“They’re literally working in an open room with concrete floors, open windows and it was so crowded that we had to go on a makeshift basketball court to fit everybody,” said Edgar. “It’s very humbling.”
“The gym is as big as my dining room,” adds Usman. “It’s a small gym, they’ve got a bag up and a few gloves sitting up there. There’s no running water anywhere there, and a lot of these homes up the side of the mountains, there’s no water, no plumbing system, none of that. I was getting a flashback to how I grew up. I’m seeing all of this and instantly, I can appreciate all of it.”
It’s in gyms like this that fighters are made. No one knows this better than Usman and Edgar, and while there were plenty of kids just there to do something constructive with themselves, there were also those who had that fire in their belly to make this their way out.
“It was extremely humbling because I couldn’t help but have those thoughts while I was there watching the kids and teaching them,” said Usman. “As a kid, you don’t necessarily know what you’re in and what’s going on. You’re just in a certain circumstance. And I’m looking at the kids and I’m already thinking, this kid’s naturally gifted, this kid’s gonna naturally pick it up, he’s gonna do amazing things with this. And that was the case. If these kids stay with this, if they continue to learn and train, some of them can develop so rapidly to where they could become superstars of this sport. I saw myself in that position and I see myself now. Nowadays, we complain that there’s not enough milk in our Starbucks coffee and we’re on the side of the mountain, and some of them don’t even have a roof on their house. It puts a lot of things in perspective that you tend to forget when you’re at a certain place in life.”
“It’s very humbling seeing these kids in such poor circumstances, but these kids don’t know any different,” adds Edgar. “They’re happy to be there, happy to be working out, and it was a very cool experience. It’s super humbling and it really brings things into perspective.”
