Free A Fighter's Heart: One Man's Journey Through the World of Fighting by Sam Sheridan Page A

Friday were sparring days (Monday with takedowns), and on those days I ran and lifted a little in the mornings, while my Tuesdays and Thursdays were devoted entirely to grappling: a basic class at nine, another basic class at five-thirty, and then advanced from five-thirty to six-thirty, when the experienced guys repeatedly tied me in knots, yanked my arms out, cranked my neck.
    There is nothing so frightening as being on the ground with a guy who really knows what he’s doing; it’s like being in the water with a shark. You’re struggling, desperate, trying to escape, and suddenly you can’t breathe, you’re smothered, and you can’t see, your arms are getting twisted off, and you “tap” and then it’s all over. “Tapping,” a light tap on your opponent, or on the mat, is how you concede the fight. He’s caught you in a “submission.” A submission is when you get your opponent in an arm-bar, or a knee-bar, or a choke, or a thousand other things, where you essentially threaten your opponent with a broken limb or being choked unconscious. He can tap instead of actually having his arm broken or losing consciousness because you’re pinching his carotid arteries.
    Submission fighting is a huge part of ground fighting. It is at the heart of MMA and one of the reasons the sport has a small, educated following. It’s sometimes hard for uneducated observers to understand that while the two guys were rolling around, one guy could have broken the other guy’s arm and the other guy admitted it. A submission can happen in seconds; the “ground game” is extremely technical and about position and outthinking your opponent; it’s a lot like playing chess.
    Having done muay Thai and some boxing, my “stand-up” fighting was okay—not good, by any means, but at least I had a clue as to what I wanted to do. My ground game, however, was nonexistent. I never even wrestled in high school. People sometimes wonder why one of the best MMA gyms in the world is in Iowa, but when you realize that some of the best wrestlers in the world come from Iowa, it starts to make sense. I came to dread the grappling days, and on the mornings afterward I would wake up with my whole body in agony. I started calling this “car-wreck-itis,” that feeling of having been in a car wreck the night before, where everything is strained and black-and-blue, including little muscles you didn’t know existed. Getting out of bed took ten minutes.
    The only other time I’ve been beat up like that was after branding. During college I worked a summer on the largest cattle ranch in Montana, and I helped brand for three days, wrasslin’ calves, late in the season when they were getting big. Those calves would run all over you and kick you to shit, like you’d been put in a blender.
     
     
    During those first two weeks, I often left sparring to stanch a bloody nose, a common occurrence at Pat’s. Somebody was always dashing to the paper towels. People laughed, yelled in faux anger, “Clean up your mess!” and Tim delighted in crowing, “Sam can’t hold his mud.” I sparred with several different people, but far and away the worst was Tim; every time I threw a rear-leg kick he trapped it and dumped me, without fail. His hands were like sledgehammers, and if he had landed some hard body shots, I would probably have died. I hovered between trying to hit him and not wanting to piss him off. He trapped me in a corner and my tiny life flashed before my eyes as I scrambled. He once threw a turning back kick at me, and I leapt aside and it hit the wall like a wrecking ball. I gave him a dirty look and almost stopped sparring: Are you trying to kill m e? Afterward, someone told me I was the same height as Andrei Arlovski, Tim’s next fight opponent.
    I felt a little like the new kid in school. People were watching me. They wanted to test me out, although I wasn’t very good, so that didn’t last. Several times during my stay I saw outside pro fighters