm up. Everything was running late, and we hadn't even had the rules meeting finished by 6pm, when the first fight was scheduled to get underway. This is where having an experienced cornerman and teammates on hand made a huge difference. Paulie quickly and professionally wrapped my hands (it takes a lot more work than you think!) and I started to warm up quickly in the small backstage area. It was kind of weird, because right in front of where I was getting warmed up, Tony sat in the chair getting his own hands wrapped by his cornerman. So we were hesitant to go over the exact combinations and techniques I was supposed to use in the fight, but that's what we ended up doing anyway. Instilling the muscle memory in me and making any necessary last-minute adjustments seemed more important than tipping our hand at that point.

I had just started to break a sweat when it was time to go on. I snuck a quick look at Tony and he didn't seem as well warmed-up as I did. That would be the first little boost of extra confidence I got as I headed out into the bright lights.

Roasted Ribs: Confessions of a debuting MMA fighter

It's hard for me to think about how to begin this blog entry. Normally when I write, it's because I'm inspired to do so. This time, I feel compelled to do so because such a significant event in my life has come and gone, and now I don't know how to start or what to say.

I suppose one way to begin is with confessing a secret that I can finally divulge. I was fighting hurt. On August 24, twenty-three days before the fight, I was in the hospital, and I was badly hurt. I took the body shot from hell from my teammate, Zach, who was also scheduled to fight on the card. I can't express this level of pain in words. I was down on the floor for 40 minutes in the most incredible agony of my life. I've been hit by a car. I've trained martial arts in some form or another since I was 16. Nothing has ever been this bad. It was simply the perfect shot in the perfect spot at the perfect time. I was given a bunch of painkillers but they didn't help. I didn't sleep that night at all and slept poorly for a week.

That's what family is for: capturing pictures of your most horrendously painful moments.

For the next week, every movement was excruciating. I was in my cousin's wedding and managed to tough it out. Breathing hurt. Moving hurt. Sitting down and standing up hurt. Lying down and getting up from horizontal was absolutely horrifying. Bowel movements hurt. Sneezing was out of the question; I did not sneeze until about September 13.

When the calendar turned to September, I was pretty sure I was at best 20-30% likely to fight. But I didn't tell anyone. On August 30, I blogged on my private blog:

"I'm confused, conflicted, ambivalent and tortured this week and likely for the next few days as well until I get pressured to finally make a decision. For now I've been able to forestall things by just saying 'I'm gonna to try fight!' as convincingly as possible, but don't know how much longer I can hold on to that."

My coach Paul gave me until the last possible opportunity, but by the end of the first week of September he wanted to see how I could perform in the gym. I didn't think I was ready to return to any kind of activity, but I understood his demand: he needed an assessment of whether I could fight or not on the 17th. So on September 4th (Labour Day), I went over to my cousin's house so he could hold pads for me. It was painful, but something I could work through. On the 5th, I stepped in the gym for the first time, hitting the bag with tempo and practicing wrestling shots. On the 9th, I did my first real practice. He had me work pads a little and try to do a takedown or two on a partner. It went better than I thought; I was able to take down my partner who was offering just 20-30% resistance. But I was able to do it. I was able to move and scramble a little. I am incredibly grateful to two particular teammates, Oliver and Kirk, who both took an hour out of their training time to basically be little more than my grappling dummy for the few days up until the fight.

I decided -- or we decided together -- that I was good enough to fight. We devised a game plan around the injured left ribs. I would pin my left arm to the body, the hand protecting my face and the elbow protecting my ribs. I would not throw any jabs or lead left hooks. I would continue fighting orthodox, but would lead combinations with my right hand only: straight right-left hook-straight right, right uppercut-left hook-straight right, and so on. And, most importantly, I would not "stand and bang" with my opponent. I would get this fight to the ground as soon as possible, where we felt (from having watched his debut fight) my opponent was likely to be weakest. We practiced takedowns off of his left and right hooks as well as off of his kicks. We practiced takedowns out in the open and up against the wall. It was all about takedowns. Paul and I were both confident that getting the guy to the ground would be the main concern; once I had him there, I would have an overwhelming advantage.

It was a good game plan. Still, I was concerned about the ribs. It would really only take one good shot to the ribs -- which were still only about 40-50% on fight day -- to put me on the mat. Not only that, a lot of heavy lifting motions, so critical in wrestling, were still causing a lot of pain. I did have doubts. What if he cracked me to the body? What if I couldn't get him down? What if I favoured the ribs so much that I left an opening upstairs and he knocked me out? Whenever I was alone with my thoughts, I had doubts. I turned to meditation and visualization. That helped a lot to ease my doubts. When I visualized the fight, I would often go through some adversity early in the first round, but drag him down eventually, dominate on the ground, and win a stoppage in the second round. And when I was in the gym, working on the takedown drills, I felt great. I only got four training sessions in after the injury, but after each one I felt only one thing: this guy is mine.

In truth, I recovered from the injury much faster than I thought I would. Everything on the web -- from medical sites to forums to personal blogs -- said anything from 6-12 weeks, and I had just over three. I shouldn't have been able to recover that quickly. But I have a ton of advantages. Not having a job is a big one. Those first few days, I was able to just laze around at home and recover. As boring as that was, I didn't give myself a chance to re-aggravate the injury. I spent all day researching rehabilitation: supplements, foods, positions, behaviour, everything I should do. I got acupuncture. I continued to do breathing exercises. I gave myself every possible advantage. The nice thing about this is that there was no conflict between getting fight-ready and just getting healthy because they are one and the same. So even if on the 17th I was not ready to fight, I should be doing the same things anyway.

Was it smart to fight last Saturday? Honestly, no. I should have asked for the fight to be pushed back to the November card. It was dumb to fight. So why did I? It's tempting to say that the reason I fought was that I felt pressure with all the friends I had flying in from all parts of the continent, and other friends and family who had already bought tickets. And to be sure I did. But the real reason was that I wanted to do it. It was something that I wanted for myself. The training camp was so hard. There had been so much anticipation. The fight was always the light at the end of my tunnel. Every day when I walked out of the gym, no matter how beat up, there was always the excitement that I had made it through one more day, and that the fight was one day closer. To pull out would feel like throwing all that work away. Perhaps that is not very process-oriented of me, but I couldn't help it. I wanted, needed, and was desperate for this fight. I'd thrown everything aside and sacrificed so much for this fight that it would have been immeasurably painful to give it up, even if it meant the potential for serious damage. And this was something I knew as soon as the injury happened. I tried to tell myself that I was smart enough not to fight if I knew I couldn't. But I also knew that if I could, I would, and fuck the consequences.

But I know it wasn't smart, and I won't do it again (I hope).

So that's the truth about the last few weeks up until training camp. I hope that explains a bit of the silence on weeks leading up to this post. That post doesn't contain any lies, but as you can tell now from this post, it didn't contain the full truth.

In my next entry, I will write some more about the night before the fight and, of course, the fight itself.

Fight week - what I'm doing

Since this blog is mostly read by poker players, I figured some people might be wondering what I'm doing a few days out from my fight.

Physical training: Nothing too hard. Yesterday I had a moderate to moderate-high intensity session working with one of my teammates. At this point it's less sparring than it is working specific things that I want to do, both offensively and defensively. Things that I have seen my opponent do and the best counter to those things. You might think we spend the whole training camp doing this, but in fact, we only spend the last couple weeks doing this. I think this is correct because at this lower level, overall skill development and improvement is more important than exploiting your own strengths or your opponent's weaknesses. Just like poker and other zero-sum games!

Mental training: A few weeks ago I resolved to start getting more sunlight, and the weather in Vancouver has been nearly flawless for the last two months. My building has a common garden too, so I've no excuse. So I've been going out there with some mats, sitting in the sun, doing some breathing, meditation and visualization. Maybe only 10-20 minutes a day, but it's more than I've really ever done consistently in my life. I'm also not playing poker at all this week. Don't really want the potential stress/cortisol dump if I ran bad.

Weight cutting: It's a fairly easy cut for me in part because of my fortunate metabolism, but also because I've been extremely strict on diet for the whole 8 weeks. I've never gone on a carb binge so I never got over 141 lbs this entire time. Sunday morning I woke up at 135.6 lbs. That day, I began going very low carb, and also began sodium and water loading (i.e. consuming large amounts of both). Tomorrow I will start sodium and water reduction. Adding lots of flax to the diet to get (more) regular. I won't drink anything on Friday and I'd guess I'd be down to 132-133 or so before even setting foot in a sauna. So this should be easy. Yay for staying on the wagon.

Nerves: Almost none. Kinda surprising, really. I mean, I'm aware of the fact that it's a fight and I could get hurt or knocked out. But nothing resembling nervousness and anxiety. Probably won't happen until a couple hours of fight time.

Miscellany: Last real training is probably tonight. Massage and acupuncture also scheduled this week. Weigh-in is at a sports bar at 4:30 on Friday, will prepare myself a small meal to consume, go out to a nice restaurant with out-of-town friends around 8:30, and hope to get to bed before midnight.

I'll probably do a v-log of my last few days as well with the weight cutting, fight prep and that kinda stuff, and post it after the fight.

Fight tickets now available

Tickets for my fight at Battlefield Fight League 11 on September 17 in downtown Vancouver are now available by clicking on this link.

Please use CHAN as the promotional code. If you do so, I will be happy to give you 15% (my commission) back on your ticket price if you see me in person or send me your Stars/HeroPoker screen name along with your e-mail ticket confirmation. I don't want the money; just want the tracking to show I can draw tickets among the poker community and network of friends.

Thanks for your support! I am in Week 6 of training camp and it is going extremely well. I've been training martial arts for such a long time, but there's such a tremendous difference between just showing up at the gym for fun, and training deliberately and intensively with an immediate payoff on the horizon. I'm in a very good place mentally and physically, and I think I'll come out of this training camp a much-improved fighter. So I plan to put on a really good performance. Hope you can make it out!

Everyone's got a plan until they get punched in the face

In my first legitimate post of this new blog, I'm excited to announce that I am booked to make my MMA debut for the Battlefield Fight League promotion's 11th event. I've attended a number of BFL events and they run extremely professional regional shows and have some really top-notch fighters. There are a lot of legal and political barriers thrown at MMA in Vancouver, and in spite of that, they've put themselves out there to put on some quality shows. If you happen to be in Vancouver on September 17th, I hope you'll check out the event and watch me fight! For days, I've been on a total high because of this fight, and I know these next seven weeks are going to be among the longest of my life.

Because I'm the kind of guy who doesn't want to give too much away, I won't be writing in detail about my upcoming training camp. But one thing I can divulge is that it's going to be torturously hard. My academy, Universal MMA, gets its fighters ready. When you're just a recreational guy or girl coming in to hit the pads or roll around on the ground, then you can train as hard as you want to. But when you fight under the school banner, you're going to be prepared.

And I have a lot to learn. I've been training striking, wrestling and grappling for a few years now, but my combined MMA experience to this point totals less than a month, and so it will total less than 3 months when I step inside the Battlefield cage. It is insufficient to say that MMA is striking, wrestling, and grappling. I think it is better to say that MMA is striking while wrestling, striking while grappling, grappling while wrestling, and the reverse of all three.

"Everyone has a plan, until they get hit in the mouth."

The above quote is actually attributed to a boxer, Mike Tyson. But I think it applies even better to MMA. When I train standup, I have a plan. An example might go something like, "Okay, I am fighting a southpaw, I will use straight right hand counters, or rear inside cut kicks." If I am grappling, I have plans. "I have the guy in side control; when he turns into me to take the underhook, I can use it to spin to the back."

Well, I'm not the most experienced MMA guy in the world, but I've learned one thing in my short time: Having a guy on top of you punching you in the face will fuck up even the best plans.

It sounds obvious, but it's really not, if you have a little experience. This is one of those cases where a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Like anyone else, I have armchair quarterbacked many an MMA fight. Why doesn't he do this? Why doesn't he do that? Often, it is simply poor strategy on the part of the fighter. But sometimes he simply can't do any of these things. He's getting punched in the face.

It's not simply a matter of punches to the face hurting. It's a variety of factors. The bottom guy in MMA is not necessarily losing, but he is expending a lot of energy bearing the weight of the other person. His breathing is impaired because of the weight of the man on him. His breaths are interrupted every time he is punched, which is always a jarring event. Sick of this situation, he fights to escape that position and expends more energy, and if he fails, he has wasted some of the energy in his reserves. Every second he is on the bottom, every punch he takes and every failed escape depletes his energy. And not only that, he is expected to formulate a plan -- a counter-attack -- under these circumstances. It's a lot to ask of him.

It is little wonder why excellent grapplers give up passes, dominant positions and even submissions when they've been getting beat up. People often say wrestling is the most exhausting part of MMA. I think getting beat up -- in any position -- is the most exhausting part. It messes with your breathing, it makes you tense, and it threatens to break your desire to continue fighting.

And if you understood the preceding, you have a pretty good idea of how my 8:30pm-10:30pm went tonight. I took an absolute ground-and-pound beating from one of my teammates, Zach, one of our undefeated 145-pounders. Zach is a grinder, a guy who gives no space and works at a tireless pace. And by "works", I really mean "punches you in the face". For the first time in my entire life, I am icing my face. Cheeks, temples, orbital bones, jaw -- everything above the neck hurts. I don't mark easily so it's not really visible, but I really feel like I tried to stop a moving vehicle with my face. Make no mistake, this is the not-so-glamourous side of MMA; these is what fighters go through for what can be anything from 10 seconds to 25 minutes in the cage. It is an absolute meat grinder. And it's what I've signed up for, of my own volition, for the next seven weeks. I will take seven weeks of beatings so that when September 16 comes, I won't take one. Taking beatings so that you won't take a beating. A delightful paradox, isn't it?