Resilience

Resilience is an interesting thing. It’s even more interesting when you can see it. There’s a link here to a Mixed Martial Arts highlight reel. It’s a “top five knockouts” for an amateur MMA promotion in Long Island New York. It’s not to everybody’s taste, it’s actual MMA fighting, so don’t look if you’re not up to it.

You’d think since it’s a top five there would be ten fighters, two for each bout. But there are only nine because one fighter appears in two of the fights. What’s more interesting is he’s my son . . . and he gets knocked out in fight #3. So why would I show this?

Because he also delivers a knockout . . . in fight #1.

What the highlight reel doesn’t show is the context. He ended up in the hospital the night he was knocked out. And he was pretty down for a few days. And then he went back to training. His next fight he won and was awarded “Fight of the Night”. Then he knocked out the next guy (highlight reel #1) and then he turned pro.

Is it hard watching your son fight? Yes, it is. Harder still watching him get knocked out? You bet. But the very worst was listening to people urge him to quit because it was hard for them to watch. Not because it was hard for him - because it was hard for them.

All of my kids heard this message often: “Everyone gets knocked down. The person to keep your eye on is the one who gets up.” He got up. But he didn’t bounce up and he didn’t react in the heat of the moment. He thoughtfully evaluated his situation, made a considered decision, and got up with purpose.

Have a look at resilience.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-sgx_sezEs

And he fights again in three weeks . . .