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I was smart enough to pull off the road when my cellphone rang. I remember that I pulled off into the parking lot of a bowling alley. It’s strange the things that I remember. I had heard my phone ring and quickly glanced at the screen to see that it was my manager calling. I had been expecting a phone call from him and spark of anxious excitement flashed in my chest. He wouldn’t be calling if he didn’t have the news I was waiting for. I was fresh off a good win agains

I’m not necessarily the most observant guy. I live in a relaxing form of oblivion from time to time. However, I do notice things eventually—like certain themes that keep occurring near me or around me. Eventually I have to notice them if they show up enough. Maybe the theme isn’t popping up more frequently than any other time. Rather, it might be that I’m noticing it where I didn’t notice it before. I think that’s the sort of thing I must pay even more attention to. I

I remember standing next to him for the photo op and realizing how outsized I was. I think the moment of anger and frustration I experienced was completely natural. This was an obviously shady transaction. Preparations for this fight had been weird. I was told that I needed to weigh in on the day of the fight rather than the night before. Standard protocol was to weigh in the night before, but I was told that the venue was only available for the day of the actual fights

I’m sure his intentions were good. I think he meant the best. His best was just a bit awkward. I met him early in my fighting career. He was a coach and promoter, and I was a young fighter who fought on many of his cards against many of his fighters. He had been around for my first fight (it was on his fight card against his fighter) and had hovered near most of my subsequent fights. In all honesty, he had done me a bit dirty a few times over the years—things were a bi

There is so much sound that there is no sound. It’s like background noise, but a deafening sort of background noise. I am trying to focus on my coach. He has something to say, but there is nothing but chaos in my mind. I see only narrowly. My hood is over my head, trapping the heat and sweat from my warmup rounds. I flex my hands, feeling the tape and the gloves that were painstakingly prepared. I see the curtain in front of me. There is light beyond it—the dancing c

I know my place in the Jiu-Jitsu hierarchy. I know how good I am and how good I’m not. I’m not a world-class competitor, but I’ve had many opportunities to train with world-class competitors. That’s how I know I’m not one of them. But I love how many times I’ve had the honor of training with the best my sport has to offer. It’s one of my favorite things about combat sports. I remember the first world champion I met. He was, at the time, an absolute pinnacle of the sp

There’s something in me—something about me—that loves to fight. I love the challenge and I love the confrontation. I love the process—the misery of training camp and the joy of small victories that are found in exhaustion. I love the camaraderie of hard rounds with teammates aned the mutually agreed destruction of for the betterment of one another. I love the way the fight hones me and sharpens me and makes me stronger. I love fighting. I love to fight. And I can’t

Sometimes conversations remind of things that I once spent a lot of time thinking about. I was drilling technique with a friend in preparation for a soon and upcoming tournament that we were both preparing to compete in. Our preparation was technical and tactical, of course, because that’s how we prepare for these kinds of things. In the middle of our practice she paused, looked at me, and said, “I don’t understand why I’m doing this to myself.” It caused me to pause, to

It’s a thing I tend to do because it’s the way I am made to be. Sometimes it works in my favor and sometimes…well…not so much. I’ve got a stubborn streak and a slight compulsion toward obsession. It makes things interesting. I had taken a Saturday with my coach and a few teammates to attend a seminar being presented by someone who, at that time, was considered as one of the best Jiu-jitsu players in the world. I was fascinated by what he was teaching and, to be honest,

I think about my anxious mind a lot. It’s come up in the things I write frequently of late, which is probably an indicator of how much I’ve been thinking about it. That’s one of the symptoms of an anxious mind—it thinks too much. At least, some people might think that it thinks too much. Most of the time I’m one of those people. I think my mind thinks too much. I think anxiety is the label we put on the idea of thinking too much. When I decided to explore the idea of

One of the first lessons I learned in Jiu-jitsu was the importance of posture. It was drilled into when I first started training all those years ago in that old warehouse somewhere in some industrial area of Portland. My coach was insistent that all of his students learn to find posture. He drilled us relentlessly. I was confused when I first heard the concept—I thought of posture as sitting up straight and paying attention in school. But, after I had stuck around a lit

I have an overly active mind. At least that’s how it feels to me. I’ve never had anyone else’s mind, so I don’t have a point of reference. I just know that my own mind is always on the move and never settles down. It’s always loud and it’s never quiet. I’m bad at silence. I barely remember my first several fights. They kind of all blend into one event. Everything was action versus reaction and pure adrenaline-fueled instinct. I didn’t have the discipline or experie

I was talking to a young man who was having a rough day. He was one of our youth competitors—a talented young grappler with excellent skills who worked incredibly hard at his Jiu-jitsu. But today had been a rough one. He had lost all his matches. He had recently promoted in belt rank and this was his first tournament at the new level. It had not gone well for him. As someone who had cleaned up his previous brackets with impressive wins, he’d had an expectation that he

LET GO AND LET GOD. I hate that cliché. I suppose some might be offended by me and my revulsion toward a slogan they hold so dear. It’s on bumper stickers; it’s on T-shirts. I know a particular group of people who truly do their level best to live by that phrase. They love it, and I love for them. But I hate it for myself. I hate it because it’s easy. I hate it because it’s simple. I hate it because it’s a trite truism that makes it sound easy and makes it sound si

It was one of those times when I couldn’t find the words to describe what was happening. I hate those times because I love words and what they can describe. Words are something of a strength of mine, but in this case they were a resolute failure. And I hated it. There were many ways in which his game was better than mine, but in other ways my game was tighter than his. He was more athletic and physically inclined—I have a learning disability that makes me clumsy. The

I was ten days out from my next fight and toward the end of a hard training camp. For some reason I remember that it was a Wednesday. I was a young fighter about to fight my fourth or fifth amateur match and I had been working hard to get ready. I wanted to win this one. My coach was a solid fighter who would later go on to fight on the highest of MMA stages. But that night he was the only one near my weight class to show for practice. So, his undivided attention was fo

Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another. (Proverbs 27:17) I’ve come to a point in my life where many of—if not most of—my friends have tried to legally murder me. My friends have punched me in the face, choked me into unconsciousness, and double-legged me through walls. My friends have hurt me, injured me, consoled me, corrected me, and shared with me through both success and failure. It’s impossible to do the things I love by myself. I love fighting—I love comba

Sometimes the joy is in the chaos. That’s probably one of the things that attracted me to combat sports. There are so many things out of my control but there are many things within my control. The challenge is learning the difference between the two, and that’s one of the things I love about it. It’s a microcosm of life in a sort of way. I find myself pressing for that submission, focused on that arm or on that choke. I can feel myself getting close—there’s a sense we

I still remember my first Brazilian Jiu-jitsu class. It wasn’t so easy to find in those days. It took a little effort. I was training Jeet Kwon Do, and my Guro (teacher) had met someone who’d opened a BJJ academy not too far away. My Guro thought it would be a good idea for us to check it out, so we did. It was a Saturday morning when I found my way to a giant warehouse in the industrial area of Portland to meet up with a few of my friends as well as a few that would be

God has a plan, and it’s a good one. He has set a path before me (and you) and has developed an entire game plan. He sees the past, the future, and He sees the now. He knows where it is going and He knows exactly how long it’s going to take to get there. A man's steps are established by the LORD, and He takes pleasure in his way. (Psalms 37:23) It is my nature to resist God’s plan—it just is. I don’t like His timing. When things feed good, I want them to last foreve