Setting Intentions

The time now is 4.57am. UFC London finished a few hours ago and after hanging out downstairs, talking shop for the past couple of hours, its time to refocus. In about twelve hours I fly to Peru for a two-week hideaway, to find my balance again and clear the way forward. It’s important when embarking upon a vision-quest such as this, to prepare your mind for what its about to go through. Setting intentions before it begins, is a good way of guiding your thoughts towards the subjects which need most attention.

My state of mind heading into the last journey was hugely different. Life has moved on, as it does, and I find myself in a rather different place. The balance that I felt close to achieving was suddenly disrupted when I was pulled from my last fight. Almost three years to the day since I was sitting in my truck outside the hospital in Vegas, knowing that I wouldn’t be cleared and wondering what comes next. I have been taken by the current of opportunity and dove head first into my new job, but the balance elsewhere in my life is no longer there and I have to address it.

What I hope to achieve by writing this, is to lay out for everyone to read, what I feel I need to look at within myself. Intentions are always more powerful when written down, and even more so when shared. The first one is to explore my feelings towards this supposed anomaly, and how its arrival into my life has altered things. I need to meditate on a return to fighting, a question I get asked constantly (and I thank you all for the love). I have so many voices around me and so many opinions that its sometimes hard to distinguish which one is my own. 

I suppose they are pretty obvious ones, the next one probably not so much. Since stepping away from competition I have been forced to learn about myself as the person, without fighting in my life. Which, for many years had been everything, and the very thing upon which I define myself. Being an athlete puts every other aspect of your life out of balance. It becomes all consuming, unless you are very good at managing your time, and detaching when you aren’t ‘at work’. I think fighters tend to be obsessive, and I know I was.

The day fighting was removed as my primary focus, it made room for a lot of other things. Experiences and challenges that have forced me to take a deeper look at the person I am, and how I interact with my surroundings, without the excuse or distraction of training camp. When I say excuse, I mean for being a miserable bastard most of the time. I would spend my days alone, simply because I didn’t have the energy or patience for anyone else. My poor family remember before I moved out, how little I would interact when I got home from training, and how hostile it must have seemed.

It appears that after three years of getting to know myself, I’m quite an extreme introvert. I know, I wasn’t expecting it either, but its becoming more and more apparent the more I read about it. As a child I spent a lot of time on my own, purely by choice. I have quite a creative imagination and could sit and build Lego or draw pictures for hours. I am happy in complete silence, and find people and public places difficult. I seem to be good for about four hours in a day, but after that I really prefer to be in a quiet space on my own. 

I work obsessively when researching fights or writing, spending most of the early hours at my laptop, rambling on about nothing and deleting it a few hours later. My mind is calm when I am alone and if I don’t get space for a few days consecutively, I become very agitated and short-tempered. This is why the boat race was going to be such a challenge for me, and I am proud of myself for managing so well. It was still difficult, and I really got to know myself, and how important that personal space it for me to recharge.

After a few days on the boat I found ways to escape for a few minutes, but that first time stepping into a hotel room in Rio, I closed the door behind me and sat against it so nobody could get in. I sat there for over an hour, until my asscheek fell asleep and I moved to a flat, stationary bed, that I didn’t need tying into for my own safety. The relief was incredible. I found it hard to leave the room for a few days, and would only talk myself into going out to see my crew or one of the sights in Rio.

I could go on and on, but I don’t need to. Thats not the point. I have identified this characteristic and am enjoying the process of learning about it. I have some good literature on related subjects that are worth the weight in my adventure bag, and I intend on spending the next two weeks really getting to know myself again. The rest of this year is already filling up, and if I am to achieve half of what i expect of myself, I need to get my game face on. So my friends, thank you once again for reading. I will update you in two weeks, when I arrive back in the real world. I hope to have some insights to share with you all.

Into the light once more. 

Fight Week London... and beyond.

I’ve tried several times since my first post, but each time I get something down, I read it back and it seems quite negative. I guess I need a little rebalancing, which has come just at the right time with my next trip to Peru around the corner. Sunday afternoon, once the craziness of the show has passed, I get on the first of three flights taking me to Iquitos. It feels like a long time since my last journey there. I think back to the end of 2012, a few months after the trip. I was on a beach on the Gold Coast of Australia with my two best friends, and life couldn’t have been better.

The truth is, I’m not there any more, physically or emotionally. If you are reading this then its likely that you already know a bit about me. As I discussed in my first blog post, much has shifted in the past three years. I found myself at a bit of a loose end, not knowing who I was without the purpose of combat in my life. Now I have a job, and am trying to be a real person. Doing research, writing articles for newspapers and answering emails. At this moment I am sitting in the hotel at the beginning of fight week for UFC London, thinking about the coming days and what must be done. 

Fight week is as exhilarating as it is exhausting. I get in research loops where I spend hours watching fights and making notes. The energy in the hotel is quite intense. People are preparing for war, getting their brain in gear and their weight down. There are a lot of nerves, lots of anxious people wandering about in search of something or other. It’s hard not to feel it, and to identify with it on some level. I feel a little pressure with the event, its not like fighting but I remember that feeling well and can definitely identify when I see it around me. We are all watching the clock, patiently waiting for the time to pass.

My last trip to Peru came off my UFC 146 win over my friend Duane. A special night because of the way I won and the fact that it ended that horrendous losing streak I found myself on. It was also bittersweet due to the fact that ‘Bang’ had been a real inspiration to me in my earlier years. The win put me in what felt like a strong position. I knew I had another fight in my future, I had a knockout bonus to share with the taxman, and I was off on an adventure. Within forty-eight hours I was in the jungle, preparing to start the tobacco cleanse before our first ceremony.

As it has played out, this next journey shouldn’t be much different. I’ve had a couple of years of post-fight career melancholy, which in hindsight is actually worse than a losing streak. I’ve had lots of work to do with the UFC and it feels like people are starting to notice, and this weekends show in London is like the fight at the end of a long layoff. I know it will be a great show and I know that fans around the world will be tuning in and enjoying the action, of which there should be plenty!

When the show is over, and I get back to my hotel room. I’ll take my work clothes off, put my notes away and just like after UFC 146, I will shave my head. I have my adventure bag in the back of my car and I’ll be heading straight to the airport on Sunday. Before I leave I will post another short piece about my preparation for the trip. I get as many questions about plant medicines as I do about martial arts. Perhaps with this I can let you in on my process before a ceremony, how I prepare mentally and what I’m hoping to get out of it. 

Until then, thanks for reading.

Throwback - Fight Week UFC 89

I was recently looking through the disorganized mess that is my hard drive. I have a folder full of what would in the real world, be scraps of paper, napkins and receipts, with random scribblings on them. In amongst the chaos are a few ‘diary entry’ type pieces which I wrote at one time or another during my career. Some would have been printed in magazines, but most have just been sat in this folder since I wrote them. As I sift through them and delete anything incriminating, I may post one from time to time if I think they may be of interest. 

This piece below was written after my UFC debut. Akihiro Gono at UFC 89 in Birmingham, England. Admittedly, its a little crude and thin on detail but it is an insight into my first experience of fight week in the UFC. It was an exciting time. I remember feeling vindicated after years of hard work and training. All of the doubt that I had encountered, both internally and externally, as people started to follow my career. The win, although a close decision, was like a silent middle finger to everyone that said I would never make it, and a good foothold to start my UFC career.

Hollywood, CA. - October 27th, 2008

Well, I just got back to Los Angeles and have taken a few days off to rest before training starts again. Its nice to be back and to be able to relax for a few days, let the diet slip a little... well, a lot actually! My weight has gone back on fast and I have been close to falling into a diabetic coma after all the sugar I've been eating! I figure I deserve it though, I worked hard for so many weeks and won my debut UFC fight against an experienced fighter. I'm pretty happy with it but I could have been better, and I will be next time.

As for the UFC experience, things are crazy in the week leading up to the fight. There is so much to do as well as all the of usual stuff I have to take care of before the fight, like my massage and haircut. I'll give you a brief rundown of fight week for all you guys out there that sent me texts with questions like "have you done the shadowboxing while being sprayed with water thing yet?"

So, I woke up on Monday morning at 186lbs. I had been controlling my diet over the weeks leading up to fight week but now it was time to start dropping the carbs off and bringing the weight right down for the weigh-in. I trained on Monday afternoon and then again on Tuesday morning, working on technical stuff and focusing on gameplan. After the Tuesday morning session was done I went straight over to the hotel in Birmingham where the UFC had set up offices and took care of all the paperwork that needed doing.

Once all of the necessary paperwork was out of the way, I had a weight check to see where I was at (183lbs) and the signed a load of posters. Unfortunately I couldn’t stay at the hotel that night because I had to get my massage appointment to make sure there were no knots in the muscles that would slow my striking down. On the Wednesday morning I went to get my hair cut and coloured before leaving Nottingham and heading to the hotel to check in. Once I got there I had an itinerary for all of the stuff that needed doing, photo shoots, videos and interviews, as well as the schedule for the weigh in and fight day. 

After the photo shoot I went and got my Playstation set up in the room, there is nothing worse than being bored during fight week, so a couple of decent games are a real life saver! Thursday I had my video interview for the big screens in the arena before the fight and the infamous 'shadow boxing in the water spray thing'. Thursday is always the worst for dieting because you know you are waking up hungry and going to bed hungry, at least on the weigh-in day you know you will have a stomach full of food before the day is out. My weight was holding steady on a diet of almonds and turkey breast and a load of water.

I woke up on Friday morning at 176.5lbs so I had a small glass of water to get my body working and then started cutting in the sauna. It wasn’t the biggest sauna in the world and when you have about twenty fighters all cutting weight, it can get a little busy! I started off with a twenty minute session to get my body sweating, the atmosphere in the sauna was pretty dull as everyone was hungry and thirsty. The only guy that was talkative was Chris Leben, everyone else pretty much stared at the floor while he explained that every one hundred drops of sweat that come off his forehead equate to about a pound in weight. 

When my twenty minute sauna session was done, I got my sweats on and jogged on the treadmill for twenty minutes before getting back into the sauna for my last twenty-minute session. We left the hotel to head to the weigh-ins and when we arrived the doctors were waiting to do medical examinations. We were then lined up in fight card order to begin the weigh-in. After making weight and having a little banter with Gono, we were all sat down backstage for the chat with Dana White and Joe Silva. They wished us all well and told us to fight hard and enjoy the experience and everyone sat rehydrating and filling their face with all kinds post weigh-in treats.

That evening was pretty much dedicated to eating and drinking and its a Rough House tradition to go to Nando's after we make weight and eat a stupid amount of rice and chicken. Three large meals later, I called into the UFC Fightclub party and meet some of the fans. I stayed for about an hour and chatted to as many people as I could, as well as posing for loads of photographs before heading back to the hotel for more food and drink. At about midnight I had my usual post weigh-in, weigh-in to see how my rehydration/carb loading is going... I was up to 187lbs again.

Fight day. The moment I have been preparing for over the past eighteen weeks, and ultimately the past several years, is finally here! We left the hotel around two and were taken over to the arena in the UFC mini-buses, then showed to our warm up area. I got a few minutes to have a look at the Octagon before I had to go backstage to get my hands wrapped by Stitch. I started warming up about an hour before I was due to fight and just worked through some padwork and some basic wresting and BJJ to get my brain working. 

I stood behind the curtains while I watched Gono dance his way to the Octagon and waited for my music to start. As soon as I heard Mr Buffer announce my name and the first few chords of 'England Belongs to Me', I knew it was work time. Walking out to that crowd was awesome and in a strange way, it relaxed me a little knowing that i had made it to the UFC and that I could just relax and enjoy the fight. For those of you that haven’t watched the fight yet, get onto ufc.com and take a look.

After the fight I went straight back to my dressing room and got three stitches to keep my cut together and was checked over by the doctor. I managed to catch a couple of the fights after mine and meet some fans before the press conference. The relief after the fight is like nothing else, its just so nice to have all the hard work pay off and to get that first win under my belt. Anyway, back to training tomorrow, time to get back in shape!

Back at the keyboard...

I used to write often, and I used to write a lot. Now my creative output is spent on disposable content. Articles that will be read one time and irrelevant in a day or two. I can talk about fights for days and there is always plenty to write, but I feel the substance is lacking. Writing used to be a way for me to learn about myself. If I wrote about a particular situation, I could read it back and understand my place within it. I always found it useful in decision-making. Often the mind is scattered and to see the right way forward can be hard, especially when there are a multitude of factors.

The Book of the Samurai states that “a decision should always be made within the space of seven breaths”, but surely in todays society there is far more to consider? I understand that the premise is not to dwell on things and to be accepting of the consequence of our decisions, but the disposability of life in those times has a massive effect on this perspective. We all become a product of our surroundings to a certain extent, and I’m sure most Samurai would have been comfortable with the idea of reincarnation, but I am not.

I feel the pressure of this being a one-time deal. I have a finite amount of time here and feel that it is imperative to make good decisions and utilize my days, hours and minutes as best as I can. As a teenager I found it hard not to dwell on how much life I had left and what I could fit in to it before I roundhouse the inevitable bucket. That was shaken a little when the doctors in Vegas told me that my heart could self-destruct at any minute. I all of a sudden felt incredibly rushed and utterly hopeless at the same time.

As disappointed as I was, a part of me felt very much at peace with the whole situation. Towards the end of 2012 I had found a place within myself that felt unshakable. I had spent a lot of time fixing things with training, ended a losing streak and picked up a couple of wins. I also had a life-changing two weeks in Peru. I was in a state of anger, practicing acceptance, and seemed to be doing fairly well at it. I missed the martial arts but found being in the gym frustrating as I had no future opponents to focus on. Instead spending a lot of time conditioning and running trails in the canyons near Vegas.

A part of me was training out of habit, as well as out of escapism to a certain extent. I always found that physical discomfort and exhaustion would help numb any emotional struggle that I was facing (which, as an angry teen required about six hours a day!). Then another part of me was now stubbornly testing my heart to see if I could break it, like the doctors had warned was now a possibility. Let me take this opportunity to say that I have absolute confidence in my heart, and in its ability to beat the right amount of times for my life, however long that might be.

It has never let me down, never given me cause for concern. Always held strong when I was pushing two hundred beats per minute in conditioning sessions, and sat comfortably at around forty when I was resting. I’m also a very self-aware individual. I haven’t drank alcohol since I was seventeen, I take no painkillers or medications and haven’t in years. The idea of having someone start burning parts of the inside of my heart, when I have never had a problem, seems ridiculous.

So here I am. Three years later, fortunate to be immersed in the sport that I love, but not close enough to trade punches. Content to a point, yet desperately lacking at the same time. The rollercoaster career of a fighter leaves regular life seeming quite pale by comparison. Highs and lows are like no other, but I’d take that fifty-fifty split over a daily medium. The middle ground is stable and relatively safe, and I suppose that there may be a time in my life where I would long for a little consistency.

On the other hand though, I really feel like I just need to ride it until the wheels fall off… My Bruce Lee portrait tattoo is to remind me of the discipline and sacrifice it takes to become immortal, but the Hunter S Thompson one will never let me forget that it is our right to explore the extremities of our existence. To live recklessly and not allow the mediocrity of daily routine to kill a man before he is dead. If I lived my life at any less than one hundred percent of my ability then I would be doing myself a great injustice.

My writing of this is a line in the metaphorical sand. A record and reference point for my future self to look back upon, and remember the moment that I sat down to type. Back to writing, back to work, back to one-hundred percent. I don’t know exactly where this is going, but at least I know where it begins. Thank you for reading, and welcome to this little window from which I view the world.