Boxing and the light bulb moments #4

Coaching Without Ego

At the beginning of my boxing career it was just a small stable so I had the benefit of having my Coach to myself fairly often. As time passed new people came in to the stable. I saw them as a threat.

Because I had the advantage of being in the gym longer than the others I became used as a demo to help show form and techniques and it felt good to be called upon in this way. After I became pregnant I had to take time away from fight training, when I returned to the stable after giving birth naturally my roles changed.

Although I was still fighting at a professional level I was finding myself spending more and more time on coaching rather than training.

This wasn't by conscious choice and I felt the need to prove my worth and position.

I'd find myself subconsciously going too hard leading to me hurting people and putting them off learning the sport that I loved and that had saved me.

I didn't want to be that person. Realizing my approach wasn't working I knew I had to do some internal work and self reflection.

Through this process I had the realization that I didn't have my students best interests at heart only mine and I knew I had to learn how to coach beyond ego.

To do that I taught myself how to view the present moment training the student with clarity rather than through a lens of judgement and bias that was was there to protect and reinforce my own identity or ego.

I learnt how to rewire my brains default way of responding and how to lead with no no attachment to the outcome by paying attention to and learning to feel my students emotions and energy and then applying compassion and understanding of shared universal emotions.