Fight or Flight
Ringside lessons and the goals that keep rolling into next month
Last Saturday, I visited Helsingborg to see a friend compete in a Muay Thai fight.
This was the first time I had the chance to see a fight live ringside, and in the process, I got a completely new appreciation for the thrill and agony of martial arts.
On TV, a fighter looks no different to a movie character — someone you’re rooting for and aren’t necessarily connected with. In person however, it’s completely different.
You see a human at the end of each strike and the eyes of someone who is ready to put their life on the line in the ring. Before each fight, it’s like time has stood still. The crowd is tense. Every sound is amplified. And once the bell rings, everything goes by in a flash.
The speed of each split second decision is what surprised me most. Knowing when to slip, when to jab, when to shoot a combo, when to press your opponent, when to pull back and reset. You have to figure it all out in the moment, all while someone is at arms length from you, and is also willing to put everything on the line to win.
This was my friend’s first fight back since his knee surgery and he won by majority decision.
When I spoke to him after, I asked him how he stayed locked in amidst all the chaos. Here’s what he said:
“When facing an opponent in front of you, you cannot show any hesitation. I knew you (friends) and my family were here and I wasn’t going to back down. I just had to go for it. There’s no other way.”
I’ve been thinking about that since he said it.
In certain cases, and especially for the people I work with, my level of discipline and attention to detail is pristine, aggressive, and thorough. I don’t hesitate. When someone trusts me with their life’s work, I treat it like the most important thing in the world, because in that moment it is.
Where things shift is when I turn that same lens on myself. What I do for others often takes precedence over the stuff I’d do for myself. I’ll tell myself I’ll get to it when the time is right. When I’ve taken care of x thing for y person. Now, I’ve started to wonder if the patience I’ve given myself is actually just permission to coast in disguise.
Whenever May comes around I think to myself, damn, where did the year go? I know I’ve done a lot already this year that I’m genuinely happy about. But I still have things I imagined I’d finish by now, especially for myself, that I’ve kept delaying for another month.
Solo traveling is one. It’s something I’ve wanted to do and pushed off for as long as possible, and now that I’m finally close to doing it, it’s only happening because I gave myself a deadline to get it done. It could have happened a lot earlier. But the only thing standing between me and the trip was my own willingness to keep waiting.
The fighter in the ring gives absolutely everything every round. There’s no other way, especially when someone is staring at you from a few feet away who is just as hungry to win.
We take things easy only because we know we can take it easy. But when you see someone who cannot afford that same luxury, trust me, it makes you want to stop affording it to yourself and your ambitions.
When I start treating myself with that same discipline and refusal to let things slide, I think a lot of the goals that keep rolling into next month will be done in good time.
The question worth thinking about is how do you let the fighter within free to help you go after what’s yours? And how differently would you act if you knew someone else was willing to fight you for everything you have.
Talk soon,
Pranav
P.S. shoutout to the Starfighter Kenny Hong for the incredible perfomance!