The Way of the Fight

by Georges St. Pierre

  And then it happened. I started taking guys down five, six times in a row. At the end of some of our fights, there’d be holes in the walls. It was total chaos. Bodies would fly all over the place. But it was over, and somehow I had won. Baffled, they’d turn and ask, “Who the hell is that kid?” Like in a cartoon strip.

  The thing I had to learn, and I keep learning this lesson in my life every day, is how to take the fear’s power and use it to become better. But fear is smart, and many times it’s smarter than you and it makes you do stupid, irrational things, or it makes you forget simple things—like where you were standing the moment your life changed in major way. Because changes do happen from moment to moment.

  The key, I discovered, is to understand fear and how it works. What I want to do is demystify fear. I don’t have a choice, because fear walks next to you everywhere in life. It has a reason for being there. People feel fear because they sense a threat. Sometimes it comes from physical pain: something unseen falls on your head, it hurts, and you’re immediately scared. That’s normal, and what the fear is doing is telling you to be careful, to get out of the way because it doesn’t want something else to fall on your head. So fear’s purpose is ultimately good—that’s what people forget. Fear is designed to bring you to a safe place. In this case it’s telling you to get the hell out of the way. Simple human logic.

  The problem with fear is that it’s talking to you about the future—it says, MOVE! Something else that is bad and painful could be coming your way and might fall on your head. And people are like animals in this instance; they tend to follow their instincts. They follow the fear and dedicate all their energy to moving out of the way, toward safety. They brace and tense because of fear, and this creates a surge of adrenaline.

  Often, the bad side of fear is the adrenaline, or more precisely, the side effects of adrenaline. When you feel fear, your hormones go nuts. Essentially, your muscles get fed with rocket fuel, your metabolic rate goes through the roof (your heart starts pumping hard) and your blood sugar levels follow. Your awareness changes, meaning all of your focus is controlled by the fear. It’s trying to protect you, wondering if something else is about to fall on your head (which is why I think there are things that I remember and other things that I don’t). Simply put, fear makes you instantly ready for a fight, no matter where you are.

  Once fear enters your life—whether it’s been there for a second or a lifetime makes no difference—it will take you in one of two directions: empowerment or panic. That’s where the expression “like a deer in headlights” comes from. The deer is panicking and the panic—the extreme expression of fear—makes him stand there, unable to act. This marks the end of the deer, usually, and it’s not a happy end. Don’t be a deer. Dumb deer die a depressing death.

  We have to start by remembering that fear is there to help steer us away from risk. It’s supposed to help us get better. But the way fear helps us is by turning us into very powerful machines—it sends adrenaline throughout our bodies and makes us all-powerful super-beings capable of lifting cars or carrying people out of a burning building. Think about firemen—with training, these brave people learn how to harness their adrenaline so they can walk into the inferno, do their jobs and save lives.

  This is what happened early on in my career in my very first fight in the UFC, against Karo Parisyan. The truth is that I wasn’t considered much of a contender when I came up as a professional. I was supposed to be the mincemeat for upcoming stars like Parisyan. I understood and accepted my role, but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t going to go for it.

  In that fight against Parisyan, I got caught in his kimura on two separate occasions. The first time, he had me, but the hold wasn’t secure and I quickly got out of it. The second time was actually really bad. The commentator was going nuts too, I could hear him screaming, “Kimura!” and everybody in my corner—me included—thought I was done for.

  Very few people understand how I got out of his kimura the second time, but I knew my own truth, my life situation: I had nothing. I had to win, I just had to, and couldn’t accept anything else. If I didn’t win, I couldn’t live to the end of the month. I had to pay rent, buy food. I was ready to die to get out of that hold. Break my arm if you have to, I thought. I didn’t have a choice. So I used the surge of adrenaline to roll him, got him on his back and won. The fear-based adrenaline, the training and the empowerment of making a decision all helped me to victory.

  Of course, I didn’t know all that at the time, but it wasn’t just instinct kicking in. Before some of my fights I’ve had what are called adrenaline dumps. This is a fancy way of saying that fear is trying to take possession of my body. Adrenaline dumps suck, and in my case, when I get one, I can’t feel my legs. It was so invasive and disturbing once, when it happened right before entering the octagon, that I had to ask Rodolphe to slap and shake my thighs because I couldn’t feel them anymore. The look of mixed horror and surprise on Rodolphe’s face said it all. This doesn’t happen so often anymore, but that’s because I got used to harnessing that adrenaline and turning it into power I save for the octagon.

  That’s where the real secret lies: learning how to use the power of fear. But the solution really does lie with the beholder. If a person is unsure about who he is and what his life goals are, the fear takes over his body and does what it wants with it.

  Fear freezes your actions because it takes you into the world of what-if, and that’s the worst place anybody can be. This is when you start doing stupid things like predicting the future, or thinking your career as a mixed martial arts world champion is going to end suddenly. Forecasting doom and gloom is not only useless, but detrimental. It’s giving away all your power to fear and letting it take over your life. The consequences stink. Once you start doubting yourself, you’re vulnerable. That’s when critics’ words start to influence your thoughts. Maybe he can knock me out, you think. Maybe I’m not that strong. Maybe he will catch me and put me down. Someone says about you, “He doesn’t have a chin,” and you think it’s true. It gets inside your head, like a smell you can’t scrub away. Maybe I don’t have a chin for real.

  And then one day you get tired of it, of the self-doubt, of the constant questions, of the disbelief. And you get angry at them—at yourself. And you realize it’s time to rebel. To fight. Because it’s from fighting—from doing—that you get your confidence back. Getting back in the ring and performing, doing well.

  If it sounds like I’m talking about myself, that’s because those were the thoughts that went through my mind after losing to Matt Serra.

  Over time, if you don’t learn to deal with your fear, your body won’t like it. This is when you discover the meaning of the word stress, which leads to all kinds of nasty stuff like colds, infections, various and mysterious kinds of weird aches and pains all over your body, constant fatigue, inability to eat, and, for some very unfortunate people, sexual disorders.

  I have a secret for not letting fear spiral out of control. It doesn’t always pop up in my mind right away, but I’m getting better at it. That’s the key, really, for any change in life: Do you get better at it, or worse? I think it’s important to have a list of reminders to fight fear the right way—and that means getting away from the place fear is taking you. The what-if world of fear makes you project bad things into the future—your future—and we know this is useless.

  This is something I’ve discussed many times with Firas, my coach. Whenever I get into a situation where I’m letting fear take over my life, I try to remind myself of his line, ‘‘Georges, don’t star in your own movie.’’

  Many people feel this kind of fear when they get on planes, for example, but it’s totally illogical. You don’t freak out when you get into your car for a drive, so why freak out when you sit in a much safer plane? Just ask Bruce Willis . . .

  If you look at fear from an emotional perspective, it will drag you down into panic. But if you can look at it objectively, analytically, only then can you
make it work for you. When you master this, you open new avenues to generate power and knowledge. You discover new ways of thinking. You learn that fear can be a natural ally, a homemade power source.

  If you find ways of staying in the present, fear can only help you. It’s all about preparation. Every Saturday afternoon that I’m in Montreal, I go to Tristar Gym and train with fellow professional fighters. I want to fight guys who are better at me in all kinds of techniques. I want my training to be harder than my actual fights so I can be prepared to face the toughest opponents—so I can be ready to deal with fear.

  If you prepare your subconscious for highly stressful situations, you can create harmony with your fears. You can tame fear like a wild animal and use it to your advantage. To achieve this, though, you have to be fully aware of your own intentions and have an honest understanding of the goals you’re pursuing and how they relate to the individual life you’re inventing.

  So the key is coming back into the present, and there are all kinds of easy ways of achieving this. The first is just to take a look around and remind yourself of where you are right now, and how everything is okay in this place. This doesn’t mean there aren’t concerns about the future—I knew, for example, that I’d need surgery at some point—but it wasn’t the key thing right at that moment. Right at that moment the key was to take a deep breath. If you’ve ever really watched me during a fight, one of the most important things I do in between rounds is breathe deeply and slowly so I can relax, I have been told. People who meditate believe that four deep breaths—in through the nose, fill the belly, exhale slowly through the mouth—are proven to relax you. I agree. Try it, and you’ll feel it in the middle of your chest, the thorax.

  Zen Buddhists, when they meditate, have a way of always staying connected to the present, no matter where their thoughts take them. They ring what’s called a mindfulness bell. So they sit and breathe and meditate and, when the bell rings, they open their eyes and reconnect with where they are so that they stay attached to the present. They are thankful for being there, and often you’ll see them smile while they meditate. I like that.

  At one point a few years ago, I went through a tough situation with a girl. I cared for her deeply, but we constantly quarreled. The last thing I hoped for was to create hurt, but change was necessary. Yet it seemed like the thought of her was stuck to the inside of my head. When I closed my eyes, I couldn’t escape her. And when I opened them, she seemed to appear everywhere I looked. This only made the situation worse, and I truly felt at a loss, unable to make any final decision.

  A friend of mine, seeing the effect the situation was having on me, gave me some very good advice. He said, ‘‘Do what the Buddhists do. Do nothing.’’

  It didn’t give me the right answer, it didn’t show me the right path or reveal any great truth lurking somewhere. It just gave me a break, and I needed a break. It gave me a chance to think about something else. It told my brain, my network, that I wasn’t going to think about her or our problems for a while, and that was okay. It let me focus on other things and turn my attention to my training, for example, or just having fun with my buddies.

  I think that the Buddhists have a great approach to their lives: they sit and reflect and try to always stay connected to the present. This is how they learn to accept what the world has to offer, no matter the situation. This is how they achieve happiness—by never aiming for it directly.

  The key lesson here, to me, is that sometimes you don’t need to decide right then and there what’s going to happen. You need to understand that the world keeps turning and nobody needs to rush into any harsh decision or situation. It’s okay to do nothing sometimes.

  A few weeks later, I ran into the same friend and we went for a bite at a great Portuguese chicken place in North Montreal. He asked me how my heart was feeling now that I had spent some time “doing nothing.” Even though I hadn’t found a final resolution to the problem, I told him that I felt much better about everything. I asked him how long this could go on, and he said that some Buddhist monks spend their whole lives “doing nothing.”

  Then he quoted John F. Kennedy: ‘‘There are risks and costs to a program of action, but they are far outweighed by the long-term risks and costs of comfortable inaction.’’ In other words, doing nothing is fine for a while, but the goal isn’t to avoid the issue. (Zen Buddhists would likely disagree with me on this point.) The goal is to reflect calmly about all the facts, and to make a decision when the timing is right. That timing is very individual.

  MENTOR: It was easy to see that here was a true martial artist. I have learned from some of the great Japanese masters in the true tradition of martial arts, and Georges was the first and only one I’d met who incarnated these beliefs, the way, the ryu, as we call it.

  I had a plan for him, and he accepted it with complete trust. In those early days, I’d travel across Canada and the U.S. regularly to give seminars, and even when I’d go out of town, I’d leave Georges with instructions and people to see for his training. He wanted this. And he’d do it without a doubt or a question. A lot of people say they train five hours a day, but it’s not true, it’s bullshit that they believe in their minds. Not him.

  Standing still is never a good option. Not in the ring, and not in life outside the octagon either. When you stop moving, you’re done. When the status quo becomes your main weapon, your arsenal is diminished. When you can find no other way forward except for repetition, your mistakes are compounded into defeat.

  Therefore, the only way forward in life is innovation. And innovation, born from true creativity, depends on movement. Life, after all, is all about motion, whereas stasis is equivalent to death.

  When you’d rather die than relive an error, and when you’re truly committed to finding a better way to live your life, this is when the world opens its arms, welcomes and rewards you with opportunity. This is why we innovate, or we die.

  Innovation is very important to me, especially professionally. The alternative, standing pat, leads to complacency, rigidity and eventually failure. Innovation, to me, means progression, the introduction of new elements that are functional and adaptable to what I do. It’s all about making me better, whether through natural evolution or adaptation of previously unknown ideas. The reality is that innovation is a process, with its own rules and steps.

  In my case, it’s simple: I keep the white-belt mentality that I can learn from anyone, anywhere, anytime. For those of you who have never tried martial arts, the white-belt mentality is the first thing you understand, on your first day as a beginner when you receive your white belt: everything is knowledge, all must be learned. I try to maintain that mentality. When I discover an element that I think can be useful to me, I adapt it to my routine and my outlook; I submit it to a trial-error-and-refinement process. If it passes the test, I incorporate the new knowledge into my arsenal. I practice it and build up my muscle memory to perform it properly. I enter the octagon with an open, fresh mind, and with support from my handpicked team. And finally, I apply the innovation at the right time. It becomes who I am, and it means that innovation keeps me ahead of my competition. It means that my foes must adapt to me, not the other way around.

  Another great reason to change training systems or approaches is to avoid boredom. Change is a great motivator, which is where all good training starts. When I get stuck doing the same things over and over again, I need something new or I start developing mental fatigue. I need to feel I’m constantly getting better.

  That’s why “innovate or die” rings true for me. My whole life, I’ve been fascinated by the natural world and how animals survive or become extinct. The study of dinosaurs is especially interesting because those creatures aren’t here anymore, and they were the biggest, fiercest living things on the planet. Meanwhile, rats and cockroaches survive.

  How is that? A cockroach can’t defeat a dinosaur. But the cockroach is better at one thing, and it has ensured its survival through the ages: adaptati
on. One could adapt to the environment and the other one couldn’t.

  Most people don’t realize this basic, fundamental and crucial thing, and it’s key for mixed martial arts—and all sports, in fact. Your opponent constantly changes too. In the mixed martial arts world you fight wrestlers, leg lockers, punchers. Every time you fight, your opponent doesn’t look anything like the previous opponent. Taking it a step further, if it’s the second time you fight an opponent, he often doesn’t look like the previous version.

  I fight knockout artists, grapplers, kickers, wrestlers, punchers—the whole gamut. I have to keep adapting to new hostile environments because what happens in the octagon is ever-changing. This is ingrained in my mind, and I’ve adapted my training to accept and prepare for it.

  I believe that all the discussions I’ve had about history and dinosaurs and philosophy have made this possible. For some creatures, the match has already been settled. Today’s creatures, well, we don’t know who’s coming out on top.

  Right now, and for the next few years, I’ll be in the midst of my struggle. So I can only be as good as a Boy Scout: Toujours prêt. Be prepared.

  When I hurt my knee and needed surgery, my head coach, Firas Zahabi, said something very interesting. He explained that, in his mind, this injury is good because it will help define my career. He believes that if I come back and regain my title a third time, it will help make my career path and successes distinct from any other fighter’s. It’s an interesting point of view, and it has helped me focus my rehabilitation on clear goals I can visualize.

  I’ve learned that my innovative capacities seem to rise up when there’s a crisis, a conflict. Like losing my title, for example, or hurting my knee badly. Those situations told me I needed to continue my innovation to recapture my title, my place in martial arts. The way I see it, innovation is a discipline, not a lottery. It’s got nothing to do with luck, or even eureka moments, because those are unplanned, unscripted. For me, it comes from the combination of two elements within my control: hard work and open-mindedness.