A Muay Thai Lesson on “Not Yielding” (that changed my life)

I’ve been involved in martial arts since 9 and have picked up many life changing lessons along the way. Muay Thai has been no different in shaping my perspective and attitude to life. It’s also help me shed unwanted patterns (and with that people…) so lets get into it…

When not to yield and stand your ground..

For starters, I was already a quiet, not-wanting-to ruffle-feathers, non-confrontational type of person as a teen. Coming from an Aikido background, a lot of my training further solidified the idea of needing the “yield". In Aikido we have two roles, the shite and the uke. The shite dictates the movement and the uke follows without resistance. With both moving in agreement and sync, we have flow and unison. Learning to work in flow and yielding when necessary is important in any martial art.. but not all the time. In life, I found that I was yielding to people’s requests even when it didn’t suit me. I was people pleasing, and soft to my detriment. I was in relationships that were toxic but had no backbone to speak up and move on. Moving in flow by choice vs moving in flow by habit was something I would learn after starting Muay Thai.

Muay Thai training brought in an opposite type of energy into my life. To stand my ground. To fight. To say no when needed. Training and competing over the years helped me to get over the “needing to be small and quiet”. I feel more and more through the training the confidence to take space, speak my truth and to say no.

I remember feeling judged by old training partners when I had decided to have my first professional Muay Thai fight. A black belt said in passing, “Happy you got your little scrap on?”. I remember at the time just smiling but being uncomfortable. It wasn’t common to have an Aikido instructor move into doing something seen as “violent” and not “aiki-like”. Funnily enough I think now that you’d find more Aiki “an idea of oneness or blending in the midst of combat” doing Muay Thai well. What better way to test it than in battle.

After a few years of tip toeing around being both, I finally quit internally. Trying to be both wasn’t truthful and was to the detriment of my Muay Thai career. Playing nice doesn’t win you fights. Having an internal crisis of pleasing everyone vs doing what suited you wasn’t great either. If you've known me since Interclub days, I was notorious for break falling every time someone even gently caught my kicks… lol. It was time to have some control in my life.

They say the martial arts practice is honest and spins out the unnecessary and keeps what’s needed… I would say looking back now the turning point in my life started the day I threw my first kick. Years down the road, it had led me to finally step in directions that I wanted to move in. It’s spun out the people that were never good for me in the first place and rattled up my ecosystem enough that I had to have a full life reset and reshuffle.

Taking nothing away from my years of Aikido practice.. it taught me the value of flow, being soft (now I know it’s only when required), and the concept of unity. Muay Thai brought in opposing energies in my life to bring it finally, to a balance. To stand strong, to fight and be okay with expressing yourself in that way, and to finally have the confidence to just be me.

I hope you find strength when you need and also to yield when appropriate. I am excited to journey further and discover more about myself :) Happy training!