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"