Eimear Darcy interview · Ireland news

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Okay, so it's my absolute pleasure to introduce Miss Emma Darcy. We have her here today as well. Um, it's been a while since she fought. We're looking forward to see when she's going to fight again, but we're just going to catch up on a couple of things that she's been doing in the meantime as well. Thank you very much for joining me. How are you today? >> Um, thanks so much for having me on and yeah, I'm all good. Yeah, happy to be here. Yeah. No, it's obviously you haven't been out in a while and the results in in the last couple of fights haven't really gone your way either and I just wanted to kind of pick your pick your brain on it as well if you're comfortable to talk about it. But um >> how was it dealing with with some of these losses because I find a lot of people and I think this might be beneficial for people and especially females within the scene um of how you've dealt with because you always stay so positive even when there was the fight which were like a lot of people considered the bad stoppage. you came out and you were like you might have been a bit bruised with that but you were in good spirits. What is it that has you in that kind of a mindset and how do you use like what do you use to have that mindset after a loss? >> Um well I definitely don't feel good like initially after it happens. So like it I feel like a so after the third um after my third fight I'd lost that fight. Um and that one it it felt like it felt like the end of the world. Um but even though I felt like it felt like the end of the world, I still had to do all the things that I needed to do. So I had to wake up, I had to go to training, I had to do my meal prep, I had to stay in a routine of everything. So, I feel like for me the most important thing is being in that routine. Um, and then I'd had another fight after that and I'd won. And then I had the fight November and I'd lost that. And now obviously I I'd lost the last one that I just had as well. Um, so after any fight, I kind of just go back into the same routine. Um, but definitely after I lose, I cry. Um, I'm really upset about it. I think about it. Um, and then I have to just almost tell myself like now is not the time for me to think about that. I need to do the things that I need to do to move on. Um, but that took a very long time. Like it took until my fight in November to realize that the third fight, the loss from that was sticking with me. Um, for a really long time. And I hadn't realized that until after my uh my fight in November. So it was after that fight that I was like, "Okay, there's something going on here." Like mentally, I just was not feeling like myself in the cage. Even after the one that I had won in between that, um I still didn't feel like myself in there. So it was only after my last fight there that I I finally felt like myself again. Even though I didn't have the result that I wanted, um and I can see that that was a technical issue, it wasn't a mental issue. So now I I feel like myself again. Um, so yeah, I don't know if that answers the question. >> Yeah, it does. But we're going to move on to other things kind of that we talked about before we came on, but no, that's that's really good because there was one fight that when I was watching you, I actually said it to myself and I think I was talking to one of the lads from Sevilla and I was like Er doesn't look like EMR in there. Like it didn't look like you. It was like it was kind of like you were there but you weren't there in like you were there in body but like you weren't there mentally or something. And you said that that that loss stuck with you for a while and then obviously you felt better even though it was a technical issue. How do you think a lot of people overlooked like the mental side of it as well? Cuz like if you go you hurt your hand or your arm, you're going to go to the doctor, but with your head and I'm not saying that you'd have to go to the doctor for that, but like sports psychologist, stuff like that. Do you think stuff like the mental side is overlooked? Because it is a physical sport, but I think anything you do in life is hugely mental and I think that affects everything. Do you think that it's overlooked by athletes in sports? >> Um, look, I can't speak for other people and I do see that other people do put work into it. I But for myself, I felt like because I felt mentally okay in general that I was mentally okay in terms of sports. So, I didn't and look, I've been through hard times mentally outside of the cage. And I think because I felt like I'd done so much personal work around that kind of stuff that I was okay through throughout everything, if that makes sense. But I wasn't separating them and they are two very different things. Um, and I didn't realize how much I was like mentally affected by that third fight that I had and how much I carried that with me through my other fights. Um, so yeah, I do feel I feel like for me personally, I overlooked that because of how um how much work I'd done into myself personally. Um, I just didn't I didn't connect the two together. Um, so yeah, but I do see that other people do put put the work in, but I wish I had have almost looked at it as a separate thing and had that as a as a add-on, like the same as my strength conditioning or the same as my cardio. the way I put the time into that. I should have almost put an extra little piece of time. Now I I do put time into and I would have put time into like affirmations and and visualization and like positive selft talk and pieces like that but um I I would have I would have liked to have done something um like I'm doing breath work now at the minute and I I wish I kind of had started that but look you can't go back and change things. All you can do is just go from what you know I I did the best um with what I had at the time but like now I have more which is great. >> Yeah cuz like that every little bit is going to help and it'll give you like a slight edge if someone isn't doing what you're doing in terms of mentally as well. And in terms of you saying not connecting them I would why you wouldn't have connected them myself. So if I don't fight but if I was fight if I was happy in my personal life I would say well I don't need the the mental work unless I had some sort of a a block or something like that. we've seen you compete and we knew there was never a block like it didn't seem like there was a block because of because of your rise and because of the way you performing and like I said we didn't think it seemed like you in that fight but talk to us about the breath work actually what has that done to benefit you and what does how have you found it and how did you end up going and going down that avenue >> um so I started the breath work after my fight in November because I'd realized that from the other two fights previous of that it was when I was getting into the page, my my brain was just going. It was overthinking. I just wasn't focused when I was in there. I wasn't listening to the plan. I wasn't focused on the plan. Um my head was just so distracted and it would only really happen when I was in there. So, it was almost like really hard to spot. There'd be like little signs in training, but nothing that I could fully like pin. Um if that makes sense. So, it it was it for me it felt like really hard to spot. So I had gone I was doing a trauma training for work. So I had to I we did breath work on that and it was all around the importance of using breath work um in the type of work that I do and it was with the guy Keith Bradley. Um and then I was actually fighting in November. So I had gone up to him at the end of the session and I had said look I fight and I do this thing before I fight. Um do you what do you think of this to just like get his advice on it? And I think I was fighting the week after November. So he actually ended up like writing me out a whole thing, like a whole breath work piece and emailed it across to me before my fight, but I'd never done any like extensive kind of continuous work on it. So then after my fight in November, we got in contact again and he'd been working with me ever since just around the breath work. >> You think that's going to unlock uh something new in you for your next performance as well? But talk to us about uh what what would you like next? Obviously, there's been nothing booked for, but we haven't seen anything in Alpha Cage wires. If there if there is something that you can't say, don't say, but are you looking to get back out again in the near future? >> Yeah, I'm hoping to fight in October. Um, and then I'd like to fight again in in December. I'd still like to get two in before the end of the year. Um, so my my fights are kind of set on October time and then yeah, I'd like to finish the year then in December. >> Okay. Okay. So, you're looking to fight two more times before the end of the year. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> So, you're looking you're looking you're looking to stay active and Yeah. Obviously with >> um there's numerous shows obviously you've got Cage Warriors that's on everyone to it would have been a it would have been nice to get you on Dublin. Would you have liked to have fought on the Dublin card again? >> Yeah, of course. Everyone wants to fight um everyone wants to fight in h fight in Dublin, fight at home. Um but look, I just want to fight as well. So, if it's October, it's October and then if I can get out again before the end of the year. Um, but I still I just want to be as active as I can. I don't feel like I have gotten to show my full potential as a professional. Um, and I'm just really excited to do that. H, and I feel like I felt way more like myself in the last fight. Um, I felt like me again, even though I lost and I I felt crappy afterwards and I cried and I was upset. Um, and I was overthinking which everybody goes through like a a process of that happening. So, even though it can seem like look, people are only getting Snapchats of Instagram and like social media posts like nobody sees you like balling your eyes and crying in the back. Um, so or or like you then you post up pictures of your train and then the week after, two weeks after, but like you could still be upset underneath all of that, but the whole thing is that you're just you have to get on get on with it in the in the nicest way possible. Like for me anyway, I just have to get on with it. Um, because for me, nothing good is going to come from sitting around in my feelings of feeling upset and sad and everything else that comes with it. Um, so yeah, I want to fight in October and I want to fight in December as well and I just want to be as active as I can. >> No, we'd love to see you active as well. And like you said, it's like there's no future in the past. So I know obviously it's not a nice thing to lose and I talked to Fing Pong about this the other day as well cuz he had his first time he was ever knocked out and he just said, "Look, at the end of the day, you need to take maybe 24 hours for like whatever to feel sorry for yourself, but then like if you won, you'd be straight back to work anyways as well." So, it isn't a nice feeling losing, but like you said, it's not going to benefit you sitting around fantasize yourself. There's never going to be any improvement, but it's good that you're able to admit that here. The only time I did see someone cry, it was quite recently. It was Will Flurry, obviously, over the weekend. They went into the back with him and he cried in front of the cameras. And like you said, I was too open. He was too conscious about what he what he did. Like you said, it's good that you know it's obviously it's a technical issue in the last one. So, you can pinpoint where you can stop that again. Whereas before obviously when you didn't feel yourself you weren't sure. It seems like obviously now everything's going to come back into place. I'm going to let you go but I want to ask you one question before you go because I don't know if obviously cuz you're so busy with your own career around the regional scene in Ireland because obviously I'm around there everywhere. There's a huge influx of females now in the past year or two like that. What do you make of that? Uh because a lot of them would have spoke to me and they would have spoke very highly of you and you might have been the reason that they got in. Shauna Bannon, H Danny McCormack, Ash Daily even from years ago and other fighters. How do you feel for to see that the female scene is growing? You see like obviously Mel who you fought has a K1 show and off which which has actually gone down to Kil Kenny now they're doing a road. So they're doing one before her actual show to get the show. So it's like kind of like your pre like your prelims and if you win then you go to fight on on the show. How how do you feel about the female scene the way it is not just in Ireland but globally over the past year or two because it has exploded. >> Yeah, I think it's deadly and look it's obviously it's really nice to hear um that I'm part of those like really inspirational females that people also um might look up to. But like it's just I I just think the more you see it, the more you see that you're able to to do it. And and like that was the thing for me as well. I can see that people are doing the training. I can see that people are fighting. I can see that people lose and still come back from it and go again. And I just think the more that we see females doing the sport, whether it's just training or competing or whatever way that might look, um I think visibility is such a important thing. Um so yeah, I think it's I think it's really cool. I think it's great to see also um the things that people can do from it as well, like coach, run their own shows, um continue to compete, maybe move into different sides of the sport, like it's it's deadly. Yeah. So, I just think the more that we see females do these things, no matter what it is, um the more others are going to see, oh, I'm able to do that. or just that there's girls in gyms or even that there's even if there's not girls in gyms like there's no other females in my gym right now um that are like doing MMA like um that are competing in MMA but also like there's lots of different females in my gym doing kickboxing and doing jiu-jitsu and doing judo and that might come into MMA as well but even just like if people are looking at it and they see like oh it's Okay, you can train with the lats. Um, it just depends on whether or not it's a it's a good team like that. It's a welcoming team that it's somewhere that makes you want to train there. You have good training partners that take care of you, you have a good coach, those types of things. So, even if you're not seeing females necessarily doing it together, you're still seeing them in places. >> Yeah. No, 100%. I see like that. And I think I think your gym is one like like said you and and then there's Oshin there as well. And and I think is one of the nicest people. Uh and and he's got such a mind for the gamers. I could sit there and talk to us for hours, which we found out after. So, and my son had to say like, "Can we go home, Dad? It's time." But one more small question off the back of that. You seem quite close. A lot of you, a lot of females seem quite close. Obviously, you train with the likes of Ka, Sean, Alexa, like Sarah. You've all kind of cross trained. What's it like having that relationship with these girls across the country uh that you've that you've fought in the past or even like even going like Ka and Shauna? What's it like having that relationship and having that community within the country? What does that mean to you as a female fighter on the scene? >> Oh, it's so important. Like look, it's um I love my team and like I love training compound and it's but it's great to have the girls to go to as well. Um because like that we just it's also like we're training in different gyms so we're bringing different things to each other. So we have different looks. We're not training with each other all of the time. So you know they they're not getting to see every single thing like you know they're showing me new things. I'm seeing new things. Um I'm seeing things from their perspective. And also just to have females to talk to as well. Um is super important. Like we could be sitting there and we're like talking about everything, talking about training, talking about how we're feeling in training. Um like for us as well with like our female cycle, it's really important for us to be able to like bounce that off each other. Why do I feel like crap today? Why do I feel so good this day? Why do I like do you feel like this? you know, it's just it's just really good to have that because it's not like it's a um like it's a g team where we're all a group of girls together. Um we're not we're like on our own so we can't bounce stuff off each other all of the time. So to be able to go to the girls and talk to them. Um and also you just have a friendship in it as well. Like I know after I lost my last fight like Shauna was straight over to me to have a cup of coffee to have the chats with me and to see was I okay. Um, so like you're building genuine friendships from it too. Um, and I just think it's cool that we can like me and Sarah fought each other. We just fought each other and now it's just like oh now we can train together. Um, yeah. So it's steady. >> Yeah. Know I love it and I love seeing it cuz like you said like cuz obviously you have different feelings like like you said the cycles and stuff that you go through and cuz I remember I actually asked I think it was someone I asked and I I was wondering like does that affect you cutting weight? Like does that if that's quite weak like how much see and I don't know but someone said because you retain water more is it I think it was Mel I spoke to about a couple years ago because I remember bringing it up and I was like so and it was really awkward so and she was like no this is why I came on is to talk normal yeah I could retain like a like a kilo kilo and a half of water um if you're at a certain um if you're at a certain point in your in your cycle. So yeah, and also like we might sweat less. Um, we could we might require like different things throughout our cycle as well. Like it's it's it's totally different for me. I try not to let it control everything. Um because at the end of the day it's like oh it's just something I again I just have to deal with and get on with. But I am mindful of it if I need to be. Um but it's definitely something that we should be taking uh like that we should have knowledge about but you it's what we do with that knowledge and how we can use that um to kind of tailor our training sometimes or to understand you know what this cut actually might be a bit harder than the last one because you're at a certain point in your cycle as well. Yeah, because like like obviously it's the the money set and it might land on a certain time might be landing fight week because of so like so would you then be looking at when you've got a fight and kind of working that out in your head and and things that you might have to pre-plan for or do you just kind of wait until the time? >> So the thing with it is as well so because you cut weight you're actually affecting your cycle. So like I lost my period for a couple of months as well which is um really not good for you. So, I would have had to go to the doctors, get bloods done, make sure that like everything is okay. Um, and for me, I went through a hard time a couple of months ago where I just wasn't feeling good, was super unmotivated, didn't want to be training. I was still doing all the things I needed to be doing, but I just had these I was just feeling like this as well, but I still trained. But it turned out that like I'd lost my period for a few months, so that obviously wasn't good. And my nutritionist was querying whether or not I had red. So it's like relative energy def relative energy deficiency um for sport. Um so then I had to say increase my food, lower my training and make sure that my cycle was coming back into a more regular routine. So you can't actually predict it because cutting weight really affects it. So now it's it's regular but it it won't be like that now because I'm going to start cutting weight again. So, it's going to So, so for me, I think it's so important to, you know, be checking in with a doctor, getting your bloods done, making sure you're on top of everything, that your hormone health is being looked after, as well as everything else. It's just something else that we have to um take into account, but look, you can't predict sometimes if it it'd be great. sometimes you can and that's why tracking is is really important but um yeah it might not be 100% because because you're cutting weight and because you're training so much and even like stress everything can can affect it. >> Yeah cuz there's me thinking if if it land same night everyone actually you just planned for it but now you're saying it's thrown off so that even for like over 90 days so I was like any minute now hopefully. Yeah, the the worry starts to come then because that's what we think if if you could plan it but then obviously if it throws it off that throws even more chaos into it then and it might affect you otherwise. So that's that's see that's why I like to ask these questions cuz there's stuff that I wouldn't understand. There's stuff that like like that there might be girls out there that are doing it and go why is this happening? Why is that happening? And then obviously you've kind of explained certain things there that might help them as well. But look I am going to let you go. It's been a fantastic conversation as per usual. Hopefully we get to see it out two times before the end here. I personally would like to see it. Is there anything you want to say before you go? And I really appreciate your time today. >> Um no thanks so much for having me on. And look, I just really appreciate the support from everybody through the wins, through the losses, um from my team, from my coach, just from from everybody, uh all the messages that I get that are wishing me well or hoping that I'm okay after I lose. Like I do think like I do see posts sometimes and I think they're just like, you know, you see the random stuff and it's like the people will show you whatever the thing is about like people not being there when you lose or or something like that. But I've never ever felt like that. And I think it just goes to show how great the MMA community is. And like yeah, I just have the most supportive family and team and friends and it's just it's just deadly. Yeah. So >> sorry. Sorry. >> Yeah. No, it is. And fair play because I have had fighters say that they don't have like sometimes they could have a thousand messages and then when they lose they have to but then again you have to kind of realize your circle as well. A lot of these people when you get to certain stages they're your fans. They're not your friends as well. know the story. >> So, no, I really enjoy this conversation. I really want to see you back active again twice this year. Hopefully, we'll see you in October and then December. And appreciate your time as always and enjoy the rest of your day. >> Thank you. Thanks so much for having me on.