It's Not the Fight That Scares Me... It's the Movie I Make Of It

One day I had an insight. One of those that strike all at once, like a silent bolt of lightning. Often, when I describe the 3 Principles (Mind, Consciousness and Thought), I use the analogy of a cinema: the projector (Mind), the film (Thought) and the screen (Consciousness). But this time, I saw clearly that I'm not simply in front of a screen. I'm not just watching a film projected by an outside source. No. I am the projector. The projector is inside me.

All my life, I've believed I was living reality. But what I'm experiencing, most of the time, are my mental projections. I'm projecting a film onto the screen of the present, from the inside out, and I believe in it so much that I forget I'm the one doing the projecting.

I saw myself sitting in an indoor cinema. The screen is large, vibrant, immersive. The emotions are intense, the sensations real. Sometimes the film is dramatic, and my body reacts. Other times, it's a film of fear, shame, anger, and I contract. But every time, I'm carried away by the story, without realizing that I'm the one who started it from inside my own mind.

I'm the projector, not the film. And yet, there I am, in the dark of the room, hypnotized by my own images.

This is how illusion works: a thought arises, is amplified by consciousness, and becomes an entire film. My nervous system, my heart, my gestures, everything reacts as if it were real. But it's only a projected thought, illuminated by my own consciousness. Nothing is really happening, except in the space of my inner projection.

What I feel doesn't come from outside. What I experience doesn't come from others. Everything flows from the inside out. I'm the writer, the director, the cameraman, the actor... and often also the lost spectator.

But when I see it, really...

When I realize I'm watching a film, something relaxes.

I'm no longer a prisoner. I'm free to see... and not to believe.

And sometimes, in the silence between scenes, the projector stops. Nothing left to prove, to control, to hold back. Just the empty screen... and pure Presence. That's when I touch real life. That's where Flow can flow through me. In the middle of Nowhere. In the Big Nothing. In the immense soup of infinite potential.

🎥 The spotlight of my fighting thoughts

In life, as in combat, I don't just live experiences. Above all, I live out my mental projections, amplified by my conscience. I'm projecting a film onto the screen of the present, from the inside out, and I believe in it so strongly that I forget I'm the one doing the projecting.

Imagine: a championship is coming up. I'm up against a formidable champion. My heart tightens, my breath becomes short. I feel anxiety rising. But where does it really come from? There's no danger here, now. Just me, standing there, perhaps warming up. Yet my whole being reacts as if I'm already in danger.

Why?

Because I started a movie in my mind, from my inner projector.

A movie where I get hit. A movie where I lose. Where the other is stronger. Where I'm judged. Humiliated. Disappointed. This film lasts only a few seconds, but it's enough to trigger a cascade in my nervous system. And without realizing it, I'm sitting in my inner room, absorbed by this projection... forgetting that it's not reality.

What I feel in those moments doesn't come from my opponent or the championship. It comes from the inner film I'm projecting onto the screen of the present.

And until I see that, I'm at the mercy of the scenario. Prisoner of a mental drama of my own making, from the inside out.

But when I see clearly...

When I realize that I'm the projector, that it's only a film, that nothing has happened yet...

Then something opens up. My body relaxes. My mind finds space again. Presence returns. I can start moving again, breathing, feeling.

And then I'm back in the real world.

I'm no longer running away from a film.

I'm back in the fight, back in the moment, back in Flow.

Gaëtan Sauvé, Kyokushin practitioner since 1971

Author of the book : The Generative Warrior and Flow in combat: (Autumn 2025)