It’s a Tuesday night in early December of last year and Robb Andersen is lighting a space heater, his breath thick in the icy air of a sub-arctic cold snap. The heat is out and it’s about 40 degrees inside Andersen’s mixed-martial-arts practice facility, Capital MMA Training, a roughly 400-square-foot light-brown shoebox of a building tucked next to a Fred Meyer’s parking lot off River Road. Outside, a shopping cart sits abandoned by the sidewalk. The temperature eventually drops to 8 degrees Fahrenheit on this night; weather forecasts warn of freezing road conditions, and caution drivers to stay home.

But inside, four fighters have braved the oncoming ice to train in cage fighting, and even though the gym has just opened, two of them, in T-shirts and sweats, are already entangled in an aggressive jiu-jitsu struggle.

This gym is a far cry from the Vegas desert mansion of The Ultimate Fighter reality shows, with its fountain-punctuated swimming pools and island kitchens, camera crews and high-dollar sponsor logos, black luxury SUVs circled in the driveway out front. It’s by no means glamorous – there’s a toilet, sink, water cooler, and mats - but it’s better than some of the places that Andersen, 41, has seen in his two decades of fighting. He remembers those days well, the underground bars where spectators would throw money at the fighters like they were strippers, the winner literally taking all; the horse pens with cars’ headlamps lighting the fistfights. Those were exciting days for him, word would spread in the stands of a high-school football field, in class, and at FFA meetings: Barnyard brawl, friend’s house. Be there.

Cage fighting is an addiction, Andersen said, but it is more than that. For anyone who has tried, it is a transcendent experience of empowerment through struggle, of enlightenment through defeat and survival. It is an identity that transforms the soul as it reshapes the body. It is a test of the lengths people can go to follow a dream.

For one young woman, it may be salvation through submission.

The Ashram

It is a Saturday in February and Andersen is patrolling the mat while others work on their submission moves. In addition to running the gym, Andersen also trains and recruits fighters through Xtreme Team Cagefighting. He’s content to leave the fighting to others. Having fought since the age of 14, he knows in his bones his days inside the octagon are over. One past brawl claimed his upper front teeth.

As he wanders the gym, a group of about 10 fighters trickle in from all over the mid-Willamette Valley. They joke and brag as they catch up with each other, even as they pair up as opponents. There is no hazing, no screaming abuse, and no weeding-out.

There is camaraderie among fighters, said Rex Payne, owner of the MMA gym 503 West Coast Jiu-Jitsu in Clackamas. He comes down to train fighters at this gym.

“Being a fighter is like being a part of a fraternity,” he said.

The togetherness steps into the cage as well, according to James Klass, co-owner of the gym, and owner of the Salem-based promotion company Capital City Cagefights.

Especially in a sport as intense as cage fighting, “the sportsmanship becomes even stronger,” he said. “You are bonded to the person you are competing with, more so than with other sports.”

But make no mistake, the training is intense, and the physical combat real.

Live to Fight

For Payne, 32, a professional MMA fighter since 2006 with 19 pro fights under his belt, the octagon has been his passion ever since old UFC fight videos inspired him to sign up for judo classes eight years ago at his local community college.

He feels compelled to test himself through fighting, he said.

“To do everything right, to train right, then show up and perform well is a personal challenge,” he said.

In his quest for a challenge, he has taken on some serious competition, including a pairing with then-top-ranked fighter Bao Quatch for the now-defunct Elite XC MMA league.

He was knocked out in that fight. But he got back up.

“I know I’m tough because I’ve been kicked in the head and fought through it,” he said. "To me, MMA isn’t [about] violence or aggression.”

But it is intense work: five hours a day, five days a week, jiu-jitsu in the morning, boxing and wrestling in the evening, extreme cardiovascular exercise throughout. Some pro fighters can routinely fight at under 40 pounds of their actual weight, Randall Colburn, another MMA coach at the gym.

“A week out from their fight, they can’t wait till their fight’s over with,” he said.

Even sleep becomes regimented, in order to help a fighter achieve peak physical strength and endurance, in order to endure three five-minute rounds of the most intense effort, pain and emotion imaginable. Amateurs fight three-minute rounds.

“It doesn’t sound like a lot, but an additional six minutes of fighting is a long time,” Klass said.

The business of pro fighting can be equally daunting. Reality shows like The Ultimate Fighter tend to downplay the gritty aspects of fighter promotion. For someone trying to get his name out there as a fighter worth watching, it’s a tough way to make a living, according to Klass. Not a lot of promotions are out there for pro fighters, he said. He recalls past promotions where, within a week of organizing a fight night, he started fielding calls from fighters across the West Coast, as well as Texas, Florida, Oklahoma, and New York.

Despite the success of the UFC, mainstream businesses that might sponsor fighters are still wary of the sport, he said. The economic recession has tightened the squeeze on sponsor dollars.

You’ve got to be entertaining, as well as skilled, Klass said.

Monetary rewards are meager: Smaller promotions might pay as little as $300 to $400 per fight, with a purse of around $1,500 for the winner, he said.

For Payne, fighting is as much his destiny as a dream now. He is close to securing a fight for later this summer.

“I don’t have a real education in life,” he said. “A normal, 40-hour-a-week job doesn’t challenge me enough. If I can provide for my family and myself, that’s the route I’m gonna take.”

It’s a route Nate Becker is looking to take. Becker, 23, is one of the area’s better amateurs, with a record of 10 wins, three losses. He also has a wife and two children, ages 3 and 1. He holds down two jobs: delivering beer from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m., and delivering pizza from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. most weekdays. He also sells fighter apparel under the company name “LIVE TO FIGHT,” words are tattooed down his left shoulder and bicep.

For Becker, turning pro is not financially realistic at the moment. Sponsors are not lining up.

“Nobody has money to give,” he said.

In addition, his two jobs limit his training opportunities to two or three days a week, mostly on weekends.

But fighting has become his identity.

“Once you start, you don’t care, you don’t want to give up,” said Andersen.

It was a fight that broke out at a skate park three years ago that got him into MMA fighting, Becker said. Or to be more exact, it was his mouth.

“I opened my mouth, and I got jumped,” he said, “I got stitches, I got put in the hospital, and I decided I would have to go ahead and learn how to fight if I was gonna open my mouth up.”

Across his right pectoral muscle is a tattoo of Curious George with a smile and a large match, kneeling in front of a gasoline canister.

Curiously, fighting has tempered his usually feisty attitude, he said.

“Maybe it’s overconfidence in myself, but I don’t need to go out and prove it, that I can whoop your ass,” he said, “[Cage fighting] is the ultimate mellow-maker.”

Sabrina the Teenage Widowmaker

Empowerment can be subtle, too.

Stacy Harris is faced with the same dilemma all parents of teenagers face: where to draw the line. As she sits by her daughter Sabrina Dockter, they playfully bicker over a current controversy in the house.

“She’s mad at me because she wants a 17-year-old to pick her up and drive her, and it’s not okay with me,” Harris said.

“I can cage fight, but I can’t get a ride with a boy,” said Dockter, exasperated.

It’s a secret that Sabrina, 15, has been keeping from her friends and classmates at South Salem High. A sophomore transfer who has been at the school less than a month, she plays volleyball and tennis and sings in choir. Her favorite books are the Twilight series. However, her favorite movie is Fight Night.

At heart, Sabrina Dockter is a cage fighter. She discusses her first training day with a giddiness usually reserved for discussing boys.

“I popped a vein in my knee the first time, so I had a bruise this big going down my leg, and it was so sore I had to pop it,” she said.

“Have you ever popped a bruise before? It doesn’t feel good.”

Her mother cringes, but Sabrina is unmoved.

“Scars are awesome,” she said.

A friend of the family, Andersen had been inviting Dockter to watch a fight for some time before she finally agreed last August. She was hooked immediately, and she remembers one thought in particular, after the first bout of the evening ended in a 15-second knockout.

“If I could do that, it would be awesome!” she said.

Finally, in January, she got her mother’s permission to try it out. According to Harris, she realized her daughter may not have been totally forthcoming when she dropped Sabrina off for her first day.

“She told me it was a self-defense class,” Harris said.

“Well, sort of …” Dockter said, a sly smile spreading across her face.

For Harris, it’s been a struggle of conscience, a balance between encouraging her daughter’s ambition wherever it may lead and fearing for her safety.

“Does any mom want their young, beautiful 15-year-old daughter getting her ass kicked? Really?” she said. “If it’s something she really wants to do, I’m going to try and help her, but it’s hard for me to let her do it.”

Currently, she practices strikes and takedowns individually with a coach. Because of her weight difference, she is not allowed to grapple with the other men in the gym. She is hoping another girl she knows will be show up so she can partner with her on the mat, but finding another person like her has proven to be tough.

Few of Sabrina’s friends know how she spends her evenings two days a week.

Like a comic-book superhero, she struggles with revealing her truth for fear of isolation, not sure how the others will behave toward her once they know.

“I just want to be treated the same,” she said.

Training has done more than get Sabrina in peak physical shape. Being a transfer student can be extremely tough, but both mother and daughter agree that MMA training has given her more than a fighting chance to be more confident and successful in her new school. It was a chance she didn’t have two years previously, when she transferred to a new middle school.

It was much more difficult then, Sabrina recalls, and much more lonely.

“I didn’t know anybody, and I was losing all my friends…” she said, her voice trailing off. “It was really hard. I stopped eating for a while. I changed a lot.”

Her daughter exudes more confidence these days, and she has more confidence in her daughter, Harris said.

Sabrina is preparing to go to college. She wants to study to become a photojournalist. Harris remains supportive as a parent, and willing to step out of the way.

“I always told Sabrina growing up that she could be and do whatever she wanted,” Harris said. “Me telling her no isn’t going to stop her.”

For Klass, ultimately the essence of fighting is the essence of life: struggle and focus.

“That’s what real life is. Every day we wake up, and it’s a fight. It’s a fight to wake up, it’s a fight to get through your job, there’s chaos around us constantly."

Keeping your focus through that, this sport has definitely helped me do that.”

Leaning on a training bike, he looks out across the mat at two fighters in a takedown.

“You walk through the door and this is all there is.”