Into the breach...

Every single day when we open up the doors to Glass Jaw, we tell our students that training doesn't start when we're in the building. Training truly begins the moment you wake up. It begins in the mind. Mental prep is just as important as stretches, drills, the wild runs through Sydney, and yes, even the sparring sessions. Shit, we've probably said this so many times, the words just kinda… float through their brains without a care.

Yet it's true. From the time we wake up to the time we rest our head, we are prepping for things that may come and things that may never come. Perhaps it leaves us being seen by others as getting too deep in our own head or even thinking too much. But we cannot help that. That's the way we've been trained–or if you must, how she's been trained, the owner and proprietor of this body–way before we became a wrestler and long before we bothered with this planet. In that regard and in ode to those far flung days, we have decided to get back to square.

Back to the start of things. For us, anyway.

We have created our own personal algorithm of sorts. Clips and slices of the absolute worst of humanity. Horrors upon horrors. Death, disease, pestilence, destruction and so on

(or at least the parts we can stomach. we ain't going on a list.)

played forwards and backwards and upside down and slowed down and sped up and altered and warped and distorted randomly without warning and without flinching. Those of our House would say that it is nothing more than a crude impersonation of what they would run us and our peers through. And they'd be right. But given that we are a bastard half-breed with a love for the archaic, it's on brand.

What for? Both in Perdition and on Earth, the reasoning is the same.

Stress test.

PLAY.

It's manageable at first. There's a certain…mental stimulation to seeing the darkest bits of the soul. But as it goes on, we feel it.

The third eye opening.

The hearts racing.

You cannot look away from it and you cannot shut your eyes for longer than an instant or else you will become a clip in the rhythm. At least that's what those back home would say. Some would tempt fate and others couldn't help themselves. Those faces would be burned in like pictures of missing children that never find their way home. This is our simulation. We can turn away whenever we like. But we don't. We just keep pushing. Keep flowing. Feel that bit of heaviness in your chest. Keep your eyes open. Challenge yourself to not make them glaze over.

This is the world.

This is the world.

And the pressure builds ever onward. The weight is on. What to do with it? Focus on the breath. Breathe always. Keep tethered but hold on loosely. Watch one's own mind morph and flow into this sea of pain. Figure out when the warps, hisses and rewinds are coming.

You do not memorize it. You must simply learn to feel it and brace accordingly.

“Annie?”

STOP.

We swivel our head around to meet his glance. The toothbrush is dangling from his mouth and he says something that can't be heard. Having a mouth full of toothpaste tends to have that effect.

Spit.

“You've turned pale.”

Better than burnt. But we can't doubt him. It's been a while since we've done this, so it's probably fucked with us a bit.

“Jack?”

“Huh?”

He doesn't get a chance to say much. Our mouth smashes into his. We melt into each other. The tango of tonsils comes into play. And later on with a clearer mind, we'll remember that there were always different after effects to the test. Depression, introspection, disturbance, readiness…

We will connect the dots that seeing something so worthwhile after dredging through meaningless pain can cause an urge to live and thus, an urge to fuck.

But we're not about to think about the particulars right this minute.