What I Learned From Fighting in a Cage
Choosing to face your fear will change you.
It was a Monday night and I lay in bed, body aching from what had been the day’s second hard training session.
Monday — the start of the week.
That meant that tomorrow was Tuesday — and Tuesday meant sparring.
Exhausted as I was, I remember laying there wide awake, eyes glued to the ceiling.
The fear in my chest came from knowing that the next day I would have to spar opponents more experienced, harder hitting and less forgiving than I.
And this was just the start — two more weeks of Fight Camp awaited me followed by a weight cut of several kilos and the actual event a day later — what was to be my first cage fight as a Mixed Martial Artist.
Looking from the outside in, Mixed Martial Arts — crudely referred to as cage fighting and popularly shortened to MMA — is often perceived as a brutal, even barbaric pursuit.
Many view it as relic of our animalistic past — a sport reserved for the shallow thinking thug that enjoys beating people up.
The look of consternation on people’s face when I tell them that I fight does not go unobserved.
