FIGHTLAND
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The Psychology of Submitting
Mixed martial arts is unique in sports in having a major percentage of its outcomes decided by a choice: to endure pain and risk injury or to tap out. The science of how pain works within the body is widely understood. What is less clear is what happens inside the mind in the dec… Full story
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MMA with the Bourdain Family
My husband likes to say that when we first met I was a delicate flower. I think he’s just trying to rationalize how he could find himself in a relationship with a woman who could kick his ass. Truth is, there was nothing delicate about me when we first met. Full story
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Ottavia Bourdain: My Jiu-Jitsu Addiction
When I first enrolled at the Renzo Gracie Academy in New York City I would hear people say how Brazilian jiu-jitsu is a way of life, how it made them better human beings, how they wouldn’t ever stop or trade it for anything else. I thought these people were a little crazy. Full story
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The Tornado and the Beach
The story is as crucial as crucial could have ever been. We're talking Grimm's fairy tale crucial. A family goes out one day, in this instance to a beach, and a boy, their boy, falls asleep, face down in the sand. Then the boy wakes up to the complete and total absence of his fam… Full story
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The Ultimate Fighter's Passage to India
The Elite Football League of India launched this summer to yawning indifference from audiences in the sub-continent and curious derision from observers in the US. Importing American football—shoulder pads, helmets, down markers, and all—to a country where even rugby is a fifth-ru… Full story