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Everything burned.  It burned in a bad way.  In short, I was physically exhausted.  I’m not a biologist, but there was probably some sort of lactic acid involved. The opponent I faced was a pretty big dude, and maybe he seemed bigger because I was so spent.  I had competed earlier in a grappling exhibition, in front of a whole crowd of people.  It hadn’t been my best performance, but I consoled myself with the fact that the team I had competed against thought enough of my s

It was one of the first things I learned on the mats, and at the time it didn’t really seem that important.  Now, it’s one of the first things that I teach on the mats, even though some might not think it’s that important.  It is a necessary skill to any martial artist, and one of the skills that translates outside and off the mats. It's the ability to fall. In my experience, Gravity always wins. It’s the undisputed champion of the world.  Everything is trying to find a way t

I had screamed myself raw.  It’s what usually happens when I show up to corner my fighters.  I tell myself—every time—that I’m going to be careful.  But, inevitably, I had lied to myself.  I found myself leaning at the cage door once more and screaming my tonsils into oblivion. My fighter had been prepared.  He had trained for this moment—actually, he had trained for all potential 15 minutes of this moment.  We had worked game plans, escapes for when the game plan failed, sit