Читать книгу One Game at a Time. Why Sports Matter онлайн

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But why is pain so identified with authenticity? And vice versa? Why is street cred about the suffering you’ve endured? In a world buried in half-truths and untruths, in lust with artifice and superficiality, a life watched on screen, what’s with the hand-wringing about realness? Is fighting really more authentic than sitting at my computer all day? Why is pain more real than pleasure? Is it that pain is a documentable affirmation of consequence?

That’s more or less what is going through my mind as I consider how to extract myself from a kimura submission hold that Roy Duquette has put me in. A kimura is a jiu jitsu hold, more or less the same as a hammerlock, chicken-wing, or ude-garami. It also fucking hurts. Roy’s in side control and is hyper-rotating my shoulder by pinning my chest and leveraging my upper and lower arms in opposite directions.

Roy’s a good guy. He is a trainer, coach, and therapist who works with all kinds of fighters at all kinds of levels including stars like Dennis Kang from the UFC and Emily Kwok, who in 2007 became the first female Canadian to win a world championship in Brazilian jiu jitsu. Roy has trained in a bouquet of disciplines himself including jiu jitsu, boxing, grappling, Karate, and Russian Sambo, and still spars regularly. He knows what he’s doing.