Becoming confident and assertive Part 1...

I feel like I've recently hit a breakthrough in the way I conduct business and work as a teacher. It came down to confidence, experience and just a bit of faking it until I made it. The latter is something that I've really had to work on in my life but it's not just a popular saying. I've been finding that there is more and more truth in it and I enjoy it.

So what's with the picture at the top of the post? It's from April 2011 during my last week or so in the US before I came to Europe to teach. Following the end of long term relationship I had started training at a mixed martial arts gym and got into it a lot. The picture is me mentally preparing ahead of a full contact cage match with a training partner. If you think I look nervous, you're absolutely right.

I've done martial arts for a long time because I like them, I'm a small guy and I have always been scared of violence. Even though I've spent a long time involved in them, I was always scared of fighting and getting hit. That fear has never gone away. I felt a nervous trickle of adrenaline when my instructor called me up to spar and I knew I could (and would) be hit. Moving into a full contact sport like MMA was a major step for me.

I spent a long time believing that I was the only one afraid to get into the ring/cage and fight. Everybody else seemed so calm and ready to go at any time. It was only after faking it for a long time that I realised I needed to fake it less. I could deal with a lot of problems and challenges without backing down. Other people were also scared but they also learned to push it down and be confident.

So I stepped into the cage for nine minutes of full contact fighting.

This is one of the high points in the fight where I started to find good range for my kicks and land them on my buddy. Unfortunately...

...his wrestling and size were a bit much for me and I spent the latter part of the fight getting battered and pounded into the mats. I lost the fight by decision but I didn't quit in the fight (I wanted to), I didn't make excuses about why I lost (it was my lack of confidence in my striking skills that really sealed it) and I didn't give in to my temptation to cancel the fight before it started.

Now I'm not training MMA or other martial arts any more. I've picked up enough injuries and I'm getting old enough that I don't want too much of a bad legacy from my wild younger days.

So how exactly do the photos above correspond to what I'm doing with myself these days since I'm an English teacher, not a cage fighter, right?

Well it's about developing confidence and assertiveness. These are traits that will serve you well in the cage but also very well in life and business too.

Part 2 to follow soon...