Closet Techie

3 of 4 for May

Being hit hard and being able to hit back, definitely a first for me. So when people ask me, why the hell did I do it? I guess my only answer is because I could

Backtrack a bit. Was really getting a bit bored by the usual. Already had a roster of activities under my belt and it just came to a point where I’ve “been there done that” We were told by our good friend Dale that he does Muay Thai at this gym, not your usual gym though with pretty boy trainers in their neat uniforms. The coaches were all real fighters who have joined actual Muay Thai competitions -buff strong and no-nonsense. And so began what started out as just a way to release excess adrenalin and ended with me inside a ring at the Makati Coliseum. I wish I could say I beat the crap out of my rival but lets just say I did a Gina Carano when she fought Cyborg

Not a believer in coincidences, it was actually great material for a lot of learning. One of which is that working horribly hard doesn’t always guarantee victory. I gotta admit, the loss stung a bit. I kept thinking, after all that hard training and doing all the “right” things it still leads to this? But then again though, my thing is nothing compared to the Olympians who’ve worked hard all their life and didn’t get to stand on the podium. And hell yeah, it does happen. The question is what do you do with it? Do you wallow and spiral down, or do you bounce back and move on. Now that’s one good lesson to learn.

I also learned that temper can really be blinding. I really did underestimate the raw power of the primitive brain. Its ability to just short circuit everything and have a single minded mission to protect its host. After the fight, people kept  asking why I continued to attack even if I was being pounded back? All I can think about at that time is darn it, I’ve got to hit back! No sense at all of what was needed to be done and that was to step back, think, and then play the game.

I’ve also learned grace under defeat. I’ve always admired fighters that talk to each other after the fight. I kept thinking how they can do that when they were just beating up each other a minute ago. But in this experience I found myself recognizing that I faced a fighter that was stronger, that was better than I was, and surprisingly enough -I felt admiration instead of aversion.

So what did this all mean? Was it just about getting a kick out of it? For it to have some meaning, I had to really dig in. What was it about this experience that hit the spot. So after a lot of reflection, I did find really good nuggets and whether you can connect it or not, for me it was about control… But then again, that’s another story