Team sports

"Fighting is the most solitary form of competition; you are all alone out there. But what I hear again and again is how important the team is...The team is what gets you there.Team members train and spar and cajole you, push you through the rigors and hellish boredom of training, and they support you and protect you from nerves in the days and hour leading up to a fight, Fighting is, strangely enough, a team sport." ("The Fighter's Heart" by Sam Sheridan, p. 119)

I didn't ever really get this until the run up to the fight that didn't happen (as I am calling it).

I had prepared hard for my tournament fight but had largely kept my plans to myself because I suspected I would get resistance from some and honestly I was worried that I would fail in a spectacular fashion. The result was that all of my friends, trainers (with a couple of exceptions) and sparring partners asked for little notice next time. So I let them know as soon as the fight card was announced, and the result was kind of spectacular.

My trainer, Matt, and training partner, Gordon, were obviously all in and we worked very hard. But beyond that my bout became everyone's project. In Friday night sparring, Nick (the Professor) started by working hard on the game planning against a primarily TKD opponent and got the other students to work a variety of body tempering drills on me. The head instructor at BBMAC had me doing additional repetitions of the conditioning drills. Sean, a fellow student who had boxed as a younger man, focused on my boxing and stance. Elliot, who has been one of my longest running training partners, worked hard in the sparring and particularly on the clinch. The last Friday sparring I fought continuous rounds against new partners (including the Professor) throughout. I think all of this was in part purely out of friendship and support, but it also gave everyone a chance to participate in a fighting competition that they might not otherwise be able to participate in. As a team Matt and Gordon had me up to a really sharp edge, but when you added in the rest of the team I was as prepared and ready as I have ever been. 

I may not have gotten to do this fight but I am absolutely confident that I can do it in large measure because of the people around me.

Explosion and endurance

As my conditioning has improved and my training has progressed I have realized something: I am still working as hard as ever at the end of a round of pad work or sparring. I was concerned about this for a while wondering when it would be that I could get through a hard round and not be panting and pouring sweat at the end. Then I realized that the level of output in a round had increased dramatically. I was still clinching and delivering hard knees after 3 minutes and firing round kicks at the pad at full force and rapidly. That's when it occurred to me that the real goal is to be able to funnel as much explosive power through myself as I needed in each round. Previously, I was just as winded but the output wasn't much. Now I am exploding through my rounds and still able to go to the next round afterward. That's the other side of the equation of course and really where I see the improved conditioning in that I am able to repeat that explosive process through many rounds whether sparring, clinching or doing pad work. That's what I will need deep into the late rounds. And its coming along.  Progress, real progress.

The fight that never happened

One week before the fight I had scheduled for tomorrow, my opponent withdrew without much explanation. Then the day before the fights, the whole mid-Atlantic got hit with a massive snowstorm and the event was postponed anyway. So, that didn't happen.

I felt unhappy about it but also really good about my initial reaction which was 100% disappointment and 0% relief. I was ready, really ready, physically and mentally. I am ready to go.

Why fight? Today's answer

I forgot to add that I told everyone about the fight this last week. My friends had been unhappy that I had waited until the last minute to let them know I was fighting. I promised I would do so earlier this time, but I found myself hard pressed to do so. The thing is that I am ambivalent about the attention it brings me. I really love the support they have given me and wouldn't be able to aspire to this without it, but I am not doing this for that attention. This is about something I need to do to improve my martial arts and myself. It is to test both of these in a tough environment and it may end badly. I am not going to be unhappy from that perspective if I lose (although I would prefer not to) as long as it instructs me in useful ways. But having shared widely, I feel like I am fighting for all my friends who I train with. Much like the early post about my health in training, life is not perfect so I am going to embrace the idea that I am fighting for my friends ("The Greying Hope" for us older folks) and get out there and beat my opponent.

training and thinking

And I suspect the ratio of one to the other is too heavily weighted towards thinking. I wake up thinking about my upcoming fight in the morning, think about it as I drive, when I am running, and pretty much every other moment that I am not fully engaged in something else. Its ironic but the moments when i am not thinking of it at all is when I am training, particularly sparring or hard pad work, I am all there for those things. Office work, less so. My thoughts oscillate wildly between confidence and excitement, tactics, to-do in advance of the fight, fear, and certainty that I am in over my head.

Training is going well, and I am starting my last hard week before my weight cut. Friday was particularly tough when I sparred with other students, clinch sparred with my trainer (and he beat the hell out of me), had hard pad work, and some serious "body tampering" wherein my fellow students took turns throwing round kicks and shovel hooks to my unprotected mid-section. I suspect my trainer is going to take it way up this week and I need to arrive really ready for as hard a training session as I have ever experienced. I have no way to gauge his confidence in me, but he is damn sure doing his best to prepare me for the fight.

Busy Holiday Season

My next fight got scheduled over the holidays, January 23rd in the Thai Championship Boxing promotion in Virginia. A full three rounds with modified Muay Thai rules (no elbows, or knees to the head) against a 20 year old who went 1-1 in a Taekwondo tournament a year or two ago. He is slightly taller than me and training with someone who both my trainer and the promoter know personally. Obviously there is some risk in fighting someone this much younger but I trust the guys who are making the fight and am going for it.

Speaking of which, training is going hard again and it was tough because of a combination of illness and family responsibilities over the holidays. My runs have been shorter and less frequent than I would like, but I am really kicking it up today. My training sessions with Matt are going well but he is leaving me soaked in sweat and completely wiped out at the end of each (and I feel like I should be holding up a little better). Still you are never truly 100% and I am pushing hard. On the plus side, the flexibility work is really showing results and I am whipping my kicks higher, faster and harder than at any point.

Two weeks of hard training left and then the taper and weight cut week.