Opposition

Sometimes conversations remind of things that I once spent a lot of time thinking about.  I was drilling technique with a friend in preparation for a soon and upcoming tournament that we were both preparing to compete in.  Our preparation was technical and tactical, of course, because that’s how we prepare for these kinds of things.  In the middle of our practice she paused, looked at me, and said, “I don’t understand why I’m doing this to myself.”

It caused me to pause, too.  Because this is something I have frequently dwelt upon.  Why do we do this to ourselves?  Why do I do this to myself?  Why do I intentionally place myself in harm’s way to make myself do difficult things like fight another human being?  It’s kind of unreasonable, I think.

The day after that conversation was the actual day of the tournament that we had been preparing for.  Even on nights before competition I don’t typically have a hard time falling asleep.  But I am wont to wake in the middle of the night.  Some of those times—most of those times—I find my mind is very active.  The night before that tournament found my mind very excited in the early morning just a few hours before I was supposed to compete.  My coursing brain brought to the forefront a memory of years prior when I had been a very amateur fighter.

I found myself backstage staring across the walkway at the cage.  One of the ring coordinators was standing beside me with a clipboard in his hands.  There was a smoke machine—for some reason I remember the smoke machine.  My corner was waiting for me on the other side of the cage as the coordinator provided last second directions.

“OK,” he told me, “your walkout music is going to start.  Give it a second to play and the lights will come up.  That’s when you’re going to walk across the walkway and through the cage to the opposite side.  Your corner will be waiting for you there.”

I nodded.  I didn’t have a lot of words.  This was an intense moment and my heart was in my throat.  I could feel the gloves on my hands and the tape underneath them.  I was a little annoyed at the very tight Vale Tudo shorts that my sponsor had provided—they didn’t leave much for the imagination, but they were what the sponsor had been provided, so I wore them.

The coordinator had obviously not seen my nod, so he yelled (it was loud in that arena), “Do you understand?”

“Yes,” I said without looking at him.  My eyes were focused on the cage and that upcoming journey into it.

“Good,” he countered.  “Now, where’s your opponent?”

Even in all that stress, with all of my adrenaline coursing through my veins, I paused.  How should I know?  It’s not my job to keep track of other fighters.  My job is to fight other fighters.  I was here to fight.

He looked around a couple of times, spoke briefly to a couple of other staff members, then put a hand on my shoulder.  “Go sit down,” he told me, “I’m going to have to figure out where your opponent went.”

Turned out that my opponent didn’t show.

It was a deflating moment to watch my coaches walk back into the locker room area.  It had taken no small amount of psychic effort to prepare myself to fight, and now that moment had passed.  They were moving on to the next fight.

The promoter of the card wasn’t far behind my coaches.  He had apparently received word of what had happened.  He tapped my head coach’s shoulder and the two of them ducked to the side of the loud room to have a quick conversation.  After that brief exchange, my coach approached me expectantly.

“Nobody knows where your opponent is,” he told me.  “He’s a no-show.  But there is somebody here who wants to fight.”

Apparently, someone had approached the promoter before the fight began.  He wanted to fight and he was ready if an opportunity presented itself.  Now here I was—I was the opportunity. 

“We don’t know anything about this guy,” my coach told me. “We don’t even know who he is.  Do you want to fight him?”

I had trained hard for this fight.  I driven six hours and slept in a lousy hotel room bed to be here.  I had gotten my mind prepared for the cage, but it would be easy to walk away.  Nobody would blame me—I was the one who had shown.  I had come ready to fight and my opponent had failed to be here.  I could walk away from this thing unscathed and nobody would hold it against me.

Except for me. 

I would hold it against me.  Because I didn’t come all this way not to fight.

I came to fight.

Yes, I wanted to fight.  I ended up being a co-main even because my opponent needed time to warm up and it took a little while.  I’ll give him credit. He came ready.  He was a tough fight.

That was the first time I fought a five-minute round.  Five minutes is a long time to fight, I learned.  He was heavy and moved well.  I managed to pull out a win in the second round, but I was so exhausted that it took me twenty minutes after the fight before I was abole to stand up again. 

That fight taught me so much about myself as a fighter and as a person, but the most important thing I learned was that I’m built to fight—I’m built for opposition.

I’m not here not to fight.

I think we’re all built for opposition.  We need to fight.  We need to be tested and we need to tried.  It’s what refines us and defines us.

You rejoice in this, though now for a short time you have had to struggle in various trials so that the genuineness of your faith—more valuable than gold, which perishes though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 1:6-7) 

I am convinced that we are all—each and every one of us—built to embrace opposition.  But not all of us acknowledge that.  Life is already difficult.  Why would we want to make it more difficult?  As human beings, we tend to be pleasure-seeking, pain-avoiding creatures.  It’s easy to avoid trial, tribulation, confrontation, and opposition.

It’s easy, but it’s not what we’re built for.  We’re not made for easy things.

We’re built for the fight.  We’re built for the opposition.  Opposition makes us stronger and opposition makes us better.  We don’t learn anything about ourselves if we’re stagnant.  There is no progress if we’re unchallenged.

And not only that, but we also rejoice in our afflictions, because we know that affliction produces endurance, endurance produces proven character, and proven character produces hope. (Romans 5:3-4) 

Comfort is a killer.  Complacency leads to a slow, painless death of barely acknowledged nonexistence.  And that’s not who God made me to be.  God didn’t make me to live in the “good enough”.  God made me to live for something bigger, better, greater, and far beyond my imagination. 

That thing I was made for—it just doesn’t happen when I sit in comfort.

A thief comes only to steal and to kill and to destroy. I have come so that they may have life and have it in abundance. (John 10:10) 

Absolutely groundbreaking things happen when I choose to embrace opposition.  I am a spiritual, physical, and intellectual being all rolled into one soul.  Most days I can’t grasp the spiritual.  Some days I can almost touch the intellectual.

But almost every day I can take some ownership of my physical experience.

My physical existence informs my spiritual and intellectual situations.  In short, when I force my body into hard things, those hard things condition my mind and spirit to follow.  My physical existence leads the way because it is the only existence that I know how to exercise any modicum of control over.  I make choices in the physical world and experience benefits in the spiritual world—that’s the strange synergy of having a soul.

I’m not saying that those of us—the small population—who train in combat sports have a better grasp of this concept than those who don’t…but maybe that’s exactly what I’m saying.  At least that’s what I’m saying for me.

The place where I choose to center my human essence—my physical self—that is the place that leads the way for my spirit and intellect to follow.  It is the place that teaches me and makes me teachable. 

It is the place where I choose opposition for my body so that my mind and spirit learn how to fight.  When we learn how to fight, we learn how to be strong.  When we learn how to be strong, we learn how to be indomitable and undefeatable.

I choose to embrace opposition so that I can grow through the opposition.  It’s not in my nature to wait for the opposition to come to me.  There’s plenty of it out there waiting.  I don’t like to play defense.  I’d rather go find it myself.

And I think God is waiting there for me so that we can do amazing things.  I‘m going to find Him in the fight, because—for some reason—that’s where I seem to see Him clearest.

God didn’t put me on this planet not to fight.   

Do not remember the past events, pay no attention to things of old.  Look, I am about to do something new; even now it is coming. Do you not see it? Indeed, I will make a way in the wilderness, rivers in the desert. (Isaiah 43:18-19)