He quotes Plato, peppers his eloquent answers with a few swear words and takes very clear positions. Charles Jourdain is an exceptional athlete who deserves to be heard.
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Next January he will compete in Toronto for his 13th fight since joining the UFC and this will be the first time he will have the opportunity to step into the world’s most prestigious octagon on Canadian soil.
There is no need to ask him if he is ready for his fight. The resident of Chambly has had enough of these somewhat empty and too simple questions.
“If I were ready, you would see him in the octagon very quickly,” he says with the openness that characterizes him and that is a little envious.
illusion
Being part of the largest mixed martial arts circuit in the world comes with pressure and stress. But it also brings with it a good awareness that he knew how to control.
“The hardest thing is to get away from the illusion that the crowd will change your life, from the illusion that the UFC will change your life, from the illusion that your celebrity will change your life.” As you grow up, you become happier make.
“All the answers that I’ve been looking for for a long time through the fame, the UFC and the championships, those are answers that I had within me, it’s just that I haven’t had the experience yet.
“It’s like a video game, you have to progress through the levels to unlock certain things, you have to progress through the game’s talent tree to unlock perks.”
paradox
We realize that the fighter has the soul of a geek. He is a video game fanatic.
“I’m a fantasy guy. I played World of Warcraft for a long time. I actually have a Horde tattoo on my leg. It’s a universe I love. When I was young I didn’t read any books, but I read all the World of Warcraft books. I had the certainty that maybe there was another magical world that might be more fun than ours, and I had to escape.”
“I realized that there is no such thing as a fantasy world. You may think you are safe from reality, but you are not. People who live in illusions are often hit by reality, so it is important to stay true to yourself. This is how you grow as a man. To accept that I can become stronger is to accept that I am weak.”
You have to remember that it all started when he and his brother were young and they loved Ninja Turtles, Dragon Ball Z, Naruto and the world of Japanese anime.
“We have seen something great in physical conflict. We were curious and signed up for a cardio kickboxing school.”
Complex
After about fifteen minutes we point out to him that he is strangely complex, and this is where Plato enters the conversation.
“You have to ask yourself questions in life, and I ask myself a lot of questions. My life is simple, but in order to evolve I have to deal with things that are a little more complex.
“For example, I love Plato, who is an incredibly difficult man to read. Think of people who had nothing comparable to us today and who were able to think three times better than today’s youth, if not twenty times better. The complexity comes from the fact that I’m always wondering how I can become the best man possible.
He wants to get better and is giving himself two years to do so because he is seriously considering putting an end to his career at the age of 30.
“My ultimate goal is not to become world champion, but to become the best father I can be.” I have been with my partner for seven years, I am approaching 30 and there is nothing more important to me than myself to say that I have gained so much experience that I can be the best father I can be.”
To hell with fear
He plays a difficult sport that can be dangerous, but as he says, he blocks out the noise and also accepts the fear.
“I don’t dwell on the fear too much because I know it’s there and you can’t fight it. If you accept her, she will become your ally. The evidence is that fear is a feeling whenever you win or lose.
“It depends on what you’re afraid of. For me it doesn’t mean living up to my abilities. I’m angry about the defeat, it could be a bloodbath from which I emerge with cuts on my face, but the people are happy and my family is proud of me. I bring home a check; On the other hand, if I lose, I lose half of my check, and that makes me very angry.”
We told you, he’s open-hearted. And we assure you of that. Thirty minutes is far from enough to penetrate the depths of his being, which are revealed layer by layer, even if everything seems to be of the same piece, which makes up his interesting complexity.