Turn 63 of 226

Drill the ground game hard — it was the weakest part of the tournament. At the tournament, I win again. Also see if I can get a sparing partner that can keep up with me

The ground game is the gap and the gap is the thing that almost cost her the final last time. She knows this the way she knows the concrete is cold — it is a fact that lives in the body, not the mind. The memory is specific: the third fight, when the wrestler took her down and she spent forty seconds on her back trying to bridge and shrimp and the forty seconds were the longest forty seconds of her life. She won that fight by surviving and standing up and landing a cross. She cannot rely on surviving next time.

The drilling is relentless. Hip escapes — fifty reps per side, the body grinding against the concrete, the spine twisting, the hips rotating, the knee driving into the floor to create space. The concrete tears at her skin and the skin toughens and the tearing becomes friction and the friction becomes nothing. Upa bridges — the explosive hip thrust that rolls a heavier opponent off her chest, the bridge that requires every muscle from the shoulders to the calves to fire in sequence. She drills it on the bag, lying on her back with the bag across her torso, bridging and rolling the bag off and the bag is one hundred and twenty pounds and the rolling is clean. Closed guard concepts — the position that controls an opponent between the legs, the hips active, the posture broken down, the arms controlling the head. She cannot pressure-test it. She accepts the limitation and drills the movements until they are automatic and the automaticity is what she can give them without a partner.

The partner problem is the problem she writes on the legal pad on the third night. 'Need a body. Someone who can take impact. Someone who can move.' The legal pad does not solve it. The warehouse does not solve it. The city might. She walks the industrial district at night during rest days and the walking is reconnaissance — not for materials this time but for people. The district has people at night. Not many. But some. Men who work the late shifts at the recycling plant. Men who train at the converted gym two blocks south, the one with the heavy bags visible through the window. She stops at the window and watches and the men inside are skilled but small and the small is the problem.

The tournament is on the seventeenth and the warehouse in the industrial district is the same warehouse and the crowd is bigger. Cal is at the door and Cal looks at her and the look is recognition and recognition is dangerous because recognition means the bracket knows her. Four brackets, single elimination. The first fight is against a man she does not recognize — tall, maybe six-three, two-twenty, a striker with fast hands. She closes the distance with a push kick and the push kick puts him against the wall and the jumping knee comes and he covers and the high kick follows and the fight is over in thirty-four seconds. The second fight is a rematch — the wrestler from last time, the one who took her down. He shoots in the first ten seconds and the sprawl is there. The sprawl is automatic. The hips drop, the legs go back, the weight crashes down on his back and he is pinned to the concrete floor and she spins to side control and the knee-on-belly is there and the elbow comes down and the referee stops it. The ground game held.

The third fight is the hardest. A man who has been studying her — a kickboxer who circles and refuses to close distance and makes her chase. She chases for two rounds and the chasing is exhausting and the exhaustion is unfamiliar and the unfamiliarity is data. She catches him in the third with a nine-hit chain that starts with a jab and ends with a jumping knee and the jumping knee catches him in the ribs and he drops and the referee counts eight and he stands and she closes and the cross puts him down and the count reaches ten. The final is a grappler — a Brazilian man, compact, two-forty, built like a fire hydrant. He clinches immediately and the clinch is a war and the war is in the phone booth range where her length is a disadvantage and his compactness is an advantage. She knees his thighs until his legs slow and she pushes off and lands a spinning elbow that opens a cut above his eye and the cut bleeds and the referee pauses and the doctor looks and the fight continues and she ends it with a body shot — a hook to the liver that folds him. Four fights. Two thousand dollars. The crowd is quiet when she wins and the quiet is not surprise anymore. It is acknowledgment.

She asks Cal about sparring partners after the final. Cal is counting cash at a folding table and he looks up and the look is the look of a man who has just watched a seven-five woman destroy four fighters and is recalculating something. 'You need someone who can take a beating,' he says. 'That's not easy to find.' He pauses. 'There's a gym on the east side. Iron Hand. The owner is named Reggie. He trains heavyweights. Some of them are big enough to survive a round with you.' He writes the address on a card and the card is damp with his sweat and Lena takes it and the card is small in her hand. She walks home through the industrial district with two thousand dollars in a envelope and the card in her other hand and the warehouse is dark and the concrete is cold and the body is warm and the warmth says the ground game held and the ground game will hold better next time and the spiral tightens.