Fighter's Mind, A Read online

  Pro MMA fighters will train at least twice a day, maybe three times. Strength and conditioning would be one session, then technique followed by hard sparring that night. Part of the relentless overtraining comes from the fact that there are so many disciplines to train, but another big factor is the wrestling mentality—where more is always better—inherited from the likes of Dan Gable. Often, fighters train too hard, too long, and either fight injured or miss paydays because of injury.

  “Overtraining in this sport is an enormous mental issue. I tell fighters to get the fuck out of the dojo . . . because it just leads to burnout, mentally and physically. That’s why a shorter camp is better. We went through a bad patch here one summer when everyone was overtrained and everyone lost. It was crazy. But I learned my lesson.”

  What about personal burnout? Greg has an interesting way, unique to New Mexico, of recharging his batteries. He grew up with a strong sense of local history, and one of his favorite hobbies is “ghost towning,” where you get maps and track down old ghost towns in the New Mexican wilderness.

  “It’s incredible, these abandoned towns. Such hard work went into it and now nature is reclaiming everything. You come over a ridge and find a town that has been essentially unchanged for 130 years. It’s a window into history. I get a sense of my own mortality. You find shoes, and books—they just up and left everything.”

  I spent only the week there but I felt like I connected with Greg. Probably everyone feels like this; it’s part of what makes him a great trainer. We talked about books, about history, about warfare and Zen. Greg’s interests are enormously varied. He reads and reflects on a range of subjects from military history to musical theory. You start to understand the little “cult of Jackson” going on, because he’s a deeply intelligent, caring guy who’s involved in a rough business with often damaged souls. Greg made a critical point—that the gym gives you a social circle. “We have kids in here that are borderline mentally ill, who wouldn’t get any respect anywhere else. But they work hard in here, and they get better, so they get respect.” That is true of every fight gym I’ve ever been in.

  “There’s an old Celtic proverb that I follow: See much, study much, suffer much is the path to wisdom. It’s not sitting and suffering. You’ve got to have a goal. You’re not just making yourself miserable, you don’t self-flagellate and become world champ. It’s suffering and functioning, focusing. You learn about yourself. You increase the amount you can take.”

  I sat there nodding at his words like an idiot. I have a tattoo on my arm—MUNDIS EX IGNE FACTUS EST—which means “The world is made of fire,” and it basically says the same thing to me. It’s a reminder that suffering and struggle are the ways to truth, to understanding, and the only way to save your own soul.

  “I’m an adventurer,” Greg says lightly. “I still go out there and suffer. You can’t let fear be a factor. I wrestled crocodiles with Steve Irwin, and I still get in there and spar, and run, and go hard.”

  Back up a second. You did what? Out comes a fascinating side story, and an unexpected mentor—Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter. For those who live in a deep dark cave, Steve was an Australian naturalist who came to fame as the TV personality who “wrestled” crocodiles. Steve had grown up in his father’s Reptile and Fauna Park, and he would chase all manner of dangerous animals around Australia and bring the cameras with him. He wasn’t just a self-promoter; he had a deep love for what he did, a joy in conservation and a genuine spirit that made him into an international celebrity. He was killed in 2006 by a stingray barb while filming. It was a tragic event that gripped the major media for some days.

  Greg laughed at my curiosity. “Steve and I were friends for years. Now, I wasn’t his best friend, but I was his friend, and I’ll always be in debt to him. I went to Australia with Joey Villasenor, who was fighting Steve’s bodyguard, a guy named Danny. After the fights I asked Danny which zoo I should go to. I didn’t know much or care about Steve. But I was lucky enough to meet him and become his friend. He’d fly me out and we’d train together—and he hit like a freight train. He could have fought. He was an amazing human being. A week before he died we caught crocs for nine days in northern Queensland on the Kennedy River.” Greg pauses, nearly tearing up.

  “He taught me a lot about fame. He said, ‘I always thought I’d have certain people around me my entire life, and then they’d be gone.’ He meant that people change, that fame changes people. The fighter I train now won’t be the same person in six years if he’s successful. Steve was down-to-earth, but he used his fame to get his message out. He stayed positive, he stayed away from the negative stuff on the Internet, which used to bother me. I use his lessons for my fighters that have success. If you do your art well, fame is something that you deal with.

  “Steve taught me how to feed the crocodiles, how to get into a little tug-of-war so they’d death roll. He was a phenomenal guy. It really satisfied an ancient urge for me. I used to watch horror movies and think about how to beat the monster. Ever since I was a kid I always wanted to wrestle a dinosaur.”

  There was a deep lull while Greg and I were just chilling in the office, and I asked him about some of the pictures on his wall—George Washington, Abe Lincoln, and Ernest Shackleton.

  “When I make mistakes I look at those pictures. Burnout is my number-one enemy. I have to look for inspiration to stay on the cutting edge.

  “George Washington, losing battle after battle? How the fuck did he keep the army together? The man is a genius, not the greatest field general but no one could break him. His line was non-existent, but no one could break George Washington. Same with Lincoln, no one could break him. With Shackleton, he got broken once with Scott, and he learned from it and you could never break him again. There was a summer when all my guys were losing, and I was hearing ‘Oh, Jackson’s went from the glory of Rome to the last days of Pompeii in a week,’ and I was questioning myself. But I come in here and look at these pictures and slap myself, Shut the fuck up, you’re not leading soldiers with no shoes through the snow to death.”

  Greg smiles but he says a picture is missing—Genghis Khan. Greg makes a point to pronounce the name correctly, with a soft ‘g,’ jhengis. He can’t get the one that he wants shipped to him, of old Genghis wearing a simple gi.

  “I walk around thinking, how can you be that smart? Genghis was the first mixed martial artist. He utilized everyone’s talents and brought them into the fold. He took siege war craft from China and used it in the Middle East. He borrowed what worked and didn’t discriminate. He united all kinds of peoples, every nationality, and I try to emulate that with a real ‘hive mind.’ George St. Pierre has a phenomenal wrestling coach, but all this together, this hybrid is better yet. When I read about Genghis I think about how somebody could be so smart and it makes me want to punch myself in the face.”

  He laughed ruefully.

  I remember reading a book that said something along the lines of “imagine a Negro slave in colonial America gaining his freedom and eventually conquering North and South America with an army—that’s still not as astounding as what Genghis did.” To this day, no modern empire or nation has been as large in terms of landmass.

  Greg muttered, “The only thing that kept Genghis from conquering Europe is that he died. If he’d had another two lifetimes he’d have done it, easy. But when he was just starting out, he was being hunted in the mountains with his last twelve guys or so, and they had no fresh water so they drank dirty, brackish water. Years later, when he’d conquered the world, he always brought his loyal guys with him, the guys who had drank the dark water.”

  It’s a line Greg goes back to when he talks about his guys, the fighters who have been with him for so long, who were around when he started his gym on the dusty streets in this desert city.

  Greg has a genuine softness when it comes to caring for his fighters. I hadn’t expected it, but it made sense, in terms of the fanatical loyalty they showed him. He loves his guys, those guy
s who’ve drank the dark water.

  “It was drilled into my head, that happiness comes from helping people. Since day one. So now I’m just helping. It doesn’t matter if they live up to it, they fight for themselves, the win is for them. I’m outside the cage, safe, and they’re the ones getting punched and feeling pressure. I’m about the process—the process is for me. I always train to win but the process is important. If they lose, I get broken up and emotional, but I recover and go back to the process. The fight is only fifteen minutes, the process is months, years. If it was just about the fight I’d have a miserable life.”

  I see Greg get choked up a few times, discussing his fighters. He cares and cares deeply. He’s young, not burned out. His initial wariness was about protecting that softness.

  Greg’s father is the second tenor for the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra. “We had two traditions in my family—wrestling and music. I wasn’t really musical, but I love listening to it.

  “Bach to me is the greatest composer who ever lived. He did exactly what we do in the martial arts, with all the complexity . . . but his genius was far greater. He hid his name in the music. He worked the trinity in everywhere, in layers. It’s beautiful and so intricate, so counterpoint, the crab canons with one going this way and one going that way.” Greg dances his hands like opposing crabs running.

  “In the same way, you can find beauty in an ant walking up a hill. At first you think, wow that’s beautiful, and then you start to think about the mechanics and it blows your mind. I do that thing where I stomp around the room wondering ‘how can somebody be so smart?’ I love the way Bach turns things. You know how we do a kimura from on top, in side control? The same thing works from underneath. Bach does that with his music. It’s the exact same thing but upside down.”

  Greg sighs deeply.

  “If we have a night where all my guys win, all four or five, then my treat is Beethoven’s Ninth, ‘The Ode to Joy,’ the most beautiful and emotional thing ever written.” He smiles.

  I have a plane to catch. But if I was going to fight again, I’d come here.

  THE GUNSLINGER

  Renzo Gracie catches Pat Miletich in a guillotine,

  September 23, 2006. (Courtesy Zach Lynch)

  “You must hold the drawn bowstring,” answered the Master, “like

  a little child holding the proffered finger. It grips so firmly that

  one marvels at the strength of the tiny fist. And when it lets the

  finger go, there is not the slightest jerk. Do you know why?

  Because the child doesn’t think: I will now let go of the finger to

  grasp this other thing. Completely unselfconsciously, without

  purpose, it turns from one to the other, and we would say that it

  was playing with things, were it not equally true that the things

  were playing with the child.”

  —Eugen Herrigel

  The Gracie family is the first family of mixed martial arts—their contribution to the sport is nothing short of fundamental. In postcolonial Rio de Janeiro, the vibrant maze city that hung like a jewel of water on a spiderweb between the deep blue sea and the green jungle, a Brazilian politician and businessman of Scottish descent, Gastao Gracie befriended a wandering professional fighter and Japanese judoka master, Mitsuya Maeda, in 1917. Gastao helped Maeda do business in Rio. In return, Maeda agreed to instruct Gastao’s eldest boy, Carlos.

  Carlos and his brothers embraced and reinvented what they’d learned, and since the 1920s they’ve fostered an atmosphere of innovation and real-world combat in Rio. They challenged any and all comers, and nearly always won in the vale tudo (“anything goes”) matches. The philosophy of arte suave—constant innovation and relentless testing, all on the ground—made for a revolution in the fighting world.

  Brazil is a modern nation of frozen colonial power structures and wealth disparity. The Portuguese came to steal, exploit, and find gold to take home, not build a nation, and Brazil still suffers from those rapacious intentions woven into the cloth of her identity. In some ways, Brazil lags behind today’s world by a full century; in others it is inescapably modern—educated, monied. The nature of jiu-jitsu reflects the dualities of scientific technique combining with old-school Latin-American machismo, a need to fight to prove who is the toughest, along with another Brazilian trait, the love of play.

  While Royce (pronounced “Hoyce,” as all ‘R’ sounds are ‘H’ in Portuguese) Gracie was the standard-bearer for jiu-jitsu, chosen by the forward-looking Rorion (“Horion”) Gracie to lead the way in the initial UFCs and showcase the family’s art, and Rickson (“Hickson”) is the legend, the undefeated greatest who lives shrouded in mystery, to me the truly greatest Gracie is a younger cousin, Renzo (yes, “Henzo”)—who fought anyone, anywhere, and took his losses and his wins with equal aplomb.

  Renzo seemed apart from the convoluted family politics. He put himself out there, and he embodied what the Gracies claimed to be about. He fought anyone, anytime. When you step back and look at his fighting career as a whole, Renzo is probably underrated. In the beginning, when Royce won the UFC, not many people were aware of what he was doing. He was armbarring fighters who didn’t know the danger they were in. The legendary Rickson has always been criticized for not fighting the best available, but in truth (being a generation older) he came up at a time when there wasn’t as much competition, especially outside of Brazil. Rickson was retiring as international MMA blossomed.

  Renzo consistently puts his money where his mouth is, and he fought with the best he could find. He fought and beat much bigger guys, and not clueless boxers but seasoned mixed martial artists such as Maurice Smith (235 pounds), Oleg Taktorov (210 pounds), and the like, most of whom outweighed him significantly and knew his game. His natural fighting weight would have been 155—and he was fighting heavyweights, good heavyweights for the time. It’s unimaginable now. What I also love about Renzo is that he kept doing it, even through losing fights to bigger fighters like Sakuraba or Dan Henderson. Royce and Rickson seemed protective of their legacies, but Renzo was never precious about his. He would risk it (and himself) at the drop of a hat. In his last three fights, Renzo has beaten three former UFC champions—Pat Miletich, Carlos Newton, and Frank Shamrock.

  Renzo was never a muscular freak of an athlete but a normal guy with a head of thick black curly hair and an open honest face. His standup wasn’t his strength, but it was effective, and he was a fighter—he’d force opponents to respect his hands, just a little. His ground game was superlative. To this day (in the twilight of his career) he still has to be considered one of the best in the world on the ground, and an elite-level fighter, for despite the sport’s quantum growth he has grown with it. Renzo still sometimes throws in his hat at Abu Dhabi, one of the very few MMA guys who will compete in pure grappling competitions.

  Renzo has done it all with an incredible lightness of spirit, a human warmth and ease that makes him one of the best on-camera interviews in the business and one of the great teachers and most respected men in the fighting world.

  Renzo was born into fighting. Fighting was the family business. His brothers and cousins and fathers and uncles were all dedicated to jiu-jitsu. The Gracie family had decided to go that way, to make their bones in that world, as a family. Renzo makes it clear that it wasn’t forced, that nobody had do to anything they hated.

  “We all grew up like champions, eating right, thinking right—we were built and forged to be the best. But everything came very naturally. We were never forced to fight. It surrounded us. Everything began as play. We spent time as kids at the academy, my brothers, cousins, everyone. Many in the family don’t follow fighting as a profession, but they are still very strong-minded.” The Gracie family is huge, and not everyone fights professionally, but almost everyone has logged some mat time.

  “You start seeing your relatives, the people you love and admire, involved in jiu-jitsu and so you end up embracing that. It becomes a way of
life, and then of course you want to excel and be the best. It comes naturally. And the way jiu-jitsu is, you want to win. You start to know that to be second place is just to be the first loser. That appetite is such a big part of the game.”

  Renzo sometimes seems a man out of time. There’s something about him of the nineteenth-century gentleman, to whom honor and respect are far more important than life and limb, something about the feudalism of Rio and the nature of what he does. Brazil in the 1970s (when he was a boy) was still governed by colonial ethics, with the remnants of the Portuguese romanticism. There’s a great new documentary film, called Legacy (made by Gethin Aldous), about Renzo, and in it Renzo’s brilliant loquaciousness is on full display, bon mot following bon mot. Renzo talks about his father, Robson (also a jiu-jitsu mestre), who at one point took to the streets in an attempt to change things for the better and nearly lost his life. The Gracie family name saved him. Robson was obviously another iconoclast in this family of warrior monks. All of these factors combine to make Renzo a more unique individual than even he realizes.

  I came to New York to talk to Renzo and hung around his school until he showed up. “Meet me at six,” he said, and showed promptly at ten, classic carioca (the slang in Brazil for someone who lives in Rio, where punctuality is not a virtue). But once I got hold of him, Renzo understood what I was after and showed me why he was the most fun interview in MMA. The next day I drove out to his house, where he made me welcome.