I am not as tough as I think I am.
The realization hit me while laid out flat, the side of my face crushed against the mat. On top of me was a blue belt named Nestor. He pinned me down with his legs, and using his arms he started working on my grip.
Seconds later, he broke the grip and leaned back for the armbar.
The second my grip broke, I let my arm go slack and started to “hitchhike out” — turning my arm to the right so my thumb was sideways. Then I ran my legs towards my arm, releasing tension from my elbow, and escaping the armbar.
I stacked Nestor, and saw his look of surprise. I was delighted with myself.
He put me into a triangle. My delight ended.
I postured up. He started to roll, putting me into an omoplata. I rolled with him, relieving the tearing pressure from my rotator cup.
With a minute left, he put me into another armbar.
This time, I heard this quiet voice in my head tell me: “Look, you did good enough. You proved your point. If he gets you now, it’s okay to lose.”
You know what quiet voice? You’re right. I did do good enough. Thanks.
So I didn’t struggle as hard. I didn’t try to set up the escape. I got trapped, and I tapped.
Ten seconds later, the round was over. I had let myself surrender rather than fight for another ten seconds.
You’re not as tough as you think
It’s easy to think about aspiring to toughness when you’re scrolling Instagram. Or when Arnold compares lifting weights to orgasming.
Or reading Jocko Willink tweets about how he deals with sore muscles.
It’s different when you’ve burned out your forearms and can’t wiggle fingers. When you can’t get enough air in your lungs, and oh, this knee driving deep into your stomach isn’t helping either. In those moments, physical and mental toughness becomes nothing more than abstract concepts with no relevance to the here and now.
In that moment, you’re not competing against someone else. You’re only battling that quiet voice telling you that you already did your best. That it’s okay to quit.
It really is just you against you out there.
One of the toughest of all time
On January 28, 2018, Ronda Rousey made an appearance at WWE’s Royal Rumble in Philadelphia. It was her first “performance” after two devastating losses: a head kick KO by Holly Holm at UFC 193, followed by a first-round TKO stoppage, by Amanda Nunes at UFC 207
Which cues all the critics and Twitter trolls to come out of the woodwork and re-eviscerate her, to shame her for her failures. They do this because collectively, we as humans have short, unforgiving memories.
But Ronda Rousey should be remembered as one of the most mentally and physically tough athletes to ever do it.
She’s fought with broken toes. Trained with a torn ACL. Left her family at the age of 16 to live in her coach’s house, so she could focus on training. In a fight with Edith Bosch at the 2007 Judo World Championships in Rio de Janeiro, Bosch dislocated her elbow. Rousey put it back in, and won the match.1
Ms. Rousey was imbued with toughness from the start of her career. She lost her first tournament at the age of eleven. She placed second, losing to a girl named Anastasia. Anastasia’s coach congratulated her on a good performance.
“You did a great job. Don’t feel bad, Anastasia’s is a junior national champion.”
Later, Ronda Rousey’s mother pulled her daughter aside.
“I hope you know better than to believe what he said,” Ronda’s mother told her.
“You could have won that match. You had every chance to beat that girl. The fact that she is a junior national champion doesn’t mean anything. That’s why they have tournaments, so you can see who is better. They don’t award medals based on what you won before.
“If you could have done better, you should be upset you didn’t win. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that not doing your absolute best is good enough.
“You are a skinny blonde girl who lives by the beach and unless you absolutely force them to, no one is ever going to expect anything from you in this sport. You prove them wrong.”2
There aren’t many athletes like Ronda Rousey, who elevated an entire sport the way she did. She took women’s MMA and made it the “main event,” the must-watch fight, over men’s MMA. That’s like saying, “Yeah, I’ll sit through the Lakers game, but I’m really here for the Sparks.”
No one can take that away from her.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Edk5Vu4uJo
“She looked like she really enjoyed herself at the event and I was really really happy to see her. She’s a pioneer for the game and she’s came through it all and faced big wins and big, big losses and she came through. It’s great to see her represent herself and mixed martial arts and have fun in WWE. I know she’s been a big fan of it all her life.”
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