The Magic Number

1993 was a big year for me.  I was nineteen going on twenty and had finished high school the year before. I had moved to Canberra where I live to this day.  I started university and met the girl who is now my beautiful wife of nearly 16 years.  I joined the University Rugby Club and was surprised to be playing first grade for the season rather than colts as I had expected.

Rugby was a big part of that year.  I was selected in the ACT under 21 side and played in the national carnival against the other rugby playing states, which was a fantastic experience that I still look back on fondly to this day.  I was amazed to be awarded a scholarship to the Australian Institute of Sport for the following year and was in the Australian under 21 Rugby squad.  Injury ruled me out of my chance to contest for a starting spot.  Regardless, I learned an enormous amount about what it would take to be an elite athlete from a wide variety of sources that year.  A very rewarding experience.

So what relevance do the memories of the glory days from 20 years ago have to do with right now?  Well the magic number, that of the year that it was, 93.  Fast forward to today where I am now thirty nine going on forty and no doubt quietly making my way though some sort of mid life crisis :-).  I must be, because in recent times I have taken up the sport of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA).

I shouldn't belittle the sport as I really do enjoy it.  I just know that many view it through a different lens than those who participate and love it.  I have a humorous image in my head of me as an aging athlete wannabe taking up what most people only see as violent cage fighting out of some sort of desire to capture what might have been in days past.  That's not what it's about of course, but, I can definitely appreciate the humour in which such an image might be held by people looking in from the outside.

My original intent of taking up MMA was to get fit doing something completely different to everything I have ever done before and that has always held more than a little passing interest for me.  The skill, athleticism and discipline of those who compete at the highest level has always left me awestruck.  I held no aspirations of putting any skills picked up along the way to any use.  So where does the magic number come into it?

I have lost and stacked on weight several times in my life.  Each time I lose large amounts of weight, I invariably find some, all or more of it.  When I do get motivated (obsessed is another word that comes to mind) and lose weight, I have a goal, or a series of them that I draw on for that motivation.  MMA has presented me with one such goal.  93kg is the designated weight to compete in the light heavyweight division.

I don't know what competing looks like for me at the moment.  It might be an amateur bout with someone at my gym.  Maybe something like Pankration, where head strikes by punches are disallowed.  Or a Brazilian Jujitsu match, where there are no strikes at all.  The picture I have in my mind, whatever the rule set,  is that of me padded up, looking like the Michelin Man trying to stop myself running out the door in outright terror.  People often say that fear is healthy in that sort of situation.  I must be one of the healthiest people on the planet!

One thing I do know that hitting 93kg would mean the world to me.  For one, it would put me in the healthy weight range on the Body Mass Index (BMI).  Not everyone puts much stock in the BMI, but, just to say that I was in the healthy range would be so uplifting and meaningful to me.  It would also mean that I was fit, healthy and certainly much happier than I am with my current sad state of fitness.  Perhaps most importantly of all, it would mean that I was a good example to my daughters of what healthy living brings.

So there it is.  93 is a number that is firmly set in my mind for several reasons past and present and is driving me forward through what I know will be a ton of hard work with fantastic rewards along the way.  I plan to chronicle the journey here.  It begins with an initial weigh in tomorrow, a lot of healthy eating and exercise and ends with a happier, healthier me lining up to compete in a yet to be determined combat sport event.  A scary and exhilarating set of thoughts all at the same time.