A fighter's tears

Last year, while working as an extra at a K-1 event, I had the opportunity to watch an amazing Thai fighter. For the sake of his reputation, I won't say what his name was, but the guy was a machine. Outside of the ring, he carried himself with a dignified and quiet demeanor, and showed no signs of arrogance. But in the ring, he dominated everyone he fought, from the onset of each match to the very end. He was calm, cool, calculating, and efficient. He wasted no energy on anger, 'riling himself up' or excesses in movement. He was a total 'sharpshooter' and of all the contestants I watched that day, that Thai fighter seemed to exemplify the 'action philosophy' of martial arts better than anyone else there. By his third or fourth win that day, I was completely in awe of him.
When his fifth and final match came around however, as he stepped into the ring something was different. He had clearly conserved his energy and strength for his last match (as all experienced fighters know you have to), but it seemed as though the coolness that he had in match after match before wasn't there. I certainly didn't blame him. He was human after all, and this was the final match. It was internationally televised, and beyond that, he wasn't just fighting his own battle, he was fighting for the glory of his country and his country's fighting style, Muay Thai.

On top of all this, as a Muay Thai fighter, it was more than likely that he was accustomed to using kicks simply to break down his opponent's defense and footwork, and then doing all of his real damage with knee and elbow attacks, but in K-1, elbows and multiple knee attacks are illegal. In the earlier matches, he had relied on his kicks (which were unbelievably fast) to carry him, and they always had. In this case however, his opponent was a strong boxer who would try to get inside, and he had to know it. I had to imagine that the pressure on him was insurmountable...and I could see that it was getting to him.

As the match progressed, he tried to establish dominance early on as he had in earlier matches, but his opponent, (who had maintained his coolness), knew exactly what do to: he went inside. And with that, the two of them battled round after round. It was unquestionably the best fight I'd ever seen. It was actually so close that went into sudden death, not once, but twice. Finally, at the end of the final round, they raised the hand of his opponent. And as the camera zoomed in on the victor, (I was watching from a monitor backstage) the fleeting glimpse I caught of that Thai fighter's face showed an anguish I can't even begin to describe.

Moments later, as his seconds (ringside assistants) ushered him backstage, he was brushed passed us extras, and in that brief moment, I saw something in that fighter's eyes that completely surprised me: Tears. They were streaming down his face.

As a fighter myself, I'd never fought any battle that meant so much to me that a loss would have brought tears to my eyes. And it left me wondering if I would be the same way, had I been in his shoes.

Then over a year later, although the parallels wouldn't strike me until after the fact, I got my answer. Not too long ago, as a former Taekwondo champion, I was asked to do a kick-boxing match. I only had one month to train for it, I would have to fight outside of the rule system I was used to, but if I won, I could earn respect in the Japanese martial arts community, earn the respect of the action director who was also producing the event, earn respect for the small kick-boxing gym who was training me, and most importantly, earn respect for the fighting style that I come from, in an arena where we have very little.

Going into it, I knew nothing of my opponent except for his style, and his weight, and what he looked like from a still picture I'd seen of him online. In addition to that, as a western fighter from a Korean style, I also knew that facing off against a Japanese fighter from a Japanese style in a Japanese arena, there was no way that I wasn't going to be 'bad guy'. There would be no cheers for me in the audience that day, and going into the fight, I knew it. I also knew that as a Japanese win would please the crowd, that's also what the events organizers wanted too.


Once the fight came around, and I met my opponent for the first time, I knew it would be a battle. The look in his eye was determined, and he showed no fear or anxiety. (Which, as a fighter, you learn to read even when people are trying to hide it.) And a battle it was, right until the end. Much like that Thai fighter's opponent, mine knew exactly what to do. As a Taekwondo player I was a 'kicker', and he knew that my Achilles heel would be my legs. 20 seconds or so into the first round, as I tried for a back-leg round-kick to his midsection, he countered with a kick to the inside of my left thigh. Had it been to the outside of my leg- where the muscle rests tauntly up against the bone, it would have just hurt and bruised it. But going for the inside- where it's soft, would mean hitting the kicking muscle while it was tightened, and with nothing behind it to absorb the impact, hyper-extending it. And it worked. With that move, he took out both my legs at once. (Being connected as they are, once the groin in one is injured you can't really use either- not to mention the fact that your mobility is seriously compromised). Despite that however, I went after him anyway, found his Achilles heel (weak head defense against boxing) and with that we battled until the last round.

At the end of the third match when the bell rang, I knew it was close, but I didn't know if I had won or not. (I came to find out later it was a split decision), but as the judge raised his hand, and the crowd cheered for it, much like that Thai fighter, I got my answer.

And after the match was over, and the photos were taken, I packed up my things and limped out of the arena and into the dark alleyway that would be my walk back to the train station home. My agent had left on his bike (which I was too nauseous to ride on the back of), as had my kick-boxing coach, and the two friends who had come to watch me. I was totally alone. And as I begin that slow and painful walk back to the station, I could begin to feel the tears welling up in the back of my eyes.

Given the course that my life has taken, (both inside and outside of the ring), I'm no stranger to tears. And this was certainly not the first time in my adult life that an event had brought them forth. When I was a teen, I found out someone had shot my dog in the neck and killed him. At that time, I had tears to shed. Not just because I'd lost one of my best friends, but because he was probably scared and alone at the time and I thought deserved better than that. Just last year, when my friend and colleague, Kumar passed away from gun violence, I had tears to shed then too. Not only because I had wished I spent more time with him than I had, but because I had felt that the world had suffered an incredible loss, and for the most part, was completely ignorant of it.

What was different about this time however, was that there was no one else to feel sorry for but myself...and I couldn't pinpoint why it bothered me so deeply. It certainly wasn't because of the physical pain. I was used to that...and with time it would go away. It couldn't have been because of embarrassment, because I had done the best I could. I had no reason to be embarrassed.

After a lot of thought however, I deducted that it was this very thing that made this loss so painful. I had done my very very best, and it still wasn't good enough. During my month to prepare for this , I had lost 15 lbs of body weight through hard training, dieting and in the last, starvation and dehydration. I'd invested countless hours of my time forcing my body to get back in fighting shape at breakneck speed and taken all kinds of abuse learning how to both box, and kick-box.
But despite that, in the end, fate chose not to reward me for my hard work. That's what was so painful about it.

Although we always hear about how life isn't fair, deep deep down, I think we all want to believe that in some way, it always is. In this case however, it certainly didn't feel like it, and I had learned the hard way that that old saying is a lot easier to administer than it is to internalize.

At the same time however, looking back, there were quite a lot of lessons that I could take from this month long struggle, and even in failure, I could still grow stronger from it. In addition to learning how to both box and kick-box (and learn to fear neither), the loss of my excess body weight has got me leaner and quicker and more muscular than I have been since my early 20s. Even after two weeks of inactivity while my body recovered and another two weeks of getting settled into my new job, I'm still in the best shape of my life, and having learned everything that I did about diet and exercise, I should easily be able to maintain it.

In essence, I think this is what fighting (or any sport) is really about. Not the winning or losing at all, but the things you learn along the way. At least in my opinion, this is also why so many east Asian martial art names end in 'Do' a character which means 'road' or 'way'. But at the same time, given the fact that that Thai fighter knew exactly what to do to beat the living shit out of that same opponent the very next year, I hope that this won't be my chance ;)