The Art of Manliness - Episode #30： A Fighter’s Heart and Mind With Sam Sheridan

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast well you've seen

00:00:19.740 them on tv's ultimate fighter mma fighters who pummel each other into bloody pulps all for the

00:00:24.660 taste of glorious victory but what sort of mindset does it take to step into a ring and face down

00:00:29.560 another man whose only goal is to either knock you out or put you in some painful submission hold

00:00:34.040 until you tap out well our guest today has written two books on this topic his name is sam sheridan

00:00:39.160 and he's the author of two books on fighting the fighter's heart and the fighter's mind in addition

00:00:44.180 to writing and fighting sam has worked as a merchant marine sailed around the world became a smoke

00:00:48.220 jumper and has worked in antarctica sounds like ernest hemingway here well sam welcome to the

00:00:53.320 show thanks a lot thanks for having me i appreciate it all right well sam the first thing i want to

00:00:58.320 talk about kind of ask you about your background you have a really interesting uh resume uh you

00:01:02.840 were a merchant marine right out of right out of high school um you went to harvard um you sailed

00:01:08.040 around the world uh you studied muay thai in bangkok um you're also a smoke jumper and then

00:01:14.780 you worked in antarctica as well i mean what drives you to take on these different challenges

00:01:18.900 and adventure i mean you sound like a really man's man type of ernest hemingway character you know

00:01:22.680 it never uh it never was a real plan it sort of evolved that way and uh let me clarify i was never

00:01:28.360 a smoke jumper i was a hot shot and i got offered a smoke jumping job but i never uh was able to take

00:01:34.420 it because i started writing but um you know just uh you know it's a tough question why why these things

00:01:42.440 happen i think a lot of it is um it's just the way my life evolved i sort of uh i like the options that

00:01:49.580 that that came up and i took some and said no to others and you know the emergent marine i wasn't

00:01:54.780 ready to go to college i wanted to to do something else and the opportunity came up it's funny when

00:02:00.200 you look at my resume it makes people laugh because uh it's a little ridiculous but it was never that

00:02:05.280 was never the plan that was never uh a goal to sort of set out to do um a lot of crazy things it's

00:02:12.160 always been uh just you know day-to-day option to option uh what looks good in the future and what

00:02:18.060 seems like a good time part of it is you know i'm going to go work in antarctica that doesn't

00:02:22.240 sound like a good time but if you can say i'm going to go work in antarctica next year oh yeah

00:02:27.040 what the hell it's next year so then you know it just gets closer and all of a sudden you signed up

00:02:31.400 and bought the tickets and you're going so you might as well just go at that point so you know

00:02:36.480 nothing nothing special just um just willingness is all well so you've written two books on fighting

00:02:41.580 and i've read both and they're very interesting kind of their memoirs uh slash kind of sports writing

00:02:47.240 and your first one was called a fighter's heart in that book you call fighting an anti-video game

00:02:54.280 what do you mean by that you know when i started sparring and started fighting it was uh it was just

00:03:00.580 it was a revelation in terms of how exciting it was and how how um how present you had to be um i think

00:03:07.320 a lot of that has to do with consequences you know video games and and a lot of the modern world there's

00:03:12.460 not a lot of consequence for what we do there's not a lot of uh you're never at risk

00:03:16.300 you're never really putting yourself physically at risk and the thrill the excitement of doing that

00:03:22.920 you know but it's still very safe and prescribed and and uh and uh civilized manner i mean you know

00:03:29.880 you're wearing a mouth guard and you're wearing headgear and you're wearing big gloves usually when

00:03:34.600 you're boxing and and more importantly your opponent is it has agreed to do the same and to buy by the

00:03:41.100 same rules so that you know it's a very civilized endeavor really i mean it's it sort of has some

00:03:46.000 appearances of of uh brutality but it's it's actually extremely refined and uh it can sort

00:03:52.460 of make you feel alive i think was what what really drew me to it in the beginning it shocked me kind

00:03:58.800 of uh maybe out of my stupor a little bit um and i do think that the video game world and you know

00:04:06.220 is uh is a place that lulls you to sleep a little bit um so so sam how do you think fighting relates

00:04:12.620 to manliness and do you think most men have this desire to fight oh of course you know i think uh

00:04:19.740 we're you know we're you're dealing with millions of years of evolution and your reptilian brain and

00:04:25.400 your and your genetic you know desire to survive so you're going to have uh reasons and and

00:04:31.300 urges to fight in you no matter how they may manifest themselves whether it's you know whether

00:04:38.960 it's ping pong whether it's chess whether it's in conversation you men and women to some extent

00:04:45.660 you know they're going to seek to dominate and you want to want to try to express your ideas and

00:04:49.920 control things what one of the fun things about actual fighting is you're getting back to your much

00:04:55.680 more primal fight or fight uh responses and and into your kind of you know you're getting down into

00:05:02.300 your uh reptilian brain or whatever you're getting sort of back to the basics on that stuff and do you

00:05:08.380 think uh i mean why do you think it's so anyway let's go back to manliness i think pop culture and

00:05:15.160 the way we've seen you know the manly men is is fighting's a part of that but i think um you know the

00:05:21.540 desire is in everyone it's a little it's a little suppressed in modern times sure but uh but it is

00:05:27.600 definitely part of it's it's an integral part of being a man in human nature and uh you can't

00:05:35.680 completely suppress it because it just manifests itself in other ways i mean i've had these crazy

00:05:40.820 crazy discussions with psychiatrists um who are trying to you know one-up me on radio shows that

00:05:47.660 you know fighting is this and that and i'm what i say to them is oh you're fighting me right now just

00:05:52.440 in this in this conversation you're looking to dominate this conversation and win social points

00:05:57.800 and and uh it's just a different a different arena you know so um so it's all definitely the

00:06:04.780 part and parcel for manhood so you know sam you kind of touched on it a little bit you know fighting

00:06:10.800 is both celebrated for its discipline um encouraged but also reviled for its violence um how do you

00:06:17.460 reconcile the two um how do you reconcile the morality of fighting yeah you know i actually

00:06:23.580 don't see them as in conflict i i understand where the problem comes with and some of it's semantics

00:06:29.240 some of it's fighting fighting fighting i mean to me violence is about you know it happens when

00:06:35.840 when when one one party involved is not willing right so it's it's if a criminal attacks somebody

00:06:42.280 that's violence uh you know and fighting in a bar often is violent because somebody's having a

00:06:48.040 just trying to have a good night and somebody else wants to fight you know and that's that's not

00:06:52.780 what i'm talking about at all and that's not what i'm interested in and that's not what i write about

00:06:56.340 i mean for two you know athletes to compete and to to meet each other in a ring or a cage in this

00:07:04.620 kind of you know primitive combat going back to kind of our earliest most evolutionarily old

00:07:12.860 memories of fighting but yet again like i say it's civilized you know it's uh there's a referee there

00:07:18.040 there's rules there's you know mixed martial arts they call it no holds barred but there's you know

00:07:22.680 something like 54 holds you can't do you know there's basically what what there's almost no permanent

00:07:29.060 damage done um at least you know that's that's that's that's the theory of course there is you

00:07:35.640 know the brain damage done and concussions but that we can get into that at a different time i mean

00:07:39.320 the idea being that you know you're you're fighting without tearing somebody's eyeballs out yeah you're

00:07:45.800 not you're not fish hooking people you're not uh doing you know they if they tap the fight's over if

00:07:52.660 they submit to you so it's really about you know you're enforcing your will it's really about

00:07:56.440 choosing and and and being supreme about your will and i think that is actually one of the reasons

00:08:02.320 that people are drawn to fighting and especially watching it because it's it's a little bit of uh

00:08:09.060 what you're seeing is kind of like fighters valuing their free will over everything else you know

00:08:16.020 that's that's what comes comes down to and we all kind of get behind that you know it's because if

00:08:21.740 you get knocked out or i submit you you've you've you've given up your will right i can do whatever i

00:08:26.380 want i'm the victor to the victor go to spoil you know the idea that you're willing to fight me to

00:08:31.340 the death you know in quotations to to protect that free will is kind of admirable and heroic in

00:08:37.400 a way that fighting me for money is not so interesting and that's actually not what it's

00:08:42.660 about i don't think either one thing uh i've noticed i've uh but i think it's really interesting

00:08:47.880 about mma fighters or any fighter boxers etc i've you know i've met and interacted with quite a few and

00:08:53.980 they look very ominous they have you know tattoos they got you know the shaved head um just huge

00:08:59.860 bulking guys and they in the ring they just look angry and violent but then outside of the ring these

00:09:05.920 are some of the nicest most you know humblest guys ever met in my entire life what do you think

00:09:10.320 accounts for this dichotomy i mean what what's going on there well it's interesting you know i think

00:09:15.260 that was kind of what drew me to to fighting in the first place when i was living in thailand and i

00:09:19.460 sort of realized that the very best fighters in the camp were also the most devout buddhists and

00:09:25.260 the most humble guys in the camp which i kind of struggled to understand at the time and usually

00:09:31.580 the the third tier fighters were were cocky and arrogant and had something to prove and you know

00:09:37.820 it goes through a lot of things it goes through a lot of things but but uh you know one of them is

00:09:41.800 is fighting is about identity you know you have to know who you are um and when you know who you

00:09:47.540 are you're more relaxed you know you're a more comfortable person uh you don't you know say i'm

00:09:52.660 a i'm a tall skinny white guy i don't fight like floyd mayweather you know i don't stand in the pocket

00:09:59.500 i have to know my identity i have to fight like who i am and make my strengths and weaknesses all

00:10:06.320 strengths so you it really forces you to know who you are and i know that i'm not a world beater right

00:10:12.480 i know that i'm not a one punch knockout guy and i and i can't back that up because i've been in there

00:10:17.900 with those guys and they they smash me so you you you you sort of can't hide in a sense in fighting

00:10:24.340 you're really you're really exposed and i think what's interesting with professionals uh and as they

00:10:30.260 have success they're very exposed and you have um someone who stands up in front of millions of

00:10:37.060 people essentially in his underwear his heart his courage his his ability to think uh his uh you

00:10:45.600 know his character is on display and everybody gets to see it and judge it you know of course he's

00:10:52.100 concealing things you know fighting and martial arts is about deception but uh he's hiding it in

00:10:56.820 plain sight and a lot of it he can't hide or she can't hide so i think that goes to making them

00:11:02.760 uh a more relaxed person um the other thing is often uh you know if you want to be great at

00:11:10.880 something particularly fighting you have to keep growing you have to keep learning you have to be

00:11:15.040 able to put yourself underneath new teachers and absorb their lessons because the minute you start

00:11:21.640 getting comfortable uh and say oh hey i know everything you're gonna get you're gonna get beat and

00:11:26.760 this is you know what every professional from randy couture to i'd be a savior to all kinds of guys

00:11:32.240 um you know they say this kind of thing so i used to think oh great fighters became humble

00:11:38.240 and i think what i realized was that actually you don't become great unless you are humble uh there's

00:11:45.840 a little bit of a chicken and an egg going on there the guys who who can't suppress their ego

00:11:50.680 hit a ceiling uh in terms of how much their natural raw talent will take them and you see that in every

00:11:57.300 sport you know you see really talented basketball players who who can't uh can't keep growing can't

00:12:04.120 keep learning and they and they hit a point and then the guy who can all of a sudden is beating them

00:12:09.380 and i think that's just more obvious in fighting um and finally that fighting is is really a what you

00:12:16.940 know certainly professional fighting which is is um what i was sort of interested in and writing about

00:12:22.000 was you know it it is a way a way for for particularly damaged people to kind of find a

00:12:29.640 place in society and find something they can excel at and find a place where their fear and anger can

00:12:35.560 be really used in a positive way to make you know to to generate uh a career for themselves

00:12:42.360 and one of the things that would happen was that uh you know once these guys who have these chips on

00:12:49.480 their shoulders start fighting professionally they really have nothing to prove outside the ring they

00:12:54.020 sort of they know they're tough now you know they don't have to prove they're tough to everybody at

00:12:59.140 this bar they they've they've gotten up in the cage and they fought really tough guys and proved it on a

00:13:05.680 really high level so a lot of the chatter falls away a lot of the kind of um uh the radio in our

00:13:12.340 interference of of the static of uh of uh you know a tough guy in a bar giving them a glare that

00:13:17.760 might in the past have led to a fight you know now they don't care and they and they they can't

00:13:22.740 care they don't have time they're too tired they have to take care of their bodies because they're an

00:13:27.440 investment now you know i mean they they owe it to themselves and their trainer not to get hurt so

00:13:31.860 uh that's part of it too we're gonna take a quick break for your words from our sponsors

00:13:36.740 and now back to the show um in in your second book that just recently came out the fighter's mind

00:13:44.980 uh you interview you go across the world interviewing fighters from different disciplines

00:13:50.520 and find out how they approach a fight mentally what do successful fighters have in common when it

00:13:57.380 comes to the psychological aspect of fighting i imagine i guess humility is one you just mentioned

00:14:02.840 are there any other ones yeah you know i there was a couple different things but certainly the

00:14:07.920 ability to learn and keep growing was uh was just you know you'd hear it from everyone uh all the time

00:14:14.100 from dan gable and and and to to uh you know kenny florian and um and i talked to chess players and

00:14:22.880 ultra marathoners and you'd always hear kind of things like that you know and i guess um

00:14:29.000 you know a few other things but but uh but that was one of the big ones that was sort of really

00:14:34.480 ubiquitous um uh and i kind of again you know it goes to identity and knowledge and kind of being

00:14:42.060 unwilling to you know you you you may never be muhammad ali right but you can be the greatest

00:14:49.900 version of of brett there is you know the best brett fighter there is you or i could be the best sam

00:14:55.360 fighter out there you know and that's and that's an interesting thing is you know taking your your

00:15:01.480 strengths and weaknesses and seeing how they could be most effective and that's kind of something that

00:15:06.040 everybody can can get behind you know it's sort of you know self-knowledge and and um really fully

00:15:12.380 utilizing your own strengths i think is an important uh interesting lesson from these guys and do you

00:15:18.000 think these lessons that we you've got from these you've taken from these men are they applicable to

00:15:23.720 other areas of life i mean can an average joe is probably gonna fight yeah yeah absolutely i mean

00:15:27.980 my wife for instance is director and she recommends the fighter's mind on my second book to everyone

00:15:32.960 because all her director friends because you know there's just things about like dealing with fear

00:15:37.780 and how you get over fear and how you deal with loss um dealing with early success you know you get

00:15:44.300 guys who who do really well in the beginning and then they get scared to lose and what happens when you

00:15:51.320 get scared to lose you start losing you know if you the fear becomes the problem um and you're not

00:15:57.180 doing the things that made you successful in the first place you know so there's a lot of lessons i

00:16:01.420 think and fighting again you know it's just like life and that's why all you know you mentioned

00:16:05.740 hemingway and joyce carol oates and norman mailer and everybody's been drawn to to fighting and box

00:16:11.960 fight boxing and prize fighting and things like that it's just you know it's just like life only

00:16:16.320 more obvious you know it's just that everything's very plain and and kind of out there to be to be

00:16:22.800 looked at and thought about which is why i think a lot of writers and filmmakers and you know find

00:16:29.660 drama there what about failure i mean what how does is failure an important part of this success

00:16:35.460 you know like you know henzo gracie very very famous bazillion fighter uh would would say uh you

00:16:42.540 don't learn anything from victory you only learn something from your failures and really what

00:16:47.140 defines your failure is whether you do grow from it uh whether you do internalize lesson um you know

00:16:56.420 invest in the defeat uh which is you know again it sort of gets into like you know it almost sounds

00:17:01.160 like self-help books and you know 10 tips for successful people like that but uh but some of that's

00:17:06.540 very true you know you want to the guys who get beat and and understand what happened and uh come

00:17:13.380 back stronger and figure out ways to fix that gap which is you know it's funny here's one of my little

00:17:18.620 pet peeves is that you know you watch a lot of fights and and you'll hear fans go oh he's making

00:17:23.720 excuses when a fighter loses he's making always making excuses you know and you know it's like listen

00:17:30.280 dude this guy's a professional fighter this is what he does for a living if he just says oh he's i can't

00:17:35.280 beat this guy he's better than me he's he's screwed you know i mean that he can't do that mentally

00:17:39.960 that's not a good strategy he has to have a reason you know a reason he lost and a reason he can win

00:17:45.660 the next time he needs you know his corner men and his coaches are all all giving him reasons

00:17:51.300 you know even if they're not true he needs a reason to think he can win the next time or else how could

00:17:58.240 he do what he does you know so um that's just a little pet peeve of mine that kind of illustrates that

00:18:03.380 you know you really um you need to learn from your losses and and and henzo actually has pictures

00:18:08.680 of all his losses on his walls you know because like he says you you make a mistake in a in a big

00:18:16.100 fight or a competition you never make that mistake again you know and you lose because of that mistake

00:18:21.240 you you you learn never like you know uh you know he let um sakuraba grab a uh kimura on him when he

00:18:30.560 was shaking sakuraba's back and sakuraba broke his arm and he has that picture on his wall and it's

00:18:36.440 uh it's great because it's like you know he's never going to take the back like that again because

00:18:40.620 he he learned you know he really learned a lesson and i think he was winning the fight and had 30

00:18:45.880 seconds left or whatever so anyway yeah internalizing defeat really understanding and growing from

00:18:50.480 defeat hugely important and i think um everybody you know has to kind of get on board with that one

00:18:56.720 has uh fighting changed you as a man you know it's hard to say i guess so probably you know i think

00:19:03.640 um you know it's it's it's it's tough i certainly i'm i'm probably you know a lot more athletic and

00:19:09.920 physical than i would be if i hadn't been doing a sport for the last 10 years and normally go out of

00:19:15.440 college and pretty much that's it for sports unless you're going pro so for me to keep doing things

00:19:20.080 physically was uh was an interesting kind of a journey and become much more athletic you know

00:19:24.980 has it changed me as a man i don't know you know it's it's hard to say probably i would say probably

00:19:29.380 i'm a little you know more confident and relaxed about confrontation than i was and part of it's

00:19:36.480 just the mystery is gone you know it's a little bit it's a little bit like sex you know before you

00:19:41.020 ever have sex it's a huge mystery you know wonderful and terrifying oh my god what's it going

00:19:45.700 to be like and then you have sex and it's oh well it's great but uh it's not you're not it's not

00:19:51.860 the totally different outside of all other experiences you ever had you know and you know

00:19:56.660 you're not in a dream state or whatever so i think getting to that with fighting a lot of you know

00:20:02.600 there's a lot of misunderstandings about what you know what having someone punch you in the face is

00:20:07.980 about until you get it done uh and and done repeatedly it's sort of hard to understand it and

00:20:13.920 it's not good for you you know i'm not saying go out there and let people beat you up but it's

00:20:19.300 i think really important just to understand the urgency and the speed at which violence can

00:20:26.300 happen the kind of intensity that you need to to be at uh that you do it a little bit and to for

00:20:32.560 for everyone really to get a feel for it and to just to broaden their understanding but you know i'm

00:20:37.820 that kind of guy i think everybody should do everything because i think you know understanding

00:20:41.920 is the key to key to the universe and you're only gonna broaden your understanding by doing basically

00:20:48.000 all right well sam if there's a man listening to this podcast and he's like man i want to start

00:20:52.900 fighting um what steps would you recommend that he take to get started you know i would say uh

00:20:58.120 find a gym you know and find a gym that's close to me you know it's i never would you know i'm never

00:21:04.540 going to go more than about 15 20 minutes to a gym that's that's just the way i am so either i have to go

00:21:10.480 live over the gym or i find something really close to home um but you know there's a ton of mma gyms out

00:21:18.080 there now i would shop around you know for instance if you live in a big city i'm sure there's probably

00:21:23.360 10 mma gyms that are in your city uh they should all give you at least one free class go roll around

00:21:30.800 on the floor and wrestle with some people and you know see how the vibe is if if the gym gives you a

00:21:35.640 good vibe uh you know great and it's very personal and it's very much you know what experience you

00:21:41.460 have and listen there are plenty of gyms that won't give you a good vibe and you won't have a good time

00:21:45.400 and screw those places you know don't don't go in there because it's just not worth it you can you

00:21:50.560 can waste too much time and money and get injured and all that stuff so you know i wouldn't don't go

00:21:56.780 in and say hey i want to fight you know because listen we you know mma coaches and trainers they hear

00:22:02.640 that all the time like oh i want to fight i want to be in the ufc you know it's it's who cares

00:22:08.360 everybody wants to fight you need to you know give me give me six months of uh of uh getting into the

00:22:15.960 gym every day and then tell me you want to fight you know and then and then see how you feel and and

00:22:20.440 and uh and that'll it'll tell you a lot you know that's the first month or two and you know some

00:22:27.240 people love it and some people it's too tiring and you know that's that's the way it is so i would just

00:22:32.260 shop around and try a few gems and get a feel for it and then just sort of go to what your gut says

00:22:38.140 you know go with your your intuition on that all right well sam thank you for your time it's been

00:22:43.940 a pleasure absolutely no problem my pleasure our guest today was sam sheridan sam is the author of

00:22:49.380 two books on fighting his first is called a fighter's heart and his most recent book is called

00:22:53.280 a fighter's mind and you can pick up both of those books at major bookstores and amazon.com

00:22:58.500 well that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast for more manly tips and advice

00:23:07.480 make sure to check out the art of manliness website at artofmanliness.com and until next time stay

00:23:14.060 madly

00:23:15.220 madly

The Art of Manliness - April 04, 2014

Episode #30： A Fighter’s Heart and Mind With Sam Sheridan

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