Why do I fight?
It's a question I am commonly asked, posed in a thousand different ways. Most of the time its strangers who meet me for the first time…but my favourite is usually after I chuck a tantrum during a tough training session and my coach is probably on the verge of tearing his hair out or wringing his hands in frustration :D
The frequency of the question is understandable, as I guess I hardly look like the fighting type and I act like too much of a jackass to be considered as much of a threat. It’s even something I ask myself either when I am desperately clawing to find some dying will power to last another round or when I feel like pondering.
For some time I couldn’t give a straight answer, I just didn’t know. I’d often say I wanted something fun to do to keep me fit…or I just wanted abs. But it hardly explained why I gave up to 18 hours of my life a week or why I would take the certain fights I took.
There are two reasons why I fight, one is more light hearted but no less significant. I always wanted to be a super saiyan. I would always dream as a kid (and still do) of having these epic super human battles against all kinds of villains. The other reason is a little darker, more painful and took me a long time to accept.
I am an angry person. This one simple truth was something I had denied about myself for so long, yet it was so glaringly obvious and had taken such a deep root within me, it was all consuming. I have seen too many displays of unhealthy and toxic anger which disgusted me to such an extent where I though only bad and negativity came from anger. Anger was evil. And I would never allow myself to display it. I didn’t realise that this way of thinking, was pretty much the source of most of my pain, misery and regrets that I had held onto for so long, it eventually seeped into the aspect of my life where I really didn’t want it to, it was like an infection of my soul that I would not let heal, I let it fester.
It took one special incident for me to realise my own anger. My coach mused to one of my sparring partners (I might add he has no idea that I knew of this) after a training session one day. He believed that when you pressure someone enough during a fight, you see a direct reflection of who that person is and where they are at in their life. He told my sparring partner that I was an angry and frustrated person. And BOOM. There it was. At first I was offended, how dare this fucking guy…he doesn’t know a damn thing about me. What credentials does he have to be making that claim! It just wasn’t what I wanted to hear. At all.
I was so wound up by it, I remember sitting my sore body down into the spa bath after training and I sat there for ages stewing on this. Eventually, I thought so hard about it...it crept up to me, that the reason I must be so upset about it...it couldn’t be because there was some truth to it? And just like that, I cracked. I wept for what seemed like an eternity. Oh God, I really am angry, I’m so fucking angry!
Why am I angry? That answer flowed to me like the pure truth it was once I actually admitted my seething anger. All my life I have let people hurt me, they have taken advantage of me, written me off and walked all over me. And I never did a fucken thing about because I was too damn nice, another musing from another one of my coaches, actually.
My time in the Army was very tough. I struggled with my fitness and being a girl did me no favours. I was also very confident and curious in my sexuality which unfortunately earned me a label. I was consistently made to feel like a failure for never being strong enough to keep up with the physical demands of my job. I was also slut shamed and disrespected by the very brothers and sisters I worked to keep alive and healthy. Not everyone was like this and I was not a sole victim in this wolf pack mentality, it is a very common occurrence, more than most defence forces care to acknowledge. And I was too scared to do anything about it. I let people treat me like I was nothing and to some extent, I believed some of it.
Once I left the defence force and eventually found my passion for Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and MMA, a lot of this emotional damage was alleviated. No one judged me, if I failed at a certain skill, I was encouraged to try again, I was praised and people told me they believed I could be a champion. It was the best feeling, it was soothing, it healed me and I started my journey towards becoming someone I wanted to be. It did not fix me completely; I still had some growth as a person to experience before I could get to where I am now. But finding fighting was what gave me the strength to survive something that would almost destroy me.
In late 2013, I moved to Auckland to be with a man I thought I would spend my life with. I came with nothing but my clothes. I had thrown away my studies in nursing, I left my family and my gym family to start a new life. Initially it was nice…but as time went on, he became withdrawn from me and I knew his attention was wondering elsewhere. He told me that fighting wasn’t girly, I wasn’t pretty being bruised all the time, I was too skinny, I gave too much of my time to it and he wanted me home more and with dinner ready when he came home from work. He wanted a housewife. These were his actual words. I couldn’t do it. He left me after three weeks and I ended up crashing at a friend’s, sleeping on a $30 mattress and living out of boxes because I had no draws. I lived on $230 weekly from the Government and from financial help from my parents. I lost my best friend in this ordeal due to the stress of this situation, she just couldn’t be there for me. There were nights were I would cry myself to sleep because I was hungry, ashamed and I wanted to die.
Eventually I got a job and was able to afford training again, thank God. And I was able to commit to my first fight. It was the hardest thing I have ever done. Despite this, I still harboured the hurt and anger towards these people. I wish I told each and every one of them to go fuck themselves and kicked their ass. I still visualise this sometimes. These residual feelings that I repressed and denied began to creep insidiously into my training. If I couldn’t get a skill right, if I was losing a round horribly, these feelings of failure would drown me in this whirlpool of my own self-hatred. And I would crumple under the pressure.
I am angry because I never defended myself from the actions of certain individuals towards me. I never stood up for myself.
When this crashing realisation dawned upon me in the spa, I knew I had to do something or it would eat me alive. I saw a counsellor and sought medical treatment for what I would be later diagnosed with as depression and anxiety. It was the second best thing I could ever do for myself. I feel no shame in this. And I hope my story will help give strength to those who need to do the same.
Fighting became my big fat middle finger to all of what had happened to me. The release it gave me was cathartic. Sometimes it was very painful, emotionally as well as physically. But when I fight, I feel like I am standing up for myself. I am taking control back and being the girl I want to be. And I love myself and my anger. My anger comes from a pretty dark place. By sitting with this anger and sadness and sinking into it, as opposed to ignoring it, I have used it to fuel me and push me into achieving a dream I never thought I would see.
My name is Natalie Harper. I fight because I want to be a hero. I fight because I am angry.
It's a question I am commonly asked, posed in a thousand different ways. Most of the time its strangers who meet me for the first time…but my favourite is usually after I chuck a tantrum during a tough training session and my coach is probably on the verge of tearing his hair out or wringing his hands in frustration :D
The frequency of the question is understandable, as I guess I hardly look like the fighting type and I act like too much of a jackass to be considered as much of a threat. It’s even something I ask myself either when I am desperately clawing to find some dying will power to last another round or when I feel like pondering.
For some time I couldn’t give a straight answer, I just didn’t know. I’d often say I wanted something fun to do to keep me fit…or I just wanted abs. But it hardly explained why I gave up to 18 hours of my life a week or why I would take the certain fights I took.
There are two reasons why I fight, one is more light hearted but no less significant. I always wanted to be a super saiyan. I would always dream as a kid (and still do) of having these epic super human battles against all kinds of villains. The other reason is a little darker, more painful and took me a long time to accept.
I am an angry person. This one simple truth was something I had denied about myself for so long, yet it was so glaringly obvious and had taken such a deep root within me, it was all consuming. I have seen too many displays of unhealthy and toxic anger which disgusted me to such an extent where I though only bad and negativity came from anger. Anger was evil. And I would never allow myself to display it. I didn’t realise that this way of thinking, was pretty much the source of most of my pain, misery and regrets that I had held onto for so long, it eventually seeped into the aspect of my life where I really didn’t want it to, it was like an infection of my soul that I would not let heal, I let it fester.
It took one special incident for me to realise my own anger. My coach mused to one of my sparring partners (I might add he has no idea that I knew of this) after a training session one day. He believed that when you pressure someone enough during a fight, you see a direct reflection of who that person is and where they are at in their life. He told my sparring partner that I was an angry and frustrated person. And BOOM. There it was. At first I was offended, how dare this fucking guy…he doesn’t know a damn thing about me. What credentials does he have to be making that claim! It just wasn’t what I wanted to hear. At all.
I was so wound up by it, I remember sitting my sore body down into the spa bath after training and I sat there for ages stewing on this. Eventually, I thought so hard about it...it crept up to me, that the reason I must be so upset about it...it couldn’t be because there was some truth to it? And just like that, I cracked. I wept for what seemed like an eternity. Oh God, I really am angry, I’m so fucking angry!
Why am I angry? That answer flowed to me like the pure truth it was once I actually admitted my seething anger. All my life I have let people hurt me, they have taken advantage of me, written me off and walked all over me. And I never did a fucken thing about because I was too damn nice, another musing from another one of my coaches, actually.
My time in the Army was very tough. I struggled with my fitness and being a girl did me no favours. I was also very confident and curious in my sexuality which unfortunately earned me a label. I was consistently made to feel like a failure for never being strong enough to keep up with the physical demands of my job. I was also slut shamed and disrespected by the very brothers and sisters I worked to keep alive and healthy. Not everyone was like this and I was not a sole victim in this wolf pack mentality, it is a very common occurrence, more than most defence forces care to acknowledge. And I was too scared to do anything about it. I let people treat me like I was nothing and to some extent, I believed some of it.
Once I left the defence force and eventually found my passion for Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and MMA, a lot of this emotional damage was alleviated. No one judged me, if I failed at a certain skill, I was encouraged to try again, I was praised and people told me they believed I could be a champion. It was the best feeling, it was soothing, it healed me and I started my journey towards becoming someone I wanted to be. It did not fix me completely; I still had some growth as a person to experience before I could get to where I am now. But finding fighting was what gave me the strength to survive something that would almost destroy me.
In late 2013, I moved to Auckland to be with a man I thought I would spend my life with. I came with nothing but my clothes. I had thrown away my studies in nursing, I left my family and my gym family to start a new life. Initially it was nice…but as time went on, he became withdrawn from me and I knew his attention was wondering elsewhere. He told me that fighting wasn’t girly, I wasn’t pretty being bruised all the time, I was too skinny, I gave too much of my time to it and he wanted me home more and with dinner ready when he came home from work. He wanted a housewife. These were his actual words. I couldn’t do it. He left me after three weeks and I ended up crashing at a friend’s, sleeping on a $30 mattress and living out of boxes because I had no draws. I lived on $230 weekly from the Government and from financial help from my parents. I lost my best friend in this ordeal due to the stress of this situation, she just couldn’t be there for me. There were nights were I would cry myself to sleep because I was hungry, ashamed and I wanted to die.
Eventually I got a job and was able to afford training again, thank God. And I was able to commit to my first fight. It was the hardest thing I have ever done. Despite this, I still harboured the hurt and anger towards these people. I wish I told each and every one of them to go fuck themselves and kicked their ass. I still visualise this sometimes. These residual feelings that I repressed and denied began to creep insidiously into my training. If I couldn’t get a skill right, if I was losing a round horribly, these feelings of failure would drown me in this whirlpool of my own self-hatred. And I would crumple under the pressure.
I am angry because I never defended myself from the actions of certain individuals towards me. I never stood up for myself.
When this crashing realisation dawned upon me in the spa, I knew I had to do something or it would eat me alive. I saw a counsellor and sought medical treatment for what I would be later diagnosed with as depression and anxiety. It was the second best thing I could ever do for myself. I feel no shame in this. And I hope my story will help give strength to those who need to do the same.
Fighting became my big fat middle finger to all of what had happened to me. The release it gave me was cathartic. Sometimes it was very painful, emotionally as well as physically. But when I fight, I feel like I am standing up for myself. I am taking control back and being the girl I want to be. And I love myself and my anger. My anger comes from a pretty dark place. By sitting with this anger and sadness and sinking into it, as opposed to ignoring it, I have used it to fuel me and push me into achieving a dream I never thought I would see.
My name is Natalie Harper. I fight because I want to be a hero. I fight because I am angry.