‘Being Able To Fix Means Being Able To Break’ – Ayaka Miura’s Journey From Osteopath To Submission Hunter
· Yahoo Sports
Most athletes leave their work at the gym. Ayaka “Zombie” Miura never quite gets that luxury – though in her case, the lines between profession and passion have always been beautifully, almost poetically, blurred.
On the global stage of ONE Championship, the Japanese MMA star is one of the most feared submission hunters. Her signature “Ayaka Lock” – a scarf-hold Americana so refined it might as well have her name on a patent – has finished nine opponents, seven in ONE Championship alone.
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Away from the sport, though, Miura was doing the same thing, albeit in reverse.
Before MMA consumed her world entirely, the Tokyo-based warrior worked as a clinical educator at an osteopathic center, studying the human body with the kind of precision that most fighters simply never develop. She learned how joints move, how they lock, and, crucially, how to put them back together.
The irony writes itself:
“Well, being able to fix means being able to break. Because I understand the structure of the body, I think it’s easier for me to lock in techniques that require bending joints. I often joke that I went from a job healing people to a job breaking them.”
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Miura still hasn’t fully left that world behind.
At Tribe Tokyo MMA, where she trains under Japanese martial arts veteran Ryo Chonan, her clinical knowledge gets called upon regularly – not on opponents, but on teammates.
The 35-year-old told onefc.com:
“I only take appointments occasionally when there are appointments at a friend’s clinic. The same goes when I’m at the gym. Sometimes, when Chonan-san’s body needs work or when fighters dislocate something during practice, I’m called over to pop it back in.”
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It’s a remarkable thing to picture.
One moment, “Zombie” is drilling submissions on the mat, hunting for the precise angles to secure a tap. The next moment, she’s the one repairing the damage.
It’s a dynamic that exists nowhere else in combat sports. Most fighters study the body to hurt it. Miura studies the science behind solving issues like that, and somewhere along the way, discovered that understanding one made her dangerously good at the other.
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The Science Behind The Submissions
There’s a line that separates healer from fighter in most people’s minds. For Ayaka Miura, that line has never really existed.
Her osteopathic background has sharpened her into the combatant she is today. Understanding exactly how a joint bends, where its limits are, and what angle produces the most leverage isn’t something you can learn purely from drilling.
Miura carries that knowledge into every scramble, clinch, and moment she pulls guard and goes hunting for submissions on the canvas:
“[That knowledge is] probably ingrained in my body. But I’m not very athletic, and my head isn’t that great, so I’m the type who has to repeat techniques many times before I can do them.”
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The self-deprecation is classic Miura — humble to a fault, despite the evidence stacking up against that assessment throughout her 13 appearances in ONE. What she doesn’t say, but what her record makes abundantly clear, is that all that repetition has worked just fine.
There was one moment, though, that captured her dual nature perfectly.
In competition, after locking in a joint technique and hearing the telltale sound of something giving way, her instinct wasn’t to celebrate:
“During one of my previous fights, when I locked in a joint technique and heard a pop, I immediately tried to fix my opponent’s limb. But it was a situation [I couldn’t solve].”
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