What would I do differently with my life if I had it to do all over again? Would I make the same choices? Would I try and become someone completely different?
No. I definitely wouldn’t. Yeah, there are things that I would rather have not done. Yes, there are things I should have done differently. But it’s taken everything to be where I am now. And where I am right now ain’t too bad.
I needed to get some new running shoes here recently so I bought into the hype and decided to try out the Reebok Run Tones. This design supposedly helps tone up your legs quicker than regular shoes.
I’ve had them a week now and I must say I really like them. The first walk I took in them I could tell there was something different. I immediately felt it in my glutes, especially while going downhill. I practice Chi Running, and these seem so much better suited for it than the Adidas Super Nova trail running shoes I usually buy. Also, the area under the ball of my foot is nice and wide. I’ve got some busted up toes on my left foot that healed all wrong so to keep them from cramping up I need a wider area.
So far, so good. But really, what I really want to know is, will my ass end up looking this good?
So West Side Mark said he’s thinking about hosting an adults BJJ tourney in September. I’ve been tossing the idea of trying one out and I think the timing is ideal. I’m wanting to ask a couple guys at West Side what their suggestions are for a training regimen. My ideas are to keep up my Sun-Tues schedule of class attendance and do weight and cardio training Thur-Sat with Wednesday being my take it easy day.
I think I’ll vary up the Thur-Sat schedule with some MTBing, hiking, and trail running.
I’m also considering periodically going to other gyms like Unified or Park City to train for more exposure and some different perspectives. If I have fun I’ll stick with it. That’s what keeps me going back to West Side; I’m always leaving with a smile on my face.
Regardless of whether the tournament happens or not I think this will help me establish a solid routine that I can use to gage my progress.
What do you do? Do you do anything at all other than your usual? What is your usual?
At this moment I am working on my 2nd Scotch on the rocks. For some reason my back is all gamed up after tonights rock’n BJJ session. I don’t know why, but Scotch seems to work wonders for me nowadays. It reminds me of a trip I took to La Ventana, Baja California Sur to do some Windsurfing and ended up letting myself get talked into Kite Surfing lessons.
I picked it up quickly, and then was given the challenge of doing a body drag across the bay to the south shore. Things started out good as I made my tacks. What I didn’t realize until it was too late was the closer I got to the south beach, the stronger the wind was. As the beach heated up, it drew cold air in from the Sea of Cortez stronger and stronger. My body drags turned into more like getting tea bagged. I was getting anywhere from 5 to 15 yards of air time and was coming down hard on my sides.
Eventually my life preserver got twisted revealing my ribs to impact. I’ll always wish I had helmet that day too. An incredibly large gust hit me while I was transitioning the kite from 11 o’clock to 2 o’clock and I went up. WAAAAAAYYYYY up. Loosing control the kite then plumeted into the sea with me right behind. When I smacked into the water I heard a loud popping sound in my ear and it felt as if a horse had kicked me in the chest.
Fortunately my head immediately went into survival mode. My body began working of it’s own while I sat out on the side lines. I was able to gently bring myself to shore and thus ended my kite surfing experience. But the fun hadn’t stopped just yet. Back at my trailer I took off my wetsuit and laid down for a break. My suit must have been holding things together because when I went to get back up I couldn’t. It was as if I had a knife jabbed in my side.
So to make a long story short, I then for the next 9 days had multiple breakfast, lunch, and dinner beers followed by generous amounts of Tequila during dinner. Eventually I made it to the local clinic. They gave me a prescription and sent me across the street to the local pharmacy which was the back room of someone’s home. The box of pain killers I got looked to be good high grade south of the border pharmaceuticals. Opiates maybe? The result was quite a bit of relief so I figured I was definitely getting the ‘good stuff’.
Vacation over I was back home and went to the doctor for a gnarly ear infection and more happy pills. When hesitantly I showed the doctor what I was given down south he paused for a moment, looked me in the eye, and told me ‘um, that’s Aleve’.
Soooo, I figured it was the alcohol that made it all better.
Anyway, the moral of this story is…… I dunno. Sometimes all it takes to keep rollin’ is a little booze I guess.
I so appreciate the time Mark – West Side Jiu Jitsu – Johnson takes to snap pics during class. Here are some of me drilling this evening with a couple Blue belts.
Tonight we had a new guy in class trying BJJ out for the first time. At one point someone made the comment to him to not get frustrated, that BJJ takes time.
I got thinking about that after getting tapped over and over and over this evening. I don’t get frustrated, half the time I laugh (which seems to annoy the crap out of some, which makes me want to do it more). But I started wondering as we went from drilling to training if I’m really making any progress. My answer came quickly enough. A couple weeks ago Mark spent a good portion of our time going over breathing. That’s been my biggest hangup til now. Getting gassed out quick when someone gets me in mount or side control or mostly any time I’m on bottom.
Tonight I was able to keep going and going and going. I was still rolling when class ended and it was time to hang it up. I might not be tapping guys out much yet, but there is a noticeable difference from when I started.
I also got to experience what happens when the carotid arteries get shut off for a period of time. When the lights came back on my body was doing the funky chicken. I thought it was kinda funny.
And I’m still going home with a smile on my face. Just another happy evening in West Side land.
One of my favorite authors is Paulo Coelho. His book ‘The Alchemist’ is one of my all time favorites. I quit buying it because I could not hold on to a copy of it for long. I always gave them away.
Another of his books called ‘The Pilgrimage’ inspired my desire to experience El Camino de Santiago. Almost eight years ago I traveled to France to begin the Camino. It was an experience that forever changed my life.
It is days like today where I come back to what I learned from the Camino.
I have two choices ahead of me today. Both are extreme. One is the continued pursuit of a dream that I’m heavily invested in. The other is the abandonment of that dream and to live with the realization that I had it all lined up and yet crumpled under the pressure.
So how does this relate to backpacking over 350 miles across Spain?
Because I started the Camino an emotional mess, and I ended up forever transformed.
Because I proved to myself that I can put one foot in front of the other when it mattered.
Because I know that I can follow my dreams. I’ve done it before, and I can do it again.
Man. Having a blog is like having your own personal therapist. I’m back in my happy space again.
This past weekend I attended a seminar led by Professor Pedro Sauer in Sandy Utah. The guy I ended pairing up with to practice the techniques demonstrated was a kindred spirit. We have the same first name, the same occupation, and both of us are family men who are fortunate to have wives who are tolerant of our obsession.
So the inevitable question surfaced; why am I studying BJJ? My response is always ‘for purely spiritual reasons’. Soooooo, what does that mean exactly? And more importantly, why do I feel I need to explain this? On my blog no less?
Well, because I like to.
The definition of spirituality according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary is:
4. The quality or state of being spiritual.
And Spiritual means:
5 a : of or relating to supernatural beings or phenomena b : of, relating to, or involving spiritualism : spiritualistic
And Spiritualistic means:
1 : the view that spirit is a prime element of reality
And these definitions mean jack crap to me. So, we turn to Wikipedia and get more of a definition of Spirituality . From this, what I resonate with is:
Spirituality, in a wide variety of cultural and religious concepts, is itself often seen as incorporating a spiritual path, along which one advances to achieve a given objective, such as a higher state of awareness, outreach wisdom or communion with God or with creation.
I personally feel that there is a lot of misconception when discussing what is spiritual and what is religious. The difference I see as to what is a spiritual perspective is the discovery of one’s own truth vs. acceptance and practice of agreed upon truth(s).
The most profound, deeply moving experiences I’ve had have been on ski slopes, in deserts hundreds of miles from civilization, windsurfing, climbing up or flying down some tasty single track, blasting through feet of fresh powder, on a pilgrimage in the butt crack of nowhere in Europe (El Camino de Santiago to be precise), or tied up on a mat. These places and these experiences are some of what I call ‘church’. Where I am at times forced to be in the moment. This is where I find my truth. This is where I experience oneness with God and the Universe.
With BJJ, time and time again I am enlightened with a greater perspective of who I am and what is my life’s oh so creamy goodness.
This is why I do BJJ.
This past weekend I started playing chess online at chess.com . Totally dig it. I think the thing I like about it the most is that there isn’t any ghetto back talk / bitching. Those that speak English (unfortunately there is only one language I am fluent in) are usually polite and enjoyable to talk with. There are a lot of really cool people playing DDO, but inevitably there were punk asses that ruined it with constant ridicule of others. For as complex as DDO is, you’d think it would attract a more articulate if not thoughtful crowd.
