The other day I just agreed to another Muay Thai (Thai boxing) fight next month. Lots of my friends, colleagues, and even students, ask me why I keep doing that. Why would you take Muay Thai fights if you’re a professor/consultant/speaker/etc.?
Here’s my answer.
Martial Arts, for me, is my form of meditation. It keeps me sane, it gets me in the ‘zone’, it helps me feel better (and also helps with keeping the sixpack of course :P). However that’s what you can achieve with training. So why actual fights where you probably will get hurt, bruised, cut, bloody, and so on?
Good question! Personally I don’t go into a fight with the mindset of wanting to hurt anyone. It’s more like a ‘game’. A competition. Who can apply what they learned better? How can I outsmart the opponent? How can I heighten my senses to recognize movements and counter them? It’s similar to figuring out how a computer game works and mastering it, learning how to drive and mastering that, you get the idea.
The fact that it can hurt and happens with another human makes it way more intense and ‘real’ and that’s something we’re missing in this day and age. Now I’m not saying life would be better if we had to fight everybody outside of our ‘cave’, of course. However I do believe that if you can stay ‘cool, calm, and collected’ in a fight where someone tries to kick you in the head, you will quite likely be able to stay calm in almost any situation.
Ever since I started Martial Arts my confidence increased, yet I became way calmer and way less angry.
This is not everything though. In order to be prepared to fight, you have to get into shape. If you are in good shape, you will move faster, hit/kick harder, absorb your opponent’s punches easier, and so on. In order to get into shape you need to be dedicated, focused. Not only when it comes to training but also when it comes to your nutrition. It’s so easy destroy what you build in the gym with a bad diet. Ergo being focused on training and nutrition leads to a way healthier lifestyle.
Having that said, this all is just a by-product to the main reason why I fight. I love the challenge, I love doing things that my younger me would have never thought I’d be able to do and I love to do things that others consider ‘unreasonable’ – as long as I can see value there of course.
I wonder if you have experienced something similar to that? Let me know in the comments!
I love your mindset towards fighting, it’s very inspiring 🙂 I totally understand when you say you don’t fight to hurt people but you do it to facilitate focus and regulate yourself. Whenever I get mad, Instead of yelling at people I lock myself in my room and do 30 pushups. The physical aspect of “letting it out” helps me regulate my emotions and spend my energy on something beneficial instead of using it to hurt people. I had some serious anger issues when I was really young so I have the habit of avoiding competitive physical activities in fear of it getting messy. This article actually inspired me to consider trying out some competitive sports! Now that I’m able to understand and regulate myself much better, it might actually benefit me.
I totally understand your mindset and that’s awesome ! My friend also learned Thai boxing for a long time , she really obsessed with it and love it .I knew from the Instagram story that she really work hard and exercise hard in every time she learned.She really calm when she practiced.It’s not easy like we saw on TV , it’s not just be powerful and win the competition , it’s also involved our skills , movements , emotion like you wrote it above.
I totally agree that in order to be prepared to fight, you have to be in good shape. Muay Thai really increases stamina, emotion control, and confidence, it also helps you focus when you fighting. The skills will improve over time.
You’re so cool! I really appreciate your attitude! This is a good example for everyone that whether you are stronger than others, you have no right to hurt anyone physically and mentally. I saw a lot of news that some people with martial art or whether talent that greater than like to harm others unreasonably, by losing the belief that martial art is for protecting ourselves and our loved ones. One more thing I want to say is I want to try boxing or martial art once in my life too.
This is so astonishing, love the motto that you fight to focus and regulate yourself not to hurt others. Muay Thai is a very tiring sport and it could be seen as a way to protect ourselves and increase our strength. This is such a powerful and inspiring article, Thank you.
That’s so cool! I don’t exactly interested about Muay Thai but it is a good idea because it can help your meditation and health to be stronger. We learn boxing, not just to fight with others, but we learn to protect ourselves and other too. I agree with you that “ if you can stay ‘cool, calm, and collected’ in a fight, you will quite likely be able to stay calm in almost any situation” it very a good point because nowadays, people are becoming more impatient and use their emotion to solve the problem. The lack of consciousness increased the problem of violence. If we can be more cautious and clam, it will be able to reduce these kind of problem in our society.