Who am I?
First of all, thanks for dropping by and supporting the journey. I hope to give you something of real interest to watch and read over the coming year.
"Who am I?" sounds like such a profound question. I have no idea who I am but I can tell you a little about myself.
My name is Arton Baleci. I am 23 years old and originally come from Stockton-on-Tees in the north-east of England. I graduated last year with a degree in mathematical physics and since then have been putting in the groundwork for me to begin on the road to elite football.
This project came about through the synthesis of two of my loves; football and learning.
I began supporting Arsenal at 8 years old and over the coming years football became somewhat of an obsession for me. I did quite well academically and whilst I enjoyed school and worked hard, football was what I wanted to do. I played for the school team and for a few Sunday teams, but never at a higher level due to a lack of skill and a weird "stage fright-esque" thing I subjected myself to. I turned to weight training at about 13 (a bit too early in my current opinion) in an attempt to make me a better player. I became much stronger and faster but eventually put on bulk to the detriment of my playing.
The only football I truly excelled, after endless hours of practice, was freestyle football. I managed, through disciplined practice, to become quite a keepie-uppie master. I placed respectably in a few national competitions and landed pieces of exhibition work as a result. My biggest claim to fame in the skills exhibition work weirdly came at a point when my skills had massively deteriorated. Long past my best, I did some body-doubling for Cristiano Ronaldo in a Nike ad a few years back. Shaving my legs to step in for a truly incredible player was a surreal experience.
I also coached football for a few years up until the age of 20, but had stopped playing at 18 when I started uni after becoming completely disillusioned with the university team selection process.
Just after stopping coaching I began training in NLP alongside my degree. By April 2006 I was a certified NLP trainer and had became fascinated about the possibilites that stemmed from the application of the forgotten primary skill of NLP; NLP modelling.
During my final year at university, I began to play a little non-competitive 5-a-side and immediately reacquired my love for playing the game. Having not played for many a year, I became frustrated at my inability to find competitive football games in which I could regain my previous levels of fitness and skill. After conversations with various friends from the NLP world, the idea for The Beautiful Aim hit me. What if I could use modelling to go far beyond any level I had ever played at and land up in the ultimate footballing environment as a result?
That's a brief summary of some of what I have done over the past 23 years. I would guess you will get a far fuller representation of me over the next year.
