Introduction: In this episode of Champions Creed, hosts Dafne Canales and Coach Brian Bird welcome special guest Josh Fox, an inspiring fighter and coach at Champions Creed. Known for his unwavering resilience and dedication, Josh shares how he juggles his professional fighting career, a full-time job, and parenting three daughters—all while continuing to coach and mentor other aspiring martial artists.
Highlights:
1. The Fighter’s Journey: Josh Fox’s story exemplifies grit and perseverance. Coach Brian introduces Josh’s journey, noting the hard work and determination it took for him to transition from amateur to pro fighter. Despite facing setbacks, such as injuries and an initial professional loss, Josh persisted. His recent victory by submission is a testament to his resilience, demonstrating the rewards of relentless hard work and a positive mindset.
2. Lessons in Resilience: When asked about the lessons he’s learned, Josh reflects on the importance of adapting and learning from mistakes. He emphasizes that setbacks are a natural part of the journey. Instead of giving up, Josh adjusts his approach, focusing on active recovery and refining his techniques. For him, perseverance and re-evaluation are essential tools for growth, both in the ring and in life.
3. Blue-Collar Mentality and Daily Life: Josh attributes much of his mental toughness to his blue-collar background, a work ethic rooted in resilience and adaptability. Life, like martial arts, often throws unexpected challenges, but Josh’s mindset is to keep pushing forward, a philosophy that serves him well in both his personal and professional life.
4. Finding Balance and Building a Community: Balancing work, family, and fighting is no easy task, but Josh manages it through strong support systems. With the help of his girlfriend, family, and the Champions Creed community, he can juggle his commitments effectively. His story underscores the importance of community and the value of having people to lean on in tough times.
5. The Joy of Coaching: Josh is also deeply passionate about coaching, finding fulfillment in guiding others. For him, coaching isn’t just about teaching techniques but also about fostering growth and confidence in his students. Watching his mentees achieve their goals gives Josh a unique sense of purpose, connecting him to the Champions Creed family in a meaningful way.
6. Advice for Beginners: For those new to martial arts, Josh advises patience and persistence. Embracing the “why” behind their training helps them push through the awkward beginning stages. The lessons of martial arts—persistence, learning new skills, and trusting those around you—mirror real life, reminding newcomers that discomfort often leads to growth.
7. Words of Wisdom to His Younger Self: When asked what advice he’d give to his younger self, Josh emphasizes the importance of genuine friendships, planning for the future, and yes, pulling up his pants! His advice is a lighthearted reminder of personal growth and the value of self-reflection.
Transcript
00:00
Dafne Canales
Hi, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Champions Creed podcast. I’ve got Coach Brian here, and we have some special guests today. Tell us a little bit about Josh Fox.
00:10
Brian Bird
All right. Yeah. So we’re gonna have Josh Fox on. Josh is one of our coaches at Champions Creed, as well as one of our fighters. He’s been with us training for about eight years and started coaching about three to four years ago. He’s fought for a while now. He has an amateur record of two and three, and he now has a pro record of one and one. You know, what makes Josh really unique is he’s a guy that, you know, works really hard, Crazy busy schedule. So he repairs garage doors as for a living, but also he has three daughters that he’s raising, and he coaches at our gym, and he trains as a fighter. Very unusual to be able to do all of those things and still be successful in his fighting career. He’s had some real ups and downs.
00:51
Brian Bird
Some, you know, he’s had to work through a lot of injuries and some setbacks, and his fights have not always gone his way. You know, when you. When it was leading. Leading up to working towards his pro career, his debut in his pro career also didn’t go his way. And there’s a lot of people, I would think, at that point would start to doubt themselves, you know, maybe even start, you know, wondering if this is for them. But he’s one of those guys, just kept his head down, kept grinding, and this last weekend, he ended up having a big win, a really exciting match, and he won it by submission. So I think he’s a great, inspirational guy to talk to. He’s somebody, like I say, who’s working so hard with so many things in life, yet continues to have this amazing attitude.
01:32
Dafne Canales
We’re super excited to have him on the show. So let’s bring Josh in. Hi, Josh. Welcome to the show.
01:38
Josh Fox
Hi. Thanks for having me.
01:40
Dafne Canales
So we just heard from Coach Brian about how you’ve faced all these significant challenges with injuries and losses, but you never chose to quit, which is just this amazing tenacity. At the last absolute MMA event, you won with a spectacular submission. So if you guys haven’t seen it, you gotta go watch the video. And what lessons have you learned, Josh, of overcoming those challenges and achieving that victory?
02:05
Josh Fox
I guess the biggest lesson that I’ve learned is kind of overall is that I’m on the right. I’m on the right path. Like, giving up has never served anybody in any way ever. So continuing to just work hard and do it smarter than I did before has made the biggest significance in my training. So instead of, you know, I, instead of giving up, you can reapproach things and look at the mistakes that you made and tweak what needs to be tweaked. Like, I need to be smarter with like active recovery. I need to look at where I failed in previous fights and rep the things that I did incorrectly. And once I started doing those things, I saw a lot of changes in sparring and just kind of in the day to day training and then that translated into fight, I think.
02:54
Dafne Canales
And what about the mindset? Like there’s a, there’s like this serious mindset behind being able to keep doing. You know, you trained a lot before, right? For every fight you have to train your heart out. And so how did you keep your mind positive or, you know, taking that next step?
03:11
Josh Fox
Well, it’s kind of like everybody brings up that I’m blue collar and it’s true. And that mentality has served me really well. It’s. Things go sideways every day. You know, in day to day stuff, it always goes sideways. So if you were to give up and what you have to do during the day, you’re going to give up in other things too. And my mentality is just like, things are going to go wrong. Keep doing what you got to do and make it work. And if you keep grinding and don’t give up, you know, things are going to fall into place eventually.
03:39
Dafne Canales
Do you find that like training for a tournament or training for different things helps you in your everyday life? Like, does it make, you know, the life challenges easier?
03:50
Josh Fox
Yeah, absolutely. Martial arts is kind of the perfect metaphor for real life is, you know, you come in, you make strong alliances with people, you practice, you learn, you get better, and you kind of submit yourself to a bunch of pressure and see where you land after. Right? Like, I know. I’ll tell you a funny story. It was before I worked on garage doors. I was actually a journeyman welder. And I was going in for this test. It’s kind of like the pinnacle, the beginning of the pinnacle of welding. It’s called the B pressure test. And I was going into this test and I was like, really nervous. Like, you have to pay money to take the test and if you fail, like, it’s a big deal.
04:28
Josh Fox
And as I was walking into the test, I remembered I’d been rolling with this guy named Bryce the night before and he’d been absolutely crushing me. He had me rolled up into a little ball and it was super claustrophobic. And I didn’t tap. And I was like, okay, if I can do that, I could probably pass this test and deal with this kind of pressure.
04:45
Dafne Canales
That’s amazing. And you have, like, speaking of work and life, you have three daughters, as Brian said. You. You work full time. You’re also a coach at Champions Creed. How do you balance all of that? Like, how do you find the time? Some people, you know, say they can’t even join the Rise program because they don’t have time, but you were like. And you. I know you were coaching Rise for a while, and, you know, so how do you do that? You still are.
05:10
Josh Fox
Yeah, a lot of plate spinning, for sure. The thing that allows me to balance all these plates is what I alluded to earlier is making strong alliances. So, like, my girlfriend will make my schedule out for me and put it on Google so I don’t forget it. Like, my oldest daughter came over this morning to help out with her sister. She’s not feeling well. So I could do this interview. You know, I have really good people that I can rely on, like Brian, Sheila, Chad, all people at the gym. I got family members who will help out when they need to. You know, it’s. Everybody kind of works together, and because of that, I’m able to balance everything. I couldn’t just do it myself. There’s no way. You have to have strong alliances.
05:47
Dafne Canales
You live in a tribe and you use all the resources, you know, of your community, which is incredible. I mean, I think that’s the way that we. We survive and actually thrive. Like, you know, like your example says that we can’t do it alone, right? And we have to live in community and thrive altogether. And tell me a little bit about your coaching. So you’re doing the Rise program. You’re coaching the Rise program. And tell me how that has impacted your life, your personal growth, those kind of things.
06:16
Josh Fox
Yeah, I’m coaching Rise. I’m coaching evening jiu Jitsu and then Saturday Muay Thai, too. I love coaching. Coaching kind of gives me, like, a sense of purpose and fulfillment. It’s really nice. For me, like, growing up, I was kind of selfish. I was in a situation where I had to take care of myself. And, you know, you start to just, I’m looking out for me. I’m looking out for me. And that kind of started to fail early in my adult years, and I was kind of like, well, this. This isn’t working. I got to figure something out. And as soon as I started kind of helping other People with what they needed help with. I found that kind of, like, made me feel better and made me more successful. And when I coach people, I get like.
06:56
Josh Fox
I get like a little dopamine hit from seeing somebody hit, like a technique or something that I showed them, like either in training or in a tournament or something. It feels good. And it feels good to see other people kind of reaching their goals, too, and being like a part of their journey on the way. That. That for me, gives me a lot of fulfillment in my life.
07:15
Dafne Canales
And as a coach in the RISE program, you have all these kind of, like, mentees, all these students who are coming from zero. Some of them have no experience in martial arts at all. What is your advice to people who are new, you know, kind of like on that personal growth? Like, I feel like your story has so many. You’ve overcome so many obstacles, right, in your life and in your. Your martial arts career. What would you say to those new students to, you know, give them a glimpse of what you’ve gone through?
07:47
Josh Fox
I would say to any new student, like, it’s going to feel awkward at first. And the thing to keep in your head is your reason why you’re here. You know, you might be here for fitness, you might be here to meet people and might be here to fun, whatever it is. Like, hang on to your why and get through that initial awkward period. Because the thing that I’ve noticed, especially from coaching, is all these movements that we’re doing. You’ve never been told to do them before ever. Like, I always. I always make the analogy is like, keep your hands up when you’re striking. If you saw somebody walking around the streets like this, you’d be like, what is this person doing? Your whole life, you’ve driven your car at your chest level, you’ve eaten your food, all that stuff.
08:26
Josh Fox
And now I’m asking you to keep your hands up. And it feels weird. But if you can get through those initial awkward phases, you’re going to see a huge amount of growth. And again, that’s like. That’s just like life. Whenever you submit yourself to anything new, it’s going to be super awkward at first. You’re going to feel kind of out of place. And if you just stay the course and trust in the people around you’re going to see this new level of growth.
08:47
Dafne Canales
One last question. If you were to meet young Josh Fox, you know, like 15 years old at 20 years old, what three tips would you give him?
08:56
Josh Fox
That I tell him to pull up his pants. It doesn’t look cool that his pants are hanging that low. I tell him to make better friendships, and I tell him to start planning for the future now.
09:11
Dafne Canales
Awesome. Thank you so much, Josh, for being on the show.
09:14
Josh Fox
Thank you for having me.
