I'm unbelievably ticklish. When I was a little kid, my sisters would hold me down and tickle me until I peed my pants.
Ronda Rousey
I just want to tailgate, drink beer, and hang out in the middle of nowhere in a pick-up truck. That's my ideal date.
People say to me all the time, 'You have no fear.' I tell them, 'No, that's not true. I'm scared all the time. You have to have fear in order to have courage. I'm a courageous person because I'm a scared person.'
I wear sunglasses almost all the time outside - not because I think I'm really, really cool, but because of the rays.
I'm the champion for a reason.
I had to learn to take my time in MMA, and I was just able to keep a clear head.
I love waking up to Sunday morning pancakes. The whole process of making them, just out in the kitchen together making pancakes on a Sunday morning; that's an experience every girl should have.
I go to bed every night thinking about all the possible ways that I can succeed.
You go through every single inch of the emotional spectrum on fight week. You're the most stressed out you've ever been, you're the most pressured you've ever been, you're the happiest you've ever been - it's hard. It's exhausting.
I was always pushed to do that much more, and in the long run that made me more of an MMA fighter. My mom always told me that if I let it go to the judges, I'd lost. There was no way I was going to win a decision, so I had to find ways to finish the fight fast.
I'm kind of like a middle mix between a warrior diet and a Paleo diet, so I only eat once a day and it's at night - so kind of like interval fasting. But I eat until I'm full, I eat as much as I want, and I really don't eat anything that you couldn't find, you know, 10,000 years ago.
At the end of the day, I can't curl up with people's opinions.
My first injury ever was a broken toe, and my mother made me run laps around the mat for the rest of the night. She said she wanted me to know that even if I was hurt, I was still fine.
I have a candle permanently on my Jacuzzi because I love me some candles.
When I was in school, martial arts made you a dork, and I became self-conscious that I was too masculine. I was a 16-year-old girl with ringworm and cauliflower ears. People made fun of my arms and called me 'Miss Man.' It wasn't until I got older that I realized: These people are idiots. I'm fabulous.
See, for some reason, I feel like it's a victory if I wake up one minute before the alarm. It's like I'm in a contest with myself, with my foot kicking around until it wakes up the rest of my body. It's the stupidest thing. But it makes me feel like I've already won something.
I am pretty much gluten-free; I barely ever eat bread, and the only dairy I eat is Greek yogurt and goat cheese.
In MMA it's a lot less intimidating because it's not like you get one shot at a title every four years. You get a title shot every couple of months... With the Olympics, you don't always have this, so there is so much more pressure involved.
I fight with pizazz. It's a different sound from everyone else. It's the sound of pizazz.
At 150 pounds, I feel like I'm at my healthiest and my strongest and my most beautiful.
That's the thing I'm worst at: resting. I have to be forced to do it. Sometimes I think of loopholes. 'Oh, I'm just going for a walk, up a dune that's 45 degrees, but I'm walking, so it's not a workout.'
I'm a big crier. I never cry when something is painful, but I cry if things are frustrating. Like if I'm trying to do something, and I mess up over and over. If I'm playing a video game, and I can't beat a level that I've tried 10 times, I'll cry. When I was a kid, I think I cried for every practice from 2003 to the middle of 2006.
Bartending took the romanticism out of drinking.
Buffalo wings and cider is all I need.
The style I have in judo is very unique... One big advantage a judo player has is they have very good posture and - like, wrestlers, they show when they're about to do a take-down... which judo players don't, and so I kind of incorporate the boxing style with a judo grip and finishing that way.
My life is so active, and I'm fighting the whole day that I don't have any aggressiveness or any energy outside of fighting. I'm the most chill couch potato you could ever meet.
I always say you have to be willing to get your heart broken.
If there's a camera on me or off me, it's roughly the same, just a lot less energy.
I wasn't allowed to throw big hooks and overhand rights until I'd been striking for three years. It's so you don't rely on those things from the very beginning. If your footwork sucks, and you can only stand in one place and throw your hands all crazy while the other person is running around, you're never going to be able to hit them.
I never really liked weightlifting because there is no problem solving, whereas when I am fighting, I am trying to solve a problem, so I don't think about being tired. I box, wrestle, do jujitsu, run up sand dunes; every single day is something different so that I am mentally engaged. That's what makes me want to train longer.
I wasn't always the most fashionable, and I would come to school with cauliflower ear and ringworm. I got made fun of a lot. People called me 'Miss Man' and 'Guns,' and people directed a lot of karate jokes at me. I wish that I was at school now that MMA and martial arts is cool, but back when I was in school, people associated it with nerdy stuff.
I like quoting 'Lord of the Rings': 'My list of allies grows thin! My list of enemies grows long!'
I had a certificate that said, 'Doctor of Mixology, Harvard University,' that I actually got from Harvard University. A friend of mine was a research assistant over there and it was one of those student or university perks and she brought me in on that. So I am a doctorate from Harvard and it only took me one afternoon.
I've separated my shoulder and my collarbone; I've messed up my knee a million times. I've broken my foot in several places. I've broken my toe a bunch, broken my nose a couple of times, and had a bunch of other annoying little injuries, like turf toe and arthritis and tendonitis. It's part of the game.
I love feeling like I'm inhabiting the body of a ninja, like I could rob a liquor store with my bare hands if I wanted to.
I don't feel the need to be the hot chick every second of the day. I like to be able to surprise people when I turn it on. I want it to be like the movie 'She's All That' when they unveil her.
I think it's hilarious if people say that my body looks masculine.
I make fractals. They're like mathematical pictures. My stepdad is actually a rocket scientist, so in his free time, he gave me a fractal program for fun. He showed me how to use it when I was about nine or 10, and I made thousands of fractals.
The whole 'bad girl' thing allows me to mess up sometimes. And I have freedom to say more of what I want to.
Even if they don't know it, everyone has the instinct to survive.
When women say that going on publications directed at men is somehow demeaning, I don't think that's true. I think that's one really effective way to change the societal standard women are held to.
I don't lift weights at all. Every muscle on my body is for an actual task; there is no muscle that I train for show. If I want to be able to do a certain move or action, I train really hard until I can. And with all of that training comes muscle definition, so it's really an afterthought.
I only have so much ring time that my body can endure. I've had four surgeries on my knees, arthritis in my neck, separated my shoulders, broken my nose. I'm just gonna hope that science advances faster than I can deteriorate. Because what am I gonna do? Put a perfect body into the ground? What's the point of that?
I'm a terrible singer, but I'm not shy about it. I'm shy about dancing.
Where is women's sports prominently displayed with the men? Tennis is the only thing I can think of.
The Olympics is a once-in-a-lifetime thing. I was lucky enough to go twice, but most people only get one chance. And in judo you can train your whole life and it'll come down to a split second: You can lose everything or win anything.
I had a lot of trouble speaking as a kid. I didn't really speak in coherent sentences until I was, like, 6 years old. There was a long time where everybody was very worried, because my sisters were so advanced for their age, and I would barely talk.
People say this all the time and everyone, like, nods their head and is like, 'Oh yeah, totally,' but no one ever does it, including myself. I can do better at it, is just drinking a lot of water, like a gallon and a half, two gallons a day, like, straight water all day.
I have to be out there to sell these fights; it's not because I really enjoy getting made up and going to work every day. It's cool, it's an awesome job, but it's still a job. I'm doing it because it helps me make a living and not because I'm so extremely vain that I want to see my face everywhere.
It took a lot of time to develop a healthier relationship with food and with my weight.
