Life’s Mental!

It’s Men’s Mental Health Week and I thought it might be time for me to weigh in with my experiences with mental health issues and my learnings thus far. I will start off by saying that this is just my opinion, mainly built around ‘bro’ science and my own personal struggles and coping mechanisms. I go by lessons learned in all aspects of my life, I am not a researcher or anything like that. It happens to me, I go through it and manage it as best I can and if I make it out the other side I have learnings! That’s how it works for me so I’ll do my best to get it on paper.

I walked in to the doctors on the morning of November the 11th, Remembrance day which is ironic being ex Army, for what was a fairly routine appointment. 2hrs later I walked out and my whole world had changed forever. At the end of 2019 I had a heart attack before the weigh ins for Eternal DS 1. I was released from hospital the next day and the Dr’s had said they could find nothing wrong with my heart and I was made an outpatient for follow up tests. Fortunately I made it to the show and I’m glad I did as it was a cracker!!! Anyway I was just headed to the Doc to get my results of those follow ups. It was the good news that tipped me over the edge, I had a perfectly healthy heart in fact it was in such good condition it was surprising I had found myself hospitalised. I scratched my head in confusion and then the doc asked me a simple question “ Are you stressed out at all?”. I expected to answer that question with a hard ‘No’ but what happened instead was a breakdown! I began to cry, I hadn’t cried (outside of funerals and The Green Mile) for 15 years. Then all these memories began flowing from my mind and out of my mouth, I hadn’t told anyone these things ever. I certainly hadn’t ever thought about telling them to a relative stranger. My 15 minute consult was stretching almost well in to the 3rd hour and I was still dripping like a tap. The Doc was unreal, she had been a serving Black Hawk pilot for 20+ years so kinda knew a lot of where I was coming from. “You might have PTSD” was her assessment after listening to my dribble for hours.

I was immediately in denial, no not me, I’m good, nothing happened to me at war etc….. She then explained that anything can be a traumatic event, if Cam drops his beer that’s a traumatic event for him! Everyone is different and we all suffer things in different ways. She recommended me to seek therapy and I was open to that but being mid COVID most therapists were solidly booked until the new year. She kept seeing me once a week at the surgery until I could get in to therapy. I had walked in to her office that day without a care in the world, thinking I had it all under control and life was good. To be perfectly honest I left a mess, confused, sad, angry and with what seemed like a permanent black cloud sitting right. I held it together to the car then broke down again, crying in the car would become a regular in my life for the foreseeable future. I managed to get home without crashing.

It was at home where the trouble started, I told my wife what had happened and she was amazingly supportive. She thought it explained a lot as I had been an emotionless robot for the most part of our relationship, she said she would help me through it and we would get there. The problem with mental health is it’s all consuming when it’s bad, I used to think it was weakness as most men my age do. When it had me it really had me, I used to have bad days but had developed a rule that I could sulk or feel sorry for myself for that day but on waking up the next day it was gone, move on and get back to happy, positive me. I couldn’t do that anymore, I would wake up each day with the dark cloud, feeling pessimistic and finding zero joy. Weird, as I have an amazing family, beautiful children and a job I love, what’s to be sad about. I could find zero joy in anything it was all miserable and I couldn’t stop crying. I was ashamed of myself, a weak man who was a burden to all around me and I started to think everyone around me would be better off without me.

One night I was laying in bed and I couldn’t sleep, the misery, self pity and self hate was peaking and I wanted to end it. Get away from everyone who’s life I could worsen. I was about to climb out of bed and who knows what would have happened next. Just as I was about to get up my daughters image flashed as clear as day into my mind. I stopped, I later found out that children who have had a parent commit suicide have a 20% higher chance of becoming a victim of suicide themselves (From a reliable Dr source but no I haven’t researched to fact check, it’s helps me remember I couldn’t pass that legacy on to my kids!), I woke the missus up and she reassured me that I was wanted and needed and I lived to fight another day. For the ensuing weeks and months I remained in this horrible parallel universe of feeling ‘OK’ one minute and being almost convinced I shouldn’t be here the next. Luckily I have a really close group of people around me, my family of course ( I didn’t tell my parents as due to COVID they were stuck on the other side of the world and I didn’t want to worry them unduly) and my gym community and my pals. Everyone was brilliant and I leaned on a couple of people hard over the time post that consult with the doc. 

It was a roller coaster, I developed some difficulty with sleeping and people entering my room at night. In my younger years in the forces I had some bad experiences with attacks whilst sleeping. One night my poor daughter came through the door with a red night light (Red light is very commonly used as a filter on torches in the Army) I don’t remember this my wife retold it, I sprung out of bed and grabbed her. I woke to both my wife and my daughter screaming and hysterical, terrified. This broke me, I could have potentially done harm to one of the people I would never knowingly hurt, ever. Sending me back in to a tailspin mentally as it made me think I was even more of a liability to the people around me. This happened again a few weeks later this time with the wife, she came to bed later and when she came in I freaked out again, I don’t remember doing it but came too with her screaming at me from behind the en suite door. I never was physical but was very aggressive, I have zero recollection of this and just came through coated in sweat and confused. The solutions we came up with at home were for me to sleep locked in the spare room for the foreseeable future. A good solution as I knew my family were safe but I found the worst in it. I’m a prisoner in my own home, sleeping locked in the spare room, negativity, negativity, negativity. Old me would have found the positives but I just couldn’t find any. I reached what I hope is my lowest ebb shortly thereafter, my wife was working late, the kids were in bed and I was left with my own thoughts. I quickly got on to the negative thought cycle and before I knew it I was walking circles of my kitchen bench with the biggest knife I could find wondering whether to use it or not. I was calm and I had talked myself to 2 options:

  1. If I carry on down this path of misery It will end up one way, why be miserable for all that time just put an end to it.
  2. Stop being miserable, choose to find positives and live life, embrace it and treasure it. 

To me it was that simple, fuck off the face of the earth or grab life by the balls and sort myself out. Obviously, I sit here writing this so I made the right choice. I put the knife away, sat down on the couch and cried which was not unusual those days. By the time my wife got home I was in fine form, I sat her down and told her what I had been up to while she was out she was obviously shocked but she said I was noticeably different and we left it at that. 

Since then I’ve been very good, once you hit rock bottom everywhere above it is a nice spot. What I have learned from working through all this, what has worked for me in dealing with it is what I will try to explain here. First and foremost I feel like I have to choose how to view life, I have to worry about what I can control. I made a choice marching around my kitchen bench to choose life. It’s a cliché and I think I first heard it being said in the movie Trainspotting but for me it makes perfect sense. My happiness and how I decide to live life is essentially a choice. Literally, everything I’m confronted with on the daily it is my choice how I deal with it. I try to find the positives or if it’s something out of my control I try to not even stress about it. Trust me, I know it sounds simple but it really is a choice, granted it is not an easy choice and I literally had to reach the bottom of the barrel to make it.

The second thing that has been a saviour has been talking about it, I have very open dialogue within my circle and am not afraid to speak up when I’m having a bad day and encourage those around me to do the same. I spend time now asking others how they are doing, not briefly as a pleasantry but a serious question with my full attention attached. It’s amazing how many people have opened up to me as a result too. A problem shared is a problem halved is another saying that is very appropriate, I try to regularly engage those around me in sub surface conversations. It really is good to talk and I personally think mental health afflicts men so badly as we are so reluctant to talk on how we are feeling as it is perceived by many as a weakness. I believe it’s a strength, Tyson Fury is the baddest man on the planet, the heavyweight champion of the world and he is very outspoken about his mental health and is as hugely inspirational character. 

The third step I have taken is to seek regular appointments with a professional. It is actually nice to sit with someone who is completely impartial and just get some shit out of your head. I have begun to figure a lot of things out about myself as a result of these chats and I definitely have a better understanding of mental health as a result.

If you are struggling then tell someone, you’d be surprised to know how many people out there are also hiding there struggles. During my time coping with this I was surprised with the amount of close friends I spoke to who were dealing with similar issues or had similar thoughts to me. What has hit home is I am not alone and there is always someone willing to lend you an ear if you have the courage to ask. I have tried to put myself in peoples shoes if they are rude, stand offish, miserable or distant wheras in the past I may have thought ‘Miserable Fucker’ I now try and tell myself that I don’t know what they are dealing with and try cut everyone a bit more slack.

I will leave you with this famous Winston Churchill quote 

“If you are going through hell, keep going.” 

Viva Las Vegas

Viva Las Vegas

Here I sit in my travel jail cell, more on that later, with an abundance of time to reflect on a crazy two weeks, for me, for Jack Della and for Eternal. Let’s start with the latter, Eternal 61 took place on September 11th at the Southport Sharks. This card was a testament to the never say die attitude of the Eternal team and the flexibility and understanding of the fighters and teams involved. This pandemic is certainly challenging and without wanting to get too political, I will later, a pain in the fucking arse! If Cam had any hair he would have yanked it all out with not one but two postponements but after many changes to the card and the restrictions etc we had a sold out show. What a show it was too, as always the amateurs brought it, three first round arm bars on the bounce is unreal skill in modern MMA, a couple of third round finishes and only one decision it set the scene perfectly for our stacked main card. What a card too, with Jack Becker taking Dan Hill’s title with some brutal striking, not without controversy an illegal knee as the referee was stopping the fight means that Hill will get a re match when COVID allows so that’s something to get excited about. Obviously as head coach of Scrappy MMA I was super pumped for Jack as I know how hard he works, and has worked for the last decade so to see him achieve his goal was special for me and the perfect start to our big week as a gym. Before we get on to that Eternal 61 was the first show I’ve taken my working hat off and sat back, in glorious Las Vegas, and enjoyed the event as a fan. Damn it was good to watch, well done to the team and all the fighters and coaches for the effort that went in to it.

Vegas, Vegas, Vegas! I have had many trips to Vegas over the years and this one was very different:

  1. I no longer drink and
  2. Because we isolated ourselves to avoid a positive COVID test which could have spelt the end to Jack’s UFC dreams without the gloves being donned.
Training at the UFC Performance Institute

It was amazing to have two weeks to do nothing but train, eat healthy food and relax in preparation for a fight. That pro fighter lifestyle that many only dream of, jack included until this camp, is so helpful in the lead up to a big fight. Training every day at the UFC Performance Institute, using the recovery tools there and generally living the life was all instrumental in Jack putting on the performance of a lifetime and getting his UFC contract. I must give a shout out to Ange Loosa as he brought the best out in jack and wanted that contract badly. He took everything Jack threw at him and gave it back but Jack’s class shone through in the end. It’s been a long road, not without its challenges but the ten fight win streak is real and the goal set after Jack’s last loss, to win ten straight, has been achieved. Jack is a testament to the pathway Eternal provides and it shows if you can become an Eternal Champ you have got the skills to hold it down at the highest level. First Casey O’Neill proved that and now Jack has strengthened the fact that if you trust the process at Eternal and win the belt you have the stuff to make it anywhere in world MMA. I am one very proud and lucky coach to have had an athlete willing to make the sacrifices and put the work in to achieve greatness. Watch this space because I see a shiny gold belt in Jack Della’s future.

We knew when we signed up to leave Australia we would need to quarantine on the way home and although it’s definitely not ideal it is what it is. However, having done almost three days here in hotel hell I feel like the treatment of a law abiding citizen is in humane. Our only ‘crime’ is leaving Australia and we are now locked for two weeks in a twin hotel room, zero fresh air, zero sunlight and today we asked for fresh towels as we have been training twice a day and ours are sweaty. We cannot have fresh towels until Day 6! To wash clothes is $40 for ten items so we are reduced to hand washing clothes and hanging them to dry in the shower room, but with no light or heat in there they never dry. I am definitely not seeking sympathy, like I said I knew what I was getting into but never in a million years did I think I wouldn’t even have the luxury of fresh air. I have just returned from a country where COVID is rife, it is open and I have been out and about there. I have had six COVID tests in the last two weeks, all of which returned negative. Surely there is a better solution than locking law abiding citizens in essentially cells, in fact in jail you at least get to leave your cell and have access to air. I can’t imagine sitting here with Jack having been unsuccessful in his quest for a UFC contract as it’s taxing enough on the old mental health as it is.

Hotel quarantine with UFC’s newest signed athlete

Anyway, we shall endure. It’s a funny old game, from the highest highs having Dana sing Jack’s praises and walking the Vegas strip as a newly signed team to the UFC to languishing in a 5-star jail cell without even fresh air being afforded to us. Welcome to 2021 and communist Australia. I love this country, I am a proud citizen but fuck me the government has lost it!

Practice Makes Perfect – Eternal Referee Course

There’s a saying – “You know what happens when you assume? It makes an ass out of u and me.”

I have historically been very guilty of assuming everyone knows what I expect. They don’t! And it’s wrong of me to think they do. I am making strides to lay out my expectations early and it definitely helps in achieving results. 

What the whole Australian MMA scene is guilty of assuming is that officials should be good at their job. If they aren’t receiving the appropriate training, how can we expect them to be high level? If a fighter didn’t train we wouldn’t expect a high level performance from them, would we?

Eternal puts on roughly 60 pro fights a year nationally. The rest of the events cover maybe another 20. So, for argument’s sake, let’s say 80 fights a year. Maybe 20 in Perth, 30 on the Gold Coast, and 30 elsewhere. Each referee is getting maybe 6 or 7 fights a year domestically, often separated by months at a time. There is no consistency for the officials. They work in a high pressure environment and have to make split second decisions with huge repercussions. The best they can hope for is to go home without anyone slating them. Thankless task.

Perth’s Matt Wynne, officiating the Eternal 60 Main Event.

A few years ago Eternal, in conjunction with the Western Australian Combat Sports Commission, sponsored an Officials Development Day with Peter Hickmott. Peter is an experienced UFC referee and is widely regarded among the cream of the crop of Australian officiating.

This was repeated this year at the amazing UFC Gym in Balcatta. 20+ Perth officials and commission members attended a 3hr practical training seminar with one of the most experienced referees in the game – UFC referee John Sharp. ‘Sharpy’ was able to practically assess and debrief all attending officials at Eternal 60 that night.

UFC referee John Sharp, discussing the ruleset with the WA Sporting Commission.

We are committed to developing all those who work for us in order to ensure the fighters get the right decisions made on the night so as not to ruin their moment. At the end of the day that’s what we do it for. To allow the fighters to turn up and fight their hearts out without worrying about poor stoppages or bad calls. It will never be perfect, the job is too hard, but we have to help make it as near to perfect as possible.

Referee course underway with live drills.

Eternal will be bringing the course back to Perth in October and we will run courses on the Gold Coast and in Melbourne this year also. We are determined to make this sport as professional and exciting, but most importantly as safe as possible. 

Thanks must be extended to The WA Combat Sports Commission, John Sharp and a massive thanks to Matt Wynne for organising.

On The Road Again

It was with an enormous amount of excitement that I jumped out of my bed at 5am on Wednesday 17th of March. I can assure you that it’s not often I am excited to wake up at 5am! The first ever ‘Eternal Fight Weekend’ was the cause of that excitement. An ambitious and ballsy move from the Eternal Team to put on two shows over two nights in the same venue, where four championship belts would be retained or rehomed. I can tell you sitting here post the event, we pulled it off!

Even travelling felt weird, living in WA every trip is a marathon, COVID had put a stop to my frequent travelling (I’d been on one plane trip since we kicked off 2020 with the three shows in three weeks). I definitely think travelling is like training, you get better at it the more you do it. Add to the usual discomfort of being sandwiched between two, usually oversized, FIFO workers the good old facemask and the hitleresque air stewardess shouting at you if it isn’t covering pretty much all your face and the fact that due to budget constraints the entertainment has been switched off, it makes for a torturous five hours. I’ve always been a terrible sleeper and struggle to sleep in my comfortable bed, so sleep is out of the question but I was excited and the trip passed really quickly.

Arriving at the beautiful Mantra at Sharks Hotel is always nice, I have stayed there so many times now I know all the staff and am made to feel super welcome. Up to the room, quick shower, dump bags and first meeting with Cam in the books it’s a restless night’s sleep and up for weigh-ins for Eternal 57. As seems to be the case this year we had a late pullout, this time in the bantamweight tournament. To add insult to ‘injury’ our replacement missed weight by nearly three kilos and the tournament was off and poor Shaun Etchell was without a fight but as small consolation would get first crack at the winner of Meech vs Hibberd which would now be for the belt. All other fighters made weight at the first time of asking and we had ourselves a show! The rest of the day was spent checking in teams for Saturday and prepping the venue for Friday night. Two shows in two nights seems full on, but add to that all the associated work that goes with it and you have two very stressed promoters running around like blue arsed flies. 

Friday morning and we were up with the sparrows to supervise the cage going in then back to Southport Sharks for Saturday’s weigh ins’. Don’t worry, I’m also confused and I was there. Saturday weigh-ins ran much smoother than Friday’s with all fighters making weight at the first time of asking. Friday’s card was strong but Saturday’s card was the best I’ve ever seen in domestic MMA in my 10 years down under. Post weigh-ins we headed back to Carrara Indoor Stadium to get things underway. I won’t go into the fights but you can catch them here but i will say the standard across the board from Fight 1 to Fight 8 was exceptional. Special mention must go to the Absolute MMA team with Sam Hibberd winning the bantamweight strap in spectacular fashion and Jack Jenkins with his first defence of his featherweight title, making short work of Jesse Medina in the much anticipated rematch. First night in the books and what a night, the atmosphere was through the roof and there were less than half the expected crowd for Saturday in attendance, which meant Saturday night would be wild. No time to celebrate, bed and an early rise for the crescendo.

I must just say that the Eternal 58 event was the finest fight card, on paper, we had ever put together. Every fight had the potential to blow the roof off the venue. Add to that close to 2000 fans and the stage was set for fireworks. Every single fight was above and beyond expectation and the bar was set high in Bout 1 and continued to rise all the way to what was one of the most intense main events we have ever witnessed. John Fraser stepped up to the biggest challenge of his career and took everything the vicious Kitt Campbell threw at him, weathered the early storm and paid Kitt back in spades in the late rounds to get his hands on the middleweight title recently vacated by now UFC fighter Isi Fitikefu. Fraser will be a hard man to dethrone and I look forward to his first defence. Congratulations must also go to Dan Hill with a come from behind fourth round submission of the hugely talented Josh Togo. Hill taking the lightweight strap from the Australian Top Team man. 

Eternal 58 was phenomenal and all fighters and coaches should be remarkably proud of their fighters. The standard in Australian MMA right now is outstanding. Now there will be some people reading this saying “But what about the slippy canvas?” and I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the heroes on the internet with their opinions on what we should do and how we should have had a different material and all the other brain busting ideas. For those people let me tell you this, if you were upset, frustrated or pissed off by the canvas multiply your emotions by a million and you may get somewhere close to how Cam and I felt about it. We have used that canvas for 2 years and 8 shows and never had an issue, we also poured our heart, soul and money into this landmark weekend only to have to nearly call it off. Here at Eternal we are good, the best in the business but we can’t control the weather. The humidity was through the roof and it made the canvas like an ice rink. Credit to the fighters who changed game plans and pushed through those terrible conditions. Mumford and Dimps put on one of the finest scraps I’ve ever seen and they had the worst of it so props to those two beasts. Mumford will get the next shot at Dan Hill’s strap.

I’ll be honest and say I wasn’t so excited about the length of the trip home but knowing i’ll see the wife and kids helps with the monotony of it all. Also, being exhausted helps with the plane sleeping situation. In summary Eternal put on the biggest weekend of MMA that has ever been seen at a domestic level in Australia (outside of the UFC and even then I’d say it was close) and we put over $60,000 into the pockets of the fighters. This is what makes me proudest about the whole thing. I have always said Eternal is a show for the fighters run by fighters (Albeit many moons ago for Cam and I to have laced the gloves up in anger) and we feel very strongly about giving back to the sport we love so dearly. I need a rest but I can’t wait to do it all again, which won’t be a long wait as we go again in Melbourne, May 7th.

Amateurs

I’m chiming in with my thoughts on amateur fighters and fights. I have 10-15 amateur fighters in my gym and use this way of thinking when matching them.  

Firstly, the amateurs fall into 2 categories.  

  1. The ones who want to have a pro career and are using the amateur ranks to gain experience to best equip them for that. 
  2. The one’s who love MMA, want to compete but don’t have the inclination to pursue MMA as career. 

Let’s talk about the first group, those men and women that really want to be professional MMA fighters. This is where the amateur ranks become so important, the amateur fights are like the apprenticeship period. You get a feel for the job and are slowly trusted with more responsibility as your skill set improves. However, the amateurs must be used for development. Do you want to turn pro having never had a tough fight? I don’t think so, you need to have faith in your ability to face adversity and be able to get really comfortable being uncomfortable. Take some shots, escape some bad positions, and maybe even take an L or two. Fight the best guys in your weight class and test yourself. It could be argued that your last 3 amateur fights are tougher than your first 3 pro fights. Obviously as a pro I am going to take better care with matches as the record becomes important.  

In closing I would go out on a limb and say UFC matchmakers Maynard and Shelby have no interest in a fighter’s amateur career. Amateur’s should be looked at as a learning experience with the bigger picture in mind, the shiny belts and undefeated amateur records count for little in the pro ranks and the big shows don’t care about them either. 

The ones who are just looking to have some fun and enjoy the sport at a competitive level are different, they should be trying to remain undefeated and collect shiny things as this is their legacy, whereas a pro career legacy is something totally different.