{"id":4267,"date":"2014-01-30T16:39:32","date_gmt":"2014-01-30T22:39:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/roxannemodafferi.net\/RBlog\/?p=4267"},"modified":"2014-01-30T16:39:32","modified_gmt":"2014-01-30T22:39:32","slug":"what-is-the-happy-warrior","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/roxannemodafferi.net\/RBlog\/2014\/01\/30\/what-is-the-happy-warrior\/","title":{"rendered":"What is “the Happy Warrior?”"},"content":{"rendered":"

My nickname is \u201cthe Happy Warrior.\u201d But it\u2019s not because everything is always alright with me. It\u2019s because I always manage to find some positive thing in every situation, and I try and focus on it, and forget the negative. I smile to cheer myself up, I smile when I\u2019m sad, I smile when I\u2019m mad to try and change it to humorous. I smile because it freaks the other person out, hahaha.<\/p>\n

\"rox<\/a><\/p>\n

Today, sparring was excellent. I love the way the class is lead, and I loved working my technique. I had some goals that I met, some strikes that I landed, some positions that I did really well in. I\u2019m very pleased with myself. <\/p>\n

\"rox<\/a>
\nOn the other hand, I got beaten up, too. But that\u2019s to be expected, right? But I almost got dropped by this guy, and he was moving so fast, that sometimes I couldn\u2019t even see his combination. Then after he hit me hard, he apologized and asked if he should tone it down. I didn\u2019t know what to say\u2026.yes but no. It was like a knife into my chest, in my pride. I wanted to block and return, but he was too good. He wasn\u2019t even so much bigger than me. He was…. a man. And then he said, \u201cOkay, I\u2019ll just move around with you.\u201d <\/p>\n

And the most painful thing was that I felt him slow down and lighten up, to \u2018my level,’ but it was necessary because he was just too strong for me. I HATE when people take it easy on me, but I hate it most of all when people HAVE to take it easy, and I KNOW they have to take it easy. I can barely stand it. I didn\u2019t want him to have to be nice. I wanted to be just as strong, just as fast, just as powerful, and give him a good challenge. Basically, I KNOW that most pro fighter males in the gym won’t get AS GOOD a work out going against me as they would another guy. I know this. I don’t want to be sexist… we women have a right to train too, blah blah blah, but I’m just talking about how much more athletic they are than I am. \ud83d\ude41<\/p>\n

I had about five seconds to come up with some encouraging internal coaching to get my head together, and it was this: \u201cI need people stronger, faster, and better than me.\u201d I kept repeating that for the rest of our sparring session. <\/p>\n

After it was over, I must have had some look on my face, because my teammate Sean came over and was like \u201cWhat\u2019s wrong?\u201d I blurted out, \u201cI wish I was a man!\u201d and then went to cry in the bathroom.<\/p>\n

Hahaha I bet he wasn\u2019t expecting that one.<\/p>\n

We chatted more later. Thanks, man. Even the Happy Warrior needs a pep-talk now and then. <\/p>\n

\"rox<\/a>
\nI came outta there and made a bee-line for a Brazilian fellow who I like sparring, and went as hard as I could. I got kind of smushed once he got on top, but I accomplished a few things before that.<\/p>\n

\"rox<\/a>
\nA lot of other stuff is weighing heavily on my mind.
\nBut I can handle it. There\u2019s no such thing as pitch black. I will find the light and celebrate it.<\/p>\n

\"rox<\/a><\/p>\n

All pics taken by Heather Clark, my friend, photographer, fighter. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My nickname is \u201cthe Happy Warrior.\u201d But it\u2019s not because everything is always alright with me. It\u2019s because I always manage to find some positive thing in every situation, and I try and focus on it, and forget the negative. I smile to cheer myself up, I smile when I\u2019m sad, I smile when I\u2019m…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-friends","category-training","category-9","category-4","description-off"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/roxannemodafferi.net\/RBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/roxannemodafferi.net\/RBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/roxannemodafferi.net\/RBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/roxannemodafferi.net\/RBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/roxannemodafferi.net\/RBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/roxannemodafferi.net\/RBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4267\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/roxannemodafferi.net\/RBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/roxannemodafferi.net\/RBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/roxannemodafferi.net\/RBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}