Being the best girl in your gym has its pros and cons. It wasn’t until I was on TUF 20 that I really realized the value of training with women. If you fail against male training partners or if you have a bad spar, you can do so until there is a disparity in size or strength. Having someone your size and skill level helps you grow daily and improve.
I didn’t appreciate how easy it was to underestimate the skill and strength of an opponent before fighting Tecia Torres. I did not have a good barometer of my own abilities, because I did not work regularly with women of my size who tried 100% in training. But f *** that. I am next.
I moved to San Diego to train at Alliance in 2015 because they had a solid female team and this is what I needed to improve faster (congratulations to the first girls with whom I could m ‘coach: Bec Rawlings, Jessica Penne, Christine Stanley and Paulina Granados).