Master Victor: [00:00:00] Welcome back everybody to another episode of The Unlimited You. Today we’re going to be talking about self-esteem and confidence. We’ve been talking about how martial arts affects us outside of life in like the physical and the mental aspects of performance. We’ve been talking about meditation, breathwork, and all these different elements that are really important.
Master Victor: And one of the big things that happen when you study martial arts is you retain this sense of confidence and being able to not only learn things to perform the things you need to do but that if you keep trying, you’re going to be able to attain your goal.
Master Victor: I think the biggest application of confidence and that self-esteem is in a self-defense situation, of course. And this becomes very critical in surviving many different and difficult situations.
Master Victor: Let’s say you’ve never been in any kind of martial arts training, and you get attacked on the street, you are mostly going to hit that fight or flight reflex, which is probably going to happen anyways, [00:01:00] and you’re going to be overloaded with adrenaline.
Master Victor: You’re either going to run, you’re going to be scared, or you’re going to exert too much energy, and especially if somebody, let’s say they’re bigger than you, they’re stronger than you, they’re faster than you.
Master Victor: Oftentimes, a lot of people get defeated in their own heads before they get a chance to properly defend themselves before they can even like, you know, they’ve defeated themselves before the situation actually starts. And that’s dangerous.
Master Victor: Like we, we often defeat ourselves mentally before we even get to actually perform the things that we do. And this is critical and it’s powerful. How much your mind can affect you in that kind of situation?
Master Victor: I’ve experienced this where, you know, earlier in my training I’d be put up against, you know, somebody who was just better than me in sparring faster, they’d be landing strikes and I’d be so in my head of me like, Oh, I know they’re going to hit me if I throw this kick. And I’m hesitant to throw kicks, to try things out.
Master Victor: And it took a while to just constantly being exposed to the [00:02:00] danger and saying, Oh, I’m okay. I’m still here, I can handle this. I can breathe and navigate the situation better in a calm state rather than freaking out and then over-exerting myself and then like you end up defeating yourself before things even happen. And that sucks. That’s horrible.
Master Victor: So through our training, right? We expose people to different levels of skill. Around the blue belt, a lot of different students will become what we call dangerous because they know enough technique to cause real severe damage, but they don’t yet have developed the control to pull back or hit lightly and precisely enough.
Master Victor: That, you know, they can like touch you and let you know that they could have hurt you. It’s like full power usually or most of the power in there and around the purple belt, the red belt you really start to learn that control.
Master Victor: [00:03:00] And what we do with blue belts is we’ll take them and earlier belts too, and higher belts too, but especially around blue, purple and green belt will expose them to much higher skilled students that, or even the teachers, and they start sparring them.
Master Victor: And this is where you really kind of get a different higher level of intensity. And they’ll see that, you know, there’s this person who’s maybe faster, maybe stronger, maybe bigger, and what you see first is that they defeat themselves in their mind. This is far different.
Master Victor: They’re pulling things back, they’re afraid to throw shots, they don’t move as well, their bodies clenched up. And what happens is they use up a lot more energy very fast, and then they get tired.
Master Victor: They can’t last as long in a self-defense situation and let’s say that’s out on the street and you run out of energy, that could end up being really bad where you can’t defend yourself if you’re completely exhausted, you’ve probably seen this in like UFC fights, the people who don’t train cardio very well, [00:04:00] they can’t last against somebody who has that conditioning, and this is very important.
Master Victor: And when we expose them to that higher level skill, that stronger, faster person, and they get used to it. They say, you begin to see yourself and you start to say, Oh, I’m not in danger, I’m okay. I can relax.
Master Victor: And I always tell them, I was like, look, you are approaching this from a fear-based perspective. And before you even get to defend yourself, you’ve already defeated yourself in your head.
Master Victor: You’re moving slow and I’ve experienced this. You’re not moving as fast, you’re not doing the techniques and then you compromise the self-defense aspect that you’ve learned.
Master Victor: Eventually you get used to it, and become comfortable. The calmness sets in and rather than being all tight, you start to loosen up. Rather than being all worried, the mind calms down and you’re able to see things better.
Master Victor: You’re able to see holes, you’re able to [00:05:00] see telegraphing and patterns a lot easier. And that gives you an edge, that gives you the ability to do what you need to do in a chaotic situation, retaining that inner calmness.
Master Victor: We can only get there by being confident and knowing that the techniques that we’ve learned are going to actually be useful. And you can only do that by training and then applying it because confidence comes from doing and using it and knowing it’s going to work.
Master Victor: If I just have a theory in my head that, yeah, I throw this punch and it’s going to throw somebody halfway across the room, but I’ve never practically used that technique. I’m not going to have the confidence to actually use it.
Master Victor: So we build that confidence, not only to our training, the techniques repeatedly so that you don’t have to think about it, but then exposing you to an element of danger where you are getting attacked.
Master Victor: This is where sparring becomes really [00:06:00] important, you learn to be calm under stress and inspiring. You’re receiving this input if your hand goes down and somebody hits you in the head. Next time, I’m gonna keep my hands up and protect my head, if my elbows come up and I get hit in the rib, I’m gonna remember that.
Master Victor: I remember this one backkick Andrew gave me. Oh, it was a good backkick, man. We were sparring, he back, he came up here, I squeezed my rib, but it hit hard. And I was like, huh? He found this tiny little hole that my elbow left a gap and he snuck it in there. And from that day on, my elbows are tucked. So nothing slips in, right?
Master Victor: So you learn where to keep your hands up, to defend yourself, that builds confidence that way when you are up against somebody who’s maybe trying to attack you out in the real world who’s trying to rob you.
Master Victor: And a quick note, somebody comes up to you with a gun or a knife. Give them your wallet, give them your wallet. Your life is not worth the money or whatever [00:07:00] is in that material form. You just had to note that, that’s self-defense 101. Get the ego out of there.
Master Victor: So in a scenario where, you know, I’m having to defend myself or someone else. I can be in the right state of mind and in that state of calmness to properly do the right thing. If I’m compromised, if I’m in a state of fear, I’m going to be slower. My techniques are going to be slower. I’m going to be using too much energy because my muscles are going to be tense and tight.
Master Victor: And you receive this adrenaline rush that compromises the technique if you don’t know how to control it. Adrenaline can be very useful and you’re not feeling pain and you’re being able to exert more strength and speed than you normally can.
Master Victor: But we need to have it used in a controlled manner so that you don’t injure yourself so that you don’t compromise your self-defense. And so you’re able to do the right thing and that’s really important.
Master Victor: [00:08:00] And in gaining the confidence through our training by repeating these processes so that we don’t have to think about the technique so that it becomes instinct. You start walking around calmer, you start walking around with more confidence, and your self-esteem changes where you’re looking at yourself in a whole new light. You’re not walking around defeated thinking, Oh, I suck, I can’t do this. It changes how you look at everything.
Master Victor: You begin to learn that if you put yourself and apply yourself to what you’re doing, you will learn, you will achieve your goal if you just keep going. If you just keep at it, but if you defeat yourself in here first, if you tell yourself, I can’t do it, I’m not good enough and I suck, I’ve already lost.
Master Victor: I already told myself that I’m not going to be able to achieve that. And the only way you’re even going to be able to get out of that is to change how you think up here. You have [00:09:00] to first believe in yourself.
Master Victor: And that’s one of the most important things that our training does. It teaches you that you can do whatever you put your mind to. You’ll see yourself get stronger, you’ll see yourself get faster.
Master Victor: I watch my students learn new techniques all the time. In a few months ago, maybe they couldn’t do a sidekick. Maybe they couldn’t do a roundhouse kick or a jumpback kick. And we work at it, we break it down. We practice it, we drill it. They start to see, oh, this is how you do it. And then they get the confidence. Oh, I can do this. And the next thing, you know, here comes a beautiful sidekick. And I’m like, yes, they got it.
Master Victor: And they’re like, Oh my God, I never thought I’d be able to do that. And they’re surprised with themselves and they feel better. They feel more confident and they start applying themselves more into their training and it becomes this giant snowball. They want more because they know they can do it. And that is so [00:10:00] powerful.
Master Victor: In learning that, if you just put yourself into what you’re doing, you apply yourself 100%, you will learn. But it takes the confidence and the self-esteem. But you’re not going to get the confidence and the self-esteem if you never start. If you’re just instantly beating yourself up over something and you say, I can’t do this, you’re never going to do it.
Master Victor: It’s just not going to happen. How’s it going to happen if I tell myself I can’t do it, but if I tell myself, going to suck at first, know I’m going to suck. I used to suck, I used to be.
Master Victor: Like, I remember when I was a white belt, they suck. It was just the case. I remember when I picked up my father’s bow staff, it felt weird. I remember when I first learned some of these kicks like a spinning hook kick, it felt weird when I was learning my jump back kick and I couldn’t get my kick to go straight out, it would hook around and I went to break my board and my heel hit the side of the board right here and I got a big giant gash on my leg because I wasn’t doing it [00:11:00] correctly.
Master Victor: It took practice, it took effort, but eventually, through determination, through perseverance, and an indomitable spirit. Because sometimes we let other people and external forces defeat us. Telling you’re not good enough, you can’t do this.
Master Victor: Man, screw them, they don’t know you, they’re not you. And that’s so important in that self-esteem and that confidence in knowing that you can do it if you just apply yourself.
Master Victor: And this kind of brings us to another point of self-esteem and confidence.
Master Victor: And the five, one of the tenants, or I guess two of the tenants of Taekwondo, indomitable spirit and perseverance. I think they go hand in hand. They’re slightly different where perseverance is, I know that through hardship, I need to persevere through something. If I don’t and I give up, it’s going to be easier to give up.
Master Victor: If I keep going, I’m going to reinforce the pathways in my brain that say that if I keep [00:12:00] going, if I endure this hardship, I can make it through. If I’m constantly giving up. If I’m doing like 20 pushups and you know, it’s just getting hard, but I didn’t push it to that failure point.
Master Victor: And I give up every time. I’m not going to get stronger. I’m not going to build that neural pathway in my brain that says I can do it. And then you plateau and then you start telling yourself that I’m not good enough. And then you’re already defeated in your mind.
Master Victor: So that perseverance is really important in pushing through the hardship, in pushing yourself until you fail in learning where that failure point is, whether it’s endurance, strength training, whether it’s doing a technique and that’s where a really good instructor comes in handy where they can break it down so it’s easier for you to learn. It becomes more accessible.
Master Victor: And then the Indomitable spirit aspect is very similar to perseverance where you’re not giving up but to me, it includes the fact [00:13:00] of an external influence, where there may be a lot of people in the world who, you know, they don’t feel so confident in themselves and maybe they’re jealous or envious of you or of people around you.
Master Victor: Like bullies, for example, they maybe have like all of this rage and they’re sad and they see somebody who’s, maybe they’re jealous of something and they start picking on them, right? And what does that do to the person getting bullied? They’re like, Oh, maybe I’m not good enough, maybe I do suck. Right?
Master Victor: And we start playing this story in our head and that story becomes our reality. And then we tell ourselves that story and then it becomes who we are. But that’s not who we are. It’s just what we were told and that we believe it, we believe the lie because we are worthy of what we’re doing. You are worthy of everything, of happiness, of love, of bliss, of joy, of calmness, [00:14:00] of what you want in your life.
Master Victor: You are worthy, no matter what people tell you. And that’s really important in that indomitable spirit. And you attain that through testing yourself and knowing that if you persevere through hardship if you don’t listen to those people who are trash-talking you because they don’t know better, they wish they were you because you’re out there doing the work.
Master Victor: You’re out there putting in the hardship to get better because that’s this training, the martial arts training, the calisthenics is stretching the breath with the meditation. It’s not easy. It’s not. If it was everybody would be doing it.
Master Victor: And that’s what I tell my students like you’re here and you being here it’s already a big step. Now, let’s push it. Let’s find out what you’re made of so you know what you can do. And once you know what you can do, that’s where your confidence comes in. And once you have confidence in yourself, how are you going to let somebody who doesn’t know anything about you, who [00:15:00] doesn’t know what you can do, tell you your worth? How does that make sense? Right?
Master Victor: So that’s where the indomitable spirit is, where no matter what happens in your life, you keep going. You know you’re good enough, you know you can do it because you’ve been through it. But you have to put yourself through some hardship to know that you can go through it.
Master Victor: And life will present challenges to you as you become strong enough to deal with things, you will be presented more challenges so you can grow stronger. So that you know that you can achieve these things. And that’s powerful, that’s how we keep moving forward. We embrace the change, we adapt ourselves to the situation.
Master Victor: We become water. We fill the container that’s necessary. We crash, we flow, and we are what we need to be in order to achieve the goals that we want, right? That’s so important.
Master Victor: So through your training, you change your mind. [00:16:00] You create a pathway in your mind that says, if I keep going, if I try my hardest, I will do, I will learn, I will achieve. And then you’ll learn that no matter if that jealous or envious person says whatever to you, you can do this because you have done it before and you can do it again on any other platform in any other skill.
Master Victor: Maybe you want to learn music. Maybe you want to dance. Maybe you want to become a scientist. Maybe you want to go and be a politician and change the world, right?
Master Victor: After you change yourself, be responsible for you before you start controlling other people. Little hint there for y’all. Once that happens, you become powerful. You take the power out of other people, and you take it and you own it.
Master Victor: And that’s invaluable because we are powerful. And we have all of these things in our lives, saying, hey, you’re not good enough, you can’t do this. Yeah, we can.
Master Victor: Yes, [00:17:00] we fucking can. So believe in who you are. And if you don’t, do something, like, go clean your room. Go organize something, go do a few pushups, go do a few squats, put in the work, and you will see the reward.
Master Victor: But if you sit there, do nothing, you’re idly thinking you’re just sitting in a chair all day and you’re not moving towards the goal that you want. How are you going to achieve it? How are you going to build the confidence that you need in order to get things done? You’re not.
Master Victor: So in order to build confidence, in order to have self-esteem, we need to step, we need to act. So act, move towards what you want, move towards where you want to go in life.
Master Victor: You want to establish a sense of calmness and peace within, go do some breath work, go do some meditation. You want to feel stronger in your body. You want to feel healthier, go exercise, watch what you eat, and you will [00:18:00] see the benefits. Every time that I go after what I want in my life if I believe in what I’m doing, and I mean this, there’s a slippery slope there because like knowledge and belief, I guess are two different things.
Master Victor: If I know what I’m doing works and I know what I’m doing works because I’ve done it, I’ve achieved those things, I’ve seen the results, right?
Master Victor: And that’s where a teacher comes in, if you’re following the guidance of a good teacher and you’re doing that work, if you’re following a scientific method that has been proven to bring you these results and you are following that, you’re going to achieve those goals.
Master Victor: If you’re believing in some bullshit that some dude says who’s never done it and you’re trying to apply that in your life, you’re probably going to be misled, right?
Master Victor: So follow your instincts, do your own research, find a good teacher, find a good school, and start moving in the direction that you want to go. Stop delaying yourself, stop beating yourself up in [00:19:00] here because you can do it. I can do it. My students have done it.
Master Victor: I’ve taken somebody whose tight hips can’t move, can’t kick, can barely do 10 pushups. A year later, they’re out here doing like 40, 50 pushups, kicking above head level, doing amazing, beautiful kicks, doing these strikes. Their bodies changed, they’re stronger because they chose to apply themselves. They knew that if they just went through the hardship of our training, that they would get to their goal.
Master Victor: So you can’t underestimate the importance of confidence and self-esteem because you will lose first here before you lose out here. You will first be defeated in your mind before you are defeated out here.
Master Victor: So become the mental warrior, the peaceful warrior inside, believe in yourself. No, you can do what you need to do and go for it. Follow your heart, follow your passion, and stop listening to that voice inside your head that says, you can’t do it. You’re not good enough because you are. You’re good [00:20:00] enough. You’re worthy and you deserve the best for yourself.
Master Victor: And you know what that is. Past your fear, past your doubts, past your shame and your guilt, your higher self, your instincts know that you can do it, that you’re deserving and you will achieve that. Should you take the action and move towards that direction?
Master Victor: Embody what you wish to become, take the values, take that perseverance, take that indomitable spirit. Move forward and embrace the confidence and the self-esteem that are going to come with it.
Master Victor: It kind of wraps up that whole idea. If you have any questions, give us a comment.
Master Victor: If you like this episode, big like. If you want to keep hearing more about this, hit the subscribe button, support our podcast. And if you want to find out more about our school, go to the FerrAcademy.com/, you to find out more information.
Master Victor: Our podcast is going to keep evolving and we’re going to be talking more about [00:21:00] these different topics about Taekwondo, specifically as a discipline, Muay Thai, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.
Master Victor: And then I want to eventually talk about how they work synergistically together because each one of those disciplines have their own weaknesses. And this is where mixed martial arts, as you’ve seen in the UFC becomes really important.
Master Victor: I’m always going to stress the importance of training each discipline separately because you gain so much out of it.
Master Victor: And this is going to be a whole nother episode in the philosophy of martial arts. I’m probably going to do that one before those four I just talked about where the philosophy of the martial arts is really important in learning martial arts. Like we’re not learning to go out and beat up people.
Master Victor: We’re not learning how to just punch and kick. What we’re learning is how to control our minds and that controls our bodies. We’re learning to establish a sense of peace and calmness on the inside.
Master Victor: Martial arts, our goal is to establish peace in this world, and we can only do that by first establishing that peace within to take care of you, take care of your mind, follow [00:22:00] your passion, and be with love.
Master Victor: I’ll see y’all in the next episode of The Unlimited You.
