Not a beginner, but the first time dealing with a horrible loss... any advice?

[DianeK]

Something else to consider, if things get heated again, and you get in a fight outside the ring...both of you have the ability to do some serious damage. If you do, and she press charges, you could end up in jail for this rivalry, or at the very least lose your ability to enter the ring again. The sooner you can remove yourself from her the better.

That never happened before and won't happen again... To my partial excuse we were about 19 and 18 when that stuff happened... It wouldn't happen now that I'm 25. Still, for sure my eagerness to beat her up badly in a real match got me kod...

For everyone: thanks a lot for every reply, but, about the words I choose, I kindly remind you english is not my native language, so maybe I can't express some concepts as I wish.

 

[Steve]

Am I the only one who thought from the title that the OP experienced the loss of a loved one?

 

[Steve]

That never happened before and won't happen again... To my partial excuse we were about 19 and 18 when that stuff happened... It wouldn't happen now that I'm 25. Still, for sure my eagerness to beat her up badly in a real match got me kod...

For everyone: thanks a lot for every reply, but, about the words I choose, I kindly remind you english is not my native language, so maybe I can't express some concepts as I wish.

That makes sense.

Regarding competition, it can be tough to work really hard, be as prepared as you can possibly be, and just come up short. But learning to recover from a tough loss is important, and speaks to resilience. Something you might consider is seeing a sports psychologist. They specialize in working with athletes.

 

[Dirty Dog]

Am I the only one who thought from the title that the OP experienced the loss of a loved one?

Or something else that would qualify as a "horrible loss"...

 

[Steve]

Or something else that would qualify as a "horrible loss"...

Yeah, but now that I realize that the OP is not a native English speaker, I don't think it's a huge deal.

 

[Dirty Dog]

Yeah, but now that I realize that the OP is not a native English speaker, I don't think it's a huge deal.

Meh.
There are a few here for whom English is their native language who don't speak it as well as the OP.

 

[Steve]

Meh.
There are a few here for whom English is their native language who don't speak it as well as the OP.

Some who ARE English.

 

[Monkey Turned Wolf]

Am I the only one who thought from the title that the OP experienced the loss of a loved one?

That's exactly what I thought before opening it. That either they lost the ability to train, or someone close died and they were grieving.

 

[Bruce7]

Hi there,
I signed up to this forum because I wanted to share my story with a wide audience of people I don't personally know and get their honest opinion about what recently happened to me. English is not my native language so you could find some sentences being a bit "off", I apologize in advance. So, here's the story:

I'm 25 years old, I've been practicing kickboxing since I was 11 and jiu-jitsu since 2014. I never really competed until 2015. I've always been pretty good at kickboxing and when I started entering tournaments and stuff I always did very very well in increasingly bigger circuits.

Key point of the story: I kinda have a "nemesis", a girl one year younger than me who joined my gym a bunch years ago and with whom, for some reason, I immediately developed a bitter rivalry. We really couldn't stand each other and hard spars sometimes became proper fights. Once we even got in a fight in the locker room, and another time we really beat each other up on the lawn outside the gym, with the end result of both of us going to the hospital. I am pretty ashamed of that since I am usually a mellow and friendly person who never gets into fights or whatever! After that incident I was ready to leave the gym but she did it even before me. But when I began competing, she crossed my path again in a bunch of occasions.

We fought 4 times, in real matches, like it should be. The first three times I got two decisions and we had a draw. The fourth time, things went differently. Clearly, it was the most important match of all because the stage was quite bigger than the previous times. Early in the fight I felt very confident and I managed to give her a really hard time. It came to a point I hit her hard a couple of times and she looked stunned and was noticeably slowing down. When I saw her like that I decided I had to KO her and recklessly started throwing everything I got at her. Next thing I knew, they were waking me up and asking me if I was alright. She knocked me out cold. They told me she hit me with two right hooks in a row that stunned me, then KOd me with a kick. There is a video recording of that match but I never wanted to watch it.

I lost a bunch of times before, and I was TKOd once, but I've never been KOd in such a brutal fashion, and especially by my "arch-enemy" during a match I was clearly winning. The physical damage is now gone, but since that day I kinda lost a bit of my confidence and my grit...

I know there are some controversial aspects in this story, especially regarding my behavior outside the ring, but as I said I came here to get honest opinions about this whole story. THanks a lot.

That was a well written thought provoking post.

In the old days when I spared with girls I took it easy on then, but they did not care if they hurt me, in fact I think they like it.
Today when men spar girls they treated each other as equals, probably a good thing just hard for me to get my head around it.

When an All Navy Boxer knock me out, it was a good thing. Before he knock me out I thought I was bullet proof and was probably a little cocky. It did not stop me from fighting, just made me a lot more careful.

 

[drop bear]

Why? Because I've never lost a fight? Sure I have. Plenty.
But it's not a horrible loss.
I lost an eye in a fight. That might qualify as horrible.
Your mum dying in a fiery crash. That's horrible.
Your child dying because some idiot wouldn't vaccinate theirs. That's horrible.
Watching your best friend die a slow miserable death from alcoholism. That's horrible.
Some nutter intentionally driving a car into a crowd. That's horrible.
You got your butt kicked in a competition match?
That's not horrible. Suck it up.

It depends on how much the results matter. If you don't really try then you never really lost.

 

[Dirty Dog]

It depends on how much the results matter. If you don't really try then you never really lost.

I do try. In any competition (assuming it's an even match) I do my flat out best. But it's not horrible if I lose. My ego doesn't demand that I be The Best In The World. I'm allowed to have an off day. I'm even allowed to be just plain not as good as someone else.

 

[Headhunter]

I do try. In any competition (assuming it's an even match) I do my flat out best. But it's not horrible if I lose. My ego doesn't demand that I be The Best In The World. I'm allowed to have an off day. I'm even allowed to be just plain not as good as someone else.

Yep at the end of the day so what if you lose a competition? What've you lost....a plastic trophy? Who gives a damm. I've never been paid for any fighting competition I've been in so I get the same if I win or lose. I can understands pros getting a bit more upset with it because they miss out on a bigger payday and future better money but even then it's not a horrible thing. I just don't understand these people who can't accept it and it messes them up. Like get over it it's an amateur competition most times that probably only about 5 people saw (3 of them your family) so losing really doesn't matter at all

 

[drop bear]

I do try. In any competition (assuming it's an even match) I do my flat out best. But it's not horrible if I lose. My ego doesn't demand that I be The Best In The World. I'm allowed to have an off day. I'm even allowed to be just plain not as good as someone else.

And try as in three months training camp. Weight cuts. Basically a chunk of your life sacrificed so you can win that competition?

 

[Gerry Seymour]

It depends on how much the results matter. If you don't really try then you never really lost.

I don't know that I can draw a necessary correlation between how much it matters and how hard you fight. When I played competitive sports, losing never hurt near as much as winning felt good. I could live with a loss, as long as I'd done all I could. So I played hard and got over losses. There were things I wouldn't do (rules were part of the game, and I had no interest in "taking out" another player), but I did all I could to win within those limits.

 

[drop bear]

I don't know that I can draw a necessary correlation between how much it matters and how hard you fight. When I played competitive sports, losing never hurt near as much as winning felt good. I could live with a loss, as long as I'd done all I could. So I played hard and got over losses. There were things I wouldn't do (rules were part of the game, and I had no interest in "taking out" another player), but I did all I could to win within those limits.

There might be a correlation between really wanting to succeed and succeeding though.

Do many elite athletes share this ho hum approach to competing?

I have a ho hum approach to competition as well. But the I am also not very successful. But the people who have a serious attitude towards competition tend to do better.

Is this striving to be mediocre?

 

[Gerry Seymour]

There might be a correlation between really wanting to succeed and succeeding though.

Do many elite athletes share this ho hum approach to competing?

I have a ho hum approach to competition as well. But the I am also not very successful. But the people who have a serious attitude towards competition tend to do better.

Is this striving to be mediocre?

The distinction I was trying to point to is the difference between wanting to succeed and being crushed by loss. Those are not the same thing for me, in anything.

I do think there's an inherent advantage to those who are more driven to avoid the loss. They are willing to do things I'm not during the competition (some within the rules, some not). And the drive to not lose possibly (probably?) drives them to train harder, too.

 

[Dirty Dog]

And try as in three months training camp. Weight cuts. Basically a chunk of your life sacrificed so you can win that competition?

In my younger days, sure. And losing wasn't horrible.
Still isn't.

I've a friend who was on the US Olympic Soccer team in 1980. The year we didn't go. He wasn't thrilled about it. But I've seen plenty of people who have suffered horrible losses. He didn't act like them. Not at all.

 

[mrt2]

That never happened before and won't happen again... To my partial excuse we were about 19 and 18 when that stuff happened... It wouldn't happen now that I'm 25. Still, for sure my eagerness to beat her up badly in a real match got me kod...

For everyone: thanks a lot for every reply, but, about the words I choose, I kindly remind you english is not my native language, so maybe I can't express some concepts as I wish.

That is a good thing. I don't know what country you live in but in the US, if you are fighting outside of a ring like, say, in the locker room or outside the dojo, the authorities can treat it as an assault and battery which, depending on the damage inflicted, carries with it between 9 months and 3 or 4 years in prison. And, you could lose your right to vote, and your right to own firearms if that sort of thing is important to you.

I am wondering how your instructor dealt with this conflict with this other girl. I know at my school, such behavior would have serious consequences, possibly including one or both students being kicked out.

 

[drop bear]

The distinction I was trying to point to is the difference between wanting to succeed and being crushed by loss. Those are not the same thing for me, in anything.

I do think there's an inherent advantage to those who are more driven to avoid the loss. They are willing to do things I'm not during the competition (some within the rules, some not). And the drive to not lose possibly (probably?) drives them to train harder, too.

People who are willing to accept more loss are willing to try harder. And are generally better at stuff.

A way of dealing with a crushing defeat is not competing. But it is striving to be mediocre. Can't win, don't try.

A way of rationalizing that mediocrity is suggesting that striving big and loosing hard is somehow immature or egotistical. Because it makes people feel better about their own decisions.

 

[drop bear]

In my younger days, sure. And losing wasn't horrible.
Still isn't.

I've a friend who was on the US Olympic Soccer team in 1980. The year we didn't go. He wasn't thrilled about it. But I've seen plenty of people who have suffered horrible losses. He didn't act like them. Not at all.

So you don't really engage in that emotional risk. And you don't know anyone who engages in that emotional risk.

Well I do. And they go further in martial arts than you or me.

Which is why you wouldn't understand someone who does.

It isn't egotistical to suffer a loss. It is egotistical to condemn someone for their suffering.