You can't open the door before you open the latch

World has been changing so much, so fast.
The way we communicate, travel, eat, work, socialize, learn, educate and so on...

It all has changed tremendously over those 30 great years I have experienced on this planet.

It is amazing, what we are able to achieve with use of constantly developing knowledge and technology.  

Benefits of all that improvement are countless and I believe that we are still learning how we can help ourselves and others by making it more efficient.

I suppose; directions we go with all that, depend on putting right tools in the right hands.

Having all necessary and unnecessary information at our fingertips with use of internet, we are able to achieve much more and much faster, than we used to, even 10 years ago. Personally I do love that ability and I am trying to make use of it every single day to improve my life, get closer to my goals and help society I am living in.

But at this same time I believe that; there are certain things that cannot get speed up. Or if they are, they are going to loose on their real value.

I presume that dependently on which part of the globe you are living at, your expectations regarding speed of life are varying. But generally talking out of what I've witnessed, I can tell that level of our patience amongst human beings hasn't been very high. We are all about the "Fast" this days. Fast food, fast transport, fast money, fast courses...

Our super fast electronic devices which we are carrying with us at all times, are full of names and addresses that will fulfill our "Fast" expectations.
All that can be done upon the fast payment transfer :-)

Don't get me wrong, I am not criticizing technology and improvement that comes to our hands.
I am amazed with new technology and I am very excited about the innovations that are constantly changing and becoming part of our lives.
Most of it is a great time saver and has been invented to bring some kind of help.
We only need to understand how and when to use it, to make most of it, instead of harming or wasting our precious time and creating bad habits for ourselves. 

Using all that fast track options, we need to remember that; just like "Genetically Modified Food" doesn't give us nutrition as it supposed to when grown natural way. A lot of fast courses and fast achievements are not going to give us foundation to build a great monument on top.

There is a simple saying which I believe which I believe brings an essence of great achievement.
You can't open the door before you open the latch. 

Sometimes we get people coming to our classes and ask: how long does it take to upgrade and get higher belt in Gukwoone or higher level at GuruMuayThai. Often question comes from children who haven't even really started yet or even from their parents who I suppose just want their children to proud and happy.
Recently I have answered that question to one of our new teenage student, who didn't hide his disappointment when I have replied that our next exams are going to happen in about next three to four months. When I think that is pretty "Fast", he has said that "it is so long".

I feel that those individuals are misunderstanding the idea and real value of martial arts as a great self development and character building tool.  

Obviously I think that it can only be blamed on our modern approach to life and fast achievements.
I feel that it is in our hands to change the way of thinking, those who we get in contact with,those who are lucky enough to join GMMA Academy and other dedicated and passionate people or teams.

I believe that it is in our hands to guide and teach new generations of what has a real value in the life and how to achieve it. Obviously it means that as a adults, coaches, teachers, parents, role models, we have to apply it in our every days life too.
Instead of constantly looking for shortcuts. We should get of our comfort zone and using our own effort and abilities with great believe and patience work towards of what we desire.
Isn't it true that we value the most all those achievements that we had to work for?
The more work we had to put into it and the harder the journey was: the deepest it stays in our memory and the more joy it brings at the end. 

Our belts, titles, certificates do not make us who we are. It is us who give the value to our belts and titles.
Good Martial artist ( good professional ) is not someone who wear Black belt, have milion likes on social media and bedroom wall covered with certificates and trophies.

Good Martial artist is someone who never stops his improvement and applies Martial arts values in his every day life.

www.GMMA.co.uk

Krystian Ozog Fighter/Instructor, GMMA Academy 07928093841 | KrystianGuruMuayThai@gmail.com | http://www.gmma.co.uk/ | London/Great Britain

Testing your skills

Last Saturday the 30th of April, nine of our GMMA Academy students from Gukwoone Martial arts classes as well as GuruMuayThai fighters have took part in great kickboxing show which took place in Tottenham / North London.
Event that had been organised by great and passionate instructors and promoters from "Martial Way" and "Scorpion Kickboxing " gyms also from London.

"A night of kickboxing" competition was dedicated to complete beginners and junior Martial artists mainly. It was a great, friendly and safe place to test the skills and to get the feeling of stepping into the ring for our young athletes.

We had some wins, we had some losses and we did get one draw.
It was great lesson for our fighters as well as for all the team and myself as a coach.

At the end of yesterdays GuruMuayThai class we have asked those who were fighting at the show to present their trophies and share their experience with rest of the class.

All three of them have agreed that stepping into the ring is much different to what we are used to while training in the class.

It is much different even to intense sparring that we practise every now and then.

Bilal, one of the adult performers has said "My mind went completely blank".

And I think that was a very honest and accurate explanation to what happens when you step into the ring for the first few times in most of the cases. 

Fighting with another skilled and hungry of glory individual in front of the crowd of people, possibly some of our friends and relatives, brings a lot of mind chatter and takes our nervous system to a whole new level.

It takes us while to learn how to control our emotions and to realise that our main opponent or saying more correctly obstacle is not the one standing in opposite corner. It is the one within our own selves in our minds.

That's why I would recommend to everyone who is practising martial arts to test themselves on a competition level. 

I believe that; we can only achieve the full use of our physical skills when we learn how to control our mind. Only then, countless  hours of training our technique is going to bring the best possible effect. 

It is a big circle of abilities that comes with experience like the one we had last Saturday.

We slowly learn how to focus on our performance, on our opponents strengths and weaknesses, while looking for his mistakes that we can use to bring the outcome on our side. The communication and cooperation with our team and coaches and coaches becomes clearer. We begin to concentrate on our own strengths and abilities rather than what we are lacking of. 

Our confidence and self esteem also grows. What is going to help us in every day's life situations. Especially when under the pressure, when being bullied or attacked. 

It gives us supremacy of  self control over those without that experience. What is going to help us make better decisions and stay calmer.

 “Everybody thinks this is a tough man’s sport. This is not a tough man’s sport. This is a thinking man’s sport. A tough man is gonna get hurt real bad in this sport.”

Mike Tyson

www.GMMA.co.uk

Krystian Ozog Fighter/Instructor, GMMA Academy 07928093841 | KrystianGuruMuayThai@gmail.com | http://www.gmma.co.uk/ | London/Great Britain