The Final Round

A brief hiatus

I'm going to take a brief hiatus from the blog, just until the first of the year.  Hope everyone is having a great holiday season.

Oh my aching......everything

On the drive home from the gym tonight Jay and I were talking about aging.  We're both around the same age, he just turned 34 and I'll be turning 33 next month.  In the grand scheme of mortality, assuming I live to an average age for a woman, I'm obviously quite young.  As a competitive athlete some people might say I'm getting closer to that age where I should start investigating assisted training centers where I can take silver sneakers boxing and do water jogging as my cardio.  As far as my performance goes in the ring I still feel like I'm far from reaching my peak.  I feel like I get a little better every time I fight, a little closer to fighting like I know I can.  In training I continue to feel amazed at how much I still have to learn, how many things I can improve on.  Of course everyone can always get better but I'm not talking about flashy crazy stuff, I'm  talking about basic stuff like positioning on the ground and footwork standing up.  My body is a whole different story altogether.  I feel like I've aged more in the last six years than in my entire life before that.  I have so many things that hurt on a daily basis now that I don't really remember what it's like to wake up and feel good when you get out of bed.  It's hard to tell now if the way my body feels is a result of age or just the beating it has taken over the last few years.  I'm pretty sure it's just the accumulation of repeated trauma.  The funny thing is that everyone always looks at the roughness of the fights but it's the training that's the problem.  Even after my hardest fight it only took me a few days of recovery before I felt fine.  I have workouts during training that leave me feeling worse and for a longer period of time coupled with the fact that you have to get up the next day and do it all over.   What all this is leading up to is that I've reached a point where I no longer have a choice about admitting and addressing certain things that apply to a 33 year old body that I didn't have to apply to the 27 year old body I had when I started.  I have to warm up before training.  I know this seems simple, smart and not that big of a deal.  It's always been something I've been horrible at.  Maybe I'll jog around a bit or shadowbox but then it's right into training.  More and more this results in pulls, strains, and sprains.  I can feel that it's all just due to my body being cold and stiff and yet I can't help revolt against the fact that I am now forced into a prolonged warm up just to keep myself in one piece.  Things heal slower now, whether it's a minor injury or soreness from a workout.  Treating injuries (R.I.C.E) and utilizing recovery methods (including stretching - another of my least favorite things) is no longer optional.  I always say that I do everything within my power to give myself the best chance of succeeding in the ring and I now have to accept that this includes all the stuff I just mentioned.  If I don't utilize these steps i can't honestly tell myself I did everything I could. 
Aging for professional athletes is a really bizarre concept in the sense that this thing that is your life and has become a large part of your identity is on a timer that is out of your control.  It's not the same as other professions, you're not considered over the hill as an accountant at the age of 35.  I don't know that other professions become so much a part of you, and leave you feeling so weird and empty when it is gone.  It's been a long stretch since I had my last fight and for awhile I thought I wasn't going to be able to find a fight.  It started me wondering if that was it for me and it was an odd feeling, very disconcerting and depressing.  Fortunately that didn't end up being the case as I have some stuff in the works.  What I took from that experience was the reminder of how much gratitude I need to have for the time I have left in this great sport, of the importance of not forgetting that it will end, that it won't be long, and that it's something that I won't be able to get back again.  I will make sure there was nothing left in me to give when it comes time to stop because, after all, I will have the rest of my life to recover.      

Old Fight

Most people haven't seen the video of this fight.  I never got a copy of it but someone found it on the internet and pointed it out to me.  The person posting it did it for Mac Danzigs fight but also posted the rest of the IFC card which included my fight with Heather Soderquist (4/30/2005).  The fight is at about the 24:30 mark. 

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3754963735840973296

2007 or 1907?

There was a thread on a popular internet forum today that was talking about two great women fighters and the possibility that they might fight each other.  On the thread there was this gem of a comment:

"How can people even get worked up about girls fighting"
and
"They are best when in the kitchen or bedroom"

Of course it's not exactly unusual to read crap like this on the internet.  After all, the internet is the ultimate platform for people to express the lowest aspects of their personality with no real world repercussions.  For all one knows the writer could be a 13 year old boy in the midst of male puberty angst or possibly a 25 year old in the midst of male insecurity angst.  The crazy thing about this quote is that it came from a business owner (puts on fights in the midwest) who is presumably an adult living in the year 2007 where women are generally considered to be fully formed human beings capable of all kinds of amazing feats such as walking, talking, and forming full sentences.  Do people like this find wives and girlfriends and if so what rock did they find them under?  So here is my theory on why some men are violently opposed to womens fighting.  Keep in mind I'm not talking about they guys that are just not into watching it.  Everyone has their own tastes, personally I will turn the tv off before I watch heavyweights fight.  So I'm talking about the guys that seem like they will be sent into a murderous rage at the mere mention of women that dare to put gloves on.  My theory is that it makes every insecurity they have ever had about their manhood or what it means to be a man come boiling to the surface.  The majority of men I have encountered that feel this way do not fight.  Men that fight may not be huge fans of womens fighting but they have a certain level of respect for the women for the training they do and the courage it takes to get in the ring.  Insecure men that don't fight feel fine throwing themselves fully into the bravado of the mens fight world without feeling like they need to do it or are less than for not doing it.  But you throw a woman in the cage that is doing something considered violent, rough, challenging, and scary (i.e. the ultimate in male dominion) and Houston we have a problem.  So all of a sudden all these traits that are supposed to be the very definition of manhood, things like courage, aggression, toughness, high pain tolerance, and dedication to a sport, are fair game for everyone and not "special" anymore.  I think this is why nearly every discussion or mention of female fights devolves into either talk about their looks and how much people do or do not want to sleep with them or how women should not be fighting and should stay in the kitchen.  It puts everything back into a safe context that challenges no egos.  Fortunately more and more people are being exposed to womens mma and are seeing the excitement of womens fighting and the passion the ladies bring to the ring.  When I first started fighting you'd see threads on womens mma where literally every person on it was bashing women.  These days there is always a certain amount of expected nonsense but there are numerous people actually attempting to discuss womens fighting (what a crazy idea for a mma forum) and some even defending women against the naysayers.  I can't tell you how many people have come up to me over the years after one fight or another expressing amazement and excitement at the womens fight that was on the card.  I know every other mid to high level girl out there has had the same experience.  If you're somebody that has developed respect and love for the womens fight scene or you have a female fighter that you support you owe it to yourself, to them, and to the concept of the evolving human brain to defend them at every chance you get.  The women work hard and they will continue to put on some of the most exciting fights you'll see while being given almost zero recognition, minimal opportunities, and dismal money.  The problem is that the people with the worst things to say are always the most willing to speak out.  Don't let this be the case. Remember:
"Silence is the voice of complicity."

A little Bodog holiday cheer

Here's a link to a little video that Bodog put together to celebrate the holidays.  They included a couple of clips from my fight with Tara. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDDOqKKPktI

Back in the saddle again...

Well I'm happy to say I am now emerging from the one week total depression I was in due to the whole experience in the Philippines.  I have to say that I haven't felt that down in quite a long time.  There is some good news that has come out of the whole thing though.  The promotion ended up paying me most of the money that I was supposed to make and much more importantly to me admitted that I did nothing wrong and that the whole thing was just a communication glitch within the promotion.  They are supposed to be having their next event in March and I will still be competing as part of team Gokor.  Of course who knows if this will actually happen.  There is probably a pretty good chance that the second event will not even take place.  I still felt pretty depressed about the fact that the fight didn't happen but the outcome on the side of the promotion at least restored a little of my faith in humanity. 
Today I get back to training.  I've done nothing but eat things I shouldn't be eating for the last week and my body has now had enough of that nonsense.  It's funny how when you're feeling down chocolate and pizza make you feel so much better for a little while and then all of a sudden you realize that your body and mind is functioning closer and closer to coma status as each day passes.  The problem is that if you do it to long it becomes easier to keep doing it than it is to stop.  So back to the gym for me. 
I've been going back and forth over the past week on whether or not I want to continue this blog since it originally started out as a training journal for a specific fight.  After changing my mind every other day I've decided to keep it going.  So I'll keep writing about my training, the process of trying to get fights, etc.  But I think I'll also start including pretty much anything that has to do with sport in general and not just stuff about my own career.  MMA, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, the gym, and athletics in general are pretty much my life at this point and I have a lot to say about all of it so fasten your seat belts and hold on. 
Before I end this post I wanted to say thank you to everyone who left such supportive comments on the blog.  I can't express my appreciation or gratitude enough for the support and encouragement you guys gave me.  I hope you continue to follow along and voice your opinions and thoughts. 

The fat lady had sung

Well the event is over.  I didn't get to fight even though I showed up, made weight, and was at the arena ready to go.  I've never been treated so poorly by an organization in my whole career.  The kicker is that this treatment was based entirely on mistakes made by the promotion and because they did not want to deal with the responsibilty of their errors it was easier to take it out on me.  After the training, the dieting, the money that went into getting me there (staff for gym, supplements, airport parking, gas, etc), the travel, the time away from our business, family and dogs, the weight cutting, and the stress of the whole ordeal, I am leaving here without a fight and with less than 15% of the money I was supposed to make even though I fulfilled my obligation which was to showed up trained, make weight, and be ready to fight.  I'm more mentally exhausted than I can ever remember being and am left feeling very unsure of where to go from here.  As for now I'm going to get  few hours of sleep before we get on the plane to head home.  I'll wrap up this whole trip once I'm home. 

FUBAR

As usual the story here is long and convoluted and completely screwed up.  It's 7:15 in the morning here right now and as far as I know I'm not fighting.  I say as far as I know because things have changed so much that I'm not sure of anything at this point.  Here's the breakdown of what has brought us to this point.  My opponent had a contract for a weight of 130lbs.  I had a contract that did not specify a weight and had verbal confirmation from my coach that my weight had to be 135lbs.  He had received verbal confirmation from the owner of the company that this was ok (the owner does not deny this).  Ginelle made a weight of 130 and trying to be accomodating I cut not only to 135 but to 134(with shorts and a sports bra on so really around 133.6 or so) which was the most my body could do.  This was an 8lb cut for me which is almost 10% of my bodyweight which is where you start getting into a dangerous area as far as cutting weight.  I was told every day we've been here by numerous people on the staff including the owner that as long as I could get under 135 at all that the fight would happen.  I was told this the night before weigh ins and at the weigh ins.  Josh Barnett says they are not doing the fight because of the weight.  He actually had said that if I could make 132 they would do it but when you're body can't cut any more it can't so this wasn't an option.  Not to mention the fact that I had already made the weight that I was supposed to make.  So after hours of going back and forth with everyone trying to come up with some way to make a fight happen these were the two options I was given: 1. Josh Barnett said they would do the fight if I could make 135 again the day of the fight.  This is insane and medically stupid.  Anybody who fights and has cut weight would look at you like you had three heads if asked to do this.  Option 2: There is an alternate girl here.  There was talk of her and I doing a single fight (it wouldn't be part of the team competition).  That sounded great to me.  Herein lies the problem.  Josh had somehow managed to get a guaruntee that Ginelle would be paid her full purse.  There is a certain amount budgeted for the fight, a purse for each fighter and a fee for the alternate.  With Ginelle getting her full purse the promotion says it didn't have enough to pay the alternate girl the full amount.  After they talked to her she agreed to less which was great of her.  Here's the kicker though, the fight would only happen if I paid 25% of my purse to this girl because the promotion didn't have the budget for the full amount of what she wanted.  So I either cut five pounds the day of the fights or pay someone 25% of my purse to fight me.  The first one is not possible the second one I can't stomach.  Ginelle and I  are in the exact same position.  The only difference between us is that I'm sitting her ready and wanting to fight and they aren't willing to do it.  Yet she's getting the money she was promised and I"m getting these demands that are insane and ludicris for having done what I was told to do which is show up, have full medicals, and make 135lbs.  I have never in my life expereinced something like this.  I'm feeling such a mix of depression, anger, disillusionment, and mental exhaustion right now that I feel like I'm going to implode.  So now the fight is to get our purse so we're at least not out the money. I feel bad about the situation from the promotions standpoint, it really sucks for them.  But when you make a mistake, as much as it may suck for you, you have to take responsibility for it and that's the situation they're in.  It remains to be seen whether or not they'll do this or not.  The bus leaves for the fights at 10:30 this morning, so in three hours.  I'll update the blog if anything changes about my fight status and I'll give an update of the whole situations later today. 

To be or not to be......

Holy Cow.  That's all I can say.  I've never experienced such craziness and stress at an event.  I'll try to make this very long story short.  There are five coaches at this event, one is an alternate team.  Four of the coaches knew the weight for the womens division at this event was 130 lbs.  Mine wasn't one of them.  When I took this fight I told him that I fought at 135 and was that going to be a problem.  I took this fight on short notice and knew I wouldn't be able to get my weight lower than that.  He talked to someone in the organization that said that was fine.  So we get here and pretty much right off the bat we start hearing rumbling about the situation.  All of the girls there agree to fight at 135 since that's an actual weight clas......except my girl.  So over the last two days we've gone back and forth with the promotion and the girls coach.  First they were saying I had to make 130 which is not possible right now.  Jay told him that I couldn't get below 134 and they than came back and said I needed to make 132 which I've never made in my life.  Yesteday afternoon (it's 8am Saturday morning here right now), they said it was 132 or they wern't doing it.  At that point I was pretty sure I wasn't fighting since I knew I couldn't make that weight (I would have to cut almost 10% of my bodyweight to have done that).  My emotions were obviously running wild at that point.  So last night all the coaches and the promtion staff met and finally the owner said that if I was under 135 at all that I was fighting and if they didn't want to take it they would forfeit that fight and it would be a loss for their team.  I can't imagine when it comes down to it that they will do that.  We'll see soon enough.  Weigh ins are at 1pm.  I haven't eaten any food in over 24 hours and have had no water in 14 hours.  Last night I checked my weight to see what I'd be cutting from and I weighed 142 which makes that a seven lb cut to get to 135.  So far I've taken a diuretic to force my body to pee out as much as it can.  After that I'll put albolene (this lotion type stuff that makes you're pores open so you'll sweat a lot) on and I'll put on this plastic jogging suit and I'll try and sweat off the rest.  I went to check out the womens sauna only to find that there was no actual heating unit in there, only wires sticking out of the wall where it once had been.  That was a nice discovery.  I'm going to try jogging around outside since it's so humid here and if that doesn't work I'll figure out something else.  I'm going to get my weight as low as I can but I'm not going to end up in the hospital attempting to make some crazy weight. 

It's been hard to not focus my frustration on Ginelle and Josh (her coach) but in reality nobody did anything wrong.  We both showed up prepared to make the weight that was told to us.  Both coaches are looking out for the best interests of their fighters.  It really comes down to a miscommunication between the promotion and one of it's coaches.  Unfortunately this is sort of a lose/lose situation.  Either Ginelle fights someone she feels is a lot bigger than her, or I don't get to fight even though I did everything I was supposed to do.  We'll see what happens.  Check back in a few hours and I'll give a rundown of how the weigh ins went.   

Let the festivities begin

It's about 1:30 in the afternoon on Thursday right now.  It seems like the last couple of days has been such a whirlwhind and just now it seems like I have a little space to breathe.  We got to bed at around 3 in the morning last night and even though I was exhausted I could not sleep, I think my body was in time zone shock.  I was up pretty much the whole night.  My goal for the moment is to not fall asleep at all during the day today.  If I can accomplish that I should be able to be back on a normal sleeping schedule tonight.

This show has some kind of connection with the government of the Philippines though I'm not sure in what way.  Some people have said they are the ones putting the event on.  When we arrived last night two people from the department of tourism met us outside the gate.  We followed them down to this huge part of the airport where people go through customs/immigration.  This room was packed so full of people that you literally coldn't move.  There was no line, there was no semblance of order, just a mob of people crammed together.  Our guides took our passports, told us to follow them, and just forged a path right through all the red tape.  I thought Jay was going to have to throw down with an angry women.  We were litterally having to push our way through people that did not want to move and didn't know who the hell we thought we were just pushing past everyone.  Jay finally met up with a woman who just flat out said "I'm not moving".  Somehow he found his way though.  I've never been so grateful for anything in my whole life as I was then.  When I first saw that mob I almost started crying, I was so exhausted and this was clearly going to take in excess of two hours.  After an hour of waiting for our bags we were finally off to the hotel.

We just got back from the press conference in the hotel.  There amount of press there was quite large.  Here's a picture of the press conference and one of my team:

All the coaches got introduced and they in turn introduced their teams.  After some photos and questions that was pretty much it.  We had a bit of a scare with a weight issue.  There was some issue where somewhere in the promtions information they had the girls listed at 130.  Right from the get go I had made sure that the weight was acutally 135 because I'd need a lot more notice than a couple of weeks to make 130.  So all the girls agreed to 135 except the girl I'm fighting who supposedly said she wasn't doing the fight at 135. We went to the people in the promotion and were assured that 135 was fine.  That really made my stomach turn at first because I really don't think I could make that weight at this point and the thought of not fighting after all this was mind boggling.  On another way more bizarre note I also found out the fights arn't until Sunday.  I know this doesn't sound like that big of a deal but I sat there shocked for about 30 minutes.  I found this out when I asked what time weighins were tomorrow and everyone said they wern't tomorrow.  At first I panicked thinking they meant they were day of weighins but then found out the fights were actually Sunday so they could air in the US on Saturday (on Platinum's website).  I'm still shocked and elated.  A whole extra day to get acclimated and feel more like myself is amazing. 

We're off to meet the team at the gym for some training.  I'll try and get some photos and post them later today.