sparring results — on the outcomes of my trip through Mexico 🇮🇹

The sparring results say something about the outcomes of my journey through Mexico 🇮🇹

The sparring between me and Omar is over, Omar won. I had only one chance to beat him — keep him at distance and throw jabs, one-twos. In our first and second sparring sessions, I managed that in places, but not today. Today I just died in some pathetic half a round, my body simply OFF — shut down. I didn't feel the strength to throw my arms forward from about the second half of the round, purely physically, and it was strange — I'd never had endurance issues before.

But even if I'd been in full shape, the result would probably still not have been in my favor — with such inconsistency in training as I have, it's a sin to hope for a different outcome, it's just stupid. Because while I was loafing around in Coatzacoalcos, Omar was training intensely, he's been doing it for many years. He trains hard — a real workhorse.

The key to success is consistency in moving toward a goal. If you want to learn something — do it constantly over several years and at some point you'll realize you've mastered the skill, cracked the code, started to get it, to understand. This applies to boxing and everything else.

Me, in recent years I've been messing around with all sorts of nonsense, like lifting (for my body type it's nonsense — absolute meaninglessness), instead of developing my fighting skills.

I seemed to have forgotten myself and at some point stopped being myself. After a serious injury back in 2009, I practically gave up and gradually came to abandon martial arts, something seemed to steer me away from it.

But the fire, nonetheless, didn't cool down and kept burning, or rather — smoldering, deep in my soul I always knew where my interests lay and what was truly close to me. But I stubbornly ignored it. Maybe I didn't want to see it, or maybe I was just afraid.

As I said, our sparring with Omar could be called the final point of my not-last journey, a kind of conclusion. I got answers to many questions for myself.

For example, I returned to martial arts after years. Having gone through a long period of oblivion, I remembered who I am, which "world" I belong to, and what I'm actually interested in — it's exactly what I've been doing in Playa in recent months, and how exactly I spent my free time when it was scarce, what I preferred to spend it on, sacrificing in turn something else I could have done in that same period and deliberately didn't. Instead of visiting various places — pyramids, ruins, the beach, even — I went to the gym and trained. And I was happy, feeling in my element.

To tell the truth, from the very beginning I noticed some indifference to the local sights — I visited them just because I thought that if I didn't, I'd surely regret it later. I just felt weird not doing it while being in such close proximity. I simply couldn't skip many places and went along with the crowd of other tourists like me to look at what hundreds of human eyes had already seen that very day. Maybe it's something individual, and I'm sure many won't recognize themselves in this.

I won't say that ruins, cenotes, pyramids don't interest me at all — that would be a lie. It's a wonderful pastime, but only as a supplement to the main thing. As leisure — yes. But not as something fundamental, not for me. Unless it's done for the purpose of scientific research.

Living here — actually living, not temporarily staying — I realized there's no need to make some goal out of the tourist program just for the sake of ticking a box. And I had my whole Google Maps map dotted with notes! And now I look at it very differently. What inspired me BEFORE — I've cooled off toward all that and, honestly, don't want to waste any more time on various insignificant trifles.

What actually interests me is development, evolution, improvement. That's in general, about the idea itself — the overall vector. Tourism isn't connected to that. Maybe indirectly, but definitely not directly — not in my case. That's why I've rarely visited various tourist spots in recent months. The gym, though — that's about development, and development is only possible with consistency, an unyielding and methodical intention to do it. That's how I see it at the moment.

I clearly saw what exactly interests me in travel and what is empty and worthless. And now I know what kind of travels I'll have in the future. They'll be different — meaningful, directly related to my core, with purpose, with taste, with passion. I'm unlikely to go wandering somewhere now just because "why not."

Chaos drains you, and there's absolutely no reason, in sound mind, to let it into your life without a concrete need. Because you could wake up one morning and realize "I didn't make it, it's too late, the train has left." You must never allow that. That would be a defeat I'm not ready to accept at this moment; instead, I prefer to think about success, about victory, and nothing else.

I understood my weaknesses, what I need to work on, I'm returning renewed. But at the same time tired, exhausted, and dreaming of a vacation where I'll just lie in bed for days on end, not getting up, or almost not getting up — that's how physically and mentally tired I am of everything. I'm unlikely to follow these impulsive desires, at most — a couple of days. Too much to do, we'll sleep later.

It also became obvious to me that in conditions of chaos and uncertainty, understanding and Seeing yourself is much more accessible than in conditions of comfort — that's when you open up more, your skeleton is exposed. Because, being in hothouse comfortable conditions, you're essentially spoiled, your consciousness is dull — you're simply not capable of seeing yourself enough for it to be called truth (in this case I mean myself and speak from my experience — maybe it's different for you, here I'm just sharing my experience). That's why travel is so useful — it's useful sometimes to pull yourself out of your comfort zone, where it's scary, dangerous, uncertain — in such conditions you are real, alive, wild.

And this knowledge, I hope, I'll manage to bring into the world of my habitual so-called everyday life, and I think the memory of the discoveries, of the state I attained, will last quite a while. So much happened, these six months were incredibly eventful, and I haven't digested it all yet — later...

Tomorrow I'll head to Baku. And from there — time will tell. Off to pack my suitcase. I really want to finally get on the plane... Sit down and fall asleep.

I hope to see Omar before I leave and feed him tacos. We had a bet — the loser treats 🥪 But today a drunk driver crashed into his car and his coworkers' cars right in the parking lot near his cafe and wrecked them all, even flipped one over, and Omar's having a rough night at the police station. As I understand, his car got damaged less than his friend's.

Either way, we have unfinished business and one day I'll come back — stronger and more prepared. And he'll be the one treating me to tacos 😄 I'm fully capable of beating him, I know how to do it — the main thing is endurance.

Arthur O'Harra.