this shit is rising like approaching a mountain range that seemed small and negligible from a distance but quickly takes up your entire field of vision.

i've put in the hardest two months of training i've ever done and i know i gave all i had in that time; my skill is as sharp as it can be at this point after working around injury and other constraints.

my biggest concern is getting in the ring and just having technique fall entirely apart and then gassing after a minute. i'm seriously worried about this (for a couple reasons actually-- first, i've seen it happen here a few times to better fighters than me that they just end up deserting skill and look like a glorified bar brawler; second, i haven't been able to run or skip for the last month and a half due to a badly sprained foot, and running [particularly sprints] are a huge part of my cardio conditioning) because even more than i want to win (and holy fuck do i want to win), i want to be able to fight smart when it counts.

i haven't done nearly enough sparring of kickboxing with skilled guys-- it's been a lot of kickboxing with guys not as good as me, or just sparring boxing, or doing clinch work. all of that is good and beneficial in ways, but the best thing you can do in training is replicate as closely as possible what you're actually training for, except harder, and i think i haven't done enough of that. it's too late to change now of course, so i'm doing my best not to worry about that. but here we are.