New directions…new skills: garry tonon goes through his MMA sparring with @gstleger It's never an easy transition for a great single discipline athlete to transition mid career to MMA. The sudden influx of new skills can be overwhelming physically and daunting mentally. Elite athletes are well aware of what good athletic performance feels like in their own discipline, so to begin at white belt in three or four new disciplines can be very unsettling – they feel very strongly the contrast between their high skill level in their established domain and their lack of skills in the new areas. Ultimately however, one has to strive to move forward and believe that time and training will work their magic just as it did when they first began. In the end it's a healthy reminder that we are all white belts in most areas of life and that the general spirit and desire for learning is more important than any knowledge we may have stumbled upon thus far. Photo @supersaiyanmagicalgirl
