Well a lot has happened in my life since my last fight. The biggest thing, or I should say the smallest thing, that happened was the birth of my son.
On the 30th of August 2011 my beautiful girlfriend gave birth to our baby boy. He was born at 7:50 a.m. and he weighed a whopping 5 pounds 11 ounces. He was so tiny when he was born that he was barely bigger than the size of a football.
Feeding him for the first time was one of the most amazing feelings in the world. Burping him for the first time was pretty scary, he was so small and I didn’t want to hurt him while I was burping him. And don’t get me started on the black tar poop that comes out for the first few days. Gross. Ha-ha.
Having a kid is such a surreal feeling and the whole experience was nothing like they show on TV, well at least not for me, I’m sure my girlfriend would disagree.
Before he was born I made an agreement with my girlfriend, I told her that I would get up every night and feed him and change him if she watched him in the morning so I could head to the gym to train. It seemed logical to me, I could train in the morning and get home and watch him at night. Besides he would be asleep most of the night anyways.
The first few days when he was born all he did was sleep. In a 24 hour time frame I would say he was sleeping 23 of those hours.
He’s only seven weeks old right now and the first few days it was pretty easy. He would sleep for most of the night only to get up to eat then fall right back to sleep.
But now it’s changed, some nights he only wakes up once for about 25 minutes, just enough time for me to get up and feed him and change his diaper. At other times he wakes up every three hours and won’t go back to sleep for 45 minutes to an hour.
That means that since he’s not sleeping, I’m not sleeping. It was pretty difficult at first until I put him on my chest and we both passed out. I woke up the next morning to find him still on my chest and relieved that he didn’t fall off.
Now when he doesn’t go right to sleep I lay him on my chest until he does then I put him in his basinet.
Having him around has changed my outlook on life and especially my training. I’ll be the first one to admit it, during a training camp it’s the same old grind. Wake up, eat, train, eat, sleep, eat, train, eat, sleep, rinse and repeat.
I pride myself on not missing a workout unless I’m injured. I write down everything that I’m supposed to do and I make sure that it gets done. But there are certain workouts where I coast or “go through the motions”.
Before there would be certain days when I would wake up and all I want to do is go back to bed but I drag myself to the gym and get my “workout” in, I would show up and go through the motions of my workout just to say that I got it done.
Now my mindset has changed, it doesn’t matter how tired I am or how sore I am. Going to the gym is taking away time that I could be spending with my son.
I have to go to the gym and train there’s no doubting that, but now instead of going through the motions when I’m tired, I have to make sure the workout counts.
The worst feeling is leaving the gym and heading home knowing that you didn’t give it you’re all in training. Knowing that you could have pushed a little harder, knowing that you basically wasted a moment of your life. Even if it was for an hour, it’s a moment of your life that you will never get back.
p.s. In case you’re wondering what I named my son; I named him after my favorite fighter…. Myself.
“The Ulysses Gomez Experiment” is a weekly ProMMAnow.com blog series written by world top 10 ranked flyweight Ulysses Gomez as he prepares for his Dec. 2 fight at Tachi Palace Fights 11. “The Ulysses Gomez Experiment” is part of our ongoing series of exclusive content written by individuals involved in the mixed martial arts industry.
Congratulations on becoming a Father, I know you will be a good Daddy. Just don’t lose so much sleep it affects your fight or we’ll have to make Tachi hire you a Nanny!
I like that. I second that. Congrats Uly!