The Art of Manliness - #484： A Man's Search for Meaning Inside the Ring

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast if you've never

00:00:19.380 been in a fight before have you ever wondered how you'd respond to getting punched in the face

00:00:23.760 my guest today found the experience pretty delightful which is all the more surprising

00:00:27.780 given that he'd lived more than three decades of his life as a self-described pacifist who

00:00:31.680 abhorred violence thought fighting was barbaric and feared he was a coward his name is josh rosenblatt

00:00:36.340 and he's the author of why we fight one man's search for meaning inside the ring which describes

00:00:40.920 his decision to enter an actual mma fight at the age of 40 today on the show josh talks about why

00:00:45.860 after a lifetime of being a hedonistic non-physically oriented intellectual type of guy who thought

00:00:50.760 mixed martial art fighting was dumb he decided to climb into the cage as an mma fighter himself

00:00:55.580 josh describes how he got interested in mma fighting in his early 30s started studying

00:00:59.900 muay thai krav maga brazilian jiu-jitsu and boxing and discovered the joys of getting in touch with

00:01:04.920 his long submerged aggression we then discussed what it was like for him to train for an actual

00:01:08.760 mma fight as an older guy how fighting has influenced his writing and what getting into

00:01:13.000 the cage taught about sacrifice asceticism transcendence and the potential for human

00:01:17.520 transformation after the show's over check out our show notes at aom.is why we fight josh joins me now

00:01:23.520 via clearcast.io all right josh rosenblatt welcome to the show thank you so much for having me just

00:01:36.900 got a new book out why we fight one man's search for meaning inside the ring you decided to become

00:01:42.820 an mma fighter start training for mma and actually did a fight but let's talk about life before you

00:01:49.320 decided to do that what what were you like before you decided to start punching people in the face and

00:01:53.580 getting punched in the face i was pretty much the exact opposite of that i was a a writer and a drinker

00:02:00.180 and a smoker and a sensualist and a i was lazy no exercise none of that in my life i was very much a

00:02:08.020 pacifist probably a coward or at least i was concerned about being a coward and really to be totally honest

00:02:14.220 with you i didn't like the idea of fighting i didn't like watching fighting on tv and had not

00:02:19.300 really been a fan of mma before i suddenly became a fan of mma so really i existed on the complete

00:02:25.220 opposite end of the spectrum and you talked a lot about the book about your the role your father

00:02:29.680 played in that sort of worldview you had right yeah yeah i mean my father was a sweet guy and the

00:02:36.040 smartest guy in the room but he was a very cerebral guy and he was he was a man of books and a man of

00:02:40.320 learning and an intellectual and it wasn't really in his nature or in the way that he brought me up

00:02:45.620 to sort of deal with those sort of physical realities and that sort of classic father-son

00:02:50.940 notion of you know i'm going to take you outside and teach you how to make a fist and teach you how

00:02:54.080 to fight it just it wasn't him and it's great it says a lot about his character he didn't he wasn't

00:02:59.080 a violent guy he didn't he didn't enjoy violence he didn't think about violence in that way but

00:03:03.120 you know as a consequence i think i sort of came up always with the thought in the back of my mind

00:03:07.280 and you know i i wanted to know how to fight or i wanted to know at the very least what i would do

00:03:12.160 in a fight it was always sort of lingering there it was a sort of a question that was always around

00:03:16.360 yeah and you you also recount like moments in your life you know growing up where you got bullied or

00:03:21.760 some guy did something and you just sort of slinked away and you felt kind of i think everyone's had

00:03:26.220 that every guy's had that experience where they're like i should have done something i should

00:03:29.560 have stood up for myself absolutely you know that that sort of moment in the book where i list off

00:03:33.860 you know over the course of 15 years seven occasions where that happened i wouldn't say

00:03:38.900 i was bullied consistently by any means but as you say everyone's got those moments where you

00:03:43.660 you sort of look back and you go you know if i just stood up to that person i you know i i would i

00:03:48.620 would be able to live with it a lot better you sort of slink away you walk away you turn your back

00:03:52.160 you leave a situation that you were enjoying being in and it just kind of eats at your soul just a

00:03:56.860 little bit nothing nothing dramatic but those little those things add up and eventually it sort of

00:04:02.120 reached a point for me anywhere where i sort of said i don't want to do that thing anymore i don't

00:04:07.400 i don't want to do the walking away if i don't have to walk away was there a specific moment where

00:04:11.940 you went from i'm a philosophical cerebral writer pacifist to i want to start punching people in the

00:04:17.740 face i think it had been growing i've been sort of watching mma and getting into to to watching the

00:04:24.480 sport and learning starting to appreciate its value as a sport rather than just sort of a

00:04:28.500 act of barbarism but even at that point i still was not doing anything about it and then i was at

00:04:34.260 a party in austin where i was living and i was thinking about mma if or talking about it with

00:04:39.440 someone and boring them because no one i knew enjoyed the sport at all at that time and i ran

00:04:44.500 into someone i knew sort of in passing when he was a filmmaker and an ironist and you know one of one you

00:04:49.520 know sort of one of us whatever and he overheard me we started talking about fighting it turns out that

00:04:54.020 he was an instructor at a krav maga studio in town which i had no idea about and he said you

00:04:59.820 should come down and and and check it out and i was in there holding a cigarette i'm holding a

00:05:03.860 glass of whiskey in my hand and i'm thinking yeah i i think i have to like it was kind of felt like

00:05:09.800 you know not sort of like a revolute a revelatory moment the clouds in part it was more sort of like

00:05:14.120 he said it and i said you know what else do i have to do so that was the moment that was well you

00:05:19.700 talked about you started growing getting an appreciation for mma like what led to that well

00:05:24.300 again i was you know sort of writing and reading about you know films and politics and and and on

00:05:30.420 that end of the spectrum and i read an article in espn the magazine about kimbo slice who i don't know

00:05:36.180 if you remember kimbo slice but he had sort of a quick moment in the sun there is a a youtube

00:05:40.760 phenomenon for he fought in backyard mma fights or at least backyard bare knuckle fights and he was all

00:05:47.040 over youtube and he started to get some mainstream attention and i'm reading this article and i again

00:05:51.420 i was totally repulsed by it i didn't want anything to do with it but the article was well written and

00:05:54.880 i was sort of fascinated and his picture on the cover was just i mean he just looked like the the

00:06:01.240 portrait of in my head of what a fighter was and they're describing him and they're describing his

00:06:06.820 fights and his knockouts and i'm thinking this guy is the most terrifying man who ever lived and

00:06:10.880 halfway through the article they interviewed a couple of actual professional mma ufc fighters and two

00:06:16.940 a man they all said kimbo slice would get knocked out in 10 seconds you know in an actual fight and

00:06:22.720 i didn't understand that it just didn't make any sense to me i think my knowledge of fighting came

00:06:27.480 it was entirely cinematic you know this guy looked terrifying he sounded terrifying and in the movies

00:06:32.580 it's always the guy who looks and sounds terrifying who wins the fight and when they said that when they

00:06:37.500 said he didn't have any skills and i said to myself well something's going on that i need to check

00:06:41.840 out so i sort of put my disgust to the side and started watching some videos just to see what they were

00:06:45.860 talking about and it was kind of strange how quickly i became completely fascinated and within

00:06:50.900 a matter of weeks it was sort of all i wanted to be watching yeah i imagine you saw that it was pretty

00:06:55.480 cerebral well yeah i mean it was just yeah for the first time i realized that i saw it as a sport i

00:06:59.840 mean you know when it when the when mma started and i remember seeing it would be played on bars that

00:07:04.580 i would go to and it wasn't cerebral it wasn't a sport it was it was really brutish and really barbaric and

00:07:09.660 they sort of played that up but over time it developed into the sport and i didn't realize

00:07:14.460 that it had and i'm watching these guys fight and you know some of the first guys that i fell in love

00:07:20.300 with watching it wasn't simply a matter of skill though it was it was that too there was skill and

00:07:24.300 athleticism and all this stuff you know all that all the jujitsu stuff that you'd sort of watch and

00:07:28.360 you go you know why is that guy why are they ending the fight i don't see what's happening at all and

00:07:32.800 that sort of sparked my curiosity but even more than that it was the temperament of some of these guys

00:07:37.540 again they ran sort of against everything i knew about and hated about fighting which was

00:07:43.380 you know you know tattoo covered bros you know screaming and shouting and being awful to each

00:07:50.320 other and a lot of these guys that were they were quiet they were they were they were seemed

00:07:54.500 relatively gentle outside the context of beating the hell out of each other and what really got me

00:08:00.120 i think you know in the end was they always hugged after a fight every time there was a fight

00:08:05.500 these guys would hug afterwards and i thought to myself something's going on here that i don't get

00:08:09.840 and that was it a love affair began all right so you started getting appreciation from ma you had

00:08:14.660 that moment where you started training krav maga when you started training krav maga like did you

00:08:19.640 discover something about yourself like that you had a blood lust or like a violence lust i did yeah

00:08:25.200 absolutely the yeah absolutely what the great thing about krav maga is that it just it really

00:08:30.880 introduced me to my aggression or allowed me to meet my aggression i again i was 33 at the time

00:08:37.400 i'd never really given voice to that i think i thought it was i don't know somehow unsophisticated

00:08:43.080 or it was a part of it was a world i didn't want to be a part of but the very first class i went to

00:08:46.660 i remember just we were kneeing we were learning how to knee someone in the in the stomach and i'm just

00:08:51.440 going crazy on these bags and i'm sweating and i'm yelling and the music is loud and i'm passing out

00:08:57.140 because i had quit smoking three days earlier and i mean it was it was some ways it was awful but it

00:09:01.860 was just you know it was just this great visceral animal thrill to be tapping into this part of

00:09:07.400 myself that i had never tapped into before and i'm sure it was always there but i i know that i had

00:09:12.660 never touched it before and and i i just loved it i mean it just it was it was so 180 degrees on the

00:09:19.720 other side of anything i'd ever done before and at that point in my life it was clear i just i needed

00:09:23.660 that i'd been sort of there'd been one script up to that point here was this whole other thing

00:09:28.240 and it's it seemed like there was a gigantic world out there and it started with me giving voice to

00:09:34.000 this awful terrible wonderful thing inside me and also you know krav maga we've had uh people on

00:09:39.620 experts in krav maga on the podcast before and a lot of people know it started with the israeli

00:09:43.900 defensive force and so i mean you talk about in the book you know doing krav maga it gave you a

00:09:48.240 different look at your own jewish heritage right right well it started even before that it's before

00:09:52.420 it made its way to israel it was a fighting style developed to fight off anti-semitic groups and

00:09:59.720 and nazi pro and pro-nazi groups in eastern europe the guy who invented it was living in i believe

00:10:05.580 lithuania and after hitler came to power in germany sort of acts of violent anti-semitism started

00:10:11.840 to spread all over europe and this this just jewish guy uh lichtenfeld in lithuania he was a wrestler

00:10:19.300 and he knew something about fighting and he developed this fighting style to fight off

00:10:22.340 nazis in the street and being an american jewish kid raised sort of always with the back in the

00:10:28.000 back of his mind with the knowledge of the sort of near extinction of his people at the hands of the

00:10:31.760 nazis this though it wasn't the thing that got me to my first krav class this really appealed to me

00:10:38.060 because i'd had plenty of fantasies over the years of fighting off nazis so the fact that it was that

00:10:44.160 this was a fighting style that was tapped into and and and born out of defending you know my people

00:10:50.320 against this sort of wild completely irrational rage that that very much appealed to me had it

00:10:57.560 started in in as part of the israeli defense force i don't i don't know if i would have had that same

00:11:01.800 sort of connection but but fighting off nazis was a pretty easy pretty easy thing to get behind

00:11:06.660 so krav maga it's it's directly for self-defense how did you go from uh martial art just for self-defense

00:11:13.520 to mma which is a sport martial art yeah you're absolutely right that was that was a that was

00:11:18.160 another big switch because i think that you know it was all well and good for me to learn how to

00:11:22.540 defend myself and to tap into my anger and everything but then there comes a point i think

00:11:27.540 where you sort of say to yourself you know do i want to try this do i want to see what how things

00:11:33.240 actually work do i want to vie with someone else and also do you want to get hit in the face and

00:11:37.940 there was a the fact of the matter is that there was when i first started doing it there was part of

00:11:42.600 me that really wanted to learn how to hit people but there was that other thing which said i really

00:11:47.120 want to see if i will survive getting hit by someone i want to see how i'll respond if i if i if i

00:11:52.500 will run away and weep or if i will stick around and see what happens and unfortunately you can't

00:11:58.420 really do that in krauth because as you say it's not really a sport fighting system you're sort of

00:12:02.440 being trained to cause the most amount of harm to someone in the least amount of time so you can

00:12:06.300 escape so i started doing like muay thai and moving over to muay thai and mma simply because

00:12:13.580 that was the opportunity there was to spar and i really wanted to spar i wanted to i wanted to

00:12:18.760 apply this stuff and i wanted to simulate as well as i could what i'd been seeing in these fights which

00:12:24.380 was people getting punched and punching back what was it like for you to get punched in the face the

00:12:29.600 first time it was it was amazing it was just like the fact that i took it and handled myself was just

00:12:37.180 it was one of the great days of my life i i can't can't even really describe the sort of joy that that

00:12:42.140 i realized maybe i'm not the coward i sort of always assumed i was and and i i took it and hated it and

00:12:50.280 punched back and then you know sort of eventually you get hit enough times where and this is sort of a

00:12:54.880 dividing line for some people i understand some people don't like to spar but it got to a point

00:12:59.020 where it wasn't just a matter of taking it it was a matter of there's a certain amount of appreciation

00:13:02.660 and and pleasure you take in it that you come to sort of need that in your life and that happened to

00:13:08.640 me pretty quickly i fell in love with with sparring very fast so uh you're a writer and when you talk

00:13:14.720 about there's a there's a storied history of writers who are also fighters ernest hemingway

00:13:19.200 boxed jack london box wrote about fighting famously norman maylor even lord byron i guess

00:13:26.200 with his club foot he was able to still fight and a lot of these writers talk about how writing is a

00:13:32.400 lot like fighting what do they say why do they think writing is like fighting and did you find that to be

00:13:38.060 true i i find that they definitely they're almost like it's for me it's two sides of the same coin i

00:13:43.780 think uh it got to a point with me where i and where it still is now where i kind of need

00:13:48.300 one to balance out the other i think they perform similar functions but in in very different ways so

00:13:54.360 for me to sort of balance out the cerebral agony of sort of you know worrying about this word and

00:14:00.460 this common moving things around and trying to find the right phrase it's a really great thing

00:14:05.660 and it's sort of a release valve to to to get knocked around in the cage but i do think that

00:14:10.380 there's something to be said for that idea of a person sitting alone and sort of facing off with him

00:14:16.380 or herself that you know whether it's staring at a blank screen or staring at someone who's coming

00:14:21.400 at you with with gloves on it's you're kind of wrestling with yourself i mean that's that's what

00:14:26.500 it comes down to and i think that's what it satisfies in me i'm not really a team sports guy and being a

00:14:32.460 writer i'm not really a working in an office with a large group of people guy and i think it's so

00:14:36.900 it it sort of addresses the same need in me to sort of be at some kind of in some kind of conflict with

00:14:45.280 myself but just in very very different ways the physical on the one side and the cerebral on the

00:14:50.380 other did you notice your writing style change as you got more into fighting like did you did your

00:14:55.120 style become punchier i mean i know it sounds kind of cheesy but like did it i don't know if my my

00:14:59.540 writing style changed i will say this that became a much better writer and for some reason i you know

00:15:04.420 i'm still trying to figure this out and i've been writing about fighting now for i don't know

00:15:08.600 seven years for some reason it's amused to me i don't know why that is and especially considering

00:15:15.980 it was something that i was so repulsed by for so long but i get to write about for some reason i

00:15:21.560 write about things that i see in the world through the lens of fighting better than i write about them

00:15:27.020 otherwise i i enjoyed writing about movies i enjoyed writing about politics i enjoyed

00:15:31.240 writing about basketball but i kind of felt like that i i wrote about movies and i wrote about

00:15:36.700 politics and i wrote about basketball something about fighting when i write about it it's sort of

00:15:40.820 like the lens through which i can view the world so if i i would never write an article about race

00:15:46.520 relations but i can talk about race through fighting it's like coming at these issues from an oblique

00:15:52.740 angle and fighting i don't know why i don't know if it's simply because we're it's such a human thing to do

00:15:57.480 and it gets me so excited but it's it really has made me a much better writer yeah i think with i

00:16:03.680 mean i love reading boxing biographies because like they're such great stories oh yeah i mean they're

00:16:08.440 the best like we've had a few guys on the podcast talk about uh rocky marciano um and some of the

00:16:13.760 other greats and like literally it's like the american story it's always like rags to riches they're

00:16:18.560 having to deal with all these like moral conflicts about okay there's some con men who are you know

00:16:23.240 deal who are part of boxing do i work with them do i not work with them then there's always an

00:16:28.120 inevitable fall because they just get old and they can't do it anymore and that's sad um so maybe

00:16:33.320 fighting it's just like it's the ultimate story it really is i think you're absolutely right and i

00:16:37.940 think it's a great like it's a it's a perfect american story you know and the fact that boxing was

00:16:43.080 so sort of the way mma is now or the way mma was a few years ago boxing was sort of loathed and

00:16:49.620 consigned to the dark corners and illegal and in many places and just sort of you know just hated

00:16:55.100 by by by uh upper class society or whatever like you know that that had to sort of work its way out

00:17:00.220 of the shadows i think it's just that in itself is is a great story but you're you're you're absolutely

00:17:05.060 right i mean these guys are dealing with mobsters and they're dealing with you know you know sort of

00:17:10.480 corrupt governing bodies and they're they're dealing with their own refusal to admit that their bodies

00:17:14.860 are falling apart it's yeah it's perfect so uh fighting is a young man's sport but you decided

00:17:20.100 to do that you decided to do this in your 30s when was your first fight how old were you i was 40

00:17:24.520 okay 40 that's that's like you're like geriatric in a world oh yeah um i mean how did that you know

00:17:32.920 how did your age change the way you approached training for that first fight of yours i don't know

00:17:38.180 how it changed it because it's the only one i ever trained for but i definitely there was a certain

00:17:42.340 sense of self-awareness i think that i had that maybe i wouldn't have had when i was 23 or 25

00:17:48.840 um being sort of knowing myself as long as i i had by that point and being painfully aware of whatever

00:17:57.820 physical limitations i had um i was very keen on building a fighting style and building a strategy

00:18:04.240 that was accommodated that i had no delusions about what i could or couldn't do what you know what my

00:18:11.300 body was capable of what i was good at was i good at jujitsu was i good at wrestling was i good at

00:18:16.260 boxing i sort of really honed in on the things that i knew i could handle because i assumed that

00:18:21.460 and it's sort of a something that they always tell you is that when you get in that cage especially

00:18:26.240 that first time all the fancy stuff that you've learned and all the the exotic moves that you've

00:18:31.280 learned and all the stuff you've tried in sparring sessions it's going to go right out the window i

00:18:35.120 mean when when the adrenaline hits you the only thing you have is really muscle memory

00:18:38.620 so i felt like as a as an older guy being aware of what i could and couldn't do and sort of

00:18:45.760 honing in on a couple of things that i could rely on was my best strategy and i think that i mean i

00:18:51.160 don't know i'd have to talk to some 25 year old fighters but i didn't get caught up in the excitement

00:18:56.700 too much i didn't get overwhelmed with the fear too much i didn't and i didn't try anything that was

00:19:02.140 outside my wheelhouse i just sort of buckled down and said here's what i can do and if i lose

00:19:07.700 then i lost doing what i'm then i lost honestly you know yeah i mean that was one of my favorite

00:19:13.160 sections of the book because i'm approaching middle age and i've noticed my sort of philosophy

00:19:17.740 towards life has changed compared to when you're young because when you're young you can take big

00:19:21.140 risks you you don't you're willing to like put put yourself out there completely but when you're

00:19:26.380 older you know you were married you had a job like there's more to lose and some people would argue

00:19:31.420 well that actually puts you at a disadvantage because like you're fighting not to lose instead of like

00:19:35.280 fighting to win but did you think there was an advantage to like you know you had you you

00:19:39.600 understood that if there's the stakes are kind of high here i could get seriously injured or even

00:19:44.560 die doing this yeah i mean i i i think that uh it is definitely a different sense of things when

00:19:51.340 you're approaching middle age when you are middle age i don't know what those lines are but

00:19:55.380 but yeah i think when you go into a fight as someone who has been through a considerable portion of a

00:20:01.360 life your perspective is different you don't think that i mean as an as important as this fight was to

00:20:06.920 me as like sort of world shakingly important as this fight was to me it existed in context i you

00:20:13.500 know i train with guys who are 22 23 years old who this is literally all they do i mean all they

00:20:19.320 think about is fighting all they do is train all their their diet their social life their every part

00:20:25.300 of their world is is pointed toward uh they're getting better as fighters which means they become

00:20:30.980 great fighters but there's no context for it outside of that i think for me having you know like you

00:20:36.940 said the relationship having the experience having having a life that existed outside of fighting

00:20:42.240 it made me approach it in a different way and i you know as i sort of say in the book that i

00:20:46.180 enjoyed i enjoy training with really young people like i'm in a boxing gym now and i'm always

00:20:50.580 sparring with young guys who are full of energy and they're so fast and they're so you know these

00:20:55.860 they're so they learn so quickly and they're they you know give them a year or two and i'm not

00:21:01.360 going to be able to stand next to them in a ring much less spar against them but right now i kind of

00:21:05.080 enjoy doing the things that an older guy does like i like to wear on them i like to you know like

00:21:12.140 put some weight on them i like to frustrate them because i know that they want to show off their

00:21:16.360 fanciest moves and they want to do their craziest things and so i'm going to push them back in a

00:21:20.160 corner and just i'm going to i'm going to bore them to tears and i like the idea of doing that

00:21:25.020 because one it's fun and two it gives me an advantage and three i don't like the idea that

00:21:29.860 they're young and fast and trying to take the world from me we're going to take a quick break

00:21:34.800 for your words from our sponsors and now back to the show right you love how you used to talk about

00:21:40.980 michael jordan and larry bird i love that story it's a great story well what you share that story

00:21:45.400 because it's it's fantastic sure so when michael jordan was in he was going to be in the olympics

00:21:51.920 he was going to sort of be the captain of the olympic team while he was a sophomore i believe

00:21:55.880 at the university of north carolina and everybody knew he was the next great basketball player

00:22:01.400 and he was coming up and he was going to take over the nba at the time larry bird and magic johnson

00:22:07.680 were the big guys in the nba and in preparation for the uh olympics that summer this this the

00:22:16.340 olympic team took on sort of an all-star nba squad just to warm up this again this is before the nba

00:22:23.060 the before nba players could be in the olympics and larry bird was on the nba all-star team and he

00:22:28.140 didn't like the idea that michael jordan was had gotten this reputation was and was coming up behind

00:22:33.260 him to take the league away from him so during the warm-ups before the game michael jordan came

00:22:38.940 chasing after a ball that had rolled from his side of the court onto the pro's side of the court

00:22:43.200 to grab it and and larry bird picked up the ball and michael jordan you know very respectfully said

00:22:48.200 hi mr bird could i get the ball back and larry bird looked at him and took the ball and heaved it

00:22:53.160 over his head and threw it out of the gymnasium and back back into the locker room and he turned to

00:22:56.900 michael jordan said go get it and it was i like that idea that's like you know yeah you might get me

00:23:03.060 one day but it's not going to be today and i'm going to get the every advantage that i have in

00:23:06.960 the meantime yeah exactly that highlights an approach that you can take as you're older there's one

00:23:12.020 approach you can become the decide i'm going to become the mentor the wise mentor takes people

00:23:15.220 under their wings and gives them the ropes or you can just be like no yeah get out of here and it

00:23:19.800 really depends on my mood i mean sometimes i am sometimes i'm very much a mentor and i like to help

00:23:23.820 guys out and give give them some advice but sometimes i just i resent their youth and i resent the idea

00:23:28.920 that they want to take the world from me and i luckily i've put myself in a position that i get to

00:23:33.000 do something about it by punching them in the face so i do tell us about your experience with

00:23:38.460 the asceticism of fighting i mean that's that was always going to be the hardest part for me i think

00:23:43.360 when i look back on it the the getting over a fear and the getting punched in the face was probably

00:23:48.360 easier for me than denying myself things that i want i'm not i had no really no training at that and

00:23:55.300 and no interest in it i was i had the interest in fighting i never had any interest in denying myself

00:24:01.180 things so that was really the difficult thing because you know when you're when you're training

00:24:05.600 to fight when you're in a training camp there's the basic things that you have to give up for the

00:24:09.840 sake of your the performance and your ability and your endurance and the whole thing like drinking and

00:24:14.880 smoking and and and things like that and i love drinking and i love smoking but then as you get closer

00:24:20.500 to the fight you know i had to cut in the last week i had to cut you know probably eight or nine

00:24:25.840 pounds which compared to what professional fighters do is nothing but i had never been on a diet in my

00:24:31.860 life i had never denied myself any foods but suddenly you're you know you're not eating bread

00:24:36.800 and you're cutting out carbs and you're and you're cutting out sugars and you're you're cutting out all

00:24:40.760 the things that make eating worthwhile and make living worthwhile to literally that last day you're

00:24:46.780 sort of cutting out everything you're cutting out water um i'm glad i went through the experience

00:24:51.480 because for better or for worse it's a fundamental part of being an mma fighter is the weight cut

00:24:56.460 as sort of inhumane and ridiculous as i think it is but i'm glad i went through it but it really

00:25:01.980 it's it's i hate it i hated every moment of it i don't like saying to myself you can't have this thing

00:25:07.580 and for such a silly reason as you need to weigh 170 pounds on such and such a date i just it just

00:25:14.260 it runs contrary to everything i love and everything i believe yeah and it's kind of silly too because

00:25:18.640 like after you weigh in you just put all the weight back on it's awful i mean the weight cut

00:25:22.760 you know i sort of look at weight cutting two ways i mean on the one hand i think it's awful and i think

00:25:29.340 it's in a sport where people consistently break each other's bones and each other's faces i think

00:25:35.680 it's kind of the worst and most inhumane thing that they do i mean to cut 20 pounds out of your body

00:25:41.180 in 24 hours just to be at a weight that someone else just cut 20 pounds out of their body for

00:25:46.600 i mean it's you know if everyone would be honest and say hey everyone is cutting 20 pounds of weight

00:25:50.900 why don't we just actually fight at our walking around weight it would be much more reasonable but

00:25:56.480 you know they're trying to get an advantage um the problem is that it's sacrificing performance and

00:26:01.600 it's sacrificing health and i you know a lot of these guys go into a cage and they're much more

00:26:06.240 vulnerable to long-term brain damage because they're they've sucked all the liquid out of their body

00:26:11.620 so it's sort of a collective insanity in some ways now that being said i do sort of understand it from

00:26:17.440 a more metaphorical standpoint and that you know to to get into a ring or to get into a cage and to

00:26:24.500 want to harm somebody who you don't even know physically you have to put yourself in a different

00:26:31.400 kind of frame of mind you can't be you almost have to be two people there's the person who walks around

00:26:36.140 on the street and there's a person who gets into a cage and fights and there i felt like there had to

00:26:41.520 be some sort of threshold that you crossed you know so it's a mythological in some ways there had

00:26:46.480 to be a line that you crossed between being one person and being the other person and i think that

00:26:50.560 the weight cut is definitely a way to do that i think it's an unfortunate way to do it and i think

00:26:55.600 that there are other probably better ways to do it but i think that it does put you in a frame of

00:27:00.500 mind where you sort of say you know i am so angry that i've been denied these things and i'm i'm so

00:27:07.960 hungry and i'm so thirsty and i'm physically miserable and there's one person i'm going to

00:27:12.820 blame for that and it's the guy across the ring for me and uh so i get it i think it's awful and i think

00:27:17.760 it's in the long term counterproductive but i i understand it yeah it sounds like a ritual that

00:27:22.920 just sort of puts you in a spiritual mindset to enter the ring right it absolutely is it's totally

00:27:27.840 it's a ritual thing and and i and i get it but you know there are other ritual things you know i

00:27:32.380 you know i think if you had put me in the ring nine pounds heavier if i had walked into the cage

00:27:36.840 without having denied myself chocolate and bread i think i would have found a way to realize that

00:27:43.740 that i was i was entering a new world because i was half naked in a cage with some guy wanting to

00:27:50.520 harm me rushing across the cage at me and everyone's a bunch of drunks are screaming you know i was in

00:27:55.900 another place i didn't i didn't need a weight loss program to get my brain there and another insight

00:28:01.500 you had while you're doing this is that when you do the cut and you're doing all this training to

00:28:05.140 become an mma fighter you're optimizing your body and your mind for fighting but so there's a downside

00:28:11.440 that over optimization you in fact become more fragile can you talk about that sure yeah i mean

00:28:17.340 it's sort of the the greatest irony about fighting is that i mean you you i was far and away in the

00:28:24.720 best shape of my life when i was training for this fight and you've really you know through

00:28:29.040 the training regimen and through diet and through weight lifting and running and all these different

00:28:35.120 things that you do you really get to a point where you're just you like you said you're optimized at

00:28:40.700 that moment the fight starts you were in peak physical condition but at the same time you're

00:28:46.360 completely vulnerable because you're there's nothing you know the smallest flaw the smallest break the

00:28:52.540 smallest twist or tear and kind of the whole system falls apart you know during the course of your

00:28:57.200 daily life if you twist an ankle or you jack your wrist up a little bit it might not really change the

00:29:03.560 way you go through life when you're training for a fight though it can be everything and i remember

00:29:08.980 feeling at several points during the training that i felt like a like a strong wind would make me sick

00:29:15.960 or that uh that the wrong move on the jujitsu mat would really cause me a lot of damage

00:29:20.760 something i would not have felt six months earlier when i was just training for fun i mean it really

00:29:26.020 is sort of a remarkable thing how finely pitched you are and how vulnerable to the slightest breeze you

00:29:33.360 are well and you experienced a setback you got injured when you're you know rolling doing jujitsu

00:29:38.200 during practice and it sets you back a few weeks i mean what was it what was it like when you

00:29:42.900 found out you couldn't train like you had been usually it was it was it was awful i mean it was

00:29:48.060 i did i was in the i was a i was sparring jujitsu one day and and uh just got my hand caught in the

00:29:54.060 wrong way in the in my partner's jujitsu gi and it broke one of the bones that leads down the back

00:29:59.860 of the of the hand so i was out for about i was supposed to be out for about six weeks but yeah it was

00:30:05.740 it was it was heartbreaking and and and scary immediately because i realized i heard the pop and i

00:30:12.420 and i knew something had gone wrong but it did it when you're sort of that focused on

00:30:17.820 one thing and your whole world is sort of surrounded and you've got this idea in your head well here's

00:30:22.060 the next benchmark and here's the next step and i was going to move from this to this to this and

00:30:25.920 then all of a sudden this you know silly accident i mean i wasn't even being the guy wasn't trying to

00:30:30.460 submit me i literally got caught in his lapel i mean it's i got beaten by his shirt which is depressing

00:30:35.620 but when that happens it's like you know i was thrown off completely and suddenly this project

00:30:44.360 felt in danger and the book felt in danger and and the fight felt in danger i didn't know it was

00:30:48.920 going to be just six weeks but it sort of becomes like an existential crisis you got this little tiny

00:30:54.220 broken bone in your hand and you feel like it's preventing you from doing all the things that

00:30:58.940 you're supposed to be doing so when i found it was six weeks i just sort of said to myself i would

00:31:04.260 rather you know sort of tuck that hand away and hold it to the side and work on my left hand just

00:31:11.060 just whatever i could do with my left hand so i just went i went to the boxing gym every day and

00:31:14.780 worked on my jab and ran on the treadmill and did all the 101 things you can do that don't require a

00:31:20.720 right hand simply to keep myself both on some sort of trajectory and also from slipping into you know

00:31:27.380 pretty deep depression which was a real risk did you see that happen to guys who you know got injured

00:31:32.660 and they couldn't train they just kind of slip into a depression and a funk yeah yeah definitely

00:31:36.180 you see it all the time i mean the and especially the the people who take it you know the professional

00:31:40.780 guys and the guys who want to be professional because again like your identity is wrapped up in

00:31:44.600 it for me my identity is wrapped up somewhat but more sort of my my emotional state my psychological

00:31:50.960 state are wrapped up in it so a hand i'll be okay i could keep doing something but these guys who

00:31:57.160 have to be at their best all the time you know they're constantly learning and they're constantly

00:32:00.700 getting better you can see it's like a matter of their identity being lost you know it's i imagine

00:32:06.700 it'd be no different than if you took a painter's brushes away but obviously the chances that you're

00:32:10.400 going to injure yourself painting are much much slimmer so you know fighters do that to themselves

00:32:15.780 fighters walk a line where they're as dedicated and devoted as anyone but the very the thing that

00:32:21.460 they're devoted and dedicated to is putting them at risk of not being able to do the thing so

00:32:26.160 it's it's uh it i don't think fighters like to think about it too much i think too much perspective

00:32:30.640 will ruin a fighter but it's always there it's always it's always waiting for you the the injury

00:32:37.000 is always knocking at the door and waiting to take two months out of your life what did your wife think

00:32:42.300 about all this when you're training she on board with it where she's sort of ambivalent she just

00:32:46.480 didn't really think about it much she so so when i met my wife she was i was already in the process

00:32:52.380 of preparing for the fight and preparing for the book and knew that i would be doing it so she

00:32:57.080 accepted that and knew that i would be doing the one fight during the training it was totally fine i

00:33:02.080 mean she made some sacrifices and put up with some a lot of mood shifts and and put up you know listen

00:33:07.940 to me yap a lot about things that she probably didn't care too much about but the fight itself

00:33:13.600 she did not like she didn't like watching the fight she didn't even after the fight was over she

00:33:18.620 didn't seem to be enjoying herself uh she it was it was not a pleasant experience for her and i think

00:33:23.720 that that's sort of keeping me from doing it again i mean there are several things that are keeping me

00:33:28.460 from doing it again but one of them is the realization when i saw the look on her face after

00:33:32.120 the fight was over that she still was not you know it was all done and she was still not taking any

00:33:37.800 pleasure in it that she was still sort of terrified and miserable you know stupid me that was the first

00:33:42.300 time i think i realized what a terrible thing it is to ask of people who love you to sort of to

00:33:49.120 choose between your happiness and your health and and you know my mother couldn't watch the fight

00:33:53.920 had to hear about it from a phone call from somebody and my my wife was totally miserable the entire time

00:33:59.160 and it's a terrible thing to put people you care about through so yeah it was that was that was

00:34:04.620 definitely an interesting thing going through this with with a partner so let's talk about that fight so

00:34:09.180 when going into it were you like super nervous like were you worried about how you were going to

00:34:13.440 react like were you going to get freaked out and butterflies and your brain was just going to go

00:34:17.600 black or did you have another idea of what was going to happen i sort of half assumed that that was

00:34:23.480 a very strong possibility i didn't you know i was it was so without precedent in my life that i sort of

00:34:28.620 felt like nothing would surprise me and i was prepared to be terrified i was pretty sure i wasn't gonna

00:34:34.920 jump out of the ring and and and run away but i was pretty resigned to being scared to a point that

00:34:42.320 i'd never been scared before and reacting i didn't know if i would sort of freeze up or i would sort of

00:34:47.500 go crazy and just sort of forget my technique and just throw my hands and my fists around like i was in

00:34:53.520 a bar fight i i was comfortable with that i i hoped it didn't happen but i sort of resigned to that

00:34:59.280 happening when i got in the cage though i was really calm i i don't i i was i shocked myself i i got in

00:35:07.460 the cage and it just felt like okay here i am this is the thing that i've been training for and i don't

00:35:13.580 want to train anymore i'm i'm done with waiting and i drove all the way out here and my friends drove all

00:35:18.480 the way out here and there's that guy and this is the thing that i've been thinking about for years

00:35:24.140 and years and years and years and i'm going to find out now what what what i am and uh there was

00:35:30.220 a real sense of calm that was you know the spiritualist in me would say was born out of

00:35:36.360 some sort of you know connectedness to the universe but i'm not really that person it was just i i was

00:35:41.600 just sort of resigned i wasn't going to leave i was there to to do this thing and and uh i think my

00:35:47.700 my body stopped being frightened at some point it was really strange it's not what i expected at all

00:35:53.500 so we won't talk about the outcome of the fight we'll let people pick up the book but i'm curious

00:35:57.760 you know you said you know this is your search for meaning what did you discover about life

00:36:02.440 training for this fight that you don't think you would have discovered had you not done it

00:36:07.760 i think probably the main thing is that there's nothing firm and fixed about our lives and our bodies

00:36:16.620 and our personalities i found it i found training for the fight and and and even going back further

00:36:23.280 the first time i went to that to that fighting class and sort of falling in love with it the whole

00:36:27.840 this whole 10-year process the the meaning that i found is that is that your your entire life can

00:36:36.360 be transformed you can make a conscious decision to complete you know to to to to recreate yourself

00:36:41.640 it's i've i've found the entire thing totally liberating when i think about fighting and what

00:36:49.120 it means to my life it's a it's a it's an agent of liberation first and foremost and transformation

00:36:54.780 whether it's you know there's the bodily transformation the emotional transformation and

00:36:59.140 all these other things and the sort of aggression and the comfort you know your comfort level with

00:37:03.380 with violence and that sort of thing but when it comes down to it it's just

00:37:06.980 that work clay you know that's the revelation that i had that that i was this one thing and out of

00:37:16.420 whatever it was boredom desperation rage desire whatever it was i transformed myself from one person

00:37:23.360 into another person and that's a totally liberating idea in this world and uh and for that reason alone

00:37:33.140 you know fighting is my favorite thing because it's a it's a change agent and and i i love the idea of

00:37:40.200 being able to change yourself just out of out of pure will so you mentioned earlier that you're probably

00:37:46.780 not going to do another fight but are you still training and if so why are you doing like what is

00:37:50.760 just because you just enjoy it yeah i still do boxing now i've sort of cut out the a lot of the mma

00:37:57.300 stuff for any number of reasons you know muay thai like i just don't have the hips for it anymore

00:38:02.800 literally i i just don't have the flexibility in the hips anymore but i love boxing and i love

00:38:07.680 sparring and i so i so i still go to a gym and i still spar and the reason is because there's nothing

00:38:13.700 else in my life that gives me a feeling that can even approximate that when i get into a ring with

00:38:17.960 somebody and it's you know sparring is very different than fighting but it's still in that

00:38:23.620 world and uh there's a a level of like the visceral thrill and the tapping into these aggressive parts

00:38:31.600 of myself and allowing myself to express some anger and to to take a couple of punches to the face

00:38:37.180 it's still the the biggest thrill i have and you know otherwise my life is a relatively calm

00:38:43.400 quiet affair i mean it's writing it's hanging out with friends and my wife it's drinking you know

00:38:48.480 it's not it's not a whole lot of excitement going on so this is the thing that that that taps me into

00:38:53.540 that and also the other thing is that for sort of a devoted materialist like myself it's the one

00:39:00.080 avenue i have that gets me close to what i would consider sort of a spiritual or mystical or out-of-body

00:39:06.660 experience you know i've tried to sit and meditate i've tried to concentrate on my breathing and

00:39:11.240 i've tried to focus on a word or whatever i've sat there in the lotus position and it just doesn't

00:39:17.020 work for me but you put me in a in a cage or a or a ring and you know someone starts coming at you

00:39:24.420 with a pair of gloves on and they're trying to take your head off you know you talk about

00:39:28.460 mindfulness i mean it's really hard to think about and concern yourself with politics or your

00:39:33.660 monetary situation or the state of your relationship when someone is trying to harm you

00:39:38.160 it's a very focusing very clarifying activity and and if for no other reason i you know i can't

00:39:45.840 imagine stopping i i know people who do this they're in their mid-60s and i know exactly why

00:39:50.760 they do it's a it's a disease and it's a it's an addiction and it's you know it's it's the greatest

00:39:57.440 thing in the world and i couldn't imagine reaching a point where even if my body is screaming at me to

00:40:01.740 stop that i would stop well josh is there some place people can go to learn more about your work

00:40:05.860 uh sure yeah i have a website josh rosenblatt.com and i'm on twitter and instagram but josh rosenblatt

00:40:13.740 one and obviously there's if you want to learn about me and my work why we fight is the is the

00:40:19.360 best place to do it i sort of poured everything i had into that book i sort of squeezed squeezed

00:40:23.980 this the sponge on on my knowledge of and my affection for fighting into that book so yeah if

00:40:31.040 you're curious at all that's the the book is the place all right well josh rosenblatt thanks for your

00:40:35.000 time it's been a pleasure yeah it's been great talking to you thanks so much my guest name is

00:40:38.520 josh rosenblatt he's the author of the book why we fight one man search for meaning inside the ring

00:40:43.280 it's available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere also check out our show notes at

00:40:46.860 aom.is slash why we fight where you can find links to resources where you can delve deeper into this topic

00:40:52.040 well that wraps up another edition of the aom podcast check out our website artofmanliness.com

00:41:00.160 where you can see our podcast archives there's over 470 there also thousands of articles on just

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00:41:21.320 support until next time this is brett mccary reminding you to not only listen to the

00:41:24.620 aom podcast but put what you've heard into action

The Art of Manliness - February 20, 2019

#484： A Man's Search for Meaning Inside the Ring

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