Agoge

Boxing Class

2012-06-19T00:08:00.000-06:00

"Seek to understand the root. — It is futile to argue as to which single leaf, which design of branch, or which attractive flower you like; when you understand the root, you understand all its blossoming." - Bruce Lee

For 6 weeks the boxers in my Monday night boxing class have been learning the fundamentals of boxing. Starting with footwork on day one progressing to multiple combinations of slips, uppercuts, hooks, and more they have dedicated countless hours of patient drilling. Everyone in class had to not only learn the skills but also how to hold mitts for a partner.

Here are some sample combinations:

I was going to make this a longer post with a semi relevant rant but maybe that'll be next time :D

But it all goes back in the box

2012-03-13T01:40:00.005-06:00

Looking back quickly, I haven't written since June. Since then, I moved to Eugene, Oregon not long ago and I'm still settling in. So far at least I found a great martial arts gym to train at (Northwest Martial Arts) with really good coaches and teammates. I also got a job personal training at a nice gym downtown.

So, with that I have the excuse to spend hours reading about training, nutrition, and anything else that seems pertinent.

A subcategory I stumbled upon was researching the multitude of ways that chronic stress slowly debilitates and eventually kills you and what to do about it.

I took a few notes on things like the impact of exercise on stress hormone levels - Put a rat under stress and allow him to run freely on a wheel and his glucocorticoid levels go down, for example. Take the same rat, though, and force him to do the same amount of exercise and his glucorticoid levels rise even higher.

All fascinating stuff, but one that I keep flipping back to is a footnote that included following a section on people with "Type A" tendencies and the resulting effects of their chronically activated stress responses:

There is an analogy that comes from the world of games. It was used quite some time ago by a psychologist named James Dobson. I first learned it from my grandmother. My grandmother taught me how to play the game monopoly. Now, my grandmother was a wonderful person. She raised six children. She was a widow by the time I knew her well. She lived in our house for many, many years. And she was a lovely woman, but she was the most ruthless Monopoly player I have ever known in my life. Imagine what would have happened if Donald Trump had married Leona Helmsley and they would have had a child. Then, you have some picture of what my grandmother was like when she played Monopoly. She understood that the name of the game is to acquire.

When we would play when I was a little kid and I got my money from the bank, I would always want to save it, hang on to it, because it was just so much fun to have money. She spent on everything she landed on. And then, when she bought it, she would mortgage it as much as she could and buy everything else she landed on. She would accumulate everything she could. And eventually, she became the master of the board.

And every time I landed, I would have to pay her money. And eventually, every time she would take my last dollar, I would quit in utter defeat. And then she would always say the same thing to me. She’d look at me and she’d say, “One day, you’ll learn to play the game.” I hated it when she said that to me. But one summer, I played Monopoly with a neighbor kid–a friend of mine–almost every day, all day long. We’d play Monopoly for hours.

And that summer, I learned to play the game. I came to understand the only way to win is to make a total commitment to acquisition. I came to understand that money and possessions, that’s the way that you keep score. And by the end of that summer, I was more ruthless than my grandmother. I was ready to bend the rules, if I had to, to win that game. And I sat down with her to play that fall.

Slowly, cunningly, I exposed my grandmother’s vulnerability. Relentlessly, inexorably, I drove her off the board. The game does strange things to you. I can still remember. It happened at Marvin Gardens. I looked at my grandmother. She taught me how to play the game. She was an old lady by now. She was a widow. She had raised my mom. She loved my mom. She loved me. I took everything she had. I destroyed her financially and psychologically. I watched her give her last dollar and quit in utter defeat. It was the greatest moment of my life.

And then she had one more thing to teach me. Then she said, “Now it all goes back in the box–all those houses and hotels, all the railroads and utility companies, all that property and all that wonderful money–now it all goes back in the box.” I didn’t want it to go back in the box. I wanted to leave the board out, bronze it maybe, as a memorial to my ability to play the game.

“No,” she said, “None of it was really yours. You got all heated up about it for a while, but it was around a long time before you sat down at the board, and it will be here after you’re gone. Players come and players go. But it all goes back in the box.”

And the game always ends. For every player, the game ends. Every day you pick up a newspaper, and you can turn to a page that describes people for whom this week the game ended. Skilled businessmen, an aging grandmother who was in a convalescent home with a brain tumor, teenage kids who think they have the whole world in front of them, and somebody drives through a stop sign. It all goes back in the box–houses and cars, titles and clothes, filled barns, bulging portfolios, even your body.

I would consider myself one of those type A personality people who will practice like mad, hone the Machiavellian instinct, and develope a ruthless jugular-gripping style of game. After a few months away from MMA and jiu jitsu, all I have wanted is to get really good at grappling NOW. This would lead to some evenings where I leave class frustrated I haven't "done well enough" in my own mind. I found myself getting consumed in this fabricated competitiveness rather than enjoying my time training and appreciating the people around me. I guess at the end of the day as with anything those proverbial pieces "go back in the box" and all that is left is a memory.

Look around you. Look at all the pieces you're accumulating and take them away for a minute to see what will remain. All you are left with is how you've lived: how you've played the game and the people you've been playing it with.

Are you happy with it?

Forgetting

2011-06-14T23:00:00.015-06:00

Sort of an odd entry judging from my usual stuff on here...but I guess it may as well be whatever is on my mind regardless of relevance to fighting or whatnot.

I often wonder how a memory dies, how we forget something, more often than I wonder how we remember. What’s more, I’ve been considering lately if these two things are more closely related than they seem at first, that they’re not so mutually exclusive as we think they are.

There is one kind of forgetting that seems to be nothing more than misplaced information. We see a face and can’t remember the name, or pick up a telephone and can’t remember the number we want to call. This is simply a failure to remember. We know we have the information, it is somewhere in our mind, but we don’t know where in our mind. In a similar manner we lose things, or can’t find them. We know the object is still somewhere in our house, that it hasn’t disappeared or ceased to exist, even though we look everywhere for it.

There is another kind of forgetting: when we abandon a memory, do not keep it alive in our mind. This is temporary, because one day, perhaps even decades later, you remember it again, usually involuntarily.

(I find the experience of saying I have not thought of this at all in x years very strange, although I can’t quite explain why.)

We keep memories alive simply by thinking about them again, by bringing them to life again and again, by running these short films over and over again. Remembering may be like a relay, the passing of a baton: the initial memory may have died a long time ago.

There is yet a third kind of forgetting, similar to the second, where we stop thinking about something, where we forget that we ever knew something, but unlike the second kind, we never have any occasion to remember it again. The possibility of remembering remains forever unfulfilled.

This is the darkest oblivion, and I find it oddly frightening, I suppose because my mind cannot fathom it. How can I imagine something I have forgotten without also at least imagining that I have remembered it?

"Someday, we'll forget the hurt, the reason we cried and who caused us pain. We will finally realize that the secret of being free is not revenge, but letting things unfold in their own way and own time"

But is that really true? ....

Belting and Crosstraining

2011-06-11T21:28:00.007-06:00

Today was the first official belting at the Dog Pound. Amanda and Brandon came down ans we all lined up in the ring. It was really fun to see my teammates get the belts that they have deserved for a long time. I didn't expect it, but I was given 3 stripes! Just more motivation to work hard for that blue belt. Oh, and I suppose a tradition is if you get a new belt, all the belted people of higher rank get one chance to whip you! :)

(I'm laughing because coach commented that I tied my belt wrong...and I asked if he was going to take away one of my stripes for that ;) )

Not long after I drove two hours to Helena so I could crosstrain at Bret Hamlin's Heltown Hybrid. On the way up I called Giovanni, a coach from Chicago who had helped me out. I hadn't talked to him for over 10 months. I remembered him telling me before I moved away, "remember where you came from." He believed I would go far and reminded me not to let it get to my head and remember those people who helped build the foundation of who I am today. True to my word, I have not forgotten. It was really nice to speak with him again.

I had a little trouble finding the gym; Bret and Emily met me and I followed them over. It was a nice facility and Bret is a very good instructor. We did a mix of kickboxing, takedowns, and grappling. Emily (my opponent from the fight in February) is training for a fight in July so I partly came down there to help her out.

Overall life is good. As I was driving I thought of that song lyric "somethings gotta go wrong 'cause I'm feeling so damn good." I also have my first sponsor: Primal Fitness. Since I know Mark and love parkour, that is very special to me and I will represent them with pride. I'm thinking black and red fight shorts with an embroidered Primal logo on it.

It is almost 10pm...and I feel like training more. I feel like I'm falling into my old trap of overdoing it or being a bit too obsessive and losing the balance in life I have worked so hard to achieve. I will wait until early tomorrow morning to go train again, I suppose.

Dreams to Chase

2011-06-09T00:18:00.003-06:00

Sometimes I'm overwhelmed because there are too many things I want to do and become. I want to be a pro MMA fighter, expert at parkour, travel the world. And I guess sometimes I'm a bit impatient. I haven't been as efficient with my time as I would like. So I'm just going to lay down some goals.

First, my main focus will be to turn pro in MMA. In order to do so:
-No excuses on missing a lifting routine
-Cardio (hill sprints, car pushing, etc)
-Take every opportunity I can to spar and grapple. My teammate Scott has been taking the time to help me out.
-Improve meditation/imagery and full body awareness
-Train Ginastica

Dream goals:
One day I'd like to get sponsored as a pro
I want to win a pro title fight
I want a blue belt in jiu jitsu
I want to travel to Thailand and Brazil to train (visit Costa Rica as well)
I want to write a book encompassing travel, fighting, and parkour. Yes, they fit together. Just getting started on it is the hard part.

Going after a dream is so much easier when you have someone who believes in you...I'm very lucky to have friends, teammates, and coaches who encourage me and believe I can do this.

I will have to sacrifice some social life and I know I'll get some backlash for that, but at this point in my life I'm going to go all out after this dream. If I fail? So what. The worst regret is if I do not try.

If you have any workout ideas/tips/etc I'd love to hear them :)

Tomorrow's 5am wakeup is going to come soon! I'm ready to go after this and work through whatever challenge may come in my way.

Its My Fault

2011-05-09T23:36:00.007-06:00

Focus on what you can control

"Why does no one admit his failings? Because he's still deep in them. It's the person who's awakened who recounts his dream, and acknowledging one's failings is a sign of health." Seneca- Letters from a Stoic

The conditions of any interaction between oneself and another can be broken down into two categories: Their actions and yours. You can only control the latter.

Something that I have been working on is upon every negative thing that comes up in my life; when a relationship goes poorly, when a workout doesn't go well, when studying isn't sinking in, I stop myself mentally from tumbling into anger, excuses or resentment. (I mean really, how does someone survive long enough into adulthood to come into my gym and strike themselves with a sledgehammer?)

One has the capability to control the impact of outside elements, including other people, by developing a sense for ascertaining each person or things unique temperament. From that basis one may predict future behavior and either steer interactions in a favorable direction or choose not to allow into ones life those whom would affect it negatively. Those things still fall into the category of your own actions.

This applies to situations in any avenue of life, not just interpersonal. Business ventures, driving in heavy traffic, your training in the gym, etc. Life.

When something happens that leads me to feel that angered, blaming sentiment rise up, I mentally halt myself and say something to the effect of "Shut up. Stop what you're doing." I pause for a few heartbeats to accept this and then mentally say to myself, "It's my fault."

I then break down every indication over the course of the event which I should have taken as a sign of eventual failure. It doesn't really matter what the other person did. If my workout sucked or a conversation didn't go the way I wanted, I should have been able to read the signs or predict and counter the negative factors in the workout or their behavior.

If I'm sitting on the floor after a workout feeling physically awful, I disregard the urge to blame the lack of sleep, the missed meals, dehydration, the time off or the lack of equipment. These are all things I could have controlled and better accounted for. It's my responsibility to make it better.

Just the other day I was talking to someone whom I considered one of the best friends after an uncertain last conversation about two years ago. He called to forgive me; strangely even apologized for holding a grudge (though I had been the one in the wrong). At the moment I was still in that tachypsychic slow motion is-this-really-happening state that also accompanies things like car wrecks, unexpected gunfire or flipping over the handlebars of a downhill mountain bike into a boulder. It did make me think about the people I've cut out of my life and made excuses for not contacting them. In each situation I can find instances where I was in the wrong.

Perhaps the best way to improve perspective is to consider everything around you that is not going well and take a moment to examine it from the perspective that it's your fault.

Are you out of shape? Do your workouts suck? Are you stuck in a dead end job? It's your fault. Knowledge is free. So is effort. Do your workouts suck because you're not eating well, because you're just not putting yourself into them, because you're dehydrated or because your program sucks? That's your fault. Or is it because your gym sucks or your trainer sucks? That's your fault too, because you choose those things.

Understand that and you can make it better. Or, you can keep on blaming the things that you can't control and continue to wake up every day to a slightly older but otherwise unchanged self.

"On the occasion of every accident that befalls you, remember to turn to yourself and inquire what power you have for turning it to use." -Epictetus:

"Much of your pain is self chosen" -Khalil Gibran

Pain and the Mind

2011-04-29T20:57:00.003-06:00

The limits you place upon yourself reside within your mind.
They are not physical.

Pretty much all of us are familiar with the old cliche: "that which does not kill me only makes me stronger." Yeah, yeah, all those other cliches about limits only being mental. Sure, heard those to. But is there any truth to it?

A spate of recent studies has contributed to growing support for the notion that the origins and controls of fatigue lie partly, if not mostly, within the brain and the central nervous system. The new research puts fresh weight to the hoary coaching cliché: you only think you’re tired.

From the time of Hippocrates, the limits of human exertion were thought to reside in the muscles themselves, a hypothesis that was established in 1922 with the Nobel Prize-winning work of Dr. A.V. Hill. The theory went like this: working muscles, pushed to their limit, accumulated lactic acid. When concentrations of lactic acid reached a certain level, so the argument went, the muscles could no longer function. Muscles contained an ‘‘automatic brake,’’ Hill wrote, ‘‘carefully adjusted by nature.’’

Researchers, however, have long noted a link between neurological disorders and athletic potential. In the late 1800’s, the pioneering French doctor Philippe Tissié observed that phobias and epilepsy could be beneficial for athletic training. A few decades later, the German surgeon August Bier measured the spontaneous long jump of a mentally disturbed patient, noting that it compared favorably to the existing world record. These types of exertions seemed to defy the notion of built-in muscular limits and, Bier noted, were made possible by ‘‘powerful mental stimuli and the simultaneous elimination of inhibitions.’’

Questions about the muscle-centered model came up again in 1989 when Canadian researchers published the results of an experiment called Operation Everest II, in which athletes did heavy exercise in altitude chambers. The athletes reached exhaustion despite the fact that their lactic-acid concentrations remained comfortably low. Fatigue, it seemed, might be caused by something else.

Fatigue, the researchers argue, is less an objective even than a subjective emotion--the brain's clever, self-interested attempt to scare you into stopping. The way past fatigue, then, is to return the favor: to fool the brain by lying to it, distracting it or even provoking it. (Although that said, mental gamesmanship can never overcome a basic lack of fitness).

My next fight is coming up May 20th!

Luckily, I have a lot of really good friends to train with and keep me motivated. This evening, despite the cold and snow (wtf? Snow and its almost May?) Ryan and I did a car pushing and parachute sprint workout:

The Final Outcome

2011-03-04T21:13:00.005-07:00

I've been quite busy this past week and kept putting off writing in here.
Most of you have probably heard by now that last week I won my fight!

Although fighting is the most solitary form of competition. In no sport (except perhaps chess) is your attention so directly focused on the opposition. One of the greatest challenges of fighting is bringing the fighter to peak performance at the precise moment when he/she needs to perform. So much of this preparation depends on a great team or group of people to get you there. Your teammates train and spar and cajole you, push you through the rigors and hellish parts of training, and they support you and protect you from nerves in the days and hours leading up to the fight.

Walking out there, I was more calm than I've ever been before another fight. I didn't hear the crowd; I felt focused. A big part of this was the mental preparation. Thanks to my teammates at the Dog Pound and GNFC along with Bryan up in Hamilton and the support of my friends (Kale, thanks for staying with me and keeping me sane behind the scenes).

Inside the arena it was cold and concrete and brightly lit. When I touched gloves with my opponent, I could see tangible fear in her eyes. As planned, I did my bum rush, overhand right. From there...I don't remember all the details. It went to the ground very fast and I had her back at one point, but she tucked her chin. Somehow I ended up in mount. The fight lasted a little bit over two minutes; I won by ground and pound.

I'll add video if I can get some.
Thanks to everyone who reads this!
I'll still be updating it regularly.

You're Gonna Miss This...

2011-02-20T18:04:00.005-07:00

"No matter how miserable you may be right now, just remember...someday, you're gonna miss this. Sometime down the road you're going to look back and try to think of that very worst day you had, the worst pain...and at that moment in the future I bet you anything you would relive that worst day just to be there and have that opportunity again."

Its a mental monologue I've rehearsed to myself several times. And some of you friends, I may have said it to you as you embark on new adventures! I first started thinking this as college wound down to an end...and I felt I was cramming in all these fun experiences I never let myself have into a few short months. I certainly felt it during my three months in Africa. I remember complaining about waking up early for a game drive. What I would give to go on one right now! Especially knowing that isn't an experience any tourist can pay for.

More recently I used it frequently during miserable days in Costa Rica when I was freezing cold in the mountains with no water, light, heat, and bugs crawling all over me swearing I'd give anything to be back home in my nice warm house. At that breaking point (or near to it) I'd have to remind myself that most likely I will miss this experience I'm having someday. Someday I'll look back with a smile as I tell the story. It will have been an experience that shaped my life and made me into a stronger person.

And its so true. What I'd give to go back to one of those miserable nights just to be in that total freedom I had in Costa Rica! Hell...I can't even remember the 'worst' night anymore. Though I had my share of times when "I can't do this" crossed my mind.

I am 5 days out of my first MMA fight right now. For the first time in all the years I've been fighting I hit that wall...that low. I was training with a friend who has been sacrificing a lot of time to help me prepare. I had run for an hour beforehand, sure. I was dead tired. "Over trained" and hungry you might say. My sparring was slow and laborious. He did a takedown, and we grappled on the ground. I knew he was going extra light on me. I was laying there on my back; him in my guard...and it slipped.

"I'm done. I give up."
Those words caught me by surprise. I've gone through tough times and trials, but even if I was at the losing end I'd play it out until the finish.
It was a mental breaking point. I was so frustrated I had given up...so ANGRY at how unprepared I feel with technique coming into the fight...that I just...cried.
Yep, me. Roma, the "badass" fighter.

I know my biggest weakness is my own mind. It doesn't matter how many books you read on it, its still difficult to control those negative, automatic thoughts.

My friend stayed with me and just talked it over. I think I needed that more than another sparring session, jiu jitsu demonstration, or cardio session.

I'm thankful for the friends that have come through and taken care of me. To those who have never prepared for a fight....you run the gamut of emotions. Or at least I do. I'm lucky to have people around me who understand and are there to help me out. (you know who you are ;) )

I just came back from walking my dog. I sat down on a small hill for a while and just watched the snowflakes fall quizzically and cover everything in a blanket of white.

"Roma, someday...you're gonna miss this.
You'll look back one day on your fighting years with a smile....
laugh about your petty worries of making weight or not having enough moves under your belt
and by then you may have a bad back/bad shoulder/ a few more scars,
but you will know you would destroy yourself all over again just to step into
that cage and feel that primal rush when you touch gloves with your opponent.
Win or lose, it takes a certain type of person to step into that ring in the first place..."

Live Dangerously

2011-02-11T23:28:00.003-07:00

I'll spare you this (very early) morning a boring log of my workouts. I've just been working my ass off (yes, literally). Every time I tell someone I'm preparing for a fight, I can almost guarantee that the word "danger" gets woven into the conversation.

It is precisely this fear of danger that I think is most damaging to the psyche of people in society--what causes depression, regret, etc. After all, if you're trying to survive in the face of danger, there is no way in hell you're going to be worrying about how someone didn't answer your text or [insert petty annoying complaint here].

The trouble is that for a range of psychological reasons, we tend to worry about the wrong things. It's making us unnecessarily fearful far too much of the time, and it's risking the possibility that we raise the next generation of kids unequipped to deal with the real world.

Sheltered kids becoming adults who are incapable of doing anything without supervision. In fact, human resource professionals have reported an alarming recent trend: parents accompanying kids to job interviews. Not just driving them there, but actually participating in the interview. Businesses attending college job fairs also report an increase in parents filling out job applications for their grown children.

I love fighting for that very element of danger people fear. Every time you go against an opponent, you expose a part of yourself to a challenge. A test of will and discipline. I've found this same exact feeling when doing parkour and urban exploring with my wolfpack.

I believe that there is something about living dangerously that makes you feel more alive. Maybe I'm crazy, but it is my solace to roam the night.

Now, there is obviously a difference between doing something stupid and doing something risky and breath-takingly beautiful. So I encourage you all out there.

Today. Or tomorrow...do something that SCARES you. Maybe as simple as walking through the woods on a moonless night. Leave the country and run away.

Whatever it is. Step out of that comfort zone and revel in that adrenaline rush.

"Live in danger.
Build your cities on the slopes of Vesuvius."
-Nietzsche

Two Weeks

2011-02-11T18:46:00.001-07:00

The times seems to have passed very quickly. Its already two weeks before my first MMA fight. Through that time, I've gone through the lows of feeling I'm not ready but now I'm feeling confident. At the very least I know, regardless of the outcome, I did my best to prepare.

I've been told I'm "wasting my time" training.

But you see, time wasted, time lost, time rediscovered, and time regained are the four lines of time. We are mainly within time lost: time which alters persons and things, which makes them pass. I'm working on reveling in the fact that I am here...surrounded by these people...with the opportunity to step into a cage in front of the crowd and begin step one of my dream. Can I ask for anything more?

The past couple days I've been doing cardio and technique mostly. Thanks to Garrett, I've been using the gas mask to make cardio more difficult. Today, I brought it to the Dog Pound and did 3 five minute rounds on the bag also wearing a weighted vest. Jumped rope for 5 minutes as well.

I'm trying to train myself to adapt to lack of Oxygen (ideally mimicking that panicked adrenaline rush I get during a real fight). The other day Marina and I did this circuit:

5 rounds of:
-20 squat jumps
-Bear Crawl down and back following a straight line (harder than it sounds!)
-10 Depth Pushups
-20 Split Jumps
-10 Ab Wheel Roll Outs

I'm heading out to Golds again for workout number 2. Circuit training then finishing with some cardio. I'll update this in a few hours.

The Empty Mirror

2011-02-04T22:13:00.008-07:00

Today was just one of those days. I woke from a not-so-peaceful sleep with an anxiousness about what I'm doing with my life, the future, career choices, the usual crap that keeps me awake late into the night: "did I choose the right path?" "who have I become?" "where do I go next?" I go through phases when I feel lost and directionless.

Yet, how can you 'find yourself' as the cliche goes, if you never lose yourself in the first place? I've found that losing yourself--everything, stripping yourself of the identity you've lived by for your whole life and just...living--that was the purest freedom I've ever experienced.

Its like the Iliad and the Odyssey. The Odyssey is about losing yourself; The Iliad is about finding your way home.

I felt most lost before leaving for Costa Rica. My last day at my boxing gym, I was saying goodbye to my good friend Bill. He and I often talked philosophy and he would give me life advice. I kept talking about moving West to Montana, but what was tying me to my area was my gym. I felt at 'home' there, I claimed. The last words he spoke to me before I left:

"The empty mirror. If you could really understand that,
there would be nothing left here for you to look for."
7-11-09

It was one of the first entries in the journal I would keep throughout my six months in Costa Rica. And I kept trying to make sense of it. Mirrors...With their capacity to reflect back nearly all incident light upon them and so recapitulate the scene they face, mirrors are like pieces of dreams, their images hyper-real and profoundly fake. Mirrors reveal truths you may not want to see. Give them a little smoke and a house to call their own, and mirrors will tell you nothing but lies. Its not so surprising then that famous philosopher Jorge Luis Borges was absolutely terrified of mirrors.

But what is the Empty mirror?

It was a stormy October night and I was miserably cold in the mountains of Providencia...huddling by a few candles. I could see the shadow of my reflection in the window. In my mind I was thinking about the discussion I had with Shelley earlier about finding your inner child (which of course reminded me of that song, Serenity by Godsmack). I imagined the younger me peeking through the window looking at who I have become. What would that child say? Children have the purest joy, intentions and ambitions that all too often get corroded or molded into what those around them want to see the child become. Would that child be proud of her older self? Or would she scold me for wasting my life?

Mirrors can only reflect the ephemeral present...which is constantly turning into the past. It stagnates you. When we gaze into a mirror, we are all of us Narcissus, tethered eternally to our doppelgänger on the other side. Many months later I asked Bill what the answer was and his response:

"i think i realized you are a tantrika, therefore, you didn't
need spiritual refuge with anyone
(such as dave at ultfit or a b.f. or
family or whatever)
but mind, as such,

mind is the empty mirror...."

In your mind you create the image of who you want to become and hopefully figure out through that what is most important. Strangely, when I returned from Costa Rica, I didn't feel the same dependence on my ultfit boxing gym. Its as though I didn't have anything there left to look for and was able to move on to Missoula. I'm being incredibly indecisive in my choices of what to do next (grad school? med school? other?). For the time being, I think the younger me would want me to chase after the dreams I may never have another chance to pursue later.

As a child, did I ever think I'd be living in Missoula, Montana training for MMA after seeing Costa Rica, Africa, and so much more? No, probably not. Would that little me be proud of that? ....yeah. You know, I think so. I still have quite a lot left here to look for. I need to just worry a bit less and enjoy the amazing opportunities I have right now.

Are you happy where you're sleeping?
Does he keep you safe and warm?
Does he tell you when you're sorry?
Does he tell you when you're wrong?
I've been watching you for hours
It's been years since we were born
We were perfect when we started
I've been wondering where we've gone

.....

There's a bird that nests inside you
Sleeping underneath your skin
When you open up your wings to speak
I wish you'd let me in
All your life is such a shame
All your love is just a dream
Open up your eyes
You can see the flames of your wasted life
You should be ashamed

You don't want to waste your life...

-Counting Crows (Murder of One)

Etre et Durer

2011-02-03T15:37:00.007-07:00

"If you always put limit on everything you do, physical or anything else. It will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." -Bruce Lee-

(waterfall I climbed in Costa Rica. Then flipped down from a tree
into the pool below. Cliff jumping had always been one of
my biggest fears. I remember clinging to that tree for what
seemed like an eternity, but I was at a point of no return since
it was too slippery to go down. So yes, I did it.
...broke my tailbone. ;D)

Twenty-two days until fight day...and I found out last night I'm not fighting the girl I was originally supposed to go up against. For a while, I felt extremely disappointed. I've been training really hard for this and want it. Luckily, Batman (my coach) found me another opponent...who I'm really hoping will not back out last minute. I asked him in between practices one day what my biggest weakness was and he said "your mind. And hitting the bag too much." I tend to overdo it; once I get started I have a hard time stopping. I've always struggled with the mental part of sports through basketball. It took years to erase that automatic thought of "I suck" every time I missed a shot.

The mind defines our limitations. Mind is the greatest prison of all. The best example I can think of is Wolf, one of my wolf-pack parkour friends. He trains with an intensity and duration that can outlast anyone I've known. His gains are incredible despite the doubters who tell him he's doing too much or cannot do it without x, y, or z.

(shamelessly stole these off of Wolf's facebook)

Its kinda funny, really because when a child is born they know nothing. They are bound by nothing and anything is possible. Only as they grow they learn to accept laws, rules and restrictions imposed by man and nature.

"Etre et durer"...a David Belle quote known in the parkour community (translates to: "to be and to last"). This is that pure mindset of the child who only instinctively tries to just simply exist in the present moment, not concerned about past or future because these concepts are not real until taught by society. Time and the philosophy of it is one of my favorite philosophical topics. I'm sure I'll have an entry dedicated to that later. Anyhow. You are the only one who can put limits on what you can do. Realistically, sure, take advice from people but if you pay close attention to your body and how you're feeling you will instinctively know when to back off or increase the intensity. Maybe that's why I like this escalating density training program. You aren't prescribed x amount of reps in y sets. Rather, you do as many reps as YOU can do in a set amount of time.

Regardless, as Jory said, "stay fight ready." I'm not easing back on the training at all. That way, I'll be ready to fight within days notice if need be.

This morning my dog woke me up around 4am and there was no going back to bed for me. Walked the dog, then did a 45 minute run before going to Golds.

The night before I did a lot of powerlifting:
-Overhead Squat
-Deadlifts
-Cleans
-Clean and press
-pushup and pullup supersets to total 100 and 50 respectively.
I didn't count reps or keep time...but I know I spent about an hour doing all sorts of lifts. Oh yes, I remember why...I didn't get much of a workout in at the Dog Pound that morning.

Three of our pro fighters were having their last day in the gym to get ready, so understandably I didn't jump in for more than a couple rounds with a few other guys.

Ok, back to today. After my run, I went to Gold's.
10 sledgehammer swings on tire/arm
flip tire down and back
x 10 reps
Then miscellaneous work on kipping
I didn't spar at 10 AM practice. Instead, just worked on my kicks. Well, kick singular. The right shin healed up better than the left. I felt solid doing them today. My friend Brooke came down to check out the Dog Pound at 11! She picked up boxing pretty fast. Its always fun to see my friends try it out and love it. Like my friend Hana who is out in New York. I never thought she would consider trying boxing, but one summer evening she told me she was taking classes and enjoyed it! at 12pm I did ground and pound. Felt a bit weak today, but still did alright. Going to head back around 5 I think. pm. Not quite sure what my workout will be yet. I'll update this later.

Ikigai

2011-02-01T23:14:00.005-07:00

Ikigai is a japanese word for a raison d’être. In English, roughly it translates to something important one lives for. There seems to be something about human nature that reduces life to a routine. I'm guilty of it as well, but my fault is also that when I get honed in on a goal I lose a sense of balance. I don't spend as much time as I should catching up with friends and family at times. But, like anything else, it cycles. And at least I recognize that, and those who know me do not take offense to my withdrawal. Having a goal to work towards is also my way of staving off sadness or loneliness. On a side-note, in Chicago right now they are getting Thunderstorms. Its supposed to be one of the top 5 worst storms in history! I wish I was there to see it...

I'm going to keep this entry short, because I'm working on what I hope to be a really good, thought provoking one to post within a day or two.

Both AM and PM workouts were at the Dog Pound

Morning:

10AM: Clinch. Matt noticed I was a bit weak at the morning practice. Well, I ran four miles (9ish minute pace with inclines) and only had 6 oz of blueberries before practice.
12PM: Ground and Pound

5PM: Came back for Matt's jiu jitsu class. I really like this one because for an entire hour he goes over technique step by step. That helps a lot and gives me some confidence in jiu jitsu.

I stayed a bit later and talked with Travis and Scott and Michelle until they left. I often like to workout alone. Its a very personal...almost meditative experience for me. I also like the silence when nobody is there.

Here was my nightly finisher:

To be honest...a few times I erased that "5" into a "3"...I had to think about what I wanted and how much I was willing to suffer to get it.It is impossible to achieve the aim without suffering

Tomorrow, I'm getting up extra early. I'm devising a daily, straight out of bed mini workout to wake me up then I'll head to Gold's before practice.

24 days until fight day!

Be like a...

2011-01-31T22:53:00.005-07:00

Cactus

It has humility, but it is not submissive. It grows where no other plant will grow. It does not complain when the sun bakes it back or the wind tears it from the cliffs or drowns it in the dry sand of the desert or when it is thirsty. When the rains come it stores water for the hard times to come.

In good times and in bad it will still flower.
It protects itself against danger, but harms no other plant.
It adapts perfectly to almost any environment.
It has patience and enjoys solitude. In Mexico there is a certain type of cactus that flowers only once every hundred years and at night.
It is a plant of patience, solitude, love and madness, ugliness and beauty, toughness and gentleness.

Today was a (close enough) rest day. All I did was spar at the Dog Pound from 10am-11am. Resting up...at coach's orders.

A picture I made in Costa Rica. (quote from "The Power of One")

Block Better

2011-01-30T23:24:00.009-07:00

Click on the image above and you'll actually be able to see the pictures

While I was down in Costa Rica, I was very fortunate to cross paths with Sasa--a pro Serbian kickboxer. He first met me when I was using the boxing bag at the youth hostel and made a comment on the infected cuts I had. Somehow from there, I got the courage to ask him to train me. Little did I know we would later build a gym together and a lasting friendship. My training with Sasa took place on Dominical beach under the shade of some palm trees where we cut away the weeds with a machete. Sasa taught me bits and pieces from all fighting styles and I still have scars on my knuckles from punching the wooden post to get my form right.

"Ok, muchacha, you want to spar?" he asked with a bit of a devious smile. I grinned confidently and nodded. I mean, I had experience sparring back in my boxing club, I could hold my own. I don't remember much from those first several sparring sessions besides a flurry of punches, kicks, and chokes that at first left me sobbing with dirt and sand in my eyes (jiu jitsu in sand is just not fun. Ever).

For the first time in my life I realized what it felt like to get hit with a bare fist and upadded shin. Throughout all my training I was so safe--headgear, wraps, gloves, mouthguard. But in a third world country where you may need these skills to survive, that sort of training that coddled me wasn't helping me. A good analogy is modern playgrounds with all their safe, blisterproof, padded flooring compared to old school playgrounds erected from a pile of wood chips with tire swings, wooden platforms, bars, and mary-go-rounds. It was getting a few hard barefist hits that ironically made me feel more alive and in touch with reality.

What I do remember most is expecting Sasa to apologize or go easier on me, or at least explain what I did wrong. He patted me on the head and his advice was two words long: "block better." Everyone I knew in the small town got used to seeing me looking like a mud monster post training. Good thing I had the ocean only a few feet away.

I was thinking about those moments with Sasa today after MMA practice at the Dog Pound tonight. The teammates go easy on me (which I am thankful for, not only because I'd be a crumpled mound of bones and flesh but also because I am able to learn counters when they slow down or intentionally bait me in for a move). Yet every once in a while I'll get a solid hit from one of the guys. I find my automatic thought to be: "block better...move better." Simple as that.

I found that philosophy extends beyond the ring...including control of your emotions through a difficult or uncertain period of time. To not let other people's actions effect you. It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion. But as Emerson once wrote, "Men live on the brink of mysteries and harmonies into which they can never enter, and with their hand on the doorlatch they die outside." There is a lot to be learned from getting hit in a fight or, similarly, abandoned by someone you care about. You do not have control of these events. In the end, you have the choice of how to react. Give in to your misery? Or rise above it. Learn from it. The more pain you go through, the stronger you will be when you recover. And for the next time...
Block better.

The fastest path to mastery in a skill, in my case MMA fighting, is by doing it. Now I'll talk about the power of visualization at some point, but sometimes you need a punch in the face to teach you to keep your hands up. Or a painful sparring session to push your limits. "You need that sometimes," said one of the pros I sparred with a few weeks back who gave me my first bloody nose in a while. Call me a masochist of you will, but I love the satisfied feeling of a good sparring session.

Looks like I'll be getting another chance in a little bit less than 10 hours.

Crossfit and Parkour Day

2011-01-29T20:41:00.007-07:00

"Who wants to do a workout with me tomorrow?"

I posted that on facebook sometime around midnight. I got a few replies, but the one that caught my eye was Jack Cotter inviting me to Crossfit Montana to try it out at 8:30AM. The workout today was a shared load...which means you have a partner and you can split it up however you want to. But, you cannot both be working at the same time. I was partnered with a girl named Genvieve. She didn't want to do rope climb or pushups and I wasn't too keep on pounding the pavement for a run. So I did all 10 rope climbs and 100 pushups. The rest of the workout we split 50/50. I stayed for a while after and some of the guys helped me with my muscle-ups.

Right after that, I drove to Golds for a bit more:

1) Prowler push down--> 5 pushups and explosive transition into prowler push back (10 reps)

2) Dueling ropes for 30 seconds (3 sets)

3) 100 sledgehammer hits on the tire

Then, I took Sonic for his promised Blue Mountain walk. I just got back from the Mismo Jam Missoula Parkour Group puts on. It was fun...just made me really nostalgic for Zombiefit. I encourage you all to check out that site. There are workouts of the day posted and plenty of fitness and diet tips. I enjoy watching them grow and gain national/international attention.

A large part of parkour is the community. It is not a competitive sport; rather, everyone is there to help each other improve. I met some really cool new people at the jam though. Worked mostly on backflips off a wall, wall spins, and precisions.

During this Mismo Jam, Michael and I thought about planning a Journey to the End of the Night Missoula. THIS is what I did in Chicago: http://chicag0.org/ The shortest way to describe it is, its a cross between capture the flag, tag, and a scavenger hunt lasting from about 4pm until midnight or later taking place across the whole city! You have a map, checkpoints, and chasers out to get you. I was with my parkour buddies so we traversed fences crawled through trenches and took the craziest route! Most memorable was walking behind Wolf in a trench by the junkyard full of crushed cars and this huge claw crusher machine.

Me: "Uh...Jesse? This might not be such a good idea."
Wolf: "Why"
Me: "Well..you know what comes with junkyards....Junkyard dogs."

I was preparing myself to get eaten alive, yes. But somehow we made it to the next checkpoint where some people were giving out candy under a bridge. And to get the stamp on our map, we had to answer a 70s trivia question. All three of us looked at each other and laughed as we failed miserably. We're not fossils!

So I'll keep you posted on how our plans go. It was so fun, its worth the trip home to Chicago for 2011 Journey to the End of the Night!
http://www.chicag0.org/journey/Journ2010final.html

Just...Play

2011-01-28T15:01:00.003-07:00

Today I went to Blue Mountain with my dog. I don't bring a phone or watch. I prefer it to be timeless. I ran, climbed, did pullups, pushups, squats... An instinctively random workout. I just simply took the time to go outside and play.

One of the biggest things lacking in American culture is play; doing something unscripted, unregulated, solely because it's entertaining.

I see a lot of people going to the gyms trying to attain a certain "look" (be in surfer, model, bodybuilder, MMA fighter, etc).

It's about the appearance. The illusion. Bodybuilders spend all their time pumping and building large, pretty muscles to create the façade of strength and masculinity with actual physical capability being only a secondary consideration at best.

I say, rather than trying to attain the appearance of one of these things, become them. Stop trying to gain the upper back development of a climber and go climbing. Forget about your workout routine that is supposed to give you the lean, ripped physique of a surfer and go surfing.

MMA fighters are possibly the greatest example of all-around athleticism. Thousands of people go to gyms and perform "MMA workouts" in hopes of developing the physical appearance of a fighter. Stop it. Go join an MMA gym and train in Muay Thai and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.

Live a life with some substance. With some actual experiences.

These are real worlds. Real rocks, real water, real physical struggle.

Here, you will actually fall. You will feel the the cold sting of snow on your skin when you slip sprinting up a hill, the bark of trees may cut your hands, you will feel what it is like for another person to submit you, to have control of your body to such an extent that without your tapping a signal of submission, he or she could break your arm or choke you to death.

This is what life feels like!

So get lost.

Lose yourself. As critical as I have long touted the process of meeting your challenges head on and embracing the many stresses of life, I will again emphasize the dire need for that lofty, abstract concept I so often personally struggle with—balance. “All or nothing” has long been the name of my game, but to be honest, no matter how high the stakes and no matter how intense the tension, I have always found that I need to be outdoors or do something unusual and out of the ordinary (i.e. parkour) to restore this balance.

“Down there we know, the streets we know, but up here? Nobody’s been here.”
-David Belle

Fear, Risk, Desire

2011-01-27T21:12:00.014-07:00

Today's Training:

I woke up at 5:30AM to walk my dog and wake up before meeting Jory at the Dog Pound around 7:15AM for a workout.

(It was a long one...I'll try to recreate it as best as I can)

Warmup: 5 minutes of jump rope, a lot of track-type exercises, medicine ball passes, bear crawls, 1-legged squats, back bends

Powerlifting: Front Squats, Clean and Press (split squat stance), Push Press into Overhead Squat

Plyometrics: Lunge jumps, scissor jumps, bounding (1-legged), duck walks

I know I'm missing quite a lot, but it was the most I can recall

10AM: Clinch and Half Step Sparring. I need to work more on clinch!

2-3PM: I went to Matt's MMA 101 class on campus. It was nice to go over the details of some of the jiu jitsu moves again

4PM: Met my friend Brooke at Gold's and started teaching her the basics of boxing

6:30PM: Back to the Dog Pound for some light bag work

When I got home, a quick workout Ross Enamait style:

4 Rounds as fast as possible of:

10 Burpees

10 Pullups

10 Squats

10 Pushups

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And now, my section of thought for the day: (be warned, its a long one!)

In Fight Club, Tyler Durden turns to his passengers in a car and asks them, "What do you want to do before you die?" As Tyler lets go of the wheel and the car veers off the freeway, two men are able to immediately answer.

"Build a house."

"Paint a self portrait."

Jack, the fourth man in the vehicle, yells in bewilderment and fear for Tyler to turn the wheel and steer back onto the road.

Tyler ignores him and says, "You have to know the answer to this question! If you died right now, how would you feel about your life?"

"I don’t know, I wouldn’t feel anything good about my life, is that what you want to hear me say? Fine. Come on!"

It's at that moment that Jack has an epiphany and begins to see what Tyler has been talking about.

This relates to all of us. Why did you get out of bed this morning? What is your passion in life?

The word passion is derived from the Latin verb patoir meaning "to suffer and endure." Eventually the word came to mean not only suffering in itself, but also the thing that sustains a person who suffers; what enables them to keep going.

My passion is fighting. To quote fight club again, "how much can you know about yourself if you've never been in a fight?"

I was introduced to boxing by pure accident. One night I was training for a bodybuilding show at my college gym and a man walked up to me and started a conversation. He asked if I had ever considered boxing. I shrugged it off, never thinking I'd show up. Well, obviously I did and it changed my life. Gordon Marino is one of my mentors and has changed by outlook in life. Though I have yet to fight for him in a boxing match, he has been "in my corner" throughout all the hardships and down times. He spent countless hours working mitts with me late at night or inviting me over to his house or out to lunch to talk things through. One of the most incredible people I have met in my life.

*Check out his blog here:

http://www.ringsideboxingshow.com/GordonMarinoBLOG.html*

To those who think MMA and boxing are violent and senseless, I will try to change your mind by quoting from one of Coach Marino's articles that appeared in the New York Times:

"The deeper you get into the fights, the more you may discover about things that would seem at first blush to have nothing to do with boxing. Lessons in spacing and leverage, or in holding part of oneself in reserve even when hotly engaged, are lessons not only in how one boxer reckons with another but also in how one person reckons with another. The fights teach many such lessons -- about virtues and limits of craft, about the need to impart meaning to hard facts by enfolding them in stories and spectacle, about getting hurt and getting old, about distance and intimacy, and especially about education itself: Boxing conducts an endless workshop in the teaching and learning of knowledge with consequences."

"According to Aristotle, courage is a mean between fearlessness and excessive fearfulness. The capacity to tolerate fear is essential to leading a moral life, but it is hard to learn how to keep your moral compass under pressure when you are cosseted from every fear. Boxing gives people practice in being afraid. There are, of course, plenty of brave thugs. Physical courage by no means guarantees the imagination that standing up for a principle might entail. However, in a tight moral spot I would be more inclined to trust someone who has felt like he or she was going under than someone who has experienced danger only vicariously, on the couch watching videos."

Before I started boxing, I was a timid kid who played into all of society's expectations. Training and fighting taught me to embrace fear...it is the excitement of life! You take a risk and sure, it could end poorly.

Like me moving out to Montana. I always get the "what brought you to Montana?" question.

For simplicity sake I usually come up with some reason or another. The truth? After experiencing freedom in Costa Rica, I wanted to start over somewhere new. Random, perhaps. Its thrilling! If I wake up in a different place, in a different time...am I a different person?

Was I afraid to move?! Hell yes! And I had a 3 day drive to ponder "what ifs" in my mind. But I convinced myself this was what I wanted. After all, you create your own reality. I believe it was Milton who wrote, "The mind is a powerful thing, it can make a heaven out of hell, and a hell out of heaven."

Before I had a place to live, I found a place to train. I had heard of the Dog Pound six years ago when I visited Missoula for all of 24 hours or so. I vividly remember walking in the first day and meeting Matt Powers, the head coach. The Dog Pound is inside a warehouse by a Budweiser distributor. First impression? Awesome. Looks like my kind of place.

For those of you who know me better, I've always talked about the idea of finding a place to call home. I always said, if you make that "home" within yourself then you are never lost. Over the past six months I've lived here (seems like so much more!) the people at the Dog Pound have become my family. Matt is also a mentor; he cares about his fighters beyond their statistical performance. For my first boxing fight in Montana, what made me the happiest was not that I won; rather, it was that I had a coach who genuinely cared about me in my corner.

A person to whom I've admitted some of my fears, weaknesses, and insecurities. Oh...and finally, someone I could tell one of my dreams that I've kept secret for so long.

I want to be a pro MMA fighter. He didn't smirk or tell me it was impossible.

He lets me train with the guys and pushes me to improve (but also encourages me to balance the physical with the social/mental aspects of life as I tend to get tunnel vision and obsessed once I have a goal in mind)

(view looking up as I climbed the Carleton Water Tower in 2009)

So I have friends right now who graduated from Carleton with me...who are more "successful" by the societal standard of job security or whatnot. But sometimes I wonder. If they were in that car with Tyler, could they answer the question? What do you want to BE? I've asked a few, and the most common answer is "I don't know."

A large part of my happiness stems from the fact that I know what I want. Perhaps I don't quite know how to connect the dots between where I am now and my end goal, but there isn't supposed to be a set path anyhow. Many gave me the quizzical "you're crazy" look when I told them I was moving to Montana. Well, so far I can say it was one of the best decisions I've made. I'm happy here. I have "family" (family is not denoted by blood ties) in Illinois, Minnesota, Costa Rica, and now in Missoula.

Dog Pound Family in Missoula, Montana

"Don't do what you want. Do what you don't want. Do what you're trained not to want. Do the things that scare you the most."—Chuck Palahniuk

Don't Let the Days Go By....

2011-01-26T22:35:00.011-07:00

Today's Training:
10 AM: Boxing/Kickboxing (only Tim, Frank, Lloyd, and Jaris were there)
12PM: Grappling

This evening I ran 3 miles at Golds and stretched. Tomorrow is going to be brutal.
-------------------------

Most of your boundaries and limits are self created by your mind. Society locks you into its grid of pre-built sidewalks, infrastructure, separate rooms, and a 'proper' way to maneuver through town and life.

Today, Britnie, a good friend of mine, braided my hair for my upcoming fight. During that time we talked a lot about living contrary to what society defines as "success." I told her stories about Africa...and she mentioned her long term plans of going there to visit a penpal. I have not met too many people that are like-minded in the pursuit of enjoying life and taking risks if need be. Surviving without the comforts we are afforded daily. The things you own end up owning you. This is a topic I will elaborate on more in another blog entry. Its really one of the defining topics of the book I'm writing, so it would be redundant if I went on and on about it here.

She did a really good job, didn't she? I like it

Since I'm getting up very early tomorrow to workout with Jory, and THIS time I'm not oversleeping... I'll leave you guys with a short note:

The sun rises every day, but how often do you take the time to notice it? Have you ever felt like it was something so far away as to be nearly impossible?

Sunrise on the Osa Peninsula in Costa Rica

When was the last time you felt a sense of true, deep appreciation for something? When we're stripped of the nonsense we surround our modern lives with, the things that really matter in our lives are very simple. The warmth of the sun, the glow of a loved one's smile, laughing uncontrollably with your friends.

Take a moment today to recognize that and truly appreciate something. (To be continued tomorrow...)

Life is Just a Lullaby

2011-01-25T23:37:00.008-07:00

Today is the closest I've gotten to a "rest" day.
10AM: Grappling
12PM: MMA sparring

Stayed after for a bit to stretch and talk to my friend, Michelle.
I don't know...just wasn't feeling that edge today. Probably lack of sleep.

What I like to call the "hunger (and these days, also anger)" edge helps me keep my stamina throughout the day.

I'm following Ori Hofmekler's Warrior Diet, where you basically eat one meal a day at the end of the day. Its brutal at first, but I do pretty well with it. Until 7 pm hits. That seems to be the magic time when I get really hungry and lose energy. I'm experimenting with how this effects muscle retention and keep updates. Though I'm not convinced this is the best way to go for fighting performance. I was introduced to this first by Wolf (Jesse Anderson). I had told him about the paleo diet I was doing...and he took it one step further.

Tomorrow is going to busy day. I just got back from Al's and Vic's. It was Paul's 32nd birthday. But once again...I can't...sleep...yet.

(moonrise in Namibia, Africa 2007)

It's hard to comprehend one person's struggle with sleep when you are the type of person that drifts into the land of dreams the instant your head comes in contact with the pillow. You can never imagine how it feels to be trapped between complete awareness, an alertness so acute that no minute sound or movement goes unnoticed, and the sweet oblivion that sleep rewards, a peaceful, senseless rejuvenation of body, heart, and mind.

At night, the whole world seems to have retired and the distant revving of a car's engine and far away flicker of a lonesome light are the only races of human life left...the only evidence that people ever existed here. The streets are utterly deserted and the wind howls noisily as though reclaiming its nocturnal haunt. The hanging light glimmers powerfully like a beacon, shining more brightly than you could ever remember. Emitting a white, piercing light that encompasses you in its glow, illuminating the contours of your face and hiding the rest that lingers ever closer.

The clock chimes loudly and seems to weaken under the unremitting hum of the apartment, empty of every sign of life despite you being hunched in a shadowy corner.

Life at night for me is something extremely hard to put into words. Your senses work in overdrive as your mind attempts to organize the day's events with a tinge of naive apprehension that something would have transformed into faith and beauty; failing every time.

Depending on who you are, night can be a congruent experience of the previous day filled with noise and activity, full of action, and full of life. I consider myself a thinker so the pain becomes easier to bear as the night draws on--and the ghosts formed by the ethereal light of normality prance to shine hope into hopeless, faith into faithless, love into broken.

Nights consist of failed attempts to understand nothing and everything. With the strange, unforgiving darkness and deceiving silence, the night is unpredictable; anything could happen. You've say there night after night since you can remember and NOTHING ever changes...everything is simply the same yet unrecognizably different. The last day has stolen another part of your soul and you feel the crevice that has been left gradually become filled with the familiar unexplained mist that encircles your very being every moment of every day. You shiver as icy fingers play that haunted melody on your spine...taunted echoes of forgiveness and regret bombard your ears as you try desperately to forget past events that threaten the complete destruction of everything you once thought to be solid.

But what is it mean to be solid, anyhow? Nothing lasts forever. Everything, thus, is fluid.

"Sleep away and dream a dream, life is just a lullaby"

Master is Different Cat

2011-01-25T01:35:00.004-07:00

Its 1:35 AM and I'm still awake. I struggle with insomnia often. Its surprising sometimes I have as much energy as I do to work out so much. Mostly it is that I cannot quiet my mind.

When I was in Costa Rica, Sasa once told me, "Master is different cat." I never understood it at the time. I think I do, now.

A recent e-mail from Sasa (my mentor, trainer, and co-founder of our Martial Arts gym):

HOLA ROMA , DO NOT BE SEAD LIFE IS GREAT , changese happening every second and we cannot bring back a past no mether how great it was but we can ahve great present lesrning from our past, you remmember MASTER IS DEFFERENT CAT , and Im gatting there. Im probobly goning tommorow to look for GOLD agin YEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSS, AKCION GRRRRRRRRRRR , So head up smoke one and paint tha is greattrip .MAHI , MAHI ask about you he is groing his hair long for you only sides Girl think about it and write me back yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee SASA

Haha! Sasa is a great guy. And for reference sake, "Mahi Mahi" is the nickname of this tico who worked at Roca Verde and claimed he was totally in love with me. Sasa just loves to give me shit about it. Apparently...STILL!

------------

This morning:
10AM: ground and pound
11AM: mitt work
12PM: kickboxing sparring

Around 4:30 pm Jory, Travis, and I drove up to Hamilton. We thought we were late, but the 5 pm class got canceled. Instead I got to see Brandon's pot dispensary shop.

Training there was a LOT of fun! I put together everything to try a little MMA with Brandon and if felt amazing. I need to do this more often. I like his teaching style also. Plus I got to see Amanda again.
I was dead tired by 9pm. Jory drove us back and I fell asleep a little bit in the back seat.

Came home...ate...and now I'm just unable to get to bed yet.

Adapt or Die

2011-01-23T21:02:00.003-07:00

It is nature's cruelest law...intended to remind you that there is only now. Tomorrow is a dream and a day away. Can you go after what you want? Yes, only if you are motivated. The real question is, are you? Or do you believe that tomorrow will come and bring the motivation with it? Yeah well while you are waiting for tomorrow, I will be doing tire flips and sparring today to turn pro while you are watching me do so on TV.

Be real. Don’t be fake. Be smart. Don’t waste your time. Find that spark inside you and make it the biggest fucking fire around. Let it burn out of control. Take control of your destination and never give it up. Stop making excuses. Make it work. All the pleasures in life cannot compare to living your dream. If you dream of being big, strong, beating your opponents, competing, and winning then go do it. Get off your ass. The only thing that I fear is the thought that one day I may not have a dream, so I will not let this one go until I get all that I want. Take it. Fuck everything else.

Workout of the Day

1) 20 minutes of the following:
10 sledgehammer swings per arm + tire flip down and back [20 minute block]
surprisingly, I completed the whole 20 minutes with hardly any rest!
Maybe just enough to say hi to Jory. :)

2) 10 minutes of supersetting pullups and lunges
total pullups: 30
total lunges: 120

3) 10 minutes of supersetting pushups with ab wheel rollouts
total ab wheel rollouts: 70
total pushups: 60

Today was a lighter day. I'm resting up a bit for some intense fight training this week. I alternated between the steam room and cold shower before leaving Gold's to meet Marina and work on our business plan.

Comfort

2011-01-22T23:50:00.009-07:00

"Verily the lust for comfort murders the passion of the soul,
and then walks grinning in the funeral."
-Kahlil Gibran

Lately I've been really nostalgic about my time in Costa Rica. I've come to realize that comfort ironically produces the most misery. I have never been happier in my life than in those moments either in Africa or Costa Rica when I was living each day to survive. Perhaps its just as simple as Maslov's Heirarchy of Needs. When you don't have guaranteed food, water, shelter, etc...you don't have the time nor capacity to be sad or depressed about anything because in comparison, it just doesn't matter. The biggest mistake "developed" countries make is to mistake comfort for happiness...

I started the day off with a cold shower. Reminds me of my days up in Providencia (near Cerro do la Muerte...which for you non Spanish speakers translates to "Mountain of Death") where I had to do burpees to get warm enough to take a frigid bath in the river. So comparably this is nothing! I didn't go to sleep until 5AM this morning. I was celebrating Brooke's birthday last night at the Badlander.

(cat ears made by Brooke ;) )
Came home...slept for four hours...walked the dog and ran four miles at an 8min/mile pace with varying incline. Today I decided to let my friends decide my workout. In the spirit of Wolf's postings on facebook, I did something similar. Here were the results

Copying Jesse 'Wolf' Anderson's idea for a randomized workout: Until 3 PM for every "like" of this status, I will do 10 squats, 10 pushups, 5 pullups, 1 handstand pushup.

I keep my promises....tonight I did a grand total of:

230 Squats
230 Pushups
115 Pullups
23 Handstand Pushups

Not all at once...but throughout the day. Which included a South Park marathon and catch up session with Cami and Karisa, which was a lot of fun! I finally bought my own sledgehammer again. Walked into Golds at 7pm with it. Got some strange looks, yeah. Garrett and Marina showed up shortly after and we put together what I will call

The Starfish Workout

we went through all the exercises twice. Ideally aiming for 30 seconds per station, but it was
hard to watch the clock so usually took longer. Starfish (aka Garrett) did the workout with a gas mask and a backpack full of weights!

1) 5 sledgehammer swings per arm then tire flip down and back

2) Balance on medicine ball (aka, ankle breaker)

3) Medicine ball pushups (where you switch the ball arm to arm)

4) Resistance band twists

5) Resistance band squat and press

6) Balancing on your shins on the big bouncy ball

7) Lunges

8) Wall Sit

9) Bear Crawls

10) Medicine ball slams (12 lb medicine ball)

Yep, this picture says it all.

2011-01-21T15:42:00.013-07:00

"The price of memory is the memory of the sorrow it brings"
-Counting Crows

I often have found that the best memories are the ones that make me saddest when I reflect on them. Lately, I've been thinking a lot about Costa Rica and the people I miss out there. Every place you visit, you find a piece of yourself but in exchange leave a part of yourself behind. While I was down there, I think I experienced the purest happiness thus far in my life. I will return.

Speaking of memories, I decided to wear my Vibrams on a run through Blue Mountain with my dog to visit the fort . Starting with driving up the snow-covered road in my rear wheel drive, manual, no snow tire mustang. The cold seeps right through the soles of those Vibrams. Nope, I'm not in Costa Rica anymore, that's for sure. But I figured it was a good test of mental toughness. Once I made it up the mountain where there was less snow it wasn't so bad.

At the Dog Pound today, it was all girls. So a lot of groundwork technique. At the end, I rolled with Matt again. His advice and biggest critique to me was to flow more...use less muscle. I did, and he told me I did very well and was impressed. I'll bask in that for a little while longer ;) A compliment like that from a coach I respect means a lot to me.

Cardio for the day:

If that's a bit hard to read:

Two times through as fast as possible:
25 Flying Knees per leg
25 Thai Kicks per leg
25 Shot-Sprawl-Shot
25 Box Knees extending per leg
25 Spiderman Burpees

Stayed after to hit the bag until the gym got cold. I'm forcing myself to work through discomfort, and for me, my most hated discomfort is not being warm enough. Starting tomorrow, cold showers.