Be like water- Relearning the water cycle of training.

Training stand up. photo by Cristiano Justinio

There was a thunderous crack and then bright lights of fireworks fading into black. Everything seems muffled for a minute, everything feels rubbery and stuck in mud. In the distance I see a light coming towards me, bigger and bigger. Finally I'm back to reality in the cage. My sparring partner looks at me unsure of if I am going down after the headkick landed flush. I smile, clap my hands and then land a right straight down the pipe, following it up with a hook and another straight before shooting a double, lifting him off the mat, and finishing the takedown. The rest of the round is a flurry of strikes, scrambles, and working to dominate each other.  Milton yells  out we have 10 seconds left and I quickly move to take knee on belly and finish the round landing strikes.

I am fighting again on Team Nogueira TV December 4th, and I am in the middle of my training camp. Training is going well, and as you can see from the above training is hard. The week before a fight, Milton put the guys with fights through a grueling conditioning circuit after sparring, which pushes us to the brink mentally. But that's what it is all about, breaking you down and building you up again stronger. Come fight time, all the hard work is done and the fight is the easiest part  (and the funnest as well).

Post nogi mma training.

The above part is from a half finished blog from a week ago. It is one of several unfinished blog entries I have been struggling to write. I have been suffering from a MASSIVE case of writers block---scratch that, more like an complete lack of creativity and rhythm.  Unfortunately I felt like this lack of rhythm and creativity carry over to my training. While I have been working hard, always on the grind and having good sessions I have just felt in a funk. I am a huge fan of Bruce Lee, one of my favorite quotes of his is the following:

  “You must be shapeless, formless, like water. When you pour water in a cup, it becomes the cup. When you pour water in a bottle, it becomes the bottle. When you pour water in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Water can drip and it can crash. Become like water my friend.” 

See the issue I was facing was it felt like there was no water. So while I've been getting told I'm looking good and having good training sessions, I have been feeling dry. Day after day of going in and doing "good" but feeling like your just taking ass whoopings is frustrating, in fact for me it boarders on heartbreaking. I'd lost sleep, my appetite, focus and my normally joking personality over it.  Overall I've probably been a pretty miserable person to be around (sorry Nicole)

BUT I had a revelation this week. While I have been feeling dry, I've been missing things. I barely noticed that I managed to effortlessly transition to a bicep slicer off a scramble; that perfectly timed straight dart to a counter double, well it ever happened, etc. See, I was only thinking of being like water in terms of a liquid, I completely forgot that water exists both as a solid and as a gas (dropping some science on you this week). So that while I felt completely dry and lacking of fluidity, there was still water there, it may have seemed to have disappeared, it had changed states, evaporating but still ever present. With this realization, and as happens when it is really dry, it began to rain; and when it rains it pours. This weeks training I hit my stride. My transitions felt good, submissions seemed to open up out of nowhere, and I began reading things on the feet much better. The biggest thing is if something wasn't working for me, I changed my form, molding to the situation and overcoming it. I have realized even if it feels like there is no water, it is ever present, you just have to recognize and discover what state its in.