I wrote this in my travel journal while at dinner before the match. It is interesting looking back on it the day after. All the anxiety gone replaced with contentment, a little pride and satisfaction that I actually learned something over these years of training.
Sitting at dinner before the fight, how do I feel? Anxious, nervous, proud... What is anxious to me? In the center of my chest there is a ball, a sphere of unpleasantness. Like a pressure on my heart and stomach in a way it feels external, unnatural, like it shouldn't be there but is. It is not nausea, although it could be. It is not painful. It is wrong. It should not be there. It is a weight, a heaviness, that lean's on the heart making it work a little harder, a little faster. My hands and muscles are tense despite the almost 2 days of no real exercise, the first time in more than a month. Breathing is slower, deeper, but slightly strained. As if to counter the sphere in my chest I have to concentrate more on my breathing to balance out. The ball in my chest leaning on my lungs. Not pushing, that to me denotes presence or intent, this is just there existing in a place it shouldn't Tension across the whole of my body as it prepares for what is coming. Yet the time has not arrived yet. There is no need, it should be gone. Often on the night of my matches in the past a happy calm and a smile come over me. The tension is gone for a fleeting window before the match starts and then... blank. I always seem to need to get hit once in the face before I can let go of the tension, forget the fear and just let the training and my body take over for me. I only hope that happens before my leg gets chopped out. Then again, maybe that will be all I need. All the hours of training, distilled down into 15 minutes or less The heart thumbing in bed the night before as endless scenarios go through my head. Absent through the day only to manifest right when I need the mind to be at ease to drift off. The ability, the need to control the fear that the fight brings with it, that's one of the main reasons I fight. To be able to face the anxiety, control it, put it away and know that I can what needs to be done.
Sitting at dinner before the fight, how do I feel? Anxious, nervous, proud... What is anxious to me? In the center of my chest there is a ball, a sphere of unpleasantness. Like a pressure on my heart and stomach in a way it feels external, unnatural, like it shouldn't be there but is. It is not nausea, although it could be. It is not painful. It is wrong. It should not be there. It is a weight, a heaviness, that lean's on the heart making it work a little harder, a little faster. My hands and muscles are tense despite the almost 2 days of no real exercise, the first time in more than a month. Breathing is slower, deeper, but slightly strained. As if to counter the sphere in my chest I have to concentrate more on my breathing to balance out. The ball in my chest leaning on my lungs. Not pushing, that to me denotes presence or intent, this is just there existing in a place it shouldn't Tension across the whole of my body as it prepares for what is coming. Yet the time has not arrived yet. There is no need, it should be gone. Often on the night of my matches in the past a happy calm and a smile come over me. The tension is gone for a fleeting window before the match starts and then... blank. I always seem to need to get hit once in the face before I can let go of the tension, forget the fear and just let the training and my body take over for me. I only hope that happens before my leg gets chopped out. Then again, maybe that will be all I need. All the hours of training, distilled down into 15 minutes or less The heart thumbing in bed the night before as endless scenarios go through my head. Absent through the day only to manifest right when I need the mind to be at ease to drift off. The ability, the need to control the fear that the fight brings with it, that's one of the main reasons I fight. To be able to face the anxiety, control it, put it away and know that I can what needs to be done.
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