Michael McDonald, on “Beatdown,” discussing where his power comes from:

“I don’t think a lot of people see striking as an art the way they do jiu-jitsu, and I think it’s a mistake. My power isn’t just from my natural body movement. It’s from technique and from a lot of time, just dozens and dozens of hours of sitting down and breaking it down and shadow boxing in front of a mirror, making sure of every little detail of how I twist, my body is locked out at the right time, that this is moving before this thing’s moving and everything is where it should be. My knowledge of martial arts is why I can hit hard. Anybody has the ability to do it. A lot of people say, ‘Oh, it’s just a natural thing. You just have knockout power or not.’ That’s crap. Some people are born with a knowledge of their body, but anyone can learn it. They just don’t know how to be taught.”

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