Excuse the personal post here, if you don’t know me very well you probably want to skip it! 🙂
Some of you may have noticed that I’ve been a bit quieter than usual these last few weeks (less tweeting, less Facebook, less Forum posting, etc). I’d been preparing for a boxing match that took place last night – 13/02/2016. As I told friends and family before the match, whether I won or lost, it was to be my last.
I’ve been competing in martial arts (MMA, Jiu Jitsu, Muaythai, Kickboxing and Boxing) since 2006 and I always promised myself that I’d give it no more than 10 years (until I was 30) to see how far I could go before walking away. I’m very aware of the long term damage that Boxing/Kickboxing/Mixed Martial Arts can leave you with if you push on for too long or go further than your abilities dictate you should.
I’ve not lost a fight since 2009, but in the boxing match I had before last night’s (which I won by decision) I took a shot that rocked me fairly good (or bad – from my perspective!). The result was that I suffered a concussion (a bruise on the brain) and subsequently post concussion syndrome that lasted for about 3-4 weeks. If you are someone who reads and writes, like myself, imagine this: your mind cannot absorb sentences when reading (so you simply cannot read) and when you speak/write you put the wrong words into the wrong places. You might be talking to a friend and say their name wrong or mean to ask for a drink and ask for a dog. You might confuse your adjectives to the extent that your speech becomes incomprehensible and your writing is unreadable. There’s also a constant feeling that I can only describe as being within a cloud, you feel dizzy and ‘light’, you are confused by the simplest questions and the headaches are excruciating. You lose time and your memory is hit or miss. A feeling that I imagine must be depression is likely the result of all these factors as opposed to a result of the concussion, but it’s there whatever the cause.
Obviously, when I was suffering with this I wasn’t sure when (or even if) I’d ever get back to full health and it was pretty terrifying. It meant that work was almost impossible, I couldn’t read or write reviews for Fantasy-Faction, and even speaking through text or social media took A LOT of checking and contemplation. Speaking to people was a bit easier, because I pretty much didn’t do it beyond single word replies, but when I had to and inevitably said the wrong words I’d get odd looks (it wasn’t something I spoke much about or explained as I was embarrassed). Thankfully, the symptoms slowly faded away and I was back to normal after that three to four week period (as normal as I ever have been, anyway!).
Of course, upon experiencing this concussion and its after effects, I felt it was probably time to quit. I’d almost lost something important: my ability to read, to write, to seamlessly communicate, to function as a normal human being (talking extremes). However, I didn’t want to leave 10 years of competing and training and loving everything about martial arts on a negative note… I wanted to make sure I was walking away because I wanted to and not because I was forced to or I was scared of doing something I loved. I met my partner of 7 years through martial arts, I met my best friends through martial arts and I think the discipline I’ve gained from it is probably what had me start Fantasy-Faction and keep it going as long as I have too.
So, I agreed to this fight… and it was held last night. It was damned hard. There were points in the match that it could have gone either way (the best kind of fights are ones that either opponent CAN win – there is no fun or sense in putting two fighters together when one has overwhelming odds stacked for or against them, in my eyes). However, I felt comfortable and confident, I felt I dictated the tempo of the match and I wasn’t overly tired by the end (my opponent seemed to be), so I knew I’d won the decision by the final bell. That’s a good place to leave things.
Now that I’m leaving competition behind, I’m finally going to be able to spend more time on my own writing – something I put aside in favour of reviewing and martial arts when I recovered from my back injury – and promoting short stories, which is a form I don’t think gets nearly enough attention. There are also really great projects that will take Fantasy-Faction to the next level and provide better content for our readers that I’ve selfishly been putting back whilst pursuing my own goals in martial arts too (Podcasts, Anthologies, Youtube Content, Conventions, Grim Gatherings, US Events and so on). I will also be able to be a bit more reachable for fans and the incredible contributors to Fantasy-Faction too, who I’ve always felt I haven’t done enough for or made feel appreciated enough.
So, there you go 🙂 A long rambling post to start off your Sunday morning that essentially says: thank you for being patient these last few years and now that my martial arts ‘stuff’ is out the way and I’m 100% healthy, expect bigger and better things from Fantasy-Faction in the coming years 😉
Thanks for reading!
