The Way of the Fight

by Georges St-Pierre

“L’homme libre est celui qui sait rêver, qui sait inventer sa propre vie.” The free man knows how to dream and how to invent his own life. The philosopher Martin Gray said that. The first part of Gray’s quote I interpret as looking within yourself and imagining the greatest things you’ll ever do. The second part of the quote—knowing how to invent life—I interpret as the practical side of the equation. It’s about the plan you must develop to make the dream possible. It’s the preparation and work that have to be done to make it come true. Because dreams don’t get made overnight. I started karate when I was seven years old. It took almost two decades of constant practice and dedication to get a shot at the title. Twenty years! And to be perfectly honest with you, most of that time I had no real idea exactly where I was going. At first, I thought I was going to be a wrestler, like Hulk Hogan. “One day, when you were nine, I found you watching wrestling on television,” my mother recalls. “You turned to me and said: ‘One day there’ll be a bonhomme Georges (a Georges figurine).’ It really freaks me out when I think of that.”