From time to time I like to feature guest columnists on here, and this article is brought to us by Joe Pawlus. Think of the guy you know who is really just a kid carrying around the baggage of adulthood. Everybody knows that guy. He would rather be playing paintball than working...he would rather be doing anything more imaginative and athletic than an ordinary nine-to-five job. This is the kind of twenty-something fellow who still feasts on weekend video games and is always willing to play a late night game of pickup basketball in the park. The kid at heart. Now cram that dude into a hundred-and-thirty-five pound frame, and give him razor sharp mixed martial arts skills, an unquenchable thirst for competition, and the undying passion to succeed in life. Behold a loose facsimile of the WEC bantamweight title holder, Miguel Torres. Despite his playful exterior and easy interaction with others, Torres is a seriously focused athlete. The mixed martial artist willingly shares his tenacious philosophy of life with his sport, his friends and family, his martial arts academy competition team, and his general student population. “There’s no other way than to succeed. The way I grew up, for me there’s no failure. I can’t fall, I can’t stop,” said Torres. “There’s nothing else in my life but to go forward. Whatever gets in my way that hinders me, I’ve got to acknowledge it, I have to accept it, and I have to get past it and keep going...to keep moving forward. If I stop moving forward, I might as well be dead. I might as well stop living.” However, it may be because he refuses to step entirely into the adult world that Torres is such an entertaining and successful fighter, has a thriving martial arts school, and maintains an authentic and unique bond with children. Given his choice, the martial arts instructor would rather teach kids any day of the week. Torres said that children, “still have very active imaginations. They have no limitations in their minds, they haven’t been taught limitations yet. They are like computers that haven’t been programmed. There’s a point during adolescents that you start limiting yourself. Children don’t have that yet, so they have all the potential in the world to do anything.” Torres also believes that unlimited potential is part of having a very active imagination, and that an active imagination is what makes him such a dangerous competitor. “Fighters who still have the ‘inner child’ do the most damage in the sport. I have a very active imagination, and whatever I imagine, I can do. The only obstacles put in the mind are by the limitations of imagination. Since I have a limitless imagination, I can do anything.” The bantamweight fighter believes that practicing martial arts builds a strong foundation for children when they are young. He said that a strong foundation will yield a strong adult, and that practicing martial arts helps an individual build strength mentally, physically, and spiritually as part of a life-long experience. As a local fighter, the WEC champion was constantly surrounded by children before and after his fights. Now, with over fifty kids studying various martial arts under his instruction, Torres is developing serious plans for the future and the inevitable expansion of his academy. “I want to have the best kids’ program in the world,” the Champ admitted. “ I want to have champions training out of my gym. I want to be able to say I have a world champion training with me and he started here when he was seven years old.” With the way he has been cruising through the WEC bantamweight elite, Torres may soon have more than one future standout training at his facility. After capturing the WEC bantamweight title, Torres’s business experienced a huge increase in numbers. After defending his belt against Yoshiro Maeda, the world champ is now forced to seek a bigger facility to accommodate his growing student body. On August 1, Torres relocated to a building with over eight thousand square feet, and he is incorporating all of the tools and equipment it will take to train MMA fighters at a world-class level. Although Torres Martial Arts is open to everyone, Torres is looking for students who want to jump to the next level, no matter what their personal goals may be. When asked whether or not he thinks his personal intensity for the sport frightens potential customers away, Torres was candid. “I like to scare students away. I don’t want a student who’s scared. If I had my choice between a hundred students who don’t want to train hard and two that do, I’ll take the two that want to train really hard.” Even though he is extremely dedicated to his students and the task of teaching martial arts, it is clear that fighting, and the sport of MMA, made Torres who and what he is today. Miguel Torres was asked if given the choice, which it would be: teaching or fighting. “I would have to choose prize fighting. It’s short-lived and I will do it for less time, but I don’t think I would ever regret it. If I chose teaching, I think I would regret it. I wouldn’t be the teacher I am now if I didn’t become a fighter first.” by Joe Pawlus This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

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