Jéssica From the Drugstore
药店的杰西卡

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I couldn’t have imagined how one fight would destroy me completely.
我无法想象一场战斗会如何彻底摧毁我。

I took many blows, but the physical damage was nothing compared to what the defeat did to my mind.
我遭受了很多打击，但与失败对我心灵造成的伤害相比，身体上的伤害根本算不了什么。

Before stepping foot into the octagon for the first time, nobody has a clue what it means to fight in the UFC. I remember the scene so well: Back in 2013, my coach pulled me aside to give me the news that the UFC wanted me. He was so exasperated that it seemed like someone had died.
在第一次踏入八角笼之前，没有人知道在 UFC 中战斗意味着什么。我清楚地记得那个场景：2013 年，我的教练把我拉到一边，告诉我 UFC 想要我的消息。他非常愤怒，就像有人死了一样。

Then he asked me if I would like to face Liz Carmouche, and my first reaction was, “Oh my God! I’m in the UFC!!! How did they even manage to find someone who came all the way from the countryside — from the backwoods of Paraná?”
然后他问我是否愿意面对莉兹·卡穆什，我的第一反应是，“天哪！我在UFC！！！他们是如何找到一个从乡下——巴拉那州偏远地区远道而来的人？”

It’s crazy how the best news of your life can turn so quickly into the biggest disappointment. The truth is that I was not mentally prepared to lose that fight right out of the gate.
生命中最好的消息竟然如此迅速地变成了最大的失望，这真是太疯狂了。事实是，我并没有做好立即输掉这场战斗的心理准备。

It just crushed me.  这简直让我崩溃了。

I just thought … You’ve trained so much … for this, Jessica?
我只是想……你已经训练了这么多……为了这个，杰西卡？

That’s how I blamed myself, how I insisted on punishing myself for the failure. I was done, because I felt like I was back to square one — back to just being “Jessica from the drugstore.”
我就是这样责备自己，坚持用失败来惩罚自己。我完成了，因为我觉得我又回到了原点——回到了“药店里的杰西卡”。

You see, where I’m from, fighting is simply not a “girl’s thing.”
你看，在我的家乡，打架根本不是“女孩子的事”。

In Umuarama, I grew up playing football, which to my family was also not a girl’s thing, to be honest. Playing football was my biggest passion. I wanted to be on TV, to be just like Marta. I even had a knack for it. I was offered to play for São Paulo, one of the biggest clubs in Brazil. But my mother wouldn’t let me go. She was afraid that someone would kidnap me, or that something else would happen. I’ve always respected her, so I ended up not taking the offer. I needed to find another path. But what path?
在乌穆阿拉马，我是踢足球长大的，老实说，对我的家人来说，这也不是女孩的事情。踢足球是我最大的爱好。我想上电视，就像玛塔一样。我什至有这方面的诀窍。我被邀请为巴西最大的俱乐部之一圣保罗效力。但我妈妈不让我走。她害怕有人绑架我，或者发生别的事情。我一直很尊重她，所以我最终没有接受这个邀请。我需要寻找另一条路。但走什么路呢？

It was then that fighting showed up in my life. 
就在那时，战斗出现在我的生活中。

Ever since I was a child, I liked to play-fight with my brother. One day at school, he was being threatened by a drug dealer — the most dangerous guy in the neighborhood, actually. I joined their fight in order to protect my brother, and I just hit the drug dealer with kick after kick, and landed a punch so hard to his face that he started bleeding.
我从小就喜欢和哥哥打架。有一天，他在学校受到一名毒贩的威胁——实际上，他是附近最危险的人。为了保护我的兄弟，我加入了他们的战斗，我只是对毒贩拳打脚踢，一拳狠狠地打在他脸上，把他打得流血了。

“Well, now I’m done for,” I thought.
“好吧，现在我完了，”我想。

But somehow, it all worked out. He became known around the neighborhood for having been beaten up by a girl, and he never started any more trouble with us. Around that time, I joined a social program that offered judo training. The teacher, who saw me taking down all the boys, asked me to train jiujitsu. That’s how I started my career as a fighter.
但不知怎的，一切都成功了。他因被一个女孩殴打而在附近出名，但他再也没有找我们麻烦。大约在那个时候，我加入了一个提供柔道训练的社交项目。老师看到我打败了所有男孩，就让我去训练柔术。这就是我作为一名战士的职业生涯的开始。

Well, actually, it started rather awkwardly….
嗯，实际上，一开始就很尴尬……

In one of my first fights, I was winning pretty effortlessly. Then my opponent put me in an armlock, and since I had no real experience, I fought back with a pile driver.
在我的第一次战斗中，我毫不费力地获胜。然后我的对手把我锁住了，由于我没有真正的经验，我用打桩机进行了反击。

A small detail: Pile drivers are forbidden in jiujitsu. Nobody had told me that!
一个小细节：柔术中禁止打桩机。没有人告诉过我！

Hahaha!!  哈哈哈！！

Of course, I got disqualified and I lost a fight that I had in the bag. And that’s when “Bate Estaca” (Pile Driver) caught on.
当然，我被取消了比赛资格，并且输掉了一场本已锁定的比赛。就在那时，“Bate Estaca”（打桩机）开始流行起来。

In the beginning, I didn’t like the nickname. But what bothered me even more was when I would arrive at a tournament and someone would tell me that there were no other girls in my weight class. I mean, come on! Winning a medal without fighting is humiliating! But you have to understand a bit about the culture in Brazil. I was the only woman doing jiujitsu at my gym. There were a few other girls in my town who were interested in fighting, but they all eventually gave up training because any woman who enrolled in martial arts was called horrible names. You know them in whatever language you speak. Homophobic names. 
一开始，我并不喜欢这个绰号。但更让我困扰的是，当我到达一场比赛时，有人会告诉我，在我的体重级别中没有其他女孩。我的意思是，来吧！不经过战斗就获得奖牌真是耻辱！但你必须了解一些巴西的文化。我是唯一一个在健身房练柔术的女性。我镇上还有一些对格斗感兴趣的女孩，但她们最终都放弃了训练，因为任何报名参加武术的女人都会被称为可怕的名字。无论你说什么语言，你都认识他们。恐同的名字。

But things changed for me when I met Coach Paraná. A man who did not see girls as damsels in distress, but as true fighters. I was part of the first female class at his gym, PRVT. Up to that point, I had been training with the boys. (And man, we used to beat each other up, for real!) But training with the girls was rather different. There was a greater balance of strength, weight and height, which helped us develop our technique.
但当我遇到巴拉那教练时，事情发生了变化。一个男人不把女孩视为陷入困境的少女，而是真正的战士。我是他的健身房PRVT的第一个女性班级的成员。在那之前，我一直在和孩子们一起训练。 （天啊，我们过去常常互相殴打，真的！）但是和女孩们一起训练却截然不同。力量、体重和身高之间有更好的平衡，这有助于我们发展我们的技术。

After my pile-driver blunder, I got my first invitation to MMA.
在打桩机失误之后，我第一次收到了 MMA 的邀请。

And I actually said, “MMA? What is that, Coach?”
我实际上说，“综合格斗？那是什么，教练？”

He said, “Oh, well, MMA is a combination of every martial art. You can punch, kick, take them down, hit them on the mat.” 
他说：“哦，好吧，MMA 是所有武术的结合。你可以拳打脚踢，把他们打倒，把他们打到垫子上。”

I said, “Hmm, interesting. So we’re doing it, right?” 
我说：“嗯，有趣。”所以我们正在这样做，对吧？”

My eyes gleamed!  我的眼睛闪闪发亮！

There was just one problem: I had to lose 10 kilos in a month to meet the weight requirement. At the time, I was working as a delivery girl at a drugstore. I weighed around 70 kilos and ate a lot. But in my mind, I would reach the weight and nothing could convince me otherwise. At lunch time, I used to bring a huge bowl of lettuce, two chicken fillets, and three small sweet potatoes. My coworkers at the drugstore yelled at me in front of the clients, telling me that this was all crazy and I was going to die.
只有一个问题：我必须在一个月内减掉 10 公斤才能满足体重要求。当时，我在一家药店做送货员。我体重大约70公斤，吃的很多。但在我看来，我会达到这个重量，否则没有什么可以说服我。午餐时，我常常带一大碗生菜、两块鸡柳和三个小红薯。我在药店的同事当着顾客的面对我大喊大叫，告诉我这太疯狂了，我快要死了。

“Oh, my God, will I?”
“天哪，我可以吗？”

Finally, the day of the fight arrived. I was the first one to step into the ring.
终于，决战的日子到来了。我是第一个踏入擂台的。

Then, they announced my opponent: “From the city of Maringá, two-time jiujitsu champion of Paraná, Muay Thai world- champion, champion of god-knows-what-else….” 
然后，他们宣布了我的对手：“来自马林加市，巴拉那州两届柔术冠军，泰拳世界冠军，天知道还有什么冠军……”

And I said to myself, Darn, I’m about to take a beating. What am I doing here?
我对自己说，该死，我就要挨打了。我在这里做什么？

But I breathed in deep and pulled myself together. I may lose, but she sure as heck is leaving this fight with two black eyes!
但我深吸了一口气，振作起来。我可能会输，但她肯定会带着两只黑眼睛离开这场战斗！

I gave her a knee strike that I had just learned that same week and she hit the fence. I started punching the girl up. One fist followed the other, and then … thud. She hit the mat and ended the first round completely dizzy, and I ended it with my hair looking like Conan the Barbarian’s. 
我对她进行了膝盖打击，这是我同一周刚刚学会的，她撞到了栅栏。我开始打那个女孩。一拳接着一拳，然后……砰的一声。她击中了垫子，结束了第一轮，我完全头晕目眩，而我的头发看起来像野蛮人柯南的头发。

As soon as the second round started, the referee could see that she was struggling and called the fight. The whole crowd at the gym was shouting, “Jessica! Jessica! Jessica!” 
第二回合一开始，裁判就看出她的挣扎，于是宣布了比赛。体育馆里的所有人都在喊：“杰西卡！杰西卡！杰西卡！”

I looked in the bleachers and saw my family cheering. At that moment, I realized: This is the life I want, man!!!!
我看着看台，看到我的家人在欢呼。那一刻我意识到：这就是我想要的生活啊！！！

The more I fought, the more I evolved. Everybody said that one day I would go to the U.S. and fight in the UFC. 
我战斗得越多，我的进化就越多。每个人都说有一天我会去美国参加UFC。

“Are you crazy? There isn’t even a women’s division!” 
“你疯了？连女子组都没有！”

I didn’t believe it would ever happen, but the more I trained, the better I got.
我不相信这会发生，但我训练得越多，我就越好。

My coworkers at the drugstore yelled at me in front of the clients, telling me that this was all crazy and I was going to die.
我在药店的同事当着顾客的面对我大喊大叫，告诉我这太疯狂了，我快要死了。

- Jéssica (Bate Estaca) Andrade
- 杰西卡（巴特·埃斯塔卡）安德拉德

I went to Russia to fight Milana Dudieva. That one was gnarly. She had won eight fights in a row. According to my calculations, I only had a 1% chance of winning. I believe she thought the same, too. She was going so easy on me that I was waiting for her to give me a hug. And there I was, with my tattered old clothes, thinking, Just you wait….
我去俄罗斯与米拉娜·杜迪耶娃（Milana Dudieva）比赛。那个很粗糙。她已经连续赢了八场比赛。根据我的计算，我获胜的机会只有百分之一。我相信她也是这么想的。她对我如此宽容，我正等着她给我一个拥抱。我就在那里，穿着破烂的旧衣服，想着，你等着……

I finished Dudieva in the second round. And I am sure that, on that day, the UFC became aware of my existence.
我在第二轮击败了杜迪耶娃。我确信，在那一天，UFC 意识到了我的存在。

By that time, the UFC had already created a women’s division. When Coach told me about the offer to face Liz Carmouche, I accepted on the spot. But I only fully grasped the magnitude of the UFC when I arrived in the United States. In New York City, there was a massive poster of our fight outside the Empire State Building. Walking down the streets of Seattle, I saw my picture on buses. That’s when I realized.
那时，UFC已经创建了女子组。当教练告诉我要与利兹·卡穆什对阵时，我当场接受了。但当我到了美国之后，我才完全认识到UFC的重要性。在纽约市，帝国大厦外挂着一张巨大的我们战斗的海报。走在西雅图的街道上，我在公交车上看到了我的照片。就在那时我意识到了。

MAN, I’M IN THE MAIN CARD OF THE UFC!!! 
伙计，我是 UFC 的主力选手了！！！

I was used to fighting at events with less than 500 people in the bleachers. Suddenly, I was in an arena with thousands of spectators. I get goose bumps just remembering the crowd shouting my name.
我习惯了在露天看台上人数少于 500 人的比赛中打架。突然，我来到了一个有数千名观众的竞技场。一想起人群高喊我的名字我就起鸡皮疙瘩。

Whoa, how do all these people know me?
哇，这么多人怎么认识我的？

I didn’t know whether to laugh, to cry or to scream. It was a rush of adrenaline unlike anything I had ever felt. In moments, I would become the first Brazilian woman to step into the octagon, in the first ever match between two openly gay women. Lots of things involved, you know? 
我不知道是该笑、该哭还是该尖叫。这是一种肾上腺素激增的感觉，这是我从未有过的感受。不久之后，我将成为第一个进入八角形的巴西女性，这是有史以来第一次在两名公开的同性恋女性之间进行的比赛。涉及到很多东西，你知道吗？

Somehow, this whirlwind threw me off balance.
不知何故，这股旋风让我失去了平衡。

In the first round, I almost finish her. I come close to feeling the taste of victory. Then, out of nowhere, the tables turn. I'm just ... blank! It seems like I’ve been taken to another dimension. 
第一回合我就差点完结她了。我快要尝到胜利的滋味了。然后，形势突然发生逆转。我只是……一片空白！我似乎被带到了另一个维度。

In this empty and dark place, there’s only Liz and I.
在这个空荡荡、黑暗的地方，只有我和莉兹。

Complete silence.  一片寂静。

No crowd, no referee, no cornermen … nothing. I can only see the blows coming my way.
没有人群，没有裁判，没有角卫……什么都没有。我只能看到向我袭来的打击。

I turn around and take an elbow to the ear. I turn back and get punched in the face. I get hit again and again, and I don’t know what to do. She takes me down, and I’m in for an agonizing ride.
我转过身，用肘部抵住耳朵。我回头，脸上挨了一拳。我一次又一次地被打击，我不知道该怎么办。她让我失望，我陷入了痛苦的旅程。

When I come back to reality, I can’t feel my arms. Everything is dead, numb. I’m not giving up. I stay there, getting pummeled until the round is over. But then the referee stops the fight.
当我回到现实时，我感觉不到我的手臂了。一切都死了，麻木了。我不会放弃。我呆在那里，挨打直到回合结束。但随后裁判终止了比赛。

My only thought was, I made it to the UFC and I failed.
我唯一的想法是，我进入了 UFC，但我失败了。

There is no worse feeling than falling at the height of your career.
没有比在职业生涯顶峰跌倒更糟糕的感觉了。

I came back home devastated, certain that I should have picked a different job, or even stayed in my lane at the drugstore. I just wanted to be comforted by my mother.
我回到家时感到震惊，我确信我应该选择一份不同的工作，甚至留在药店的小巷里。我只是想得到妈妈的安慰。

But her reaction was, “What do you mean you lost? You’re always training. That’s all you do in life!”
但她的反应是：“你输了是什么意思？你总是在训练。这就是你一生所做的一切！”

Those words from her hit me like a rock. I cried the whole day remembering my defeat, remembering how I’d lost to myself.
她的这句话像石头一样震撼了我。我哭了一整天，想起我的失败，想起我是如何输给自己的。

Remembering how incapable I felt.
记得我感到多么无能。

My family didn’t really understand what MMA was. That’s why they didn’t give me the support I needed. My father was far from a man who encouraged me 100%, even though he liked to watch my fights sometimes. Due to his poor financial state, he’d kept little track of my ascension. Then I learned that he had cheated on my mother, and that he had another family. This brought me so much grief.
我的家人并不真正了解 MMA 是什么。这就是为什么他们没有给我所需的支持。我的父亲远不是一个百分百鼓励我的人，尽管他有时喜欢看我打架。由于他的财务状况不佳，他很少关注我的晋升。后来我才知道他背叛了我的母亲，而且他还有另一个家庭。这给我带来了很多悲伤。

The one who took the role of father, who raised me from the bottom, was Coach. After my loss to Liz, I wanted to stop fighting. I was thinking that maybe I could keep training, but I convinced myself never to fight again.
扮演父亲角色、从底层把我养大的人是教练。输给莉兹后，我想停止战斗。我当时想也许我可以继续训练，但我说服自己再也不会打架了。

The same people who once said, “Jessica is going to crush it,” now criticized me. They said I lacked professionalism, lacked technique, and that I just wasn’t good enough for the UFC. That ate me up inside. But Coach told me not to listen.
那些曾经说过“杰西卡会粉碎它”的人现在批评了我。他们说我缺乏专业精神，缺乏技术，而且我还不够好，无法参加UFC。这让我内心疲惫不堪。但教练告诉我不要听。

He lifted me up.   他把我举了起来。

He got me a psychologist in Rio de Janeiro. We always talked after I was finished with my training. And I would bawl my eyes out. I didn’t think I was good enough, but she made me believe I was. 
他在里约热内卢给我找了一位心理学家。当我完成训练后，我们总是交谈。我会痛哭流涕。我不认为自己足够好，但她让我相信我足够好。

She’d say, “Jessica, stay calm. You will be the best in the world.”
她会说：“杰西卡，保持冷静。你将成为世界上最好的。”

The psychologist made me look at fighting in a less destructive way. I started valuing myself more. When I thought I hadn’t done well at training, I remained focused on the next day.
心理学家让我以一种破坏性较小的方式看待战斗。我开始更加重视自己。当我认为自己在训练中表现不佳时，我仍然专注于第二天。

I’d say, “Man, today I’m going to be better than yesterday. Not better than anyone else, better than myself.”
我会说：“伙计，今天我会比昨天更好。不比别人好，只比我自己好。”

Three months after I lost to Liz, they booked me another fight. I defeated Rosi Sexton and beat the women’s record for most strikes landed in three rounds. Thanks to the ones who had lifted me up in my worst moment, I was back on my feet again. Stronger, more stable, and more confident.
在我输给莉兹三个月后，他们为我安排了另一场比赛。我击败了罗西·塞克斯顿，打破了女子三回合击球次数最多的纪录。感谢那些在我最糟糕的时刻支撑我的人，让我重新站起来。更坚强、更稳定、更自信。

At one point, I had 10 UFC fights under my belt. But at the same time, I had no money and no house to live in. That’s when I got an unexpected gift: Fernanda arrived.

Everybody thinks that I had it easy when she met me. That I was this UFC fighter, full of money, a luxury car … as if! We starved together. Several times a week, we asked ourselves, “So, what are we eating?” 

Neither of us has had an answer.

She agreed to live with me as a guest at someone else’s home. We slept on a little single-bed mattress, sharing a blanket and a pillow. Tired of this, Fernanda wanted to leave, and I begged her, “Please, stay! I promise everything will work out in the end!” 

She is a biologist, but abandoned her dream to support mine — to help me pay the bills and get a house for us, as well as one for my mother.

This is the woman of my life!

There is no Jessica without Fernanda, or Fernanda without Jessica.

Without her, I would never have given my father a second chance. Or a third, a fourth, a fifth … (but that’s another story). 

Without her, my mother would never have understood MMA, let alone what the routine of an MMA fighter is. 

In the end, I am grateful that my mother didn’t let me leave home to play football for São Paulo. I am grateful for her constant prayers for me, and for the fact that, today, she says the words I very much wanted to hear after my first fight.

Fernanda helped me value my family. She helped me understand that family is the foundation for everything.

In the end, I am grateful that my mother didn’t let me leave home to play football for São Paulo.

- Jéssica (Bate Estaca) Andrade

The native headdress was also her idea, actually. I bring to each fight the colors of Brazil and of the orisha that protect me. Upon climbing the stairs to the octagon, I feel the energy of the Brazilian people, of my religion – candomblé –, of my indigenous roots and of my ancestors.

You have no idea how much strength this brings me.

It was this energy that filled me with courage the day I won the UFC strawweight belt. Before the fight in Rio de Janeiro, I handed Rose Namajunas a rose. She could have chosen any other place in the world to face me, but she chose to fight at my home, before my people and my supporters. A very noble gesture on her part.

However, as fighters, when we get into the octagon, all we think about is winning. And I knew exactly what I needed to do to be victorious. I also knew that, unlike my defeat in my debut, this was a five-round fight. I could not give it my all in the first round.

I just didn’t expect to win like that.

I raise her up to my shoulders, and she keeps clinging to my arm. I make a move to throw her down and … boom! She falls on her head, her neck tilted, and blacks out.

Bate Estaca.

I mean, to become a UFC champion in my home country, using the move I carry in my name? It is priceless. An epic pile driver. My biggest achievement. People stop me to this day because of this feat: “Hey, you’re the girl who almost killed the other one, right?”

I made sure to dedicate the belt to Coach. His mother was a housemaid. His father, a bricklayer. He could have invested in his career as an athlete, but gave it all up to become a coach, to take care of us so that more women are welcomed in MMA.

I believe this to be my main mission now. When we talk about PRVT, we talk about empowerment. Today, we have more girls in our team than we had back when I started. It is amazing to have become a role model for them. 

I tell them, “I want to see all of you with me in the UFC. We’re all gonna fight in the same card, win lots of money, come back home, take our moms out to eat and pay the bill. I want you all to feel the same way I feel in the octagon.”

This is the energy I bring to the girls.

But without Ronda Rousey opening the doors, I would never have made it to the biggest event in the world. Without Cris Cyborg, there would not have been a woman with four belts under four different promotions. Without Amanda Nunes, we would not have a Brazilian champion in two categories.

The day I retire, I want other women to look at me and say: “Man, Jessica was awesome, funny and a lesbian. She threw so many punches and brought us lots of joy”. 

Since Liz and I made history, I try my hardest to show that the flag that I fly is one of happiness.

A fighter who is gay and a champion can make a huge difference in the lives of people who are afraid to come out, afraid of what their parents might think, afraid of what could happen to them. Recently, there was a girl who sent me a message all the way from Kazakhstan, saying: “You are my inspiration!” 

How many other girls can I inspire? 

Just like how Marta inspired me back when I wanted to be a footballer. 

Just like how I am inspired by the women who came before me and paved the way so I could be here now.

Actually, I have realized that inspiration is everywhere.

It’s in the hopes of fighting for another belt.

In Jessica, who grew up in a wooden house in Umuarama.

In Jessica, who was found in the countryside, in the backwoods of Paraná.

In Jessica, who worked in the drugstore.

In Jessica, who became a UFC champion.

In Jessica, who doesn’t exist without Fernanda. Or in Fernanda, who doesn’t exist without Jessica.

In the little mattress where we cried together.

In the love that connected us.

In coming back after defeat.

In the sport that became a girl’s thing. A woman’s thing!

In the 10 months I spent without fighting so I could lose weight and change class.

In the 50ºC hot tub with salt and alcohol so that I could make weight.

In all the sacrifices I have to make for my job.

In all of those things have reminded me that the best version of Jessica is yet to come. 

And that, regardless of winning or losing, there will always be a new beginning for those who don't give up on fighting.