Firas Zahabi is a John Danaher black belt and a celebrated coach of one of the most reputable MMA training houses – Tristar.
There’s much to Firas’ style of both grappling and coaching and his philosophical approach is very well rounded. After all he is a philosophy major.
He has turned the Tristar gym into the pinnacle of MMA, coaching greats such as Georges St-Pierre, Rory McDonald, Kenny Florian and many others.
Ground and Pound vs Grappling Experiment feat. Garry Tonon, Gordon Ryan and Firas Zahabi
You can find out all about Firas’ approach listening to the interview attached below. But if you don’t have the time, or the bandwidth, to listen to the whole talk we’ve got the key notes for you. Check out the segment and the notes below and let us know your thoughts in the comment section.
- Success for Firas is 3-fold, it’s all about the unity of mind and body.
- There’s nothing more intimidating than wrestling. It builds you from the inside out and we don’t have that anymore. Physical foundation helps build the mind.
- On defining mental toughness: Seeing only the good in everything is the equivalent of mental toughness in Firas Zahabi’s mind. If someone sees only the good in everything you have to kill him to truly defeat them.
- On the ultimate virtue in a human: A lack of corruption. Corruption is the root of all disaster.
- You have to find flow in everything you do. Will is a commodity, you have to find something more. If you’re in a state of flow doing something you won’t need willpower.
- The worst thing to do to a child is to give them something without them working for it because that would lead to them thinking they’re owed something.
- Once you’re depressed inside it becomes a downward spiral of negativity. You can never let yourself have negative emotions for a prolonged period of time.
- Reality is not what you make of it, Firas looks at it with a Socrates like perspective in terms of: Check your emotions at the door and see what the reality actually is.
- Basing life on principles is superior to basing it on something frail. Virtues – being a good person is key.
