Finally Tried, Finally Failed

[Thrillho]

So about a year ago I put up a great big thread all about how I was vowing to compete in the 2016 Tiger Balm Internationals.  I had reminders taped up all around my house.  I had a framed "What Is Your 2016 Goal?" certificate from the Nothern Sports Centre with "Medal At The Tiger Balms" written in big orange letters.  I actually made a painting, a real life painting made out of paint, to help me focus on the Tiger Balms. I did training seminars with UFC fighter Kajan Johnson and 7-time National Lightweight Boxing Champion Kenny Lally.  I did a Tough Mudder, I ran Storm The Hill, I watched my diet and dropped 13 pounds after New Years, and I somehow convinced my entire family to come watch me.

 

That's the painting over there on the left. 

 

Surprise surprise, my family sat around for 16 hours across two days to watch me lose four out of four matches. I could go into a ton of reasons as to why what happened happened, some external factors, some internal factors, but the fact of the matter is I was not yet good enough to compete at that level.  If I had been, those external factors over which I had no control  would not have mattered.  And, to be perfectly honest and not grind myself TOO hard, not once in those four bouts against superheavyweights (all of whom had competed in previous Tiger Balms), did I go down.  My final fight, while trying to shield from strikes to the back of my head (illegal, but whatever), I left my elbows wide and recieved an uppercut that broke my nose.  With six seconds to go and me perfectly willing to continue (oh, I had lost by this point, but I wasn't going to quit), the judges and the medics agreed that since they couldn't stop the bleeding I was disqualified. 

 

Everyone else from my gym medaled.  Eleven medals across seven other people, and me with a broken nose and a perfect record (just perfect on the wrong side). 

 

I haven't been back to my gym since then (except for a Kajan Johnson footwork seminar that I would have been a fool to skip).  I haven't properly worked out since then.  I've gained back most of those 13 lbs since then. I won't deny, it was a massive blow to my self esteem. The fighters all shook my hands after and said I was all heart, and even some of the judges talked to me afterwards and congratulated me for standing up and throwing, but the ability to take a punch or a kick isn't what I was there to prove. I knew I could take a punch. I wanted to prove that after all of these years of talking about it I could actually compete, and succeed.

 

Didn't happen.

 

Sort of riding on those coattails, I was finishing off my English 206 course in the month after that.  Of the two things that I dream about, the two things I obsess over (in my mind), the two things that I find myself focusing on when my brain is allowed to wander, being a writer comes out ahead of martial arts. I've wanted to be a writer since I was four, and I've wanted to be a professional writer ever since I got a poem printed in the Province (the big city newspaper) when I was seven-ish. I've been writing stories on the side, in my head, on my laptops and just all over the place constantly but inefficiently in my spare time.  Literally millions of words.  This course at the university is the first 'creative' course I've ever taken, after 137 credits of business and engineering. It's the first course I've ever taken because I WANTED to take it, not because it was associated with my various degrees. Most of the course was focused around creating an original short story / novella, which is what I do best. It could be about anything, but the only requirement was we had to punish the protagonist (I'm good at that, too).  I thought I was going to love this and it was going to be the greatest experience of my life and help motivate me to finally do something as a writer.

 

I hated my story.  So much.  It was pretty holistically terrible.  In the week before I had to hand it in I trimmed out 6000 words and re-wrote the ending a second, and then a third time.  When I handed it in I had finally figured out which parts in the middle needed to be re-written, maybe where some improved foreshadowing and callbacks could have gone, but there was no time left. I didn't like the plot, I wasn't a fan of the arc the character took, and I feel like it was based too much on the background setting of a sort of Lovecraftian horror story I've had kicking around. I managed to fit in some fun dialogue in the end, and at the chapterbook release party for the course that was the section my wife convinced me to read.  I hated this story...

 

... and yet my teacher selected me to be the closer for the night.  38 readers, and I went last. No pressure!  My legs were shaking the entire time, my hands were shaking, and that wasn't just entirely because of how much I hated my story... I hate crowds.  So much.  I was shaking a half hour later when we drove home. Despite my terror, I apparently killed it. I had to pause twice for laughter.  All of the copies I brought with me to hand out or trade sold out in five minutes, and I ended up trading e-mail addresses with people so I could send them a copy.  I hated my story, but apparently it did pretty good. 

 

Up until that moment, though, I was riding on two colossal failures.  

 

The only two things I really liked to do with my scant spare time were MMA and writing. I had just played around with them for years, treating them like a hobby, never once considering actually putting myself out there for the world to see and the world to judge. But 2016 was going to be different... I put myself out there for both things, and failed.  Hard.  For a couple weeks there I was just numb to the world, finding out at the age of thirty five that the things I ACTUALLY wanted to do with my life, the things that brought me happiness and a sense of fulfillment, I was actually terrible at. 

 

Long story short: I wasn't good at anything, and now I had proof.

 

...

 

Things have bounced back since then.  Like I said, parts of my story actually got a really good reception, and my teacher was enormously impressed that this was the first creative writing course I've ever taken. I've started working out again a tiny bit, mostly to try and get SOME tone back before my next 'fight' at Ellismania 12 (Sasquatch vs Yeti, for charity). Now that I know what to expect (the rules are meaningless and the schedule is a lie) I want to come back to the 2017 Tiger Balms. I've got another Tough Mudder and another Storm The Hill this year, and I want to crush last year's times. 

 

I feel fat right now, and I know it's because... well, I'm fat.  I've been so completely off-diet for a month straight that it's almost difficult to know where to start.  I've completely dropped out of the last two Challenges here (Monk and Warrior), and I'm not sure the challenges are really what I need. I've begun de-caffienating again today, in order to try and get my sleep and energy under control. That's important because I'm going to be working out in the mornings at the gym again, and I need to be able to get out of bed in the morning. 

 

This post bounced around pretty randomly, and bless you if you're even still reading at this point.  I need to restore my confidence, I need to get in shape, I need to work out and eat right, and I can't rely on the brief fleeting moments of 'motivation'... I need the painful, annoying and incessant harassment of discipline. 

 

 

[Zahirah]

I honestly feel I don't have words appropriate for this.  Like this is probably the most inspiring thing I've read in a while.

Thank you.