Location: Rus Park, Ukraine

I jolted awake to everyone pounding on my door at 9:15. Oh my head. The drinks we all had the night before had exited my system and left behind a sizeable headache and sore stomach (sorry parents). They all busted into my room, (some feeling worse for wear themselves) and told me that the women’s mixed country 5vs5’s were starting at 10. FORTY FIVE MINUTES FROM NOW. NO. WE ALL THOUGHT THEY WERE AT 2PM!?

I was definitely not feeling 100%… and neither were they, but they helped me armour up anyway. When I say ‘helped’ I mean they pretty much did it for me, put a two handed axe in my hands and shoved me into the list with women from England, Ireland and Quebec (who fights as a separate nation).

Wide-eyed I started fighting, and ended up having an amazing time! I managed to grapple down a woman in the first round, stay up in a second fight and help with a takedown, and maintain a long grapple in my third fight. I am extremely happy with how it went, but am now kind of sad that I don’t get to do more buhurt! I think if I could do anything it would be women’s 10vs10’s- but there are barely enough women to do 3vs3’s so it feels like a bit of a pipe dream.

My team stripped off my armour and I immediately went for a nap and then a shower. Sometimes your body just says ‘you know what? You’re awful and I’m taking control. Now you sleep.’ I have had so little sleep this trip that I’m shocked I’m able to think straight (zero regrets).

After we all (me) got our acts together, we made our way back to the lists to watch the 16vs16’s. We all stood on the edge of the list watching as Ukraine aggressively dominated the rounds. Since the tournament was in their home country they were able to field almost 45 fighters! I started getting emotional again knowing that this was coming to a close. The fights weren’t going to last much longer. I didn’t want this week to end and the bitter sweetness was overwhelming.

Mack’s pro-fight from yesterday was rescheduled to tonight, so he spent some time psyching-up for that. Pro-fights are the only thing in this sport that scare me and I have huge respect for people that do it. It’s basically anything goes (minus the usual feet, knees, groin, back of neck stuff) and it’s a non-stop explosion of punches and kicks and head butts and kind of whatever else the fighters want. For some god forsaken reason Land and Mack want me to try pro-fighting and every time they mention it I just get a picture in my head of me with no teeth. Grim.

Needless to say it was an exciting fight to watch! He battled Germany and won in a split decision. Regardless of the outcome he was happy to have fought, and I was really happy to end the fighting on such a positive note.

We got one last dinner on the grounds and had a team meeting where I ended up getting misty eyed (surprise surprise). We spent a couple of hours packing and re-packing our insane amount of gear, which was punctuated by the sounds of chanting and laughter from the other camps. There was a moment later in the evening where I stood on the balcony and just listened to the sounds of the fighters partying and I was looking up at the clear stars over the fort. There were crickets chirping in the background. I felt so lucky to be standing there that my eyes got hot again. I’m lucky to have stuff to get all hot-eyed about though.

Days like today are the best kinds of days.

S

#yxygirlsgohereandthere