Boxing and the lightbulb moment part 3

Boxing and the lightbulb moment 

The 3rd light

This light is still very new to me and I'm not sure if I have the words to explain it but I'm going to try.

My footwork is pretty good , I normally get compliments on it , I can pivot , shuffle , step back , cut off , transition from outside to inside and control my opponent with my feet

However my coach constantly tells me to take smaller steps , when I do it's common to hear him call " even smaller yet beck" " shorten that step up , smaller than you think" 

It's something that until now my mind wouldn't and couldn't comprehend I just didn't get it. I thought my steps were small.

Martin Wheeler came to our school and gave a seminar , I listened , he gives away pearls of wisdom in every sentence he utters I swear.

In one of his conversations with a student he asked them why they were training JiuJitsu  , what the goal was and he struggled with his response till he got to the point " to learn "

Martin asked him , what if you went and trained and instead of trying to win you let yourself fail? 

Interesting 

The idea was planted 

What if when I sparred instead of trying to win/beat my opponent I allowed myself to fail

Why couldnt i do those smaller steps?

What was holding me back? Obviously something was.

So #1 I realized something (myself, my fear ) was blocking me from doing those smaller steps

#2 I realized I was afraid to fail , I was afraid that if I did a smaller step and I did it wrong I would be punished for it by my opponent , I was also afraid I wouldn't do it right , afraid of what would happen as a consequence.

So I knew to be able to do the smaller step I had to stop blocking myself , I had to allow myself to fail to face my fear

So I did and I learnt more things , my boxing stepped up in the game 

Because when I made that small step the whole world changed and with it the way I thought about it.

Boxing and the lightbulb moment part 2

Boxing and the lightbulb moment continued

The 2nd Light

At this point when I had my second major realization in boxing I had been sparring awhile

I'd progressed from sparring at our gym to visiting a local Mexican gym and getting sparring in there with the young boys a couple of times a week.

Sparring there was hard! As they'd say "there's always a fight here any day of the week"

At this point I was constantly hearing keep your chin down , stare at their chest not their face , don't look up down stand up"

I thought my chin was down , I thought I was staying down pretty damn low , hey I was starting to feel pretty confident with myself . I'd get right in that ring trade blows and then spend time looking at what I'd done. Only I didn't realize that's what I was doing , I was looking to see if I had hit , if I'd made a good conection , I was curious as to the look on their face after I hit them , what would their emotions show? Are they bleeding ? Black eye? Did it hurt? Am I strong?

I had completely the wrong mind set.

Well one day I was sparring over there and they brought in a new sparring partner, he caught me right on the chin , right on the sweet spot. I had been flashed out before which was always this white light, I had had black eyes and fat lips , but I hadn't been hit so hard that I was left right on the very thin edge of consciousness the light I saw was a deep dark purple it scared me.

I don't remember the rest of that round but I do know the sparring ended early that day.

I went home shaken up , I didn't talk about it I kept it inside but that day was the first day I ever wanted to quit boxing.

I sat at home an sulked , I wallowed , I avoided the gym for a week which for a gym rat like me was a big deal . Then I had my lightbulb moment. I talked to myself " that sucked right?" " well yeah" " ok so you can walk away from it , you can quit or" "or what?" " or you can do what your coach has been telling you since day one , keep your chin down , stay down low if your chin was protected you wouldnt have been hit like that" So I made a vow instead of quitting I was just going to keep my chin down , it was that easy . So simple.

I've never been hit like that since , I got to keep doing a sport I love and i make sure to protect myself at all times I don't look or check to see what I've done , I place my shots and I concentrate on myself.

Boxing and the lightbulb moment

Boxing and the lightbulb moment

The first light

I've been in and around boxing for many years now and during these years I've had 3 main moments that around here we reference as lightbulb moments.

The last one occurred about 4 days ago which is what has led me to write this.

The first time I experienced it I was very new to sparring , I had started working with Stephen Ivory who was and probably always will be my favourite sparring partner he has a gift of knowing how to push me , make me pay for my mistakes and challenge me while still not making me afraid to try things out . When I used to spar everything moved so fast , it was as if they world had sped up , I couldn't process everything that was happening and I felt like I was purely trying to survive rather than actually do or achieve anything , sound familiar?

The advice I was constantly give was "relax , just relax" I find myself saying the same things to the new sparrers I train now.

" Alright I get it just relax , I'm trying to relax" I'd mutter inside my head 

Well I just kept on getting in there , the world would get faster and I'd just try to survive , one day I got tired of being so fearful or stressing out so much during the sparring and with a sort of shrug of my shoulders and an air of giving up I said to myself " fine you win I'm just going to relax , I give up , just relax that's all I have to do relax who cares if I get it" so I did I relaxed and guess what the whole world slowed down , right there and then mid spar in the second round , I started to see openings , I could see what was coming at me and make plans , I could breathe , the warehouse itself got brighter it truly seemed like a lightbulb had been turned on . Did I spar flawlessly that round? No not at all , but I sparred better. My coach that was watching it saw and knew that something had changed in me at that moment.

There was a beautiful quote I had found at the time that I really related to the experience but it was many years ago and I've long since forgotten it but in a very simplified way it was along the lines of everytime you learn something new the whole world changes.