All aspiring athletes have their share of sports heroes, and Alexa Goodwin is no exception. As a soccer playing youngster, it was Mia Hamm. Later, when she took up gymnastics, it was Dominique Dawes. And presently, as she gains interest in competing in the martial arts, she's got one right in her own home—her dad, Jim "the terminator" Goodwin.
Back in the day, Jim Goodwin was one of the most feared amateur middleweight cage fighters around. Standing around six-one, weighing close to the class limit of 185lbs, he compiled an enviable 25-3 won-loss record before retiring in his late thirties. What made Jim so formidable was a combination of superb conditioning and technique in the major disciplines of MMA: boxing, kick boxing, grappling and jiu-jitsu. He could knock a man out just as easily as he could throw on a choke hold or arm bar. He might have turned pro if not for his day job at A-1 Auto Repair, a body shop he co-owns with his brother, and one that earns him a much better living than pro fighting ever could.
These days, Jim, now in his late forties, confines his involvement with MMA to watching the matches on TV. His wife Kendra has no interest in it, nor does Danielle, Alexa's younger sister. But Alexa does. She admires the fitness and courage of the women fighters especially. Carla Esparza. Miesha Tate. Cat Zingano. Holly Holm. Ronda Rousey. It amazes her the way that strong, tough chicks like Rousey, Holm and the retired Gina Carano can be so fearsome in the octagon, yet so attractive and feminine out of it.
"I can do that," she says one day to Jim as they watch one of the bouts. "That's for me."
Jim sighs and shakes his head. "First get through college," he says to his nineteen year old daughter, "then we'll see." In truth, he's not crazy about the idea of his baby girl stepping into the octagon, ending up bloody and bruised. He's not against women cage fighters per se; he just doesn't want his own daughter to be among them.
Little does he know that Alexa already has a head start. For the past few weeks, she's been working out a few afternoons a week at Westwood 10, one of only two mixed martial arts gyms in the area. She's yet to fight an actual match. Instead, she's learning technique, plus conditioning herself with cardio work and weight training.
She drops this bit of news as she and Jim lounge on the sofa, glued to their sixty inch flat screen TV in their club basement. "So I figure I might be ready in another few months to fight my first amateur bout," she tells him. "The people at Westwood are great. But you've held several championship belts whereas none of them have. Craig Lowery, one of the co-owners, was so impressed when I told him who my dad was. He even suggested that you could be my primary coach. 'Holly Holm calls herself the preacher's daughter. You can call yourself the terminator's daughter', is what he said. Does that sound cool or what?"
Jim raises an eyebrow and folds his thick, muscular forearms against his chest. "You really want to do this?" She nods. "Well, okay, but be prepared to take the good with the bad. You've seen what some of these women look like after a bout, blood gushing from deep gashes, their faces all swollen and bruised. Of course, I'm prejudiced, but you're very pretty, and I'd hate to see that lovely face all messed up."
By any conventional measure, Alexa is indeed very pretty: big blue eyes and thick auburn hair that drops below her shoulders and frames a face without a blemish on it. Her hundred-watt smile reveals a gap in her front teeth a' la super model Lauren Hutton. But she's hardly built like a super thin catwalk model. Standing five-foot six, weighing around one-forty, she's on the stocky side, with arms and legs that are thick and deceptively smooth, devoid of the sort of well defined muscularity of a Holly Holm or Cat Zingano. In body type, she's more akin to Ronda Rousey, a mix of endomorph and ectomorph.
Alexa can't argue with the bad part, not with this man who sports a slightly crooked nose, broken more than once during his fighting days. In her opinion, it makes him look more masculine, handsome in the sort of rugged way she admires in men generally. She thinks the tattoos etched into both forearms enhance his macho image even more. She takes his hand, leans forward and gives him a peck on the cheek. "I'll be okay, dad, especially with you standing behind me, coaching me. What do you say?"
"Well, you've always been a determined girl, gone after anything you wanted. And I guess you're going to pursue this new venture of yours no matter what. So okay, if you think I can help you realize your goal, I'll do anything I can to help you get there."
Alexa throws her arms around him, then hops on his lap, something she hasn't done since she was in grade school.
"Whoa there, little girl!" Jim says, throwing his arms up in the air. "It's great you're so enthusiastic, but—"
"But what? I've just landed as a coach a former MMA champ. Who just so happens to be my big, bad-ass dad." Before he can say anything more, she kisses him again, this time on the lips and this time longer.
Jim hugs and kisses her back, more to appease her than anything else. Still, he can't deny something he feels, something weirdly sensual. It makes him uncomfortable, which is why he pulls away after a few seconds. "Wow! I can see that curbing your enthusiasm isn't in your vocabulary," he says, trying to make light of this novel, unexpected happening.
On impulse, from feeling a tingle between her legs, she swipes her hand over the crotch in her shorts before climbing off his lap. "Wow is right." The wow she gives is a deadpan wow, the sort with a period at the end, not an exclamation point. Her expression conveys worry and confusion, not wonder or joy. "I mean, I can't wait until you start coaching me," she says. "Sorry, I must have got carried away." She flashes him a faux smile, hoping like hell he doesn't pick up on what she's wowing; hoping also that what she just felt was just an anomaly, something more aberrant than real.
Days later, she almost forgets it even happened. She's too busy with schoolwork and training for her goal. She divides her training regimen into segments, strength building/cardio and technique. The first two work at Westwood 10. Technique she'll work on with her dad at home. The Goodwin house is big, one of those three-thousand square foot McMansions, thanks to Jim's lucrative auto body business. Their basement is so big that he was able to install a basic home gym (some dumbbells, an Olympic barbell set, a couple benches, squat rack and treadmill), plus have enough room left over for the big screen TV and sofa. Squares of red and black linoleum cover that part, while rubber matting covers the floor under the gym equipment.
Jim moves the benches and weights aside to make room for his first session with Alexa. He's barefoot, wearing black shorts and a black sleeveless T-shirt. "To be successful in MMA, you need to be strong everywhere," he explains. Alexa, also barefoot and wearing tight fitting blue shorts and matching shorts bra, pays close attention. "So we're going to work on boxing skills, both conventional and Muay Thai kickboxing, as well as Brazilian jiu-jitsu and other disciplines. Today I'm going to give you a smorgasbord of fighting styles we'll be working on. We'll concentrate on each of them in detail later on."