About Us Etu Ki Runga | Stand Strong
About Us

The Quiet Confidence system was developed by founder, Tony Schaufelberger, over a number of years.

During 40 years of studying martial arts, Tony became aware he was really learning about the understanding of one’s self and one’s personal space, the connection to that space, and how to interact with it.

As he explored this concept, Tony realised he was actually developing his own confidence and the learnings from his study didn’t need to be used purely as a self defence mechanism. By understanding his own space and how he connected with it, he realised he could have a more comfortable and confident point of view about almost anything. This meant he could operate in a more grounded and complete way with all decisions and challenges life required of him.

Building a quiet and more confident point of view helped him to feel more stable and caring in the way he interacted within his life, thus providing an understanding of, and connection to his ‘Authentic Self’. This in turn improved how others perceived him.

A journey by Tony Schaufelberger, Founder of Quiet Confidence

We at Quiet Confidence believe that once a person becomes fully aware of themselves, how they move and the choices they make, they will be more in control of who they are and will also create a quiet confidence and a calm belief within themselves.

What Is Quiet Confidence?

Quiet Confidence is one way a person can explore and learn about themselves, as well as how they connect and fit into the world that they are a part of, whether it’s at work or in the home.

Quiet Confidence is taught  through a series of exercises that build and develop one’s confidence. These exercises then connect and support emotional and cognitive development.

There are many ways to build confidence. Finding the way that suits, supports and relates to you is the correct way for you.

Quiet Confidence is a tool that can help you through the journey of your life. It fits into every aspect and facet of your life and can be adapted to support whatever you choose to do.

As you work through these exercises you have the opportunity to become aware of the multi-dimensional layers that make you who you are. As you learn more about yourself there will be more questions to answer and more layers to uncover.

By developing and supporting each person individually or within a team to be a stronger more confident person, this in turn develops a stronger and more functional outcome for all involved.

Are you aware of the programming you have had? Or the agreements that you have made? The shields you have created and developed to protect yourself? What about the situations that make you react the way you do, creating the way you feel about yourself?

Quiet Confidence is about helping you to answer and explore the many layers to these questions, building that inner confidence that we all have the right to have and feeling confident while keeping your personal integrity.

Members Of Our Team
Tony Schaufelberger
Founder and Director
After 40 years of martial arts experience gaining black belts in five styles, Tony has learned the best way to handle conflictual situations is peacefully... Read More
Bill Amosa
Associate Director
After working in the business arena in New Zealand for over 40 years, Bill has gained enormous experience when it comes to working with people, and for people....Read More
John Tahere
Certified First Responders and Security Trainer & Qualified Instructor
Specialising in security industry John knows how to utilise all the tools of physical restraint, de-escalation, crowd control, personal protection and the relative art of negotiation in the face of direct conflict and trauma..Read More
  • Tony Schaufelberger - Founder of Quiet Confidence

    Tony Schaufelberger – Founder of Quiet Confidence

    After 40 years of martial arts experience gaining black belts in five styles, Tony has learned the best way to handle conflictual situations is peacefully. Read how he grew his own confidence by turning away from aggressive solutions and connecting with himself, while also connecting quietly and confidently with others.

    Tony’s story…

    “Growing up in a tough area of the city as a quiet, shy kid I was concerned about how I could look after myself. This led me to choosing martial arts as a teenager in the hope of learning how to take care of myself and build up my confidence. After many years of training I realised I was different to other martial artists. I wanted to have confidence without having to be aggressive. I also wanted to maintain my integrity and help others maintain theirs.

     

    Over the years I have intently observed other people, and have come to realise that most people do not really know themselves – who they really are. Many are disconnected with their bodies and are unaware of how their personal structure – the way they hold themselves – affects them. I realised a key difference between most others and myself was that I had become very aware of where my personal space was and how my emotions were revealed through my posture.

     

    When I looked at traditional self-defence courses and heard stories of how people defended themselves on the streets, I started to question the efficacy of the traditional aggressive approach. Did it lead the defender to become a bigger bully than the bully he was defending himself against? Was a defender taught to react based on their own personal principles? How could I control my ego and not let it take over when faced with confrontational situations?

    Ultimately I found myself spending many hours mulling over one key question:

    How do I maintain my compassion and principles while also maintaining my authentic self in any conflict situation?

    That is how the concept of Quiet Confidence was born. From a desire to stay true to myself and connect better with others. I’m still the same as that shy kid, albeit much wiser after a long time coming to realise that confidence doesn’t have to be loud, or arrogant.”

    Tony’s Credentials:

    6th degree black belt in Shorinji Kan Jiu Jitsu
    5th degree black belt in Aikido
    3rd degree black belt in Jitsu NZ
    1st degree black belt in Iaido (the art of the Japanese sword)
    1st degree black belt in Lynch Aikido
    ASCEA Basic Adult Tutor Certificate

  • Bill Amosa – Associate Director of Quiet Confidence

    Bill Amosa – Associate Director of Quiet Confidence

    After working in the business arena in New Zealand for over 40 years, Bill has gained enormous experience when it comes to working with people, and for people. He’s worked with officials including the Deputy Prime Minister, to SME business owners and their staff.

     

    Bill believes when it comes to understanding how businesses work successfully, he will always say “their most important asset is their people”.

    He brings his knowledge from a different perspective to identify how staff and business owners can apply Quiet Confidence concepts into their everyday activities in the workplace.

    Bill’s story…

    My passion for business started when I was a youngster, collecting and gathering empty beer bottles and working a newspaper run – anything to earn an income for myself. My family was very poor and there was no ‘pocket money’ in those days.

    Being an entrepreneur from a young age until today is what I love doing. I’ve had many successful businesses and I’ve had businesses that have failed miserably. In every business venture I’ve had, one thing always remains constant – having great people is every business’ main asset.

    When I first met Tony and he introduced me to Quiet Confidence I was absolutely astounded at how simple, yet how effective this program was for someone like me.

    It was what I was looking for as it helped me understand myself in a more meaningful way. I quickly resonated with Tony’s views about how a person did not need to become aggressive to be able to communicate; how having the inner and outer confidence to be able face life’s challenges could be so empowering.

    I was so impressed I wanted to be a part of the business. It is a very unique way to help every individual, no matter what culture, religion, class, age or gender, to be the person they want to be.

  • John Tahere – Certified First Responders and Security Trainer & Qualified Instructor of Quiet Confidence

    John Tahere – Certified First Responders and Security Trainer & Qualified Instructor of Quiet Confidence

    John was a child through the 60’s amongst the heady days of a musical revolution. TV was still black and white, Cassius Clay changed his name to Muhammad Ali and was the boxing champion of the world.

     

    The 70’s brought the little dragon, Bruce Lee. Everybody was Kung Fu fighting! Stallone checked in with Rocky. As a teenager, boxing and martial arts was a path John had to take. He thought it was just the best thing and had to be a part of it.

    Muay Thai and KickBoxing was here in the early 80’s – an exciting time.

    Such an influence with the respect and fascination of how  dedicated training could produce proficient sport fighters.

    John’s story…

    I was training in boxing and enjoyed full contact karate in the 90’s which provided my first black belt. My other black belt was achieved in Aikiway Aikido.

    Eventually becoming a bit of a nomad throughout the 00’s, training in a number of different styles, I settled with Russian Systema and Aikido.

    Since then I have derived my own hybrid of self-defence. This was based on my study of how the mind copes with adrenaline, fear, rage and conflict. Expanding to the biomechanical functions of the body under tension, pressure and duress, while training to be calm throughout the process.

    I have maintained a deep interest in the consequence of one’s intentions and a curiosity of essentially discovering answers to curb negative human behavioural patterns of violence.

    To this day, I’m just as passionate about the numerous fighting codes, teaching self-defence with the focus of building self-confidence, structured to accommodate safe learning without the anxiety.

    My experience in the security industry has been interesting to say the least. Utilising all the tools of physical restraint, de-escalation, crowd control, personal protection and the relative art of negotiation in the face of direct conflict and trauma.

    Quiet Confidence opens the door to recognise the steps to a “feelgood comfort zone” despite age, levels of fitness or athletic prowess, encouraging agility without restriction, deconstructing the normal expectations of how one should move.

    This is shown in the training of combined breathing and correct relaxation into movement, synchronising mind and body, so important in understanding how we present ourselves physically, provoking a sense of surety of how to engage for positive interaction on a daily basis.”

Our Success Stories
  • Yash’s Testimonial – Corporate Business In this busy and ever-changing world keeping up can be quite a challenge. Quite Confidence has given me the belief and tools to effectively meet these challenges with constant awareness while remaining grounded. Quite Confidence achieves this through the simple awareness of choices allowing me to engage and achieve greater outcomes with family, friends, colleagues and clients. Tony has created a remarkable program that allows you to not only understand but experience these choices. Quite Confidence is no longer a program but a way of life for me. Yash Dayal, Chief Strategy Officer - SLS Security
    SLS Security
    • How do you think Quiet Confidence will help you in your current role?
    • If I ever did have an incident then perhaps I would be more equipped to deal with that.
    • Have learnt tips to minimise conflict.
    • It will help me in a situation that’s physical, not fighting back, keeping calm about the situation and thinking through what to do next.
    • Its given me new skills to work on and shown me I don’t need to be physically strong as long as I have belief.
    • It will help me a lot to feel more confident, particularly when beginning a new support work with an unknown client.
    • Gives me the confidence to put myself first and prepare the Team in their role.
    • It will give me the confidence to deal with challenging situations in a correct way.
    • Being more mindful and aware of posture, surroundings, ways of getting out of pickles, hopefully without making things worse.
    • Great harnessing of participants engagement, linking in our needs, issues and experience. Excellent partnership between presenters and demonstrations will look forward to your cards and checking out your website.
    • I think the cards, particularly to myself as a Team Leader will prove very valuable. Perhaps going through one or two exercises could improve the training.
    • Thank you I appreciate this and how it was interactive rather than computer technology based. Nice for a change.

    Staff comments October 2020- New Plymouth, Palmerston North & Wellington

    Staff Members from CCL (North Island)
  • " It was great to finally meet you both. Thanks again for running this course for us; it has been one of the best received courses we have ever run. I still hope to sit in on an entire session some day. All the best "
    John Taylor CEO of Community Connections
  • " I attended the Kapiti course about 3 weeks ago, our class is a little hard to forget with Jarred in it...lol. I am a big believer in integrity so one of the first things we learnt was integrity and beliefs. For myself I didn't realize how many invisible walls I have up, so through the breathing, grounding and centering techniques, I learnt I can let some of that tension go. I also learnt how I can learn to sweep stress and confrontation to the side, instead of facing it front on, not everything needs to be done by force. it was also interesting too, how we can incorporate distractions and confusion to minimise an escalating situation. I came into the course not knowing what to expect. To me it was a non-violent, holistic approach to self defense, but more proactive approach rather than reactive. Thank you both for the day "
    Sonia (North Island)
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