Fight Fit Training

Morning Meditation 8/20/2022

What is my message? I’m gearing up to make some big moves here, to come out to the world with something explosive, powerful, impactful, earth-shattering. I’ve lingered in stagnation for long enough, and what progress I’ve made, piece by piece, is nothing compared to the potential I’m holding within. But it must become clear, articulate, well-formed – from the chaos, this cacophony of voices grow clear thoughts and ideas, a vision, a purpose, a mission.

I’m trying to figure it out, as I prepare to step forward into a venue that would, at long last, make my voice accessible to a much bigger audience. What will I talk about, after all? What sort of picture will I paint? The process of formulating it is exciting, overwhelming, anxiety-inducing, and amazing. Because I know that, if done right, it’s going to effect massive change.

This is what it’s all about for me. I’ve spent decades thinking myself sick, trying to figure out the meanings of things, and what has it done, but brought me back to this thought: all the truth and reflection and wisdom in the world means nothing, in the absence of decisive action. How do I craft a message that will move people to get off their asses, to stop waiting for the perfect moment, to realize how crucial it is to make that first step, and to stay the path from there?

All of these questions will be answered in time. Stay tuned for the vision. I will start posting snippets as I draft. I am eager for your feedback. You will be the first ones to see it. Thanks for being a part of this journey with me.



Jiujitsu is a gateway into something so mysterious – how a person can at once be gentle and kind, and ruthlessly violent, all in the same go.

A member of a community, bonded by love and care, but likewise fierce and capable of protecting one’s self when certain lines are crossed – when the gentle and subtle approach fails, of course!

And yet, it becomes even more mysterious when we see, that sometimes, the wisest approach to felling someone, in jiujitsu, is to adopt a posture of passivity.

Of waiting gently and calmly for an attacker’s unbridled aggression to get the best of them.

There is opposition, here, between gentleness and violence – and the mystery is beyond profound to behold, but even more powerful to live out!

In jiujitsu, our light and our dark parts come together, in this powerful junction of apparent opposites – our creatureliness and our humanity, our need to expunge our instincts, and our need for art and artfulness.

Most powerfully, however, jiujitsu teaches this most valuable human lesson.

The only failure that truly counts, is the failure to persist in one’s attempts to grow, to improve, to change. The failure to stay on the path and inside the discipline. The failure to give one’s self over to the art, and to let it change you, bit by bit, piece by piece, until you have a depth and strength that permits you to give back in ways you never otherwise could have.

Stay the course. Stay on the discipline. Keep learning new moves that make you smile in wonder every day, keep practicing them, and remarking at how beautiful it all is – this, my friends, is a rich life!



You've got to face up to your fears.

Make yourself vulnerable.

Take that risk, face your anxiety, that horrible anticipation that everything could go wrong ...

And take the leap anyways.

Letting go of your need to control the way you appear, paradoxically, is the only way you can ever appear in a light, that can win the respect of who and what is most important ...

Yourself.

So! If its courage that you're looking for, there's only one way to achieve it.

Face your fears and excuses, your need to protect yourself from being "found out" ...

And doing the hard, scary thing anyways.





I want you to know that time is not on your side.

The longer you keep putting off the things you said you wanted to do?

The more it’s going to hurt to try and start later.

Just face the fact of it. Entropy is a constant in the physical universe we live in. Everything, including everybody, is constantly at risk for falling into a state of decay, corruption and disorder.

This doesn’t just apply to the physical realm either. When we refuse to take charge of our lives, refuse to let our better judgments, the light of our knowledge drive us past the inertia of creaturely habit?

We end up settling.

Falling into old habits and patterns and routines that do not serve our well-being in the future.

We become complacent, comfortable, and even sometimes sick.
We let life happen to us, instead of pushing back against the tide.

This is why getting help can be such a powerful thing.

There comes a time, after all, when you realize that your own judgment is suspect.

It’s not helping you to accomplish the things that you’d always envisioned, dreamed of or wanted.

Perhaps you’re failing to hold yourself accountable, or perhaps it’s just comfortable, at this point, to give up? More dreams and visions and desires have been lost to sour grapes than a man could ever count!

Having someone there to get you back on track, to hold you to your vision, to say “no” to the desire to just give up and crumble and let the cards fall where they lay?

There can scarcely be anything more valuable than this, in terms of you actually fulfilling on that vision, that dream, that goal that is worth more than anything money can buy.

Because there’s nothing worse than going through life, without fulfilling on the full extent of one’s potential for growth, as a person.

So stop waiting. Stop telling yourself that you’ll “get around to it some day.”

Get up, get out there, and start getting after it instead. And if you need some help?

Stop coming to the precipice of asking for it from anyone who might offer it, and choose to make the leap and go all in!

Having worked for nearly 20 years in the Health & Fitness space, I've learned quite a bit about human psychology.

The number one takeaway: at a deep, root, core level, people really, truly, absolutely don't want to change.

It often takes oodles and oodles of pain, in fact, for them to decide to rock the boat, and realize that it's time get on a different path.

Take these excuses that I'm constantly hearing from people who like to "entertain" a fitness transformation.

It doesn't matter if that transformation would lead to changes as vital as promoting within one's job, having a much less painful future, avoiding intense misery, or being able to provide better for one's spouse or children . . .

The excuses will not. stop. coming.

Evolution, baby. You can welcome it, or cling to what's dead and gone. The choice is yours! One thing is for sure. If you can't be bothered in terms of sacrificing power, enjoyment, or the most direct and commonly held symbol of it -- i.e., money -- there's little chance of you or anyone assuming responsibility for the change you'd like to see, even with the very best coaching and direction.

Why? Because nothing good can be had without great sacrifice.



Just read this and stop saying "but sensei said ..." If you're trying to fight people in 2022, it's high time you stopped using training methods from 1827. 

I want you to do yourself a huge favor . . .

And strive to be nothing like me.

Your path?

Your trajectory?

Your development?

All of these things must, after all, be uniquely YOURS for them to truly count.

On Social Media these days, we seem to have no shortage of gurus, coaches, experts and consultants who are constantly running their mouths about why THEIR system is the best.

“Look at my 20MM Funnel!” Says Sam Ovens.

“If you’re not posting 5x a day, on all platforms, you’re not trying,” Says Gary V.

“Read a book day, and then THIS level of success . . .” Says Tai Lopez.

“I have this Special Sutra Teaching that is the Authentic Teaching of the Buddha Himself!”

Say the latest hot Personal Development Guru.

Everyone is trying to tell you how their s**t is the hottest fire out there, and what’s more?

That it’s theirs and theirs alone, somehow – parading their alleged uniqueness around, as if it were the answer to all of your life’s woes, when guess what?

They haven’t even taken the time to understand what makes YOU who YOU are.

***

Whenever anyone would ask Master Gutei questions about Zen, he – eschewing the needless exchange of philosophical drivel – would raise his finger in response.

A boy, who was either his assistant or disciple, began to cleverly imitate him, raising his own finger at whomever would attempt to engage him in conversation that seemed superfluous.

At one point, Gutei, catching wind of this, seized upon the child, and cut off the very same finger.

Horrified, the child began to run away, until Gutei screamed after him.

He turned about, at which time Gutei raised his finger – to which the boy could now not respond in kind.

The capacity for imitation of the Master by the Student, in this respect, was permanently made impossible.

Immediately, so the story goes, the boy attained to satori, the Zen equivalent of Nirvana or nibbana.

How many fingers will you lose, then, before you come to realize, that your way of being is not that which you can cull from anyone else?