Boxing and Kickboxing Coach for those who demand more from their training

Find out more about Stefan

• 1) What age did you start playing sport? Tell us about this time or moment in your life.

  My first contact sport was when I was 7 and I did Judo for 2 years. I won 2nd place in my one and only competition. Already at such young age, I was fascinated about how two people can challenge each other in reaction time, fast problem solving, intelligence, technical skills and mental ability to be in the moment and calm. I have also only recently understood that I saw the same fight movie many many times before I picked up Judo. It's interesting, how such things can influence us on a subconscious level. We don't necessarily even think about them, but they still guide us and our decisions.

• 2) What are your favourite sports; those that you practice at a high level, a simple hobby, and a sport that you'd still like to discover?

  I absolutely love sparring in boxing and kickboxing which I do on a weekly basis. My goal is to always have intelligent rounds opposed to the mindless battles for who lands the most punches. But the reality is that we can't always get what we want :). I like quite a lot of other sports, but don't actively participate in them. For example Volleyball, Table Tennis, Swimming, Snowboarding, Jiu Jitzu. I'd love to try Surfing, Downhill Longboarding and Wall Climbing.

• 3) What gives you the motivation and passion to pursue your sport?

  When I started MMA training, I was really struggling to get the advice and guidance in a few different fight gyms in London. It didn't feel like I'm progressing and all I'm doing is injuring myself. The reality is, if you go to classes with 15-30 people, the coaches don't have enough time to give sufficient teaching as there's just no time to focus on 1 student so long that they can "get it". I then decided to just go more often and ended up going 7-9 times a week consistently for 3 years. I did a year of Jiu Jitzu, which was super fun but too dangerous for my liking. But, in Muay Thai, Kickboxing and Boxing, I went all in. I loved how I then started noticing much faster improvements and in all honesty - I was quite obsessed in getting better. So, I always had movement patterns in my mind and I was practising a lot in my remaining free time. My coaches tried to push me to participate in competitions, but I never really felt hungry for that. I genuinely just love to push myself physically and mentally to see how far I can go. It gives me an ultimate sense of achievement within my capabilities. This sport can be unimaginably tough, if you dare to take yourself to the depths.

• 4) Do you have a sporting achievement that you're particularly proud of?

  I can't think of a singular achievement besides achieving a good shape with my fitness and composition over the many years of learning and mistakes of how my body works. Something, that I really take pride in continuously throughout my life, is that I'm a quick learner. I feel like it's easy for me to copy movements and understand the feeling of movement patterns required.

• 5) How have your achievements and challenges made you a better sportsperson?

  The challenges have humbled me a lot. Especially in combat sports, we reach a point where we think "I'm so good", but then someone shows you your place. And the reality is, there's always someone who is better and those people teach us the most directly and indirectly. These instances were so eye-opening and I always learned something new I would've not learned without these experiences. Now, challenges intrigue me completely differently - I'm not afraid to lose or get beat up, because even then, I win.

• 6) If you had to go for a jog with a famous athlete, who would you choose? And what questions would you ask them?

  David Goggins. I would be having deeper in depth conversations about the psychological approaches he has applied to the struggles and over-coming our limits. It is very difficult to force a new mentality onto yourself upon circumstances where your mind and body want to give in to what is easy - giving up pushing yourself or allowing negativity in our lives.

• 7) How do you help people stay motivated?

  I don't believe in it being something that must be maintained. Motivation is useless if you don't have a "can do" attitude, discipline, consistency and/or hard work ethics. With my clients and friends, I don't aim to motivate anyone. However, it seems that sometimes I go into these logical grounded realistic rants of how things are in life and what we have to do. And that sometimes has been translated as "you motivated me". I always push people to improve the much more difficult qualities that should stay with us for the rest of our lives. Combat sports training highly elevates these aspects within us, for sure! Just have to show up for our future self.

• 8) What makes you a Superprof in sports?

  I take quality movement patterns very seriously. I often witness other coaches skipping over very essential technical skills that would help the students progress in the future. Instead, they're gaining bad habits because they didn't really master a basic skill (e.g. rotating hips while maintaining centre balance). Basics in combat sports go so far! Even, if someone is doing it for "fun" or "fitness" - it just looks so bad. Especially, when they also post videos on social media thinking, they're doing something. I put so much effort and time into teaching every individual, what are the required movements and finally, what is the required feeling you should flow through these movements with. This is something my clients value highly with my sessions because it's is rarely talked about in social media and even in many combat classes. This is ideal to be learned in one on one sessions, as it takes good communication and great understanding of different learning styles.