By David Mayeda, PhD, FightTicker.com Social Issues Contributor

A few mixed martial artists have been heralded for their high educational accomplishments. But no elite mixed martial artist can come close to the level of education held by professional mixed martial artist, Rosi Sexton, who makes her home in the United Kingdom.

Coming off the heels of a tough split decision victory over Debi Purcell, the 9-1 EliteXC competitor took time to chat with me about everything from school to fighting to family. With a bachelor’s degree from the University of Cambridge and PhD in theoretical computer science from the University of Manchester, this fighter, healer, and mother breaks down her multitude of specialties. Oh, and while building her pro MMA career, she’s simultaneously finishing up another professional degree in osteopathy. Those darn over achievers!

DR. SEXTON'S WIN OVER PURCELL

FightTicker.com: Congratulations on your last win. It read like it was a pretty tough match. How was it?

Rosi Sexton: It was a tough match. I knew going in it was going to be a tough match. Debi (Purcell), she’s been around forever. She was fighting back in the early days of women’s mixed martial arts. She’s been training pretty hard all that time, so I was expecting it to be tough. I knew she was going to be strong as well. We were coming up in weight a bit for this fight, so I knew I was going to have my work cut out for me. But we pretty much played the game plan that we had worked out, and it all panned out.

FightTicker.com: So what was your game plan?

Rosi Sexton: The game plan was to get in the clinch, look for the takedown, strike from the clinch, and just generally take what was there. She had quite a bit of reach on me. I think four and a half inches, so we knew that from the outside I was gonna be struggling. But I feel quite confident in my clinch game. I think it’s one of the stronger parts of my game. If I can work my way inside, then I can look for the takedown, so that’s what we were aiming to do. It worked pretty well.

FightTicker.com: Okay, so what kind of fighter would you describe yourself as?

Rosi Sexton: Until quite recently, I would say I was a grappler. That’s what I enjoy doing. I love the grappling game. I think it’s so technical and so beautiful. But I’ve been working on rounding out my game as well. I’ve been working on my striking and also on my wrestling. I like to think of myself as an MMA fighter. I’m not just a striker; I’m not just a clinch fighter; I’m not just a grappler. I do all of those things.

FightTicker.com: And how strong was Debi? You’re right, she’s been in the game a long time, and physically, she looks very imposing.

Rosi Sexton: Yeah, Debi was strong. There’s no doubt about that. I was expecting her to be strong so it didn’t really take me by surprise.

FightTicker.com: Had you planned to try that cartwheel guard pass?

Rosi Sexton: It’s something I’ve been working on in the gym (laughs). It’s something I find that works quite well for me, especially because a lot of the time I’m sparring with bigger guys, who are particularly heavy and maybe not as quick off their backs. With them, it works really well, so I just got really confident using it. I just got in that position, and there’s that thing in my mind saying, “The audience will like that sort of thing.” I knew I’d land it, or I’d land in a scramble, and I’m quite confident on the ground in a scramble.

FightTicker.com: Now were you surprised that it was a split decision because two judges had you winning 30-27.

Rosi Sexton: I can never tell at the time. After a fight if you ask me, I wouldn’t have a clue. I have to sit back and watch it a few times. I think looking back on it, I mean I’m happy with the decision, obviously. It’s the kind of fight where the angle you watch it from can make quite a bit of difference. One of the things is I’m not that visual a striker. Most of my striking I do in the clinch. I think because of that sometimes if you look at it from the wrong angles, you don’t necessarily see it. I think that was the case with a few of the things that happened in the fight. Looking back at the video, there were a few things that didn’t come out that clearly, which I think made quite a bit of difference in the fight. It’s always difficult judging a fight. I think it depends where you watch it from, and I know different judges look at slightly different things. I’m confident that I won that fight, but I wouldn’t be absolutely outraged if somebody saw it differently.

GENDER IN THE GYM

FightTicker.com: You mentioned you have to work out with guys, most of whom are quite bigger than you. Does that get tough on you physically, emotionally over time?

Rosi Sexton: It can be. As with anything, training has its ups and downs. When it’s going well, it’s great. And then there’s times when I just can’t get anything to work. I think the area I’ve noticed it the most is the wrestling, particularly working takedowns cause that’s where you really feel the extra weight … and then if you get something good, it kind of snowballs. You get one thing working and it leads to something else. You feel things coming together and that’s great. It’s a roller coaster, and that’s part of being in this sport. That’s kind of what’s addictive in a way, is getting those ups and downs. And I’ve got some great female training partners at my gym who are really good, and that’s helped me a lot.

FightTicker.com: Oh okay, so you do have some female training partners.

Rosi Sexton: Yeah, now we’ve got three (female) pro fighters who are training at our gym. It’s great to spar with someone who is your own size cause they won’t hold back at all (laughs). You’ve not got that excuse at the back of your mind if something simply doesn’t work [just because] they’re bigger than you. You haven’t got that. They push me a lot. Anna Mayne (a training partner) can’t get fights over here (in the United Kingdom) because there’s not that many women around (who compete), and she’s really good, and the ones that are around, they don’t want to fight her.

DR. SEXTON'S EARLY TRAJECTORY INTO MARTIAL ARTS AND BEING A FIGHTER

FightTicker.com: What about your martial arts background? What did you start doing as a teenager?

Rosi Sexton: I started out in tae kwon do when I was fourteen, almost by chance and out of curiosity more than anything. I had this thing in the back of my head, even then, I wanted to know if I could fight. I wanted to be confident in a physical confrontation, to know that I could handle myself. And that took me on a journey. I took a few years of tae kwon do and got my black belt. But I came to realize that tae kwon do didn’t have all the answers. This wasn’t the end all be all, actually, there’s more to fighting than this. That’s when I started looking at some other martial arts. I did some jiu-jitsu; I have my black belt in that as well. I did some judo and some other things as well. I got through that whole process, and I was still left wondering, “Can I fight?” That’s when I found out about mixed martial arts, and I decided that’s what I wanted to do.

FightTicker.com: Did you play other sports before you tried traditional martial arts?

Rosi Sexton: I was never really that into sports in school. I mean, I tried a few things along the way, but I was never really good at anything. I was never really into ball sports. When I was in primary school, funny story, I got dropped from my primary school netball team. There are seven people on a netball team, and there were eight of us there, so that was a pretty big deal (laughs).

FightTicker.com: Wait, there were only eight of you and you got dropped?!

Rosi Sexton: Yeah (laughs)! That was a pretty big blow to my confidence. The fact was that I wasn’t aggressive enough.

FightTicker.com: And how old were you at the time?

Rosi Sexton: I think I must have been nine or ten, something like that. So there you go.

FightTicker.com: But you’re aggressive enough now.

Rosi Sexton: (Laughs) I still feel like it’s something that, it’s almost all opportunity. It’s not something that comes out naturally for me. When I get in there, it’s like I turn a switch, and it’s almost like it’s somebody else. When I watch my fight videos, I think, “That’s not me. That’s not me doing that.”

FightTicker.com: Have you ever been in a fight outside of athletic competition?

Rosi Sexton: Nothing serious. Nothing that I would describe as a fight really.

NEGOTIATING A PHD WITH MIXED MARTIAL ARTS

FightTicker.com: You got your PhD in 2002?

Rosi Sexton: 2003.

FightTicker.com: And you’re thirty (years old) right?

Rosi Sexton: Thirty-one.

FightTicker.com: Okay, well let’s talk about your education because you’ve got to be the most educated person in all of MMA. So you take this very long journey in getting your PhD, why go into MMA?

Rosi Sexton: I think it’s something that crept up on me. I never really made a goal that I was going to become a professional fighter. It didn’t really happen like that. Martial arts is something that I’ve been involved in since I was a teenager. Really, it was just a step by step process. I first came across mixed martial arts while doing my PhD; that’s when I started training. My initial idea was I was just going to have a couple of fights. I just wanted to know if I could do it, so I trained for a couple of years. I had a couple of fights, and by that time I got hooked on the process. I wanted to do it again, and that’s when it ended up going further. Eventually, it became harder to get opponents over here (in the U.K.). That’s when we had to start looking internationally, and that’s when it got to the next level and started becoming a bit more serious.

FightTicker.com: When you were getting your PhD, did your mentors know you were on this fighting journey?

Rosi Sexton: My supervisor knew that I did this sort of thing. There was a bit of joking amongst our research group. We’d have a bit of a laugh, my subtitle on the department webpage for a while was “Queen of the Cage” (laughs). My supervisor was always aware of it. I mean he’s a great person to do a PhD with. He was very helpful, and he understood that I had a life outside of PhD work. He was quite helpful with letting me rearrange things around.

FightTicker.com: So are they disappointed that you’re not pursuing a traditional faculty position (at another university)?

Rosi Sexton: I don’t know. Like I said, he was a great person to work with because he did more than just theoretical computer science. I think he understood that that wasn’t all I was interested in. He was always pleased when I did well, in everything. He’s a real character. If he was disappointed, he did a good job not showing it.

DR. SEXTON BREAKS DOWN THE FIGHT GAME

FightTicker.com: Okay, do you think being a scholar has impacted you being a mixed martial artist?

Rosi Sexton: Yes, I think it has. I think it’s given me a very analytical approach to mixed martial arts. It’s almost like you’ve got a problem, and you’ve got a certain process that you go through in solving that problem. If something’s not working, like I’m always getting caught in a particular move, you take a step back and look at what’s going on, what kind of resources you have and break it down, come up with some solutions to work it out. It’s quite an analytical, structured process. And I believe it’s not just on a technical level.

It’s with the conditioning, with the sports psychology, with the nutrition, and anything that comes up really. What my background gives me is the confidence that problems can be solved. If something’s not working, I know there are ways to get resources and find the best way to do that thing. I think something that people tend to do, particularly in sport, is they’ll get stuck in a rut and think, “I’m not good at this.” And they’ll give it up or just resign themselves to not be good at it, without breaking it down and figuring out why it doesn’t work and figuring out how we can do it better.

Taking an intelligent approach to training is a big part of it, especially with mixed martial arts because there’s so much to learn, and there’s depth to the technique, and having the confidence that you can understand it and you can work things out is a good thing.

FightTicker.com: Okay, now you’re already a doctor of philosophy in theoretical computer science, what are you doing now in terms of your education?

Rosi Sexton: I’m studying to become an osteopath. It’s the professional qualification. It’s not the same as a medical doctor. It focuses more on the manual therapy, more like physical therapy, except the approach is different. The equivalent (in the U.S.) would be a bachelor’s degree, and that comes along with the professional qualification that allows you to practice, which is what I’m interested in.

The thing is that I got interested in sports injuries along the way because it’s something that I think everyone comes up against with fighting, especially being around other team members who get injured. Dealing with injury is a big part of being a sports person, and preventing injury as well. That’s where I got into it from. I had a back injury years ago. It must have been 2000 or 2001, and I was in agony for months. My judo coach suggested I go so this (osteopath), and at that time, it seemed like magic. Two sessions, it was completely gone.

A few years later, once I finished my PhD and had a baby, the opportunity came up, and I felt I had to do this right now. So I (committed) to another five years, and I’m three years into it and I’m loving it. This year I started treating my own patients, and there’s no feeling like it. When somebody walks in, obviously in pain, and they walk out feeling better, and you see it on their face, the difference that you make, it’s a great feeling. I’ve been working on some of the guys in the gym. Being involved in competitive sport from that angle is something that really interests me. I think that’s my long-term plan once I finish competing. It’s one of those things where mixed martial arts is something I’m going to be involved in forever, and I’m going to jump at this opportunity to do something really worthwhile.

FightTicker.com: Okay, so how do you reconcile dishing out pain as a competitor and then solving it (pain) as an osteopath?

Rosi Sexton: It’s a bit of a cliché, but it’s two sides of the same coin. There’s a whole history if you look at the Asian martial arts. There is that tradition where you have that fighting aspect and you have the healing aspect … If you’re doing one and doing the other, it’s complimentary. If you understand how to break a joint, then you understand how it works, and that allows you to improve its function as well. It’s all about understanding the human body. And the human body is a fascinating thing. Seeing it from both of those angles gives you a unique perspective. And it’s a shame really that not very many people get to see both sides of that coin. I know a lot of the things I’ve learned through mixed martial arts will benefit me as a future osteopath. And visa versa, a lot of the things I’ve learned in doing osteopathy have helped my mixed martial arts, and so they absolutely compliment each other.

In Part II, coming next week, Dr. Sexton discusses how she balances being a mom, student, and fighter, sex differences in MMA rules, and her perspectives on feminism. Dr. Sexton's blog can be accessed here: http://rosisexton.wordpress.com/

David Mayeda, PhD, is lead author of Fighting for Acceptance: Mixed Martial Artists and Violence in American Society, the first political book on mixed martial arts that attempts to reform the sport by increasing violence prevention measures through interviews with forty mixed martial artists, including Randy Couture, Dan Henderson, Guy Mezger, Antonio McKee, Chris Leben, "Rampage" Jackson, "Mayhem" Miller, Travis Lutter, and Frank Trigg. Dr. Mayeda has also published numerous academic journal articles on youth violence prevention and discrimination in sports media.