THE PHILOSOPHICAL HEALTH OF THE FIGHTER
A SMILE-PH Journey for Fighters and Martial Artists
Live online cohort · 8 sessions · 75 min per session
WHAT HAS YOUR PRACTICE MADE OF YOU AS A WHOLE PERSON?
Fighters know how to endure. But who asks what the fight has made of them?
Training builds technique. Competition sharpens focus. Coaching pushes performance. Yet none of these necessarily asks the deeper questions: What has years of discipline and combat done to you as a whole person? How has the fight reshaped your body beyond athleticism? Your sense of who you are outside the ring, the cage, the mat? Your feeling of belonging — or solitude? Your horizon of possibility when the career arc bends? Your sense of purpose beyond the next bout? Your capacity to think philosophically about what you do and why?
This program creates a rare structure in which fighters can examine these questions together in depth, without reducing them to sport psychology, injury management, or performance optimization.
Our method for you: SMILE-PH​​​
SMILE-PH (Sense-Making Interviews Looking at Elements of Philosophical Health) is a structured dialogue method developed by Dr Luis de Miranda at Uppsala University and in counselling practice.
Grounded in the CIPHER model, it explores six dimensions of philosophical health.
​​
01
Bodily Sense
Your lived relationship with your body. What does fighting do to your body beyond what the scorecards and medical checks reveal? What does your body do to your fighting? Years of impact, weight cuts, adrenaline cycles, and training through pain leave traces that go deeper than injury reports. This dimension invites you to attend to what your body carries, absorbs, and knows, not as a machine to be optimized, but as the living ground of who you are inside and outside the fight.
02
Sense of Self
Identity, coherence, authenticity. Who do you become when you step into the ring? How has the fighter identity shaped the rest of who you are? The combat persona, disciplined, perhaps fearless, relentless, can become so total that the line between who you are in the fight and who you are outside it disappears. Here we explore whether the fighter role has expanded or eclipsed the person behind it.
03
Sense of Belonging
Connection to others and systems. Where does the fighter belong? Combat creates a paradox: you are surrounded by teams, coaches, and crowds, yet the loneliness of the fight itself, where no one can help you, can seep into everything else. Gym culture demands loyalty but rarely vulnerability. This dimension examines where and with whom the fighter finds genuine reciprocity beyond the hierarchy of trainer and trained, opponent and ally.
04
Sense of the Possible
Openness to change and new horizons. Has fighting expanded or narrowed your own horizon of possibility? The intensity of competition can make everything outside it feel pale, while aging, injury, or defeat can quietly close down what feels thinkable beyond the sport. How do you restore and protect your sense that things could be otherwise, especially when your identity has been built around one supreme endeavor?
05
Sense of Purpose
Direction, meaning, vocation. What sustains your deep orientation when the training is brutal and the results uncertain? Is there a greater purpose that gives your fighting life a backbone beyond winning? Crisis in a fighter often signals not physical decline alone but a fracture in meaning, the moment when victory no longer nourishes the victor's own sense of direction. We distinguish here between competing and fighting for something, between career and calling.
06
Philosophical Sense
Capacity for integrative reflection. Can you think your own practice philosophically — beyond technique? Game plans, training science, and performance metrics are necessary but not sufficient for wisdom. This dimension asks whether you can step back from the tools of your trade and reflect on what it means to put your body and identity on the line in ritualized combat, and what that reveals about being human.
WHO IS THIS FOR?
This program is designed for:
-
Professional fighters and practitioners of traditional martial arts
(e.g. Judo, Karate, Taekwondo, Aikido, Kung Fu) -
Professional fighters and competitors in combat sports
(e.g. boxing, Kickboxing, Muay Thai, wrestling, Mixed Martial Arts, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, sambo) -
Practitioners of reality-based and self-defense systems
(e.g. Krav Maga, Sistema, and other combatives programs) -
Practitioners of embodied disciplines adjacent to fighting
(e.g. Yoga, Dance, movement practices, or somatic disciplines, especially those with a background in martial training) -
Retired fighters navigating life after competition
-
Trainers, coaches, and leaders who have fought, and still carry the fight within them
-
Practitioners who engage deeply with the philosophy, history, or meaning of their art, not only in theory, but through lived practice
IMPORTANT TO KNOW
This is not sport psychology.
This is not coaching or mental performance training. It is philosophical inquiry into the existential dimensions of your vocation.
What you receive
-
Eight live online sessions of 75 min each (an introduction, one sense for each of the above senses, a conclusion).
-
Pre- and post-program PHC assessment (Philosophical Health Compass)
-
The e-book Philosophical Health: A Practical Introduction
-
Co-creation with a small cohort (maximum 8 participants) designed for depth of dialogue
-
Facilitation by Dr Luis de Miranda, the creator of the method, philosophical counsellor, and Nuria Scapin, 4th Dan Aikido teacher, certified in SMILE_PH
YOUR WORKSHOP FACILITATORS
PRACTICAL DETAILS
Send your application now to be considered for the 2026 cohort
Investment
$950 /
€850
​
Duration & Format
-
Duration: 8 weeks (weekly sessions)
-
Format: Online (Zoom)
-
Session length: 75 minutes
-
Cohort size: Maximum 8 participants