With 40+ hours into my 1,000-hour boxing challenge, I’ve discovered that sparring sessions can be profound coaching tools when viewed through a systemic coaching lens.
In the boxing ring, every move, thought, and reaction mirrors the strategies we employ in real life. Through systemic coaching, once we identify a pattern we want to change, it’s crucial to find an immediate situation to begin disrupting it. And what could be a more compelling motivator than the imminent threat of getting hit in the face? 🤜🥴
This article explores how boxing sparring sessions can serve as an effective medium to interrupt habitual patterns and bring transformative results to all areas of our lives.
Patterns, Patterns, Patterns
We are creatures of habit, continuously repeating patterns—often without even realizing it. The way you lace your shoes 👟, for instance, may share underlying methods with how you write ✍️. Similarly, the approach you take to prepare a meal might reflect how you tackle projects. Crazy, right?
Still, our brains are wired to find and follow these patterns, making them a focal point in systemic coaching.
Systemic Coaching suggests that once you identify a disharmony in your life—something that doesn’t function as you’d like—the key to change is to interrupt the related default patterns immediately. Not to get too technical, but understanding and disrupting these patterns can lead to significant, transformative outcomes.
Detecting and Interrumpting Patterns
During my training with Alain Cardon, a Master Certified Coach, we conducted 8-minute coaching sessions that, despite their brevity, had profound, life-changing impacts. The essence of these sessions? Detecting and interrupting patterns.
This approach isn’t just theoretical; it’s a practical, actionable strategy that can be applied in various aspects of life, including in the boxing ring. Each time you spar, you encounter an opportunity to notice your habitual reactions—do you tend to duck or weave or panic when a punch comes your way? Recognizing these patterns is the first step; the next is choosing to act differently, to interrupt the pattern, thus paving the way for new strategies and responses.
For those interested in a deeper dive into the mechanics of systemic coaching and pattern interruption, I recommend exploring the works of Alain Cardon.
The Power of Systemic Coaching
Understanding patterns is key to generating change in our lives. Once we identify a pattern we don’t like, we can start working on interrupting that pattern.
However, the systemic approach offers a more direct and quick way to do this:
Since we repeat patterns all the time, we can interrupt the pattern in any activity, and that will have effects in all other activities where we repeat those patterns.
Here’s an example to shed light on this: Let’s say you start a project with a winning attitude. Halfway through the project, you start doubting yourself and feeling overwhelmed by all the things you can’t control. When wrapping up the project, you find yourself feeling defeated, even though you had everything you needed to complete the project successfully.
Let’s also say that’s a pattern you see every time you start a project.
Now, interrupting that pattern in a 2-year project takes a lot of time and energy, and it’s a very complex task. But the good thing is that you can actually interrupt that pattern in another activity. You guessed it, like boxing. With more immediate effects.
You might be repeating the same pattern in a 2-minute round: Start confident, but grow some concerns in the middle of it, and end up feeling beaten up.
Break a Change in a 2-Minute Round
A boxing sparring session is an incredible opportunity to drive change. Your energies are sky-high, emotions are fully exposed, your opponent is seizing every moment to target your face and liver, and your mind is operating at full speed.
If you can interrupt a pattern in such a high-stakes situation, the effects will be etched deeply in your heart, mind, and soul.
Let’s revisit the “Winner, Doubt, Defeat” pattern. Here, we can leverage coaching tools to initiate change. Even basic coaching questions can be incredibly powerful in this intense environment:
- What result do you want to achieve in this 2-minute boxing round?
- It’s the end of the day, and you’ve fought all your sparring sessions like a true champ. Can you describe that…?
- If you could start yesterday’s sparring round again, what would you do differently knowing what you know today?
- If the doubts and fears weren’t inside you but in your opponent, what would you see with extreme clarity?
- How can your doubts be wonderful guides for your training?
- Who are the 5 people that can help you become a great boxer?
- And so on… you know the drill.
As you can see, a boxing sparring session shares many similarities with a systemic coaching session, and in some ways, it can be even more impactful. Your heart is pumping hard, your lungs are tired, your eyes might water from a hook to the nose, and your mind is besieged by the ghosts of the past.
The energy required to drive change in that 2-minute round is beautifully powerful and capable of sparking changes that resonate throughout your life.
Training the Muscle That Controls the Fight-or-Flight Response
In the boxing ring, the fight-or-flight response is constantly activated. Every punch, every move from an opponent, is a potential threat that can trigger this instinct. But unlike in daily life, where this response often leads to anxiety or avoidance, boxing provides a controlled environment to train ourselves to manage and harness this instinct.
By engaging in regular sparring sessions, boxers develop the ability to stay calm and focused under pressure. They learn to observe their instinctual reactions—whether it’s the urge to back away or charge forward—and then choose the most strategic response. This training is not just about physical reaction; it’s about mental resilience and emotional control.
Why Every Coach Should Box
You might be curious about the title of this article. In my view, every coach, especially systemic coaches, should consider boxing or engaging in other combat sports.
I’ve never been a fighter; I’ve never fought before and don’t seek out fights. However, since starting this boxing challenge, I’ve fallen in love with the training involved in combat sports.
Here are the reasons why I believe coaches should box:
- Heightened Self-Awareness: The intensity and directness of the interactions in the ring make patterns highly visible, both in ourselves and in our opponents. I haven’t encountered any other activity that exposes our behaviors and reactions as vividly as boxing. It’s a straightforward, one-on-one, punch-or-be-punched situation that strips away layers and reveals our true selves.
- Physical and Mental Fitness: From a systemic perspective, aligning our mind, soul, and body is crucial for achieving total harmony and peak performance. In boxing, you can be in top physical shape but still lose if your mind isn’t equally strong. As a coach, you need to be sharp in all aspects.
- Experience the Thing You Sell: Experiencing systemic change is exhilarating—like discovering gold. It’s akin to opening a door in your soul and finding an entire world inside 💖. Once you’ve had this experience, you can do more than explain what systemic coaching is about; you can transmit it soul to soul. The energy is incredibly powerful this way.
- Build Grit and Determination: The perseverance required to train and improve in boxing reflects the grit needed to pursue long-term goals. As a coach, you can use this determination in your practice, encouraging clients to stay the course despite obstacles and challenges.
A Late Disclaimer
What I’ve discovered through boxing has been truly revelatory for me, but I understand that the same experiences might not resonate in the same way for everyone. We all have unique journeys and find inspiration in different places. I would genuinely love to hear if you’ve had similar transformative experiences with other activities or disciplines.
Please share your stories in the comments—your insights could be enlightening for all of us!
Closing Thoughts
I can’t hide how amazed I am with this discovery. The journey through boxing has been an eye-opener, revealing deeper layers of how we can harness our innate responses for personal growth and improved coaching. I hope I’ve articulated my thoughts in a way that resonates and invites reflection and dialogue.
Please share your thoughts and opinions in the comments below. If you have experience with combat sports, I’d love to hear about your journey and the insights you’ve gained.
Thank you for reading.
