At the core of Matt Hudd Martial Arts CIC teachings is mental well-being.  We believe that this is a lot more important than achieving results.  

You only have to look at all the media surrounding celebrities to see how success can be detrimental to mental health.  How many celebrities have ended up in rehab, or have suffered with poor mental health after being at the top of their game after a certain period of time?  We believe that in order to be truly successful, you must firstly work on your own well-being.  

I have personally had experience from burn out on numerous occasions when I’ve neglected to work on myself.  It is so easy to put business first and neglect self-care.  I like to think this is why I have now created the culture and community that we have at the centre.  

Success is  a word that is branded about a lot by business gurus because most people would like to lead a successful life. However, before you go all out and work your socks off, the best advice I can give to anyone is to “Define what success is to you”  . It is something that people don’t often think about, but success can mean so many things – and is not necessarily anything to do with money. Jim Carey, the actor, put up a really good quote which I saw on Facebook( so It must be true 🙂 .  It was something on the lines of “Everyone needs to be a millionaire so they know it is not the be and end all of life”.  Yes there were lots of comments saying things like “That’s easy to say when you have millions”.  It probably is, but the essence of what he was talking about is that money does not make you happy. Of course we all know that, it might make your life easier, true – but if you’re a miserable person, you’re just gonna end up being a miserable rich person who probably does nothing beneficial with their money.. 

Life gets harder when we grow up.  This actually seems a little crazy when you remember when as a child you would think how unfair life was, and that you couldn’t wait to be an adult.  Kids can really test your patience, and sometimes we can think that nothing we say to them sinks in  but believe me, most of it does.  However you might just have to wait until they leave the nest, and learn to fend for themselves, before you see the results. 

This is where having good mentors, like a qualified martial arts coach, can really make a difference, and help.  Alot of parents have said that their children listen to me more than them.  That might not be strictly true but it does seem like that to all concerned most of the time.  Please don’t take offense to that.  They are with you guys all the time and you set the rules, plus you probably don’t go around doing cool kicks and self-defence moves everywhere you go.  On a side note, if you’re a parent and reading this, you can still take advantage of our 4 week free trial so you can become a crazy martial artist too and start turning off lights with your toes! 

Getting back on track,  I love setting myself goals and challenges and ticking things off the bucket list. My challenges have made me who I am, but at the same time I have had to undergo a lot of work on myself to learn to be happy with the journey instead of just shooting from one goal or challenge to the next one.  This only really comes with being happy with yourself and accepting that you will never be perfect.  All of us at times are going to screw things up and get things wrong.  When we accept this, we can then look at ways to improve, and if it’s important to you, change a few things and try again. 

That’s why we need to know what success looks like for ourselves.  It helps to know what your values are and align everything you do with them.  If you’re not sure what values you hold dear to yourself, there are plenty of value quizzes and questionnaires on google to help you. 

What if your child is actually the next Mahamid Ali or David Beckam?  Then if they are, encourage them the same way.  Both the mentioned above would have probably been successful at nearly anything they put their minds to as they knew what it took. They found what they were most passionate about and they went full steam ahead to be the best they could at their chosen art.  I would be willing to bet that both made a hell of a lot of mistakes getting to the top of their game though. 

Therein lies the secret.  If they had worked hard without good mental wellbeing, they would not have had so much success.  Tyson Fury is a great example of how poor mental health can affect your success.  Okay, he’s a one off and not many people would have been able to come back from what he did to regain his no 1 standing in the boxing world, but he had to dig deep and work on himself before getting back in shape. 

This is one reason why I have so much respect for parents that basically said screw home education during lock down.  Fair play to the ones who did fit in all that homeschooling, but there were so many parents that took their kids off to explore places and had fun but still learnt loads. They could have fought against it and had a really miserable time at being a pretend teacher.  This ultimately could have left unwanted memories of a horrible experience in both the parent and the child’s heads. 

I am waffling a lot here but I am very passionate about giving children positive experiences in life rather than just getting annoyed and frustrated at life because your kids don’t fit in the right holes.  Everything children experience in childhood will affect them when they become adults.  How we handle our setbacks in life, will affect how they handle things when they reach adulthood. We are the example, and they are watching us very closely, whether it appears that way or not.

You can’t go far wrong with getting them into martial arts, but always do your research to make sure that classes are run well. Look at the senior grades there as well, are they good role models? If the club does not offer a free lesson or 2, ask yourself why?  We want to work with the parents as well as the children.  We offer 4 weeks free before they need to sign up. Why do we do this?  It is because we want you to know that you and your children are in safe hands and with coaches that care for your child’s progress, not just now – but for their future as well.

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