Another Scar

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 one of our coaches offered sage wisdom.  He was a bit high-strung and talked fast—as fast as his brain was moving, I imagine.  He was considered a respectable fighter and—along with several other professionals—had been asked to help one of the region’s most accomplished fighters prepare for an upcoming fight.  We young guys—the new amateurs—were standing at the edge of the ring (we didn’t have a cage yet) watching the show.  I think we were all that, if we stood there long enough, we might get a chance at a round with this local celebrity.  That’s what I was thinking, at least.

In his clipped and excited cadence, he quickly explained the strategy for his next round.  He was an excellent wrestler, but his striking skills were a little lacking, especially respective to fighter he was about to face.  That fighter’s standup skills were legendary—legendary enough to have landed him a contract on the biggest MMA stage known.

“I can’t stand with him,” my coach said.  “He’s too good on his feet, so I have to get him to the ground.”

I tried to pretend that I understood what he was trying to explain and nodded.

“I’m going to have to close the gap and get to a clinch.  I’m going to get punched a lot.”

That didn’t sound like much fun at all.

“I’m going to have to keep my hands up, my chin down, and bite hard on my mouthguard.  Now, watch.  This is going to get ugly.”

Real fights are never pretty.  They always get ugly.  That’s the nature of fighting.

I grew up watching silly martial arts movies—I still love them to this day.  But those aren’t real life.  Real fighting isn’t pretty.  It’s not choreographed.  It’s always ugly, even though it is often strangely beautiful in its ugliness.

Every time I’ve accepted a fight—an MMA fight, a kickboxing match, a grappling bout—I’ve reminded myself that things are going to get ugly.  Fights always come at a cost.

It was a conference of sorts, I suppose.  Me, my coaches, and a few senior members of my team—we had come together for a quick conversation.  We received a phone call from a promoter.  It wasn’t unexpected, but it felt more real now.

“They offered us a fight and it’s a title shot,” my coach said.  Every eye in that small group turned in my direction—I was the one that would be fighting.  I’d fought this guy before, and it had been a tough fight.  It was the only fight in my entire career that had ended in a draw.  Now they wanted us to headline the next show.

“We think you can do this,” he said to me while everyone looked on.  “This is a winnable fight, but it’s going to take some effort.  This is going to be a hard camp.”

It only made sense that a tough opponent merited a tough training camp.  I looked at my coaches and at my training partners while they looked back.  There was no pressure—there was only expectation.  They were ready to see to my preparation.  Of course I wanted the fight—I wanted that title.

It was going to be hard work.  It was going to get ugly.  I was going to take damage, and I was probably going to get hurt.

But I was ready for another scar.

Every fight comes at a cost.  I have to decide whether or not the fight is worth what it’s going to require of me.  I must determine whether the place I am now is the place I want to stay, and if the place I want to be tomorrow is worth fighting to achieve.  Because I know that every fight comes at a cost and that cost is going to leave a mark.

Every fighter knows that they are going to take damage in a fight—it’s an expectation of the contract.  Every fighter also knows that the significant damage seldom comes during the actual fight.  It usually happens during the preparation.  Training camps are rough and dangerous places. 

It is exceedingly seldom that any fighter steps into a cage or ring completely healthy.  It’s the kind of sport that exacts a toll on the body and every training injury is carried into fight day like a bad memory.  When the fight does end—win or lose—the fighter is unlikely to leave the field of battle undamaged.  Damage accompanies the choice to fight.

So, the fighter must ask, “is this fight worth another scar?”

For which of you, wanting to build a tower, doesn't first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it?  Otherwise, after he has laid the foundation and cannot finish it, all the onlookers will begin to make fun of him, saying, “This man started to build and wasn't able to finish.”

Or what king, going to war against another king, will not first sit down and decide if he is able with 10,000 to oppose the one who comes against him with 20,000?  If not, while the other is still far off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. (Luke 14:28-32) 

Sometimes the answer is easy—it’s time to fight for change.  Life can often make that obvious and I’m the sort of guy who needs obvious.  I have a tendency toward complacency.  I like my comfort.  I like doing things the way I do them, because the way I do them has worked so often.  But, when those things stop working, I recognize that change needs to occur—at least, sometimes I recognize it.

There are times when it’s not actually so simple.  I actually have to do calculations, and I’m not very good at calculations.  Math was never my strong suit and weighing the cost versus benefit matrix feels a lot like math.  I have to decide if the place I want to be is worth the fight.

I have to decide if I’m ready for another scar.

I have no romantic delusions.  Life isn’t a silly martial arts movie where the hero always prevails.  I know I live in a fallen world.  I know my choices have harmed me and harmed others.  I know that the person I am now is the person I deserve to be.  I earned the me that I am.  I deserve every scar.

Maybe the hardest battle with myself is the one where I try to figure out which battles to fight—and which ones not to.  I love having a purpose to fight for—a relationship, a cause, a person, a philosophy, or an ethos.  It gives me focus. I’m the sort of guy who needs focus.  I’m dangerous when I’m unfocussed, especially to myself.

There is a certain stubbornness in me.  Once I choose to give myself a mission it is a form of torture to not complete my self-appointed task.  I’m a bit of a bulldog, unwilling to ungrasp the quest I’ve assigned to myself.  I’m a terrific ally to have in those times, but I’m also a terrible opponent.  Whatever choice I make, I make it all the way.  I know that the fight I choose is going to cost me.

It becomes a bloody battle inside of myself to decide if the fight is worth fighting.  I’m not good at knowing when to let go.  But once I’ve decided to let go, I will torch every chord holding me to the cause.  I’m an extremist like that.  I’m not always good at knowing how long to hold on, but if I decide to hold on I will do so until my hands are raw.

It was one of the toughest fights I had ever fought against one of the toughest opponents I had ever faced.  I walked into that bout concealing a nearly debilitating injury. I hadn’t been willing to do the smart thing and not fight, despite the wound.

The fight was fast-moving and exhausting from the moment that the opening bell rang.  We were moving through wrestling exchanges at a fast pace, taking each other down and hitting reversals on the ground.  It was a ridiculous pace filled with sweeps and switches seasoned by frequent punches and knees.  The second round ended and I stumbled to my corner drenched in sweat and breathing high in my chest.

I had three coaches in my corner, and one of them looked me in the eye as if he were speaking for everyone there.  “Stop taking him down.  Your standup is better than his.  Don’t let yourself get sucked into a wrestling exchange.  Stop trying to wrestle and start striking.”

Everything in me—everything about me—screamed that I wanted to keep chasing the takedown.  I was comfortable fighting on the mat and takedowns were the way to put my opponent on the ground—on the ground where I liked to fight.  But he was good on the ground, too.  I had been working on my striking skills a lot, and I knew they were better than his.  But I kept referencing myself back to the place I knew I liked to fight—on the ground.

Uncharacteristically, I chose to listen.  I did what my coaches told me to do.  I stopped trying to take the fight to the ground.  I started the third round by taking a step back and striking.

The choice saved me from a loss.

That’s the place where things often get complicated.  Trying to determine whether or not something is worth fighting for—if it is, in fact, worthy of the damage I know I will take—is no flippant matter.  Sometimes there are things I think I really want, or there are things that I think I need to let go of, and I don’t know if I should hold on to them or let go of them.

That’s a very confusing sentence because it is a very confusing stream of thought constantly playing through my mind.

Some of my scars are noticeably ugly, but I wear them with pride.  I wear them because they are symbols that mark a lesson I learned or an adversity I overcame.  Sometimes they remind me that there was a time I fought forward after I was injured and that I can do that again.  There are other scars that I wish I could hide.  They bring with them a sense of shame for the choices I made and the paths I pursued.  They were the result of my own poor choices and I wear them as a form of penance.

My rearward facing memory is a strangely accurate thing.  I can look to the lessons I’ve learned from the damage I’ve taken and I can assess—from the safety of my safe present place—whether or not they were worth the scars they left behind.  Many of those fights were worthy of the scars I wear.  Many were not.

Many fights are simply not worth fighting but I fight them anyway.  Many fights are fights I allow to pass by, diminishing my nobility as I ignore them.  Whether the fight is worthy of my attention or not, I know that the fight is always going to leave a mark. It’s going to leave a scar.  I’m going to get hurt and the fight is always going to be ugly.  It’s probably going to make me uglier, in fact. 

So I tell myself that I need to choose my fights carefully.

I never listen to myself.  I fight the fights I shouldn’t fight and ignore the ones I should.  Especially the fights I fight on behalf of others, or should fight on behalf of others.  So often I throw myself into the fray before I consider what damage I could incur.  I don’t count the cost until after I’ve made my impetuous decision, which then leaves me with the next choice—how long do I stay in this fight?

My own success came as a surprise to me.  I hadn’t even thought about setups or strategy.  I’d slipped under his punching combo, changing levels and driving into a strong double-leg.  He sprawled his hips like good fighters are supposed to do, but I transitioned smoothly to the single-leg just like my coaches had trained into my motor memory.

It’s weird the things I remember thinking about in strange moments.  There, in that cage, I remember thinking of how much I wanted to watch the video of that fight.  My transition must have looked really cool and I wanted to see it from the outside.  It was something I had worked really hard at.

I found myself deep on the leg—almost textbook perfect.  My head was tight, my feet were set, and I was starting to press him into the cage.  It was just like my coaches had trained me to do through massive amounts of repetition.  All that remained was to finish the technique—get his leg a little light so I could lift it and drop him to the ground.

I had to give him credit, though.  He was a good fighter.  He kept his leg heavy.  Despite my near-flawless execution, he managed to keep his hips aligned and his pressure down.  He was stopping me from completing the takedown.  I was still in good position, so I was shifting and moving, knowing that this opportunity might not present itself again.  But he was shifting and moving, too.  He was keeping me from imposing my will.

Then the first punch came.  Both of my hands were committed to the single-leg and, even though he was fighting for balance, he landed a stiff hand to the side of my head.  It wasn’t a hard punch, but it was enough that I noticed.  After all, this wasn’t a wrestling match.  It was MMA.

I didn’t want to give up this opportunity.  I knew I could beat him on the ground.  All I had to do was get him there.  I had a good chance of beating him on our feet, too, but it wasn’t as good as my chances on the ground.  I kept fighting for that takedown.

So he hit me again.

I felt that once just a little bit more.  He’d found a little bit more snap to that strike than the one previous.  It wasn’t so hard that it took me off of my frame, but I could feel the swelling begin beneath my eye.

I knew I couldn’t stay here.  Eventually the punches would get stronger.  They would turn into knees.  Small damage would lead to large damage and large damage would end my night.  I had to extract and let go.

But letting go was going to come with damage of its own.

I knew that as I transitioned away there would be a series of vulnerable moments while my hands moved to defense and my feet shifted.  It was going to be a risk—a significant risk.  But the choice was made for me—I could not remain where I was.  I had to take a chance.  I had to take damage.  I had to take damage to avoid damage.

It would probably leave me with another scar.

The are times—many times—when I wish I could call on somebody else to come fight my fight for me.  I read books, listen to podcasts, participate in therapy, or seek the wisdom of trusted voices, all in an effort to find the key to winning my fights without actually paying a price.  I want them to do the hard work for me.  I want them to mitigate my damages.

Obviously, there is only one I can call upon to fight my battles for me.  Everything else is human knowledge and, for the most part, human knowledge is what has produced my scars.

For the LORD your God is the One who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to give you victory. (Deuteronomy 20:4) 

I’m sure there are myriad battles that God has protected me from.  There are countless wars, I’m sure, that I never even noticed He won while I wasn’t looking.  I don’t recognize them because I never had to fight them.  I never had to fight them because of God’s mercy.

But there are many battles—it seems—that God adamantly refuses to take away from me.  Because of my limited vision—because all I see is the place where I am now—it almost always feels like God is leaving me in the middle of my fights and refusing to take them away.

I can’t count the number of times I have cried out for God to remove me from the battle, or rescue me from its consequences, or to give just some moment of rest and respite.  And I can’t count the number of times I have cursed at God (I’m no Job) when it felt like He refused to honor my obviously reasonable request.

I have to remind myself that God is leaving me in this place for a reason.  There is something here to learn, even when I don’t know what it is.  The scars are going to reveal something about my character and about the character of others.  I hate that discord is the way I seem to learn best.

(Proverbs 17:3)  A crucible for silver, and a smelter for gold, and the LORD is the tester of hearts.

I don’t know if I’ll ever know how to choose my fights.  I wish I had a good answer or good advice.  If I did have the advice to give, I’d probably give it to myself.  I probably wouldn’t listen, though.  The source would be too flawed.

In the meantime, I’m going to keep picking fights.  Some of them will be the right fights to fight—ones that are worthy of the scars they leave behind.  Those scars will tell a story about myself that I might be able to tell myself when it is knowledge that I need to know.

I’m still going to pick some wrong fights, too.  I’ll probably fight them for way too long because I’m stubborn like that.  From time to time, there will be a reward at the end of that fight I refused to let go and it will be called perseverance.  There will be other times, though, when my choice to hold on will leave me with an ugly scar that feels like it has no value or lesson that could have been learned.  It will just be an advertisement of my foolishness.

The scars will show.  They’ll show because I’m fragile.  As much as I try to hide the fact, the truth is that I am an incredibly frail being that collects harm like a prize.  There is nothing of worth in my scars, but there is value in the lessons they teach.

Now we have this treasure in clay jars, so that this extraordinary power may be from God and not from us.  We are pressured in every way but not crushed; we are perplexed but not in despair; we are persecuted but not abandoned; we are struck down but not destroyed. (2 Corinthians 4:7-9)