Friday, March 18, 2011

FIGHT!!

Last night/this morning at about 02:00 I was awakened by the neighbors below us. We rarely visit the people who live directly below us (and by rarely I mean never) as opposed to our neighbors that live in the apartment to our left or right. I don’t know much about them other than the fact that it is a female who has one male toddler. She lives by herself but has her boyfriend over to spend the night on occasion.

Last night she fought with her boyfriend. Loudly, not physically but verbally, and here are some of my observations about said fight.

1) The “F bomb”, I don’t think so many bombs had dropped since operation Rolling Thunder in Vietnam.
2) The repeated question, “What the F* did I do!?!”
3) “Get out!” “go sleep on the couch!”
4) Yelling

After listening to them fight last night I realized how well Kaci and I fight. Granted we are not perfect and are still working on how to fight with each other we still have a basic concept of how to fight. Here are some of our rules… (although they aren’t official we try to stick by them as best we can)

1) No yelling (although I do raise my voice sometimes, mostly when I am frustrated, but I don’t yell)
2) No swearing (duh)
3) Listen (again duh)
4) Admit when you are wrong
5) Stay on topic, no jumping around, address the issue at hand, if there are other issues save it for another (more appropriate) time.

Kaci and I don’t “fight” very often, although we do have some disagreements, we do our best to listen and try to understand one another. Kaci is really good about not letting things that bother her fester which helps our relationship a lot.

Plus I think it helps that we are 100% committed to one another and not simply sleeping together. I think that when you are committed you tend to look at arguments and disagreements with more of a long term perspective in mind.

Some great advice that was given to me by Ryan “Elder” Tow was learn how to fight, it makes sense, I mean sooner or later you will fight about something, and it is best to know how to fight when the situation arises. (so you don’t wake up your neighbors at 2:00am)

Lata,
Ryan

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

The Power of a Loss





People have been making a huge deal lately about Jon “Bones” Jones and rightly so. He is undefeated in the Octagon, and has won all of his matches in an impressive fashion. He has been considered the best at 205 yet he hasn’t fought for the title. He has defeated top notch competition in his climb up to his title shot, yet he hasn’t faced the ultimate opponent, a loss.

Jon Jones (Throwing the knee)


People underestimate the power of the loss, and I can’t think of a better example than Lyoto “the Dragon” Machida. Machida climbed the UFC’s light heavyweight ranks undefeated, and handily dispatched all who stood before him… UNTIL, he fought Shogun. Shogun beat his leg to a pulp for 5 rounds and Machida was unable to mount any sort of offense. He lost the fight even though the judges thought otherwise. The judges decision led to a rematch, and this time Shogun left nothing to chance and KO’d Machida in the first round. The undefeated “Dragon” had fallen, and the invincible was suddenly mortal.


Lyoto Machida

The fact that the undefeated champion fell is nothing spectacular, and it was bound to happen sooner or later, but what may have been harder to predict was the mental toll that it would take on the now defeated “Dragon”. He has fought once since his defeat, and he lost… again, to a game Quinton “Rampage” Jackson, but he didn’t look like he had improved from his former self. The question is why? The competition did not evolve that much in a year, he wasn’t suddenly “left behind”, so what happened? I would say that Machida was beaten both mentally and physically. Losing when you are undefeated can have dire consequences and is often times a greater test than any worthy opponent. Shogun mentally defeated him the first time, he broke the Dragon, and in the second fight he simply swept up the pieces.



There have been other instances where a fighter comes back better from a loss, as seen in the case of GSP, or Randy Couture, and that is why they are true champions. Jon Jones may be one of those true champions but only time will tell.



Until Next Time,
Ryan,

p.s. Don’t get me wrong I think Jon Jones is a great kid, he has an amazing humble attitude, and is soft spoken, I’m just saying he may be a bit over-hyped as he has yet to face the test of a loss.