 this week on the podcast we're going to get all mindful but in a way that we've not really discussed and a conversation that is a little bit different to your normal meditation mindset practice and narrative let's say because we're going to talk about the art of mindfulness and meditation and the benefit of preparing ourselves mentally for combat sports which takes a completely different mindset but for me there was a ton of learnings which we can take from the idea of being a warrior the warrior spirit we've got Daria Albers on and we're going to talk about yes her field of working with combat athletes but what that can mean if we take those principles and apply them into the lives that we live where we're doesn't involve getting hit or hitting other people yeah I've connected a little bit with Daria and she's absolutely fascinating I was like you need to come on the podcast because like she's from a she was a professional kickboxer herself I went steal her sort of intro but like her when you think about basically someone that could absolutely kick your ass but at the same time can make you cry like a baby by taking you through a meditation it's like there are some interesting powers that this that this person has and yeah no it's great to hear her really hit home and get get to the crux of a lot of questions we potentially might have and misconceptions we might have and challenges that or challenge us in a way to think about why we're going to do or why we don't do it and and what might what might be some of the starting points for us to engage and get the benefits of some mindfulness practice and she's super honest which we're and yeah and I love that's one of the things I love about her um about her delivery and she's and she's she's also no nonsense and you've got to do it otherwise she's going to punch you in the face Say no more Jacko let the listeners indulge in this conversation it's an absolute classic I really enjoyed it um before you do that just remind you guys if you want any help with your training our periodized plans structured and very exciting enjoyable evidence-based programs are available for your consumption on our website schoolofchallenge.com I've never heard you describe it like that Tim I quite I quite write that write that down I liked that description about I was like yes I'll have one of those send that to the marketing department yeah um so they are available and what we often now think we should be thinking about more as long-term gains so if you want to jump on board for an annual it's a massively uh we must do an offer on the end of the value you get it's you get two months for the price of they get 12 months for price of 10 so take a worry mindset get on the front foot get on the attack mode take control of your training and then when she while she's doing your training you can learn from what Dariah Albers is going to teach you about controlling your knowing yourself and all things self-improvement around mindset meditation to get on the front foot and go to go to war is that what it is and if you listen all the way to the end you'll find out whether she can make Tim cry or not no she wants to I could tell right sit back and enjoy your talk as Dariah Albers the warrior spirit on the movement strength and play podcast roll that jingle listen players you're listening to the movement strength and play podcast by the school of calisthenics here are your hosts tim and jackal so we're very lucky today to have a fantastic guest on the podcast someone who the dizzy dizzy heights but just the that crazy world of I guess it was during COVID and just how the incident allows us to connect with people all over the world had the opportunity to connect with Dariah and she's very very kind to spare some time for us to shed some light on mindfulness meditation with the athletes she works with and we're very lucky to have her on the podcast so Dariah welcome to the movement strength and play podcast are you well thank you very much guys for having me appreciate that and so the best way well I would if I was trying to describe you it would but I will do it in injustice but the sort of a strong female working the best way you described said something to me recently was like working with the some of the some of the professional fighters and kick boxers that you work with it might be like 125 kilo like monster guys and by the time they finish their sort of meditation or mindfulness session with their their crying like babies so I'd love to find out what those two things about but I think that says quite a bit about you but just give a bit of a background to some of the listeners that may not have come across you and some of the work that you're currently doing and then in terms of just your own career as a fighter like where where that all sort of started for you and then we'll crack into it yeah thank you so yeah I was a professional fighter I was a professional kick boxer and I was fighting for quite a long time I started with 16 and I'm now 38 so I stopped I think when I was 32 so I was yeah quite a long career I had and during my career I was physically super strong but mentally it was a struggle and emotionally and so I went into the career I studied physical therapy then psychology and then mindfulness contemplative practices and I had my own gym actually two gyms now I don't have it anymore because I like to travel now around the world and yeah mostly my clients are from MMA boxing and kickboxing but also judo karate all kinds of martial arts and yeah I work with guys all over the world and I'm teaching them how to feel better perform better I would say probably you would say I'm a peak performance coach however you want to call it right I'm making their lives better hopefully and growing them them as human beings not just the spiders yeah that's that's my work teaching them meditation and obviously I'm still a kickboxing coach so I teach them still to punch people in the face but always calm and controlled and connected right I always tell them guys if you punch someone face that's fine but do it controlled right do it with a mindful attitude present and presumed and and and in a match not like in Sainsbury's in a match yeah yeah yeah I'll be a terrible bar fighter or bare knuckle fighter every time when I see it I'm like oh my god this is too hard this is amazing so yeah no no no I'm very much into the sports not so much and into bare knuckle yeah yeah yeah no um so I wouldn't I'm interested initially the sort of like first question being or just opening that door um of what is it like when you are trying to like or I'm I'm probably fully aware from the type of personality of fighter and athlete and person that you're working with there will be a range of of buying at the start where someone's like yes I like the sound of this and you know for those that have never yet experienced any meditation mindfulness practice or just a little bit of time from all the way to likes I don't need this or you know someone that's that's and it's probably those people that need it the most right but how do you how do you how do you get that buy in or what's the what's the process that you um go through with people to just there'll be some there'll be some people because I'm not thinking is there'll be some people listening to this that are like oh yeah I've got a mindfulness practice already and I use this app or I do this I'm really interested to see like what I could learn about this and there'll be other people that are about to go oh no I won't listen to this one um mindfulness isn't for me um how do we how do we get those people on board and what are the benefits you know look when you when we talk about like us functioning as human beings in life right everything starts in the mind or in the head right every movement every thought every emotion every motivation everything we do right physically mental everything starts in the mind and when we are let's say not mindful not present right when we are because what what means really mindfulness right paying attention on purpose to the present moment non-judgmentally that's how we because one of the I think best description for mindfulness right so being paying attention to the present moment if you're not paying attention to the present moment which life unfolds in the now in the present moment you lose on you miss out on life right that is something which I teach again and again and again and I think my fighters or the military guys that work with they can't even hear that anymore right but that's it right if you're not present if you're not aware you lose on life right when the mental noise when we let's say we in our life right we're constantly mental time traveling in the past in the future we have our past programs with our future worries and we travel all the time in our mind right that means not being present right that's the mental noise the distractions the interferences in our mind taking us away from fulfilling our potential in the present moment so now it doesn't matter if you're a professional athlete or you are I don't know in your business or you're talking to your loved ones right when you're not present you miss opportunities and not just opportunities also the quality of life yeah and that that is why I'm such a strong yeah I just just like I love that concept and I'm obsessed about it bringing awareness consciousness and presence to people lives right obviously all the other stuff I do also as a psychologist but but that is the base that's the foundation of our life and that that is what we all have to understand and always we need to come back because life is just as you guys know we all know right it's a constant destruction right so yeah I think there's a really interesting sort of uh I don't have paradoxes the right word probably not I might be I might be misproting that but this idea that like so I'm going to give an example and it would be the same for a lot of people who are engaged in in fitness training competition sport whatever it might be so I love to snowboard and one of the reasons I love snowboarding is the mountains and the environment and I love everything about it I love the equipment and the speed and the sound and the smells and like it's my like go-to place the other thing I love about it is you can't focus on anything else while you're snowboarding hard I have to be in the present moment and it is so so free and because where we are in our day-to-day lives so surrounded by constant distractions and noise and stress all of that goes away on my snowboard yeah for those for those minutes on the runs and whatever else and it's the same when people are involved in any kind of flow state right that's where we're kind of trying to get to yeah so the interesting bit I think is where I think people have got an edge over my mental preparation and ability is I struggle to find that in day-to-day life I can't switch it off but even when you know how freeing and liberating it is when you go and find something you where you can feel that that's like the perfect holiday for me because I can land a beach and still worry about all the things I've got going on in my business whereas if I'm doing something active I can't yeah what's the the starting point and I probably I know the answer because it is something that people told me for time and time again that I just don't have the discipline to do but if you've got any tips for people like me I've got I've got a busy mind and I struggle to quiet in it down where do I begin no the thing is everything is a mental skill right everything we learn like focus concentration awareness presence right those are mental skills similar to physical skills I always tell the guys you want a bigger biceps you get a good trainer and you have a good program and you have a smart program you eat right you will get a good biceps right 21 right magic right and it's similar to the to the physical to the mental skills right it's similar to the physical skills you need to train it and you need to train every day so the question is now how much would you train right nobody will sit down for for an hour rarely I have a client who says oh great let's sit down for a meditation or some breathing exercises for a half an hour or an hour but you can do five minutes here 10 minutes here five minutes here right that's now on your motivation right how much you really want to change how much do you really dedicate yourself because everybody can dedicate like five 10 15 minutes right and it all starts with super simple exercises how to keep your attention on a object in a meditation right how you redirect your attention and keep your focus and concentration those are let's say meditation exercises right you can do and I don't let anybody at the beginning when they start working with me sitting more than 15 minutes because it's just it's almost unsustainable for us which is scary right that it stresses us so much to set 15 minutes I mean take your phone how many times do you scroll your Instagram 15 minutes gone like this right but then you can't sit down and this is because the lack of belief how much we can change how much our our brain and nervous system can change by little practice right that's neuroplasticity right the plasticity of our nervous system and so the question is not so much what do you do because you can do breathing you can do mindfulness you can do other meditation exercises concentration exercises simple things it's not nothing complex but the question is like okay how much really do you dedicate and believe in that that you can change and that's that is the real root of or the problem let's say in when it comes to mental performance work right the belief like so me as a coach for example I need to find your triggers like what is it right what what do you where does it sit in you so yeah yeah it comes down to conversation on discipline right so it's it's like I can be super disciplined my nutrition and my training and consistent in those areas but I lack discipline in the in the mental preparation and it's necessary like I get a conversation for a lot of people it's different I've seen I've been in the strength and conditioning industry and seen the rise of combat sports comes to the forefront and obviously they've been around for centuries but the UFC did a massive job right in terms of popularizing and adding a commercial element to to combat sports so within that I've always looked at people who and and strength and conditioning within combat sports grew really really quickly and I said well that makes a lot of sense because if you're going to go into a cage or a ring whatever it is is someone's going to try and hit you in the face then it's worth spending a little bit of money to make sure that you don't get hit that hard or that often right I love that Mike Tyson correct everyone's got a plan until they get punched in the face it's so true when I go to conferences and I speak along other psychologists and I think Jacob and me we talked about it when they're from from golf or from basketball it's it's it's a different area I'm in and I'm always telling them I'm like this is great you can make them meditate and focus and concentrate a lot it's still a little bit different when the cage is closing the situation right when you you and a different human being was 100 percent ready and prepared closed in the cage and now you look into their eyes right there's so much different stress level and I just cannot imagine like someone would think like playing a contact sport like rugby be like oh and then I'm sure there'll be plenty of rugby guys that would happily go in in the cage like I could literally I cannot even imagine what it is like to go probably toe to toe with someone like that I mean I've been punched a few times on the rugby field but like that's just like a cheap shot somewhere like it's not just you but versus someone else like I can't even imagine what that what is going on look how this right talking about the warrior spirit and coming back to what what you guys also said about like that it's martial arts now is commercialized right but what is martial arts right it's an art right it's philosophy martial art all of the martial arts have a very similar philosophy at their root at their base right they executed in a different way but at the roots right a warrior what was the biggest strength of a warrior sure skills if you can't use your swords you better don't go out there right we're gonna that's it right of course your physical skills right your technical skills but then mental stability right mental control right awareness presence controlling your inner states without that we lost in this world we're completely right we always look we still and I think this is also part of my work is to teach people also that our culture has a wrong way right we want to control our whole external world towards feeling good internally right this is what we all do right we want to look good we want to do this all the stuff we get the cars the clothes our careers right even sometimes the partners we choose right is because it has to do with controlling the external world so I feel good right I feel safe because I have the money I feel seen because I have the car right let's let's keep it simple right there are obviously levels to that but to keep it simple now right so we we are born here in this culture and we taught from beginning you want to control your inner state control your outer world I think we all agreed that it's impossible right and so it all comes down to control your inner state right to raise your energy and we have those practices Jacko breathing right look at this how much you can raise your energy with breathing how much your awareness your presence right you need to learn to regulate your nervous system you need to learn to keep your prefrontal cortex your forebrain your rational brain active right those are mental skills and lots of my teaching actually especially when I when I meet the fighters right they're all about the physical aspect but then when I teach them like look you can't control the fight you you can just control it to a certain level but you can completely control your inner state right this is something that's on you and the responsibility is on us now as a team not just a fighter also as a coach and and that is something also what we all have to understand that's warrior spirit really right it's it's this inner control the thing that I love about that Daria is that it strikes me the irony is that you can't control the fight but if you can control yourself you can control the fight right because if you are if you are present in yourself I mean I've observed and watched combat sports for a long time when when people lose their heads like that's when they lose the fight right so it is all about poison presence and control internally to then not let whatever all the chaos is going on around you it's that quote who is that quote by about like can you keep your head when everyone else is losing theirs I forget who it is I want to say Rudyard Kipling but I don't know if it is um but yeah no I think it's a great a great analogy and I think you know like it sometimes if sometimes I think we need we need something to attach these kind of concepts to for someone like myself who's not particularly disciplined in this area it's like but I can relate to that warrior spirit so can I embody that that attitude and say I'm gonna take a warrior spirit to attitude because I do that in everything else in my business and family life and my relationship with my wife and everything but can I do that for myself internally it's a really interesting kind of just a concept which might give people and myself that hook to kind of go it's buying right at the end of the day that's what we're looking for and a commitment to practice I want to pick up on if you if Tim you're happy to be the uh you know you you came forward as the exemplar um where well I haven't cried for for many years so if Gary is going to do that if he wants a challenge that's it there's because there's like a couple of things that I think of and there'll be people that have there'll be a lot of people listening that are similar um and there's a there's one thing from um the Dalai Lama that says like every morning you like meditates for an hour and if he has a particularly busy day with a lot on he meditates for two hours and it's like I love that um that and I love that just concept or idea and the idea of that of going like what when you're busy you just sit there for two hours like how agitated would be when it's like I know I've got a lot on like to to do that would just be super challenging and um the thing that I found your answer to Tim's question reminded me of we get similar things if we're teaching someone we go to work we're talking about they want to do their frog to handstand or their muscle up and and Tim's great for doing this where someone will be like what's that thing that I need to do what's the what's the thing I need to do and Tim will be like you're not just not strong enough like you need to get stronger there's like there is no magic exercise that you need to necessarily do and your answer reminded me of that it was like there's loads of different minds on this incident like you need to decide whether you think you can do it or not like that's the sort of starting point and um you know Tim you sort of said and people like we we do this with loads of stuff in our lives don't we go like I am ex or I am why like I have a racing mind rather than like I don't know what the freight but it's like I currently have a racing mind but I'm going to change it I don't know do you know I mean it's like it's it's what we what we say over ourselves can sometimes keep us in that place of like um like I've done it before with flexibility are I'm really unflexible because I played rugby and I'm like just putting myself in this like box of tightness that isn't going to release yeah and it's the best example what you just said it's beautiful because look at it what what do you do when you do that is that the current you speaking or is it the past you're speaking it's a past you're speaking right we are programs our brain now right now when we sit here our brain is a representation of our past experiences right in that moment so so you're speaking here as you from the past and if you do not start changing little things exactly right now right now not tomorrow not in five minutes like now sit your ass down and start doing your exercises right that that that is where you have to do it right because otherwise it will be always you pass program self you pass conditioned and as we know our past program self our subconscious mind is a little bit a terrorist right constantly talking shit right that's just how it is we have a negativity bias our brain is just built like that like and some less some more obviously but it's like constantly nagging constantly telling us you can't do this you shouldn't do that it's not worthy like just stop stop tomorrow and so on that's the mental noise right that's what the understanding is like then sometimes even when you're when you get present for one minute i tell my guys like even one minute a day great much better than nothing right and then you make it two minutes three minutes four minutes and then after a while you will sit in your 50 minutes meditation in the morning you'd be like oh wow actually i feel content i feel like in the now and that's how change occurs right it's work right it's our mind is a terrorist you guys know we know that right if i don't do my exercise i do that since 12 years i'm doing meditation and all kinds of exercises right sometimes people think actually i'm a little bit weird because i'm doing like a little shaking exercises walking around talking stuff on my balcony doesn't matter right i do my exercise but if i stop doing that and let's look how deeply conditioned we are and the culture is how it primes us to always let's say towards a negative i stop it for two three weeks and my past programming immediately comes back it's a constant work and even my mom sometimes just tells me like she talks to me and she's like when was the last time you did your meditation okay okay a little reactive here a little and and immediately like then i start my exercises or my little meditation and i do then four five days little things all good it's about a constant reminding you to be on track right because you know how it is like the brain is tricky it wants to go off path it wants to just be and not spend too much energy on working right yeah i think yeah i think that the for a lot of people that will be listening to this that are into training like learning skills like practicing things like getting stronger can appreciate that scenario of going like well it's like anything you've got to do it like i can if i like the idea of doing pull-ups but never do any i ain't going to get any stronger at them yeah i've and and seeing it as a seeing it's not this thing i'm stuck in seeing it as a skill and their skill then requires me to actually like practice it and it then that requires a little bit of time it's whether we i still think i agree this obviously i'm i think that you're right but it's like the the thing that then comes back down to in terms of am i actually going to do it or not comes down to whether i think it's a worthwhile investment of my time do i think other stuff is more valuable therefore i'm not going to invest my one minute in my mindfulness or my three minutes the challenge i think for all of us for all of us is going you waste easily that five minutes on your phone or on tv or on on something we all do we waste it on something and so i think that's that's the sort of challenge that i am saying to myself people can join us in on that my other question um is like we're talking there about quite a bit of going like you know those that aren't yet engaged that you must have guys um like for example i've done some breathing sessions with like a whole rugby team and you've got the whole spectrum of different types of people different personalities and everything you've got some people that like i've really excited like yeah i want to do it because i've practiced someone me and then you've got then you've got other guys that are just like not for me sunshine i'm already breathing here because coach said yeah exactly like coach said that to be here i mean ideally um so i forgot going to see the video see you later but do you know me now it's like there's people that are coming out from a whole host things it's very different working with a team in this type of scenario than it is working with an individual an individual comes to you go i want to work with you and it's like okay that obviously you've got the binary like when you're working with say like a you know you're working with some national kickboxing teams and when you're working with a with a group and you've got some of the you've got a series of people that are they don't want to do it like they want to don't want to do it but the coach is saying well you got to do this session because we think it's important where does have what does that what goes through that process i think it's a very individual process it depends on who you are as a coach also and i think one of my strengths is that i am very authentic and i show a lot of my true self to the guys and i speak a lot about the issues i have right i explained from the beginning what my journey is what i have an issue is then i think sometimes also this is bullshit i don't want to do it when i have a very very emotional day if i sit down for the meditation i feel like this is just fucking crap right just want to go out and punch someone and then sometimes i do i spar with the boys it's all good but but i think like it's the constant open authentic communication right and then then as a group you have to to form the group also right to bring the group together because one thing is if they train together and do all the physical skills or they on the field together and this or they sit together and they probably should talk they think they should talk about the inner in a fears right or about the emotions it's it's a growth process right i usually i'm getting them there i usually start with like like i talk a lot about my issues right my fears very authentic and i think what is also my strength is the feminine energy i'm in a male dominated sport and uh i just i have just a lot of feminine energy and i love and i i yeah i sometimes i have some motherly energy probably that's what they say at least and and that that energy goes through a little bit different also it's it's definitely one of the strengths and once you form the group and the trust and yeah then usually it's okay they we sit down and i laugh a lot also you know the playful aspect actually that's another really important aspect i think when you when you bring groups especially male dominated uh in sports a male dominated sports when you bring them just just keep it playful right and with everything we do in life actually we're so serious i'm sometimes so serious and like what the heck i'm teaching playfulness to people and i get so so so so serious sometimes and then as you guys know right everything gets rigid and hard when you when you get serious so yeah that's another thing we laugh a lot we laugh about each other and yeah after a while it's usually okay so i'm wondering if we've got this idea of you mentioned it right back at the beginning of the conversation about this this warrior spirit so that could be stepping into the ring for a fight okay for for people that aren't in combat sports and listen to this that could be stepping into an interview or going into ask for a pay rise or whatever the challenge a difficult conversation with their families or spouse or whatever just i'm wondering if you've got any sort of helpful tips for people where they can strategies that they can use to prepare themselves for big conversations like that and i want you to my my suspicion is that the more work that we've done before in terms of the things we've been talking about up until now prepares you much better for those moments and my point of kind of raising that is like in life like we know these storms are going to come right we are going to be faced with difficulties so again i'm just looking for hooks for it for myself these are podcasts often very like tax therapy for me and jack if you can make tim cry that would be great as well yeah and then my wife's like yeah something there we'll talk we'll put up a fun i don't want to do now i'm being recorded um so but i'm just thinking like if i know that i'm going to go into a storm i know i'm going to have these difficult things or i know there's going to be something in life i want to go out there and get and it's going to take a little bit of sort of like some bravery courage to go and get it what's that process like other things people can do right in that moment and then i guess also how do we build up to that in terms of making ourselves prepared for such events so there's basically three steps so first is always always everything starts with awareness and present acknowledging what is here right so usually you should do you want to do that before you step into the interview or the ring right so you learn about like really acknowledging investigating your patterns of reactivity how do you react right you have to know because without paying attention really and knowing how you react and your thoughts emotions and body sensations to a stressful event i i'm not a witch i mean i told jackal sometimes they say that but those are not that both yet so right so without having an awareness about your patterns really hard to do something but that's pretty easy to get once you have a in a good coach who guides you to do so first step right acknowledging awareness so second so this is this is self awareness knowledge of self basically yeah exactly and really and then into the detail right because so know that yourself means or know that self means your thoughts your emotions your body sensations right because a lot of people think about the thoughts but it's also your emotions your feelings your patterns of reactivity right in your body your nervous system reaction one gets a tight throat right one gets sweaty hands when it's just shaking right of everything comes at once that's usually the worst right you're out of it and um actually in school when i was in school as a kid i couldn't speak in front of of the other kids i lost my voice literally physically not like i i lost my voice i had to go to logotherapy for years because i was so scared and speaking in front of people and now i'm just training those monsters and i'm a main tunnel now he understood right so speaking about you can learn everything so yeah but that that's the first step then the second step it's always about self regulation nervous system regulation right we have jacko here breathing right you can learn to regulate usually when you're in stress right and you're in sympathetic dominance fight flight freeze right once you know your patterns already if it's fight flight freeze for example right what is your pattern how you react you can use breathing techniques inhale emphasize exhale emphasize box breathing breath holes i mean jacko is the expert on that right you can just work you can work with conscious breathing or awareness of breath but let's say the topic of breathing is huge when it comes to nervous system regulation right you can learn to regulate your emotions which is a little bit longer process you wouldn't do that on the go but there are techniques to doing that and then definitely one really really dislike one of the most important tools i think to learn is the right way to visualize visualization is the most underrated skill of our brain like we just don't use it enough it's so powerful you can visualize i mean as many things how you can use your brain as many visualization types there are really you can you can do skill visualization right really just a skill technique tactic visualization strategy right how to play you can you can learn to foresee failure right very very important to overcome a stressful situation you need to visualize how you fail how things don't go your way and then how you maneuver out of it right that's where visualization actually plays plays a major role in sports or in situations where you perform on a peak and under pressure right and that's sorry but this always lands along yeah keep going keep going right so so this is the three steps i usually walk along also like so step one awareness to know your patterns know yourself step two regulate your nervous system and with that regulate your emotions and then step two use a restructured plan how to set your goals what is the goal really what is the outcome very detailed and then visualize right use the right way of visualization to visualize your future self in all kinds you bullet proof when i sent the fighter on a top level into the fight we visualized everything everything what is possible him knocking out he him getting knocked out getting dropped standing knockout winning the whole fight like we visualize everything right obviously very structured because when you do everything at once you're like a little bit confused in the brain but right it's a it's a longer process but yeah it's it's a super valuable skill which people people definitely underrate often there's an interesting thing within that i think in terms of the the visualization i completely agree with you i've heard that obviously in the sports performance world through to business and sort of actually helping yourself to visualize where you want to be what do you do when you've got whatever it is that you're working towards what does that feel like and sound like and all that kind of stuff i guess the interesting one is like when you were in in the situation that you're talking about where it is making sure that we don't manifest or catastrophize what might happen so that that idea of like we've had i've had it before when i've been in stressful situations when my mind goes to places like all the things that might happen that have not happened yet but i'm catastrophizing in my mind that might happen and that actually then feeds that anxiety and stress so what if i get hit in the face in the first 10 seconds and i get knocked out like but that the skill of that i think is is that well i don't know you can tell us how do we how do we pull away from that negative downward spiral of catastrophizing to keep it in and turn that into a positive experience where we are visualizing a negative event but emerging from it positively that makes sense so before like there there's a skill which is extremely crucial to it and that's attention and focus right you need to learn before it because our brain automatically will a lot of times go to the negative right we we like catastrophize because when we were cavemen you walked out there there was something happening you better thought like this right be in fight be ready because otherwise you quickly killed right and no tribe needs a killed tribe member right so we our brain learned to pay attention a lot to like staying alive and so we have this this so-called negativity bias right we first in the first moment something happens our first reaction is like oh what's up here right we go into into fight right so catastrophizing is actually just part of it so you won't stop it but what you can do and that's a key component for when for being like really mentally strong is redirecting attention and focus right and that's something you have to learn you have to sit down actually on your ass and learn it in meditation or with breathing exercises right where you really or object went and there are many different sort short meditations you can do to learn that right because let's say you have the skill kind kind of a little bit trained already where you learn to redirect your attention let's say you learned in your meditation to sit there and all kinds of negative thoughts are coming up but you're learned to be there in awareness to distance yourself and to observe right to to see what's going on and then to redirect your attention let's say on your breath to or to redirect your attention on your body right that's the skill that's attention training right that's focus training redirect again and when you sit and do your exercise sometimes sometimes even I have to do it a hundred times in 15 minutes I'm like what the heck right and again and again and again but that's the training so and there will be a moment like in every training where you can actually oh it was actually three minutes of I could keep my concentration I could keep my focus where I wanted it to have so now when you go into a situation which is very scary for you are very stressful that skill is crucial right like because you can't stop it some some things would trigger always some some people will trigger something some situations now you learn to redirect your attention right it's like basically your spotlight goes away from the shit into something a little bit more productive let's say breathing let's say you anchor yourself deeply in your body or you have a different person there around and you engage in a talk or some people listen to music right that that is a superpower let's say you have you have an interaction with someone or something happened to you in your life which is negative and really really stressful but you can't change it right you can't run away you can't change it what is the only thing you can do redirect your attention on something which is more valuable let's say more more productive right now right that is a superpower away from what stresses you towards something because if we don't train that skill we constantly towards the one thing that really scares us right we get into television right we get like our whole nervous system right we're in four-wheel vision right in central vision that's why we look like us right we're sympathetic nervous system all crazy right that that's how the brain and nervous system is is taught by nature to do that so we need to to learn to redirect that attention and that again that's a superpower nice yeah i've got one other question jackie i feel like i'm asking a lot of questions today do you want to ask a question no you go for it um just one of the i guess this is gonna part b of that previous question say you've had a fighter who's gone in had a catastrophe got knocked out big time like gone gone just got everything went badly what's that process like of rebuilding or reflecting around to get back into a place where you then come back with a real sense of belief that you can go and do that again i'm gonna get a different outcome so the first and that's i think a lot of coaches know that but so the first is the super crucial is the first moment when that fighter is getting out of the ring out of the cage into the locker room when his world is crushed nothing zero negative like whatever you have to do as a coach if you have to dance which that's actually funny because i dance a lot in the locker room and there are a lot of videos on youtube like dancing with the fighter because he was just it was before the fight actually right but whatever you have to do as a coach to to bring him into a calmer nervous system right because you want you want immediately to break the pattern right so you want to calm the nervous system you want to to because so after you get knocked out right your subconscious mind you're not completely conscious usually right so it's your subconscious mind taking in everything so whatever you want to you have to do give the subconscious mind whatever you make up positive right it's all about that to stabilizing them after that loss and sometimes the problem is with coaches and fighters because when when my fighter gets knocked out i take it on me obviously right and if your ego is a coach if you don't keep your ego in charge you might when you have a weak ego blame the fighter if you want to kill someone's psyche the mental part just do that put your ego issues on on them and tell them all you've done this and this and this wrong and it's the same with kids right when we work with kids you have to be like oh you have to be so neutral if you can't be extremely positive just be neutral but for god's sake don't put your shit on other people right so so that is the first process and i coach a lot of coaches and i teach them that you need to keep your ego in check and then further the process then it's like usually like a week or even two weeks later we we just reflect right but everything is neutral we don't even go really deeply into the details fighters want to talk right they want to find reasons why why why that happened and everything but just just it's basically it's nervous system first nervous system work like balancing the nervous system because just as jaco knows nervous system reactions a lot of subconscious mind stuff coming up right when we so you want to bring them in as much as you can in parasympathetic nervous system activation right into relaxation into calm right and then one thing what maybe a few coaches wouldn't agree with fucking unconditional love i give them so much love even when they did a mistake right after the fight i give them so much unconditional love because i treat them like my kids right and yeah if you might be he didn't listen yeah still like it's still a fight right he didn't do it on purpose he wanted to win right because love will heal everything and unconditional love doesn't mean that i will tell him he is great or he did everything great no but to to let that person that kid especially when they're younger know that everything is all right you're all right and then after step three we can start working right we can be like okay let's visual video analyze like for example i don't want him to watch the fight a week after after the fight right i just the later two three two excited let's analyze let's let's now with a calm nervous system with a heart full of love right which we all struggle with let's sit down and analyze and then it's just about the facts right i always tell them like put their emotions to the side just let's see what was what was wrong what was good right what what can we can we improve yeah it's interesting amazing it's interesting because like when you play a sport where it's weekly we would we would play saturday potentially drown your sorrow saturday night sunday recovery session monday come in and if you've played badly get hosed whilst watching the video analysis by the couch that was shit that was crap and you like you haven't had the and there's all that emotion still in it because you haven't got the luxury of going right like actually down regulate actually get to a point where your nervous system is calm enough so that your emotions can be calm enough then you can analyze it without all of that like emotional baggage surrounding the event when you're you know when you have to do that analysis two days later that's that in my experience was definitely like a big big challenge but jack also that's why we have to educate the coaches that's why i'm so dedicated to educate coaches because a lot of coaches don't know that they don't think right it's the only way they know just i was taught like this after the fight in the locker room i lost the fight my my coach taught me already 20 things while i'm shit and then maybe i lost the other one and then that's the downward spiral that's when you lose people right and it's not just like you lose a fighter or a talent yeah nobody cares about that really you lose a person right yeah i think the same the same though there's the same same trap but a different scenario of like when we win and it's just like and then there's like there's zero actual sort of like analysis potentially in that calm state we're just in a we feel ever we feel good so that's great but it doesn't actually help us from not losing the following week or in the following event because we haven't analyzed with a calm mind without the emotion but it's just all the positive emotion and it's we're watching it through rose tins again which doesn't seem as bad but you're still not moving forward that's where you find those athletes that are super effective there isn't there those that can give them the they can celebrate their success that they know to bookend a block of work if it's gone well to go i just i smashed it i'm gonna enjoy it i'm gonna revel it i'm gonna feel it but then the next week to come back and go what didn't i do what can i do better yeah and rather than just go i won one so i'm gonna win the next one or whatever it might be i've seen that so many times and and those athletes as a coach that come to you and go what else can i do you're like yes let's go like there's always more that we can do we can always improve something so but i think that mindset getting into into the world and our lives is important as well like okay i had a success but jack and i've talked about this before and from a business perspective of we we can be so quick to move on to the next thing even though we've achieved something really successful we never really kind of like celebrate or give ourselves the praise for it we're always like next next next yeah but that's not healthy right we've got to we've got to recognize those victories that we get and then also understand that it is a progression to to what can we improve the key actually right and that's again warrior spirit is the neutral mindset we do not cultivate in our lives enough and pay attention up to a neutral mindset yeah because we that's a very very known buddhist concept right we attach immediately we cling to everything we hold on to everything that is pleasurable right what is amazing we have a version we want to push away as much as we can everything we don't like or we react with indifference right when we don't like some when something like attachment aversion and indifference right those are the three things so we're always like pushing pulling like but the neutral mindset right the neutral when when because neutral mindset what does it mean also it's also neutral nervous system right sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system is flexible right you need to sympathetic you go off right you want to go off activate okay you need you want to rest you rest right so everything in balance that's the neutral mindset right with a nervous system that is flexible and elastic with a cognitive system that's flexible and elastic can go from narrow to wide right that's when we are the best that's when we analyze the best that's that's when we are the most present right when we in this neutral mindset and I think this is something also about our culture we don't want we don't like to be neutral because it's like huh right huh it's just like how are you I'm just I'm I'm just being right and people ask you oh so it's not good right this is something to cultivate and I not just in athletes right and in all of us it's that's also we don't pay enough attention to that yeah yeah that's supposed to have some gold in that diary I love that thank you so cool I um it was almost what we had a couple of other like questions um but almost wanted to when you fit when you when you hit that um we said that about give them unconditional love because actually like them as a person as opposed to like what happened in the fight is is is what is is what important it was almost like that was going to be a lovely place to finish up but if if people marked that clip jacket I was like that's going to be the surface there was another but there was another clip that was what did you said um don't put your shit on other people I was like that's a clip right for you there that's that I like that um but yeah so um you know huge admiration for the work that you do Derek um if people you've got your mindful athlete program um if people are like okay this is something I want to um it's a potential doorway to to open up more ability for myself like just tell us a little bit about that and where people can find you on sort of social media on your website yeah it's it's actually it's just one Daria Albers on Facebook and on Instagram I don't know the name combination is fun I guess it was one Daria Albers and it's DariaAlbers.com and yeah everything is written about the map mindful athlete program is actually a program where I put all those tools together all those things we talked about good steps to go really through awareness present really self-regulation and then visualization process everything is put in one program which people can do self-contained but also I teach it one to one to people depends who needs and wants something and yeah that's the program to go to awesome awesome love it thanks so much for coming and sharing some experience and there's some great wisdom there I loved it thank you very much go appreciate it there we have it timbo um Daria Albers an absolute I've got some I need to digest that a little bit I've got some things to I've got some things to think about I'm looking forward to when you uh have a have a call with her and I want to hear I want to I want the I want the uh I want the behind the scenes how did it go did you cry or not uh sort of feedback so that's what that's what the listeners want to know is like you have that call and let's let's let's let's have a debrief afterwards I honestly don't know if anybody can do that you know I think I'm a pretty I I'm gonna put this out there that she's that she's worked with harder-nosed guys than me and you oh yeah well I don't know but physically maybe but emotionally it's that internal tension that you want to worry about I might not be able to round out as anybody in the head but there's some there's some stuff which is buried down pretty deep under a lot of rocks down there go enough that go enough that that we'll see the thing you know one thing my one reflection takeaway from this was you know like we did this podcast recently about what do we do with the information that we that we gain from speaking to guests this one is like a real simple one like just I for me personally my reflection has just got to get on do it and be a bit more disciplined with it like and it's it's low hanging fruit it's five minutes really low I might start with that in place of thing but I think that the thing that made a big difference to me in hearing us say it was the case of going like it's something you need to practice it's a skill do you actually want to put the time into it are you going to actually do that or not and it comes down and it comes down to that I've I've found that like trying to improve my breathing has been a very good mindfulness practice where I can sit and be still and focus on that but I'm trying I'm doing it in order to improve my breathing rather than as a focus or attention piece and that's then like taking it or having a new slant in it for me is something I'm going to going to experiment with and looking forward to seeing how that how the body or the how the mind responds like it right guys anything else to tell Jacko should we sign off we can do some reviews and all those types of things the type of thing that people do I think the most important thing you have a week off from giving us a five-star review I know you something you do on the regular basis but don't do anything apart from this week but going to put something from Dario's conversation good call to action good call to action next week we'll get back put your phone down turn it off and just try and be still for a little bit right until then we see next week keep exploring your physical potential with movement strength and play class dismissed