The New Era: Daoism, Nietzsche and Conor McGregor

Both due to its young age and hybrid nature, MMA has allowed us to inquire not only into which kind of technical approach to combat might be the best, but also into which mental attitude could be the most beneficial for accomplishing the task at hand. Further, an attitude which is helpful in facing a trained killer in the octagon will probably also be helpful in the comparatively mild circumstances of everyday life. Yet the immense complexity and multitude of variables involved in determining the outcome of such hand-to-hand combat situations seemingly repel the possibility of a one-size-fits-all solution.

It seems therefore, that finding out what kind of approach one can work with the best as an individual is a good place to start. Coach John Kavanagh and with him most prominently Conor McGregor and Gunnar Nelson have provided us with a particularly interesting take on training and competing. In an interview McGregor did for MMA fréttir leading up to his fight with Diego Brandao he also briefly addressed his philosophy towards training:

“Sometimes in my home it’s […] 2 o’clock in the morning, I’m saying: You know what, I wanna go to the gym and blast music and hit the bag, or […] bring someone along with me and grapple ten rounds straight. The other day me and Gunni were here at 3 o’clock in the morning and grappled 10, 15 rounds straight. It’s good for the mind. I operate on my own. I don’t like to follow a schedule, some people need that. Like an army-style thing: ‘Be here at this time, do this, do that!’ I just like to free-roll. When I feel like doing it, I do it. When I don’t, I don’t. But most of the time, I feel like doing it.”

And also in a slightly older interview he did for Severe MMA.com:

“I’m gonna do what I wanna do. […] if I don’t wanna train I won’t train. I listen to myself. Rather than showing up and killing myself in the gym every day, I just go with the flow. Do what I feel my body needs.”

I feel like there is a lot to these quotes. They remind me strongly of what Bruce Lee has once said about his philosophy on martial arts: “Be water, my friend.” (In case you haven’t already listened to the whole thing, which you should have, look it up on YouTube.) Water is one of the most important metaphors of the ancient Chinese philosophy of Daoism, hinting at the elusive core of its principles. Looking at McGregor’s take on training, I feel that there is strong resemblance with the Daoist principle of wu-wei. Since both Alan Watts, English writer, philosopher and “philosophical-entertainer”, and Bruce Lee, via Alan Watts, have had a strong interest in Daoism, they are both equally well quotable on the matter:

“. . . the parable of the pine and the willow in heavy snow. The pine branch, being rigid, cracks under the weight; but the willow branch yields to the weight and the snow drops off. Note, however that the willow is not limp, but springy.” – Alan Watts

The same expressed in Bruce Lee’s words:

“Notice that the stiffest tree is most easily cracked, while the bamboo or willow survives by bending with the wind.” – Bruce Lee

Again, Alan Watts:

“. . . wu-wei as ‘not forcing’ is what we mean by going with the grain, rolling with the punch, swimming with the current, trimming sails to the wind, taking the tides at its flood, and stooping to conquer.” – Alan Watts (from Tao – The Watercourse Way)

Wu wei can teach us to look at what the situation is like right now and adapt from there. Rigid plans, just like the pine, break at times since they don’t do the ever-changing complexity of the world justice. As McGregor puts it, he likes to free-roll. He takes a look at how he feels at the moment and decides from there what he will be doing and with what kind of intensity. Sticking to something that does not change is easier at times, because one does not have to reconsider what to do every time. If we would be living in a static world with no change, that would work out great. Yet the world and ourselves as part of the world are constantly changing, and therefore a rigid plan is not always the way to go. Also, if you train according to the way you feel and not against that feeling, you will have more fun during the actual training and fun facilitates both efficiency and creativity.

With more and more cases of fighters having to pull out of fights due to training-related injuries, listening to the own body and adapting the plan accordingly may be the way to go. Deeming the plan more important than the actual current situation is, as Alan Watts put it, like eating the menu instead of the dinner. Go with it, rather than against it. “It” in this case means your body. In the case of McGregor, he does what he feels his body needs which means that he is not working against the signs, e.g. pain, of the body; at least not too much. The idea of working against the body, of pushing past it, even though sometimes viable, implies an ego that is separate from a body which it is supposed to control. Yet if we look at body and mind as two parts of the same organism, working against what the body tells us is working against ourselves. That creates a situation of internal conflict rather than one of collaboration. Expressed in the words of Nietzsche's Zarathustra:

“Doch der Erwachte, der Wissende sagt: Leib bin ich ganz und gar und nichts außerdem!“

Translation/mediation:

„But the awaken, the knowing says: Body I am and nothing else!"

This hints at afore mentioned insight that the physical is not separate from the mental. That there is nothing else, but the body which incorporates all. In Buddhism there is the doctrine of shunyata which loosely translated means emptiness, or void. It mainly describes that there is no independent identity inherent in living things and that a "self" or "I" only exists through convention and in distinction with a "you" (closely related to the concept of anatman or no-self). Hence, according to the doctrine the idea of a solid self which is the center of our being is in a way an illusion. The stream of consciousness is just as much part of your organism as your bowel movement, or heartbeat. Therefore "I" am my body and all feelings are "me", a thought as much as the contraction of a muscle. Seeing that may reduce the amount of internal conflict and should enable a more suitable approach to dealing with this unity.

All this, of course does not mean that having a plan or training hard is inherently bad. The point is to look at the current situation and act accordingly, in this case listening to oneself. Maybe one of the reasons for Conor McGregor’s quick rise within the featherweight division is his attitude towards training that shows parallels to the philosophy I just touched on.