Where to from here?
It’s almost impossible not to talk about the Covid-19 virus at the moment. So, why fight it?
If I look back 10-14 days, I was doing my regular thing. I was looking forward to training, watching sport and ignorantly thinking this virus would blow over us here in NZ. Then, the dominos started to fall. As a motor sport fan (as well as fighting obviously) Formula 1 was cancelled in Australia, NBA in America, and the UFC went ahead with no crowd. In short, this was all getting real and it was happening fast.
Fast forward a few days to where we are now, and things have gotten crazy. Living in a little country at the bottom of the world, I thought we would be safe, but I was reminded of the interconnectedness of the modern world. Even over the last few days, it seems to have exploded. As of last week, we had training as normal and I must say it did feel a little weird – the things that were running through my head before a grappling session were things I had never really thought about. Is this person sick? Who have they been around? And so on. This led me to take the session from the side lines rather them jump in.
Over the years, I have trained with, grappled with and wrestled with a number of people that were sniffing/coughing. To be honest, I didn’t give it a second thought – at the moment though, coughing is about the most offensive thing to do in public. There are people you trust with training and there are people you don’t. Having a wrestling/BJJ session with 20 people seems rather scary at the moment. There will be people out there rolling in small groups just to stop from going crazy. But for the rest of us, things are on hold.
Where will we go from here? What changes will be made and what changes will still be around in 12 months’ time? It would seem that it will take time for people to trust big groups and crowds in the general population. It becomes even more complicated with our strange sport which often finds us very close to another person. Inevitably, there is going to be some elevated hygiene practices and expectations. Then in terms of the pinnacle of MMA, how will the UFC deal with this?
The UFC have cancelled 3 events and are looking at options to still have Nurmagomedov vs. Ferguson. This is obviously a massive fight and money-maker for the UFC. Consequently, they are doing everything they can to put the fight on. However, you have to question that decision as almost every other sport on the planet is on hold (with good reason). The only sport that is still going is League, Soccer and AFL in Australia (at the time of this writing) and you have to wonder how long that will last.
This is just looking at the sports side of things. There are more things going on that have a way bigger impact (death, businesses closing, financial stress to say the least). This has forced a lot of people to shift perspective and re-evaluate what is important. And as surprised I am to say this, sport is not that important at the end of the day. It is mostly there to entertain us, and we all know how good it is at doing that.
Until we are back on the mat, stay safe, be smart and try and do as many normal things as we can (easier said than done). All going well, it will be a short shut down and things will be back to business as usual before we know it.
Gareth Lewis
Head MMA Instructor