Hong Kong Muay Thai coach Jeferson Oliveira offers advice for life inside and outside the ring during Covid-19
- The 30-year-old Brazilian says adaptability is key in turning a negative like the global pandemic into a positive opportunity
- Former world champion Oliveira, who has 107 professional fights under his belt, says now is the time to sharpen your skills and improve your weaknesses
Jeferson Oliveira has been adapting to his surroundings since his childhood in the streets of Rio de Janeiro. The 30-year-old Brazilian found himself in a tough world during his adolescence and was forced to pivot at a very young age.
“The main reason I started Muay Thai is because all of the other boys didn’t know Muay Thai,” said Jeferson, who coaches the discipline at The Gym in Central. “They could already fight Brazilian jiu-jitsu and I couldn’t. So I thought to myself, ‘If I start jiu-jitsu right now I will get my a** kicked.’ So I need to do something they don’t know.”
Oliveira, a world champion Muay Thai kick-boxer, who has a professional record of 81 victories (35 by knockout), 23 defeats and three draws, has called Hong Kong home since 2016 and has had a life filled with stories of adaptability. With a mother who was a musician and a father in the military, he found himself splitting time between two completely different worlds, and also drawing similarities from them as well.
As the coronavirus descended upon the world this year, closing gyms in Hong Kong for weeks on end, Oliveira knew exactly what to do: adapt to his current surroundings.
“The first thing is that health is wealth,” he said when asked how he adjusted to Covid-19 personally, and the advice he has given people he trains at The Gym. “We realise that we don’t need to rush, we have time, and there are no fights going on anywhere else. We are all in the same boat, so we slow things down.”