And there’s a beauty in that confidence. In knowing you’ve put in the work even when there’s no end.
While watching MMA the other day, a fighter gave a post fight speech that stuck with me. He said the reason he’s so calm during his championship fights, the highest pressure situations, is because he gets absolutely destroyed in practice. His coaches purposefully put in him no-win situations, dubbed Fights Gone Bad.
You’re down on points and there’s no way to come back unless it’s with the finish. And during practice and sparring you don’t knock out your partners so it’s a paradox: you can’t win. But that’s the most important part: It’s not about winning. You get pushed and you’re losing and you hit your breaking point every practice. You learn to simply persevere in a situation spiraling out of your control. To keep fighting no matter what.
The concept of reaching your breaking point every practice is what made him so unfazed. That one fight was probably less intimidating, intense, and brutal than any practice. You can bring this into any other concept in life: fitness, fighting, art. If you do it right, practice will always be the hardest part. The work. Most people will try to avoid it or not give 100 percent but they’ll only be cheating themselves. And that’s the hard truth between those who want to make the leap from good to great and from great to exceptional. You don’t leap. Instead you put in the thousand gruesome hours practicing on the same craft over and over again until you feel like breaking. And there’s a beauty in that confidence. In knowing you’ve put in the work even when there’s no end. That whatever is thrown at you, you’ve already seen 10 times or half of what you faced already. There isn’t a chance that whatever you’re facing is going to break you. Fight Gone Bad. Breaking Point.
I need to reach Breaking Point more. I do it decently in fitness and fighting but flexing the art muscle is much more challenging, although probably just as simple. Do something everyday. Get better. Repeat for the rest of your life. Writing now is much easier than it was before. So is working out and drawing. In drawing I can never win because there’s no end point. But I can lose by not starting. Each time I draw I recognize that fact that I can’t win, that’s impossible. But I know I can win over my past self. The past self that was too afraid to make a point, to draw a line, to form shapes. By continuing to reach our breaking points and to face these situations that we cannot control but ourselves, we become unfazed. Unfrazzled. And shit becomes second nature.
The greatest thing is that it doesn’t take much to start. It’s never too late to start or to get back. The Way Back. I realized that once you have built up a solid foundation, the memories uncover themselves and you’ll be riding on instincts. Maybe not now, not tomorrow, and not in a year. But maybe in five years. In five years we will look back and realize what we’re doing now is much more challenging than before and we are stronger and more resilient than before.
It’s amazing what the brain can do and remember and what habits we can form from pushing our limits: “The only limits we have are the ones we set ourselves.”
