Inner Demons
training, progress, stagnation, frustration
Advantage and Ego on February 19, 2012
The notions of “advantage” and “ego” have never been so clear to me as they are now. The plan that I hatched and impulsively set in motion around the new year seems to be having its anticipated effect. Only one month has passed in our common reckoning of time, yet these days and weeks have felt much longer to me than the days and weeks of months past. Ever since I stumbled upon Tucker Max’s talk at AHS last year, the notion of “testing” one’s diet and lifestyle really grew on me. He described MMA as an “anvil of truth,” and the term truly resonated with me. What I realized at the turn of the year was that “truth” is perhaps that thing which I have been seeking all along. But what is “truth” in this world, really? That’s likely another essay in itself, but let me propose one simple perspective: it’s what you make out of what you’re given, compared to others. This is the kind of truth th...
read moreOmoplata from Closed Guard on February 04, 2012
I pulled two of these for the first time today during rolling, but felt like it was a smaller deal than it was made out to be. I’m coming up on 2.5 weeks of BJJ now from having absolutely zero experience in any kind of grappling, and am happy to say that rolling with other [...]
Protect Ya Neck on January 27, 2012
Rodrigo Cabral’s jiu-jitsu is so deep that even his t-shirts impart deep nuggets of wisdom onto my defense-less tabula rasa. I remember the t-shirt he wore on my first class: it read “PROTECT YA NECK” in big yellow letters. “Ha, I get it!” I said to myself on that day, but I’m not sure I [...]
Everyone likes MMA on January 18, 2012
Until they get punched in the face. That’s what Muay Thai instructor and all-around dangerous man Samy told me today when I joined John’s Gym, an Austin MMA gym 5 minutes from my apartment. I know, I know—you’re asking yourself “why on Earth did this guy John name his gym eponymously?” Yeah, I was totally [...]
A Month of German Volume Training on December 17, 2010
Hi everyone, it’s airport-blog-time again. This time I’m making a two-connection trip from Austin to Newark, and I’d thought I’d take the time to rave about German Volume Training, or GVT for short. German Volume Training is a technique used by bodybuilders to smash plateaus and put on a lot of weight in a short [...]
The Quest for the One-Arm Pull-up on August 30, 2010
This past weekend I got to learn more about some fellow Paleolites as a part of the most recent event hosted by the Austin Primal Living Meetup Group. The event was billed as a potluck, and though 8 or so people RSVP’ed yes, only three of us were there for most of it. Consequently, in [...]