This interview first appeared on The House of Wellness radio show and has been edited for length and clarity.
Eugene Bareman trains some of New Zealand’s biggest UFC stars at City Kickboxing in Auckland – but he says martial arts isn’t about teaching boys to fight. It’s about teaching them discipline, how to read a room, and how to walk away. Here’s his message for every parent.
You’re the head of City Kickboxing, training UFC champions. Why are you telling parents to get their sons into martial arts?
Eugene Bareman: Up and down this country is a wonderful network of martial arts gyms full of wonderful people. If parents need to teach their son (or daughter) humility, confidence, how to step away from a situation, how to read the room, how to read an environment and keep themselves out of danger – get them into a martial arts gym immediately. Because they won’t be learning how to hurt someone. They won’t be learning how to inflict violence. They’ll in fact be learning the complete opposite: how to not use violence to solve problems and how to de-escalate situations.
Hold on, kickboxing looks pretty violent. But those involved clearly have a different mindset. Tell us about that?
Eugene Bareman: The funny thing is, we are definitely learning to fight – when you break it right down, that’s what we do. But the big difference is that it’s a sport for us, it’s a living for us, and it’s a martial art, so it comes with certain obligations that we have to stick to. And one of them is that we have to use that knowledge in a very careful way. Guys like Israel Adesanya, Dan Hooker, Carlos Ulberg – what they get out of coming to a gym like ours is discipline. They learn that they are being given information and if they use it in the wrong way, it could do some harm.
You started the Walk Without Fear Trust after a tragedy. What happened?
Eugene Bareman: A very, very close friend of ours, a member of the team at City Kickboxing, unfortunately fell victim to a coward punch one night when he was socialising. Out of that tragedy, after the dust had settled, there was a consensus that we need to do something about it. That’s where the charity was born.
We’re trying to educate people about the dangers of hitting someone from a blindsided point of view when they’re completely unaware of what’s coming. In many cases, that leads to very grave injuries, and in the worst cases, it leads to death. The other thing that really shocked us was the prevalence – how much this is happening and how much is unreported.
Why is City Kickboxing the right group to lead this message?
Eugene Bareman: We are the experts when it comes to blunt force trauma, punching people, how to get punched, and what sort of damage gets done when you punch someone. Which makes us the perfect people to be talking about the consequences of what happens when you punch someone from behind.
Do you think people understand how dangerous a single punch can be?
Eugene Bareman: I think in today’s modern age, people aren’t in touch with the reality of that. They’ve been watching social media or movies and they literally think that when you throw your fist into the back of someone’s head, they’re gonna get up and wake up and be okay, dust themselves off and go to McDonald’s or something. But that is completely not the reality.
You’re using guys like Israel Adesanya and Dan Hooker to get the message into schools. How’s that going?
Eugene Bareman: We’ve gone to some schools and piloted programs and it’s unreal. We should have taken security – the whole school just stops and floods these guys. I never knew they were that big in New Zealand. Kids gravitate towards these guys and look up to them, and when they say something, they actually listen.
For more information visit walkwithoutfeartrust.org. Listen to the full interview with Eugene Bareman in the audio player above or find The House of Wellness podcast on rova.