Micah C's MMA Journal - Prologue: Beginning the Process

Hey there folks. Some of you know me as my handle of Micahthecynic, but considering I wanted to do an MMA journal on SB Nation, I guess I need to give more detail.

As is obvious, my first name is Micah, and my last name begins with a C. I'm from Central Illinois, and have lived in Illinois all of my life sans my first four days of existance (I was adopted). I stand six feet, one inch tall, and weigh more than I should. Right now, I work as a hotel clerk during third shift, and used to be a video game writer until recently.

You see, it's that word "recently" that has made me decide to want to try mixed martial arts. Quite frankly, now that I'm not playing video games much more than a few hours per day, I've found that I have a lot more free time. Go figure. Since I was a little kid, I wanted to be a martial artist. Unfortunately, I've never lived in a place where I've been in close proximity to an art that I was interested in (Muay Thai, Jiu Jitsu, etc). Everything around me was Tae Kwon Do. Yuck. So, I'm keeping this journal here to give you an idea of my thoughts as I go through this process. For the prologue, I'll talk about what I'm expecting from the journey.

So, as I'm filling out the release and liability forms for the gym I'm going to have a look at tomorrow (Boxing class is on Friday, and I want to see the place before I commit), and I get to the one point that makes my stomach churn. "Experience in Martial Arts." Crap. The only thing I can put is N/A. All that I know are some things my Dad taught me, and all he learned was basic self defense from his days in the Army during Vietnam. Well, that and a few things I learned from a very short time (read- a month and a half) wrestling in high school. So, I know a couple combat basics, and not much else. Dammit. I guess my dad had more foresight than I thought when he told me to stick with wrestling when I went to high school.

While reading through the paperwork, I let my mind think a bit more than I probably should. I'm just going to be starting with Muay Thai classes, but I wonder about the future. "What if I'm really good at this," I ask myself. Physique wise, I'm a big guy. I'm six feet tall, and have a 78 1/2 inch wingspan. Though I'm not super tall, I'm built like a redwood tree when I'm in great shape (which unfortunately was when I was 15) and there's no feasible way I could ever make 205. So, I know that I'd be stuck in a shallow division.

My overthinking in that area leads to another: I'm about to learn how to hurt people. Beyond that, I'm signing up to be punched in the head. What is wrong with me? Okay, there's a great many things wrong with me, but the big thing about all this is that I'm both an MMA fan and an MMA correspondant for a newspaper. I know all the risks. I've seen it live. I know what could happen, and I still want to do this.

So, here I am. Though I'm currently at work, I'm convinced that I want to become a martial artist. At this point, I've stopped the overthinking and grasped reality. Yeah, I'm fairly young (just turned 26) and I could compete if I was confident after learning skills, but I shouldn't lose sight of why I want to do this. I want to do it because I want to better myself, and fulfill my dream of being a martial artist. So, here I go. I'm going to dive head first into a world of cuts, bruises, and broken limbs.

If I fought, my nickname would be Killer Turtle

-Micah C.

By the way, any sort of feedback on exactly what I should expect would be fantastic. I'm just starting out with striking courses for the first month, but if anyone else has trained in BJJ or Muay Thai or Boxing and want to give me a heads up on what I should prepare for both mentally and physically, I'd be happy to see it.