“It’s been tough,” Giles said. “My last couple fights reflect that. It’s just being able to find a routine that works. I’ve been able to successfully schedule my training around my work, and sometimes it’s just a little less sleep, but it’s something I set out to do, so right now I’m happy with it and I feel like I’m able to get full camps and get all the training time I need and still have time for my son and my wife.”
Having found that balance, Giles can put his energy into both jobs and his family life, but the million dollar question is, why? It’s not like he’s a journeyman fighter just making up the numbers; he’s got the potential to make noise at 185 pounds at the highest level of the sport, but at the same time he’s also in a line of work that is far from low-risk.
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“For the safety of it, as an insurance kind of thing,” he said. “I know if everything goes well in fighting and I don’t get injured and my opponents don’t pull out and I’m always able to get the fights I schedule, in that ideal world, I would be willing to say we’ll just do this because it’s a safe bet. But that doesn’t always happen. And God forbid I end up getting some kind of injury that costs me my career in the UFC, I’ve got a family. So if anything bad happens, I still do have a good career to fall back on.”
It makes perfect sense, yet what doesn’t really compute is Giles’ assertion that he’s more nervous going into a fight than he is when he’s on patrol.
