This was my first professional fight. We approached it very well with a smart game plan. I focused much more on pad work and less on sparring, and that worked better for me. It was also my first weight cut. It was a bit difficult, but overall it went very smoothly. This experience will definitely help me in the future. Unfortunately, I didn’t get the chance to do a face-off, which is the only thing missing from the full professional experience. I won the fight, and afterward, my opponent and I made peace behind the scenes. We talked with the trainer over there and discussed some future plans. From where I stand now, the future of my fighting career looks to be in very good hands. OSU

Look at Jukucho’s spinal movement. A very important part of understanding Muchimi, power development and fluidity. You train it slowly. To use it fast later.

In Japan you have lots of smaller federations. It's not about being bigger or better, it's about supporting combat athletes at the earlier stages of their career. When you have no record, bigger promotions won't take you on. So by having some amateur tournaments and then your first pro matches in these promotions, you can build up your record and get noticed by these bigger organizations. They often visit these smaller promotions to scout for talent as well. In the west UFC has come up with lots of different formats to give young guys this chance, and you see more and more promotions popping up.

Benkei was a legendary warrior monk, often depicted carrying multiple weapons. (And yes, Brent, the character in the For Honor video game is based on this guy). History and folklore aside, there's a challenge at the Kiyomizudera in Kyoto. When entering the main grounds of the temple complex, there are three heavy objects, the heaviest being an iron spear weighing about 200-300lbs. If one manages to lift all three, they will be blessed by Benkei and gain good fortune for all their life. This seemed like a fun sidequest to gain some momentum and burn off some extra calories. We tried. We failed. We tried again. We failed again. So we vowed to get it next time around. (Although Brent almost lifted the entire table at some point)

It was a normal Wednesday night in Leuven, around 9 p.m. My three friends and I headed to the Oude Markt. One of them knew the owner of a small café there, so we grabbed a quiet table in the corner. It was the kind of spot that was hard to get out of quickly if things went south. We were just chilling. Drinking beer, talking about life, swapping old stories and laughing. Everything felt calm and good. Then a guy we call Jan showed up with his girlfriend. They seemed fine. But his friend Rick was a different story drunk and wired on coke. He’d just gotten out of jail, and everyone in Leuven knew his reputation: robbing people, threatening them, attacking them. Some said it was even worse. We tried to ignore him. That didn’t sit well with Rick. He stormed over to our table, slammed both hands down, and started acting tough, getting right in our faces. We stayed calm and kept ignoring him. That only made him angrier. He turned on one of my drunk friends and started threatening him. My other friend froze. Couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. I stood up and said calmly, “Yo, chill out.” Rick lost it. He grabbed me hard by the back of the neck. Without thinking, I shoved him off with my left arm while covering my head with my right. He flew backwards. He jumped up fast and reached into his pocket. Two of my friends were useless one too drunk, the other still frozen. Rick came at me again. That’s when a huge rush of adrenaline hit me. I planted my foot, twisted my hip, and landed a perfect front kick. He crashed hard onto the stone pavement. His head smacked the cobblestones with a loud crack. The second I saw the knife in his right hand, I flew straight at him. I slammed my body into his with a full body slam, landing in full mount on his chest. I immediately grabbed his right wrist with my right hand, slid my left hand under his elbow, and locked my left hand on top of my own right wrist. I started cranking hard ready to snap his arm if he didn’t drop the knife. Jan jumped in fast. He snatched the knife away from Rick and pulled us apart. My friend Jef wanted to call the police, but Jan begged us not to. “I’ll handle it,” he said. “He’ll leave.” Jan dragged everyone away and broke up the fight.