Catherine Costigan is a mixed martial arts cage fighter from Limerick. She runs Pankration Kickboxing Academy with husband Dermot McGrath and she is currently training for a major MMA event in Dublin on Saturday March 1. This is the second in a series of training diaries from Catherine in preparation for her upcoming fight.
I’m three weeks out from the fight on March 1. The plan is going well, getting a bit tired and beat up in training but still loving every second of this challenge. Last week brought up some questions in training – one was a teenager who myself and Dermot have taught since he was six years old. He achieved his Pankration Junior Black Belt with us and he truly has become a highly educated player in this game of MMA. You also know you’re coaching them right when they kick your ass.
He surprised me with his speed, strength and desire to win, but I think he also wanted to impress me by showing me that he had taken in everything that Dermot and I had passed on to him. Well he did a brilliant job of getting that point across and normally teenagers annoy me because they’re hard to get inspired and motivated. They sometimes think they can have everything but without the work. That drives me mad, because in martial arts you have to kill yourself in training just to get close to tasting victory and world class standard.
Unfortunately a lot of them crumble. He hasn’t and never will. He reminds me a lot of myself as a 14-year-old, especially Monday night as I was sparring. From the corner of my eye I saw him watching me, seeing my moves and coming up with his plan. That was me all those years ago and still is. Study your opponent over and over, find the weak point and attack it. A simple idea but still a lot of fighters really fail to understand that.
You may ask why I fight teenagers. Is it because I enjoy punching them? Yup. Only kidding, a little bit! It’s really because I’m very small. I’m in the hobbit section and searching for my precious Cage Warriors Gold.
Fighting at 48 kgs. It’s hard to find training partners that are that size, but then come the teenagers that we are just developing that are between 50-60 kgs.
They can match my moves, give me trouble, make me question within that round why I’m failing, what is that I’m getting beaten on. I can truly say with this boy I lost the round. Was I angry? Yes, a little, but I was happy also.
What did I do about it ? I asked for another round with him, did a little better, found a way to control him but still not total dominance, yet a big lesson is learnt. Better to have the pressure put on me now, see my mistakes and spend time fixing them.
That’s exactly what I’ve done all last week with my coaches and I think I’ve got the answer now and tonight I’ll get my rematch. Still can’t say who I’m fighting…not a teenage boy!
This week is going to be a crazy one. I should have plenty more to write next week if I’m not dead from it all. Stay tuned to Alpha Channel.
Follow Catherine’s fitness tips on facebook at Catherine Costigan Alpha Female Fitness and Twitter @alphafemalewar.
