I was just walking through Tesco, as you do, and the new issue of Fighters Only magazine had come out. What caught my eye on the front was a bit of bold text advertising an inner article on "Why We Fight".
Obviously, I bought it =] But it did get me thinking, why the hell do I climb onto the mat, and risk my health and well being against someone who's one mission is to do me harm. My watch manager, in describing me to a new member of the watch, joked "he hunts and kills people for sport". To me, I couldn't think of anything more natural than having a good grapple. But to a lot of people it seems utterly bizarre.
So, trying to explain it to someone who doesn't do this, I climb on the mat because it tests every aspect of me. When I was a kid, I couldn't play any "normal" sports like football, anything that required skills with a ball basically, although I was very athletic. Team sports, I was rather terrible at, but sprinting, and sports that I had to rely on myself, I was fine. Therefore it was a natural progression to become a fighter. Being part of a team gave a safety net against failure (I did still play football and rugby etc, even though I wasn't very good). Where you falter, the team moulded around that. There isn't that barrier in single sports.
A sport where complete athletic ability is key. The mix of endurance, flexibility, strength, cardio and agility is what is needed in this game. Add onto that what can only be described as a "chess" mentality, and being able to improvise and rise up to the challenge at a moments notice. It's the sport that caught my eye.
It also made me want to improve myself, which can only be a good thing. I don't drink, I've never smoked, and my diet is the healthiest it has ever been. I overcame my inability to swim or run long distances. My exercise regime became all consuming to improve my physical shape and health.
It might take hours of hard, physical labour, and unbelievable self control, but it's all worth it when your hand is raised at the end of a gruelling fight. When you stand triumphant on the podium with a medal around your neck. There are those who never push themselves from their sofas. Who enter a life of mundane tediousness, and watch those who did make something of themselves from afar. That was me at one point, but this literally changed my life.
Fighting is one of the oldest forms of human nature. It's as old as eating, and as natural as breathing. Every person, when cornered, and if you push the right buttons, will fight back. There is not a single person who wouldn't. I just didn't deny this, and embraced it. It might be considered savage and brutal by "normal" folk, but when we are currently fighting wars and actually killing people, my hobby pales into comparison. At least in what I do, I meet my foe face to face instead of behind a button, trigger, or a blade. I don't intend to kill or destroy them, just beat them in a display of will and athleticism.
"It's not the winning that's important, it's the taking part that counts" is tripe. In single sports, winning is everything, otherwise we wouldn't put the hours and hours of blood, sweat and toil into it. Fighting is the ultimate sport, because when any other sport fails, it also descends into fighting. Hockey, football, all peppered with incidents of martial confrontation. If a fighter loses, there is no come back, there is no "re"-challenge. Just defeat.
So to anyone wondering why I train like I train. Why I do what I do. And why I fight. That's why, in a round about way, but it probably needs more pictures. I fight because it makes me more human, in every way.
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