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"As he punched me in the face, I couldn't help but enjoy it"
Something rather remarkable happened last Friday. I've been practicing Dutch style muay thai, BJJ, wrestling, and a little judo for almost two years.
A few weeks back I became frustrated while thinking that I'd never even had an MMA sparring session. While I had practicing multiple aspects of the fighting arts, I had yet to put them all together.
The main reason for this is because I'm not on the "fighting team" at my gym. There is a class at my gym designed for only those who compete at both the amateur and pro levels in MMA. They have ridiculous work outs, sparr very hard, and have MMA sparring sessions where they put everything together.
There I was last Friday sitting on the edge of the ring putting on my hand wraps when one of the amateur fighters approaches me and we start to talk. Over the time we've spent together, we've become fairly good friends.
While we're talking I ask," Do you ever do mma sparring outside of fighters training?" Much to my surprise he says "yeah we're actually going to do that right now, want to join in?". "yeah sure", I responded trying to sound as casual as possible.
The amount of joy I felt can't even be put into words. I would finally be able to put everything I had learned into practice as if I were in a real fight!
Depending how you look at it, I could have either been in for a world of hurt or an awesome experience. I was about to sparr with two amateur fighters. Both bjj purple belts; one with a 1-0 record via tko and one with a 4-1 record with all wins coming from either tko or submission and the loss coming from a split decision.
I've boxed and rolled with each of these two and was completely outclassed by each of them in each discipline.
Each round was two minutes. Since there were three of us, one person would stay in for two back to back rounds and take a two minute rest while the other two went at it.
Every round consisted of me getting my ass kicked in every possible position. Standing up and on the ground, constantly getting punched in the face and being threatened by various submissions. Much to my surprise, I was doing quite well even though it doesn't sound like it. Avoiding being submitted by two purple belts when you're not even belted is no easy feat.
Dead tired, I entered the last round. Somehow I found myself in a triangle. I was so proud of myself for not getting put into a submission up until that point that I thought "IM GANNA FIGHT THIS SHIT". Soon after I got punched in the face twice...really hard. As he punched me in the face, I couldn't help but enjoy it. It was such an awkward feeling. It had been years since I'd been in an actual fight and his gloves weren't exactly 16 oz boxing gloves yet I actually liked it.
I looked at the round timer and I had 30 seconds to go before the end of a round. Something about the constriction of my neck, lack of blood flow to my brain, and punches to my face quickly told me to tap ASAP. I did.
We then all sat in a circle and talked about how awesome all of that was. They told me that they were impressed at how well I did with relatively no experience. I said I was pretty much just trying to survive and we all just laughed.
Even though I almost threw up, even though my head felt like I had put my head inside of a barrel and iloveoov started to soccer kick it, and even though I had several nicks and scrapes on my face, I couldn't help but want to do it all over again.
This Wednesday we're set to do it all over again. I can't wait.
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I wanted to join a fight gym, and have the same story you experienced.
But i r scared 
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haha nice dude, glad you enjoyed yourself. I like reading about people finding something that makes them happy, even if I think it's somewhat ridiculous =)
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FIGHT CLUB
Glad you can enjoy being punched in the face like that. it's an interesting hobby.
edit: srs tho dont tell anyone about fight club
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On September 29 2009 11:37 PanN wrote:I wanted to join a fight gym, and have the same story you experienced. But i r scared
Honestly, once you get past the initial shock of punching someone in the face and getting punched in the face it's all really civil. There are hardly any egos in most mma gyms. If there are they usually tend to weed themselves out over time. You find guys that you like to sparr against since they're at similar levels as you and it's generally a really fun time.
I wouldn't recommend sparring with anyone like I did until you've trained for some time. Some guys are like sponges and quickly develop mad skills relatively quickly while some guys are like me who gradually progress over time.
You should definately sign up for a few classes if you never have. It doesn't mean that you have to "fight" against people but simply that you want to learn some skills that you'll know for the rest of your life.
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On September 29 2009 11:40 caldo149 wrote:
haha nice dude, glad you enjoyed yourself. I like reading about people finding something that makes them happy, even if I think it's somewhat ridiculous =)
Yeah a lot of people can't seem to understand what's so fun about getting hit but a lot of people do. It's actually really interesting to see yourself progressing and being competitive with people who used to be better than you. Similar to alot of things in life I suppose.
On September 29 2009 11:40 ShaperofDreams wrote:
FIGHT CLUB
Glad you can enjoy being punched in the face like that. it's an interesting hobby.
edit: srs tho dont tell anyone about fight club
Fight Club is a great movie.
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Sounds like things are working out for you in the MMA world. Don't get any permanent damage though even if you enjoys the punches to the head.
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On September 29 2009 11:40 ShaperofDreams wrote:
FIGHT CLUB
Glad you can enjoy being punched in the face like that. it's an interesting hobby.
edit: srs tho dont tell anyone about fight club
first and second rule...
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Wow dude, thats amazing. I am planning to join a gym here in Ohio when i finish school or get some more free time since i work and study at the same time. I do really want to just learn first so what happened to you about not fighting at first wouldnt bother me, but eventually I would ask for a fight or spar session. I really like the ground game aspect and think i would be good at it.
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Reading the beginning of this I was half expecting the story to lead to you guys beating each other senseless in someone's basement/backyard/parking lot ^^ I always feel that mma is where you really get to test yourself, using all the resources and knowledge you have at your disposal, and that's what makes it so enjoyable. I keep telling myself that one day I'll start training that cardio regularly, but I just can't seem to get in to that routine. I've had seminars with mma fighters and the 1.5 hours that they spend conditioning is enough to bring me to the verge of puking, and apparently they do this before every regular length class.
Anyone considering joining a gym should really take the plunge and just go for it. Every gym I've ever trained at had nothing humble and helpful guys training there. Now and then you get a meathead or two who've watched too much ufc but like statix said, they don't really last long and mysteriously disappear after a few weeks. That or they learn to fit in and you find out that they are actually decent guys who happened to be a bit overanxious but have seen the error of their ways.
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Seems I was beaten to it... psh, here it is anyway:
Please tell me this new-found friend's name was Duerden.
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FuDDx
United States5017 Posts
Just make balloons downtown... You will find some one to hit ^_^
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On September 29 2009 14:17 DBunny wrote:
Reading the beginning of this I was half expecting the story to lead to you guys beating each other senseless in someone's basement/backyard/parking lot ^^ I always feel that mma is where you really get to test yourself, using all the resources and knowledge you have at your disposal, and that's what makes it so enjoyable. I keep telling myself that one day I'll start training that cardio regularly, but I just can't seem to get in to that routine. I've had seminars with mma fighters and the 1.5 hours that they spend conditioning is enough to bring me to the verge of puking, and apparently they do this before every regular length class.
Anyone considering joining a gym should really take the plunge and just go for it. Every gym I've ever trained at had nothing humble and helpful guys training there. Now and then you get a meathead or two who've watched too much ufc but like statix said, they don't really last long and mysteriously disappear after a few weeks. That or they learn to fit in and you find out that they are actually decent guys who happened to be a bit overanxious but have seen the error of their ways.
1.5 hours of cardio seems excessive. I don't even think that professionals workout that long. 30-60 minutes seems to be the norm. With workouts like tabata you're only actually working out for like 4 minutes.
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is awesome32280 Posts
You broke the first and second rule
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On September 30 2009 01:10 IntoTheWow wrote:You broke the first and second rule
lol
that's pretty awesome though, congrats on your first spar. Is it typical to wait two years? I know it takes a long time to get ample trainging, but damn
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On September 30 2009 02:26 Hawk wrote:Show nested quote +On September 30 2009 01:10 IntoTheWow wrote:You broke the first and second rule lol that's pretty awesome though, congrats on your first spar. Is it typical to wait two years? I know it takes a long time to get ample trainging, but damn
No it's not typical to wait that long. I couldn't imagine having sparred with those guys without that much training though.
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EPT
