“Failure defeats losers but inspires winners. I’ll be back. That’s a promise.”
I clean blood out of my ears for the next three weeks and Urijah and I have long talks about what I did wrong. We talk about how to improve my stand-up and ground game, and how to evolve my whole style to make it even more dynamic. The more apt I am to attack from as many positions as possible, the better. When I’m on my feet, I need to be quick—and when I’m down on the ground, I need to be relentless in my use of pressure.
“You were predictable,” he says, not mincing words. I feel a pain surge through my stomach. I can’t handle his criticism, but it’s true. I hate the feeling of not being good enough. In this moment, I’m on the polar end of the feelings of a fighter. I sit silently to take my beating, wishing I could turn and go home. “You relied on familiar strategies from your last three UFC fights. She knew what to expect!”
“But if I’m good at something, shouldn’t I rely on it to win?”
“No—in this game, your unpredictability is akin to your strength.”
He makes me understand that a key piece of the game is to keep it fluid. It’s like jazz: for it to be any good it has to be a little different each time.
One day I get a tweet from someone named Mark Ballas, who I learn is a Dancing with the Stars contestant. “You want to be my dance partner on the show?” he’s asking, which is at once one of the most random and amazing things that has ever happened to me. There are few things in life that bring me as much joy as dancing, and honestly it’s a piece of myself that feels like it’s been buried for years. Dancing might not only be fun, but also incredibly therapeutic. I tweet Mark back saying that I’d be down and send him contact information for Mike and Jeff. I figure that since I’m required to take time off for a short period—known as medical suspension from the UFC—why not?
I love fighting, of course, but there’s something exciting about the chance to open myself up to more. It’s a piece of luck that nudges me to keep designing a life, a life filled with the unexpected and glittered with what I love. Maybe this is how happiness works, I think: we keep moving forward, keep populating our purpose in new ways, keep expanding beyond what we’ve imagined. Dance was another opportunity to fill my hours with activities that bring me joy. To evolve both inside and outside the cage. So of course I accept the invitation to appear on Dancing with the Stars, at once shocked and overjoyed.
I don’t watch the show religiously, but I know it’s a big deal. I’m flown to LA to meet with the producers for a sit-down interview. I give my all because that’s the only way I know how to do. If I win the show’s prize money, it could change everything for me. It would allow me to focus on my MMA training, and I’d never have to worry about side work. I could pay off loans, help my parents; I could even save and start looking toward the future! Up until this moment, I’ve been focused on the present: winning and then getting the next fight. This opportunity allows me to think bigger.
Two whole months go by and I hear nothing. I try to manage my expectations by not thinking about it, but since I’m on a required break from fighting, for those two months the Dancing with the Stars fantasy is pretty much all I can think about. The ruthless competitor in me is officially intrigued, she who sees everything as a sport, all things in the context of power. Two weeks later I get the call—I’m in! I’m again flown to LA, where I’ll be based for the season.
My dance partner, Mark, and I click from the start. He seems to know what I am made of even before we hit the floor; he already knows something about the way we’re going to move. Our personalities gel nicely: we’re both serious and hardworking, but we know when to goof off, too. He reeks charisma in every single number and leads with the crisp precision of a pro regardless of the genre. For two weeks straight, we practice intensely for our first routine. I plan to hit that stage floor with unadulterated passion. I came to do this.
I treat our practice studio like I treat the cage: a place to give it my all. To call on every shred of talent and ability I have and channel it in the direction of a win. I apply my fight work ethic to rehearsing. I don’t complain and I don’t take breaks. But unlike fighting, dancing feels like an anatomical vacation, a physicality that’s free of violence, led mostly by exhilaration and the sweetness of song. On the dance floor, we’re in it together, a cocreation of movement; whereas in the cage, it’s each woman for herself. As dancers, we feed and support one another’s movements; in the cage, it’s all-out war. Even though it’s odd at first, I allow myself to enjoy this break from the innate brutality of my career. I slip into the whimsy of dance, the gliding and flow. I even enjoy the many hours of hair and makeup and wearing costumes and connecting with the feminine parts of myself that are usually not in play. The theatrics of each number excite me, the sets, the sparkles, the character shoes, the warm-ups, the stretching, the sweat. It is in this world of dance that I allow myself to relax into the sensual.
I start to understand myself even more, by realizing that I’ve always been drawn to these deep, immersive experiences—that I am experiential by default. That I love to throw myself into the heart of a challenge and wring myself out trying to work through it. That I’m a learner. That I am intoxicated by challenge. That I am really content only when I am pushing my edges. That I take pleasure in the tension of the competition, finding my joy in the tiny crevices between good and great. That I love being around people like this, like-minded doers who show up to win. That every opportunity to perform reconnects me with my essence.
Our days revolve around the rigors of a schedule that includes learning and practicing lots of choreography. Sometimes we practice for so long we forget to have lunch and training becomes a vortex of chasing perfection. The producers need their narratives, too, which means they try to angle our stories at their own discretion. Even though we are there to dance, they seek peepholes into our humanity, cracks beneath our glitzy costumes.
“So, Paige. As a tomboy, you probably hate all this girly-girl stuff that’s required on the show,” one of the particularly fast-talking producers says—not asks—during a talking-head interview one day. She smacks her gum and twirls her gel-slicked curls compulsively, and she checks the notifications on her phone like it’s a nervous tic.
“No, I actually love the dress-up part of this! And the makeup!” I correct her, just trying to stay true to myself.
“No, but really. You must hate it,” the producer insists. “Tell me about that.” I giggle a little nervously, but stay steadfast.
“There’s nothing to tell—dressing up and wearing makeup is really fun. I get a huge kick out of it.” The producer is now practically scowling. Maybe she can’t fathom a world in which a tough woman, a professional fighter, can also vibe with getting her hair and makeup done. The whole thing becomes an ongoing negotiation based on what they need versus what we as contestants can stomach saying or doing, and it’s not without a fair amount of tension. After all, this is a job and the show producers are our bosses.
At one point during the season, while being questioned by producers, I come out and talk about how I was bullied in high school. I don’t say too much more than that, because frankly I don’t think it’s appropriate for DWTS, but I share that little part of myself because I’m starting to feel that by being in the public eye more, I have a platform. Mark thinks we can win this thing if I open up to the producers even more. But I like to earn my victories, so there is no chance in hell I’m going to play the sympathy card. I’m not going to give myself up for a vote—that’s just not how I win. So Mark and I arduously work our way through the season, one number at a time, hustling through the insanely fun and serendipitous grind as a team.
Each one of our dances is technically challenging for its own reason. Staying on tempo for some of the routines has almost an Olympic intensity. Sometimes I dance with one partner, sometimes with two, and a few times we’re in teams. Many of the sets include big throws, leaps, and a sense of cardio no less deman
ding than that of my biggest fights. Just as I do in the cage, I drop into it with full trust in the power of my own body. I drop into the certainty that I am made to do this, to be tossed and twirled, to leap and land, to nail the details and to show swag and a smile the whole damn time. Just like when I am in the cage, having this much agency over my anatomy makes me feel like I can do anything.
Since the numbers all have their own genre and style, each asks for a completely different type of immersion. Every choreography is a unique opportunity for me to know even more about my own physical limitations. Each song invites a different aspect of my personality to step up and presents a new sentiment or signature for me to unlock. Moving through the styles, I pick up nuances about the world, about cultures, about gestures, about what it takes to stylize something with a certain flare, what it means to be authentic. Tango is different from salsa is different from waltz is different from foxtrot is different from rumba is different from quickstep, and so on.
The salsa routine demands that I completely free my hips so that my mind can follow the steps. I have to unhinge my pelvis in completely new ways, tapping into the revelation that Latin dance begins and ends with the booty. For the quickstep number, I have to dig for something else—a carefree and happy innocence with which to glide all around the stage. We even do a paso doble number that’s meant to simulate a fight, which is at once cool and interesting, but for me also very meta. For the Austin Powers jazz number, I’m all pomp and funk, and I even get to fly for a moment, which takes me back to my cheerleading days—only now I am flying high on national television. For a playful samba piece, I wear a warrior-like tribal costume with my hair in a Mad Max she-mullet, flanked by two partners who are supposed to be peacocks vying for my attention. For the jive piece, which we dance to “Proud Mary,” I channel my own blend of Tina Turner, my hair tossed kinky and teased out like a lion’s mane, my strong legs featured in a tiny red-fringe minidress. It’s a big, high-octane, sexy, give-everything-you-got kind of dance that feels electric between Mark and me and earns us our first perfect score of 10-10-10. In one of our final tango pieces, it’s all steaminess and seduction and I dig deep for the woman in me, the master flirt, the temptress—and I have a complete blast doing it. It’s one thing to excel with a face full of blood, a mouth guard, braids, and no makeup. But killing it in heels, hair, and makeup, I learn, is equally fun.
During my freestyle dance with Mark to a particularly soulful and live rendition of “Over the Rainbow,” I strip off the glamour and I let feeling drive. I reach into my heart and explode into the music. I feel the beauty and sadness of everything, so I let it drive my movements. I don’t know if it’s the tempo of the song, which somehow feels like a lullaby written to my past, or if it’s the innate tenderness of the melody, but for some reason I leave a little piece of my sadness in the performance, and oddly enough, it works.
As the weeks pile up, our days begin to feel like a surreal combination of the Cirque du Soleil and boot camp, a unique obstacle course of theatrics that we have to regularly climb through. I start to understand the rigors of what it means to be in show business, always having to be on, to look a certain way. It may not be cage fighting, but it’s hard nonetheless. During the competition, UFC fighters like Chuck Liddell and Tyron Woodley come to my performances; and Joanna Jędrzejczyk, the champion of my division, posts something online showing her support. Even Thug Rose herself is rooting for me online! Some of these people are my competitors in the cage, but still, we’re all part of the same tribe. We show our humanity first. And since I belong to not one but two amazing tribes now, after all I’ve been through with building trust and community, it feels incredible when they overlap. My mom also attends all my shows, and knowing she’s out there every time fuels me with adrenaline.
During the season, my mom emails me a link to a story that has come out in the local news featuring a mug shot of my ex Seth and accounts of his past brushes with the law; the story vaguely mentions me. Even though my name itself isn’t there, this feels like a kick straight to the ribs. Why can’t I just be free of all this bullshit? Why does the past always want to keep pestering me?
“I can’t have this story come out now!” I cry to Mark one day during one of our last rehearsals. “We’re so close to winning this!”
He puts his arm around me.
“Just focus on the dances—put all your power there. Nothing can touch you right now. Not even your past. The you of right now is in charge—and if it isn’t, get her up here,” he teases. “You ready to crush this thing?” And with that, he hits play on the track and we slide into the trance of dance.
Ultimately, the fact that Mark and I make it to the runner-up position is a testament to a confluence of various things: one, that Mark is one of the most hardworking and intuitive people I have ever met or worked with. Two, that we have insane chemistry on the dance floor and a symbiotic appreciation for one another’s physical abilities that expresses itself in every single one of our dances. Three, his choreographies are fire, each one more interesting, sexy, and dramatic than the next. And four, we work our goddamned asses off, day and night.
When we finally do become eliminated, it’s against Nyle DiMarco, the hearing-impaired model, who performs a haunting duo performance to a particularly moody cover of Simon and Garfunkel’s “Sound of Silence.” There’s no getting around the power of that moment, the emotional heaviness of a deaf man actually moving (impeccably!) to music he can’t even hear, and to a song with a title so eerily relevant. Talk about meta.
During that same finals night, while Mark and I dance our last salsa routine to Pitbull’s “Fireball,” the sweat drips down the back of my dress as red and orange sequins fly all over the stage. The rhythm of the music feels like fireworks onstage, and at one point it hits me that I don’t even care if we win. The fact that we got all the way here feels incredible. Here I am again, showing myself and the people around me that I am capable of anything and everything I pursue.
In the end, the real win on Dancing with the Stars has very little to do with the actual competition and everything to do with my mother. Mom not only planted the seed of dance in me long ago, but she really also lived for those early days of hustling me back and forth from shows to rehearsals. She was there to facilitate, assist, support, watch, critique—but mostly she just reveled. She used to love watching me dance, her eyes glossy, following me across the stage, her hands clasped at the base of her neck. I remember catching her eye during some of the shows, witnessing her pride from my spot on the stage, and we lock in that stare, linked on this language of dance, so naturally that it really must be in our DNA. When I dance on the show, I’m really dancing for her.
Reality TV has been a trip. It’s been wildly fun, I’ve earned some cash, met tons of incredible people, and made some wonderful connections. But I miss the rawness of being in a fight, the gnarly immediacy of being cooped up inside a cage. I miss setting up fight camp, of picking my home base and the people who are going to help me achieve the most killer training, and getting in the headspace of a countdown. I miss the energy of a venue in the exact moment when the fighters first walk in, the surge of hope pumping like adrenaline in both corners. I haven’t had a fight since my defeat against Rose Namajunas, so I am definitely ready to take back my stats.
On August 27in Vancouver, British Columbia, I fight “Rowdy” Bec Rawlings, another Aussie. Being in the cage this time, I experience a flurry of emotions. On the one hand, I’m so excited to be back. This is home base, after all. But on the other hand, many people have most recently seen me as a dancer on prime-time TV. For a brief moment, I wonder if it’s even possible to still have the full respect and attention of the fight world. This fear compels me to fight with even more fury. In the words of Ken Shamrock, “I will get my respect, or I will die.”
My opponent is two inches taller than me, five years older, and covered in tattoos. Her head is half shaved, half braided. I know she’s going to come wit
h a high-level boxing game, so I need to be able to handle her range. But I pace myself during the first round and don’t rush to close the distance. Don’t be predictable, I tell myself. I stay on the outside, throwing lots of kicks. Bec stalks me, unleashing her strikes methodically, at her pace. I am initiating much less than I usually do, but it’s by design—I don’t want to risk getting sloppy so early on. But if I have any intention of wearing this girl out I have to engage more. I have to get her in a cinch. For now, though, let me just dance around her and take her cardio temperature.
I have been practicing some of these moves during training, but I have yet to ever really test them out in the cage. But I have learned from my last fight, and this time I am doing things differently. And during round 2, against the counsel of my coach, I let out another flying head kick, which this time knocks her out, after which I pummel her with full force and the whole thing ends right there. I go wild, animalistic. I scream at the top of my lungs, through the chunk of the mouth guard, tears and sweat blurring into my eyes. That kick was a taste of transcendence. It was one of those moments when it’s not even me—it’s the spirit channeling through me. I hug and high-five the two Team Alpha Male coaches who were able to be with me, as the crowd roars, most of them standing and clapping, a lot of them dumbstruck. No one was expecting this move out of me. I even earn a Performance of the Night award and a $50,000 cash bonus. It’s good to be back.
With some of the money, I decide to buy Mom a new Subaru Outback as a surprise for her birthday. At first I tell Dad and he gives me a hard time, because he thinks I should be smart and save my money. But you know what? It is my money, and I have the right to do it for her. I’ve worked for it. She’s had the same Honda Accord for about twenty years, so it’s a family event. When I give it to her she sits in it silently, parked on the driveway and doesn’t move a muscle, like it’s some kind of altar. I’m not sure she’s ever even taken it out.
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