What Motivates a Fighter?

During the week leading up to UFC 102 in Portland, Oregon, I spent a lot of time with a house full of fighters from all over the country, as well as with Randy Couture. All of this interaction gave me the rare opportunity to have conversations with a broad spectrum of fighters about what motivates them to work as hard as they do. Not surprisingly, almost all of them are motivated by the goal of winning the belt!

The Most Prized Belt

If you’re a fighter, there is only one belt you’re motivated by—the UFC championship belt. Joe Warren, the world champion in Greco-Roman wrestling who recently made the transition to MMA said to me, “It’s all about winning bigger and better belts!” I had to ask him how he determined the worth of a belt or medal, and his answer was intriguing. He explained, “It all depends on who gives it to you.”

There are countless wrestling tournaments that you can win a medal from, but if you win a medal at the Olympics, it’s because of the event that makes the reward so special. If you win a belt from a small MMA organization, it doesn’t mean as much as winning the belt from the UFC because the UFC is recognized as the biggest and best of all MMA organizations. The prize derives its value from the organization or person that represents it.

Our Reward: The Crown of Righteousness

I believe this principle helps us understand Paul’s statement in 2 Timothy 4:6-8:

For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.

I have often wondered what the “crown of righteousness” really is and why I would want one. I see now that the value of the crown is derived from the person who is giving it to me! Jesus Christ is the one who will give the crown to each of us. That fact should motivate us to persevere much more than the reward itself.

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Discipleship: Click | View Series

MMAWEEKLY recently made the following statement concerning Nate Marquardt: "Greg Jackson disciple Nate Marquardt exploited a gap in footwork and conditioning to secure his seventh victory in the UFC on Saturday." Once again we see this word—disciple—used in the context of martial arts in a way that we can learn from as disciples of Jesus Christ. What makes people call Nate, who is a brother in Christ, a disciple of Greg Jackson?

Sacrifice Your Convenience

One of Nate's qualities is a willingness to sacrifice his convenience in order to be under Greg's teaching. Nate lives in Denver, Colorado, and has his own gym there, but Greg teaches in New Mexico. Despite this inconvenience, Nate leaves his family and job in Denver, on a regular basis, to travel to New Mexico and train because he is committed to learning from and becoming a fighter like Greg Jackson.

Recently I met Rich Franklin in Bellevue, Washington, while attending a local fight. Rich lives in Ohio, yet he was in Washington because he trains under Matt Hume. On a regular basis, he leaves Ohio and his wife so that he might learn from and become a fighter like Matt Hume.

These fighters are not alone; Team Quest is full of people who have left their homes and family to move to Gresham, Oregon, in order to become a "Team Quest Fighter." Xtreme Couture is also full of fighters who have left family and friends to move to Las Vegas, so that they might train under Randy Couture. To be a disciple in the fight game means sacrificing part of your personal life and convenience.

Sacrifice Your Job

In Matthew 4, Jesus calls his first disciples. Peter and Andrew are busy working their jobs as fishermen, and when Jesus calls them, they immediately leave their nets and follow him. Then he sees James and John working with their father, and when he calls them, they immediately leave their job and father to follow him as well. Being a disciple of Jesus Christ requires commitment and sacrifice, and it is interesting to me that the first four disciples left their jobs in order to follow Jesus. For men, this is incredibly applicable since we have a natural tendency to define ourselves by our jobs.

Too often we get our sense of worth from our jobs, we sacrifice our families for our jobs, we live under the authority of our jobs, and we do what our jobs dictate. In short, we can easily worship our jobs. This means that to become a disciple of Jesus Christ we must leave our jobs, not in the sense that we must give up our employment, but rather that we will no longer worship it.

In some extreme situations, we may need to physically leave our jobs. Mark 8:35 says, "For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it." The bottom line is that choosing to be a disciple of Jesus will require sacrifice, a sacrifice that God will honor by giving us something better than what we gave up.

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As far as I know, only two groups of people use the word "disciple" with any frequency in our culture: the church and the martial arts. Recently a close friend of mine, who is a professional fighter, committed his life to following Christ, and it became painfully clear to me that this word—disciple—may not mean the same thing to both groups.

A Disciple of Renzo Gracie

I recently met someone at a fight, and when I asked him where he trained he told me that he was "a disciple of Renzo Gracie." This answer told me more about him than if he had given me the location and name of the gym he trains at, the names of his coaches, and the types of classes he attends. He is committed to becoming the same fighter as Renzo Gracie, and everything else is just a function of that goal.

At Team Quest, we don't use the word disciple as frequently as the Gracie jujitsu guys, but we mean the same thing when someone says they are "a Team Quest fighter." For example, recently Dave Jansen fought in Atlantic City, and MMAWeekly.com wrote: "You can tell Jansen is trained by Team Quest. Excellent wrestling complemented with overhand rights that would make Dan Henderson proud."

When someone says they are a Team Quest fighter, it says something very specific about them; when someone says they are a disciple of Renzo Gracie, it also says something very specific about them. It means that they will fight like the founders of that club.

Be a Disciple of Jesus

So what does the word disciple really mean in most church contexts? My experience has been that it means I am doing the correct things with the correct people. I am in a men's group and a home group, and I talk to some other man about it with some level of regularity. But too often the emphasis is on the process or activities, rather than the man we are committed to following. That is why we tend to use language such as "being discipled" rather than "a disciple of," and while it may seem like a subtle and insignificant difference, the results can be drastically different.

If we are disciples of Jesus Christ, we will engage in whatever activities or processes it takes to become like him, which is our ultimate goal. With time, we will begin to respond like Jesus. Live like Jesus. Love like Jesus. Be like Jesus. I think this is what Paul meant when he wrote to Timothy and said, "Practice these things, immerse yourself in them, so that all may see your progress." (1 Tim. 4:15) Maybe we, as Christian men, could learn a few things from martial arts about being a disciple; I know I have.

Advance Conference:

Advance is coming June 2009. The Resurgence is hosting this conference in Raleigh, NC, to provision the local church for the advance of the gospel. Find out more.

I have made a covenant with my eyes; How then could I gaze at a virgin? (Job 31:1)

As we wrap up our discussion of attacks against our conscience, I want to give you some practical tips to help you train your eyes to not look at a woman lustfully. While I realize there are countless things we look at with our physical eyes and lust after, most of us share the common temptation of sexual lust and so I am going to use that in this exercise.

Training For the Bad Situations

When I first started training at Team Quest, the thing that struck me most was how often Matt Lindland and Randy Couture would put us in bad situations and start our live sparring from there. For example, one person would get in tight on a single leg and then the whistle would blow. That person would fight to finish the takedown while the other person would fight to get out of that position without being taken down.

I am not as good from the bottom as I am from the top and so, in practice, when we are given the option of starting from either position, I will always choose bottom. This forces me to work on an area of weakness with the goal of improving, and it works! Now, when I get taken down and put on my back, I am much more difficult to keep down than I was six months ago. You have to put yourself in bad situations in practice so that when you are fighting live it will not be the first time you were there.

Get a Training Partner

When it comes to training your eyes, here’s the drill. First, you have to have one other guy that you are totally honest with about your thoughts in this area. This is your training partner. Now over time as you hang out, drink coffee, watch football, eat lunch, or whatever else you do together, have him watch your eyes. Then when he confronts you on specific things your eyes lingered on, be totally honest about your thoughts. You see, you are in situational training all the time in this world.

Everywhere you go there are visual temptations, and you will be surprised how often you “notice” them once someone starts to point it out to you. But if you will commit yourself to this for three weeks, you will be shocked at the difference it makes in your thought life. If you’re married, discipline yourself to think of your wife naked every time you struggle in this area. And by all means, stare at her! You will most likely get plenty of positive reinforcement when your wife realizes you are staring at her often. It may even lead to some physical activity to complement this mental exercise.

Once your thoughts and energies are freed up from battling where the enemy wants you, you will be freed up to go on offense. And it is always more fun, and less painful, to be on offense in a fight.

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As I write this blog, my body aches from the effects of training at a fight club with men who are much younger than I am. One of my toes is sprained, I think I broke my thumb, I have bruises on my face (which my wife is not fond of), and I tore a chunk of flesh completely off my big toe. None of these are injuries that would keep me from training, but they are very inconvenient and annoying! I made a comment about my aches and pains to one of the professional fighters after practice and he had a very interesting response. It was a bit unexpected, but it made me think. He said:

“There is an easy way to end your suffering: just stop training.”

As he walked away, he threw in, “See ya next Monday!” He knew that I am not about to stop because my goal is not to be pain-free. My goal is to be in shape and improving as a competitor. But his comments have caused me to think about suffering, so I want to share with you some training principles about suffering that you can apply to your life as a follower of Christ.

Two Kinds of Pain

Any competitive athlete will endure a certain amount of pain that is necessary. The pain they experience will fall into two categories. The first is good pain that tells them their body is responding to the training. It hurts, but they realize it is helping them to improve. The second is stupid, unnecessary pain. There are some people who endure needless pain due to stupidity. One extreme example of this is a guy who refused to tap during a submission while training. The result was that he suffered a very serious injury that kept him from fighting. The point is that some pain is the result of our stupidity, while other pain is the “good pain” of pushing yourself to get better. The stupid pain causes you to lose ground in your training, while the “good pain” results in you getting stronger and better. The goal is not to be pain-free; the goal is to get better, and that requires the good pain.

Folly Inhibits Progress

This same principle applies to the Christian life, and it is critical that we understand it correctly. In Scripture we often see the stupid acts that lead to needless pain and suffering classified as folly. Paul addresses this when he writes, “But they will not make further progress; for their folly will be obvious to all, just as Jannes's and Jambres's folly was also” (2 Tim. 3:9 NASB). What jumps out of this passage is that folly inhibits progress, and it is obvious to all! So before we talk about the “good pain,” we have to ask ourselves if our current suffering is the result of our own folly. Think and pray about it, and if needed, repent, so that you can start suffering with Christ and making progress!

Agon Ministries is hosting the Fighting with God conference at Grace Community Church in Gresham, OR, January 16-17. The conference will feature Mark Driscoll, Ken Shamrock, and Matt Lindland along with Darrin Patrick, Ryan Dobson, Mark Hughes, and more. By combining real fighters with some of the best Christian speakers in the country, we will present the spiritual battle in a way you will never forget! And as a special Christmas bonus to all of our Resurgence readers, we are offering $30 off the price of admission through Christmas Day. That makes it $39.99 for the whole conference, plus Matt Lindland has offered to open up Team Quest for you to sleep on the mats if you are coming in from out of town, which makes this even more affordable.

After the conference ends on Saturday, we will open up the church to you and your friends to come back and watch UFC 93 with Ken Shamrock, Trevor Prangley, Matt Lindland, Mark Hughes, Matt Horwich, Ryan Schultz, and many more professional fighters! Your friends will not only enjoy the fights, but they will hear Ken Shamrock tell his life story, which is one of the most interesting, exciting, and non-threatening presentations of the gospel you will ever hear.

Visit fightingwithGod.org to sign up, and make sure to enter "resurgence" in the coupon code to receive your discount.

In every sport there are those marquee matchups that everyone gets excited to see and in MMA it’s no different. This Saturday night we have the opportunity to watch Randy Couture defend his belt against Brock Lesnar who is quite possibly the most physically intimidating man on the planet! For those of you that have been following my blog, you know that we are currently talking about controlling where the fight is fought and this is probably the most important element of Randy’s game plan. A few months ago I spent a couple of hours hanging out with Randy in Atlanta and we talked at length about this fight and the one thing he said he did not want to do was “end up on the ground underneath Brock”.

While this is not a shock to anyone, it is a bold undertaking given that Brock is one of the most athletic, strongest, and best pedigreed wrestlers to enter the sport and he will absolutely be looking to put Randy on his back! So I suggest you go back and read my blog about controlling where you fight, and then watch this Saturday and remind yourself that you have an enemy who wants to take the fight to certain places where you are weak. If he succeeds, you will be much worse off than just waking up with a bad headache and not getting your hand raised.

To break this fight down even more for you, I asked one of the other great wrestlers in MMA to talk to us about how he sees this fight playing out.

On Wednesday November 5th, there will be fight between Paulo Filho and Chael Sonnen.

In this video, Matt Lindland interviews Chael Sonnen. Matt is the cofounder of Fighting with God Ministries. Here on the Resurgence we get the privilege of seeing how God is using Christian fighters to be missional in the MMA community.

In my last blog, I left you with a warning to keep your chin down, and your hands up against attacks from the enemy, since you are most likely to be attacked when you first move forward to engage. I also said that, according to Paul, these attacks would come in one of two broad categories: your faith or your conscience. Today, I want to start with attacks against your conscience. In many ways, attacks against your conscience can be compared to the enemy going for the quick knockout, since the devastation can be very quick and very dramatic. This is the stuff highlight reels are made of!

One Person's Victory Another's defeat

Any of us who follow fighting have our favorite finishes, and my list includes Dan Henderson's brutal knockout of Vanderlei Silva, Gabe Gonzaga's high kick to the cranium of CroCop, and my all time favorite: Ryo Chonan's flying scissor-heel hook to finish Anderson Sylva! Another brutal knockout that is definitely NOT on my list of favorites is that of David Terrell's quick KO of Matt Lindland. The reason it is not on my list is that Matt is a great friend and co-founder of Agon Ministries with me, so it kills me to see that video clip (by the way, Lindland would destroy Terrell 99 times out of 100!). The point here is that one person's highlight reel is another person's embarrassment, depending on whose side you are on, and it is the same with the spiritual battle.

Satan's Highlight Reel

If Satan and his fight team were to show their highlight reel, it would include many of his victories that we are well aware of. Most recently, we remember the Ted Haggard scandal, but history is littered with men who are remembered for their moral failure, while their life accomplishments are all but forgotten. These would be the most likely candidates for the enemy's highlights.

Satan Delights in Your Crash

It is a lot like the life of Vinko Bogataj from Yugoslavia. While you probably don't recognize the name, if you're a bit older, like myself, you will remember him from the opening segment of the 70's show "Wide World of Sports." The show opened with a line about the agony of defeat while showing his now-infamous ski crash, which has become synonymous with that phrase. However, hours earlier, Vinko had jumped over 400 feet, but no one remembers that, or his name--only the crash. Satan delights in the crash of personal moral failure involving God's children and the fact that this failure is often remembered more than anything else we do before or after. He loves the quick knockout, and he is swinging at you! Probably not him personally, but he is definitely working against you through this world system that he has so much influence over. I probably don't need to go into a list of all the ways this world tempts us and pressures us to violate our conscience. You just have to look around and you will see it. Part of the problem is that too many of us are not looking around and seeing it.

"It's okay to look" - LIE!

If I had a dollar for every time a man has told me it's ok to look, I could run Agon Ministries without any outside donations! The truth is that it is not ok to look at anything and everything you have a desire to look at. But before we turn this into some legalistic list of things you can't look at, or things you can't do, let me explain why it's not ok, and why if you really think this through you won't want to look. You see (pun intended), it all starts with the eyes. In Genesis 3 we read that when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and it was a delight to the eyes she took of its fruit and ate This is much like the start of King David's sin with Bathsheba, when he rose from his couch and was walking on the roof of the king's house," and he "saw from the roof a woman bathing; and the woman was very beautiful. Not only did they see the fruit and the woman, they noticed them. They were a delight and beautiful.

Don't Take the Bait

You can't always control what you see, but you can control what you take note of, because once you linger and notice the beauty and attraction you have taken the bait. You will find that the object of your attraction has been planted in your heart to be looked at any time you choose to think about it. This is a very dangerous position to be in when there is so much at stake. By noticing things that have not been given to you by God to enjoy, you have allowed the enemy to move the fight into your heart and thoughts. Whether it is in the area of sexual lust, lying to get something, or any number of other ways this could play out, you risk suffering the quick knockout. You risk becoming known to your children, spouse, church, co-workers, and many more as someone who cannot be trusted and who violated their conscience. This is not what God intends for you.

In Ephesians 1:17-18, Paul prays this about the eyes of our heart: ...that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints."

This is what God wants for you: wisdom, revelation, knowledge, enlightenment, hope, riches of his glorious inheritance.

Sounds really good doesn't it?

But this is exactly the opposite of what the enemy wants for you, and therefore he attempts to get the eyes of your head to place images on the eyes of your heart that draw you away from God and force you to fight in his arena. He wants the fight to take place where you are struggling with images of his design instead of being enlightened as God intended. In the spiritual battle, just as in the physical fight, we absolutely have to control where the fight is fought.

In the fight world, there are few fights that have illustrated this more than when Chael Sonnen fought the number two-ranked middleweight in the world, Paulo Filho, for the WEC title last year. Paulo is a remarkable ground fighter, and Chael knew that he did not want to stay on the ground, where Paulo is so dangerous. For almost two full rounds, Chael completely dominated the Brazilian by utilizing his wrestling background to avoid takedowns and keep the fight where he wanted it. It was one of the most impressive performances I have ever seen, until the final seconds of round two, when Chael decided to sit in Filho's guard to ride out the round. Finally provided with an opportunity to work his ground game, Paulo locked in a very tight arm bar. Chael, knowing only seconds remained, refused to tap but screamed in pain which caused the referee to step in and stop the fight. In just under 5 seconds, Chael went from one of the most devastating performances in MMA, to just one more guy on Paulo Filho's highlight reel.

On November 5th, Chael gets a second chance (a lot like you do in the spiritual fight when you're on God's team) when he fights in a rematch for the WEC World Middleweight Title. In my next blog we will talk with Chael about the importance of dictating where the fight is fought and how he intends to do that for a full five rounds on November 5th.

The first fight principle that I want to cover is one that will be relevant to many of you in the near future. The principle itself says that the very moment you move forward to attack your opponent is the exact point at which you are prone to being attacked yourself.

Let’s look first at the physical fight in order to better understand what this means in the spiritual battle. Every fight starts with the two combatants separated and on their feet. In order to engage one another, each fighter must move toward the other until they are within attack range. In most fights, this constitutes that “feeling out” phase where they are both standing just outside the other’s striking range trying to “find their distance”. However, as soon as one fighter decides to attack he must close the distance to bring the other fighter into range. In doing so he places himself within range of his enemy.

From a physical fight perspective, this is a well documented part of the sport. It is a whole section on Randy Couture’s video series titled “Learn to Fight and Win”, and is also featured on the same series by Dan Henderson (and probably others…). It is played out in almost every fight on every pay per view. This is where fighters like Chuck Liddell and Pedro Rizzo make a living as “counter strikers”. They notoriously wait for their opponent to move into range with an attack and then strike. I believe this is what Paul is warning Timothy about in the following passage:

"This command I entrust to you, Timothy, my son, in accordance with the prophecies previously made concerning you, that by them you fight the good fight, keeping faith and a good conscience, which some have rejected and suffered shipwreck in regard to their faith." 1 Timothy 1:18-19

Paul not only commands Timothy to fight, but immediately follows with “keeping the faith and a good conscience” which is the spiritual fight version of the “hands up, chin down” advice taught to every fighter. Likewise, when we choose to close the distance on our opponent in a spiritual sense we are putting ourselves at risk of attack in the same way as a physical fighter. Therefore, in the same way that a physical fighter would not rush toward the opponent in a careless manner, we too must prepare for the enemy’s attack against us.This attack will come in one of two areas (or both!). He will either attack our faith or he’ll try to get us to do something that will violate our conscience. If we do not intentionally guard ourselves then we foolishly open ourselves up to “shipwreck”, Paul’s spiritually equivalent phrase for being knocked out in a fight.

In the coming weeks we will examine these two areas, faith and conscience with the goal of understanding how the enemy attacks us! Guard your faith and your conscience. If you have chosen to fight, you will be attacked.

Keep your hands up and your chin down