“College wrestling is way harder than MMA,” said every college wrestler turned MMA fighter.

“Man, I wish I would have wrestled in college,” said every MMA fighter that didn’t wrestle.

As a young aspiring MMA fighter and a lifelong wrestler I was faced with a very difficult question: Should I wrestle in college and get and education, or pursue my dreams to be an MMA fighter? Answer: Why not both?

For the last few years that is exactly what I did. I wrestled for Lindenwood-Bellville University, while earning a degree in Business Administration, and while competing as a professional MMA fighter. When I was going to school at LUB, I earned a 3.5 GPA, won a national championship in wrestling, and I went 6-0 as a pro MMA fighter. I am not saying this to toot my own horn but rather to offer up an interesting opportunity for young aspiring MMA fighters: You can do it too!

*Note: There are only certain schools that will allow you to compete as a professional athlete while competing in a collegiate sport. For example, you cannot do this for any NCAA sanctioned schools. However, the NAIA and the NCWA will allow it. I wrestled in the NCWA.

I truly believe that I would not have been nearly as successful on the mat if I wasn’t getting it done in the class room as well. I would not have been as successful in the cage if I wasn’t getting it done on the mat.

Wrestling provided me with the most intense and well-structured fight camps that I could ever ask for. Wrestling also gave me an abundance of dedicated training partners coupled with phenomenal coaches. Training for wrestling is much harder than training for MMA. The constant grind with little to no time off includes; strength/conditioning workouts, hard/technical drilling, live sparring, and more.

After my wrestling workouts I would train MMA with current UFC contender Tyron Woodley (he has a gym near my school). I fought, on average, once every other month. By doing this I earned enough money to pay my rent and put food on the table (but not much more than that). It was also cool because all my teammates, classmates, and teachers were following my career and watching my fights. I would go over my fight contracts with my law professor and I developed a strategic MMA marketing plan as a class project. My professors were all very supportive. One day I was checking out a book and the school librarian asked me if I was excited to go to California and fight for Tachi Palace. I thought that was pretty cool since I had never even told him I was a fighter.

So, most days I was training 3 times a day. This system made for extremely hard and exhausting training. With that said, being an athlete is NOT a full time job. Any athlete, even the most intense ones, can only train so many hours in a day. The question is what do you do with the rest of your day? I suggest focus on something else other that training. Something that is still challenging but allows you to shift focus and keep you from getting burned out on training. That something, for me, was business.

I found that the better I did in the classroom, the better I did in competition. By succeeding in school I was able to compete with a lot less pressure on my shoulders. One of my favorite quotes is, “The probability of achieving your goal drastically improves when you let go of the need to have it.” A full-time fighter NEEDS to win because fighting is all he has. When I stepped into the cage I knew, win or lose, I still had an education and other things going for me. This thought process allowed be to compete free of worry, which made me fight a lot better and win a lot more.

So, if you want to be an MMA fighter I strongly suggest you take the same route. Find a college with an NCWA or NAIA wrestling program. Then find an MMA gym nearby. Train hard at wrestling, train hard at MMA, and above all… get your education!!!

If you have any questions about this idea, or need some advice, feel free to contact me through our contact page or via Facebook. I will be glad to help!

When I was in high school I had the great opportunity to train at the Olympic Training Center with some of the best wrestlers and coaches in the world.  One of the coaches there was Sergey Beloglazov. Sergey was one of, if not the best wrestler of all time. He was a 6x World Champion and a 4x Olympic Champion for Russia.  After retiring from wrestling, he came to America to coach the U.S. Olympic Team. Every chance I had to learn from him while I was at the Olympic Training Center I took full advantage. Weather it was by watching him show a move, ease dropping on his conversation, or rolling around with him after practice; I wanted to learn. I figured the more time I spent around this great champion the better chance I would have to be like him.

While I was there, a group of us traveled to Wyoming for a regional tournament. There was a junior level and a senior level at this tournament. I competed in the junior level while some of the Olympic hopefuls that we traveled with competed in the senior level.  Sergey also came along to coach the older guys.

There is one moment from that tournament that I will always remember. I was having a rough match and things just weren’t going my way. I had made a few mistakes of which my opponent immediately capitalized on. Going into the second period, I found myself one point away from a technical fall (the slaughter rule of wrestling).  As the final period began, I saw Sergey out of the corner of my eye. He came and sat in my corner to coach me. When I saw this I felt enormously honored and privileged to have the best wrestler of all time sitting in my corner. I told myself that, “I am unbeatable with Sergey in my corner”. I was immediately filled with an intense energy and will to win. My mindset completely changed and I immediately began the most epic comeback of my career. Listening to every word of broken English coming from Sergey in my corner, I felt untouchable. Now I was wrestling for more than just myself. I felt a responsibility to live up to Sergey’s name and do everything in my power to represent him well. When the final buzzer rang I had gone from almost certain defeat to a 2 point victory! The joy and satisfaction I felt from that win was unexplainable. I wasn’t excited because I won the match; I was excited because of the look approval I saw on Sergey’s face. I had made him proud.

Now, as a professional fighter, I have the same feeling when I step into the cage to fight only multiplied by 1,000. Every time I fight I have the greatest champion that has ever lived in my corner, Jesus Christ. All of the positive feelings I had when Sergey sat in my corner come back to me when I think about Jesus sitting cage side.  I tell myself, “I am unbeatable with Jesus in my corner.”  I listen to everything He tells me and I feel untouchable. I am fighting for more than just myself. I have a responsibility to live up to Christ’s name and to do everything in my power to represent him well.  When the final bell rings and the fight is over, the joy I feel is unexplainable. I am not excited for the result; that means nothing. I am excited because I know the man upstairs approves and is proud of my efforts. Can you imagine the power I feel when I fight with Jesus in my corner? I am fighting with the power of God. What greater power is there?

"At the peak of tremendous and victorious effort, while the blood is pounding in your head, all suddenly becomes quiet within you. Everything seems clearer than before, as if a great spotlight had been turned on.  At that moment you have the conviction that you contain all the power in the world, that you are capable of anything, that you have wings. There is no more precious moment in life than this, the white moment, and you will work very hard for years just to taste it."

Many people call it being "in the zone."  When you are performing "in the zone" you have switched from training mode to trusting mode. You are not fighting yourself. You are not afraid of anything. You are living in the moment at a special place and time. The white moment is a reward for all your hard work and preparation. You just go with the flow and enjoy the experience.

Many athletes have experienced this sensational experience at one point in their career but for most it happens by chance. The greatest performers in history have these moments often and for them it happens by design. There are 5 essential elements that must be present within the performer in order for a white moment to occur. If you wish to be great you must learn create "white moments" on demand by developing these 5 elements.

1. Challenge- The challenge must be great enough to exert 100% of your energy and focus. The moment must be significant enough to stimulate all of your senses and nerves. The goal must be difficult to achieve but realistic.

"I do not look at my opponent as a threat to fall to but a challenge to rise up to." -Jon Jones

2. Preparation- You must cultivate a set of appropriate skills, which requires the concentration of attention. The skills and perpetration must be equal to the challenge. Confidence is built through preparation and confidence is essential. When you have properly prepared you trust that the skills you have are sufficient for the task.

"The fight is won or lost far away from witnesses - behind the lines, in the gym, and out there on the road, long before I dance under those lights." -Muhammad Ali

3. Fearlessness- You can't be afraid to fail. You are more likely to achieve your goal when you let go of the need to have it. Let go of the need to win and you can perform freely. Attack any remaining fear with anger. Replace uncertainty with attitude. Transform anxiety into excitement.

"I cannot promise a win. I can only promise to perform to the best of my ability. I am confident that will be enough." -George St. Pierre

4. Focus- Focus only on what you can control. Extrinsic goals such as beating an opponent, impressing an audience, or obtaining a big contract can be distractions. You cannot control your opponent, the crowd, or the outcome. What you can control is your preparation, game plan, and performance. Uncontrollables are distractions. Focus only on that which you can control.

"Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun's rays do not burn until brought to a focus." - Alexander Graham Bell

5. Happiness- You are in a special place and time, just go with the flow and enjoy every second. When you are having fun you are lose and can perform freely. This moment is a reward for all of your hard work. This is your bliss where you can be totally free and completely lost in the activity you love most. This is you nirvana, enjoy it!

"I feel like I have already won. I get to go out there and do what I love one more time" -BJ Penn

Phillipians 4:13 "I can do ALL things through Christ who strengthens me." … even when no one else think I can.

I just started a new job last week. My boss gave us the same speech that every good wrestling coach ever gave me. It went some thing like this, " this job is not going to be easy. I expect you to work your tail off. You are to work a mandatory 50 hrs a week but I expect you to work more. If you are willing to work ridiculously hard, this could be a great deal for you. If you aren't than, I'm sorry, this just isn’t the place for you."

I hesitate to tell people in the MMA world the extent of my commitment to this job for fear they just won't understand. People keep saying, "oh that sucks, so you are done fighting right? I mean there is no way that you can do both." I just shake my head and say to myself, "Oh you of little faith, you just don’t understand, I can do ALL thing through Christ, not just what everyone else thinks is possible."

Every day since I started work I have had amazing training at night. My office has a full shower and locker room so when fight camp comes I can run on my lunch breaks to get my cardio in. It is possible to be great at both.

I intend to fight and to work. And I intend to be great at both, God willing. I feel that God has called me to be a fighter. MMA gives me a great platform to show the world the power of Christ. I also feel God has called me to do big things in the world of business. Business will give me a great opportunity to give back and provide for kingdom building causes.

I guess the point I am trying to make is that this world is filled with small thinkers. If you are crazy like me and try to something so big, so hard that people don’t understand, don’t listen to the doubters. Just shake your head and say to your self, "you just don’t understand. I am energized by He in whom ALL things are possible."

Aristotle said, "More than anything else, men and women seek happiness." The pursuit of happiness seems to be the motivation of all human activity. But how does one go after this so desired happiness? How is happiness achieved?

Happiness is not a passive emotion. It doesn’t just come to a person without effort. I had a wrestling coach who drilled in our heads one motto all year long, CANI (Constant And Neverending Improvement). I love this motto but I think it could just as easily be modified to Constant And Neverending Pursuit of Happiness because happiness comes from the improvement of the self.

Growth is the key to happiness. People feel the most enjoyment when they feel like they are progressing. Certain activities provide such growth opportunities. These activities have some key characteristics in common.

First, the activity must be challenging. If it was easy it wouldn’t be worth doing. If you thrown in the Super Bowl in the last 10 seconds of the game and thus became part of the championship team that feeling wouldn’t compare to the feeling of the guy who had worked his whole life for that particular moment. It’s the overcoming of obstacles and the struggles that one goes through that makes the great moments taste so sweet. Edmond said, "He who wrestles with us sharpens our nerves and skill. Our antagonist is our helper."

The second criterion for a happiness generating activity is clear goals and immediate feedback. You must know what defines success in that activity and you must have a good way to measure that success. If there is no feedback how would one know
if they are succeeding?

The following are the main areas of happiness that I focus on in my life, ranked in order of importance.

1. Religion
Religion enables me to see my whole life as a happiness generating activity. Without a set outline of what is right and wrong how would anyone know if they are improving as a person? Life without religion is like a playing a game without rules. Such a game cannot generate happiness because there is no feedback. Cicero said, "To be completely free one must become a slave to rules."Religion is a means to measure my growth as a person. The goals are clearly mapped out by Jesus, love God and love others.

2. Relationships
To generate happiness, a relationship must have a goal for its existence. These goals must be in line with each person's individual goals and also be mutually beneficial.  Constant growth is also a key. I've heard happily married people say, "It only gets better over time." That’s the kind of marriage I want to have. Family has a natural progression of growth; infatuation to love, love to marriage, marriage to kids, etc. Maybe that’s why our family relationships have such a huge impact on our quality of life.

3. Work
"If you find a job you love you will never work a day in your life." The key to work creating happiness has to do with the design of the job. It must provide challenges comparable to the skill level of the person. A job that is too easy will result in boredom, too hard, anxiety. Also, there must be clear and immediate feedback. Sometimes the feedback comes in the form of monetary success. I once heard a professional poker player say, "I don’t care about the money. It's just a way of keeping score."

3. Mixed Martial Arts
The reason I love fighting so much is because of the amazing challenges that it presents. For every fight I must overcome physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual obstacles. While I hate the process leading up to fight night, the feeling I have once I have overcame all of these obstacles is incomparable and indescribable.

5. Guitar
I started teaching myself to play the guitar about a year ago and let me tell you, it is not easy. After a lot of frustration and persistency, I can now play about 2.5 songs. But the feeling I get when I learn a new song and it starts to sound like an actual song is amazing. I can sit and play for hours and lose all track of time. What's even cooler is that I know the better I get the more enjoyable it will become!

**Money (not really an activity but still worth mentioning)

Money cannot buy happiness… unless it is spent on someone else. Challenge? Yes, giving money is challenging. That’s why most people don’t do it, or at least don’t do it very often. Feedback? Try giving money to worthy cause and, if you are like me, you will feel the feedback deep in your belly right away. The immediate feeling of satisfaction you get from knowing that you are improving someone else's life for nothing in return is priceless! The more you give, the greater the challenge, the greater the happiness. Try it out, you wouldn't be disappointed.

Most of these theories were derived from the book FLOW by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. I highly recomend this book. It changed my life.

 By Carson Beebe
Written 9/25/2010 (I wrote this 2 years ago after I left Purdue.)

     Sometimes in life we are forced to make very difficult decisions. The most difficult
  decisions are the ones that seek to answer such questions as; what should I do
  with my life, what is my calling? When I was 20 years old I was in a situation
  where I had to make one of these life changing decisions. I had just finished
  my freshman year wrestling at Purdue University. I had been wrestling my whole
  life and the sport had pretty much dominated my life since I was a child. For
  as long as I can remember I had dreamt of being a NCAA national champion. After
  winning the starting spot on a Big 10 team my freshman year I was doing
  everything in my power to chase my dream. Unfortunately, this pursuit was not
  making me happy. I found myself questioning a lifetime of work. I found was
  only wrestling because I thought it was what everyone else wanted me to do. I
  was wrestling because it was all I knew. But was this what I really wanted?

     When I took an honest look at myself and thought about what I really wanted to do
with my life, wrestling wasn’t it. My calling was to be an MMA fighter. My
brother was an MMA fighter and I had trained with him a lot and gone to all of
his fights. I loved to train MMA, I loved the MMA shows, and I loved everything
that had to do with MMA. I just couldn’t get enough of MMA. I found myself
waiting for my college wrestling career to be over so I could begin my MMA
career. If I was going to be truly happy I knew I had to pursue my calling and I
needed to pursue it now! But could I really abandon a lifetime of work in
wrestling and the dreams stemming from my childhood of being an NCAA champion?
Not to mention the sacrifice of a scholarship to one of the most prestigious
universities in the country. Needless to say, this was a difficult decision to
make.

 Important decisions are never easy but then again nothing worth doing is easy. If a person
truly wants to be happy they must pursue their calling. God calls each of us to
do something special with our lives. We have the choice to listen to God’s call and pursue
a life of happiness, or to disobey and live a life of struggle and
disappointment. I was living the later.

 The first step in decision making is to identify what God is calling you to do.
God’s calling for you is something that makes you happy because true joy comes
from God. It is something that you love, because God is love. It is something
that you will stay up all night thinking about, then wake up in the morning and
get right back after it. Figuring out what your calling is can be difficult
enough but once you find your calling you must then find the courage to pursue
it. 

The decision to pursue your calling is a difficult one. When you make this decision
great sacrifices will almost certainly have to be made. While these sacrifices
are very difficult to make they will make any accomplishment you have in the
pursuit of your calling worth so much more. Without sacrifice achievement is
meaningless. So give these sacrifices willingly. Give them to God. There will
be a great risk involved. The risk of failing is what most people fear most,
but there is no such thing as failure unless you quit. There is such thing as
shortcomings, but shortcomings lead to perseverance, perseverance to character,
and character to hope for a better tomorrow. Have faith in God and give all of
your doubts up to Him. This will give you the strength to pursue your calling
with the power of God on your side. If God is for us then who can stand against
us?

 The next step is to do it! Don’t do it for others, and don’t do it for yourself, but
do it for God. No matter what it is that you choose to do, make your ultimate
goal to glorify God. Represent Him in whatever you do. God calls each of us to
do something special with our lives. Whatever God calls you to do, be the best
at it. Go after it with everything you have and be the best you possibly can be.
Live out your calling loudly and boldly. Others will notice your success and
they will see you give all the credit to God and they will want what you have.
Be a warrior for Christ, others will notice and join the fight.

After some time of deep thought, mental struggle, and a brutally honest assessment of
my own life I decided to pursue my calling. I decided to pursue a career in
MMA.  I was forced to make huge
sacrifices and these sacrifices were very difficult to make. When I broke the
news about the new direction of my life my teammates and family they were
shocked. I knew I had to attack my calling with everything I had if I wanted to
be happy. The day after I told my coaches I was done wrestling I was in the gym
training MMA. 

Here I sit a year and a half later a professional MMA fighter. I am 11-0 (pro/am).
I give all the credit for my success to God. He is the one who led me down
this path. I gain the strength to train hard and fight well from Him.  I do not fear losing because I know
that a loss will only lead to perseverance, perseverance to character, and
character to hope. I don’t fight for myself or for others. I fight to glorify
God. My goal is to be the best fighter in the world and to represent God well
inside the cage. My hope is to lead others to Christ though my success in this
sport. I draw attention to myself through my performances and thus draw
attention to the power of God. I seek to show people a glimpse of Christ though
the way I fight, the way I act, and the way I carry myself. I live everyday for
Christ and do what I can to spread his good name though that which He has called
me to do.

What an amazing weekend! I had the opportunity to be a huddle leader for the high school wrestling. The camp was ran by NCAA Champions and D1 head coaches. Check out this line-up:

Don't worry I had to do a double take too. But, yes, that does say Jordan Burroughs- Olympic Gold Medalist. And, yes, he was there.

I don't usually get to star struck but when @alliseeisgold showed how he sets up his double leg I was more excited than a kid meeting Santa Clause the first time.
That's not to mention the other huddle leaders which included D1 starters from U of I (BJJ Fuetrell, Caleb Ervin, Daryl Caldwell) and UTC starters (Zach Bridson & Nicko Brown).
It was so cool seeing how many stud wrestlers r on fire for Christ! We had the opportunity to share about faith with high school wrestlers. That was by far the coolest part!!

That's the Chappell where we dug into the word and learned that, in life, there are two roads we can take:

"Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few. (Matthew 7:13, 14 ESV)

We are called to seek Christ and live a full and righteous life for Him. It's not gonna be easy but the reward is etrnal. And the good new I'd that we don't have to do it alone!

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16 ESV)

When we choose Jesus we have eternal life. If we choose to live for ourselves when the winds blow and the storms come the house will fall. Jesus said;

"Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it." (Matthew 7:24-27 ESV)