Читать книгу The Fighter Within. Everyone Has A Fight-Insights into the Minds and Souls of True Champions онлайн

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When he came to the corner we gave him water, asked if he was all right, and tried giving him a strategy as best as we could. I was telling him to circle right, away from the power hand as he got tagged hard a couple times. My other training partner was telling him to throw more kicks and so on. Again, I told him, “Remember, it’s all you in there,” in a stern voice to get him to focus.

The second round started wild and fast, as our teammate landed a nice “superman” punch that I had been the recipient of the week before in sparring. In that split second, I started yelling “Superman! Do the superman, it works!” And a second later, he landed a perfect superman punch, rocking his opponent.

The third round seemed to mirror the second, and our corner was sure he had the win. It was up to the judges now, and there was no way that the combatants could sway it the other way. I was right; our club got the first win that day, and it was a great feeling, especially having been in his corner.

The fights came and went, and the pro fights had already started; I was still waiting. I made my way over to the jiu-jitsu room to stretch and get my head ready for what was to come. I was warmed up, so, doing some stretches, I went over scenarios in my mind— visualizing the entire fight. According to the board, my turn was next, so I put my mp3 player on with my usual song list to get pumped. To my surprise, they did not call us up, but instead called the demo fight that was supposed to be after us. They had their two best guys, who were champions, demonstrate an MMA demo match for the crowd.