Since we’ve moved to Fighting Fit Martial Arts Centre (www.fightingfitmartialartscentre.co.uk) I’ve been taking some conditioning classes, one on a Friday night, and one on a Saturday morning. It’s been an interesting exercise for a number of reasons, but mainly ‘cos I enjoy seeing the different attitudes people have to training where the main aim of the sessions is to put people deep into varying states of lactic acid induced agony. Now I understand why this is daunting for some, particularly those who are unfamiliar with the bitter taste of bile and that sense of ‘please kill me now... it hurts’. In fact I’ve laughed week in week out at the reaction people have to the 10 seconds after a round finishes, when the lactic acid takes its full grip of the muscle groups under stress and the individual’s face is either screwed up like they have a lemon in their mouth or they adopt that mouth hanging open, wide eyed, I’ve-just-eaten-the-hottest- chilli-in-the-world look. Maybe it’s the sadist in me; maybe it’s the enthusiasm for seeing people take themselves completely out of their comfort zone. Maybe I shouldn’t over analyse it... maybe I’m ill.

I’m still struggling with a hip problem and consequently can only really take part in some exercises at about 60%. It’s incredibly frustrating and for the best part of 3 months I’ve been sidelined or limited in my participation. I must be growing up though, ‘cos I know that just a few years back I’d have carried on training and hoped it’d go away. Instead I had physio, rested and am easing back in slowly. As sensible as this is I have a horrible fear. As my fitness slowly dwindles and my classes continue to improve the conditioning of my team mates I’m in danger of losing one of my biggest advantages... I could previously always, in times of technical difficulty, up the pace and make my sparring partners struggle physically. It’ll be interesting to see how I cope technically in the next few months. Who knows, maybe in the long run it’ll be the best thing for my all round game.

One thing this lay off has helped me to appreciate is how much I really do enjoy training. Not just jiu jitsu or wrestling or boxing necessarily, but just getting a sweat on, ‘feeling the burn’ and getting some big lungfuls of air. I haven’t been able to run and I hate that. Most injuries I’ve had (and there have been many!) have at least allowed me to run, even when I can’t train MMA. I love it. Not jogging or plodding, but running. I even have a selection of Asics trainers that have accumulated 1000’s of miles between them. How relevant running is to MMA is irrelevant, I love it and will always do it. I think everyone has something like that. For some people it is weights... I know that’s Pep’s thing. Others cringe at the thought of either of them, but they do still play football, rugby or basketball. John is particularly (if reports are true) proficient at competition cake eating, David at lying-in, Matt at making-excuses-to-not-train-with-Dave. Whatever the choice they all involve considerable effort outside of MMA.

I think I’ve found a kindred spirit however. Steve. He seems to love training as much as I do, if not more. I remembered a comment Pep made a few years ago and it has stuck with me, it is true of Steve too. Forgive me if I’ve mentioned it before – one night we were talking about training and I was getting on Pep’s back about something or other relating to fitness. He gave the following scenario to Matt:

“You know what... imagine if you could take a pill or something which would make you completely fit... and as long as you took the pills you wouldn’t ever need to train... so picture it... everyone who takes the pills is as fit as each other and no extra training would help improve that fitness... Dave would still train wouldn’t he?”

Matt just nodded. So did I - with a big grin on my face. I love it.