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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 going to be up there coaching, already, so I figured I would already be in the area.  Just three days before tournament day, I received a message from the tournament director advising that only one other black belt had signed up—and he was 300 pounds.

In any given week my weight will fluctuate between 195 and 205 pounds—that’s an average of 200 pounds, I think (math isn’t my forte), which is significantly south of 300 pounds.  The tournament director made it clear that there was no pressure.  It was understandable to turn down a match against a skilled opponent who owned 100 more pounds of gravity than me.  He would readily provide a refund.

For a moment, I considered turning it down and that moment spiked a response in me.  It is contrary to my ethos to turn down a match just because the opponent is bigger.  So, I took the fight.

I probably should have read the rules before showing up.  I just knew that it was a submission-only tournament, so there were no points associated.  What I didn’t realize was that I was scheduled to compete against a 300-pound black belt for three ten-minute rounds.  That’s a long time to fight someone my own size, let alone someone a third larger than me.  It’s even harder to do it in front of people, with eyes on me.

But I have a proclivity for making myself to hard things.  The fight I choose is only a small analogue for the fights I am fighting that I haven’t chosen—the ones that I can’t seem to avoid.  I make myself choose fights so I can be better at the ones I didn’t choose.

There I was, grappling a mountain of a man—a mountain who is wearing a black belt of his own.  I know his professor.  His professor doesn’t give black belts away.  My opponent is a phenomenal grappler—a phenomenal grappler with more size and strength than I.  It’s ridiculously hard work and I’m fighting in the way of a man who fights his demons on the mats.

But I’ve done this enough that my mind is aware.  Even though my body is striving beyond capacity I distinctly hear the voices around me and the people that surround me.  I can hear my team yelling their support—kids, adults, parents, friends.  I hear the voice of my coach enough that I can carry on a short conversation with him while in the middle of the fray.  I hear an old friend (he owns an academy I visit from time to time) shouting his encouragement.

I chose this fight, yes, but I just love fighting in front of my people.

I’ve only recently started competing again.  I think there was about a 13-year hiatus between my last competition and the one I decided to take just a few months ago.  Very few of my team had ever seen me fight.  It was something new for them to watch.

Certainly, I’ve always been a part of the team—a valuable part, even.  I’ve been coaching throughout those years and directly training with (sometimes against) aspiring competitors.  It’s a role that a truly enjoy and take a great deal of pride in.  But the texture of my place on the team changes the moment I embrace the position of a competitor.

Competition is hard.  The moment I agreed to compete I knew it was going to be hard.  Sure, the matches themselves were going to be hard—they’re supposed to be.  But the training camps leading up to the day of those matches were going to be doubly challenging.

And I’m built to do difficult things.

Dear friends, don't be surprised when the fiery ordeal comes among you to test you as if something unusual were happening to you.  Instead, rejoice as you share in the sufferings of the Messiah, so that you may also rejoice with great joy at the revelation of His glory. (1 Peter 4:12-13) 

Sometimes status has its benefits.  As the only black belt match of the day, our competition had started the show.  After our three matches finished, I shifted into my coaching role.  My body was pretty wrecked and I was sore—but I was sore in that good way I know means I did something hard.

One of my team’s teenage competitors—a highly-skilled teenage female—had finished her day and was in the bleachers struggling to reconcile her losses.  She’s tough like that.  She has a competitor’s mind.  She hates losing.

But I couldn’t blame her for losing.  As is the way of these small tournaments, there hadn’t been enough competitors to fill a bracket at her specific weight, age, and skill level.  Much like me a few days earlier, she had received contact from the tournament director.  There was a match available if she wanted it—against an 18-year old purple belt who was a little bit bigger.

My teammate is 15-years old.  She wears a green belt, because she’s still considered a youth competitor.

I noticed her frustration and my brain slipped into a coaching mode of sorts—that place where I really want to say something wise and meaningful.

“What belt are you?” I asked

Green.

“What belt is she?”

Purple

“How old is she?”

18

“So, she’s an adult.  How old are you?”

15

“How many matches did she fight before the two of you fought?”

None.

“How many did you fight?”

4

“You took the hardest way possible, then.”

Yes.

“Because Jiu-jitsu people are weird and sometimes we do weird things…”

—I’m not the smartest guy in the world, but I quickly realized that I was talking to myself as much as I was talking to her—

“There’s something about us that isn’t happy when we’re comfortable, so we make ourselves do hard things.  We’re not normal, and that’s what’s beautiful about 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 4:8-9) 

I don’t necessarily know why I stopped competing.  Even when my MMA career came to an end I continued to chase victories at Jiu-jitsu tournaments with some frequency.  I wasn’t always successful—in fact, I was mostly unsuccessful.  But I loved the pursuit of those difficult things.  It kept me sharp.

Then it ended.

I started a new job and a new career.  I know that changed things quite a bit.  My family dynamic transformed a whole lot.  I didn’t have as much time, and I didn’t have as much energy.  I allowed myself to become something of a “hobbyist” in the martial arts world.  I got time on the mats when I could find it.

But it was never enough, even if I didn’t recognize that.

There were probably some other factors, too, ones that I tend to only admit in moments of brutal honesty (those are tough fights I need to fight, too).  When I received my black belt I severely struggled with impostor-syndrome.  I never believed I deserved it.  I didn’t believe I was good enough to be counted among their ranks, let alone to be called “Professor”.  My last few matches before I stopped competing had ended in defeat.  I’d come really close to winning a couple, but hadn’t quite found that gold medal.  I got a couple silvers, a couple bronzes, and I got disqualified.  I didn’t capture gold.

Once I settled into my new career, and into my life rhythm, I started thinking about the possibility of competing again.  But I was still in my head about the past.  The idea of being the most senior-ranking competitor on the team and representing my team poorly terrified me.  I didn’t want to disappoint them.  My students thought I was good at this stuff and they listened to what I taught.  The kids in the kid’s classes have me on a pedestal that I’ve never deserved.

I hated the idea of proving myself unworthy of their trust.

I had just finished up photos following my matches and managed to peel my kimono-top off and toss it into the bleachers with my stuff.  I noticed immediately that the sweat on my body was starting to dry and, quite frankly, I stank.  I need to shower and change into something clean for the sake of those around me.  But, before I could find some clean clothing, I was approached by a couple of the team’s parents.

“Can you do us a favor?  Can you check on our son?  He’s back in the warmup area and about to be called to the mats for his matches.  He’s really scared right now.”

Last time he competed he had injured himself.  His injury had kept him from competition for nearly a year and he was only now trying again.  It was still in his head.  He was making himself do something challenging, but he was terrified.

I got it.  I get it.

So, I forwent my hygiene and decided I could worry about my odor some other time.  I found him standing at the edge of the warmup mats.  I knew that his name was about to be called, so I didn’t have the luxury of finding warm-and-fuzzy words to gradually walk into wisdom.  I chose bluntness with a pre-teen, instead.

“You’re scared?” I asked.

Yes.

“But you’re still going to do this hard thing?”

Yes.

“Good.  Let’s go conquer some fear.  I’ll see you on the mats.”

At that point I felt like I was committed to him (I wasn’t the only coach there), so I hovered near his mats.  When it was his turn to fight, I was there to coach.  He didn’t win his first match, but he didn’t lose it, either.  It’s a submission-only tournament.  Neither he nor his opponent submitted the other.

He was upset about  it.

The match ended and he ran off the mats in tears.  I let him run and followed behind at a saunter of sorts—he could only run so far.

“What are you upset about?”

I didn’t win.

“Give your opponent credit.  He turned it into a fight and it was a great match—the sort of match that people pay money to watch.  I got to watch it for free.”

Maybe.

“No.  Definitely.  You went from being scared to compete to putting on one of the best performances I’ve seen so far.  Anyhow.  You don’t have time to be upset.  You still have matches coming up.  Settle your breathing and get ready for the next one.”

He did, somehow, manage to calm his breathing.  Then he went out and absolutely wrecked his next four opponents—he took gold in two divisions.  The coach of my former opponent later approached me with how impressed he had been at this young man’s performance.

He had swallowed his fear and spit it out.

Certainly, I had been frightened of disappointing my team—of not living up to the respect that my they exonerated me with.  It’s a thing I struggle with in so many dimensions of my life—the need to be admired and the belief that I’m never admirable enough.  The idea of competing and failing frightened me enough to freeze me in place.

Then I ran into a rough patch in this life I live.  It is an extreme understatement to acknowledge that I found myself struggling—the idea of a struggle sounds cute.  I was fighting.  I was battling with the very me that lives inside of me and I was warring in the spiritual realm in ways I couldn’t understand.

And there were people in my life—the ones that knew I was struggling and knew, on my behalf, that competition was a thing that would help get my mind right.  They pushed me and something twisted inside of me.  I knew that I needed to compete again because I needed to make myself do something difficult.  Even better yet, many of those who pushed me back onto the competition scene gave me the greatest gift I could have received—they were also going to compete in the same tournaments.  We were going to prepare together and we were going to train together.  It was going to be a process, but it was going to be a process we engaged as a community.

There are so many times in this short life of mine when I’ve listened to somebody try to explain to me that they’re fine by themselves, that they can fight on their own, and that they can walk the difficult journey without anyone else.  I’ve come to realize that they are lying to themselves in much the same way that I’ve learned to lie to myself.

It takes courage to fight these fights, and it is impossible to be courageous in isolation.

It simply can’t happen.  We, as human beings, are not capable of courage in isolation.  We can make a lot of noise—noise voiced through forced behaviors and posturing that yells at others how little we need them.  But our antics are rubbish.  No one of us can find courage on our own.  It’s absolutely impossible.

I could run the risk of offending someone (one of my six readers, perhaps), but truth is often offensive.  This is a truth that I’ve had to tell myself in the moments of isolation that I so often think I need to seek.  It’s impossible to face my demons by myself.  I’m not capable of reaching spiritual, emotional, or physical apex without the intentional assistance from my community.Sure, it’s usually a pain.  People are a bother.  They expect things from me and eschew the expectations of I have of them.  I do the same to them, though.  I am terribly flawed and they get to experience every one of my flaws in crystal clarity.  They deserve to experience every one of my flaws in crystal clarity because of how much they have each invested in my success.  They’ve earned the right to all of me, not just me when I’m doing well.

Their love isn’t conditioned on a silly trophy or a medal hung around my neck.  They know me and I know them.  Together we know each other in a way that strengthens and builds all of us.  We help each other find courage when we feel fear.  We inspire one another upward to better things.Than’s the nature of a true community.

The mats are a place where I frequently find epiphany, and that epiphany often leads to theophany.

I still hadn’t had the chance to change or shower, so I’m pretty sure my odor was attrocious.  We didn’t have a lot of competitors on the mats, but we had enough that I was running from mat to mat so I could coach.  I caught a quick break, though, in a downturn of the pace where only one of our youth competitors was actively fighting.  I paused for a moment to watch.

I didn’t need to coach because another coach was standing in that space.  That young man was a fierce competitor in his own right and would be fighting later in the day.  He had been training with me since grade school, stealing all of my best technique and learning from all of my failures.  And here I was, sharing the arena of battle with a young man who had come into his own while I watched.  I watched while he instructed the younger man who would soon be stealing his best technique and learning from his mistakes.

There was something of me in both of them.  And there was something of them in me.  We shared our successes and we shared our failures, because that’s the nature of a community.

I recently fell into a realization of something that I had already  long known.  It felt new because it was wisdom that already lived in me.  Maybe I was choosing to ignore it or maybe I had forgotten about it.

In the midst of torment, I remembered how much I needed my community.  I made a difficult choice in that moment—coincidentally, much like the choice I made to fight a man 100 pounds larger than I—to be specifically vulnerable in my community.  I found a friend on the other end of my vulnerability.

I suppose it could be considered coincidence (I really don’t think God engineers our world toward coincidence), but the friend I found on the other end of my vulnerability happened to train a little Jiu-jitsu with me.  We started talking Jiu-jitsu, and that was an easy conversation for me.  I can talk Jiu-jitsu for a long time.  I was struggling to find the voice of vulnerability—the battle that was actually raging in my heart—in that moment, so talking Jiu-Jitsu might have been the best possible option.

He paused our conversation and offered me a piercing look that I still remember now—he might not remember it, but I do.  That look alerted me that he knew I was trying to hold something back and that it was time to stop.  I took a risk and I opened my mouth—every word fell out.

He didn’t walk away.  He didn’t treat me with contempt.  He didn’t express any surprise at the idea that a man like me could possibly struggle.  He stayed right there while I shared my soul.  He shared his soul with me, as well.  Even now we remain fast friends.  We remain in community.

Because community is where the best things happen.

Older men are to be level headed, worthy of respect, sensible, and sound in faith, love, and endurance.  In the same way, older women are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers, not addicted to much wine. They are to teach what is good, so they may encourage the young women to love their husbands and to love their children, to be self-controlled, pure, homemakers, kind, and submissive to their husbands, so that God's message will not be slandered. (Titus 2:2-5) 

There’s just something about fighting alongside my people.