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Love Test #1: India Yoga Ashram

A happy-go-lucky Brazilian in Beverly Hills named Roberto had arranged the whole delicate operation for us: who to meet, where to stay, even a dinner with his sister who lived in town. ("She maybe not talk well, OK, but she cook beautifully.") All my girlfriend, Mara McFalls, and I had to do was get ourselves to Chute Boxe Academy on Dom Pedro street in the southern Brazilian city of Curitiba and ask for a guy named Javier. "Then he take you in like a brother," Roberto said. "He is so excited. All the guys are. I'm so jealous." Unfortunately, when we arrived at the address on Dom Pedro, all we found was an abandoned pea green bunker laced with razor wire, the kind of shadowy place you'd illegally dump garbage or take in a cockfight. "I'm just going to say this once," Mara chimed, fingering the rusted gate. "When it was my love test, this is exactly what didn't happen."

The last time Mara and I had gone on a so-called love test, we spent two weeks in a yoga ashram in India wearing snug pastel pants and chanting in Sanskrit in order to be "drenched in spirituality" (Adventure, March 2008). It was the first in a series of ordeals I'd designed to test our rapidly progressing relationship—the kind of out-of-your-comfort-zone adventure that could help us see if we were right for each other. At the ashram, for example, Mara learned that I could support her in her interests, no matter how flaky or deluded I secretly thought them to be.

Which was what brought us to Dom Pedro street in Curitiba, the purported home of Chute Boxe Academy. I have always been a big fan of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA). A combination of boxing, kickboxing, wrestling, jujitsu, and most anything else that works, MMA has at times been disparaged as human dogfighting. The truth, however, is that it's a heavily regulated pastime that has replaced boxing as America's favorite combat sport. MMA's athletes endure years of relentless training at elite fight clubs to master myriad martial techniques. Perhaps the most legendary of these clubs is Chute Boxe, an academy infamous for a wild fighting style that resembles a tornado of butcher knives. So inasmuch as Mara had always wanted to be "drenched in spirituality," I guess one could say I'd always wanted to be "drenched in the blood sport of MMA"—that is, to train alongside true fighters and, I suppose, to see if there was any part of me that belonged there with them.

That's where Roberto came in. In planning an immersion trip—whether dropping in for a few weeks with pearl divers in the Solomon Islands, pygmy trackers in Gabon, or fighters in Brazil—it's wise to come with an introduction. A former trainer at Chute Boxe, Roberto was sent to open the first academy in the U.S., in that hot spot of raw fighting talent known as Beverly Hills. Though he promised to smooth the way for us, Mara was skeptical. She hated MMA and had gone so far as to try to ban it from our TV. But that was exactly the point: Could she support me like I had her? Could she adapt to Chute Boxe just as I had the ashram? And for my part, was I truly the badass I suspected deep down I was?

After leaving that abandoned bunker on Dom Pedro, Mara and I wandered around Curitiba for hours looking for the academy. Contrary to the common perception of a Brazilian city rife with crime and teeming favelas (slums), most of Curitiba was a slice of Europe laid on the Tropic of Capricorn, with candy-colored châteaus, manicured parks, and blond glamazons strutting down topiary-lined boulevards. We finally stumbled on Chute Boxe the next morning in a neighborhood known for its snooty bistros and gold-plated shopping malls.

A sleek two-story cube of glass and tile, the gym was clean and quiet inside, the front door guarded by a receptionist and a long bank of displays selling Chute Boxe gear. It had the vibe of a pseudo-boxing gym where plum-shaped accountants and lawyers worked off midlife crises. Javier, the receptionist said, was out. Worse, no one had ever heard of us—not the greeter, the manager, or the trainers. But just as we were being ushered out, salvation blew through the door: a slightly built Afro-Brazilian named Javier Cordeirro, Chute Boxe's head trainer. When I announced that we were the Yank couple Roberto had sent down, he laughed. He too had never heard of us, then all but insinuated that Senhor Roberto had ricocheted off reality a while ago up in L.A. "So what is it you want?" he asked.

"We want to train for two weeks, exactly like professional fighters," I said, almost pleading.

Javier led us up a staircase and into a large room; heavy bags hung from the ceiling, and the floor was covered wall-to-wall with neoprene mats. In a corner loomed the Octagon: an eight-sided ring encased in chain-link fencing. Instead of fruit-shaped accountants, 30 fighters straight out of central casting were there, a veritable wolf pack of scar tissue, cauliflower ears, and tattoos. Among them were stars such as Andre "Dida" Amade, Evangelista "Cyborg" Santos, and Fabricio Werdun. Even Mara recognized the Rua brothers, Ninja and Shogun, from the fights I'd watched on cable. Shogun was the second-ranked pound-for-pound fighter in the world (the first being a giant Russian named Fedor who looks like a freshly sheared bear). Displaying a pitch-perfect tin ear to man-etiquette, Mara then lovingly cried out loud enough for everyone to hear, "Oh my God, babe, all your heroes are here!"

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Love Test #1: India Yoga Ashram