What is Therapeutic Boxing and how will a boxing workout help me in my life with my mental and emotional problems?
Therapeutic Boxing is a style of depth psychotherapy that uses boxing skills to bring subconscious and unconscious material to the conscious mind in a way that allows individuals to use heightened awareness of the self for the purpose of personal growth and increased functioning and well-being. It is an unconventional style of mindfulness. In layman terms, Therapeutic Boxing uses boxing skills to help people look beneath the surface of their behaviors in order to gain an overstanding of themselves in a way that causes self-improvement.
People usually function in one area of their life the same way they do in another. For example, if a person lacks confidence in a particular domain of life, they may lack confidence in other domains as well. These types of thematic behaviors are hidden within the psyche but can be unveiled through EXERCISE. Fortunately, boxing has many applicable skills to life. These workouts allow your professional counselor to assess you as you are working out while using philosophical and psychological sciences to help you find meaning and depth within your life-functioning in a way that transitions and stimulates growth in other areas of your LIFE.
Participants will not only find an increase in their bodily fitness, but also their mind, spirit, soul, and behavior.
Professional Counseling/Boxing Class Prices
Individual Rate:
$100.00 per class.
Group Rates:
Prices vary based on type of group.
In order to maintain a high quality service at an affordable rate, each class has a two-hour limitation and groups above five people are discouraged. The minimum age to participate in these classes is 12 years of age (male and female), unless the youth is athletically mature. Adolescents, teens, and adults of all ages are eligible.
TRADITIONAL COUNSELING IS ALSO OFFERED.
*Please do not pay for classes without scheduling an appointment. To schedule an appointment, please call 412-592-2291.
Therapeutic Boxing and Professional Counseling Program: Overview
Rationale:
The Therapeutic Boxing and Professional Counseling program is centered on SUCCESS. I believe that people are both intelligent AND have a desire to achieve their goals and dreams. However, for several reasons (fear being at the top of the list), most people do not realize their potential; and they are not willing to use their gifts and abilities to engage in the type of lifestyle it takes to become successful in any area of life.
Here is our motto: “Life is like an exercise. When it starts hurting and burning, that means it’s working…but you’ll never know if you don’t push through it.”
Modality – How Success Is Learned:
A preliminary action step in learning how to attain personal success is to want to learn, and to be open to learning more about WHO YOU WERE, WHO YOUR ARE, and WHAT YOU CAN BECOME.
Regardless of what you aspire to be (i.e. a mechanic, actor/actress, business owner, athlete, etc.), there are hundreds, if not thousands of components to becoming successful. Having spent thousands of hours empirically researching success and successful people, I have put together a personal development program and an audio CD called THE INSPIRATION. This program and CD will coach you on how to increase your self-awareness and apply various skills that all successful people have figured out and use to obtain, maintain, and continue to gain success. Some of the skills are, but are not limited to: skill over talent, attacking your fears, trusting your passion, preparation, surrounding yourself with good people and things, using applied knowledge as power, hard work and smart work, creativity, resilience, and sacrifice.
Program Design:
This program uses sports-philosophy, and actual boxing skills, to learn about the participants who we call life-fighters, while educating and coaching them to change any unhealthy behaviors toward achieving the lifestyle they are seeking. Why boxing you ask? WHY NOT BOXING I ASK YOU? Everything that happens inside of the boxing ring happens to us in real life. Boxing is one of, if not the most relative sport to LIFE. For example, like boxing, life is going to throw you some hurtful blows, knock you down and beat you up pretty bad at times. People are also going to judge you, even if they do not know you.
This program uses a set of philosophies such as:
• No one can FIGHT your battles for you.
• You will have UPS and DOWNS.
• There are some people you need to keep at a DISTANCE.
• Success takes a COMBINATION of things.
• Find a way around people and things BLOCKING your success.
• Never COUNT yourself OUT, make every SECOND count!
• You should know who is really in YOUR CORNER.
• ROLL with the PUNCHES, but COUNTER BACK.
• No one is born a CHAMPION, you must earn that TITLE.
• VICTORY requires preparation and TRAINING.
These are just a few to name. Each life-fighter receives a life-coach who has a background in amateur or professional boxing with an educational background in psychology, professional counseling, or a related field. The life-coach uses mitt-work, more commonly known to the public as ‘hitting the pads’, to teach the life-fighter about philosophies like the ones above. More importantly, this allows the life-fighter to experience the meaning, feeling, and purpose behind these philosophies. The life-fighter immediately begins to increase his/her awareness of self, behavior, physical fitness, build emotional intelligence, and heal their soul and spirit all at the same time! During the workout session, and heavily during rest periods, the life-coach is assessing, engaging, and processing with the life-fighter what is taking place throughout the workout. Through inspirational dialogue and the use of basic psycho-therapeutic techniques, the life-coach stimulates the life-fighter’s ability to find personal meaning in the work out. Thus, the life-fighter is able to apply the boxing philosophies in their personal life!
It should be reiterated that this program is not designed to teach people how to engage in physical combat with other people. This program is designed to educate people on how to use boxing philosophies to overcome life’s trauma to achieve as much personal success as humanly possible. Better stated by Bruce Lee in an interview, “Martial arts has a very very deep meaning as far as my LIFE is concerned…because as an actor, as a martial artist, as a human being, all these I have learned from martial arts.” He continued:
“…all type of knowledge, ultimately, means self-knowledge…Therefore [life-fighters are not learning how to] defend themselves or ‘how to do somebody in’. Rather, they [are] learning how to express themselves through some movement; be it anger, be it determination, or whatsoever…[Life-fighters are learning], in combative form, the art of expressing the human body.”
Professional Counselor Responsibility:
It is the responsibility of the professional counselor to co-create with the participant(s), an environment and relationship for learning, change, and personal growth. It is also the professional counselor’s responsibility to be aware of transference and countertransference that may play out within sessions and to have the emotional intelligence to be able to handle these situations and assist the life-fighter in navigating through these experiences.
At times, the professional counselor is also responsible for functioning as a collaborative member of a team, not a teacher. The professional counselor should understand the information the life-fighter shares is just as important as the information that they share with the professional counselor. It is the professional counselor's responsibility to provide respect and maintain professionalism at all times, but to also amalgamate their personality with their professionalism. The professional counselor should understand and remember that as a counselor or a team member, they are human, and are not sovereign to the life-fighter. Finally, it is the responsibility of the professional counselor to adhere to the confidentiality agreement, rules, and guidelines of the program.
Life-fighter Responsibility:
It is the responsibility of the life-fighter to understand that though they are not judged, they are to be and will be held accountable for the decisions that they have made and continue to make. It is the responsibility of the life-fighter to understand that no growth or change can occur outside of their own desire to grow and/or change.
It is also the responsibility of the life-fighter to actively engage in sessions (i.e. taking mental and written notes, asking questions, provide their own thoughts and solutions/recommendations, do all homework assignments, be on time, etc.) Furthermore, it is the responsibility of the life-fighter to recognize and figure out how the information shared with them, applies to them. It is also the life-fighter’s responsibility to provide respect and maintain appropriate boundaries with the life-coach and other life-fighters at all times. The life-fighter should understand that this program is a subcomponent of personal development and that they should take their personal development seriously. Finally, it is the responsibility of the life-fighter to adhere to the confidentiality agreement, rules, and guidelines of this program.
