Banged up:The sparring partner

Hello all! I hope this finds you well. I wanted to just touch base on sparring partners and what you must endure in order for the person fighting to have success. Generally speaking, helping a fighter prepare for a fight as a sparring partner is a give and take. On one hand you get to work on some skills and also help in some cases a friend and in other cases your wallet. While that might seem look a pretty good set of reasons to throw on the headgear, sacrifice accompanies the work. The fighter getting ready for the fight gradually gets faster and stronger and more accurate as the weeks go on. Now if you yourself are preparing for a fight the differences may not be noticeable. However if you're in between fights chances are you're not doing the same kind of training as the guy you're sparring. As he gets faster it becomes more difficult to keep up. The punches, kicks,and submissions become harder to defend. By the the last three weeks the fighter is sharper than ever. You've done your job, usually at the expense of your own body. However, you always come away a better fighter than you were going in.

I recently had the opportunity to spar with a good friend and fighter Asim Zaidi. Asim was preparing to fight in Italy and was trying to get in as much sparring as possible. By the end of a few weeks I was completely banged up. Between sparring with Asim as well as some of my clients I was a mess. From toes to shoulders. I picked up a bunch of new tricks and enjoyed every minute of it, but ouch!!. 2 weeks later I finally feel back to normal. I checked good old Facebook yesterday and there he was with his hand raised. It made it all worth it! A great win for a good guy that I know for sure put in the work necessary to win...trust me..lol The video above is from one of the sparring sessions. Enjoy my pain.

Say yes and don't stop

When she said,"you gotta come take Keith's class!" I almost blew it off. I was on an extreme street basketball kick at the time. My mind said I need to work on my 15 foot shot but something else in me, before I even realized it, had fixed my mouth in the yes position and the word flowed out. I found myself a little out of place and amazingly comfortable. The warm ups were done and then it happened. The moment that changed my life. I KICKED THE BAG! IT was at that moment that I knew where I was supposed to be. After taking these classes with my buddy Keith I started to feel alive again. As all things do, it came to an end. There were some fill ins as the class dwindled down to nothing. I was lost but realized that I couldn't let it go. I found something good, wait not good...Great. I trained for about 2 years on my own. Get someone to hold pads for me every now and then, but for the most part alone. Maybe in retrospect, I was falling in love with kickboxing.

Shortly after the beginning of my love affair I realized that I just didn't want to do much else. I was given an opportunity to teach and it again reaffirmed where I was meant to be. Still bartending 5 days a week, I decided to start a company making clothes and an MMA news website. I sponsored a couple of fighters and worked hard to get my business going. Once my bartending gig went the company went the way of the dinosaur.

I spent all of my money and time on it and it was gone. However my love for kickboxing had turned into a love for Muay Thai and then blossomed into a love of Jiu jitsu and re-hashed my love of western boxing. It all had meaning and purpose and gave me a feeling of fulfillment. What happened next was the hard part. After training for about 5 years(no real coach) I decided to try a fight. Now it had been in my head for a while. After class one day someone asked me "so when are you fighting again?". This had just reaffirmed what had been bugging me. How can I teach what I haven't directly applied. So I hunted down some fights, asked some people for a little help preparing, called a friend to corner me, and adrenaline did the rest. I got myself a fight and won. After that I truly believed that I was good at kickboxing, I was so not. In my next fight I was "handled"...easily. I studied nonstop and trained nonstop, I still do. I can only attribute it to passion. I am passionate about what I am doing. It has taken 11 years and plenty of sacrifice. You can't get certified to do what I do or carry the knowledge I have now in this brain. This is the first time I have been able to make living off of the countless hours studying, training, and competing. The injuries, from back pains to broken fingers and everything in between including a couple of broken hearts and bank accounts.

I have met amazing people along the way, laughed and cried in the same moment. I wouldn't change it for the world. People sometimes think this is an easy life or easy road or even glamorize it because of the rise of MMA, but the truth is it's flat out hard. Embrace the struggle. In my case it has been ever so worth it. I say all of this because I want you all to find your passions, say Yes to life and once you feel like you have something, don't stop regardless of the obstacles in the way. It's all starting to come together now, but it was earned and that makes it that much better. Love you all, follow your dreams and "Live Life-No Regrets"

Getting back to it

I remember feeling like a fish out of water when I first started doing Jiu jitsu. Trying to figure out what it was all about while getting tossed around like a ragdoll. It took some time but I started to be more and more comfortable and familiar with the positions and reasons why I was suppose to be there. I started off doing no gi Jiu jitsu, that's a big no no for traditionalists. Some believe that not learning the gi is really taking something away from the art. I think that if your goal is to be successful in MMA you must stay deeply rooted in no gi jits as there is no one in the octagon that's gonna choke you with their lapel. I totally understand the feeling that maybe people aren't grasping the traditional ideas of Jiu jitsu. However Jiu jitsu is many things. It's a major part of history,it's self-defense,a sport, and an ever evolving art that demands serious concentration and respect. It is not owned by Japan, Brazil, or America. Jiu jitsu is owned by the people that practice it.

I learned so much from my first instructor Troy Waugh, Abu Dahbi Combat Club competitor and referee, pro MMA ref, and all around good guy. He was so easy to understand that it made it easy, he just had a knack for it. Under his watch I won my division in my first tournament. I trained for about 3 years and started feeling very comfortable with my skillset. Unfortunately, I left the gym after several owner changes and disorganization. Troy moved and I focused entirely on my Muay Thai. I hadn't found a way to get back to Jiu jitsu until now and what a way to come back. I picked up another teaching gig at a place that has a well known Brazilian Jiu jitsu instructor. The wonderful thing about this is that it's Gi. So now I return to doing jits and not only that but I get to really increase my skills.

The instructor is Jorge Pereira, a 6th degree blackbelt under Rickson Gracie. I feel like i'm getting proper instruction and I'm loving starting over. It may seem strange to some but this time the Gi allows me to have handles to grab on to instead of someones slippery arm. I feel great about rolling twice a week and can't wait to compete again. It never stops, only you do. Evolve into a fully rounded fighter, don't hold yourself back into only liking one thing or another. It's all related at some point you might be on your back, then what?

Training blog ep. 3

Sorry it took so long guys... more coming soon!!! Had problems adding the music but I will update it later. Love you all.

Origins: Jiu Jitsu

"The gentle art", that's right jiu jitsu translates into "the gentle art". How you get off calling something where you choke, break the bones/joints or submit your opponent gentle i'll never know. Either way I love jiu jitsu. Though now it is more well known for it's roots in Brazil due to the success of MMA which was invented and dominated by the Gracie family. Royce Gracie submitted opponent after opponent in the UFC while growing interest in jiu jitsu with each submission. Because of Royce's success people associate jiu jitsu with Brazil however Jiu Jitsu was originally invented and developed in Japan in the 1500's.

Used by Samurai's to combat armored enemies, enemies with no weapon or short range weapons. It was a mixture of different martial arts used for close combat situations. Jiu jitsu at it's beginnings was similar to Judo as it used more throws than the conventional jiu jitsu we see now. During peace time, jiu jitsu schools often challenged and competed with each other as they do now in tournaments like Grappler's quest and Naga. In 1914 Mitsuyo Maeda brought Jiu jitsu to Brazil and taught it to Carlos Gracie. It was then passed on to his brothers Oswaldo, Gastão Jr., George, and Hélio.

Helio then took it and ran with it. He altered the art to fit his body style as some of the techniques were difficult for him due to his small size. In 1951, Masahiko Kimura, a Judokan, after being invited to Brazil by Helio Gracie, defeated Helio in 13mins using a reverse ude-garami known now simply as a "Kimura lock". Helio named it such after the bout.

Grand Master Helio trancended the art and has some of the most storied victories and defeats in history. Helio fought and defeated judokans and professional wrestlers from around the world. Often times he was outweighed and outsized. He once lost a fight to exhaustion after competing with former student Valdemar Santana for almost 4 hours. The Gracie family is now synonymous with Jiu jitsu, producing champion after champion. Although it is romanticized now as being a Brazilian art, the beginnings of Jiu jitsu are strongly anchored in Japan's feudal age.

Paint a beautiful picture

I love what I do. I have to admit that when I fell in love with kickboxing, I didn't know it would get to this point and I am excited to see how far it goes in the future. I am stoked and grateful for all the opportunities i've been given and "earned". I remember teaching my first class and being told that I had to be more assertive.

A far cry from the high intensity top of my lungs Muay Thai instructor I am now. All of that is great, however the most important thing for me is teaching. I am blessed to be able to Love my job and that is more than I can say for most. It has been a long road and I just feel like I have this small wealth of knowledge and when you're down to listen and learn, i'm even more down to teach.

I've had the pleasure of training some pretty cool ass people for health and real time application. I feel as if you don't share your individual knowledge on a subject it has a negative effect on the growth of that subject. I suspect that the evolution of Martial arts depends entirely on the students it is taught to. Each person an individual extension of their particular art form with each having their own unique way of expression. we might learn the same kick but set it up and "throw it" completely different. I often compare fighting to painting a beautiful picture. Each technique is a stroke on the canvas. I love helping people learn to get to that moment when it all just flows together.

Thailand bans MMA...

Hey there H20 nation, i've been gone a while working on putting together and following through with my first Muay Thai camp. More on that later. So i'm 2 months away from my trip to Thailand so i'm researching like crazy. If you know me personally then you might know that I am constantly on the computer or my phone studying...everything. Anyway, I came across an article that talks about Thailands recent ban on MMA. The Thai government is citing that "MMA is too brutal" and "is not boxing". Now at first glance this might seem like the pot calling the kettle black, but let's look deeper. Some may look at Muay Thai(Thailand's national sport) as uber brutal. Elbows and knees and kicks garnishing more points in the fight than boxing strikes. However, this is not just a combat sport to the Thai people. This form of combat is rooted in tradition dating back over a thousand years. Compare that to MMA which may have some ties to other similar forms of combat like pankration and vale tudo but are from different countries and are also considered extremely brutal by some. Modern MMA dates all the way back to 1993. That's right it's about 19 years old, an infant compared to Muay Thai and even to baseball which is about 166 years old. I say that to contend that MMA is not a polished product.

The tradition involved in Muay Thai is based in superstition and history. When the Nak Muay(Thai fighters) come out to fight they do a dance/prayer to pay respects to their coaches, God, Buddha, and to protect themselves and their opponent from serious injury. The entrance of an MMA fighter usually involves the blasting of some rock or hip hop song themed around being a badass or kicking someone's ass. As entertaining as that might be for Americans it would be considered disrespectful in the Thai culture. The Thais are extremely respectful, especially when it comes to fighting. MMA fighters and fans for the most part not so much. Last but not least, the large majority of fighters are using a watered down version of what the Thais are so very proud of and are calling it by the same name. Until the MMA community really understands and respects what Muay Thai is to the people of Thailand it will be hard for them to accept MMA. The violent rhetoric that MMA fighters around the world may be used to isn't an integral part of Thai society. Also it doesn't help that some fighters go there learn the strikes and don't respect the culture. Regardless of how brutal both sports might be, MMA might be lacking in area...RESPECT.