There is always someone better than you

There is a lot of rumour regarding last Sundays UFC event, especially two world title fights between Conor McGregor vs Nate Diaz and Holly Holm vs Miesha Tate.
I see people sharing their thoughts towards the losses of both Champions.
There is a lot of support but a lot of critics too.

In my opinion both defeated fighters are going to come back much stronger and wiser after that experience. Both fighters are great warriors and athletes who have just proved their quality by the way they talk about their losses.

In today's world run by media and money we are being fed with believe that the real Champion should never loose and if one happen to loose a lot of people think that his prime has departed.
We tent to forget about the actual idea of sports rivalry.
A lot of people think that looses on fighters record showing his weakness.

From my experience it doesn't matter how many looses you've got on your record.
What really matters is the way you are facing your failure and the way you come back after.
Someone wise has said that it doesn't matter how good you are. there will always be someone better than you. Those who have been winning only I suppose haven't really faced real challenge yet.
Sports. martial arts is something that don't matter how long you train and how good you are, there will always be room to improve.

Another very important factor is that when you are on top, you become everyone aim.
All pretenders to the tron are working hard to get your crown.

All we need to remember is the idea of the sportsmanship at the first place.
Idea of improvement our, mental, physical and emotional skills to the highest possible level.

www.GMMA.co.uk

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

Back to the drawing board

Winter Time brings me back a lot of positive memories from my childhood back in Poland.
Snowy and icy conditions, which would never be much of a disruptions of our every days activities.It would rather be more of a diversity. We would really enjoy playing football, ride bicycle or playing other games on the snow. We would take it as a challenge and addition to our routine.

Then we would rest, warm up our soaked, frozen and possibly bruised bodies, sitting at home with hot cup of honey and lemon tea while watching most likely some winter sports tournaments.
One of my favorite sport to fallow during the winter time would be ski jumping.

So when I have been at home last Christmas I couldn't miss it and when we had a chance we have watched ski jump tournament again.

Watching it and listening to the commentators I have been analyzing it and finding some useful tips and lessons from the fellows athletes and coaches.

Even thought that the ski jumping season has been quite short; for instance in 2015/2016 it begins 21st of November and finishes on 20th of March. And I would think that all the elite team jumpers would try to do their best at every single competition, unless they are seriously injuries.
One of the experts commentating the competition has mentioned that the main team of Polish national ski jumpers is going to take time off from from few big fallowing tournaments. There is few reasons from what I have understood. One of them would be giving the chance of experience at the great events to our upcoming athletes.
And as commentator has mention, the main reason would be: giving the elite athletes some time to rest their brain and bodies away from the big slides and big pressure.
Coaches would choose the right moment to make sure that they wouldn't miss out on the most prestigious events and on general classification as a individuals and as a team.
They would take time off to recover their bodies and minds. As well as they would have time to correct their mistakes and adjust the techniques on the small slides, in the back garden :-)
Commentator has called this procedure "Back to the drawing board Time".

It makes sense. Doesn't it?

In my experience, going from one fight to the other on a weekly basis for a long period, brings some advantages as well as disadvantages.
When the amateur boxing season kicks in, all kickboxing fights, work load and other duties mix up. My time schedule becomes very tight and my training becomes very essential.
It is more of a fighters training, with focus on speed, stamina, strength and conditioning.
When it comes to techniques; I would concentrate on my strengths mainly with little time  in between the fights to correct mistakes from the last one.
There would not be much time for a fancy stuff and some addition to my vocabulary.

Obviously there is a lot of good about it too. As that teaches me to stay focused, be consistent and never give up in any situation. It teaches me higher level of self discipline and time management.
It makes me go beyond my own limits and helps me understand myself.
It is great experience!
Which I believe I am coping with well.

But then, when I have heard "Back to the drawing board" saying, it made me think of how important it is to step back every now and then and forget about the "Bigger picture" we are creating.
Step back and remind ourselves techniques we were going to use, adjust and modify our product if necessary. Get out of the routine driven by the commitments.
Remind ourselves purpose of what we are doing as well as allow ourselves for a bit of fun in the process of limitless learning.

It isn't easy to decide ourselves to step back. Not in my case. I am determined and sett to improve.
My life experience as well as sports passion has taught me to work hard and never give up.
It is important to have a coaches who can read in between the sentences of help us out with their own experience.
It is important to listen to people from outside the gym,( our friends and family ) who don't necessary have to be an experts to see that we could change something for better and give us valuable feedback.
It is important to listen to our bodies and our gut feelings too.

Krystian Ozog
GMMA Academy 

www.GMMA.co.uk

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

"A new year is like a blank book.."

"A new year is like a blank book, and the pen is in our hands. It is our chance to write a beautiful story for ourselves."

I do find above quote, as a very inspiring and essential advice to fulfil our existence on this planet.
However I would like to add up my own line to it, line which would make it complete to me.
"...beautiful story for ourselves. The more people we help to write their stories along the way, the more beautiful our own becomes."

I do strongly believe in our existence as a one massive community on this planet, in this universe.
Every single being has been there for a reason. Sun, moon, seas, plants, bacteria, animals, humans and so on ...
We are all having purpose on this world. We should use our full potential and support the others the best we can to bring more meaning to our own lives.

Bearing all that in mind, next step we should take in writing our book could be making decision of what genre would our own book be.

Would I choose to picture my life in fantasy or comic model of book? With many non fiction characters, episodes and colourful pages which are very attractive to readers eyes, but not telling much about the true story of mine.

Would I choose to write a Tragedy? By not trying and not getting what I really want from my life.
By blaming everything and everyone for my own failures. By letting fears and insecurities to take over.

Would I chose to write my own life as comedy type? Comedy that brings smile to others people faces. Smile which helps them feel better knowing that it is not only them who are having the "Jackass" moments of their lives.

I believe that my very own story is going to have bits of every possible style or genre in it.
As we are all having ups and downs, heroic moments like from another part of avengers book, moments of weaknesses  and disbelieves which sounds like tragedy,...

However, I do really hope that my autobiography as well as process of creating it will inspire and help others along. So my life gets deeper meaning and I fulfil my existence the best I can.

Have a wonderful New Year Everyone.
Wishing you and all your loved ones lots of good health, joy and happiness.
Wishing you that "Year 2016" part of your great life story becomes the best and most successful part so far.

Krystian
GMMA Academy  

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

Building up your emporium

Every single morning we all make one, very important decision. 

We decide for ourselves how the rest of our day is going to look like.
Not only by taking certain actions; exercising, meditating, eating well, etc...
But mainly by our attitude towards possible forthcoming challenges.

By choosing the way we feel about ourselves and difficulties that comes our way.
As most adult people understand, life is full of them and the way we deal with those obstacles is going to define how our life is going to look like.

If you are a bit of modern action man/woman, set to progress and having ambitious goals.
Very rarely you will wake up felling totally fresh, without any fatigue.
Especially when you exercise extensively and still carry on with full time work and other human being related activities.
You most likely wake up with sore muscles, maybe with some injuries.
You most likely lacking on recovery sleep and other comforts that could bring you "short term happiness".
You most likely wake up with long list of the tasks that you want to achieve during this day.

Do you? !

You are not the only one!
We all get that felling.

I do believe that to build up great, powerful and stable emporium,takes a long time and it is full of ups and downs journey.

There is going to be many obstacles and difficulties like the weather conditions, natural disasters, wars, epidemics, political or family related problems and other catastrophes...
If you want to achieve your greatness you need to learn on your mistakes and embrace the failure. Believe in yourself and command community of your emporium wisely.
To be great commander you need to be flexible and learn how to adjust to constantly changing situations, while listening to the needs of your people. You need to show great respect, love and patience to your soldiers and ally.
And what is very important,  you need to make sure that they morals and motivation doesn't go down when the hard times comes.

Great commander,  great leader is also a great motivational speaker.
But if there is any doubt or insecurity in commanders voice people will feel it and they will just follow the orders without spark in their actions.
That's why it is essential for the commander to have a great vision, pure intentions, believe and knowledge of how he or she runs the emporium.

Keeping your body fit and strong is just like looking after your army and arsenal.

Having good, healthy diet. Plenty of sleep, rest and hydration. I would compare to looking after your ally, which you want to make sure are always on your side and never turn their back on you, especially when you are ready to fight.

To inspire others and make them believe in themselves and our vision. We first of all have to believe ourselves and lead them by example. 

When we feel tired, broken  and demotivated is worth to make few steps back and look at the motives that have brought us to this point and made us choose the way we are at first place.

Then we could consider some changes or adjustments in our strategy to prevent future burn out of our army and ally.

We have to trust ourselves as well as the mother nature. We are all born to achieve the greatness.

Is only us who can decide how our life is going to look like. By making those everyday choices of how we feel about our lives. 

Stay strong, stay focused, stay driven.

www.GMMA.co.uk

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

What we can see is just a top of an iceberg

Being an athlete / fighter and coach is an amazing journey.
I can't imagine better way of learning about human  psychology and abilities of myself and others.

Learning and developing physical skills is an essential part of the improvement for an athlete.
But what I have learnt from my own experience is that what we can see is just a top of an iceberg.
It is obviously unnecessary to have certain skills and abilities to compete amongst other professionals.
But the factors that going to make you float steadily on the huge territory of the ocean are hidden deep under the water.

Factors like persistence, physical and mental stamina, will power and never give up attitude/attitude of a warrior.
These are what you learn along the skills when pushing yourself to the next level in any sports. These are the values that can help you stay alive when the storm or heat hits you. These are the real reason why I have decided to dedicate my life to fighting sports.

It is important to have a vision of where you wanna get to and remember how far you have  already gone.
As sometimes it is only you who know how much you are going through and how many obstacles from the bottom of the ocean you have avoided.
Even when you get caught by some rock sticking out which is going to stop you for a while.
Current of your desire and wind of your faith is going to pull you out and help you to get back on the right track.

Obviously I do understand that if the top of the iceberg is not very attractive, if it hasn't got enough space to rest on for others. No seagull or penguin will find it useful and doesn't matter how much it has hidden underneath, it will not have value to the society.

This is exactly how I see my career as well as most of the professional athletes.
My fight record and titles are only my CV.
I value the most all the experience and what I have been learning along.

Of course I wish to have only defeats on my records. And it would be great if they all have been achieved before the time again the top fighters.
But the truth is that; when crashing with other huge icebergs in the middle of the ocean very few of them will crack after one single hit.
They all have they own story and hidden depth.
As long as I am going right direction with right harmony and respect to others who are floating around they own way. I know that I will get stronger, wiser and bigger.
What is going to create more space to the society to rest on and help them with theirs existence.

www.GMMA.co.uk

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

Dealing with negative thoughts

Have I done enough work?
Was I working on right aspects and strategies for this particular event?
What if after all this work and sacrifices I will make some silly mistake which will make me loose?
What is my opponent capable of ? What does he know ? Was he working harder than me?

Have I had enough rest? What if I am a bit rusty as I haven't fought for a while?
What if I haven't had enough recovery time since my last bout?
What if my Injury will get worst during the fight and I will loose or match will have to be stopped?

These and so much more crosses my mind before the fights.

Questions, doubts and self talks are inseparable part of our existence which intensity grows up along with the importance of happening that we are overcoming.
I don't think that it matters how old you are or how much experience you've got we are always going have this kind of thoughts in our heads. I think that it is in our nature.
To stop this kind of thoughts we would have to stop our brains which one very wise men Sadhguru has said cannot be done as long as we are alive. He said that our brains cannot stop working just like our hearts cannot stop biting and our livers cannot stop functioning.

The only matter we have some impact on is; the way we deal with overcoming obstacles.
The way we see ourselves in particular situation and what benefits we or others going to get out of it.

I have seen recently some bits of TV reality show "Special Forces - Ultimate Hell Week" and full episode of "Discovery secret of human brain" ( you can watch it on You Tube ), where both resources where showing what makes human being stronger, faster, more responsive and adaptive to a world under pressure.
In both episodes they were showing some extreme training of special forces aspirants which have been trained and examined under extremely difficult and stressful for human beings circumstances.

After all, most of those aspirants ( especially those who succeed ) realise that they are capable of doing things that they would never think of. They realise that all the worries were created in their heads and the only way to fight it back is to conquer their own negative minds.

Watching and hearing  this kind of stories makes me think that what this people find in their extraordinary training, many of us find in every days life, battling with some difficult life situations.
Makes me think that my way of training my brain and getting through the life has always been sport challenges and for a long time it has been my Martial arts and fighting experience.

It doesn't really matter how strong your body is. If your brain gives up you cannot do nothing.

 www.GMMA.co.uk

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