Her step, certain; her gaze, focused; her handshake, warm, yet firm.

Her very name has become synonymous with strength. She is Mariah Prussia. And to the Fargo-Moorhead community and beyond, she is known as the mother, writer, speaker, personal trainer, fighter and force to be reckoned with in the MMA and boxing world. But it is who she says she is that has led her to become all those things, “A strong, dedicated female whose mission is to reach the masses and create a positive ripple effect of change needed in the world.”

Prussia exudes a strength beyond the physical that so many of us as women aspire to attain. Her strength permeates to a soul level, and it is one she aspires to share. Rather than having realized this power through the number of workouts completed in a gym, or wins achieved in the ring, she reveals that it came through a much deeper, more personal channel. Who she is today comes from a past of hurt, struggle and brokenness. Remarkably, instead of stuffing this away, she reveals, “It’s once we allow ourselves to be vulnerable that we can share and help others.”

On this day, she appears anything but vulnerable. Prussia is in her final week of preparing for another fight: her second professional boxing match of her career. Her posture is grounded and her energy is steady. But, she reveals, laughing, “My emotions are a little raw today — mainly because I’m a little hangry.” It is here that a beautiful cohesion between power and vulnerability are felt through her words as she shares who she is and what has made her the woman she is today.

“I was ‘Mariah the Athlete’ growing up,” she begins. She credits becoming strong at a young age to growing up on a farm. “It wasn’t easy,” she says, “but it gave us work ethic.” By “us,” she refers to herself and her two older sisters. They may have been a family of all women, outside of their father, but their gender did not make them exempt from farm work. “We’d have to be up at 5:00 a.m. to make sure all the chores were done before we left for school.” Curfews and outings were also limited to one weekend a month, depending on their sports schedule. Looking back, Prussia appreciates her parents’ stringency. “They are my foundation.”

While thankful for that firm foundation, college was a whole new world that Prussia, like so many of us, struggled to navigate. “When I got to college there were no restrictions; no limitations,” she remembers. “I had no idea how to handle that.” Being involved in sports, time with her teammates was centered on athletics and parties. It was at one of those parties that she experienced what haunts so many women for the rest of their lives.

“I was

at a party with a couple of teammates and clearly had too much to drink,” she remembers. One of the male athletes offered to walk her back that night. He began making advances on the way home, with those advances becoming stronger when they arrived at her dorm room. Despite saying “no” multiple times, as the drinks kicked in, she started to lose consciousness. The next thing she remembers is waking up, finding herself compromised, and the perpetrator leaving. “I was in shock; I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to appear weak and I started worrying if my peers would even believe me.” For years, Prussia “stuffed it away”, sharing her story with no one. When she finally opened up about it in an article in the Forum, she was nervous. “Things still trigger no matter how much time passes.” She has since turned this pain into purpose as she now empowers women through self-defense classes on campuses and in corporate businesses, local gyms and other organizations seeking to serve their female population. During these sessions, she reminds women of their strength, teaches them how to establish healthy boundaries, and educates women on situational awareness.

After college, Prussia began training clients at a gym in town. She was also seeing someone at the time. She remembers not long into the relationship that she noticed concerning signs, but admits, “It was more of a physical relationship than an emotional one.” Life continued to progress and before she knew it, two incredible opportunities came her way: the chance to start her own gym, and bringing her first of two sons into the world. “I didn’t know I was going to be a mom,” she says honestly, “but they have taught me more than anything life could.” While she cherishes this gift, the means by which it came is not. It wasn’t long after her son Antonio was born, that she saw those concerning signs in her partner become alarming. “He started demanding to know where I was all the time and became very jealous.” It escalated to the point that one weekend, while away for a softball game, she discovered 200 missed calls and text messages from him. She even found out he had been sending inappropriate text messages from her phone to men on her contact list to see if they would text back in kind. “He assumed I was cheating, but the funny thing is, he was cheating the whole time.”

Shortly after, she made him leave. Instead of ending the abuse, it only took on a new form — stalking and terrorizing. “He used Antonio to manipulate both of us,” she says. “At one point he even told me that if he ever caught another man in my house, he would kill us.” As she struggled through the abuse and the setbacks that other women have similarly experienced, she found herself going back to give him a chance once more. Not long after, she found out she became pregnant with her second son, Jace. “I had people, even clients, asking me, ‘How could you go back to him?’” But as she looks back on it now, she shares, “It’s hard to get out of the storm. And as women, we want to see the best in everyone and every situation. It takes getting knocked down a few times to have a clear vision.” She now advises women in similar situations, “Look out for yourself and your children. The key is not to hide or keep it a secret. There are so many people and programs out there to help.”

But even with victory, the road does not necessarily get easier. At only 26 weeks of pregnancy, Prussia’s water broke and she found herself on bed rest in the hospital. With her new training business to run and a new sales staff hired, the last thing Prussia had on her mind was bed rest. Yet, neither was giving up. She laughs as she remembers even convincing the doctors to let her run a boot camp for 36 clients on hospital grounds from her wheelchair. Every class, every client was needed, and yet it was still difficult to make ends meet. “One month, I realized that I had no idea how I was going to pay my house payment,” she says. Miraculously, she was given $1000 from Bell Bank’s Pay it Forward program after a member of her gym had nominated her.

As she looks back and recounts all that she has been through, she says without hesitation, “I wouldn’t change anything that happened to me. I wouldn’t be able to grow and connect with women had I not gone through it all.” It was this mindset that lead her to take on a challenge no one expected. “One day a gym member’s sons told me, ‘You know what, Mariah? I think you should fight.’” She was 36 years old, had pushed herself as an entrepreneur, business owner and single mother; but as she explains, “I needed something more.” So she began training in February of 2013. She was preparing to have her first fight in October of that year. Barely four months into training, she tore her Achilles tendon. Training became next to impossible following her surgery. And still, she continued to do everything she could despite her limitations. “When

I set my mind to something, I’m going to do it,” she says. As October started closing in, she remembers her coach, who was set to be her corner man, pulling her aside and warning her, “When you get in there, there’s no getting out until it’s done.” And she decided, limping and all, she was going in there. As expected, the fight was tough. But, as the adrenaline coursed through her and the cheers of her family and friends screamed in her ears, she came back to win her very first match. After that, she was hooked.

And what does her family think? She smiles, “They are actually really supportive.” While her father makes it out to almost every fight, she will admit, “After my first fight, my mom was crying and like, ‘Someone was choking my baby!’” she laughs. “That was the only fight she came to.” Not everyone has been supportive of her passion. Some have asked her, “How are you empowering women if you are fighting them in a cage?” She answers, “How am I not? I am empowering women to not set limits on themselves.” She also reassures that despite appearances, these fights are not nearly as gruesome as they seem. “We are displaying our training, and afterwards you see fighters embrace. There’s mutual respect there.”

As she prepares for her next fight, 5-3 in MMA and 1-0 in boxing, what motivates her? What is she still fighting for? “I’m fighting to learn more about myself, to test my limits,” she answers. “So many of us take the back seat of our lives. I want to be in the driver’s seat.” This is not just for herself either, but to teach and help others. Whether it’s teaching boxing to at-risk youth, speaking around the region, or hosting a radio show, Prussia fights to help others find themselves and know their purpose.

Today, she awaits her next fight in a ring. But, as she puts it, “Every day is a fight.” Whether it’s a fight to escape the cycle of abuse, or the fight to find and love who you are, we all have a battle we are fighting. She might bear the etchings of an athletic physique that were gained in a gym; but it’s the pains and hurts of a past that she has fought through that have equally etched and defined who she is.

So while she may be known by many titles and accolades, it’s only when you peel back the layers and see the far greater fights that Mariah Prussia has fought, that we as women can be encouraged that true strength does not come from the wins in life, but the journey it took to earn them. [ aw ]