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I was exhausted, but it was the good kind of exhausted. The match had been a hard-fought battle at a grueling, non-stop pace. That’s the way every one of my matches had played out today—not one of them had been easy. But that’s the way I like it. It made me feel like I’d gotten my money’s worth. I was stepping off the mats to make room for the next pair of competitors when I found myself standing next to my most recent opponent’s coach. He’s an old friend who I’ve know

Fear is a loaded word. It means a lot of things, most of which I would fail to explain even to myself. Fear might mean a fear of failure or a fear of spiders—those are not the same. It might mean a fear of embarrassment or a fear of physical injury. Those aren’t the same thing, either. Fear can be respect, terror, reverence, or dread. Not too long ago I attended a week of training. The instructor was once considered to be legendary in his field. To be honest, it was

The other day I was getting ready for work. My routine is pretty simple in the mornings, so I tend not to think much while I move about the house. I opened my safe and reached inside to grab a few of the things I usually wear on my belt throughout the workday. It was early, and I might not have been fully awake yet, but I realized that I had rotated my shoulder and body to a weird angle so that I could grab my badge. I noticed the strange way I had twisted myself—cuttin

I don’t know that I know how to become who I’m designed to be, but pop-psychology keeps telling me that I’m supposed to go find myself. I guess that implies that I’m lost. After all, why would I need to find myself if I knew where I was? There are times when I feel like I’ve come close to tasting my purpose—to that place where I momentarily experienced the joy of being what I was meant to be. There are many times when I’ve definitely felt like I’m far away from that place

It’s hard for me to trust peace, especially when if find it inside of me. I’m skeptical and suspicious that the temporary calm is only a construct of my fractured mind—maybe a forced respite that my brain concocted out of necessity. My inner machinations are so oriented toward the anxious tendencies inherent in being me that even the most intense version of peace tends to be greeted with resistance before it can even take hold. I can’t help but feel that every peace is tem

I recently received a text message from one of my teammates. It simply read, “I’m sorry Joel.” There was nothing to be sorry about. I’d watched him fight. He’s young with a lot of drive and desire. I’ve worked with him a fair amount, trying to find a way to leverage my years of experience into something of value for the next generation. He’s been a pleasure to work with—a great work ethic and willing to listen. But that night things didn’t go his way. He fought a h

I felt like I had been working hard, but the referee didn’t agree. He stopped the match, separating my opponent and I, and issued warnings to both of us—for stalling. The match had started at a brisk pace, digging for underhooks and fighting for grips. He was a solid competitor and worked hard to obstruct my takedown attempts. When the ref stopped us to issue his warning, I concealed my annoyance. I felt like I had been working hard, but he felt differently. There’s no

I don’t know that my face would have ever been considered pretty, but it’s a whole lot less pretty than it could have been. My nose is visibly crooked, my ears look like chewed bubblegum, and a patchwork of scars lends some kind of character to my façade. I remember the origin of every one of those scars, and I can put a name and a place to them all. Every one comes with a memory. I remember standing on the apron of the ring with a couple other aspiring fighters while on

I don’t always know the difference between the surreal and the unreal. Maybe there is no difference. I’m not sure, and this was a moment where I was doubly unsure. I looked out over the group that had gathered at the end of our belt-testing session and found myself weighted by a heavy significance. It had been a large testing group, and my academy still holds standards and expectations, so everyone had worked hard. Before any one of these individuals could progress to t

At that moment I was a little bit impressed with my own insanity. I didn’t regret my decisions, but I was reveling in their consequences. I wouldn’t have it any other way. In a moment of impulsivity, I’d signed up to compete in this tournament. I do that kind of thing. My brain gets weird and I decide to get spontaneous. I clicked a couple online boxes and signed up for an upcoming tournament that several fighters from my team were scheduled to participate in. I was g

I was ready to be done torturing myself and had come to the end of a thing. Now my mind was trying to bring words to it. Fortunately, there was a good person on the other side of my conversation. I was fumbling and mumbling, which is especially frustrating to someone like me who sets so much store in the power of language. In trying to find the right words I was, instead, finding a lot of them. Most of them weren’t the right ones. Thankfully, he is a patient man and allo

I was recently sitting in a small room with a few people and speaking directly with a man that the years have taught me to admire and trust. We were having a deep conversation about life—my life—and challenges and difficulties and all of the things that those things include. After some very intent consideration on his part, he looked up and told me that I should look into the story of Gideon, because something about me brought the story of Gideon to his heart. I’ve read t

Most of my fighting career was spent travelling the Northwest with my friend Joey. We trained with—and against—each other almost every night. We travelled to gyms and academies all over, attended seminars, and competed in the same events. When I look back it’s not hard to identify that he was the training partner I spent the most time with, traded the most blows with, a shared the most blood with. He was there for my first fight (a disastrous endeavor) and still there thr

Give me the gift of your vulnerability and I will galvanize you into something undefeatable I heard this from a very influential and well-known teacher with international influence. He had a lot of good information. He also had PowerPoint slides—so many of them. My brain had a lot of time to think about this while I tried to pretend I was paying attention to the material my workplace had paid for. My thoughts did what they tend to do when left unsupervised—they led me d

I was smart enough to pull off the road when my cellphone rang. I remember that I pulled off into the parking lot of a bowling alley. It’s strange the things that I remember. I had heard my phone ring and quickly glanced at the screen to see that it was my manager calling. I had been expecting a phone call from him and spark of anxious excitement flashed in my chest. He wouldn’t be calling if he didn’t have the news I was waiting for. I was fresh off a good win agains

I’m not necessarily the most observant guy. I live in a relaxing form of oblivion from time to time. However, I do notice things eventually—like certain themes that keep occurring near me or around me. Eventually I have to notice them if they show up enough. Maybe the theme isn’t popping up more frequently than any other time. Rather, it might be that I’m noticing it where I didn’t notice it before. I think that’s the sort of thing I must pay even more attention to. I

I remember standing next to him for the photo op and realizing how outsized I was. I think the moment of anger and frustration I experienced was completely natural. This was an obviously shady transaction. Preparations for this fight had been weird. I was told that I needed to weigh in on the day of the fight rather than the night before. Standard protocol was to weigh in the night before, but I was told that the venue was only available for the day of the actual fights

I’m sure his intentions were good. I think he meant the best. His best was just a bit awkward. I met him early in my fighting career. He was a coach and promoter, and I was a young fighter who fought on many of his cards against many of his fighters. He had been around for my first fight (it was on his fight card against his fighter) and had hovered near most of my subsequent fights. In all honesty, he had done me a bit dirty a few times over the years—things were a bi

There is so much sound that there is no sound. It’s like background noise, but a deafening sort of background noise. I am trying to focus on my coach. He has something to say, but there is nothing but chaos in my mind. I see only narrowly. My hood is over my head, trapping the heat and sweat from my warmup rounds. I flex my hands, feeling the tape and the gloves that were painstakingly prepared. I see the curtain in front of me. There is light beyond it—the dancing c

I know my place in the Jiu-Jitsu hierarchy. I know how good I am and how good I’m not. I’m not a world-class competitor, but I’ve had many opportunities to train with world-class competitors. That’s how I know I’m not one of them. But I love how many times I’ve had the honor of training with the best my sport has to offer. It’s one of my favorite things about combat sports. I remember the first world champion I met. He was, at the time, an absolute pinnacle of the sp