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When I don't have a fight scheduled, training is even more fun. I can come into the gym and work on stuff that isn't generated for a specific game plan. I can just play around with it and have a good time. I never want to get to the point where I'm sick of it.

In those one-off games, everyone can do those, but you put together a six, seven-game tournament, the strong survive. For me to still feel good from beginning to end, that's a testament to how I train and what I do.

It's important to just kind of get away from your sport until you miss it. It's about taking time to enjoy other aspects of life or learn new things. It helps rejuvenate.

I come from playing sports. I compete, so I gotta be better than I was last year. I gotta get better, and that better gotta come from just growing. From learning new stuff to working on it, experience it in life, and failing.

Every sport evolves. Every sport gets bigger and more athletic, and you have to keep up.

You have to try to grow between every fight: get back in the gym and keep working hard and find the areas that you need to work on. See what you did wrong and work on it.

I've been an athlete and competitor my whole life, and there's nothing more that I get off on than competition.

If I'm in the car after a bad game, I may think about ways I need to improve. But the second I reach home, the game's over. Work doesn't come inside with me. Same thing in reverse - I don't bring my personal life into the ballpark. Learning to keep it all separate has made life easier.

This is sports. In sports, you win and you lose. That's the nature of sports. You can't get away from that part of it. And if you get too hung up on the losing part, then you miss the boat. The competition part, a game like that, is why you play sports. That is as good as it gets.

I just have to move forward and keep working on my game and getting better.