What a day. The day started with an ending and ended with a new beginning.
One of my fighters came in to tell me the party is over. I don’t know if party is the right word? I guess it is if you consider a party training 2 to 3 times a day, restricted diet, mental stress, and more bumps, lumps, sprains, stitches, strains etc…. then you can keep track of. Some days it really does feel like a party and others it feels like one big grind. Who am I to tell a grown man what to do? We all control our own destiny. Ask me my opinion and I will give it to you. Tell me what you want and I will let you have it. Its what you want that matters. Not me or anybody else should get in the way.
Ending a fight career sucks. It is so hard to do. You never feel like you did enough and only the rare person will achieve all that they wanted too. Hopefully they achieved enough to minimize the cold sweats that will wake them in the night down the road wondering if they made the right choices. I say it all the time “One day, one fight, and the rest of your life to figure out what they all mean.”
I respect everyone who steps into the ring or cage and puts themselves on the line the way only a fighter can. Nobody knows the effort it takes to be a professional combat sports athlete that hasn’t been there. When you win, you are the man. When you lose, you are a bum. When you quit you are everybody’s hero. F*ck you fair weather fans or nut huggers at the end. The only people I want to hear from are those that did the sweating, struggling, sacrificing, and bleeding along the way. The rest of you can go think about all the things you have never done while the few brave one’s that have risked it all sit back and remember the things they HAVE done.
In the end its doing that counts and fighters have to do or they get hurt. That is why so few actually make a career of this and why it is so hard to do for more then a few years professionally. We all can train for our entire lives but we will only be able to fight for a short window of time.
Now on to the end that was a new beginning. We had a breakthrough! Everyone knows that one guy who asks to many questions, taps to early, talks to much, and is always trying things they are just not ready for. This guy exists in every gym. Well tonight I took “That guy” and broke him into a regular student. With the help of one of the more senior students we ground “that guy” down way past question and answer time. We put him on his back with a mean prick in top mount throwing punches. Yes, tapping happened but was ignored. Some 4 letter motivation was offered. The perceived breaking point was reached but then an amazing thing happened. “That guy” was forced to push past his personal limits and he found a way out. He found out he can push past some adversity and get somewhere.
When it was all said and done “that guy” became just a guy and the rest of us finally accepted him into the circle. This is the daily up and down of a trainers life. One minute we are at an end then a new beginning comes along to remind us all why we do this. For a fighter a career ending is really just a transition not an end. What you have done can never be erased or taken from you. You have it to carry you through everything else there is to come. You can live life knowing you are one of the few that have looked across that ring/cage at an opponent you knew was going to try and take you out and you still went for it.
Live your dreams.
Brian Wright
Real Elite
www.realelitetraining.com