Behind the scenes

Summer Olympic Games period is one of those magic and rare times when most of the world gets touched and inspired by sport-ship, rivalry and challenge that it brings along.

For those couple of weeks almost all of us fallows sports which some of them we didn't even knew they exist. We follow progress of our Country Fellows, giving them all possible support and wishing them the best. We do feel proud and excited when another one of our compatriots steps on the podium and gets decorated with medal. When our general classification rank rises up especially when we bit the favourites.

Apart of our patriotic related challenge we also look for another sensation by some of the top athletes in their sports like Usain Bolt, Mo Farah or Andy Murray,etc...

We know that they will give their best and we want to see if they can bit another world record or if there will be some great surprise by one of their rivals who will create new history in that discipline. 

Shortly after Usain Bolt has won another three gold medals in this year Olympics, all net and social media has got flooded with pictures and videos of Usain of all sorts.

I've came across one of them called "Behind the scenes" created by Goalcast which I found very real and interesting.

Usain Bolt explains in simple words that what he does "Behind the Scenes", gets him to where he is and who he is. His reward for all hard work in day to day training, all of his sacrifices and pain comes down to: just over nine seconds performance every four years at the Olympics and few more championships in between. He says clearly that he also has those days when he doesn't feel like training and pushing him self, but his desire of success is stronger that his mind chatter and he keeps going.

If we study history of all successful man in sports, politics, music, film, business or any other industry...

We will find that principles of their work ethic, their attitude and their path to success has a lot in common.

Who do you admire the most?

 

Is it sportsman like; Usain Bolt, Christiano Ronaldo, Mike Tyson, Conor McGregor, Tiger Woods,...?

Is it a singer/musician like; Kanye West, Jay Z, Justin Timberlake, Beyonce, Taylor Swift,... ?

Do you look for inspiration among the actors like; Will Smith or Jim Carey,...?

Or, is that some businessman/entrepreneurs like; Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk,... that you are looking up to?

All of those great achievers as many others will most likely agree, that: like Usain Bolt says in his video, that "competition is the easy part", behind the scenes is where work is done. Where struggle comes. Where comes all of the sacrifices and commitments.

As a spectators we only see the end results. Often attributing their success to their: luck, talent, natural abilities, privileges and other aspects that explain to ourselves why we cannot achieve what they do. We do not think that those individuals are going through life hard ships and meet a lot of obstacles just like everyone of us does. Often much more as they take more risk and they are more exposed to failure. 

It is their attitude towards the life, their passions and desires that drives them through. And makes them work hard towards their goals day after day. Using their failure as another lesson in mastery of their skills.

I would encourage you to get a book or video with biography of any of successful individual that you admire, unless you are able to hear their stories in person ( if you choose someone that you know ). 

So you will experience and discover yourself that we are all having this same opportunities. 

It is what we do behind the scenes what makes us successful.

GMMA Academy

www.GMMA.co.uk

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

  

   

Plateau effect

So let's say that you have just begun your journey with martial arts,  weight training, running or any other activity. Not necessarily sports related. You might have just started playing some instrument, learning some new skills, language, changed your profession, opened your own business or have got into a new relationship.

I am pretty sure that you feel driven and motivated. Even thought that you might have some doubts and concerns, your hope and vision of outcome overcomes everything.
Well, this is what I assume. Otherwise I don't think you would even start it. 

Isn't it truth that; once we get hooked up on something, even if it is just a bit of entertainment, we tend to progress pretty fast at very beginning.

When we enjoy the process and believe in great benefits of actions that we take, time flies super fast and we do not even realise when we become good at it, when we fall deeper into it and effects begin to show up.

Time, monotony, obstacles, tiredness and unfulfilled expectations do influence our drive as we progress with reaching up our goals. Sometimes we do get to some kind of stagnation. When we don't necessarily loose the drive but for many different, mostly own created reasons, we do feel stuck.
We do get to "Plateau effect".

Now, this is where one very important question comes.

What do we do when we reach plateau effect?

Do we back off ?
Finding any possible excuse.
Like:
It wasn't supposed to be long term thing anyway.
It is not our cup of tea.
We should move on and search for something that we are truly made for.

Or do we accept that plateau is natural and this is basically when journey begins?

From now on the growth is going to get much slower if there is going to be any visual growth at all.
Remember that the biggest and most important growth is what happens inside you.
There will be some ups and downs through our progress and motivation.

But this is when we really begin to improve and move on the path towards the mastery of the skills.

Going back in time to my late teens, when I begun lifting some heavy weights and got into a bit of bodybuilding  ( just a shaping up, not competitive level ).
Bench press used to be something I've got obsessed with.
I could clearly see the progress in my performance as well as transformation on my body on week to week basis for first few months. 

Changes would rocket up for few reasons;  my growth age, dietary adjustments, hard and continuous work. Silent challenge among my training peers and last but not least; desire of attracting ladies.

To be honest I did not put as much effort into building up strength and working on visual effect of other parts of my muscles as I did with my chest and ABS for a long time.
I had run regularly.  Swim, play football,  basketball and take up on any other games whenever I could. So I was satisfied with proportion of all my body workouts and would only go through some brief training on other parts of muscles compare to chest.
At this same time I could see benefits of bench press on other muscles too. 

I think that; it was plateau effect on my pressing up, what made me realise that if I want to get better and move up the level.  I do have to make some adjustments in my routines and give a bit more attention to other muscles like: biceps, triceps, shoulders and back muscles, which also do play a key role in bench press performance.

I found this example pretty clear and appropriate to touch on "plateau effect" case. I think that most of us, even those who never trained Martial arts can relate to this case more likely. But then again it does come to us in all other aspects of our lives. Professional, family, hobby or business related.

This is what I have done with my lifting case:

Physically
Apart of adding up training of other muscles and testing new types of workouts. I would look for ways to improve my diet and recovery/training ratio.

Mentally
I would accept that I have reached to my top level at the time. And more than anything else I had to make sure that I do not drop below level I have already reached. So I  wouldn't waste all the hard work and commitments I've put in place to get to that point. As well as I would believe that things will change at the right time if I constantly search and work on it. I would keep on reminding myself: my motives, goals, visions and benefits of particular actions. I would brief myself up on how far i have already gone since i have first started.

I think that the biggest motivational booster in my case is; awareness of my time, effort, sacrifices investment and being afraid of wasting any of these.

This same process I could relate to my running, fighting, meditating, relationships, career and so on... experience.

Never give up! Never back down!
Follow your dreams!

GMMA Academy
"Sporting, Inspiring, Greatness"

www.GMMA.co.uk

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

Outdoor training

Personally I do think that we are spending too much time indoors these days.
Working, travelling, socializing even training in most of the cases, especially in big cities, happens in some sort of complex buildings. Buildings or closed spaces like; fully equipped offices, comfortable cars, trains, coaches, coffee shops, restaurants, all those super convenient gyms etc...

In my very tight schedule I do spend a lot of time driving and travelling. I get connected to WiFi whenever I can at all sorts of coffee shops and restaurants. As well as I like my gym to be available whenever i want, so I can do my workout with all sorts of equipment in one place, fallowed up by sauna session and nice cold shower. It is all very comfy.

One great habit I have grown for over 15 years of my life, is that I do start and often finish my day with bit of run around the blocks. With no matter of the weather ( unless extremely heavy rain :-). I do hit the road every day. Hot, cold, snowing or raining. Nothing does stop me, it is my routine.
If I have to start my day earlier, I will also get up earlier to fit my routine in.
To make most of the summer, I do try to follow up my morning run by various of workouts in the local park as I have mentioned in some of my recent posts ( "Resistance bands", "Skipping rope" ) .

Due to the summer break at schools, some of our GMMA Academy activities have stopped too. We decided to fill that gap, just like we did last year, with some outdoor practice, till our Gukwoone classes in Hambrough Primary school start back again in September.
Plan is simple: meeting up every Thursday outside the gym where we do our regular GuruMuayThai classes at quarter to seven. Then take a fifteen minutes walk to one of the most beautiful landmarks of West London: Holland Park.

The idea of this kind of practice is more of a social event, rather than "push over the limit" kind of training.  It is more of a sharing and developing our skills and passion of MuayThai/Martial arts,while spending some quality time with great, like minded people. The biggest bonus of all that, is being out in the fresh air, surrounded by peaceful nature.

Yesterday, was the very first of our GMMA outdoor practice Thursdays. Weather seemed to be OK for most of the day. A bit cloudy with few drizzles in the afternoon. But nothing that would scare us and give us reason to postpone the event. Till quarter of an hour before the meeting time. Right when me and one of my team mates Fillip have just turned up, rain would pour down heavily.

Oh well.
We are a team of doers, "The Winners Team", we wouldn't back off. Instead of finding excuses we always look for the solutions, as the winners do. So we have decided to move into the car park of the shopping centre that the gym belongs to.
Dry floor, roof over the head and quite bit of free space, gave us really good alternative.
Not much of a grass, trees and birds environment ( apart of few pigeons also hiding from the rain ). But still, we were already there determined to make most of it.

We haven't brought much of equipment along. Just dressed up in outdoor training kit, with pair of boxing gloves, hand wraps, gum shields and skipping ropes in our gym bags.

Starting up steady, jogging back and forward with some exercises in between on about fifty metres length. Slowly getting the blood flowing faster. We would get to the point when we would put in an element of challenge, which was: ten, fifty metres races. That would get us warm enough to put in quick full body stretch.
Then with boxing gloves on we would partner up and in sparring mood we would go through some boxing techniques on one side and ducking and waving on the other. Similar workouts with kicking and avoiding as well as mixed kicking and punching together. All that would be timed up by two minute rounds with thirty seconds breaks and changes of partners every two rounds. Before the start of each round we would give fifty of quick punches, glove to glove. Or ten left and ten right quick kicks each, also using the gloves as a pads. Then we would move to light contact sparring, one round with each person. Finishing off with clinching sparring. We would all agree that it is amazing how time flies and how much you  when you actually enjoy yourself and put yourself in slightly different environment than usually.

Hopefully next week is going to be sunny so we can enjoy even more in the park.

www.GMMA.co.uk

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

Lesson from rowing team

Sunday afternoon, making the most of sunny weather, we have decided to make a short family outing to beautiful Eton town in our home county of Berkshire.
While my wife and her sister have been keeping active on rollerblades with our beloved dog running around.
I've been giving my body well deserved rest, sitting on the grass and enjoying peaceful surroundings of Dorney Lake by Eton College Rowing centre. Which has been home of rowing competitions during Summer Olympic Games in 2012. Now it is a famous spot for people from around the area who like a bit of active rest like; rowing, jogging, cycling, skateboarding, rollerblading etc. 

I've been sitting on the shore, right opposite the rowing track which has been actually in use by the local team for one of their regular training.
Every now and then I would see four or five different types of boats passing by at pretty good pace with athletes putting in great effort.

Each boat had their coach / team member giving them some kind of directions or booster talk through the megaphones while riding bicycles along the track.

As always in this kind of situations, I would observe and analyse the specifics of this interesting sport.

I've got a little bit of experience in leisure rowing, kayaking and use of rowing machine myself. What makes me roughly understand that it takes a lot of strength, stamina and right technique to row fast and steady for a long distance.  

But watching on live, professional athletes who specialize in paddling, I could see and analyse from the distance what it takes to make a good rower or rowing team.

Rowing is an incredible full body workout with a lot of force on the legs, which have been constantly bringing all body back and forward on sliding sits. Obviously arms, shoulders, back and core muscles are being under great pressure too.

But just like in the boxing and many other combat sports, because of visual illusion, that it is the upper body which makes most of the work we tend to skip the significance of the foundation; work of the legs.

Also just like in fighting game, I could see clearly that against all odds, physical strength and preparation is just a half of the success. 

Technique, communication, synchronized coordination and team work in general are the keys to the success. 

Every single stroke counts. The way the oar and its spoon comes in and out of the water, the way it travels back to get another deep. Vertically while pushing the water to get the speed and parallel to the water surface on return to not loose the shoot already gained.  All of the moves have been very tight and narrow to take as little time as possible at its most efficiency. Just like with fighting techniques; I could relate importance of striking in the fastest possible way, while staying protected at all times to not loose already earned advantage.

What amazed me the most; was how synchronized were the teams of multiple rowers. With two, three, four, eight athletes operating single or double sided oars. Bond and understanding of the gang keeps the whole koncept moving perfectly in the right direction. In distinction from most of other team sports as football, basketball, etc, where we always find some superstars.  In rowing teams every member brings equal value to performance. Extraordinary strength of one individual doesn't  really bring much of  advantage if not being used according to the team work. It might be right opposite it could actually mess up harmony of all gang.

Team work, motivation, inspiration.

GMMA Academy

www.GMMA.co.uk

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

My purpose

I have recently been asked by one of my mentors and GMMA Academy directors Arriane Eva Morrin to scribble down short bio of mine that we could use as a Team description on one of our upcoming GMMA Academy projects run by "Foundation Nutrition Trust".

I thought that I could share it with you in form of the blog to give you brief essence who I am and what is my purpose.

*Hi my name is Krystian Ozog

“In my experience as a professional fighter and Martial arts coach I have learned that it is incredible what we are capable of when we remove self-doubt and limitations from our minds.

All we need is a vision and discipline in whatever we want to achieve.”

I am 31 and I have moved from Poland to UK over 11 years ago.

Sports of different kinds have always been big part of my life.

I have always dreamed of becoming professional athlete, beginning with; footballer, basketball player, marathon runner… I have been trying all sorts of physical activities.

As the time was passing by and life was moving on I would concentrate on getting better quality of life keeping my dreams to myself and staying fit the best I could in between work, education and other commitments.

As I have never stopped challenging myself and stayed open minded to new skills opportunities.

In my early twenties I was lucky to meet great people, my GMMA coaches who helped me discover two biggest passions of mine; Martial Arts and working with people.

As a professional fighter with quiet rich record of fights on national and international level in different styles and categories, I have earned great experience which has been crowned with few titles;  the most precious and recent one is B.I.K.M.A middleweight low kick kickboxing professionalworld champion. As a fighter and GMMA Academy instructor I have earned great experience that I am sharing every day by co-running Gukwoone martial arts for children and GuruMuayThai (Thai kick boxing) classes for adults and children in different London locations.

I do really believe that sports / Martial arts are great self-development tools for everyone to remain in good physical, mental and spiritual health.

Constantly developing myself and learning from others is something that I value the most of my passion / my career.*

GMMA Academy "Sporting, Inspiring, Greatness"

www.GMMA.co.uk

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

Resistance Bands

Going back to one of my recent blogs titled "Skipping rope", there is few simple, small and lightweight tools that I use and carry with me at most of the time. Running shoes, skipping rope, resistance bands, and Suspension ropes.
Each one of those, used in various ways, with a bit of imagination and will power can bring very complex workout in very simple environment.
You can use them almost everywhere.

There is many different types of resistance bands that can help you make your training more efficient, more interesting, and push the boundaries.

"Loop cross-fit bands" for example; can be used instead or in addition to weights. Simple moves like squats, sit ups, press ups, bench press, handicapped with loop bands can really bring a lot of good struggle and make your workout complete. I see ladies in the gym working on the pull up frames, supporting themselves with cross-fit bands while performing the pull ups.

"Heave duty resistance bands" with attachment bits at both ends and different types of hands/legs collars or belts that they can be attached to. What a fun! What a workout!
I have been introduced to this type of fine equipment years ago by one of our GMMA Academy team Mates; Jimmy, who is well known of his passion to training and and great collection of exercise gadgets.
We used to organize special training directed by Jimmy every now and then. When Jimmy would pull out his toys and in some funky East London locations, like; car parks, block of flats corridor, park etc,... Jimmy would make us work like never before.
We would:
Do some sprints and jumps with extra strong and long band connected at the back with use of belt.
Crawl, frog jump, lunges walk forward and back while also being pulled by the rope.
Lots of different types of pad work and sparring workouts with resistance bands connected at the back or directly to the limbs that we were working on.
Adding up some more simple equipment like: medicine balls, cones, hurdles,... Makes use of the bands limitless and fun.

"Yoga bands" are my personals best. They are not taking much room I do always keep one or two in my gym bag, right next to the skipping rope. They do not give as much resistance as "crossfit bands" but they still do. There is also different levels of resistance they can give and if you wish to make workout harder you can always double them up or simply shorten them.
Shadowboxing, punching pads or doing press ups with each end of the band wrapped up in either hand and stretched over the back. Shadow kicking or kicking the pads with band tied up leg to leg or post ( bench leg, etc ) to leg. That's just some of the regular activities that I would do on the days when I cannot make it to the gym and cannot hit the bags.
Trust me, your muscles work differently and both ways; in and out while hitting connected to the band. When you not used to them, after good workout, you will most likely discover muscles you never new you've got. Especially at your back, back of your arms and legs. That's why is worth to use them.

"Yoga Bands" (as its name says) as well as "loop cross-fit bands" can also be great stretching equipment. Giving a little pull back or gradually increasing the stretch.

To make our training and our body more efficient, we need to vary the way we exercise. Trigger our brains and muscles with new activities. Make it interesting and more fun.

www.GMMA.co.uk

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

Chinese bamboo tree

Looking for new and better ways to improve my skills and my life in general. I've been searching for tips and inspiration everywhere I go, everyday single day.

There is few simple and commonly accessible, for most of us, sources that I use daily to nourish my drive and development. Beside physical and mental training I do try to make daily use of great tools like books, magazines and Internet.

I do not spend much time watching the telly. But I do get all stuff I want to see and hear on You Tube which I do listen to instead of radio while travelling.

As I have mentioned in the past few posts; I do find my inspiration not only in sports related stories. But also in music performed by certain artists. I do get really positive feelings over life changing Talent shows like: X Factor, ... Got Talent, The voice, etc...

Reading and listening to life stories and biographies of some remarkable people with all sorts of backgrounds and professions. Listening to certain pod casts and concepts shared by organisations like Ted talks. All that along with working and being surrounded by Great people does give me constant boost and helps me to take another step forward in becoming better me.

On my way of searching new and fresh advises I have found and I am still finding many really worth listening stories and individuals which I do often go back to.
Naming only few, speeches of people like: Mike Tyson, Michael Jordan,Sadh Guru, Tony Robins, Warren Buffet, Steve Jobs, Jim Carrey,Will Smith, Keanu Reeves and Les Brown are kind of mantra i do often repeat.

Very recently I have gone back to speeches compilation by one of my favourite motivational speakers:Les Brown. Who has beautifully compared our path of improvement to journey of growing Chinese Bamboo Tree. Les Has mentioned that it takes an average five years of constant watering and caring over the seed of that tree, before it comes up through the ground. But once its through it takes it only about five weeks to reach their full size which can grow up to 27 metres ( 90 feet ).
Chines Bamboo Trees are well known of their strength, flexibility, nutritious and many other values what makes them find wide range of use in different kind of industries.

However, Les also mention that in five years of constant watering, nourishing and nurturing the plant, one day of neglect in caring can kill the wonderful wannabe super plant.
And he has asked one very important question "Was it five weeks or five years that it took the tree to reach to its full size?".

We would love to have everything and everything right now.
But the truth is that the real values and solid foundation can only be build over the years of persistent and honest working on our goals.

This apply to all aspects of our lives: professional, hobbies, passions, relationships, healthy living ...

"Sporting, Inspiring, Greatness"

www.GMMA.co.uk

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo

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