My feelings about fighting, fan questions, and stuff
My next fight is Sep 12th and I’m feeling great about my technical improvements. I’m tired of saying “I wanna show the skills I’ve learned!” because in my last fight, I showed a WHOLE LOT of new skills, but I lost. I gotta win. I don’t care if I show skills anymore. I just wanna win. ~_~ Fighters have zero job security.
I can’t believe it’s August already! Where did this year go?! Oh yeah, I remember. So many people have died from this virus, but it slightly affects others. What a weird situation? What’s the point of ‘tracking’ people who had it at this point? It’s everywhere.
I tried so hard to pursue various goals during lock down and now I’ve let most of them go for lack of time, or lack of motivation. I went to play the piano the other morning and realized I had forgotten how to read the notes. 🙁 I just wanted to play…but I’d have to go study, so I just put it off and went back to bed. I wanted to cook more, but now I don’t care. I practiced painting my nails and caring about fashion, but now I don’t care anymore.
People like to ask me if I had any female role models for fighting. Not for MMA, but I wanna mention Carrie Chandler, my Judo mentor! She was a few years older than me (I was 16) and her father ran the dojo I went to. I wanted to be just like her! I even followed lead when she went to Jason Morris’ Judo camps and tournaments around New England. She’s still so cool. *_* I wonder if she’s noticed I throw people in my MMA fights.
I hope these gifs work. 😀
A fan asked me on twitter: How do you develop internal strength and mental fortitude in the face of challenges inside and outside the Octagon?
I don’t want to say anime, but maybe anime helped. I’ve been watching the Power Rangers and Dragon Ball Z from an impressionable youthful age. The heroes always really inspired me. No matter what, no matter WHAT, they did the right thing. And the right thing was the hardest thing, but you had to do it.
So from the youth continuing to now, I always tried to do hard things so I would get stronger. Rayleigh from One Piece likes to say, “The stronger the opponents you face, the stronger you will become.”
If you are lazy or weak, then don’t accept the fact that you are or shame on you. Everybody’s weak in the beginning. Train and get stronger somehow. That’s what the good guys did, and I want to be a good guy. Naruto and Luffy always get back up when they’re knocked down. I think it’s so cool. When I feel beaten down or depressed, I often think of them.
Naruto, Luffy, and Goku are so much alike. I think Naruto is the smartest and has the most personal growth emotionally. The other guys just grow physically, I think. So in answer to that question who is my fav anime character of all time….? You know, I could never choose until now but I think I gotta say Naruto.
My Muay Thai coach AJ said that warriors going into battle see themselves as already dead. I guess this mental attitude helps them become the most powerful warriors. I think that might be similar to my own mind frame, although I never thought about it. Here’s the story of my beginning:
As an innocent little college student, I watched Aaron Riley fight Robbie Lawler in 2002.
I was rooting for Riley so hard at first because I thought he was cute, but then because of his heart. He just kept going and going. He got hit a lot, but in my mind, he was winning and he was a super hero. He lost by decision, and later I found out that he needed dental surgery.
For some reason, that hit a chord with me. It should have scared me since I had just had a traumatic oral surgery done and it was my worst nightmare. It made me look at the hard reality of fighting, and I asked myself, “Would you go in there and fight if you knew it was possible you’d get so messed up you needed dental surgery?” Somehow, I said, “Yes.”
That hardened my resolve. Before every fight, I call both my parents and tell them I love them, prepared for whatever could happen to me. I also prepare myself to do whatever it takes to win. I tell myself, “You might have to smash her face and hurt her in order to win? Can you do that? Yes….”
Another fan asked, “I would like to know about what the mental process feels like going from such a sweetheart in everyday life to being a total bad-ass in the cage and then back to a sweetheart again.”
That’s kind of it. On fight day all day I prepare myself for violence, and then when the cage door closes, I’m prepared for whatever it takes and whatever the consequences.
When the ref says, “Fight!” my emotions get turned off. I’m not sure how I “do” it, but I never ever feel emotions while fighting. This is also a Jedi trait. 🙂 I’ve actually felt emotions while competing in jiujitsu tournaments (dread and panic getting mounted), but not MMA. The only time I felt emotions was when I was fighting Maycee. I saw she was injured, not by my doing, and was in pain. I had to take advantage of it and felt bad for her pain and misfortune, but beat her up anyway. I said, “Sorry,” as she fell down against the cage and I got on top. I never talk to my opponents in the fight! It was a weird moment for me.
Thankfully, I’ve never been seriously beaten up or injured in a fight. I’ve never lost by TKO – mostly decisions, three submissions, and two slams.
It’s really important to me to have a strong mind and do what I intend to do in life. My father taught me how to achieve goals. He said to think of it like a stair case. You can’t jump or fly to the top of a three story building. You have to break the problem down into steps, and walk up the steps one by one. That helped me see and compartmentalize work that needs to be done to reach goals.
Sometimes even the Happy Warrior needs someone to give her a nice big hug and tell her it’s going to be okay.
Friends are great.
Some people are not replaceable.
I’ve been binge-watching One Piece lately. Each episode is 22 minutes, but 2 minutes is the theme song and 3 is the summary which we DON’T NEED, so I always fast forward through 5 minutes immediately, which is such a waste of time. I think I’ve covered like 50 eps in the last week. I’m SO TIRED OF Luffy fighting Katakuri. They’ve been fighting for like 50 episodes or something, I swear. I’m bored of it.
I’m also watching Lost in Space, The Flash, Fire Force season 2, and saw Good Will Hunting for the first time.
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