Ohaire Interview

I am fortunate enough, number one to have great teachers. Number two to have trained with and met some great martial arts teachers / trainers on my path. Also being a teacher myself means I work hard on the mental development of others and myself. Due to this, I can say that I often feel when I meet people I can gain a deep sense of what makes them tick very quickly. It's really like a secret window into a part of them that they don't always know about themselves. With this it mind when I train with someone or I meet people for the first time I always know whether they will be an impact on me or even me on them. I often can feel a sense of what is missing in their training or life. I can see what is hidden from others and sometimes themselves. It has been a long time since I have met someone who is totally aware of the whole world around them and within them. A person who can ride with the chaos of life in whichever direction they wish to go in. Humble, but stronger that most others around. Aware of the power of ones own intention, but always listening to the feedback of the energy around themselves. So when I do meet someone like that, I feel a very positive power sharing training time with them. When I was with Sensei Eddy Millis, training at his Shark Tank Gym in LA one of Eddy's fighters was just like that.

I always say to my students: 'The true strength of the warrior is in his compassion'. Sean O'Haire is that and more. We trained for 6 hours each day and Sean was a great help to me. Allowing me to drill my grappling with him all day long. As Sean is 250 lbs of muscle you will know if your guard passes and reversals are working or not! Thanks to Sean I got good workouts that week. But I also found a much deeper person within this machine of terror.

Alan: Tell us about your background. What got you into wrestling?

Sean: Nothing really, I lived on an Island in South Carolina and what got me into wrestling was really that I went to boxing for a while and I used to own a health club with another guy and he told me I should go wrestle since I'm so tall and I did a lot of gymnastics and stuff like that, and a lot of martial arts. So I went to the power plant in Atlanta and they hired me right away.

A: (Sean forever humble. This guy is a great wrestler!)

A: Did you wrestle in college and stuff like that?

S: No, I was a martial artist since I was about ten, karate and Muay Thai and I did a lot of underground fights and tough man competitions, mostly stand up stuff. Then I started touching on the shootfighting and then started working business-wise, opening a gym/health club and boxing. After the wrestling with WWE which lasted about four years I picked up a little shootfighting here and there and then came out here to the Shark Tank

A: So what were the tough man competitions like?

S: They were easy, a bunch on drunk guys and rednecks from bars, nothing to brag about.

A: So it was a good warm up.

S: [Laughs] Yes, it was a good warm-up.

A: What made you choose the shark tank?

S: I worked with Rick Basrin and he has a UWP which is a pro-wrestling organization and also Valor Fighting, which is him and Eddy Millis. Rick called me a couple of times after I finished wrestling, and to be honest at that time I was mostly out partying, after 4 years of working my butt off I took like three months off. So I called Rick back and he said he heard I liked the shootfighting and told me that if I wanted to do that he had this thing going, so I met with him in Atlanta and I kicked it off with Eddy really well and so I came out here in October/September and trained for three weeks and Eddy was just unbelievable, so I decided to move my ass out here.

A: How was your first fight for Valor?

S: It was excellent! I took the guy out with a guillotine in about 42 seconds in the first round.

A: And your next fight is going to be a K1 fight?

S: Yes, November 20th in Hawaii.

A: Do you know who your opponent is?

S: Yes, Ugawa.

A: Are you looking forward to that fight?

S: Yes, I'm looking forward to any fight. That's what I love to do.

A: In terms of your training regimen, has it changed a lot from your pro wrestling training to the training you now do now for NHB and MMA competitions.

S: Definitely, I used to work out more for aesthetics, now I work out for effectiveness. In the fighting game I need a lot of plyometrics, cardio etc. I dropped about 20 pounds, I can move better now.

A: During this week I've noticed your submission where very sharp, have you worked a lot on them since you came to the Shark Tank?

S: Yeah, I knew a few before, I've really improved but it still feels like I know nothing, which I don't, but I'm a quick learner and very athletic so it helps a lot.

A: How do you find Eddy's style of teaching?

S: Unbelievable, better then anything I've ever seen. We have very similar thought patterns and ways of thinking and he also thinks in new ways and has a very open mind. He's traditional but at the same time he's open to new things. I like that.

A: Where do you see your fighting career going?

S: I'll be champion of K1 one day, if it's not K1 it will be either UFC or Pride. One of the three. I wouldn't do this unless I wasn't going to be the best. I can't stand not to be.

A: What keeps you motivated?

S: Everything. It's ridiculous, it's just something in me. If I didn't do this I'd probably be in prison or something. It keeps me focused. I like the sport of it and the art of it. When I was a kid I was an artist, a photographer, and I switched over to martial arts, which is also an art to me, not just physically but also psychologically. It's in our nature to fight.

A: What do you think gives you the mental toughness?

S: It's hard, sometimes I ask myself the same questions, why do I do this? I'll tell myself to just shut up and do it. It's what I do. When people saw me wrestling it was not an act, it was an extension of my personality and that same personality comes out when I fight. I was never really a wrestler, I was a fighter who wrestled for a job, it paid me. It my heart I always wanted to fight. Now that I do it [fight] it feels like a big weight has come off. Not that I didn't like wrestling and the art of it, because it's like telling a story or watching a short movie. It has given me a name and the ability to help me go further and go ahead and do the fighting at a higher level then I would have been able to if I had just came in from the street.

A: In terms of diet and nutrition, how important is that to your game?

S: It's not as important as it is to some people. I used to be a professional trainer and I used to own a health club so I studied a lot of it, and it seems like I don't have to watch my diet as much as other people do. When I'm hungry I eat, when I'm not I don't.

A: So now that you train as a professional fighter, how many hours per day do you spend training?

S: At least six hours. Two in the morning, two in the day and two in the afternoon.

A: What is your strongest fighter attributes?

S: Athleticism, definitely. The mental meanness it takes to want to hurt someone else. The understanding and humbleness to realize that you can also be beaten and hurt. To accept that I have something that I think a lot of people don't have. The attributes are really to be a bit what normal people call crazy

A: That's funny, I find it fascinating that the toughest guys I've ever met, you being one of them, has always been the nicest guys.

S: Thank you very much for the complement. I think it goes back to the understanding that someone can whoop your ass too [laughs]. The comfortable level you have when you know that you have that level of aggression in you, you know that you have that possibility of flipping out, and being able to control it, to have the power to turn it on and off. We are very eccentric people who are very nice and at the same time very mean at times.

A: The old saying "If you want peace prepare for war" (Si vis pacem para bellum [Latin]) really makes sense, doesn't it?

S: Exactly, I've played football, tackling people etc and different sports and there is no thrill like the one you get from beating another person one on one. It sounds crazy but it's true. If you harness your greatest fears and channel that energy then everything else in life is a piece of cake and you can conquer anything. I've run businesses and done lots of different things and it all comes back to this. Not being afraid of anything and at the same time understanding that there are some things that can get me.

A: And that's really the deepest thought of martial arts, isn't it

S: I do think it is.

A: Because that's what really changes a persons being and if it changes your everyday life, then that's what it's all about, isn't it?

S. I just wanted to learn how to adapt and in doing that I built on the basis of who I was.

A: I just want to say thank you for all the help this week. You've been a great training partner for me.

S: Thank you Alan, you fixed my back and everything, I want to say I'm really grateful and I appreciate all your help. After you fixed my back and the next day I thought it had never happened, it was amazing!

A: That's no problem. I had an amazing week training.

Alan Orr is a disciple of Robert Chu Sifu and the European representative of the Chu Sau Lei Wing Chun system.

He is also the UK representative for Guro Mark Wiley in the Filipino martial arts and Sensei Eddy Millis of Shark Tank in NHB/Grappling.

Web: www.alanorr.com

For further information Tel: 07958 908 196 or email: info@alanorr.co.uk