On Getting Punched in the Face

Twice

Everyone has a plan 'till they get punched in the mouth.

-          Mike Tyson

Well I didn’t have much of a plan but did get punched in the mouth.  I switched over from Jiu Jitsu to Muay Thai for a few weeks while I try to round out my MMA skills, so striking is still relatively new and novel.  My coach has suggested that I protect my jaw with my hands.  But one tires.  And as I tire, my hands fall down a bit.  It wasn’t much more than a friendly reminder, but a friendly reminder from a seasoned MMA fighter in the form of a jab to my nose.  And it came right when I was moving in.  I didn’t react that quickly or well, rising my hands up for just a second to see if it was broken (it wasn’t).  But it wasn’t a jab.  It was a jab followed immediately by a cross.  And that was the one.  Didn’t get concussed but it rang my bell. 

Pain.  Surprise.  Disorientation.  Things sped up and slowed down at the same time.  A lot of things went on in my brain that weren’t that helpful to the moment.  More than anything else, I wanted to undo it.  I wanted to move better, to protect myself better, and to be back on offense.  Jiu Jitsu pain tends to creep up over several moments but Muay Thai pain comes flooding in all at once.  But within a few seconds, the fireworks in my head started to organize: you’re still in this fight, the bell hasn’t rung, and you’re not dead, not even knocked out, not even broken.  Fight.

Then there was a rush of endorphins.  This is legitimately bad… but it isn’t that bad.  The pain, surprise, and disorientation all got put in a box.  I detatched.  Some guy got tagged.  But I’m not my nose or my jaw.  I’m not the pain or surprise or disorientation.  That is just something happening.  And it is passing.  It might be a 3 out of 10 in terms of pain that can be inflicted on the body, but it was definitely a 10 out of 10 in terms of what one goes through in a day of managing a hedge fund in Connecticut in August.  The euphoria of staying on my feet matched the sting of the previous moment. 

I love my young sons.  But at the same time, I look forward to the first time that they live through this.  You don’t really know yourself until you do.  It has a uniquely calming impact.  It makes so much emotional baggage seem ridiculous.  That very day I had dealt with dozens of regrets at past mistakes and anxieties about future ones, each more upsetting then something that actually happened in the moment that fist hit face.  But once that moment happened and passed, I started to shed regrets and anxieties.  What really happened or would happen?  Don’t waste your energy on fictional, hypothetical pain.  The world offers non-fictional, actual pain for you to experience, suffer, and survive.  And that is enough.