The ladies of Stetson all want to know why are you famous in Asia?
I wouldn’t say famous. In China, Japan, and especially Thailand, being a fighter is common place. Over there, kids are fighting professionaly by age 7. What a regular day job over here in the States might be is what fighting is for people over there. To be famous over there, you pretty much have to be a Bollywood actor. But I trained with many world renowned fighters. It was an amazing experience.
Preparing for a fight is more mental training than anything. you need to have a strong belief and affirmation in yourself, be able to release your ego, and perform lots of meditation. When you get into the right mindset you can get into all the purposeful physical training, it ties in with mental because you need to train until you have NO DOUBT in your mind that you are prepared. To train and fight well you must do 2 things and assume 2 things:
1. You must accept the possibility of losing. This relieves the stress of “having to win” and allows you to put more focus on purposeful training
2. You must remove all thoughts of yourself and calm your mind. In that moment, you must learn to shut off your ego and control your emotions. you cant get caught up worrying about your well being or injuries; or youll inhibit performing at your greatest. you must be solely focused on completeion of the task at hand. It’s a very samurai like approach to training.
You must also assume 2 things:
1. That your opponent is always training a little harder than you, this will help push your competetive drive during training. I like the quote by russian fighters “train hard, fight easy. Train easy, fight hard.”
2. You can die at any moment, use each moment fully.
Unfortunately, I dont hold any major titles….yet…ill be positive and ambitious lol. but I feel deeply honored that I was able to say I fought against professionals in Thailand and won. I guess professional is a title but, I always try to keep a beginners mind about it. Titles negatively effect your ego and your ability to learn most of the time, you must maintain the state of mind such as when you first started: there’s always something and someone to learn from. I fought professionally, but by no means am I a professional. My proudest moment being, I feel wasn’t actually winning, but rather being given the opportunity to fight. Over there it’s different, its a great honor to fight for Thais. It’s their country and their sport, and they have chosen you to represent them. The teacher/student relationship is very special in that way. You even have to do a dance before every fight that honors all the teachers in your life and thanks them for all the opportunities they have given you.
Relatively speaking, I’m a very open person when it comes to what I look for in a girl, I dont really believe in perfect combos or horoscope compatabilities. I just want a girl that can equalize me and bring out the best in me but there definately is a few musts:
-Sarcasm
-A little hard to get
-Humble
-Funny
-And a fighter in her own right
Being a fighter to me is more of a certain set of attributes because fighting happens on all fronts and tracks of life. You exhibit those and you got me.
As for female fighters: a lot of people removed from the sport think they are butch or lesbian and weird but in actuality, they are some of the most beautiful and dedicated girls in the world. It takes alot of mental fortitude and bravery for a girl to break the traiditional female stereotypes to make a name for themselves in a combative sport, which I highly respect.
As for some fitness tips, I think the greatest ones as fighter and personal trainer that I can give are more mental. It’s take alot of self motivation and a good support system to fight, because you might train with a team but when you fight, you’re on your own. So I’d say always train with a friend who can push you; you’ll almost always perform better than when youre alone, and also learn the value of what youre doing. Whether your goal is to fight, lose weight, or bodybuild, you have to understand that there is no easy way to do it, no magic pill, so you gotta prioritize and find out how much a fitness goal means to you and convince yourself of the value of each training day and each meal to keep yourself motivated and that with good consistency, you’ll reach your goal. I know you asked for some exercises for MMA that the ladies might like so I chose 3 that I find to be fun, and I know you all love working on your butts so my choice of exercises: are the knee strike bridge, the sprawl-burpee, and stability ball guard game. If you need a better explanation of these and/or a demonstration just ask me.