For Jasmine Favero the UFC is a daily sacrifice

The industrial area of Brugine is the typical anti-poetic scenario, here concrete and warehouses alternate themselves, here they mix anonymously, they warm up together under the soft sun of the Po Valley and in front of trucks that are heading to the nearby centers of Padua and Venice.

An antithetical panorama compared to athletic sacrifice and martial excellence. Antithetical, but only in appearance. It is enough to cross the threshold of the Combat Academy to breathe an unexpected air, to be amazed by dan, silent training and mystical respect for the tatami.

Jasmine Favero introduces us to this oasis of physical contact. She is a girl born in 2000, she has deep eyes, she is full of shyness, that shyness that reveals a wide and colorful emotional rainbow. That’s something weird for a girl nicknamed ‘The Bull’, something weird for a fighter who’s rocking the IMMAF, International Mixed Martial Art Federation, scenery with her impressive physical strength.

“I started at the age of five, my cousin asked me to try, at the time there was no talk of mixed martial arts. Since that moment the passion has grown more and more: all this started to dominate my life”

Jasmine tells about her genesis with some real emotions, behind her hair takes place Simone Palazzin, founder of the Academy and teacher-mentor of every local fighter. Leaning against the wall, the master seems a sort of modern sage, a philosopher of irony and combat.

His presence gives confidence to the three-time Italian champion, allows her words to hover confidently, illuminated by the many trophies showed next to her.

“Both in and out of the gym he is like a father, he raised me since I was five, without him I cannot be focused, his presence influences me as a fighter and my life in general. During the teenage period I had a dark moment and I stopped MMA practices because of people who led me astray, then I woke up. In the gym they welcomed me again as if nothing had happened, it was like a return to the family, it was beautiful. At that moment I realized that mixed martial arts would be my future”

Jasmine’s present, on the other hand, sees this twenty-year-old struggling not only in the octagon, but also in the daily organization, obliged to enter the gym after hours and hours of work.

Because the UFC is a long-term goal, set in an ethereal and unspecified future, but the path to reach the MMA paradise is a daily, material, tangible climb.

“For now I am working in the office eight hours a day, I found an agreement with my managers: on Tuesdays and Thursdays, when we have afternoon trainings, I don’t take breaks and I finish earlier. I have a good relationship with them, I’m lucky, they always follow me to the events. Fortunately, the other days’ practices are in the evening. Saturday and Sunday I try to work elsewhere, I have some occasional jobs, and I try to attend the various sparring sessions around Italy. Every evening I get back home really tired, but nothing comes for free”

Nothing comes for free. Jasmine’s eyes become more serious in front of these words, they are tinged with dreams and hopes, with a taste of fatigue, with awareness of a world that offers nothing and asks a lot, perhaps too much, in return.

This girl, who is called ‘Bull’ because already as a child she paid no attention to her opponents, pressing relentlessly male and female, fighting with cardio and intensity out of the ordinary; this girl, who is inspired by Rose Namajunas, by her ability to battle inner demons and opaque thoughts: this girl, beyond her shyness, shows the personality of those who believe in predestination, of those who in the octagon have the will to find the only home.

“In a few years I want to join the UFC, I want to raise my name and my gym name. Here there are very young girls who have started my same path, I want to be an example for them”

Jasmine begins to prepare her body, the next few hours she will paint the industrial area of Brugine with grappling and kicks, repetitions and novelties, sweat and improvement. It is here that Jasmine forges her destiny, it is here that Jasmine forges a piece of the future of Italian MMA.