High Standards or Sandbaggers?

I want to start off by saying that the jiu jitsu standards at Daegu MMA are extremely high.  I've rolled with some really tough dudes back at home. I've rolled with belts of all colours including black and brown.  I've been successful in grappling tournaments.  I trained with the National no-gi champ right before I left for Korea and didn't feel the least bit out of my element.  Things are different here.  Every blue belt in the place will choke me out quick if I'm not right on my game.  There are white belts who give me heaps of trouble.  Purple belts?  Forget about it.  When I'm at my best and they're at their worst I can keep it pretty even... in no-gi at least.

To put hings in perspective, there's an American guy here who had a blue belt from his club in the states.  After a few weeks at Daegu MMA he started wearing a white belt again.  One of the purple belts here won the Korean Abu Dhabi Trials against black and brown belts.  As I said, standards are high. The Jiu Jitsu curriculum here is centered around competition.  Sport Jiu Jitsu takes precedence over self defense techniques, although there is obviously lots of overlap.  It takes a long, long time to advance your belt ranking here.  There are people who have been white belts for years and train almost everyday.

One of the good things about Jiu Jitsu is that a Jiu Jitsu blackbelt still symbolizes years of study nd true mastery of the sport.  Jiu Jitsu rankings haven't been corroded by the money making McDojo's who hand out belts for cash like many other of the traditional martial arts.  The Jiu Jitsu community polices itself constantly and is absolutely ruthless with those who fake or embelish their credentials or Jiu Jitsu lineage.  Daegu MMA seems to hold true to that ideal.  A blue belt from this club really means something. 

The flip side of the coin is that some of the competitors here probably could move up in ranking but haven't taken their belt test.  Having to move into the blue/purple belt division in competition is a major deterent for some people.  At home, people would probably call this sandbagging; competing in a division that you probably should have moved out of so that you can still win.  The Koreans definitely don't look at this as a negative thing the way it's looked at at home.  The common belief is that it keeps the standards for progrssign throught the belts high.  This is true, but at the same time I think it might hold some promising grapplers back a little bit by keeping them from stepping up to tougher competition.

I waffle back-and-forth about whether or not these very high standards hurt or help in the long run.  In the end, I usually settle on the fact that regardless of belt ranking I get to roll every day with a lot of tough dudes and will be much better for it.

Me and one of my homies, Po Kue.  He is a 90 kg stud and one of my favourite training partners.

Notice the blood on me and not Po Kue.

New Vision Quest Movie?!?!

I've posted the dramatic conclusion to "Vision Quest".  Louden Swain's showdown with Shute is pretty awesome, but I wonder what it would look like in an updated version.  We may just get a chance to find out.  Rumour has it the guy who plays the werewolf in the Twilight movies wants to play the role of Louden Swain.  Check it out.

Korean hospitals and a mutinous body

Hold it right there... 
Well, that didn't last long.  I'm not fighting in Japan next month.  I accepted the fight on Thursday and pulled out yesterday (wednesday).  Monday afternoon at work I noticed my ankle was getting a little sore.  By the time the end of the day rolled around I could barely walk and my ankle was swollen to the point I didn't want to take my shoe off because I didn't think I'd be able to put it back on.  There's a hospital on the short walk to my house, which was a good thing because I'm not sure I would have made it all the way home. I might have had to knock some kid off his bike, or at least get him to double ride me home.   
I have no idea what caused my ankle to swell up.  I trained hard on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.  My ankle was fine until Monday afternoon and I did nothing in between except go to an indoor water spa with some co-workers (don't laugh, it was awesome).
On the positive side I was extremely impressed with my first Korean hospital experience.  I got signed in, triaged, assessed by a nurse and a doctor and X-rayed in a span of about  25 minutes.  There was nothing broken but they couldn't really tell me anything more than that.  They gave me an injection of who knows what (it felt like liquid gold), a prescription for some pain meds and put me in a half cast.  The cast was pretty cool.  It was a flexible piece of plastic and gauze that they injected with some sort of warm plaster.  the warm plaster molded to my leg and cooled and hardened to the shape of my foot.  The plaster is wrapped with bandages to keep it in place and they gave me a walking boot to wear with it.  Unfortunately I don't think the cast formed to my leg as well as it was supposed to.  Sometimes it doesn't keep my foot from moving around and it's a pain to walk around with.  I keep trying to wear it around but I find taping up my ankle does just as good a job.

I guess for the next few weeks I'll be standing in front of a punching bag working on turning my hips and shoulders and keeping my chin down.  I'll also have some time to do some strength work in the weight room, which I'm a little glad about.  I know that the "silver lining" expression is cliched but there's always something you can do, and if I don't do something I'll go crazy.

It feels like my body is conspiring against me to keep me from competing in Asia.  Jiu Jitsu tournament? Sublexed shoulder.  MMMA fight? Mysterious ankle explosion.  I think I'm going to have to keep my body in the dark about these things from now on.  Then again, some people say my body should always be kept in the dark anyways.

After slouching around for a few days and being generally grumpy about not fighting I've cheered up a bit.  First of all, tomorrow is my birthday.  E-mail me and I'll send you the account # where you can deposit my gift.  Secondly, one of my 6 year old students wrote this in her weekend diary. Click on the picture to enlarge and read it.

 If that doesn't make you laugh you've obviously had a successful senseofhumourectomy.

It's the thought that counts:

When it looked like I was going to fight in January I was looking for some sponsors to help cover the cost of travel an accommodations since the fight organizations doesn't do that for it's fighters.  ARMBAR Athletics stepped up right away and offered to pay a good chunk of the expense.  I'm extremely grateful that a small company would do that, especially for a fighter that is just getting going in his career.  ARMBAR Athletics sells MMA gear and fashion and has a lot of the big names in their store.  If you're in the market for something I hope you'll support them... their support for me is greatly appreciated.  If you buy something from them, tell them I sent ya!

 

KOTC and Fighting in Japan.

The last few days have been filled with all kinds of MMA related news for me.  I've been keeping in touch with the boys from Ho Shin Sool about their fights at King of the Cage: Title Defense, I watched UFC 107 and had some exciting MMA news of my own.

Ho Shin Sool MMA Rips it up at "King of the Cage: Title Defense:

Dominant.
What else is there to say?
Ho Shin Sool fighters went 5-0 at King of the Cage for the second time this year. Two KO's, one submission and two unanimous decisions.  That's good fishing. Ray, Adrian, Jeff, Trevor and Dalton all came to fight and showed why we're the first and best MMA club in the area.  Big props to Jeff for ending his pro-debut in under 30 seconds.  Here's a highlight video of the event featuring most of the Ho Shin Sool crew.  You can also read some good newspaper articles about the fights here and here.

Watch live streaming video from soonews at livestream.com

Who's Fighting in Japan? I am.

I've accepted a fight in Japan for January 9th.  I was a little apprehensive about taking the fight because there are lots of things I still don't know about the fight and some things I probably won't find out until I get there.  When you're dealing with two language barriers (Japanese to Korean and Korean to English) it's tough to get accurate info. Here's what I do know.

• The fight will be at 70 kgs.  This is a weight class higher than I normally fight at but weigh ins are the same day and I know that most Japanese fighters don't really cut weight.
• I will fly from Busan to Tokyo with 4 other Korean fighters on Friday January 8th, fight on January 9th just outside of Tokyo and fly home on Sunday the 10th.
• The rules of the fight are slightly modified.  Full MMA rules on the feet, full ground and pound on the ground but no submissions.  I'm not sure if this is good for me or not.  On one hand being able to take someone down without worrying about submissions is awesome, on the other hand my submission game is a lot more dangerous now than it was three months ago.
• The organization does not pay travel.  It's really expensive to fly to and stay in Japan, especially Tokyo.  Luckily I've had a few sponsors step up and it looks like I'll be able to swing the cost of travel. More about that later.
  

Other than that I'm pretty much flying blind.   I don't know much about the guy I'm fighting, but the owner of Daegu MMA seems convinced that this is a fight I should win.  I don't know who will be cornering me.  I'm not sure if anyone from the club will be going.  I know there is a fighter from another Daegu MMA location that is also fighting. Maybe we will corner each other.  Maybe I'll put some feelers out to see if there are any mutual acquaintances in the fight scene in Japan that would be up for it.  I don't know the name of the organization I'm fighting for; it might be an organization I know or it might be a fly-by-night one time promoter tat will never be heard from again.  I don't know how big of an event this is.  I'm prepared for the venue to be a local gym with 30 people watching and I'm also prepared to walk into a big venue with a few thousand spectators.

There were a number of legitimate reasons for me to not take this fight. Wrong weight class, lots of unknowns, bad money etc.. but in the end one of the main reasons I came here was to fight and fighting in Japan is an opportunity that a lot of fighters would kill to have.  I don't want to leave Korea and say, "man, I wish I would have fought in Japan while I was here."

So, as they say, Game On.

Soooooooooooooooo... my computer died.  That was a while ago.  I have tonnes of pics and vids on there that I want to put up on the blog.  Apparently there's an evil computer genius that lives near us that can hopefully recover those files.  Lesson learned; always back up your files. When I say lesson learned I mean, that's what you should do, not necessarily what I'll do from now on.


The MMA Lowdown

I skipped the Jiu Jitsu tournament this past weekend.  I hurt my shoulder a little while ago and hadn't done any real sparring in almost two weeks.  I've had a lot of time to work on some technical things that I've been thinking about so it wasn't a total waste of time. I sparred for the first time on Saturday and every day this week and it feels okay... just a little limited in my range of motion.  Daegu MMA won the team title at the tournament again.

Daegu MMA has undergone a bit of a facelift.  There are huge new banners that pull down from the ceiling everywhere with pictures of team members in action and accolades that have been collected by the team in the last few years.  Some of the pictures that are on the banners are pretty cool.  For example, there's a picture of Jae Hoon (the owner) holding pads for Lyoto Machida.  When I asked him about it he said "Yesh. Lyota Masheeda. Vely good balanceuh."  That's it.  After training with one of the best fighters in the world all he can say is that he has good balance.  Hilarious.

On Monday night we were treated to a seminar by the first Korean born Ju Jitsu blackbelt.  The seminar was good, but focused on how to use the gi against your opponent.  There was some pretty interesting stuff, but there's no real application beyond sport jiu jitsu...  unless of course you get into a fight with a guy wearing pajamas that have double reinforced collars and sleeve cuffs.  With that being said, I am really starting to appreciate the intricacies of working in the gi, even if a lot of it doesn't translate to MMA very well.

I've been training at a new kickboxing gym in my area for the last few weeks.  The guy who runs the gym is pretty young and has fought in some big events.  He has held multiple belts, including one world championship belt at 81 kg.  I don't know how legit the world title is, but all of the guys at Daegu MMA say he's good, which goes a long way in my books.  Because the gym is brand new there aren't a lot of people who train there yet. There are some classes that run on a schedule but I've been lucky to work mostly one on one with the owner.  When I go to the club right after work he's usually the only one there, watching TV or playing video games. I warm up on my own and hit the bag until he decides that I'm ready or until he can't bear to watch my brutal technique anymore.  That's when he puts the pads on and works me through 20 - 30 minutes of technical and conditioning padwork.  His English is about as good as my Korean, which is to say embarrassing.  Luckily we both speak the universal language of dirty beatdowns. When I'm done on the pads I always have to do between 400 and 600 roundhouses on the heavy bag.  Then it's "fwee time-uh".  It's awesome having someone of his caliber to work with one on one and I think he appreciates having someone around who is willing to work his but of and do whatever he says. 


KOTC in Sault Ste. Marie
On Saturday night 5 fighters from Ho Shin Sool will fight at King of the Cage: Title Defense.  This will be the first time that anyone from HSS has fought without me being there.  I was the first HSS fighter to step in the cage, I've fought as the only HSS fighter on a card and I've traveled to support other fighters when they were the only HSS fighters on a card.  I'm extremely proud of what we've been able to accomplish with Jim leading the way and I couldn't be happier with the group of guys that train at HSS.  The last time KOTC was in the area our team went 5-0.  While no one can guarantee that it will happen again I can tell you that every fighter is well prepared and will leave everything they have in the cage that night.  Adrian said it pretty well in his athlete profile on the Catalyst Fitness website.

"...when you step into the cage you stand alone but you hold a piece of each of those people. Every time they have ever pushed you, tried to break you, punished you they make you stronger. They stand beside you because “I” don’t fight on the 12th “We” fight. It’s a family, never before have I belonged to a family as completely as to this one and nobody attacks this family. I hope you all read this and know I love all of you like brothers.
Lastly, I cannot guarantee you a win. It’s a fight and anything can happen, I can however guarantee that everything I have gets laid out for everyone to see and would bet my life that my teammates do the same. In return I ask one thing when a Ho Shin Sool fighter’s name gets called you leave everything you have inside that building. Don’t save it for the next guy, you always have another gear and I want you drop it into fifth. Make the floor vibrate, make the other man tentative to come out, put fear in his heart and fill ours. That’s it that’s all I ask, come 12 – 12 bring the noise."

Give you chills? It did for me.  If you need another reason to go see the fights it shouldn't hurt that Tony Hervey who holds the 145 lb. KOTC World Title will be defending his belt.  Hervey just lost a very close 5 round decision to Takanori Gomi, long considered one of the best fighters in the world, in Japan.  Some people are calling that fight the fight of the year.  Do yourself a favour and look it up, it's one of the most entertaining fights I've seen in a long time.  Check out the commercial for KOTC: Title Defense at the top right of my page.

I'm not going to say god luck to the fighters because I believe when you're skilled, well trained, in shape and focused luck doesn't play a roll.  Luck is when preparation meets opportunity.  The preparation has been done, the opportunity will come along Saturday night.  Do what you do guys, I can't wait to hear about it.

Ultimate Frisbee
I'm surprised that I haven't mentioned this before.  For the past 10 weeks I've been playing in an Ultimate Frisbee league in Daegu.  The league runs on Sundays and there are three or four games every day.  Getting out and running hard every Sunday is great but the best part is that most players show up for the whole day and just hang out.  The expat community here is pretty small so everybody knows each other somehow and it's fun to have everyone in the same place.

There are some really good players in the league and lots of first timers and can't throw or catchers.  Some people take it pretty seriously and some show up in their bar clothes from the night before.  The games are competitive (my team played 9 games and 7 of them were decided by two points or less) but they also serve beer on the field.  Here's a few pics of the Sunday afternoon action.

Most of the Daegu Hurricanes... best team in the league

The man known simply as B-Vance stretching for the disc.

Me trying to knock down the disc.  For arguments sake let's assume I was successful.

Things that are awesome in Korea: Heated Floors.
Koreans are way ahead of North America when it comes to Radiant heat flooring. Every building or house is heated this way.  It makes sense in a culture where people sit on the floor a lot.  It's awesome in the morning when you step out of bed ad your feet are on a toasty warm surface.  It's also awesome if you think ahead far enough to throw your clothes on the floor at night. When you wake up your underwear is like it just came out of the dryer.  EVERY DAY!
Things that suck in Korea: Bathrooms that have no heat at all.
Things in Korea aren't insulated very well and the bathroom which is always against an exterior wall has no heat source.  Bathroom tiles on a December morning are pretty much the worst thing you could ever step on.  Sitting on a plastic toilet seat in those temperatures creates a whole different world

It's been a while since I've posted but hopefully today's post will make you laugh and smile enough to make up for the lack of regular updates.

Korean Signs and Translations
It seems like Korean's have been brainwashed into believing that the English language will be the salvation of the country and that to be successful you must understand the language.  There is a strong, depreciating belief in Korea that the English language is somehow better and a symbolizes class and intelligence.  Because of this belief Korean stores and clothing labels love to put English words or translations on their signs and products. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) a lot of the signs and t shirts with English on them are written by people with a poor grasp of the language.  This is strange considering how many English speaking westerners live in Korea.  The hilarious result of the gibberish, konglish and poor translation can be seen below.  These pictures are only a fraction of what you see on a weekly basis.  These are just the pictures I took when I saw a good sign and happened to have my camera on me.  Enjoy.
I'll post more as I see them.

On the right hand side of the page I've also added a couple of videos.  The first is a fantastic vid that really highlights all of the emotional aspects of MMA. 
The second is one of the best speeches (for my money) in any movie.  Just when Louden is starting to think his quest is hopeless his long time buddy and one of his mentors reminds him of why it's important, even if it's just "six lousy minutes on the mat".

   Typical translation on the package of a Halloween costume.

Everything you need, including raping?

Ive been in this store.  It's more like 'Shop and... Meh'

 

Makes sense since this is how Koreans usually speak English.

Does this mean I can buy ice cream instead of a ring? Nice.

Korea is actually pretty progressive in terms of environmental issues, despite this sign.

This bathroom is only for girls who really, really have to go.

Daegu, Daegu, FIGHTING!

Daegu MMA in Action
The last week has been pretty empty inside Daegu MMA.  There have still been lots of people training but the studs have either been away fighting or helping to corner the fighters.  The intensity of training has been a little lower this week, but to be honest, I feel like my body needed the rest.  I feel refreshed and ready to get back at it full tilt.

Un Sik "The Tornado" Song won his kickboxing fight at "W" by second round KO.  He scored two knockdowns before putting his guy away for good.  Un Sik's fight was the main event, getting top billing over a fighter who has competed in K1.  It sounds like he was all over his opponent from start to finish.  After watching him train and spar (and getting punched around by him a lot) I'm glad to know that his Kickboxing is as good as I thought.

Un Sik re-aranging some facial features

Across the sea, Heung Gull lost a very tough split decision to Akihiko Mori in Tokyo, Japan.  I haven't talked to him yet but it sounds like he dominated the first round with striking and almost finished the fight from the bottom when he got taken down at the end of the round.  The second round was a toss up and in the third Heung Gull got taken down and couldn't get anything going from the bottom.  He didn't take any real damage but he was down there for the whole round.  Sounds like the fight could have gone either way, but I wish I could have seen it since the only info I have is second hand from some biased sources.  As mainly a Jiu Jitsu practitioner, Heung Gull has different ideas about cutting weight than I do.   His Jiu Jitsu competition weight is 62 kg.  while the fight against Mori was at 70 kg.  I was worried that a weight disadvantage might hurt him in the later rounds if the fight went long... I don't know if this was the case or not but I personally wouldn't fight at 70 kg and I'm a bit bigger than Heung Gull.  The cool thing is that I think Heung Gull fights for fun.  He is first and foremost a Jiu Jitsu player and is now busy preparing for the Asian Abhu Dhabi trials, having already won the Korean trials.

The best thing about Un Sik and Heung Gull is that neither guy missed a single day of training after their fights.  They were both right back at it the day they got back to Daegu.  Tough dudes.


Competition on the Horizon
There's a little more than three weeks until  I compete in my first Jiu Jitsu tournament in Korea.  I don't know if it's a big tournament or a small one, if the divisions are separated by belt or if they lump everyone together.  I do know that the weight class is 68 kg.   This is pretty much my natural weight right now, so that's where I'll compete.. there's no way I'm cutting to 62 kg.  I've picked up the amount of weight training that I've been doing and would like to get back up to a solid 70 kg and cut to 68 for grappling and 66/65 for MMA.  There is also the off chance that I might end up fighting an amateur Kickboxing fight at some point.  When Jae Hoon (The owner and coach at Daegu MMA) talked to me about fighting he said "Amateur Kickboxing, no probrem". I trust him, but I'd still rather fight MMA where I can take I guy down if need be. And get paid.
Over the next few weeks I'll be doing the regular jiu jitsu classes as well as splitting time with Un Sik and Jae Hoon, working on my kickboxing and Un Sik's wrestling.


Unrelated...
Last week I went into my regular coffee shop, the one I stop in at just about every morning on my way to work.  There were some guys there putting in a new, bigger front window.  As I was leaving one of the guys was blocking my way.  I couldn't help but think "Hey buddy, you make a better window than a door...".   Gold!

Then you really might know what it's like... to fight.

What is it like to fight? I get asked some variation of this question fairly regularly, usually by people that might have plans to step in the cage themselves or sometimes when I have an upcoming fight.  While every fight is different for me and every fighter has different experiences, there are some common threads in what I and other fighters feel in the months, weeks, days, hours and minutes leading up to the fight.  I'll do my best to try and explain the mental, physical and psychological rollercoaster that I go through every time I fight.  Some people might think that writing this down for others to see is allowing others to see my weaknesses, but I don't see it that way.  I'm sure every fighter goes through some version of what I'm writing down.

For me the experience begins when I get an offer for a fight.  Usually the offer arrives via my coach Jim, who usually approaches me walking into the gym for a training session.  There is usually little time to debate on taking a fight or not.  After a few minutes on google doing some preliminary research about the potential opponent a decision is reached.  While the fight is still a long ways off at this point, the moment when I accept a fight is emotionally intense.  It's the moment when things get "real" in a hurry.  Even though you've been training with the intent of fighting, putting a name and face to a person that you know is training to beat you up and putting a date to when it'll happen always triggers an adrenaline dump in my system.

The months and weeks of training leading up to a fight is when the ups and downs of fighting really show.  You have good days and you have bad days.  A lot goes into preparing for a fight.  You need to prepare your body for any conditions it might encounter... a long, drawn out war that will tax your cardiovascular system and muscular endurance or a fast paced fight where you will have to rely on explosiveness, speed and power. Running, intervals, powerlifting and periodized physical training are all part of the prgoram.  You have to make sure that your technical skills and timing are sharp. You drill and work out the details in your kickboxing, wrestling and jiu jitsu and work on smooth transitions and combinations of all three.  You prep your strategy and game plan. You watch tape of your opponent and  work out situations that you can exploit in the fight and how to get to them.  You anticipating and train for bad situations and "worst case" scenarios. You prepare  "Plan B" in case the original game plan goes out the window the first time you get cracked in the melon.
You have days when you feel like you could knock anybody out on the feet and you have days when rookie grapplers are taking you down and submitting you.  This is all normal; It's the nature of physical performance that you can't always be at your best.  Even knowing this, the ups and downs of training coupled with he physical abuse that your body takes can make even the friendliest fighter cranky and moody.  It becomes hard to keep an even keel through practice.  If you push yourself to failure you sometimes feel like you're body isn't ready.  If you don't push yourself to failure you feel like you're not working hard enough.

The physical ups and downs are one thing, but I find the mental rollercoaster can be just as bad. In the extended time leading up to a fight I flip flop from thoughts of being invincible to thoughts of being hopelessly overmatched.  Going from "This guy is a chump, there is no way he can beat be, I'm a better athlete, I'm in better shape, my skills are better in every area, I have a better game plan, I have the better training partners and coaches."  To thoughts like "I'm not ready, I'm not in good enough shape, I can't fight with this ---------- injury, I haven't sparred enough, his jiu jitsu/wrestling/kickboxing is too good, I'm in over my head." and back again is par for the course.  These thoughts will flip flop several times before a fight, sometimes in the matter of a day or even hours. A good training session can leave me feeling invincible and a tough session will often have me leaving the gym with shaken confidence.  Luckily I've experienced these emotions many times and have come to accept and expect them.

The last week of preparation before fight night is time to taper down the training intensity, let your body heal, fine tune some small technical and strategic details and make sure your weight is on point.  This always feels like the longest week; you're used to training and sparring hard and just want to fight.  During this week I always feel like I could fight at the drop of a hat.  Let's do it,  lets' get it over with.   You feel like a wild animal that 's been caged and muzzled.  Because your training volume is lower, there's more time for crazy thoughts to burrow into your head.  You realize the absurdity of what you are about to do and question why you would ever think that it was a good idea.  Around this time my internal monologue always sounds something like this: "I'm going to step into a steel cage with a guy who's only goal is to do physical harm to me.  Why on earth would I do this?  I'm a smart guy, I have a good job, I don't have to do this. I'm never doing this again. This is stupid, this is going to be my last fight."  This happens all the time, but again, it's a lot easier to deal with when you know that it's going to happen.

The night of weigh ins is always a fun night for me.  All the hard work has been done at this point, the journey is almost over.  All there is left to do is step on the scale, flex for the camera and relax until fight time.  This is usually the first time that you see your opponent in person, which is always something that makes my heart jump into my throat a little bit. I find the post weigh-in face-off hard to take, but probably not for the reasons you'd think.  I'm not generally a mean person and standing in front of someone trying to look mean or tough cracks me up.  I can barely keep a smile or laugh in. I usually try to go say hi to my opponent before the weigh ins to make that moment a little less strange.  Some opponents are friendly, some aren't.  I always have to laugh at some of the fighters who try to "walk tough" at the weigh ins.  There's always a few who are posturing and trying to intimidate their opponents. I feel like saying "Guess what guys? Everyone here is a fighter, everyone knows your tough, you can drop the act, we're all going to have a drink together when it's all over."

Some fighters find fight day to be extremely stressful, but not me.  In my mind the outcome of the fight has already been determined by the way you've trained for the fight; all there is left to do is go out, implement the game plan and giv'er hell.  I don't like to think too much about the fight on fight day; I've already done weeks of visualization and mental preparation, nothing I do at this point is going to change much.  Having lots of downtime is when your mind starts to wander and all kinds of  thoughts creep into your head. To avoid this, it's good to have things to do and a good group of people to hang out with.  On fight day I like to sleep in late, get up and have a big breakfast with all of the team members that are at the event.  This is usually followed by a team walk to loosen up the legs a little bit. I'm lucky to have a great group of fighters, trainers ans support guys that travel with us most of the time and make this part of the adventure a lot easier and more fun. Throughout the day I'll probably watch a movie, read the newspaper, wander around the venue and chat with other fighters, spectators or coaches... anything to keep occupied.

I can't speak for every fighter, but for me the emotions really start to get going when the fighters are called to the referee's meeting on fight night.  It's hard to keep an even keel when everywhere you go fighters are warming up, hitting pads, grappling and getting themselves psyched up in their own  way.  Realizing that I'm so close to fight time really gets the juices flowing.  I can feel the knot in my stomach start to grow.  I tell myself that this is normal, dumping adrenaline and other chemicals into the system is the bodies way of preparing for a dangerous situation.  Imagine experiencing every intense emotion you can think of; excitement, hate, fear, anticipation, relief, sadness etc...  Now imagine experiencing every one of those emotions on a constant loop with the intensity dial cranked up to 11 out of 10. Sometimes the things I feel don't even make sense. That's what fight night feels like to me. 

I try to stay as loose and calm for as long as possible.  I listen to some comedy or mellow music that I've loaded onto my Ipod and I find someone to play cards with for a while.  I start warming up with some light shadow boxing/wrestling three fights before mine.  I gradually pick up the pace until I'm in 5th gear with one fight to go before I step into the tunnel.  As I'm in the tunnel I tune down the intensity a half notch and focus on some mental cues and visualization that I've been rehearsing for the last few weeks.  When my name gets announced the adrenaline gates open and I step out towards the cage.  It sounds cliched, but when I climb into to the cage I feel like my senses are heightened.  I feel ultra aware of the physical stimuli that affects me directly.  The lights are extra bright.  I can feel every grain of the canvas under my feet.  I can smell the vinyl of the mats and coated fencing.  Then my opponent climbs into the cage and the world closes in on itself, leaving only the cage.  My vision actually seems to narrow and I can only see my opponent.  I can't hear the crowd anymore, my coaches voices being the only thing getting into my head.

When the bell rings I always have a brief instant of thinking "Holy *%$#, this guy is going to try and punch me!"  That passes quickly and all of the training tunes me into the things I need to be aware of.  Circle away from his power side,  watch his lead leg.  square off the cage,  move your feet, stay engaged...

When the fight is over the rest of the world opens back up with a rush.  I realize how big the venue is, or how loud the crows is, or that I recognize the guys in the front row seats.  The relief that I feel when a fight is over is hard to describe.  There is nothing like standing up and pumping your fists to the crowd in celebration after pouring every ounce of skill and effort you have onto the cage floor. It's the moment that you realize that all of the mental and physical punishment you put yourself through was worth it and all of the self doubt and questioning of yourself was for nothing.  You remember that the fight itself was important because of what you went through to get there.

Some fighters say they aren't scared.  I think those guys are lying, stupid or maybe complacent. If I don't get an emotional rush from fighting, fear included, I don't want to do it.  The intensity of feelings I get from fighting is something a lot of people won't ever get.  I get scared to fight all the time, but I'm not scared of being scared.  I don't let it cripple me.  I like it.  I think that part of the beauty of fighting is that by intentionally putting yourself in harms way you are doing something that goes against some of your deepest instincts.  You are stepping far outside the normal range of the human comfort zone and challenging yourself to do something you weren't sure if you could do, and to me that's what it's all about.  That and I like to win.





**I posted the video of my first amateur MMA fight in the top right corner of the page.  After writing this post it was interesting to watch this fight and think of how far I've come in the physical, mental and technical preparation of fighting.  It's also interesting to watch me as I get into the cage and compete... I look fairly calm and collected but I really can't remember being more scared. Having seen dozens of amateur fights in the last few years I think I can honestly say that this fight was better than 99% of them, but I'd still love to run into this guy as a pro.

Interesting note: This fight was at The Palace of Auburn Hills in Detroit in front of about 6000 fans.  That's still the biggest crowd I've fought in front of, even 6000 people in a facility that holds 25000 feels a bit empty. 



Things Koreans have figured out:  Glasses and Optometry.
I might have a hit put out on me by the eyewear industry bigwigs in North America after posting this.  If you are buying glasses in North America you are getting ripped off.  Today I bought a pair of cool glasses from the local glasses store (they're everywhere here).  They cost $10. That's $10 as in TEN.  That price included the lenses.  I gave them the glasses I was wearing and they matched the prescription and had my new ones finished in 10 minutes. With my purchase I got a coupon for $5 off my next pair. And a complementary gift choice of some socks or a towel.  Oh yeah, and 10% of my purchase price gets added to my membership towards another pair of glasses. Did I mention this wasn't a sale?   Go back and read that all again and try not to get mad about paying $250 for a pair of glasses and waiting 3 days fro them.

Things Koreans don't have figured out: ATM's
In Korea you can stay out all night.  The bars and restaurants don't close as long as there's people in them, and there always is.  Make sure to bring a stash of money though... the ATM's here don't work after midnight.  This makes it tough to catch a cab home when you've turned your pockets into bunny-ears looking for loose change.