This is from a Half Caged blog that I used to write back in 2012-2013. Here is part one
Half Caged – by Kym Robinson
HC 1 – MMA Journeyman’s blog 1.
For those who do not know it, I am a Cage Fighting man (some times in a
ring also, though ‘Ring Fighting Man’ has well…less ring to it), such
a profession holds a bit of stigma and exceptional ism to it. Perhaps
in some cases it is well deserved, then again some people are also
easily impressed. In any case it is what a relative few ACTUALLY do, yet
what many claim to do or simply claim to aspire to become. So I have
decided to start this blog to share what it is that one of such
‘reputation’ experiences in their journeys as that fighter next door.
When I first started to fight professionally in 2003 it was all very
much a part time natural progression from all the years that I had spent
in training in ‘martial arts’. To actually fight ‘No Holds Barred’ as
it was called then was a true test that one could ever hope to put their
abilities to. I soon became a regular exponent on the national scene,
never however being allowed to fight in my home State. My performances
were as inconsistent as was my focus and ability to properly train. I
would seemingly lose the ‘big ones’ or the important fights always
falling short as a competitor when and where it counted. Perhaps I
could find a wealth of excuses as to why I failed at this level but in
the end none of them would ever matter. The reality is that next to my
name it would still always say ‘L’ for loser.
It was during the death throes of the family business that I soon found
myself needing to refocus my training so that I could try and reinvent
myself as a serious competitor. This was in part due to me needing to
find a focus and purpose in my life so as to avoid the downward spiral
of failure thanks in part to my lack of success in ‘the real world.’ I
decided that I would ATTEMPT to train as properly as I could and focus
on fighting in a way that I had not done up until that point.
Previously fighting professionally was merely a way to test and learn
what is best suited for unarmed combat should I ever have to put those
skills and attributes to the test in a truly violent life and death
struggle whereby I would need to defend those I loved. It was the
ultimate training session and process for that reality training I had
always been so dedicated to. Now I looked at fighting professionally
more as competition than simply hard sparring sessions where I got a
little money and a great deal of experience.
The field of combat athletes certainly had changed since the earlier
generation that I had both grown up on and had found myself competing
against. While before it was a field of tough guys, martial artists and
in your face warriors, now it seemed that the sport had bred purpose
built combat athletes whose sole function in life was to operate inside
the arena of violence. This new animal of fighter needed proper focus
and a full time dedication in order for me to become competitive against
them.
Attempting to do this when you live in a State that struggled to
understand let alone support most combat sports was far from an easy
task. So in order to do this one had to become a student of combat, more
so than what I already had been, I would need to accept my short
comings and find strengths that I could develop despite the South
Australian curse.
I determined that I would need to become the smarter man inside the
cage, this was simply however a clever theory to have, it was harder to
implement. Not being a natural athlete or one gifted with superior
physical genetics I had to apply myself as best as I could so that I not
only under stood the fundamentals but I could apply them under the heat
of violent stress when and where it mattered most.
Still after all this I found myself more a man from another continent on
Safari in a land of dangers and peril whereby doing my best to hunt
down the great big game. I was no matter how hard I tried to be
otherwise, a foreigner to the cage. Though I survived its harsh
realities, it is neither home nor alien to be but merely a place I visit
from time to time so as to face the conditions I would other wise be
denied.
So now near a decade into my prize fighting ‘career’ with twenty pro
bouts to my name I ask myself with honest intrigue, ‘what next?’
I can not answer this question with any truth. I can however record and
share with you the rest of this journey. Instead of having aspirations
or goals that other athletes may have in their fields of endeavour, I am
more an interested adventurer. A man who entered with his own honour
and pride to be trialed and a man who merely ignored the glory of the
great heights of excellence but who instead said ‘yes, I would fight
that man across from me, whoever he should be.’
I have never felt as though I was a fighter, while at the same time I
have never been merely a fan. Instead I am an active observer one who
does and absorbs while participating as he watched. This has perhaps
seen me become lost in a limbo of my own ambition less meanderings and
it is because of this that I have decided to share with you what I have
witnessed, experienced and feel about this sport. This will perhaps
help you to understand what it is that a fighter really does and
experiences. While also letting you under stand perhaps the most
important aspect of fighting, the process that leads one to the ultimate
climax of fury inside that arena.
So it is with one foot in the cage and the other foot outside that I
find myself,it is while being Half Caged that I shall share with you in
this blog all that I can. I have nothing to lose and nothing to gain as I
express it is what I know. Welcome to this MMA journeyman’s pathway to
nowhere as he seeks no real prize or claims to ultimate glory.
10 Oct 2012.
Kym Robinson.
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