In short, we weren’t quite ready to fight for the belt, but I learned that I had to better control my own circumstances before a big fight.
On the days leading up to a fight, I need to be around other fighters, other people who understand what I do for a living. Because around them I get to feeling normal, and I need that because of what my mind is about to ask my body to do. Fight days are especially odd days. You feel a bit weird, and the air seems to feel different, like it knows what’s about to happen. It must be all the energy, the conflict, the expectation. Yes, the chaos. Every movement feels so serious, and heavy.
MASTER: Georges’s deepest aim is to be considered the greatest martial artist of all time. That’s a lofty goal and I’m glad he’s got it, but it’s also a very difficult one. It becomes very subjective, especially when you go outside your weight class, of which I’ve never been a fan. The most concrete goal is to be the best in your category. There is no talk, only action. You fight the people for real. There’s no, “This guy was bigger, this guy was smaller.”
One of the things I’ve learned in my career is that our minds pick up all kinds of information that our consciousness never tells us about. We have to train ourselves to recognize and process this information because it’s vital.
Here’s an example: I was sparring with a guy who was shorter than me but had a really long reach. I didn’t see this right away, but when we were sparring I kept getting hit by his jab and I started having doubts about my own efficacy and defensive skills. I realized a bit later, though, when we were shaking hands, that he had a really long reach. My mind didn’t pick this up right away, which is why I was standing too close to him in the ring, which explains how he kept connecting with my face. My mind had processed his height but had underestimated his reach.
The lesson is this: there is something to be learned from shaking hands with your opponent, and that is his reach. You never base your distance on height exclusively, but on reach too. The last thing you want is a guy with a longer sword . . .
MASTER: I am just a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu coach, but I don’t want Georges to go on fighting forever. Fighting, for Georges, is a difficult thing. Most of the people that I coach, they love to fight. Georges loves to train, but he doesn’t love to fight. Fighting is stressful and difficult for him. It’s not something he enjoys. He doesn’t enjoy walking into the octagon and fighting another man. Other people I coach, you have to hold them back because they’re so hungry to get in front of a crowd and exhibit their skills. Georges was never like that, not from the beginning and not now. For him to step out there is an emotionally wrenching thing to do. To see him fight at forty-five would be inappropriate. He’ll need a viable career change.
I think if Georges could live his lifestyle without fighting, he’d choose that. As it goes now, he has to fight. That doesn’t make the fighting any easier to do. It detracts from it—it’s hard. Just the act of going out there. He’s a Canadian figure and he carries the hopes of Canada. It’s a lot to carry on a young man’s shoulders.
In MMA, the crowd is unbearably fickle. You have two losses in a row and you’re a has-been and a nobody and all your wins before were just dumb luck. It’s a brutal, brutal world. It’s Darwinian as they come. It’s a world of evolutionary thuggery. Would you want to do that forever? Would you find it enjoyable? I don’t know . . .
Losing really stinks when it happens in the octagon. Because it happens in front of thousands of screaming people, in an arena under the glare of lights and HD cameras that capture every angle, while millions of MMA fans are watching at home and in bars. This includes family, friends, coaches and training partners, and it feels like I’m letting all of them down. It’s horrible, it’s embarrassing, it’s shameful, and, to make things worse, it physically hurts. It’s bizarre: a punch in the face hurts less when you win than when you lose.
I also see the impact that losing has now on all my fans. I read about it and hear about it from them directly. Some of my fans spend thousands of dollars to fly to one of my fights, and I hate letting them down. I hate it.
Losing only becomes tolerable when you can look at it objectively and find ways of learning from it. So liking to lose happens later, much later, when I’m sitting alone in a room, going over every single step of what exactly happened and why. Losing is good when I am able to dissect the reasons why, which opens the way to finding solutions. This is when things get interesting.
Just after I tore my ACL in December 2011, the UFC title was awarded on an interim basis to Carlos Condit after his win against Diaz. Carlos had earned it. I lost more than the undisputed title, though. I lost a lot of money, for some reason I lost some friends, and I probably lost some fans too. But I gained a lot more than I lost. I gained knowledge—about me and about the world and the people close to me. Which brings me to the subject of Pyrrhic victories.
A Pyrrhic victory is a win that costs the victor so much, that to win this way again will cause a great defeat. The expression comes from around the third century b.c., in “honor” of an army that beat the Romans, but cost the king most of his men. One more victory like this, King Pyrrhus of Epirus said, “and I’ll come home alone.”
What it means is that you have to calculate the cost of victory every single time you enter battle—whether it’s in the octagon or in everyday life. The easiest example is an argument with your girlfriend: sometimes you want to be right so bad, you’ll say anything to win the argument. But is it worth the cost if you hurt the other person’s feelings? If she leaves you because of a stupid argument?
I much prefer Pyrrhic losses, I guess, if such a “reversal” is even possible. You lose, but you learn so much that, eventually, you gain. I believe that our greatest victories in life are hidden behind our biggest losses. In my first fight against Matt Hughes, I was intimidated—I couldn’t look him in the eye. I lost with a single tick left in the first round. Truthfully, I’d been defeated much earlier than that.
One day while cutting weight, I walked into the sauna for a sweat, and there, miraculously, was Hughes. “Hello, Georges,” he said in his deep, powerful voice. He really freaked me out. I could hardly say hi, let alone engage him in conversation. So I just took a seat. Not long after, I couldn’t take the heat anymore and I stepped out of the sauna. My guys were waiting outside with their credit cards and began scraping the sweat off my body, thinking it would help me lose more weight. We were actually trying to get more water out of my pores, and we thought little plastic cards would help. It was an organizational nightmare. We didn’t know anything. Hughes was watching us and probably laughing at the rookies we were.
It was so early in my career. I’d been an undercard (so to speak) for a few fights, and suddenly, here I was in the championship. With sweaty credit cards and salty lunches.
I’ve changed since that fight. I’ve learned to treat fighters equally, with respect, but not hold them above me. There was a point in the first Hughes fight when I realized I could beat him. We were in a clutch and I was controlling him and the rhythm of both our movements and I remember thinking, Wow, this is Matt Hughes and I’m in control and it wasn’t too hard, and I know now that he can be defeated. I didn’t win that time, but I came out knowing I could, one day, with effort and strategy.
MASTER: What can the average person learn from Georges to benefit their lives here and now? On the face of it, it’s absurd to wonder how a guy who works 9-to-5 in a bank can learn from a guy who lives such an extreme lifestyle as Georges’s—a lifestyle of preparation for war and fighting a trained killer in a cage, in front of millions of people. These are different worlds. Georges wakes up at 11 a.m. every morning and trains for eight hours, then sleeps at 2 a.m. every day. He lives in a strange, alien world that has no relationship whatsoever to the average person.
But always remember one thing: long before he was GSP, he was just plain old Georges St-Pierre. He was that lonely kid who spoke no English, coming on a bus away from Montreal. That is where you see t
he seed of greatness.
The line between champion and runner-up is an odd thing. I didn’t see it right away the first time I crossed it. I didn’t understand what it meant. I only started truly knowing where and what the line is after losing my title the first time. I saw it on the way back down, and I realized that the line is intangible—you can’t hang on to it, ever. Because life is not a straight line—it’s in constant movement, and it chooses to be transparent when it wants to, not when you want it to be.
Age plays a factor in everything. Good genetics is helpful, of course, but talent is often overevaluated. Most champions started in their sport very young—whether in karate, wrestling, tennis or another sport—and they had the rare discipline to focus on no more than a couple of sports that intersect, like karate and wrestling, or soccer and basketball, or even rowing and kayaking.
I also often see little brothers and little sisters do well because they spent years having to (and badly wanting to) catch up to their older siblings and their friends. When you’re someone’s younger sibling, you often find yourself chasing after their dreams, being picked last, playing against older, stronger kids—all of which is good for you in the long run. From a young age, little brothers and sisters start at a disadvantage: they have to improve and constantly chase others, and they understand immediately what motivation means. All that because they seek acceptance. They must.
Another important element in becoming a champion is entirely related to luck. I call it “champion’s luck,” and it’s all about timing. Granted, I created many of my opportunities, but they would have meant very little if I hadn’t met the right people at the right time.
Then, of course, there’s the element you can control, and that’s work ethic. Rodolphe has a great quote: “Genius is one-tenth inspiration and nine-tenths perspiration.”
MASTER: Even then, in his broken English, he talked to me about becoming UFC champion. He was clear as day. He literally, when he looked in the mirror, saw a future champion. He had the will and the patience to give himself time to do what it takes. That’s not an empty dream.
Another integral ingredient to being a champion is belief. But you need two kinds of belief. You need belief that you can make it, so you carry confidence with you everywhere you go. And you need disbelief and disbelievers, people who don’t think you can make it. Those people are incredibly important because they’re the ones who inspire you to do the work, even when you don’t feel like it.
The disbelievers are everywhere; some are good to you, while others are bad because they’re jealous. My dad is one of the good disbelievers. He told me it was impossible, that I’d never become world champion. He thought that champions were superhuman, and he’d simply never seen the best side of me.
I proved him wrong and I kept going. Nobody believed me at first. Nobody but me, in fact, and even I had doubts. I was scared of being wrong. Then I met Kristof and others who taught me that it’s all about inventing life. It’s about taking your strengths and doing something with them. It’s using your tools the right way. If I give you three lines and ask you to make a triangle, it’s impossible to make a square. I had some genetic predispositions, but John Danaher will tell you that he’s seen better athletes. From my childhood skirmishes, I carried some rage that fired me up before my earliest fights, but what I acquired early on was the work ethic, discipline and good sense to listen to those who knew more than me.
MASTER: I’m the youngest in my family and, in a sense, Georges is the little brother that I never had. And I’m the big brother he never had. Sometimes I look at him and he’s the same kind, naive kid I knew ten years ago. It can be a curse in business relations, for example, but it’s also what makes him distinctive and charming. He’s changed in some respects. Most people are governed by self-interest, and he understands that now; he’s had some painful lessons along the way. He’s still got that earthy, country-boy charm. He’s not nearly as naive as he once was, and he sees the darkness in the minds of men.
Show me a hundred people and I’ll show you ninety-nine with an empty, unrealistic dream. Georges didn’t just have the dream, he had the plan of action to think about the circumstances to make the dream possible. Dreams on their own are utterly useless, but allied to a workable plan of action [they] garner the greatest of results, and that’s exactly what Georges had from the earliest days. You saw that plan of action. Getting on a bus in the middle of a Montreal winter to ride to New York City and a godforsaken gym. Spending nights next to weed-smoking lunatics, fighting for a place to sleep. A crazy plan, but in the end, it became real. In the end, Georges St-Pierre is the only student I’ve ever had who taught me more than I taught him.
Ultimately, though, I’m doing what I love doing. Without that, belts don’t matter.
Photo Section
Taking a little breather between rounds. RICHARD SIBBALD
Celebrating a new UFC contract over lunch with UFC co-owner Lorenzo Fertitta (left). ERIC WILLIAMS
Entering the octagon in an empty Rogers Centre the night before UFC 129.ERIC WILLIAMS
Last moments before the fight. Without my opponent, there is no me. That’s why I pray for the both of us.
JOSH HEDGES/ZUFFA LLC/UFC/GETTY IMAGES
You always learn from the great Freddie Roach. ERIC WILLIAMS
Trainer Patrick Beauchamp (right) reminding me why I’m a beginner gymnast. ELIDA ARRIZZA/SID LEE
Under the expert hands of Dr. Neal ElAttrache, the man who fixed my knee.
On my road to recovery with Gavin MacMillan at Sport Science Lab. ERIC WILLIAMS
Practice makes perfect. ERIC WILLIAMS
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper offers GSP-signed gloves to his counterpart, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda. JASON RANSOM
The GSP “brand” on stage at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. SORAYA URSINE/CON/LATINCONTENT EDITORIAL/GETTY IMAGES
Talking tactics with Muay Thai coach Tidiani Biga (right) in preparation for UFC 154. RICHARD SIBBALD
With Greg Jackson, John Danaher, Phil Nurse and Firas Zahabi. There is nochampionship belt without them. JOSH HEDGES/ZUFFA LLC/UFC/GETTY IMAGES
With Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu coach Bruno Fernandes (left) and my old training partner and manager Rodolphe Beaulieu (right). Rod received his black belt right after Bruno gave me my first stripe. GRACIE BARRA MONTRÉAL
“Silence is a true friend who never betrays.”—Confucius ERIC WILLIAMS
BOOK 4
MAVEN
The Standing Book
WITH
FIRAS ZAHABI, COACH
A punch starts in the feet.
My feet are the most powerful, important parts of my body, but for most of my life I ignored them. For most of my life, my feet were dead. Until I had to fix my knee.
My feet keep me balanced, centered, and they represent everything I stand for—literally and figuratively. My feet are the genesis of all my power. They’re the beginning. Yet for most of my existence, for a lot of my training, for years and years of repetitions and exercises, they’ve been almost useless to me. In fact, when I was a little kid, I walked on my tiptoes. Over time, this caused me to walk with my feet pointing out, like a duck, and because of that I was losing power. I was losing explosiveness and balance.
Essentially, I’ve let my feet down. We all do, but for me it was quite important that I change that.
Never was this more evident than when I beat Matt Hughes in our title rematch. We were boxing mostly, and when he went low I caught him in the head with a left kick that dropped him, stunned. I finished with fists and elbows, but I won because of my feet.
This truth about feet and their power is so old that most human beings have forgotten it ever existed. We’re too busy wearing shoes we think are comfortable—shoes we believe “support” our weight—to even think about the meaning of our feet, their purpose in our lives. But the truth is, without proper feet, there is no proper punching, or lunging, or dodging, or basic m
ovement.
Until the invention of shoes, human beings always walked barefoot. We were, and are, primates. Our closest relatives, like it or not, are the great apes. And in the past, just like apes, we “wore” bare feet, which meant we had more sensation, more control. Our feet were better tools, like our hands are today. And we train our hands all the time. Why is that?
Although most of us are better with one hand more than the other, we know we can train ourselves to become ambidextrous. Larry Bird, the great basketball player, could dribble the ball with both hands by the time he was four years old. Tim Raines, the great Expos outfielder, was one of the best switch-hitters of all time—he could hit from both the left and right sides of the plate. Da Vinci and Michelangelo, artists of another kind, were ambidextrous too. This isn’t just a coincidence or a divine gift. It’s the result of years of practice and perfection, combined with the relentless development of skill. So why not practice more with our feet?
Shoes kill the sensations in our feet, which affects stability. You start compensating for your lack of balance with your knees, hips and other parts of your body. This is not good. It’s bad, in fact, because it leads to various kinds of joint and structural pains that evolve with time.
Did you know that our toes and feet can keep our balance better than anything else? They keep us centered. Every single movement we make starts with our feet. Feet are the genesis of all movements, especially in mixed martial arts. It’s where most of our power comes from.
Think about it and try it: if your feet are not well positioned on the ground, how can you effectively change direction? If your base is not well positioned, you have to move one of your feet first, then apply pressure to generate movement, then move the other foot, and only then can you generate any kind of power or momentum. This sounds a lot like walking, I know. In the octagon, or on the basketball or tennis court, or when you’re running after a ball or trying to deke your opponent, walking isn’t the solution. It takes time and it wastes energy. By being in the right position to begin with, you save time and energy, and you maximize power.
The Way of the Fight Page 13
