Tension into triumph: The day of a big headline fight is always one of prolonged tension and anxiety. When Georges St-Pierre goes to fight he rarely sleeps the night before and the team spends the whole day together periodically reminding ourselves of the main themes of the camp, then distracting small talk, crass humor, anything to pass time. Being the headline fight means the bout will not begin until around midnight – that's a long day of anticipation. When there is a great result it is a tremendous feeling of release and happiness – one so strong it is difficult to convey in words. A camp is a grueling six to eight weeks of obsession culminating in the longest and most anxious day. Most of our lives are built upon this pattern, only in less extreme form – of working hard to get to a goal, the joy of getting there or the pain of failure, and then on to new goals and repeating the cycle of desire, striving, success/failure and then a new adventure – but nowhere is it more clearly seen than in the path from fight camp to fight day to aftermath. In times of victory you will never see greater joy, in defeat, never will you see greater heartbreak. It is the pattern of all our lives, made more extreme by being compressed in time and amplified.
