Aryna Sabalenka’s Coach’s Time as a Homeless Teen Shaped Her Game
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I was 13 when I became homeless. People often ask me how that happened. It’s not the kind of story you expect to become your story.
When I was younger, my dad was in the Air Force. One of my clearest memories is of being in the garage with him at the base, climbing around on this giant truck while he was working. The smell of oil and metal still takes me right back. One day, my dad told me about a coworker who got caught with drugs on the premises. The man was about to lose his career and family—basically everything. I remember he looked at me and said, “Jason, stay away from this at any cost.” That moment burned itself into my memory, and I took his advice to heart.
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Later, my dad was in a serious motorcycle accident. At first, I thought maybe we’d gotten lucky; that he’d dodged the worst of it. But one morning, it all turned. Suddenly, my mom was on the phone, desperately talking with paramedics. She was in full panic mode as she tried to follow their instructions. I was told it was my job to keep my dad awake. Keeping him awake meant keeping him breathing and alive until the paramedics got there.
So, I tried. I shook him. I begged him. But my dad’s eyes kept rolling back. When help came, they worked on him right in front of me—but it was too late. I watched as they silently lifted him into the ambulance. No one had to say a thing. I knew. I saw it in their movements. I saw it in the look on my mom’s face. It was over.
That day broke everything about my life and shattered my mom. She had to find work. Then she got injured, so it all got harder after that. I was 11 years old. I got myself a paper route to bring in extra money. I stepped up to take care of my little brother and sister, getting them ready in the mornings, walking them to school, and making sure they ate. I tried to be there for them as best I could, but I was just a kid myself. And despite my best efforts, nothing could change the fact that the center of gravity in our home had disappeared the day my dad died. And with it, our house had stopped feeling like a home.
One night, we left everything behind and flew to another state to start over. But things got even worse. I took a job living with a family and watching their kids, but that family had its own demons. Eventually, my mom and siblings returned to our previous home—or so I thought. When I went back, the house was empty. With no internet or cell phones, I had no idea where they had gone or how to find them. Standing alone in that empty house, I made a decision: Wherever they were, they were better off without me. One less mouth to feed. I’d survive on my own.
I ended up on the streets, surrounded by drugs and violence. I lost friends. I saw things no one should ever see, let alone a child. Yet, through all of that, I never forgot what my dad had told me. Even when refusing drugs meant getting hurt, I stayed away from them. That decision saved my life.
Stacy in 2025.Robert Prange - Getty ImagesBeing homeless in the early nineties was an unforgiving experience. Sirens split the nights. Storefront windows wore bars like armor, and the corners belonged to the gangs. Violence was constant. Two of my friends committed suicide in front of me. I experienced death, up close and personal.
I carried everything I owned in a beat-up backpack. It was littered with small holes that I’d patched up with duct tape to keep the roaches out. The backpack was easier to travel with, but when I needed to hide my belongings, I used a small box and stashed it behind a dumpster. Pack or box, my entire life fit in one container.
Sleep was never really sleep. Some nights, I curled against the back of a building, using my jacket as a makeshift pillow, attempting to make myself as small as possible. But I had to be alert, even in sleep. A car door would slam, jolting me awake. If footsteps sounded too close, my whole body would go rigid, preparing for the worst. People would attack me in my sleep, often high and freaking out. Sometimes, they thought I was a narc or an enemy because I wouldn’t get involved with the drug scene.
The cold cut through my thin layers of clothing, but worse still was the hunger. I’d linger outside of bakeries just to breathe in the smell of fresh bread. I’d grab whatever scraps I could out of the trash. Some days, if I was lucky, a festival or some other event would leave behind scraps I could salvage. Sometimes, there was nothing to eat, and I was forced to just keep walking. To keep moving.
Living on the streets in a constant fight for survival taught me a fundamental truth: Your environment doesn’t just surround you; it programs you. It teaches your body and mind what’s possible, what’s dangerous, and what’s normal. I was programmed by my environment to believe that violence was random and trust was costly. I learned that survival meant staying hyper-alert, reading every signal, and making myself small enough to be overlooked but sharp enough to never be caught off guard. At first, I believed fighting was the only way to survive. Later, I would learn the difference between being a fighter—merely surviving—and being a warrior.
Being a fighter isn’t about how well you can throw a punch. It’s about noting the way someone’s shoulders tighten before they swing. It’s about the eyes, and how well you can read a room. Catching the way a laugh turns sharp right before it becomes dangerous. When you see a man crumpled in the shadows, can you tell if he’s a harmless drunk or a predator waiting for a victim? You have seconds to choose, and your life depends on it.
On the streets, eye contact is a language with consequences. Stare too long, and you issue a challenge. Look away too fast, and you signal fear. Both can get you hurt. I learned to read a room in a fraction of a second and adjust my behavior accordingly. Often, I had to make myself small, shoulders in and eyes down, just enough to seem invisible. Other times, I went neutral—present but not threatening, just another body moving through the crowd. And sometimes, I had to stand up straight, shoulders back, and lock eyes. No flinching. No blinking. Because in that moment, showing fear meant giving them permission to act on it.
Your fluency in this language will rise under pressure. I once got smashed in the head with a gun, followed by the barrel pressed against my temple. My life hung in the balance of that moment, waiting to be determined by how I would react. Despite the adrenaline flooding my veins and my heart racing frantically, I stood still. I didn’t move a muscle; I didn’t look away. I just stood there. The man holding the gun was testing me. Waiting for me to flinch, to beg, to break. But I didn’t give him anything. You learn fast in moments like that: Your body is the only message that you have, and you have to control it. Being a fighter means running on nerves stretched tight and reading people like your life depends on it—because it just might.
This was my world as a teenager: the streets, the violence, the hunger. Survival. I was just trying to make it through one more night and see the sunrise one more time. My days were a combination of clenched fists and fast feet—always on edge. My environment made me a fighter. And if that world was all I had ever known, it’s all I would have become. Luckily, I discovered two places that made me something more.
The first saving environment I found was the library. Walking through those doors, I left the violence of the streets behind and crossed into another world—one with warm air, steady light, and the comforting smell of worn leather and paper. I’d head into the bathroom first to wash my face and my hands and try to look like someone who belonged in a place like this. Then I’d drink from the water fountains until my stomach stopped cramping.
The librarian never asked questions, never wondered why I was there. She just quietly stamped my card and allowed me to stay. I’d disappear between the shelves, losing myself in the books for hours. I pored over newspapers on film reels and flipped through martial arts manuals, trying to piece together the world I wanted to live in. The books carried me farther than my feet ever could. They brought me to places beyond dark alleyways and bus stops, where danger wasn’t a constant, and horizons were broad, where kids like me weren’t invisible. I treasured the precious hours of comfortable quiet that I spent in the library, where I didn’t have to brace for every sound. That silence was a mercy.
My second refuge was the dojo. It was wedged between a pawnshop and an adult bookstore—not exactly the type of place you’d expect a kid to find salvation. But day after day, I’d press my face against the glass and watch what was happening inside. Eventually, I worked up the courage to sneak in, and one day, I was invited to stay. The head sensei and one of his black belts allowed me to just sit and watch the classes for a while. Then, they took me to the back office and asked about me and my situation. I shared my story, and they must have seen something in me. Or rather, they saw me. I wasn’t just the homeless kid you avoided eye contact with as you walked down the street—I was a whole person. And, despite being without parents to sign the forms, they let me stay—a lifeline. And never charged me a dime.
In the dojo, I learned more than how to fight. I learned discipline. I learned respect. I learned that I could belong somewhere. I will never forget the words my sensei, Jan Sunderlin, once told me: “Through loyalty, you gain trust. With trust comes freedom. To maintain that freedom, remain loyal.” As a kid, I couldn’t yet understand the depth of his words—on the streets, trust was just another currency. But I could feel the weight behind what he’d said. I knew he meant it. And for a kid raised on broken promises, that stability was everything.
The dojo was where my understanding of fighting shifted. On the street, every move was motivated by fear and adrenaline, powered by feral desperation. In the dojo, every strike carried form, timing, and purpose. Where the street demanded reaction, the dojo required discipline. As I trained, I learned that fear and adrenaline don’t make you strong—they make you reckless and rob you of control. Most importantly, I learned that surviving one night isn’t the same as living with purpose. That’s where the true shift began.
While fighting had kept me breathing, becoming a warrior gave me direction, and martial arts gave me the language to process this shift.
This shift from fighter to warrior is relevant in any context and to everyone who steps into the arena of life. Warriors build a system. The code is more than a philosophy; it’s a compass for performance, for coaching, and for life. It’s a pressure code—the same rules that kept me alive in the chaos of the streets are the ones that keep athletes, leaders, and parents steady when the pressure ramps up. When I was younger, I didn’t have a language for what I was learning. But the code was already being written.
Your code is born from your values. For me, those foundational values are presence, loyalty, discipline, awareness, adaptability, courage, and stillness.
Defining your values builds the foundation that will influence your greatest aspirations and determine your reactions along the way. But it’s not easy. You don’t master them all at once, and you won’t always start with the one you resist most. As you assess what’s working and what’s not—from resources, to people, to skills and attitudes—you’ll take all the good with all the bad, and start prioritizing where to focus your attention. It starts with several small steps, but your priority should always be the thing you can take action on now. Once you get the system moving, the pieces will come together.
As a coach, I see that code playing out every season on tour. The arenas change, and the lights get brighter, but the battle is always the same. It’s always between rhythm and reaction, control and trust. A few summers ago, I watched this struggle unfold in real time with Aryna. From the outside, she was flying—titles, sponsorships, headlines. But beneath the surface, the system was straining. Aryna’s intensity fills the court, and the fans love the chaos. Commentators have called her fearless. But that level of intensity won’t carry you through the hardest matches—not at her level. When you’re at the pinnacle of a sport, any tiny crack will show.
In January 2025, Aryna was at the Australian Open as the reigning two-time champion and the heavy favorite. She was in Melbourne to defend her title for a potentially historic third year in a row. But in the final against Madison Keys, the nerves hit. She dropped the first set. Clawed back the second. And in the decider, her fire turned wild. She smashed her racket in frustration before shaking hands. And the cameras caught it all.
Headlines didn’t miss their chance: “Sabalenka loses her cool in Australian Open collapse.”
Then came Paris. It was the French Open final, center court across from Coco Gauff. Aryna took the first set in a tie-break. The title was right there! But her rhythm slipped. Errors piled up. She lost 6-7, 6-2, 6-4. Later, she admitted what the world could already see: She didn’t fully trust herself.
At Wimbledon, it was déjà vu. She fought through to the semi-final but ultimately lost to Amanda Anisimova in three sets. An-other deep run, another heartbreak. In the press room afterward, she confessed to reporters, “Losing sucks . . . you feel like you want to die. You don’t want to exist anymore. I have a hate relationship with Wimbledon.” Outside the Slams, the pattern held. In Dubai, she fell to a much lower-ranked player. She knew emotionally she was not at her best.
Earlier, when her serve was falling apart, week after week, tournament after tournament, she’d show up, fight through matches, and lose the same way: double faults at the worst times. Her confidence was draining with every loss. Fighting had been her identity—prove you’re tougher, outlast everyone, grind your way through. But grit without the rhythm to support it will break you.
So, we worked on her Pressure Code, engineering the delicate interplay between the 3Es, energy, emotions, and environment. It would have been easy to run to a new “app” in the hunt to turn things around. But to her credit, Aryna resisted that temptation. Instead, we were able to coach her back into harmony.
The Ribeiro brothers, legends in Brazilian jiujitsu, have a principle called Flow Pressure Finish. It is the art of presence over brute force as the combatant applies steady pressure—never frantic, but also never absent. They stay close enough to feel the other per-son’s rhythm, but not so close they lose their own. This is the paradox of control through calm. The same principle applies under the tournament lights. Performance is the art of constant engagement under pressure. It requires the posture of someone who sees everything without grasping at it: calm without passivity, aggression without recklessness. Aryna learned how to live there again, once she stopped chasing control and started creating it, and the system harmonized.
Next, Arthur Ashe Stadium. September 2025. New York. Across the net stood Amanda Anisimova, the same player who had beaten Aryna at Wimbledon months before. The crowd leaned in, remembering her breakdowns, wondering if the cycle would repeat.
But this was a different Aryna.
She didn’t rush. She didn’t spiral. Instead, she played with rhythm, with purpose. She had fewer unforced errors, and in the second-set tie-break, she maintained her composure. She won 6-3, 7-6(3), defending her US Open crown and becoming the first woman since Serena Williams to go back-to-back in New York.
In the press conferences after the win, the reporters asked about me, about my background, my homelessness, my martial arts training, and my fighter mentality. They wanted to know how much I’d helped influence her, how much I’d taught her about fighting, about grit, about never giving up.
Her answer stopped me in my tracks: “Jason helped me under-stand what real fighting is, what fighting really means.”
Winning is not about grinding or endless emotional battles. It’s not achieved by the pure fuel-and-fire approach that burns hot and fades fast. Like Aryna said, I taught her the difference between being a fighter and being a warrior. And as a warrior, she could manage the difficult challenges that grinding alone can’t overcome. Fighters hope; warriors prepare. And in that moment, she proved she’d made the shift.
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