My Brother Beats Me

Ok, ok, this may be hard to believe due to my childish sense of humor and love for anything cute and adorable, but I LOVE FIGHTING. MMA, or Mixed Martial Arts, is my #1 sport of choice. My family, father and mother included, orders every UFC Pay Per View  event and we all watch it with my friends. My brother has been training MMA for probably 3 or 4 years now, and I actually trained with him for a little while before I moved down to Virginia. He also runs a website http://www.ctmmanews.com/ where he writes about local MMA events in New England as well as for the New Haven Register. I recently went home to see my brother's first amateur fight, but sadly his opponent pulled out a few days before. (He heard the last name Purificato and got scared. Obviously. We're kinda scary.)

Even though this sucked, I now had the "privilege" of training with my brother. I have maybe trained 5 times in the past 2 years, where as my brother had just come off an 8 week training regiment of kickboxing, jiu jitsu, strength and conditioning, and dieting. He was about my weight, and probably twice as strong, and his technique was sharper than ever. IT WAS AWFUL. He choked me out at will. At one point, our good friend Cam yelled to my brother "Peruvian Neck Tie!", which is a somewhat elaborate choke hold. (watch below.)

In my mind I thought "I know he can't hit that move from this position." I felt him adjust and thought "Oh no...". To make matters worse, my brother yelled out "Hey Cam! Watch." Boom. Peruvian Neck Tie, and I'm forced to tap out. If I had an ego before then, I no longer have one.

Here's a breakdown of what happened when training with my brother:

He shoots in to take me down, I sprawl and stop it.

...2 seconds later...

Weirdly enough, even though my brother tapped me out about 15 times and I tapped him out about...hmmm...let me think...NONE. NONE TIMES... it was still a blast. Jiu Jitsu is a fun Martial Art because you can train at 100% intensity with little risk of injury. If you're about to pass out from a choke or break a limb from an arm lock, you tap out. Your opponent lets go, and you get up and do it again. (Unless he found out you were secretly flirting with his girl. Then he probably won't be too quick to let go. And you'll die.)

 I think guys, and maybe even some girls, need a release like that. We've got all this pent up aggression and sometimes you just need to go off and try to choke someone. I'm a hopelessly happy guy and I don't wish harm on anyone, even people who deserve it, but I love fighting more than any other sport on the planet. The techniques are addictively effective, and the more you learn, the more you want to learn. So yes, even though I laugh and make jokes the whole time, I still love scrapping with a fellow fighter, no matter how many times I have to tap. I don't care who you are, fighting is cool, and I love it. GO NINJA CAT!!!

HHHIIIIYAAAAAA!!!!