Hello my names is Andreas Michael I am the national coach of the swedish boxing team and an olympic boxing coach. We have currently four people in the top talent selection team and hopefully by next year, fingers crossed, we will have two more making it six all together. I have been boxing all my life and as a junior had about 100 amateur matchs, mostly unlicenced, by the age of 19 I turned professional and was on the road to becoming a promising professional fighter, had 18 unlicenced professional fights and had an opportunity to sign a promotional contract with Lennox Lewis promotions and was on the road to a great great future, undefeated and in a hurry to be the best of the best………….. with an accident all my dreams disappeared and I could not box anymore so after a few years of soul searching I came back to the thing I love and can do bes,t coaching and boxing. In the space of 4 years I had eight swedish champions, ten of my boxers just from my group were ranked in the top 5 in sweden, I was training the top MMA fighters sweden and other atheletes in other sports. After two years as national coach I got the offer to coach the senior national swedish boxing team and work with SOK. I accepted this january, so lets see how long I will last in this political war. I am no politician, what I have to say I say it and it is not always working for me so my mouth gets me in trouble sometimes, but I don’t like arguing I like working hard to get results and we have done great the last 1 and a half years, more medals continuesly won than any other time in the last 7 years. So something is going right. With the help of SOK (great suport from them thank you) and my colleges (Erik Bredler thanks man for your support gots your back man) we will be a force in the world!!

I fought many wars in my time; some for money, some for power, some for greed but the best reason to fight is the reason for the ´love of the game´. The sole reason being to become the best and love doing what you do on the road to becoming the best. That is what makes you survive the pain and the torture of the training and the mental pressure that 99% of the ´normal´ people cannot cope with. Competing because ´you love what you do´ makes more sense than anything else, by this I mean there will come a time in everyones career when you ask yourself why the fuck am I doing this, I am not getting richer and I am living a harder life because everything around me is influenced by the sport that I do. If you don’t know the answer to that then you are in trouble by someone that does know the answer to that question and is in your sport. People that love what they do are the ones that last the longest and become legendary…….. complaints and excuses are weakening self indulging weaknesses that do not make you conquer giants but get you conquered by giants. If you know that you can do better than do it and shut the fuck up with the complaints, that’s my reasoning, as you can see I am not from here so my psychology is not so heart warming. But I have been to russia, cuba, ireland, england, france, thailand, poland, bulgaria, italy and many many more countries ect………… worked in cuba and training together with 8 olympic gold champions I noticed one pattern that all succesful teams have, they don’t accept any bullshit athelete or coach want to actually do the best they can do at any given moment. They work till they can’t do no more than get pushed to do a little more. The body is a mighty weapon if you optimize it’s capacity, you can achieve whatever you want to believe that you can achieve, it is you that limits your own self because there are no limits to what a person and a mind can do. That I believe in with all my heart. Saying you could have done better or that it was this and this that was wrong, that’s why you didn’t perform or that the judges were scoring wrong or the food you ate last night or your weight was too much so when you took it off you were tired or that you were tired or that you mentally was not there ect…… well guess what the guy that kicked your ass was feeling great and broke your back that’s why he is first and you are not, so what do you do to fix that? Do you think that your opponent you lost against is made of iron or stone or fire, I bet he feels like shit aswell and bleeds when you bleed and cries when you cry aswell, so whats the problem? Why does he win and you loose? That is something that you has to ask yourself, especially when you are training just as hard and have the same opportunities as him or even more opportunities than him. That is something you have to ask yourself, how much do you want it!

I think the worst thing that I can hear as a coach is negativity and complaints. If one person complains and is negative in a group than it spreads like a hurricane and infects the others aswell. My english national coach friend once told me, ´if you see a wound on a finger try and heal it, if it doesn’t heal then cut the finger off before it infects the whole hand, its ok you got nine other fingers left.. hehehe you will survive´. That is so true! I would rather be disliked and get medals for my team than liked and come home with nothing, because by getting medals I create futures for the boys I train and I give them the reward they worked so so hard for. As a coach if I do my job properly then I will definitely not be liked all the time, but being liked and being respected are two different things. All great coaches actually are not that liked because they have to make hard decisions that might not be so popular. But its not `who has the most friends´competition. The competition is us – VS – the WORLD so to compete with the best you must be a well tuned machine as a team or as an individual. Stepping out of line (because all of us are human and make mistakes) gets you an ass whipping that helps you get in line again or makes you wake up and jump off your comfort zone. Makes you fight for your position and makes you sharp and that’s my job to get the best out of you. To do that we can’t be BFFs hahaha.

Anyway take care and this is my introduction to greatness, remember one thing about training, WHEN IT HURTS THAT’S WHEN IT WORKS, NO PAIN IS TO MUCH SO THAT IT IS NOT WORTH ENDURING TO GET TO THE TOP, NO PAIN!! NO PAIN!!

ANDREAS

Publicerad Monday, November 2nd, 2009, 21:44 Du kan följa eventuella kommentarer från detta inlägget igenom RSS 2.0 feed. Du kan svara, eller trackback:a från din egen site.