gifted as I am, in or out of the water. I know Iâm pretty, but donât hate me because Iâm beautiful.â
With that, we all died laughing. Mo won. He always won. Sometimes over meals he would take an opposing position to an opinion being clearly presented at the table by someone. He didnât do it to be a dick; he did it because he genuinely liked to hear the defense of the person speaking so strongly. Mo was impressed with conviction, and he wanted to coax it out of people. He didnât like milquetoast people and he didnât like to hear people waffling on subjects. He wanted to get you to claim one side or another on an issue and then he wanted you to stick by it so hard that he wouldnât be able to shake you off. Simply put, Mo liked competition, and that didnât mean he loved winning; he almost loved finding an opposition that refused to bend. He respected that. The few times he would get under another fighterâs skin so much that they would criticize him for being argumentative, Mo would lean back and say simply, âI donât argue. I debate.â It should really be his patented catchphrase, as anyone who has ever worked with him for any length of time has heard him say it at least once . . . or ten times.
Mo drove a black Porsche. He was always dressed well, was well groomed, and walked with a marked swagger. I wanted to learn everything from him. My father had always sported high-end accessories and driven nice cars, but my father was led around by an air of violent braggadocio. He didnât draw people to him, he drove them away. Mo held a crowd wherever he went. His charisma and intellect allowed him to attract others to him while cleverly filtering out who he wanted to actually get to know and who he would keep at a safe and respectable but friendly distance. Not unlike Mel Blount and some of the other football players I had so admired in my youth, Mo walked with a strength that said he knew himself. And we got along. Amazingly well. A few months into my training with Mo, he sat me down to âhave a talk.â Mo was very big on discussions of all types, and he would frequently pass by me during training to say, âOh, hey, I want to speak to you later about things.â It always scared the shit out of me, as I had been so conditioned to hear these words as a warning that meant âYouâre about to get your ass kicked.â But with Mo the subject matter could be anything from his asking me if I had heard about a new training technique and wondering what I thought of it to whatever was on the news that week. This particular time it bore the aura of being more serious than previous talks, so I felt decidedly more ill at ease than usual when sitting down with him.
Mo was still fighting, which meant he was actively pursuing fights, which can make for not being the best coach. While Mo had to invest a large percentage of his time in himself in getting ready for different fights, I can honestly and without embellishment say that even when he was still focused on himself, he was the best coach I have ever had. His time spent focusing on himself didnât seem to detract from the quality of attention that he afforded us when he was available in the slightest. He had also begun pursuing something called âno holds barredâ fighting, or âMMA,â which stands for âmixed martial arts.â There was an organization that had been around for a few years called UFC, short for Ultimate Fighting Championship, and Mo was going to be fighting for them. The style was different in that not only would he have to stay polished in his kickboxing, but the rules also included wrestling and potential stoppages from submissions and âtapsâ to submissions (a move where an opponent gets caught in a submission, meaning a joint lock or choke, and opts to tap on the body of the aggressing fighter, indicating they have had enough, rather than have
With that, we all died laughing. Mo won. He always won. Sometimes over meals he would take an opposing position to an opinion being clearly presented at the table by someone. He didnât do it to be a dick; he did it because he genuinely liked to hear the defense of the person speaking so strongly. Mo was impressed with conviction, and he wanted to coax it out of people. He didnât like milquetoast people and he didnât like to hear people waffling on subjects. He wanted to get you to claim one side or another on an issue and then he wanted you to stick by it so hard that he wouldnât be able to shake you off. Simply put, Mo liked competition, and that didnât mean he loved winning; he almost loved finding an opposition that refused to bend. He respected that. The few times he would get under another fighterâs skin so much that they would criticize him for being argumentative, Mo would lean back and say simply, âI donât argue. I debate.â It should really be his patented catchphrase, as anyone who has ever worked with him for any length of time has heard him say it at least once . . . or ten times.
Mo drove a black Porsche. He was always dressed well, was well groomed, and walked with a marked swagger. I wanted to learn everything from him. My father had always sported high-end accessories and driven nice cars, but my father was led around by an air of violent braggadocio. He didnât draw people to him, he drove them away. Mo held a crowd wherever he went. His charisma and intellect allowed him to attract others to him while cleverly filtering out who he wanted to actually get to know and who he would keep at a safe and respectable but friendly distance. Not unlike Mel Blount and some of the other football players I had so admired in my youth, Mo walked with a strength that said he knew himself. And we got along. Amazingly well. A few months into my training with Mo, he sat me down to âhave a talk.â Mo was very big on discussions of all types, and he would frequently pass by me during training to say, âOh, hey, I want to speak to you later about things.â It always scared the shit out of me, as I had been so conditioned to hear these words as a warning that meant âYouâre about to get your ass kicked.â But with Mo the subject matter could be anything from his asking me if I had heard about a new training technique and wondering what I thought of it to whatever was on the news that week. This particular time it bore the aura of being more serious than previous talks, so I felt decidedly more ill at ease than usual when sitting down with him.
Mo was still fighting, which meant he was actively pursuing fights, which can make for not being the best coach. While Mo had to invest a large percentage of his time in himself in getting ready for different fights, I can honestly and without embellishment say that even when he was still focused on himself, he was the best coach I have ever had. His time spent focusing on himself didnât seem to detract from the quality of attention that he afforded us when he was available in the slightest. He had also begun pursuing something called âno holds barredâ fighting, or âMMA,â which stands for âmixed martial arts.â There was an organization that had been around for a few years called UFC, short for Ultimate Fighting Championship, and Mo was going to be fighting for them. The style was different in that not only would he have to stay polished in his kickboxing, but the rules also included wrestling and potential stoppages from submissions and âtapsâ to submissions (a move where an opponent gets caught in a submission, meaning a joint lock or choke, and opts to tap on the body of the aggressing fighter, indicating they have had enough, rather than have
Similar Books
