#0035 JAMES COLLINGS - DISCIPLINE MEETS IMAGINATION!

Welcome to the Creative Nowhere Land Podcast. 

The aim of the podcast is to bring you interesting and inspiring guests. And on this episode, we are joined by someone who inspires me regularly. Three times a week, in fact. My boxing coach, my friend, and armchair philosopher, James Collings.

You might be thinking, why has he got a boxing coach on the podcast? 

Well, we discuss how boxing is an art. It could be considered as one of the ultimate forms of creativity, as it requires skill, imagination, and split-second problem-solving. It's like violent chess, but with consequences, and it can teach us more than we might imagine about not only ourselves, but about life.

We go into detail about the benefits of combat sports, like boxing, to take you out of your comfort zone, build resilience, humility, and the perseverance to keep going through adversity.

We talk about strength, vulnerability, and how to stop being held back by the fear of being judged because, realistically, no one will ever judge you harder than you judge yourself. 

We also discuss James's creative journey, his talent for music, and boxing. His time spent studying at the Royal College of Music in London, and how the two skill sets overlap.

We talk about James starting his own gym, THE JAB LAB and his YouTube channel that provides workouts and great insights into the world of boxing.

We also talk about philosophy and the importance of having strong values, smiling at strangers and enjoying your life. And we explain why it's better to be a warrior in a garden than a gardener in a war.

You can check out the links to James' YouTube Channel and social media below: 

Hope you enjoy this episode of The Creative Nowhere Land Podcast.

THE JAB LAB INSTAGRAM:  https://www.instagram.com/thejab_lab/

THE JAB LAB YOUTUBE CHANNEL: https://www.youtube.com/@Thejab_lab

Transcript

Why A Boxing Coach Belongs Here

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Hello everyone, and welcome to the Creative Nobeland Podcast. This is a fun one for me because the aim of the podcast is to bring you interesting and inspiring guests. And on this episode, we're joined by someone who inspires me regularly, three times a week, in fact. My boxing coach, my friend, and armchair philosopher James Collins. Now you might be thinking, why's he got a boxing coach on the podcast? Well, we discuss how boxing is an art and how it could be considered as one of the ultimate forms of creativity, as it requires skill, imagination, and split-second problem solving. It's like violent chess, but with consequences, and it can teach us more than we might imagine about not only ourselves but about life. We go into detail about the benefits of combat sports like boxing to take you out of your comfort zone, build resilience, humility, and the perseverance to keep going through adversity. We talk about strength, vulnerability, and how to stop being held back by the fear of being judged because, realistically, no one will ever judge you harder than you judge yourself. We also discuss James's creative journey, his talent for music as well as boxing, his time spent studying at the Royal College of Music in London, and how the two skill sets overlap. We talk about James starring his own gym, the Jab Lab, and his YouTube channel that provides workouts and great insights into the world of boxing. But we also talk about philosophy and the importance of having strong values, smiling at strangers and enjoying your life. And we explain why it's better to be a warrior in a garden than a gardener in a war. You can check out the links to James's social media and YouTube channel while you're listening to the podcast, of course, but without any further ado, let's get into it. I suppose we should say we can't talk to each other like we speak to each other in the boxes, yeah, first and foremost. We don't want to be uh stripped off the internet just yet. Pre-warning. Yeah, pre-warning. James and I speak to each other like we hate each other sometimes. Okay. What came first? Music or fighting?

SPEAKER_02 2:56

Music. Yeah. Definitely music, I'm pretty sure. I remember being into albums a lot sooner than I was into Bruce Lee films and watching boxing on the TV. Was that the progression then just seeing? I think so. I think that's what got me into fighting or the kind of martial arts discipline first was TV. So what got you into the music? I think it's just musical household. My parents didn't play any instruments until myself and my sister started playing. My dad started playing at the same time.

SPEAKER_01 3:30

But they were always listening to music, collecting albums, always music on when they were cooking or cleaning or And then how did that progress into you wanting to actually learn a musical instrument?

SPEAKER_02 3:40

I can't really remember. I remember uh going to my grandmother's house and there being my uncle's guitar, so I would have been very young. They had uh a nylon string classical guitar that I just picked up beside, and I really liked it. And I also remember, again, being a musical household, we were always watching MTV and all that, even my mum and dad watching the videos and seeing people shredding the old guitar, being like, go, I want to be like that. And realised most of their players were very bang average. I far surpassed them in every avenue, including success.

SPEAKER_01 4:16

Here we go, and this is where James's ever ever-present modesty will come through. But there's quite an element within your household of like you wanting to learn. Yes. This seems to come across throughout your story, that continued personal development. It sounds like it started from pretty early age. I guess so. You said you were quite obsessive though.

SPEAKER_02 4:36

Yeah, very much so. Once I'm into something, I need to know everything about it, including who, what, where, why, how, all the different styles and means and genres and makes, brands. Yeah. It's all the guitar players. I'd find a kind of new band and be like, what's this about when their album's done? Who's the guitar player? Where did he learn? Why did he learn that? What who was the producer? Have you got any idea where that sort of obsessive nature comes from? Dunno. What I'd normally say, I'm not allowed. But in the modern era of ADHD and Audit, it's probably one of them, but I doubt it. Yeah. Just the way I'm wired. Natural curiosity. And also, I think massive credit to my parents is that they've always fed that. What do you mean they've fed that? So they've never been like, nah, that's stupid, or anything like that. Any hobby I've wanted to do or any kind of experimentation I wanted to do with it, they've always been like, yeah. Um, and including my sister too. They've always let us go and do things. Yeah, they've always been that kind of way. Very relaxed about it. Which is great, yeah. You don't realise as a kid how everything was still unfair as a child. Yeah, of course.

SPEAKER_01 5:40

But as an adult, you look back and go, wow, thank my parents for Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 5:44

I had a very good childhood.

SPEAKER_01 5:46

And what did that look like? You went and had sort of guitar lessons and that natural obsession.

SPEAKER_02 5:50

Yeah, guitar, it was always like Christmas and birthdays, unless I saved my own pocket money.

SPEAKER_01 5:56

Did you steal your uncle's guitar to take it back? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:59

So I stole that straight away, which they were all happy for me to do. But then I'd want a certain guitar for Christmas. I'd want an amp, and I'd normally get it at Christmas or birthday, or put some money towards it, or guitar pedals or any of that stuff, albums.

SPEAKER_01 6:11

And presumably once that obsession grew, you go from that cheapish nylon string guitar.

SPEAKER_02 6:16

Yeah, yeah. Bizarrely, I got a really entry-level martial guitar combo 100 quid for a guitar, amp, cables, picks, strings.

Supportive Parenting And Self-Directed Learning

SPEAKER_01 6:25

But is that not a it's not necessarily about the equipment, isn't it? Presumably, it's about your dedication to want to learn half and half.

SPEAKER_02 6:32

Same as anything you can do.

SPEAKER_01 6:32

No, but what they're saying is like you can't just go and buy a Gibson Les Paul and suddenly suddenly think you're gonna be able to shred like one of the greatest guitarers in the energy world. Yeah, once you put the work in. And you were putting the work in, weren't you? Like that we talk about jokingly about that obsessive nature, but it was I'd be refusing to go out with friends.

SPEAKER_02 6:53

At the time, I was I'm gonna be in a touring, very successful rock band by the time I'm 19 or whatever. Uh so I'd I'd put on album after album and figure out all the parts and play them all or improvise over the top of them.

SPEAKER_01 7:06

But does that only come as a result of going into the music tuition so you can learn I don't know what the right word is, the theory, I guess, behind I don't really know.

SPEAKER_02 7:16

I'd I don't know whether the chicken came before the egg, as it were, and it was the theory that unlocked all the things, or whether it was just listening to it and just twanging away and making a horrific noise in my bedroom until I But I think it's interesting that music creativity came before the fighting. I think it it probably wasn't too far behind, but uh I don't know how old I was when I got that guitar. But then I remember watching martial arts films at a really young age as well and thinking, that was cool.

SPEAKER_01 7:43

Um and becoming equally obsessed.

SPEAKER_02 7:45

Yes. Once I was in, I was equally obsessed. But I think I was. When it was on, boxing used to be free on TV, on Sky and Channel 4 and all that stuff. Oh, I like that Mike Tyson, he's cool. And then Bruce Lee, more traditional at the time for me, he was more traditional martial arts, so went and found a local Kung Fu club, which was easy access, probably quite cheap, but I didn't, again, very supportive parents, so I didn't have to pay for it.

SPEAKER_01 8:29

Parents just again encouraging the music and the and Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:32

Again, any I I at the same time as well, I forgot to say I was playing basketball a lot, uh, and they're all going hand in hand, and the parents just dropped me off, pay for it, and so it's fully supported. But this club was pretty much I think the first one we found it was just down the road from where we lived, and was what I was looking for. I was learning how to sidekick and do very flowery, elaborate blocks and that stuff that actually in self-defense was completely useless. But we'll talk, we'll we'll talk about that.

SPEAKER_01 9:02

But we've all got to fly because I actually, you know, we spoke similarly. I started doing kung fu as well and thought it was that whole, oh wow, I can roundhouse kick and do all this sort of stuff.

SPEAKER_02 9:11

But I'm gonna do when they punch and leave the hand up, do this and do this, and then break their toe.

SPEAKER_01 9:16

Yeah. What do you think starting the kung fu, did that add an element of I mean, it sounds like you're already quite obsessed, already quite focused on the music, the basketball, the kung fu. Did that give you an extra level of discipline, do you think?

SPEAKER_02 9:30

Well, I don't know. I think it never really felt like discipline for me because it was so enjoyable. It never felt like work, any of them. It never really felt like it was hard to or I needed to be disciplined to get there, I was just there.

SPEAKER_01 9:50

Yeah, when you're so so obsessed with something, it's a joy to do it, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 9:53

And again, my parents would take me there or whatever, so I never had to worry about the actual getting to advance. Yeah, I've got to be there for six, mum. And then I'd get there for six.

SPEAKER_01 10:02

Right.

SPEAKER_02 10:03

Mum. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:05

And again, that obsession came in because you had kung fu DVDs and uh sorry, probably VHSs at the time, probably.

SPEAKER_02 10:11

It was a VHS with Kill Bill. What was that actor called? Carradine. And he did this whole workout going over all your techniques and all that, and then layering it into again flowery, elaborate defenses moves. And then when I wasn't there, I'll be doing that. I'd be practicing shadow boxing before Kung Fu in front of the TV, much to the annoyance of my mama and dad in the lounge, yeah, stretching all the time, like yeah, just fully I think it's interesting as a teenager.

Kung Fu, Points Fighting And Reality Checks

SPEAKER_01 10:39

I mean, we don't think of teenagers often as being the most disciplined people, but you've always seem to have had that discipline and I guess I think I've always been quite selfish with my time. I was gonna say turning down going out with your mates and stuff to practice the guitar or practice your kung fu, or I've never been one to go with the crowd anyway.

SPEAKER_02 10:57

I always hated football when all my mates were doing football. I tried it for a little bit and like, nah, this is as rubbish as I thought it would be. And then even with music, I was that kid who was wearing band t-shirts into hard, heavy, angry stuff, as well as other stuff, but at one point it was just hard, heavy, angry stuff. No one else in the school, alone any of my friends, were into any of that stuff. Then drinking at the park, didn't start drinking until I was 18. Just what I wanted to do. I'm going to be in a band and I'm going to beat people up in competition.

SPEAKER_01 11:28

So you at the same time. The music, you were playing in bands through high school and stuff like that. What did that look like? Just for fun or No, we did gigs.

SPEAKER_02 11:35

We did loads of gigs at the school, obviously, for all assemblies and anything they put on, or anytime the schools get together and do a big show, we were playing. But we also we sold out Kitty Town Hall as a teenage band. We sold out Starbridge River Rooms, if it's still called that, as a teenage band.

SPEAKER_01 11:50

I'm trying to go out and so local venues as a teenager on stage. What's that feel like for a teenager shredding his guitar?

SPEAKER_02 11:57

Probably terrible for my ego, which is why I'm so modest and humble nowadays. Oh yeah, it's great, great fun. We were best mates doing what best mates do, all had the same vibe. Bizarrely, we had a really good for kids so young, a really good and gifted, skilled band. We all had all the technical ability and all that, but then the polish, because we didn't know really about guitar tone properly or live sound properly, so it just sounded like Oh, I see.

SPEAKER_01 12:24

But all the other elements people know about being a musician rather than just a skill to play. Of course, we thought we sounded bees knees. But yeah, great fun. Do you have any idea what your friends were thinking about this obsessiveness that you've got? Did you have any similar friends that were equally obsessed with their uh practice?

SPEAKER_02 12:42

Again, at the time and still now I couldn't really care less. Love my friends, still got a very good friendship group.

SPEAKER_01 12:48

Yeah, but that's quite an interesting part of the story, that ability to sit separate from the crowd, which is when you're growing up in teenage years, is yeah, what people think of you is their business, not yours.

SPEAKER_02 12:59

Can't remember who said that.

SPEAKER_01 13:00

That's not mine. First little sound bite of the podcast from James. Okay, see the music and the kung fu are running alongside, but again, the kung fu, you're taking it pretty seriously, you're doing grades, but then you also were that into it that they let you start teaching. Is this your first experience of coaching?

SPEAKER_02 13:16

Yes, I think so. Because I also I was teaching guitar lessons as well. Oh, wow. Out of my bedroom, which I forgot to mention.

SPEAKER_01 13:23

About a tenor for an hour. There must have been some natural talent because it sounds like you progressed pretty quickly with the guitar, or was that just the obsessive nature of the you were doing how you're talking about?

SPEAKER_02 13:33

It was I was watching TV and it was in my hand. I'd be noodling with the TV on all of it. I was uh walking around the house with it on, so I think maybe there was some natural progression and some natural talent, which So how old were you when you started teaching guitar? Probably about 14. Really? Which is about the same time I was I think probably teaching kung fu as well.

SPEAKER_01 13:52

What do you think your kung fu instructors saw in you that led them to let you start getting a bit more involved in the coaching?

SPEAKER_02 14:00

Free work. Come on, it must have been more than that. I don't know. I don't know. I just I loved it. I guess um passion. I guess so. Passion, maybe at that age I could teach because the teaching there wasn't it probably it wouldn't have been as hands-on as now, obviously. But I remember that I'd be taking part in demos, and so I'd be the victim of the coach. And I think I was leading warm-ups and stretches, so I don't think it was really I don't think it would be technic breakdowns or anything, but enough to be there and then let me help them out.

SPEAKER_01 14:29

But even taking charge of a class of students at 14, 15 years old is quite uh I guess so. I just might James being a bit of a.

SPEAKER_02 14:38

No, I don't know. It's again the whole blase thing. It's something I've never really thought about and uh I've never really been too probably to my detriment really when I was younger, never really been too analysis paralysis, just quick over the flash. Yeah, it just worked. But they had a new class so they just brought me over to help with that, I think. And I was a higher about, I was like a purple couple away from black at the time.

SPEAKER_01 15:03

Which again is a pretty quick progression up the rankings of the belly.

SPEAKER_02 15:06

This is the other side of your traditional martial arts.

SPEAKER_01 15:09

Is this where we need to get on to where you did your open mat competition and realise that maybe kung fu wasn't quite as useful as you thought it might be?

SPEAKER_02 15:16

I mean, as a personality enhancer and person maker, I guess it was helped me out.

SPEAKER_01 15:23

In terms of its discipline and oh absolutely, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:25

I think I do think traditional martial arts in terms of discipline for kids is brilliant, but self-defense and all that not so good, we'll discuss in a minute. Yeah, and for me that's probably what's helped me. But yeah, so we again with all this teaching and whatnot, we'd do sparring in the club, which just devolved into madness because obviously none of these blocks that were super elaborate worked, so you just end up flying at people and smashing faces. I found out very quick that bouts don't mean anything. So although I was a purple belt at the time, my first ever sparring session, the kid with me, oh I'm gonna beat you because I'm a higher belt. And I remember battering him and thinking, you know, maybe it doesn't mean anything. And you turn up any traditional martial art, you turn up, you pay your subs, you will get a black belt. Doesn't matter how good you are, eventually you'll get a black belt. But then, yeah, so we I started doing sparring in the club and I could do it and I enjoyed it. Then we went to some open mat, well, we went to some matted points karate, but it's obviously kung fu competitions.

SPEAKER_01 16:20

Can we just explain what that is?

SPEAKER_02 16:21

Points karate is essentially adult tag uh and also the concept of an open map. Oh so an open map tournament is that any club can turn up and take part and enter their fighters into this competition, whereas a closed tournament is people of the same either school or like uh family of school, so kung fu, or ours was Lao Gar Kung Fu, which was huge across the country. Anybody from Lao Gar Kung Fu could come to a closed tournament and then on a mat, it's called Mat, open mat. It's a flat mat on the floor, you fall over and you'll bounce off it, it's great. But then Point Scarati is essentially it used to be pretty hardcore, now it is adult Tig. Score a point, stop the fight, start again, and all the Oh yes, one nil.

SPEAKER_01 17:02

So yeah, not like a real fight training.

Kickboxing, Hard Sparring And Team England

SPEAKER_02 17:05

But so what happened when you went to the When's an open map that any gym could come to, everybody who meddled, so got bronze, silver, gold, was from a kickboxing or a tie boxing gym where they actually spar and learn realistic combat defenses, run through realistic combat scenarios. I thought, ooh, that's strange. Maybe I should go to one of them, which I did. That quickly showed me how useless flowery traditional martial arts can be.

SPEAKER_01 17:34

So were you beaten in this open map by someone? Oh, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I can't remember who. I don't think it matters. I think it's like that realisation to you going from that. Everyone in the club?

SPEAKER_02 17:46

Yeah, everybody in my club and all the clubs got smashed.

SPEAKER_01 17:49

So was that an instant just like the minute that happened, you're like, maybe I'll stop Kung Fu and have a look what that is. Have a look at kickboxing.

SPEAKER_02 17:55

Yeah. Which I did though. We've got a very world-class kickboxing club, Winspers Martial Arts Centre, uh run by the absolute world champion.

SPEAKER_01 18:05

What did that feel like walking into that gym at that point with the realisation that shit probably most people in there can kick my ass I've done, as you call it, flowery kung fu.

SPEAKER_02 18:16

I can't really remember analysis paralysis wasn't really a thing, just get involved in I don't even think it was realising that being uh small fish in a big pond was good. It was just going there and learn straight away. Ever kind of I I'm gonna get beat under there, no fear or or anything from what I remember. It might have been different at the time.

SPEAKER_01 18:37

And what did you take over from the kung fu into the kickboxer?

SPEAKER_02 18:41

Footwork. Footwork. That's it. So points correct is great for your footwork. Um I remember sparring a couple of people and being like, oh yeah, you know, you fight like a points fighter because they knew what it was, and it's hard to hit you. It's like, oh great, excellent, because I don't like getting punched.

SPEAKER_01 18:56

Yeah. Who does? Yeah, some people do. Some people do, yeah, definitely. There are some people that do like that. But again, you made quite a quick progression within this kickboxing. You ended up at the kickboxing world championships, you were part of the England kickboxing team. So again, just start kickboxing, then fast track it almost in all of these things. Yeah. Is that just again? I know you're very blasé, but you just set your mind to something, and it's that discipline and determination to just go boom, boom, boom.

SPEAKER_02 19:25

Yes, I guess so, because that's another thing I'd always wanted to fight. And then so I wanted to be in a band, a world conquering band, whatever. Then I was going to be a world champion fighter of whatever.

SPEAKER_01 19:35

Two just run side by side.

SPEAKER_02 19:37

Of course, both of which definitely happened. I think part of it was I was always at the gym and uh doing as many classes as they could offer and trying to hang around here and there as often as I could. So I think they saw that made myself part of the furniture, not deliberately or anything, I just liked being there.

SPEAKER_01 19:55

Um once again, your passion just shone through and they pick up on that and go, well, let's get him involved a bit more.

SPEAKER_02 20:00

Yeah, because I was a bang average at best kickboxer, for sure. Average boxer with very bad kicks. So I don't really know how I got into the England.

SPEAKER_01 20:09

That's what I mean. You did. You made the England kickboxing team, you went to the kickboxing world championship. So you can't I know you're being blase and for once James is being modest, but you must have been pretty fucking good.

SPEAKER_02 20:20

Delete what I just said. Well, again, maybe, but I was surrounded that that gym, especially at that time, was something really, really amazing. All my sparring partners were killers. So I was the worst of the bunch by far, just in the gym.

SPEAKER_01 20:34

And that makes you improve pretty quickly, right?

SPEAKER_02 20:36

Yeah, so I could at least the sparring was different, so like how we spar, we do structured rounds. There it was just you go spar him, off you go, which is fine. But it was very much I learned to survive fast and not necessarily thrive. If someone world class was beating me up, I could at least last a round.

SPEAKER_01 20:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:53

Um, which was that's good. But I had uh some European and world champions as sparring partners, as well as Matt and James, who are the owners, the Windsor brothers, Connor Porter, who went on to win loads of championships, Mike Clark, who went on to win loads of championships.

SPEAKER_01 21:07

So you're just surrounded by amazingly talented people.

SPEAKER_02 21:09

Yeah, yeah. And even the people there were great people in the uh gym that wouldn't compete, but they'd spar who could have been world champions, um, but just weren't interested in the um competition aspect. Did you always want to compete? Yes. Yeah. Again, I think I always wanted to prove that I could be tough and hard and be a world champion, which I never was, but I think I always Why'd you feel like you wanted to prove that you could be tough? I don't know. I don't know. I think it's just what I've always wanted to do. There's bits of bullying in school, but I don't think any more than anyone else. Nothing too. No, because that's great.

SPEAKER_01 21:42

That's very similar to me. That's I was raised by single mum, sister, grandma. So I was always around women. I was all like, Maybe I should do some fighting stuff to see if I can actually do it or what sort of a man that I am as a teenager or whatever that is. It's uh Yeah. But it's just the same.

SPEAKER_02 21:58

Yeah, like can I do it? Yeah. It is The in my opinion, the opposite.

SPEAKER_01 22:01

And we will we'll definitely talk about that and the benefits of combat sports and martial arts and fighting just for a bit of humility and to test who you really are when someone's trying to punch you in the face repeatedly with more skill. So what level did you get to? Because as I say, kickboxing world championships and part of the England kickboxing team. That to me sounds like quite a high level.

SPEAKER_02 22:24

It is to a point. With kickboxing, you've got different governing bodies and no central governing body, so the quality control's not there. So you might have people who they're in a team, like I don't know, Team England or Team Spain, that have only had a fight or two, which one of them was me. I don't I think at the time I was in the England team, I'd had a fight or two, like a proper full contact fight. Not I had loads of open mat fights. And they're not very good, but they're in there just because they can. Well, some people have to wear in their place, so I have to win my place. Really? We had really hard team training, which was great. Like three hours of sparring and stuff like that. I'm sure I always looked.

SPEAKER_01 22:59

But they're yeah, whereas testing yourself, don't you?

SPEAKER_02 23:02

Yeah. Oh yeah. You're always going to do bigger and better every time. Whereas your boxing, your world champions normally nine times out of ten, nine and a half times out of ten, they are world champion level because there's a border control, you have to go through the certain systems. Is this it?

Stage Presence, Ego, And Not Caring What Others Think

SPEAKER_01 23:19

Yeah. Was there any difficulty balancing the kickboxing with your music, or did it just run quite naturally simultaneously? It sounds like you had quite a busy time training, kickboxing, bands, gigs.

SPEAKER_02 23:33

Again, at the time it didn't seem that busy, but you're a kid all the time in the world when you're a kid and no responsibilities.

SPEAKER_01 23:40

So it didn't feel that busy. Did you feel like you were taking anything from the music into the fighting or vice versa? Was there a skills overlap in some way?

SPEAKER_02 23:51

I think with the so the humbling aspect of martial arts, I will say martial arts, because you're still getting humbled in your traditional martial arts. But especially when you go to a place where you've been beaten up most sessions and learning that you're not the the big I am, that gave me more of a fuck you attitude for my music as in I'm gonna play these songs for you and you're gonna like them or you're not, and I don't care either way. So I'd have more of a stage presence for that. Whereas I've seen loads of bands, countless bands, just meek on stage because they're still self-conscious about whether the audience like it or not and don't want to do anything to embarrass themselves. Who gives a fuck? There's nothing more embarrassing than being knocked out in front of people, which I've done. I was getting beaten in uh in front of hundreds of people on open mat tournaments or I've been knocked out in the ring, I was knocked out in the world championships, like nothing more embarrassing than that, but just no one cares when you go on stage, but no one fucking cares anyway. So that's quite interesting, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:45

And then the fact that the spotlight syndrome that we all have.

SPEAKER_02 24:49

Oh no one cares. Just no one cares.

SPEAKER_01 24:53

You were still at quite a young age taking those crossover skills and going, if I can get knocked out in front of a hundred people, I'm not gonna worry about missing a note, which most people in the gig wouldn't notice anyway.

SPEAKER_02 25:04

Yeah, would they? That's the thing. I'd be there was a period at one in one of my bands where we were writing songs so prolifically, and I wasn't practicing because it was easy stuff, that I'd forget the chord structures and play the wrong notes on the bass this was where I'd be like, eh, and be shrugging and laughing, and I'd turn and the singer and the drummer both were like, What are you doing? The crowd, non-fust, non-plus. They wouldn't have a clue, right? Did you hear the note where I went wrong to my now wife or my mother who'd be there or whatever? Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 25:33

Yeah, I'd be going wrong too. Well, it's that thing, isn't it? Someone could compliment you a thousand times, but if they give you one negative comment, you're only gonna remember the negative comment, aren't you?

SPEAKER_02 25:42

You might be doing a speech in front of 100 million people, and for the next hour or two after that speech, they're gonna remember everything you say, and you're gonna think, oh, that part where I slipped out of fart. Hopefully that didn't come on the microphone. And if they did hear it, a week they're gonna forget, who cares?

SPEAKER_01 25:59

But it's all these little lessons that you're learning, because I know where the journey goes, that I see now this nonchalant, no fucks given sort of attitude is actually a real benefit.

SPEAKER_02 26:10

Yes, I think, especially now in the age of everything online. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:15

Okay. Obviously a talented musician, talented uh kickboxer. Were you doing any coaching in kickboxing, or was it all student-based?

SPEAKER_02 26:24

This was just as a student, yeah. I didn't do the uh coaching at Winspers until post uh uni. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 26:32

But the m this is where the music takes a bit more dominance, right? Yeah. So school school, you're doing the music, you're doing your kickboxing, your martial arts, do the natural progression, went to A levels, but wasn't for you, right?

SPEAKER_02 26:47

Uh year one of my A levels was brilliant. All of the classes were great, and music and I did music and music tech as well, they were both fantastic. Year two, there was I don't even know what it was, a drastic shift in what the classes were about. Didn't enjoy any of them, including music and music tech.

SPEAKER_01 27:04

But I also Which must have been frustrating, bearing in mind those are the ones that you're sort of like, this is my passion and nonehow.

SPEAKER_02 27:10

Yeah. Yeah, it was probably it may have been the first time that I had to come up against the whole talent versus hard work thing, and I didn't have I didn't for a lot of time didn't have the hard work aspect uh together. That was probably still too immature. So I really if I just knuckled down and did my hard work, I would have got the air levels because I didn't enjoy it and I was so used to just doing what I want to do with my time, I was like, nah, getting out of here. And I had a big bust at the head of year as well. So what did you do? Quit. Went to college, did a music performance course there, which was brilliant. But again, same thing. Although I was working hard per se, there was no kind of strife in what I needed. I wasn't struggling to work hard. It was all what I wanted to do, and college facilitated that, I'd say, in a good way. And I found it all quite easy, and I never really had to knuckle down when the chips were down, as it were. Is that where your natural talent?

SPEAKER_01 28:03

I guess so. You call it natural talent. Yeah, this is your modesty again, but you've clearly obviously got that now. I I believe you have. You you're shaking your head at me because you're trying to.

Leaving A Levels And Chasing Music

SPEAKER_02 28:12

I think I'd just, again, being obsessed and working hard to a point, that's natural talent. But then when you have to come up against stuff that you don't pick up straight away, well I say straight away, you find difficult and then don't want to work on because it's not comfy.

SPEAKER_01 28:27

What were the things that you were finding difficult?

SPEAKER_02 28:30

In music, I didn't have they call it an ear, I didn't have a very good ear. You could play me a scale and I could tell you what the scale was-ish. You play me a chord and I wasn't very good at hearing a chord, single notes and all that, mostly fine.

SPEAKER_01 28:43

But then how did you, when you were younger, analyse all those people that were playing and work out what they were? No, I don't know. Don't know.

SPEAKER_02 28:50

Yeah. Yeah. So I think it was more the I don't know, I guess in a song aspect it would make sense to me. Whereas for someone to just sit in front of me on a piano and say, what chord is this? Right. Which is never gonna work.

SPEAKER_01 29:02

Okay, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:03

It's gotta have context. And then sight reading was awful at sight reading, which I hate, I still hate to this day.

SPEAKER_01 29:09

But this course at college, this was much more music focused. So did that open you know what it's like when you don't have to focus on the other stuff of the other subjects.

SPEAKER_02 29:19

I think it was my most fun and creative time for music that I had in my music career, if it's called career. Everybody in this in the course was great. Again, a lot of talented musicians, actually. And then when we moved up to year two, the year below us came in and they were all great as well, really lovely people.

SPEAKER_01 29:40

So again, liking the kickboxing, surrounded by talented people.

SPEAKER_02 29:44

Really good teachers as well, very supportive. Actually, would treat you like adults if you're missing classes and all that, they weren't they're like, Well, they say, Well, it's your course to fuck up and you've paid for it to do what you want. Which I think I needed that as well, because I was getting bored of school and education.

SPEAKER_01 29:58

What the monotony of oh, it's nine to four every decade.

SPEAKER_02 30:02

Well, just I think more the teacher-student dynamic. I got bored of it, I think, just as I was starting my GCSEs. I had good grades, but I probably could have done better. Um, and not doing homework and all that because I was like, what am I doing this for?

SPEAKER_01 30:14

At this point, are you still just I'm gonna be in a great rock band and especially with college, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:20

Obviously gonna be in a world-conquering rock band selling platinum albums. Easy like that. Again, but as a classic young man thinking the world's gonna fall into your lap. Because there's I haven't had any resistance yet. Although I've been beaten up and whatnot with the martial arts, still no real like hard work.

SPEAKER_01 30:38

But here comes the bit where again you're probably gonna be modest, but you're such a talented musician that the college are now saying we think you should go to the Royal College of Music. Yeah. Which I should Which again, some people might not even know that, thinking, oh, why have you got a boxing coach on? You know, because there's this there's underlying creative. I mean, I believe fighting is creative anyway, but there's an underlying creative story that runs alongside this that you are a talented musician to reach the level of not anymore. But again, it's down to I imagine practice at that time. You must have shown pretty exceptional things for them to go, Well, you think you can get into the Royal College of Music?

Royal College Of Music: Fit, Friction And Exit

SPEAKER_02 31:12

I mean, I what there's songs that I played back then that I listen to now where I was like, how how the hell did I play that? So I was doing some really, really good stuff. So yeah, I guess I didn't want to do uni at all. And I really I shouldn't have gone. I wasn't really. Talk to me. Why did you not want to do uni? I don't I can't really remember, but it was probably half of it being like, oh, I don't grow up and look after myself, and again being very comfy with the whole life, really, up to that point. Did you feel like you'd been a bit sheltered? Um even though I feel like you've I think looking back, probably.

SPEAKER_01 31:46

But from the story, I think you've pushed yourself out of your comfort zone multiple times.

SPEAKER_02 31:51

Yeah, well, yeah, I don't know. I think I probably was.

SPEAKER_01 31:55

Who knows? But the Royal College of Music, again, that's a next level thing. That's down in London, that's moving away from everything into university that potentially you didn't really think you wanted to do. It's free money. So talk to me a little bit about the Royal College of Music because at this point you you move to London and it is all music, isn't it? It's like you don't you're not doing any more fighting down there, you put that on holding.

SPEAKER_02 32:18

Yeah, pure music. I was still watching the fights, obsessively watching the UFC at that point as well. In my spare time, I doing little bits of practice watching all the fights, getting very drunk, and playing lots of video games. But the course, so it's the Royal College of Music, they had a subsect called Guitar X, so it wasn't the Royal College of Music is all classical stuff, which I like. I don't want to play that, and then they have the pop world, but it's not pop-ups, it's contemporary music, that's the word. I worked my balls off to get in there. I went for the first interview, and they said, right, you need to do this and this, which I could do apart from one thing which I'd never heard of, which is a thing called the caged system, which is a way of playing guitar. Then worked with my guitar teacher here at the time to do that. Smashed it, got in there. I was I was excited to go at that point. And again, I think it was more moving away from home, living on my own, thinking I've done it now, I'm a big boy.

SPEAKER_01 33:13

Did it feel like some sense of achievement in some way?

SPEAKER_02 33:15

Yes, absolutely. Yeah. I've moved away from my parents at 19 to London to be a musician, which didn't really happen. But the main problem was I say the main problem, one of the main problems was I'd done all that work to get in, and then the first year of the course was doing all the stuff to get to the level I was already at. I hate doing that. If I go run in, I can't loop around a track twice. I hate it. So I'd done all this work. That's interesting. I can't done that again. Probably my modern day autism or ADHD.

SPEAKER_01 33:46

I don't know that. I guess in a similar way, that was similar to me. I went and worked in a photography studio. So everything that the university students were learning on the first and some of the second year, I've been like, I've done this all day. But like, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:58

It wasn't so because they obviously they knew way more than I did, and they were all like all the teachers there were industry professionals, still and now. Amy Winehouse's guitarist was there as a teacher, a guy who played for Boy Zone and Backstreet Boys and blah blah blah. One of the names I do remember was John Wheatcroft, and he's a phenomenal jazz guitarist. There were so many like well-established industry musicians, so it wasn't that they were somewhat teaching us to suck eggs. I get it now, they were trying to get everything at the same level because some people get their own pay get in, yeah, they get in pay the money. But yeah, it just wasn't for me. I they didn't really like the way I play guitar. I didn't really like most of the teachers. I thought it was very clicky. But I had a good time, I had a good time partying the made.

SPEAKER_01 34:41

Socially, yeah, yeah. But what was the straw that broke the camel's back where you were just like, this is not for me, I'm done.

SPEAKER_02 34:48

I think, yeah, just not I started to not turn up to some classes, stuff like that, being like, well, but again, if I would have just knuckled down and put the hard work in, it would be in a world-class band selling multi-platinum albums.

SPEAKER_01 35:01

But like you say, with a lot of the things, if you're not provided the stimulus to give you that excitement to keep something going, what's the point?

SPEAKER_02 35:10

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 35:10

Did you feel anything about the sense of the qualification thing? It's like, well, I can play guitar, I can play the bass, I can play these musical instruments. Why do I need a piece of paper to Yeah?

SPEAKER_02 35:20

And I've always felt that way with again with the whole bout thing, but just because I've got a degree doesn't mean I'm uh I'm any better than someone who's playing in their bedroom.

SPEAKER_01 35:28

But I think that's down to most, it's a bit different if you're doing a maths or a science degree. You've got to get the right answers. But with anything creative, it's like I've never been asked once what I got a degree level. I just want to see what pictures I can take. Yeah. So proofs in the pudding thing, Chris. Yeah, exactly. So how did that feel? That decision to go, right? Bearing in mind you are quite a motivated human, and when you put your mind to something, I guess knowing you, you want to achieve. Was there some I don't want to say sense of failure, but did you feel a bit like what I'm coming back with my tail between my legs? Yeah, they're probably going to London to be this big star.

SPEAKER_02 36:04

Now I'm back in Bewdley. There probably was. I can't really remember, but yeah, I imagine there'd be for me at the time again, didn't really mature and get too analytical till later on. There was probably some boisterousness and bravado of like, well shit anyway. Which I did think it was, but again, if I would have just knuckled down and done the work, it maybe could have led to something more professional. And I if I would have actually sat back and reflected on that, then maybe I'd realise and it'd probably help me out later. But hindsight, isn't it? It's like 2020.

SPEAKER_01 36:36

And we are where we're supposed to be. You are where you put yourself. That's what I mean.

SPEAKER_02 36:40

Well, everything every decision you've made has led you to being trapped in a room in here trapped in a room with me talking about you. He's locked the door and I can't get out.

SPEAKER_01 36:49

So you come back, I don't want to say tail between your legs because you've got that kind of attitude where it's no fucks giving anyway. So I'm sure maybe a little bit internally, but yeah. You'd probably like say, fuck it, it was shit anyway.

SPEAKER_03 37:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:02

So what happens when you come back from the Royal College back to our sunny little Midlands town?

SPEAKER_02 37:07

Bizarrely, one of the first things I did was go to my friend's 20th birthday party. Where they had a band whose bassists had just left and they needed someone to play. Like, oh, you play guitar? Yes, I do. You want to be in our band? Oh go on then. Did you prefer playing normal guitar or bass? Normal guitar. Bass is great. Well, playing any instrument's great, but guitar was my my jam.

SPEAKER_01 37:28

What was it about the two because obviously a bass, you couldn't you can't be quite as expressive as oh math. Oh, here we go. Is this where you're gonna go give me the whole slap the bass?

SPEAKER_02 37:41

Jaco Pistorius, end of argument. Check it out.

SPEAKER_01 37:44

Okay, people go and go.

SPEAKER_02 37:45

Uh yeah, no, you can't it's obviously just lower. It's just an active lower, mate. No, I mean if people who are I'm I'm not that kind of player. People who are really good at bass are just as expressive. It's it just sounds different. It's yeah, your lead guitar's nice because it's got such range.

Back Home: Bands, Gyms And Work

SPEAKER_01 37:59

Whereas you argue And I suppose it's obviously the more prominent sound because I think you probably have to there's my naivety about sorry, bass players. I've offended a genre of music.

SPEAKER_02 38:09

A better musician to play bass because there's a more limited arsenal of tools to wow the audience with.

SPEAKER_01 38:17

And you wowed the audience on both? Uh well, I wouldn't say that. Okay, so what so you you went to and you joined a band, so the music was still there. Did you come back and go straight back to the gym or uh yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:30

Because I wanted to I did want to come back and get into MMA straight away, but this was well before uh mixed martial arts was prominent. So went straight back to Winspers and yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:41

And is this sort of where you realise as well that you're perhaps better at punching people than you are kicking people?

SPEAKER_02 38:46

Still kicked for a while, but yeah, yeah, because this is where I came back and then went to the world's. So came back, Team England. Oh, of course.

SPEAKER_01 38:56

Yeah, the timeline is yeah, it's so you you went away, you didn't fight for over for what, a year and a half, something like that, while you were in London, and then you came back and then straight back into training.

SPEAKER_02 39:06

Still shadow boxing in my room, push-ups, sit-ups, all that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_01 39:09

So you still had that element of discipline.

SPEAKER_02 39:12

Yeah. Well, I I think I was just bored. Bored in my bedroom. I think the love of playing and practicing guitar had been sucked out of me, so I needed something to do. Was just video game time.

SPEAKER_01 39:23

So came back to the Midlands, jumped straight back into kickboxing, straight back into a band.

SPEAKER_02 39:28

Yeah. Which is that's this area. You come back and it goes straight back into what you were doing before. Which is great. I love this area. I think it's very nice, it's very picturesque, very beautiful. It's also a black hole of keeping people in the same shape. Surely it is what you make.

SPEAKER_01 39:41

It is always what you make. There you go. What does work look like for you then? So you've got out of education. Yeah, what do you what are you doing? What's the plan?

SPEAKER_02 39:50

As little as possible. I what was I doing straight away? I was labouring for my neighbour who was an electrician, which is a job I should not be anywhere near anything on building side, so I can't do anything manly or skilled in those regards because I'm terrible, hate DIY and I hate all that. But I did that for a bit.

SPEAKER_01 40:10

Were these just means to an end, sort of things like need to earn some money, pay for gum shields and guitar strings.

Fire Service Purpose And Grown-Up Choices

SPEAKER_02 40:17

Just stuff, yeah, car, yeah, all that stuff. Because I remember I upset my neighbour. He thought I meant that electrician wasn't a proper job. I didn't use that term. I said it's not the job for me, because he was like, Why don't you just work here forever? I said, No, I need a proper job for me. But what did a proper job look like for you? Anything I enjoy, I reckon. Yeah. Got for everybody. No experience. Yeah. So yeah, did the labouring electrician labouring for a bit? I can't remember why that stopped. Probably because you told him it wasn't a proper job. Yeah. He's a good bloke as well. No, I didn't say it wasn't a proper job. It's just not a job I could do. This is where the fire service. Yeah, so then I went into the fire brigade. I found the love of a good woman by this point, who's now my wife, who actually gave me a boot up the arse and made me start being disciplined and driven rather than just driven. A bit more future focused, maybe. I guess so. But yeah, she saw the sign. She wanted a good prospect of a man. You're just noodling in your bedroom again. Which is fair enough. Yeah, so she booted me up the arse to apply for on call firefighter copies.

SPEAKER_01 41:22

And talk to me a bit about that. That's not a full-time firefighter.

SPEAKER_02 41:26

You are on call more than you would be for full-time. Right. And it's one of the best jobs I've ever had. So what, they pay you to be on call or you only get paid? Yeah, you get a retainer per year, can't remember what it was, not a lot, and then you get paid per hour for all your training and every time you're called out. Did you feel like you had more of a purpose going through the It was a job I was proud of. Absolutely. I loved it. There was everything about it, all the training, all the courses, very much out of the comfort zone. It was very like back then, it wasn't like militant army style training, but it was still had fringes of that. So we would get disciplined and shouted at and screamed at and put in depression, which I liked, and all that kind of stuff, which was good. And then once I'd qualified and everything, the team we had, it was great. Half the crew were old guard, and then half the crew were new, like everyone under mid-20s, and it was everyone got on, everyone was really good, healthy working atmosphere. Again, much like my childhood, all your questions were encouraged and experiment and do this and do that, and like encouragement of learning and all that was very much encouraged.

SPEAKER_01 42:31

That's right. But with those strange contracts and call-out stuff, is that dare I say, is that financially sustainable?

SPEAKER_02 42:40

It was. I was lucky at the time because um we need some more call-outs tonight. We need some more road traffic out there. I had a few dodgy mates who'd set fires for me. No, we had um we had two or three massive fires that went on for months in the area that really sorted me out financially. It was great. Because there's no no risk of damage to any other property or life. It was just sit and watch it button twelve hours. Oh wow. And get paid for it. And get paid and get free food for it from pizza, McDonald's, oh wow, all the stuff you don't really want to eat, but that's it.

SPEAKER_01 43:12

Just all the shit that you just don't want in you. What led to you leaving the fire service if you did find it rewarding and obviously you could have all the McDonald's you could eat? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:21

And again, needed no, I didn't get fat. How dare you? That's me now. Again, I needed a proper job, a job with a more consistent income.

SPEAKER_01 43:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:33

So yeah, I qualified, I did all my PT qualifications and all that during this time. Then I looked for PT work and there was none doing air quotations for your listeners. There was none, but again, didn't actually put myself out there because I still wasn't quite mature enough to be like, actually, I'm gonna go to this gym and do it from the ground up. Just I wanted the perfect job for me at the time, which doesn't exist in this kind of industry.

SPEAKER_01 43:57

What made you run that PT course alongside? The fire service, is it just again something you wanted to do, or was it?

SPEAKER_02 44:03

Yeah, yeah. I just need oh yeah, something I wanted to do.

SPEAKER_01 44:06

And you had the time, I guess. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:08

Around again, nothing but time still living like a teenager, really. And how old are you at this point, should we say? Twenty, twenty, twenty-one. Not an adult, really. No clue of what life actually is. I still don't. Yeah, not an adult now. Yeah, so all that was going on, needed a consistent income, got a Wi-Fi job, which paid well to time, but cut into the hours that I could be on call for. And then the guy who ran our area in the fire service just got rid of it. Although he just spent all the money on training me up. Just now, not needed. So I was gutted. But going straight into a job which was new, fresh, and exciting at the time with the Wi-Fi stuff, learning again.

SPEAKER_01 44:51

What do you mean the Wi-Fi stuff? What was that? Installing.

SPEAKER_02 44:53

I was installing industrial Wi-Fi and CCTV and wireless solutions to anybody's problems.

SPEAKER_01 45:01

So you went from being an electrician that you didn't consider a proper job. Yeah. To against the back cable pulling and stuff again.

Corporate Grind, Burnout And Panic Attacks

SPEAKER_02 45:09

Well, I was learning more with the electrician. Obviously, I couldn't really do any of the interesting stuff because they let me do plugs and lights. Right. Yeah. But any of the good stuff where I could kill myself on the loud. Whereas Wi-Fi, I was learning about all of it, the whole thing, how to give surveys. I was doing some of the sales and brokering some of the deals. Did you feel a bit more like an adult at this point? Yes, probably. I still don't feel like an adult.

SPEAKER_01 45:34

No, I know, but I know that you're we're both big man children, but but that sense of that quote unquote proper job, oh, I can do this, it's got prospects.

SPEAKER_02 45:43

Yeah, I could see definitely see a future in it. The only way was up. In terms of I could get quarrels and do this, I could learn coding, I learned how to do fibre optic cabling and all that kind of stuff. I'm a big boy.

SPEAKER_01 45:56

Yeah, I'm a big grown-up. You're wearing your big boy. Look at me. Yeah. Okay. But then full-time job, does that leave you much time for with the corporate world, Matthew?

SPEAKER_02 46:06

There's not much time for fun.

SPEAKER_01 46:07

I was gonna say much time for fire, much time for music. What's going on?

SPEAKER_02 46:10

So yeah, the fire brigade got knocked on the head. I was still in the band, the same band, still having band practices and whatnot. And the start of this job was much more nine to five, and go out on site every now and again and do the installs, so I could still do all my kitboxing, which was slowly morphing into boxing because I couldn't really kick very well. And then yeah, the company themselves got more and more successful and bigger and bigger without increasing the staff per se. So I was doing more and more of the work, and then that's when all the creative stuff just stopped through choice of my own religious work hours.

SPEAKER_01 46:43

But what did that do to your physicality, your mental health, those sorts of things?

SPEAKER_02 46:49

I got fat, miserable, depressed, fringe suicidal, panic attacks.

SPEAKER_01 46:56

Are you alright to talk a little bit about that? Because this is from man that everyone sees today, this is Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:02

Oh yeah, and I always will always talk about like my mental health struggles and all that stuff.

SPEAKER_01 47:07

So you are starting to struggle. That taking away your physicality, you're probably working strange hours, so grabbing food, eating shit, like you say, maybe you put I can't imagine you're fat, but like I imagine you're not in the shape that I was chunky, probably like close to 14 stone of nothing athletic. But the mental health side of things, you're burning the candle at both ends, essentially, but only with the job, working strange hours, yeah, 16-hour days, away, coming back, no time, no regularity for your training. Yeah, this is where your mental health starts to suffer, right?

SPEAKER_02 48:16

Yeah, big time, absolutely. In what way? Again, I think I was still so used to being selfish with my time that I couldn't anymore. And that really frustrated me. I remember sometimes finishing a job on time. I mean, like, I'll get back in time to go training, classic English motorways, getting stuck in traffic. I remember screaming at my steering wheel and trying to rip it up. Yeah. No exaggeration. Because you needed that outlet, that finish. Just I can't I can't believe I'm not going to the gym again. And yeah, and then my weekends were spent doing. I remember I was buying loads, uh, started collecting watches and whiskey, and again, trying to learn all the stuff about that. I guess just for something to keep learning about, which I think about watches or whiskey.

SPEAKER_03 48:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 48:56

And I couldn't afford anything decent or anything worth reselling or anything like that.

SPEAKER_01 49:01

Do you think that was just as I say, some sort of trying to focus yourself on something that wasn't the work?

SPEAKER_02 49:07

That's just trying to consume and be happy, I think.

SPEAKER_01 49:10

Which we talk about a lot, don't we? The idea of consumption and be happy. But your mental health suffered so much that you were starting to feel a bit anxiety, panic attacks. Yes. To the point where you you went and spoke to someone, yeah?

SPEAKER_02 49:23

Yeah. I remember my first panic attack, I didn't really know what was going on. And I was doing a really boring aspect of the Wi-Fi job, which is punching down cables, it's monotonous, it takes ages, it's fiddly. I hate fiddly jobs, and just everything about it sucks. So I was doing that, and I just felt like I needed to run, and I felt a bit like, oh, tingly in the fingers. Just I couldn't, I don't know, I couldn't explain it. And like the guy I was working with, I was like, I think I'm I'm gonna go for a run. I feel bizarre. He was like, Oh, you probably had too much coffee because I was smashing the coffee at that point. Then it kept happening, and then it kept being like going dizzy and stuff like that, and all the usual panic attacks. Then I can't remember what caused the I think I was probably chatting to my wife about it, who wasn't my wife then. And she's a nurse, and she was saying, Oh, you know, you need to speak to someone. And I can't remember what the trigger was. I remember at one point my sister was pregnant and got in a car crash, and that sent me I had to leave the job and everything and come home, sent me all types of anxious, sick. Can't be here, I gotta go. Just abandoning the job. So yeah, but I don't know what the actual cause was, but it needed to happen. So yeah, went to the doctors and they were great. And the drugs they put me on, Certraline was fantastic. Why? It just worked. I was still miserable and not happy, but I wasn't having panic attacks or anything anymore. Right. Uh it was brilliant. Always recommend speak to the professionals, but the drugs aren't the cure, it's your lifestyle to change once you can.

SPEAKER_01 50:50

I was gonna say that we've spoken previously. If you potentially, I mean, this again is hindsight, if you'd have had the regular training that I don't think it would have ever been an issue. Yeah, that's what I mean. You don't think it would have ever been an issue?

SPEAKER_02 51:04

No, I don't think so. Uh, because I'd still be competing, so all my competitions stopped. I had a couple of fights where I couldn't do any of the proper training, and I was crap in the ring, just mentally not there and being beaten by people I should have. I think so, yeah. Because of my identity was I fight and I'd I fight good. Yeah, and yeah, it wasn't happening anymore.

SPEAKER_01 51:24

Yeah, I think it all But again goes back to that whole thing of like we pre both of us preach now, you've got to give yourself a fighting chance, you've got to be looking after your body, sleeping, exercising, stimulating yourself in ways that you need to. Yeah. But that's again, it's quite an important part of the story you suffering with this. That's yeah, and recognising, I guess, that things were missing.

Australia Reset: New City, New Craft

SPEAKER_02 51:46

Because I knew that it was the lack of training anyway. You know, even knowing what the problem was didn't really help. But I remember I remember driving and thinking I need to crash this van into the side of that bridge just to really that extreme. I would never, you know, I would have never done it, but thinking like I also remember leaving my drive at three in the morning to go to jobs and thinking if this is my life, this is fucking shit. Yeah, this is what adult working life is like, I don't want it. But then sort it out. I was lucky with into my whole kind of very fringe suicidal, but very much depressed and anxious life. I had the way out, which was which I'm sure you're gonna go on to myself and my missus moved to Australia and I had that date set. So there was always originally when I spoke to the doctor said, put me on beta blockers just so I don't have panic attacks, because 2017 we're moving away. I'm sure it will be fine. Um, so I did have that out, which I guess it's way easier than a lot of people have been.

SPEAKER_01 52:40

And this is where it did, it was quite the change, wasn't it? Because when 2017 came, you and Harriet went out, got your working visas, and went out with the initial idea of just what travelling around Australia. Travelling around Australia and working, but also looking at potentially making it our permanent home. And how did you feel when you stepped off that plane?

SPEAKER_02 52:59

Unbelievably great, instantly.

SPEAKER_01 53:01

Just instantly.

SPEAKER_02 53:02

Instantly, everything was fresh and new. It was like scenes from a movie where every all the lighting's perfect. Yeah. Remember stepping off the plane, we went to Coodie Beach where we first lived, and the pigeons in Australia looked the same apart from they got these like long spikes on the top of their head of feathers. Everything's better here. Even the pigeons. Look at that haircut and yet instant relief straight away. Did you come off the antidepressants and stuff? So I was supposed to finish the course that I was on. Come around, they they gave me loads of pills. Oh really? And then some to take over there. So you've got to finish. I was still taking them, and then I realised every time I took them, I started getting anxious again. So I got to the point where I, yeah, so this is yeah, when I didn't need them anymore, I guess that's then they made you because the side effects of searchroline is anxiety, which is great for an anti-anxiety drug.

unknown 53:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 53:59

So I was taking them and feeling really bad. I was like, I'm just gonna take one every other day and that worked for a bit, and then I started feeling bad again. I'm gonna take half every other day and then just came off and I was fine.

SPEAKER_01 54:09

That was that. So that new stimulus and change of new environment.

SPEAKER_02 54:15

Again, I think the a whole where I've always liked to learn things, now I was learning a whole life. I need to one again with my wife making me much more of a driven discipline to a point bloke. Go get yourself a job, you fat loser.

SPEAKER_01 54:32

As I say, because I mean you moved over there, Harriet's a nurse, isn't she? So she walked straight into a job, presumably.

SPEAKER_02 54:38

I said to her before we went over, I'm not doing anything apart from boxing coaching. That's what I want to wrangle my full-time job to be. And we'll give it a couple of months. If I don't find anything, then I'll do like a bar job or something. And manage to get a job in boxing coaching straight away. How? Being an absolute legend. And so modest as it being full of bullshit. Walking around the city, looking for things, going into boxing gyms and training, meeting some people and this and that. I saw a gym as I was on a bus journey, which was a chain at the time. I called up, they didn't have any work, they recommended somewhere else in Bondi Junction. Yeah, got the job, did the interview, got the job for four hours a week. Is this PTing or boxing coaching? It was part circuit training, part boxing coaching, and to start with, you weren't allowed to PT. So it was just pay per hour, you're in there. So I was in there four hours a week, I was getting paid four hours a week. Very quickly, they realised I knew what I was doing.

SPEAKER_01 55:35

Had you get everything, obviously, before you came, you realised that you were a better punch and then you were a kicker. Before you left for Australia, was boxing more of a dominance then of you of you sort of.

SPEAKER_02 55:46

Yeah, I'd fizzled out the I was still at the kickboxing gym. They were flirting with the idea of getting their amateur boxing licenses.

SPEAKER_01 55:54

Oh, I see, okay.

SPEAKER_02 55:54

So I was going to do that, which never quite materialised, which was fine. I was doing white collar boxing in the meantime, and I was just sparring all the people who were trying to kick me with just my hands. So it's fine.

SPEAKER_01 56:05

Okay. So so you head out to Australia, you find this gym, and you said the minute you hit the bag in the gym, the bloke was like, Oh, yeah, that was yeah.

SPEAKER_02 56:16

So the first one, the one in Sydney in Bondi, they gave me the job. Then we left, we were gonna settle in Sydney, then we went to Melbourne for Christmas, we had more friends in Melbourne anyway, and we just preferred Melbourne's vibe. So then I left the Sydney one, found one in Melbourne, and then yeah, had the interview for that.

SPEAKER_01 56:33

Oh, so sorry, so it was in Melbourne that you're just like whacking the bag.

SPEAKER_02 56:36

Injured my back during the interview because again, I was still fat and unfit at this point. Oh really? Yeah, we'd only been in Australia a couple of months if that. So I was doing all this crazy, stupid sled pushing and then hitting the bag, and then doing this and that and this, and I I can't remember what move I did. Oh, I think I've got to go mad. And yeah, from the first second you hit the bag, I was gonna give you the job.

SPEAKER_01 56:59

Sweet. Yeah. So what's that like in Melbourne? Because it's you said Melbourne's a very different city, it's a big space, but with less people, and your community and where the gym was, you were building this really good Yeah, it's lovely.

Coaching In Melbourne And Business Lessons

SPEAKER_02 57:11

We it was quite an affluent family, small area, Ashbert's called, very nice, but very wealthy. The gym was quite new, I think. Maybe he'd been there a couple of years. And then I joined it, welcomed with open arms by all the members. I got on really well. He's still a good friend of mine now with the guy who ran it, Simon. And then I met another guy, Adam Millgate, there, who now has his own gym in Malvard, who we got on really well. He became my main training partner. It was great, yeah. I could PT there a bit, still bits of circuit training, lots of boxing, which is great fun. You doing any music in Australia? My music life is now on hold and still on hold now.

SPEAKER_01 57:51

But this is where the boxing becomes a much more dominant feature, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 57:55

Absolutely. Now it's my life.

SPEAKER_01 57:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 57:57

It was always my life to a point, but now it is my own way of paying the bills.

SPEAKER_01 58:02

Building the experience in Australia, that was helpful, right? Absolutely. Yeah. But your intention was to stay in Australia?

SPEAKER_02 58:09

I would have loved it, and I had lots of people offering sponsorships to stay there and all that kind of thing. Especially on the leaving party, we had loads of people coming up. Oh, if you would have said. But my wife, and she was absolutely correct as she normally is. The next kind of chapter in our life was marriage and kids, and having that family support here really been beneficial for me.

SPEAKER_01 58:29

Really important, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 58:30

When you're her family wouldn't have been able to fly over there. My dad would never have wanted to fly over there.

SPEAKER_01 58:35

Yeah, and like you say, you're building your young family, you're getting married, all these things. Proper adult stuff. Proper, yeah, you're a proper big boy now, James. You're doing all this stuff, and being around that support network is important, however much it must have been hard to move back from. You said you'd you'd built a really good community of people. Say your boxing coaching was taken off.

SPEAKER_02 58:57

Yeah, so myself and Adam, we moved to another gym over there. Within a year, we made it one of the like hottest boxes. The places to be in Melbourne. Yeah, we'd smash that place.

SPEAKER_01 59:08

And what didn't you have loads of really cool fighters training to your just loads of cool clients, a couple of fighters?

SPEAKER_02 59:14

I worked at another one as well, where it were just some bizarre. Again, the beauty of all combat sports gyms is there are such an eclectic mix of people that are all getting on. I don't have people who are working themselves out of poverty or like homelessness and all that, or were still homeless, but coming in and training and mixing with some unbelievable rich elite.

SPEAKER_01 59:35

But no, also that was this where you did stuff with Tony Jeffries came to your place.

SPEAKER_02 59:38

So met Tony Jeffries.

SPEAKER_01 59:40

Tony Jeffries, for anyone who doesn't know, is a British boxer.

SPEAKER_02 59:43

He's um I think he was a bronze medalist or silver medalist in the Olympics, a very gifted amateur boxer, went pros and the only boxer to sell out the Sheffield Arena on his pro debut, which is impossible. He did it. Uh, had a load of fights, broke his hands, had to retire, and he now has the leading, he had the leading boxing gym in Alley for a while, and now he has the leading online platform for boxing world.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:07

His YouTube channel and Instagram and social media is massive, isn't it? Yeah, great guy. Great guy, great advice as well, though. Yeah. A lot of the time.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:14

Taught me a lot of things more about the business side than the boxing side. Such as. Or the the social media. I was not on social media at all during all this stuff. I had it, my personal Instagram page, which I posted maybe one photo on every six months or seven months. And then he was like, You gotta do this, you gotta do this, you gotta do this. There was one guy with us when we met him who was already doing it all, and he had clients out of his eyeballs, no advertising or anything, just having a good time. And then Tony Jeffreys gave us the blueprint of how to get clients through social media. Now that's what I do.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:46

And then you bought that back, you and Harriet moved back to England.

Coming Home, Starting Over, And Finding A Base

SPEAKER_02 1:00:50

At one point, there was a bit of a wobble, like, oh god, I'm gonna have to get a job in Sainsbury's or something again. Nothing wrong with that, it's just not for me. Bills have got to be paid though, because I thought I've gone from somewhere where they do have a lot of money, Malbourne is a place where there's loads of clients, everyone's willing to spend, you get paid loads in Australia, enough money to have fun and do things as well as save and pay your bills to come back to again a small town, not tons of money. Not a huge opportunity as well. Not a huge opportunity, and just thinking, oh god, it's not gonna work, I won't be able to do any PT stuff, and that'd be the end of my boxing career. Straight to being miserable.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:27

Was that quite a daunting prospect in some of the things?

SPEAKER_02 1:01:29

To start with, yes. But then again, I was just chatting to I've got friends who would do it who PT and all that at the time. And well, if they can do it, then I can do it. Not that they're like not that they're morons or anything like that.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:42

No, not that, but obviously with your experience that you've had in Australia, the business side of things, Tony Jeffrey, social media. Are you thinking come back and make this a thing?

SPEAKER_02 1:01:52

Yeah, exactly the same attitude with when we went to Australia. I'm gonna make it my full-time job, whether I have to get a part-time job, wants to do it or what.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:01

And this is where you start doing the PT in for Yeah. I don't know if I should name a household name, the gym group in the UK. You're a PT within that system, right? Brilliant. What does that look like for you?

SPEAKER_02 1:02:15

Working in retail. Is that essentially my first shift? Got the job. The guy who ran the place, brilliant dude, very, very nice, very knowledgeable PT, and gave me really good vibes going in there on my first interview. Went in there, need a job, done all this, blah, blah, blah. Interview this day. Went there, met him, and oh yeah, perfect. Then had my first shift. You have to work for them for 12 hours a week, which pays your rent, which is another reason I went there. There wasn't an actual handing over of cash that I didn't have. I'm always happy to give, yeah, I'm happy to give my time. So give your time, pay your rent, and then blah, blah, blah. And my time for the first shift was spent there talking to people who didn't want to be spoken to, cleaning, walking around. I couldn't say fucklebugger, which I was so used to. Matthew knows what I'm actually liking. In person, I was so used to being that person. It just wasn't for me. I remember going home speaking to my wife, saying, hate it. Yeah. But I need to do it. It was a necessary evil, but like that's this isn't my vibe of man.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:13

And this is where sooner or later we're getting close to the bit where you met you were so lucky you got to meet me.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:19

Yes. So lucky. Yeah, so I found a gym that was much more my vibe, wrangled a good deal, which worked for everybody involved, met lovely people such as yourself. And yeah, fit that place like a glove and loved it again. Not that I fell out of love with PT or anything, but that was much more.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:37

When you focus down just on the boxing, you're so much happier, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:03:40

Yeah, and uh it's niche, so it just gives me a bit of edge in uh an area around here where there are a lot of PTs and gyms. It's a boxing coach, but also a boxing coach who knows what they're doing, which again is niche in the boxing coach world as well.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:55

Yeah. So for the next five years, we built our friendship and we did working and doing stuff. And I suppose, is this over the time where COVID?

SPEAKER_02 1:04:04

Yeah, so yeah, we came back end of 2019.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:07

I walked straight into COVID.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:09

Oh, well, got straight into the gym group, then left the gym group and started at the gym. I was at NickFit uh 2020, January 2020. And then when did COVID happen? March. Yeah, so March lost my job. Yeah, and I hadn't been anywhere long enough to claim any money off the government or anything like that. So I had a retainer off my wife.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:26

Really?

SPEAKER_02 1:04:27

It's brilliant. But here's your 200 pounds for this month. Oh bless her.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:31

Again, because Harriet being a nurse, I saw she's very into it frontline and it's frontline, super stressed, working really hard.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:38

For a minute, we had to live in separate houses because obviously we came back to live with our parents because we don't have prompt to hear it. My parents live on the same land as my sister and brother-in-law, um, and they were immunocompromised. So they didn't want Harriet there if she was in hospitals. Oh god. So she was at her mum and dad's, and I was at mine. Oh no. I was doing again with the social media beast and Tony Jeffrey's advice. I was doing three online classes for free a day on Instagram and all that, which worked really well. Had some people then doing video call PT, which was paying some bills. Can't remember when they lifted the thing so you could do one-to-one PT outside and then hit the ground moving.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:17

Yeah, I remember lots of those, you doing lots of pad work in the park and all those sorts of things.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:21

Yeah, it's brilliant. Loved it. Most people have half an hour with me, some hours, but I'd be go to the park for six, maybe have someone at eight, shadow box and all that. And then my next person would come in and I'd just have a really staggered day.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:32

But are you back to playing music now? You're back home and you've No, not even just as a hobby.

Building The Jab Lab And Coaching Philosophy

SPEAKER_02 1:05:38

Every now and again I'll noodle on the guitar for a little bit and think, God, I'm awful and put it away. Or I'll get it out and play chords for my demanding wife. Play a Britney Spears song. I'll play a Britney Spears song song. So Britney Spears song. Or I'll get out the guitar. I like Britney Spears, to be fair. Max Martin, a genius songwriter, wrote all that stuff. I like that. And then I'll play some songs for my daughter who just puts her hands all over the string and steals my plectrum.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:04

Fair enough. So this is where we start needing to talk about you going, I've got bigger plans for this. I don't want to be a Would you say this is where we start talking about the creativity? Potentially. Well, there's there's creativity in what you've done after leaving the gym because you've wanted bigger and better things and you've started the jab lab. You've built a brand, you've built a social media platform, you've built a gym, you've built a great team of people that come to the gym.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:33

Even before that, part of the Mad scientist aspect of being a PT is if you're good at it, you develop individual plans and progressions for each individual client, which is really hard to do for a contact sport where you're not allowed to make contact with people because of COVID. Or you create a problem solving with that. Creating drills, which this all this stuff is where I'm and in Australia, where I really knuckled down and started being disciplined, and I need to get better at all of this. So I've got to actually work.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:01

It's funny because there is this weird, there's an underlying level of discipline that runs through your whole life. But then there's also this like fuck that, I don't want to do that.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:10

Yeah, that and that's where I don't want to do that, but I've got to do that. Health and safety courses, this and that. And even in my own training, my own training was very much free and easy. And then what now because I've got to be the best in the room for the coaching. I need perfect jabs, perfect crosses, I need to shadow box with this and make a methodical, strategic way of getting better myself, which then went into my coaching. That's how I coach people, and yeah, it's because it is different.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:37

I mean, a fun fact, little known fact about me, but I was once an instructor with registered with the British Combat Association as well. So it's not all like you can be a great boxer fighter, but coaching it is like I didn't have until I started doing that. I was like, oh, you've got to know about health and safety, heart problems, medical things. Risk assessment. Like that, like we are so not risk assessment people. Yes, I am, I've got a qual. But yeah, obviously with the jab lab, you're fully insurance and risk assessment up, but it's there's a whole other level to being a coach than just knowing how to throw a jab, throw a cross, throw, you know, in my case, punch someone in the throat and gouge out the eyeballs.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:15

Gouge out the eyeballs. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And lots of really excellent fighters are terrible coaches. Did you find that crossover a little bit tricky, bearing in mind you think I was always a better coach than looking back, always a better coach than fighter?

SPEAKER_01 1:08:29

The intricacies, the health and safety, the risk is because it's like it's all the stuff that you didn't like at uni, the boring stuff. I've got to learn this because that's the way they do it, or admin. I hate computers.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:41

But that just shows the want that you have. So the Christmas before the jab lab opened, I got all the gym ready with the painting and getting it to look how I wanted to look, and getting the branded gloves and all their stuff and all that. And then my Christmas was spent doing admin. But again, it was boring, but it I had to do it. And I wanted, isn't it? Yeah, I wanted to do it to get it all ready and it'd be legitimate and no stone and turned. I need this and I need that. And it was great after doing it.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:06

How did it feel opening your own gym? I don't know. Oh, you're gonna be on blasé again. You must be. I'm a blasé man. You're not there's a sense of achievement and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:15

Yeah, but I always want the next thing. So now I opened it with I'm gonna open this gym, uh, and I'd some of my clients, my one-to-one clients, came straight into members. Then I brought in some members before it even opened in January. So I knew I was coming into a somewhat populated class environment. So it's like, right, now what I've got to do is push on, so I've got so many members that I need the next place. That's where I'm at now. So it was great opening my gym. And I love, I absolutely love it. I love when it's slowly becoming like uh more so seeing everyone make friends, so like you making friends with this person, holding pads for that, and then seeing that people are actually taking stuff on board and enough so that they can coach. Should we talk a little bit about that then?

SPEAKER_01 1:09:57

Because we have got, we are very lucky, we've got a wiki community at the gym. But we're all very what's the best way to word this, different. Yeah, that too, but there's also that camaraderie, the support network, the place to talk, a place to decompress, a place to it's amazing how fast you forget your troubles when someone's trying to punch you in the face sort of thing.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:19

So we've got a member, so I this kid's only been a member of the gym for a few months, but I've sparred with him now 20 rounds, if not more. Me and him will already have a very strong and different relationship to people I haven't sparred because we have now pushed each other. It's nothing like, oh macho, but just I've seen where he breaks and he he hasn't seen where I break. No, no one ever has. But yeah, you've it's why it's such a special environment as well. The training classic stuff is lovely and really, really good, and everyone helps each other, and you're breaking physically because of being tired and all that, but you don't really break mentally. Whereas to then go the next level, it's even better. You might be sparring with someone, and something happens that just catch you off guard, and you'll have an emotional breakdown, which happens all the time. There are so many. My whole sparring career, including myself, has always tears and breakdowns. But then the person that's just beat the crap out of you is gonna pick you back up and like, no, no, come on, you've got to get on with it, and they're gonna push you enough, whether it's to just keep beating you, but with encouragement, or whether it is a full like, look, just relax, it doesn't matter, we'll get back to it and have an actual debrief. Whatever you need, they'll do it, and then that can write some of my best friends are the the the murderers row I mentioned earlier, Matt, James Winsper. I can go talk to them, and we just know each other more, and like times never pass, we've always and there is something about that, isn't it?

Community, Sparring Bonds And Emotional Pressure

SPEAKER_01 1:11:42

We've mentioned it before the humbling element of walking into a combat gym where you might think you're the big I am, yeah, but someone two stone lighter than you absolutely batters you, or you batter someone that's much heavier or whatever than you. Yeah, there's a levelling bit to it, isn't it? And we always we'll talk a bit about your social media, but we get it all the time, don't we, on your YouTube channel. People are live and they're going, I could beat you up and I could do that.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:06

And your response is you know where the gym is, come down because I've been beaten up before and I'll be beaten up again. I don't mind.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:13

And there is something in that, isn't it? Yes, absolutely. A lot about fighting, combat sports, discipline. But we talk a lot about that, don't we? In the gym and out of the gym as friends, about it's that classic Mike Tyson thing, is it? Everyone's got a plan until they get punched in the face.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:29

Big time.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:30

And that there's something about that humility and that levelling aspect of combat sports and being put under that pressure. Understanding yourself when you're put under physical, physical pressure.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:42

Is different to just going, oh, I'm quite strong mentally, I've got some mental fortitude. It's very different, like you say, when you're exhausted, you're under stress, someone's trying to punch you in the face or repeatedly. You do do the shark tank stuff. In my testing, I had to fight people for 15 minutes just relentlessly, relentlessly, and you never know what the time's gonna be.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:02

And you're four minutes in, you think, God, this got to be nearly over, but you're not even close. That holding a mirror up to yourself in a way, of course. Well, I mean you can do what you're capable of.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:13

It's probably why I like it. Again, with always being selfish with my time, boxing's a selfish sport, especially you do have a team and everything around you, it's all about you, how good you are, how you deal with this, how you can learn, and it's giving you very violently and in an upfront way. You are shit here, deal with it. And you can either, oh no, I'm just gonna avoid that, or you can go, right? I keep getting smashed in the face with this technique. How am I gonna defend that technique? And what are the fun ways of doing it? Or whether it's just one of the best ones is fitness, the amount of fighters who you know at the level that the gym's at, they can spar and all that, but they're still not fit enough to fight, but they won't work their fitness. Their mirror's being held up there. Look, after three or four rounds, you're struggling, go running because it's not comfy. Whereas sparring and losing in sparring might be comfy because it's fun to actually go out and then do the rest.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:03

And there is a massive difference between being fit and being fit while someone's to try to punch you in the face, knee you in the bottom, whatever that's and then you learn the flip side of it.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:12

So I'm not fit now compared to when I was fighting, but I can still last it in the in there for in there putting over there, like they know where the gym is. In the gym. I can still spar for ages. If I'm not being if I'm sparring you guys, again, it's just a an experience difference. I can spar all day.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:31

Is that because you've got like you say, that experience difference allows you to conserve energy where you can, I can't push, yeah. This person's not moving around so much, so I maybe I don't have to be as quick on my feet, I can suck in some air or all that.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:44

Absolutely. And again, that's the other side of it. You're learning.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:47

Yeah, let's talk about that. What do you think some of the things that you can take from boxing combat sports into everyday life that people maybe don't think about, knowing that you're not as fragile as I think you are. That's a big thing. Say more, but that's important, I think, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 1:15:02

Male fragility is a huge issue. So I think nowadays more than ever. But again, it all blokes think they can fight. They can't. Yeah. Um, you learn there that you can't, and that it doesn't matter. If you put the work in, you can learn how to fight, but someone who's trained comes up to you on the street, they're gonna batter you and make you feel like a little bitch.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:22

Does this go back to our favourite Miyamoto quote? Better to be a warrior in a garden than a gardener in a war. Exactly that. What does that mean to you?

SPEAKER_02 1:15:32

It's quite self-explanatory, but I think it's For me, I've never got into a fight outside of the combat sports itself because I've never needed to. I've never even felt violent apart from one time which I didn't do anything. Makes my often find that, don't you?

SPEAKER_01 1:15:47

It's like the minute I got my qualification, I didn't want to fight anybody. I am a lover, I'm a pacifist, I will use my verbal jujitsu to get out of a fight rather than using any skill or absolutely whatever. It's and do you think that puts people when you know the skills that you've got, do you think that makes you more violence avoidant almost?

SPEAKER_02 1:16:07

Yeah, I've had people start on me for loads of stupid reasons in the pub and whatnot, people being drunk, and I've just nah.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:13

Do you have the thing? I mean, when I did my qualification, everyone was like, What would you do if I did this? And I'm like, as my mate, I can't really show you because I need to push your Adam's apple back into your throat, your testicles up into your mine I'd just done even I'll just I'd jab you faster than you could believe. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:29

Yeah, you can't.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:31

But did you have that? Because then again, still with ego, everyone's like, Oh, I could do this to you and you can do this, and I'm like, okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:37

Yeah, but there are no rules in the street, which means there are no rules for me to do that. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:42

Yeah, you're fool. Because that's what I must admit I found that hard when I came to boxing. Rules. Rules. Because it is a gentleman's sport, isn't it? It's violent chess, essentially, isn't it? Absolutely violent chess. It's called the sweet science for a reason. Exactly that's martial art. And someone also said to me, Goes, Oh, why are you having a boxing coach on? I said, Well not only because you've got this musical background which levels the creativity, but this person couldn't quite grab the fact that fighting is one of the most creative things you can do because you have got to think in split seconds.

Creativity Inside Constraints: Sweet Science

SPEAKER_02 1:17:15

So this is going back to when we were talking about the bass, and that you've got fewer options to melt people's faces with because it's four strings. In boxing melt people's faces really, so carry on. In boxing, the rule set is you've got so many constraints that you are allowed to punch, and only to the front and side of the head and the front and side of the body, and that's it. So everybody knows the score, and when you get to a level, everyone's practiced the same thing. You need to then all right, what's off piece that's gonna work for me? When you look at Muhammad Ali, the way he defends is so out of pocket that nobody really did it. Hands down and leaning back. What's going on there? That's creative. Emmanuel Burton or Emmanuel Augustus, to change his name halfway through his career, would dance in the ring. He'd be literally dancing in the ring was beat the fuck out of people. Super creative, but no one could match his creativity in the ring because it's so weird, it's not what you do. Everyone's used to the same thing. Roy Jones Jr., so fast, so creative. Which do you think is more creative, attack or defense? Yin and yang together, sir.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:21

Or balance, beautiful.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:22

You can't, yeah, it's not attack and defense, it's all it. This is uh we're getting into the philosophy of fighting now. This is what I want.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:29

This is because you and I have that connection. We're into the philosophy, into the ideas behind it.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:34

You need to learn how to attack and defend at the same time, and that's a huge problem for everyone. Bam bum bum bam bang, stand and watch. No, but and while you're hitting, you're moving your feet, moving your head, which comes in time and takes practice. But again, the creative side of it is how can I every time I do this, I'm getting hit with that. What do I need to do to not get hit by that? I'll try this, I've done that, I've been hit by that. So what's the next how am I gonna well no? I've never seen anyone do this and then do that. Oh, that's working for me.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:01

The learning curve has to be a bit fast. Well, unless unless you want to repeatedly get punched in the face, I guess. The learning curve has to be a bit faster, mate.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:09

Yes, and no. If you want to just wing it and see where you can go up with naturally, then yeah, it can be fast. But if you want to learn and dedicate yourself, this is where all the other stuff comes in. You keep getting hit over the top of your jab, so you need to do shadow boxing with your hands up. How many of you like shadow box outside of the gym? You do. That's one. Uh again, my structured rounds. I'm gonna do 14 rounds of the jab moving in to the left and to the right with my hand, my lead hand high, so no punch over the top. Then I'm gonna do it with my lead hand in the middle, then I'm gonna do it in Philichelle.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:42

But that's quite an interesting aspect of the creativity side of boxing, because in what I did, we call it Red Surf. It's again the shadow boxing. Essentially, you're imagining being in a fight without being in a fight. This person's throwing an elbow, this person's trying to grab me around the throat, this person's throwing a jab. So, shadow boxing, you have to be quite creative as well, don't you?

SPEAKER_02 1:19:59

It's pure imagination, yeah, which is that's your creativity 101.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:03

Creativity, you've got to be able to imagine someone stood in front of you throwing punches, you blocking them, throwing punches.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:09

Can't stress it enough. If you've shadow boxed the double jab moving to your left a thousand times, when it happens in the fight, oh yeah, and then I'm gonna duck under that punch that I've imagined a million times. Again, Tony Jeffries, he would have his fights, and every day leading up to his fight, he would he'd visualize the pre-show warm-up, the walk to the ring, getting into the ring, the touch of gloves, and then the first one or two rounds of the fight, just focus, focus, focus, so that when he does it, it's like I've done it a million times. And at our gym, we'd have your music on get into the ring, touch gloves all the time, which is what I do it while I used to do it.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:45

So you is that because we uh one of our friends did some white collar with you a while ago, and I remember he he burnt himself out pre-fire because his adrenaline was so high and he was pumped up for the walkout and all this sort of stuff. By the time he'd done all that, he was dead.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:00

It's again sparring's very difficult. Then the next stage is the fighting, and it's not the fight that's hard, it's everything before. You will learn so much again about yourself waiting for a fight. You think you're a hard, tough mofo.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:15

You so yeah, it takes a different mentality, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_02 1:21:17

To I was used to sleep because otherwise I'd panic my way out of it.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:20

Really? Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:21

I'm just gonna go have an app and I can sleep.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:24

Wow. Well some of the best fires are some of the calmest under pressure, right? Yeah, that's all it is. Yeah, cold steel. Cold steel.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:32

Cold steel. You can either be uh what's the other you burn bright and fast and then burn out straight away, or you can just be cold steel, whilst you're being fucking you're in the firefight, you're just cool, calm, and collected. I say to everyone in there if they're gonna spar and all that, serial killer. See, you've done this a million times, it's what you love to do. There is no emotional attachment whatsoever. I'm gonna punch your face in. I've got no no malice in my punches, I've got no violence in my punches, it's just what I do. Your face, why?

SPEAKER_01 1:22:00

So I was that's how I go about it. And that's quite hard for anyone that's never done a combat sport or been punched, I'd imagine.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:07

Even for your first six months to six years, that's hard because you're still gonna get hit by something.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:11

Oh, we've got to get them back straight out and it's instinct as well. So sometimes someone punches you, like, oh, can't really stop this. I've just got to punch. And that's the yeah, that's the other side. Again, control elements. This is some of the stuff that I love about the boxing and the fighting that I did, it instills that element of discipline, control, routine sometimes. That I think dare I say we're lacking a bit in a look around and I see people that are lacking discipline, lacking moral fortitude, resilience, a lot of these things.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:43

It's even just something to work for.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:45

Again, yeah, again, yeah, just a goal, a purpose.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:47

Yeah, a great part of that gym so far in the first year has been the kids that come in who are waifs and they're starting to become little fuck-ups and now they're getting jobs and they're now they've got something to work for that's quite positive in the gym.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:00

And we have seen that in the gym, haven't we? I'm not going to name any names, but there's some kids that come through and you thought, what the fuck is this kid all about? Yeah. And a few months later they're they seem to have their heads screwed up a bit more. Doing something in it. Doing something, they've got a bit more purpose, discipline, focus.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:14

And the the really young kids who are like just sit at home and go watch TikTok.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:18

Yeah. They're now like, Oh, we've got some great youngsters, haven't we?

SPEAKER_02 1:23:23

Doing it and you know, yeah, at least switching on a bit. Is that part of it for you?

SPEAKER_01 1:23:28

You want to set an example for it?

SPEAKER_02 1:23:30

Well, yeah, I mean, I am a boring man anyway, so I don't drink, I don't have hobbies and I work, which I love. I wouldn't have it any other way. But I also with my training, when it really when I was really trying to get seriously good at boxing with hard work, it was for me, so I can say, you need to do this and this whilst they're doing that. Oh, you do it then. Okay, and now I can. And I I really believe that I need to lead by example to a point, you know, I live a mostly healthy lifestyle. And I'm last year I didn't exercise as much as I normally do just because of the gym and a child and all this. But as my time becomes freer again as my daughter's getting older and I'm settling into the role there, then I'll go back to it. But the skill base I have for boxing and coaching is now ingrained enough where I can't I lead by example. So what are you drinking for? Oh, you know, it's fun and all that. Do you want to fight? Yeah. I used to go out at 19, 20, 21, 22, then have sober nights out with my own mates because I was having a fight in six months.

Visualisation, Cold Steel, And Fight-Night Nerves

SPEAKER_01 1:24:34

Do you want to win? And that's part of the reason why I've got you on. Obviously, there is this underlying creativity that runs through your whole story. But the podcast is for me about interest in inspiring human beings. And this is where you start mate. Probably yeah, see, I knew you were gonna do that. You're gonna get all I'm gonna make jokes about it and be all silly, but I'm gonna pay you a compliment. But you are a hugely inspiring man, you've had an interesting journey, but the inspiration that I see you give others in the gym is one of the reasons I wanted to get you on because I think there's a lot I wouldn't say you're a mentor as such, but like I think there are, especially for the younger guys coming through, seeing what you're doing, seeing how dedicated you are to the gym, to your craft, to your wife, to Penny, to your family, it's an inspiring thing, and it's like good values as a man, I think is something that's very important these days. Beaten to me by my father. Great. I don't, it doesn't matter where it comes from, but I think, like we say, you are uh an influence, and I especially when I see you working with the young guys and young girls, you're inspiring people and you're giving people a skill set that, like we've just said, we've seen people go from beat about the roof, maybe some of them could have led down their fuck-ups. Yeah, and they've come in a gym maybe with a bit too much ego. Yeah, something that needs addressing, and they're a few months surrounded by you, the other people in the gym, the having that humility element of someone coming in and going, oh shit, that young lad can beat the fuck out of this 44-year-old.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:07

I think part of it as well is yeah, that you come into the class and loads of people think, you know, you go to a boxing gym and everyone's just and they're at the age, say, like a 19-year-old lad, where I am the Billy Big Ball, so I have to act like this because oh, and all my mates do, and then you come to a gym where there are some seriously good, talented, violent people in there, in there, not violent people, that could rip their heads off joking, chatting, no ego at all, and like having a good time, happy to be vulnerable, happy to coach each other, and like you don't have to wait.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:41

Because that's that's probably the negative thing that always someone who's never done a combat sport, they they imagine I can't walk into that gym, they're all gonna just be arseholes or meatheads or want to kill me or whatever.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:51

There, those gyms are out there for sure. Most of them are not like that. They're all the gyms I've ever been to have been really welcoming and just great, really friendly, everyone on the same level.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:03

And we've got people in the gym doing it for all different reasons. I mean, some of them want to fight, some of them on a weight loss journey, some of them on a just a general fitness.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:13

And the good thing with all combat sports is you'll never learn it all. So once you, you know, or I've learned how to perfect my jab, which you won't, but I've learned how to perfect my jab now. What's next? There's always a what's next, which is what always keeps me invested in anyway.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:28

I've never and your creativity is growing now because as we've said before, you've got the social media you're doing a bit more on. I know you're gonna make it, but the YouTube channel, I mean I I love it, but the YouTube channel's a bit different, isn't it, than just the Instagram fleet and stuff. You enjoy the YouTube channel.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:43

I like the YouTube a lot more.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:44

Talk to us a bit more. What made you is that off the back of Tony Jeffrey's advice? You want all or you want to extend the knowledge that you're passing on?

SPEAKER_02 1:27:51

Both, yeah. I like YouTube because it's long form and I can talk bullshit all day about boxing. I can I really can.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:59

I absolutely can, I love it. I've probably edited about three hours out of this already.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:03

And we can go full nitty-gritty into the absolute minutia of a jab. And that's what you can do on YouTube, and there's someone out there that will love that. That's what I like about it. And then I like the live chats on it. Even when I'm getting abused on it, I find it funny.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:14

Yeah, we've had some fun, haven't we? But who we had um oh god, I'm gonna forget his name, but the guide for Reggie Sweet Johnson. Reggie Sweets Johnson, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:23

He came checking out International Boxing Hall of Fame. He was in an era that I loved. He was mid eighties to late nineties, and I don't think I'd ever seen him on TV, so I didn't know who he was. And I checked him out. Bloody hell been in the ring with We've got every favourite boxer I've ever had. So me and you are just bumbling around in the world. But again, so I knew straight away there's two reasons I knew he was a legit boxer. One, the way he was chatting on the live anyone who's talking shit on a boxing live stream isn't a boxer. He was respectful straight away. He liked watching what we were doing, you know, and like, oh, I'd love to see that boxing still alive, and the younger people who obviously wasn't talking about you. I was gonna say, was you watching someone else's video? It can't have been us.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:03

Young people.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:04

No, I'm still young. Yeah, you're still young. And then also part two of that is having a name like Sweet. Yeah. That's a crap fight name. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:12

You think you're giving yourself the name? I was so mad that we were on a live stream and some world champion boxer Hall of Fame.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:19

Wasn't that one of those live streams where there's a few thousand people too? Yeah. Every now and again you'll just get a mad one. I had one ages ago now, a couple of thousand people, but everyone was super educated about combat sports. So we were all chatting about things start with MMA and involved it. And everybody was chiming in with good, positive stuff. That's the part of social media that's good. And why I like the YouTube. And then some Dick Edcom.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:40

I know where the Jimmy, so I'm gonna come and knock you in. We had some guys and he said, I'll be down at this date, at this time.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:46

I had one um, yeah, I'm two hours away. I'll see you on Saturday. Joke's on you, kid. I don't work weekends. But then he I said Google Maps of the Jab Lab, it's Paddington Court, and then he came up. Oh, is this the address? It's like, yeah, yeah, it's a come down, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:02

It's amazing. Again, the keyboard warriors who want to think they're tough guys.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:06

But it's the it's again the fame. I mean, everyone has a fragile ego to some point, regardless of gender. But he would have been teens, I imagine, and never really done anything. I'm not gonna say anything in his life, never done anything humbling or challenging in his life yet. So he's oh I'm well, I can be tough too. There's a man punching the bag, and I can do that too.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:27

This is obvious and makes sense to me, but would you advise people to do things that push them out of their comfort zone? Yeah, it's an obvious answer for me.

Fragility, Confidence And Being A Warrior In A Garden

SPEAKER_02 1:30:36

But I'd always I'd heavily, heavily advise any combat sport, you're gonna learn so much more about yourself. Whether you just do it for a year or two and then take what you learn into something else, a combat sport, again, you're gonna be so deflated to build yourself back up and then humbled again and build yourself back up, feel like you're drowning for six months to a year of your training. There's there's beauty in that. You don't realise until after. I'm just fucking shit. This you're not, you're doing what everyone else has done, and now they're great at it. And then to take that perseverance into whatever you want to do, especially your creative stuff. We're surrounded by all this artwork that you've done that you're not going to show to anyone, it's fucking good stuff. But then you might think, oh, why have I done that if I can sell it to whoever it doesn't matter because you've done it. Drowned for six months doing all this stuff. Now you can take what you learn from that.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:24

There is something to be said in there for do first. Yeah, do later. Well, that's been quite a lot. Never really thought about it. I just I did it. You know, I just walked into that gym or I just picked up that guitar and then I just started doing this.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:36

Yeah, again, like you said, but at the time it was just oh you gotta pick that up and I'll go learn that.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:41

Now I'm gonna punch that man in the face.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:44

Yeah. Is this me trying to get a nice sound bite out of the podcast? What is the one piece of advice from your fight training that you think is the best piece of advice for people to take into it?

SPEAKER_02 1:31:56

Get amongst it! Yeah, fine. It's a great one. I think a huge one, really, which is so lame. Just again, every fight that I go for, it's always saying, go out there and have fun. People don't, people are scared to do that again. You you're gonna go out there in front of loads of people, and this is for anything, especially creative stuff. You're gonna go out there and make yourself vulnerable for other people's judgment or whatever. It's gonna make you close up and not express yourself how you want to express yourself. Just go out there and have fun.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:28

And take perhaps some of that nonchalant who cares?

SPEAKER_02 1:32:33

Nobody. You are not even a side character in someone else's life. It's all selfish, which again, not in a horrible way, but everyone's life's a great lesson to learn. Yeah, everyone's life is about them. You'll be a fleeting echo of a oh, you shouldn't do it. Okay, I went, and then they forget about you.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:50

So people holding themselves back through fear of what people I mean, look at this podcast, me creating art, all these things. It's like I could very easily bury my head in the sand and not do any of it because I'm scared of what people are gonna think.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:01

But like putting yourself if you want to do social media stuff, just put yourself on social media. Well, but what if my voice sounds funny? Doesn't matter, loads of people's voices sound funny on social media.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:11

Because honestly, you doing your social media and not giving a fuck about it actually gave me a lot more confidence because it was sort of like if that idiot can do it, I've been in the creative industries for years, I must be able to do this. But it is that weird judgment thing. I'm putting myself out there, I'm putting myself on camera.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:30

You aren't gonna judge me more than I've already judged myself.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:33

Exactly. And that's exactly the same for me. It's exactly the same for me.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:36

Okay, so a mutual friend of ours, Tom, who does all the filming and all that. Can't believe how well and how fast I do takes for whatever you know I'm advertising by Jip. It's because I really couldn't give two shit. Yeah. And that means I can relax and deliver the stuff I need to deliver. Yeah, no. You're saying there are people in the industry that can't do it.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:54

Oh no, I said that word a bit wrong. I need to do it stuff. Yeah, and all right. No one will pick up on that. It's the overall message stuff. Well, it's that goes back to the whole thing, doesn't it, about you slipping those notes in those gigs. The band might notice, but the audience haven't got a fucking clue.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:08

They're the ones dancing, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:11

But that's kind of what I wanted to take away from this: the fact that there's creativity in fighting, there's the discipline that comes from these things that we can take into. There's so many live skills that span both.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:24

The big one is practice so much that it you're obsessed and you you know the craft, whatever the craft is, like the back of your hand, and must be done this way and all that, and practice so much that then you realise there's a thousand ways to do it, it doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:38

Is it that thing know all the rules enough so you can break them? Yeah, boxing 101.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:42

Never there you go. Mr. Picasso is a good boxer. Anyway, yeah, so again, I'll teach everyone don't cross your feet when you box. And I'll cross my feet all the time. You just cross your feet, yeah. But I know when to, I know how to, and I know that the rigid structure can be broken.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:59

Oh, James is that much of a talented boxer. He fights us all during the moon war while he's wearing crocs, you know. And singing some and singing songs that he's been singing to his daughter most of the day. Um, what have we not spoken about? I think we've covered a lot. Covered your journey, the creativity, the links between creativity and fighting, the brilliant life skills you can discipline and resilience you can get from fighting.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:23

Yeah, just everyone get yourselves in the combat sport gym. So your creativity can get better.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:28

And put yourself out there. But also, those other things of you you've built a brand, you're doing the YouTube channel. I know you don't like all that, but that building the brand later down the line, when you're old and your knees are gone, you might have Penny in as a championship coach. Maybe, maybe. But that again it's would you like Penny to do some combat sports? She's gonna do something too.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:49

Yes, she'll do something. Yeah, not I don't care if she competes or anything like that, but I want to know that if someone's picking on her, then she rip their arm off or smash theft. Again, it wouldn't be taught like just go kill them. But if she's got I've got a pretty mean slap on me because I can box. So, worst case scenario, first thing I'm gonna do is either shove something really hard, which I've done loads of times. I've pushed people so hard they're gone flying and don't want any part of it. So hopefully she can do that, or you slap them, which I've never had to, so hard that they don't want any part of it. So she's got that, and yeah, and all the rest of it, the confidence and the being humble and having something to work to discipline young. I want her to be not as blasé as me. That's what I want. That's cool. You're gonna be a driven young lady, just something combat sports related for a while, no matter what.

Purpose For Kids, Discipline And Better Choices

SPEAKER_01 1:36:43

I think it's important for everybody.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:46

For everybody, and then stay active.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:49

Yeah, the minute you stop, that's what we see, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 1:36:51

A lot of the time we see it's the so again, your physical discipline is exactly the same as your creative discipline. If you're not being active in your creative, so my guitar playing's gone to absolute shit. It's because I don't I'm not active in that. Whereas if I was still practicing, I'd be selling their line.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:07

Would you like to be more active in your music?

SPEAKER_02 1:37:09

I want an electric drum kit. I flirted with the drums, I'm sure as soon as I get that I'll be in the thing again.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:15

But it's new, it'll be also I guess you the priorities raising a family, getting married, having a child, starting the gym, the priorities can't do everything. And you can do anything, but you can't do everything.

SPEAKER_02 1:37:27

Yes, yeah. Again at the minute, making sure I raise a functional adult is key, especially in the age of non-functional adults.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:37

She's only two, but I love her to pieces. We had such a good time the other day playing hide and seek and boxing monsters in the gym that I didn't do any boxing, but that was fine. What are the future aspirations? Bigger, better gym, more coaches, more Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:37:50

I want people in there, coaches in there that are way more talented than me. Eventually, I want to make a space where they want to be in there and working, whether it's self-employed and renting the space off me or whether I I'd love to give them the job. And there's not a lot of job security in boxing coaching or boxing alone. So yeah, bigger, better, more members, full classes, just see where all the online stuff, if that ever takes off, cool, but it's the bread and butter that I like. I like that. Yeah, face-to-face is the most important that pays your bills. The ultimate dream would be to make boxing champions over time.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:24

And would that involve getting amateur professional?

SPEAKER_02 1:38:27

So I want to get my pros license this year, and I'll get my amateur later on.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:32

My naivety, what do you have to do to get those sorts of licenses?

SPEAKER_02 1:38:35

I don't know the ins and outs really. Uh a couple of my mates are pro coaches, and I've asked them, and it's basically you do an interview, pass the interview, here you go. But then you have to work your way up, so you can't just I wouldn't then be able to go and lead you into a boxing match. I'm a second coach, so I've got to hold the split bucket, get spat up. Cool.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:53

Make sure you get the bucket. Okay, we've covered quite a lot in this, haven't we? We do have a closing tradition on the Creative Nowhereland podcast where we ask our guests to give us a quote of some sort that resonates with you. And also someone in your network that you think could be an interesting guest to come on the Creative Nowhere Land podcast in the future.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:12

I constantly spit out quotations from people who are way smarter than me and way more qualified than me all day, every day.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:19

I need one for the podcast.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:20

Yes. You mentioned one of my favourites, which is better to be a warrior in a garden than a gardener in a war. Fantastic. Brilliant. Me and Moto Musashi from the Book of Five Rings, read it, change your life. But one of my favourites from a lady I missed deal is from my auntie. And it's super simple. After 10 years of battling horrific cancer, her like sign off was smile at strangers and enjoy your life.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:44

Oh, that's brilliant. And can we talk a little? Because I we forgot, haven't we? Your auntie is a big important character, and this is one of those things that again, discipline, giving back to others. When your auntie was poorly with cancer, you decided to do 101 rounds of boxing for charity, didn't you?

SPEAKER_02 1:40:00

I did indeed. How was that? Terrible. Uh we raised a shed load of money for blood wise, I think they changed their name now, but basically, I think they're the leading blood cancer charity in the UK. Yeah. Because she had a really aggressive and rare form of blood cancer, some kind of Hodgkin's lymphoma or something like that.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:20

She passed away, sadly, just before you were.

SPEAKER_02 1:40:22

Yeah. From what she either passed away just before we did the event itself, or she passed away because I wanted her to be there. I wanted to do the last round with her, which she would have never been able to do because she was really bad. At that point, really bad, yeah. Basically, I think the last year of her life, she was just in the hospital. But so she was either there but couldn't make uh alive with us and couldn't make it, or she died just before we released the documentary. So Tom, who did a really nice documentary that he put out on YouTube about it all, and I don't think she saw that. But if you want to watch that, it's called Use the Love as one word. Big shout out to Tom Sibble or Baker Avenue. Um, yeah, she's an incredible lady. My auntie was a surrogate mother, pretty much. Really to myself and to my sister, so she was a big character in our lives. Lovely lady, all a good human all round. Great quote as well. Yeah, yeah. Again, so simple and so effective. Whether you just don't want to be embarrassed, you're only no one cares, but it's just smile at someone.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:24

My nan said the same thing, give three compliments compliments a day, and they don't have to be like, well, I love your fit or no, no, no. Just, oh, I really love that jacket, or I love the energy you've got when you walk into a room or whatever.

YouTube, Social Media And Thick Skin

SPEAKER_02 1:41:35

So pure tiredness. That's a two-year-old. People are so receptive just to people being nice, but just don't expect it, or just don't not that they don't want to do it, scared of what if they're not nice back? Who cares? Yeah, who cares? And you know they're in knob. Who cares?

SPEAKER_01 1:41:49

You never know what you're gonna do with some kind words to someone, even if they don't respond. They might go away and think, oh my god, that guy said something really nice about my coat the other day.

SPEAKER_02 1:41:56

And then I'll say something nice about two other people's coats, and then it's a nice thing, isn't it? It's just like yeah, yeah, she was uh a wise lady, didn't get too many years on the planet, but she was good with stuff.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:08

Pretty incredible of you to do a hundred and one rounds of boxing. I had to do more than anyone else in our gym. Again. Go on, tell that story. Someone else had done a hundred rounds.

SPEAKER_02 1:42:19

Yeah, that we'd had a couple of a hundred round events to raise money for charity, so secretly I had to better them. But it was also inspired by my auntie had been in that comas for God knows how long, and a couple of times, bad, like this is it kind of comas, and then bounced back and come out of the hospital and lived quote unquote normal life as best she could for a year or two or nine months, or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:42

Not to the same league, but when you were going through the 101 rounds, did you go through peaks and troughs? Oh, big time.

SPEAKER_02 1:42:47

I'm gonna give this a that was it. So bounced back. That my hundredth round was maybe you know, her being like, Oh, and then she'd always give one more. Yeah. So they go 100 and warm rounds. Yeah, and yeah, I remember bizarre, the first 30 rounds piece of cake, and then first 60 rounds is a video of me, round 67 or something, still looking all right. I was like, oh, and then 70. Really? Oh just the world collapsed around me. Oh, I can imagine that's exhausting. Yeah, there's a video, so I beat my mum up instead for the last round. There's a video of me. So I think it's on the end of the of Tom's documentary.

SPEAKER_01 1:43:23

And I'm just oh really, yeah. Okay, and a creative person in your network or a person in your network that you think would be an interesting guest. Tom Sivil. There you go. We talk about he made the documentary. Tom is a legend.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:38

Unbelievably good eye for filmmaking and photography in general. I've got two actually. So Tom Sivil and yourself.

SPEAKER_01 1:43:46

Oh, you see, this is now you've done it on a podcast, that's dangerous. But a few people have come and said, we really need to have an interview of you, and I'm like, nah. But um, I'm not sure how we'd wear that. So Tom. So Tom.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:01

But yeah, Tom, again, incredible and inspiring person, doing loads of stuff outside of his art as well. He's very driven, switched on dude. So, yeah, him, great creative eye, makes good stuff as well as he's a good one.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:14

He's just a good egg as well, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 1:44:16

He's a lovely, lovely man, top geezer.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:18

I think it would be an interesting story. I like Tom a lot. Yeah, me too. Uh he'll be good in. James. And you and yeah, no, well, so Tom Sybil. James, thank you so much for doing the Creative No Land podcast, mate. As I say, maybe people might look at it and go, boxing coach. I'm not really sure about that, but so much creativity wrapped up in your journey, so much creativity wrapped up in not getting punched in the face.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:41

Yes. Um I don't like it. So trying not to.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:44

And I just think of some genuinely good life lessons to learn from people listening to this if they choose to take away from.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:50

Yeah. Again, get amongst it.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:52

Get amongst it.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:53

Get yourself involved. Smile at strangers, enjoy your life. If enjoying your life is to go and get fisted in the face repeatedly, or hopefully get around it, then do it.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:01

Beautiful. Ending the podcast with some mild fisting. Thanks, buddy. Thank you. Thanks for listening to the Creative Nobeland podcast. If you found anything in this episode useful or inspiring, please consider subscribing or sharing it with a friend. You can also help the podcast by clicking the support the show link in the show notes or by grabbing yourself something from the Creative Nobel's shop. And here's the bonus. When you join the community through our website, you'll get a special discount code that gives you free shipping on all orders. So, before you buy anything, be sure to join the community. Every bit of support helps us keep sharing these inspiring stories. So, thanks again for listening, and until next time, explore, inspire, and create.

SPEAKER_00 1:45:54

Better to have a short life that is full of what you like doing than a long life spent in a miserable way. And so, that boy is so important to consider this question. What do I desire?