Fitness – Serenity Through Sweat

Play

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. I’m sitting in the back of an airplane, hoping to make it home in time to participate in my first BJJ belt promotion ceremony as a black belt.

A few weeks ago I was able to watch Speedy at his first belt ceremony, where two young men recieved their black belts.

Speedy is one of the youngest and smallest in his karate class, but he is fierce.

As he was given his orange striped belt and asked to move out of the basic skills class and up into the beginners class, his instructor said something that caught my attention.

He was praising Speedy for his focus and dedication. He was impressed with his skill and that for such a young student he recognized that he was there to train and to learn, not to play.

Obviously these were all desireable qualities and I am very proud of Speedy as I watch him on his martial arts journey.

Thise comments though, stood out to me so much, because just that same morning, at my 6:30am BJJ class, I very distinctly told some of my training partners “I’m just here to play”

While the two sentiments are in obvious conflict with each other, I think there is room for both of us to be right.

I have a lot of respect for all of the coaches that are working with Speedy. They have all proven to be extremely knowledgeable, good communicators, and personable with a wide range of kids of varying ages, athletic potential, and focus.

And many of the students, especially the younger ones, will result to play as their default setting. Who can blame them. They are on mats, wearing silly outfits and boxing gloves, there are punching bags, gym equipment, hula hoops, and pool noodles around. It looks like a place to play. And at that age, play should be the default mode.

And while play is a great way to learn, you need to understand some basic guidelines before learning is effective much less efficient.

Think about playing a board game. You don’t learn the game by reading the rules. You learn by playing. The strategy, the tactics, the nuance, all come from playing.

But if you dont read the rules first, you might not even know what the pieces do, how to set up, or what the turns or steps of the game are.

There is some front loaded focus and discipline, that is required in order to take advantage of that play learning.

That cycle repeats itslef. You need to focus and study a new technique, and then you need to play with it to really learn and undertand it.

The bigger a foundation of knowledge and skill you build through focus and discipline, the more the ratio can shift towards play.

Since I have spent more than thirty years on the mats, I have a lot to draw on. Unless I am specifically training for a competition I mostly just play.

As an adult (or psuedo peter pan type adult) I think that mindset is more important than ever.

Despite my best efforts, my default mode is not play. And, I would be willing to bet, that I am still far closer to the play end of the spectrum than many other adults (psuedo peter pan or otherwise).

Whenever it is time for the sparring or live rolling part of a Jui Jitsu class, I try to be respectful of my fellow classmates needs.

I always start by asking if there is anything they want to work on, a technique, a position, or anything they want to get out of their training.

Very few take me up on the offer and I am delighted to offer whatever knowledge I can when they do.

When they don’t, we slap hands, and I get to play.

I already know the rules. The patterns and movements feel like a well worn trail. Sometimes, something new might pop up, like pushing through the tall grass off to the side of that well worn trail.

Maybe it leads to a whole new place, or maybe it just follows parallel alongside before rejoining the path later on.

Regardless of whether the path is well worn or rough trod, it is a playful exploration.

Wrong size bike but a fun adventure in Traverse city

That playful exploration is rejuvenating and enlightening. I am in a better place to learn and imprint there, than any amount of laser focus.

But perhaps thats because of the years of laser focus and that foundation that has already been built.

I guess what I want Speedy and El Duderino to realize, is that both are important. And, play, even more so as you get older and are less naturally inclined towards it.

Find the time to focus. Learn, and build your foundation. But, dont forget to play and look for serenity along the way.

Thanks for joining me, stay safe, and stay sweaty my friends.

Quintessential

The orange light fights to climb over the closest peak. As it crests, it strains to break through the thick mist. The mist, clinging and caressing my skin as I zoom through the winding and undulating mountain roads.

I almost have to pull over and pinch myself. Is this heaven? A dream? Almost. I wouldn’t want to ruin the flow of the wheels across the pavement, and this zen state of movement.

The road is quiet. Just me and the bike and the mountains. Every once in a while,a car will wait patiently behind me before I signal it is clear to pass. I’m more worried about skittish deer than the cars.

Most of the world, (including my family) is still asleep. Maybe that adds to the beauty. This is a private moment.

They will wake soon, and we will go chase that quintessential summer day together.

Camping at the lakefront. Tubing down the river. Soccer and wiffleball at the local park. Take your shoes off and dip your toes in the creek.

There are too many activities to fit in, despite the sun stretching overhead long after to boys bedtime. It feels like a return to simpler times.

People try to tell you, but it is hard to listen. Harder still to understand and change your behavior. Youth is wasted on the young. They grow up fast. The one that stuck with me was, “you only get eighteen summers with them”

I think that might be generous. They probably dont remember the first three or four. And they will have things that seem more important to them by 15 or 16. The window closes faster than we think.

I think that’s why this summer felt so special. Both El Duderino and Speedy were old enough to appreciate it. And every day I was home felt like a new mission. How do we craft the perfect summer day?

It’s a totally unrealistic goal. Unachievable, really. As everyone’s individual preferences clash. Reality sets in, disappointment, frustration, human nature.

But, like a good dose of type II fun, sometimes the joy is in the journey.

So we hiked. We swam and splashed. We camped. We floated. We traveled. I rode my bike every chance I got, often with bleary eyes and to the detriment of my sleep. There’s nowhere else I would rather have been.

Most of the time, I tried to look at the summer as a whole. What can we do today that week add to the overall experience.

But there were two occasions where I shot for the moon.

I woke up well before the dawn, stretching and prepping gear in the silent dark calm of the early morning trying not to wake the rest of the house.

I would drive 30 or so minutes to the base of the larger mountains and scenic highways and start my ride from there.

Winding my way through the scenic highways

40 ish miles with 4000’+ of elevation gain, most of it before my family awoke.

They would meet me later on at the state park I had already ridden laps, around. I would stop and get donuts and wait for them at a picnic bench beside a babbling creek.

After they joined me, my boys and I moved to the playground, swinging and making friends at the nearby volleyball net while my wife ran on the trail around the lake.

We would later hike on the same trail towards a waterfall before finding a serendipitous presentation by a local aviary rescue.

Meeting up at Vogel state park after my longer rides

We finished the day splashing in the lake, me throwing the boys like a backyard WWF exhibition.

Sure, there were disagreements. Maybe even a tantrum. Kids will be kids, and boys will be boys. I think we might have even found a yellow jacket nest and gotten stung on our hike.

In the moment, those things seem big. They appear to take over the narrative. These certainly aren’t things I would pencil in the agenda for my day. But, they diminish significantly time.

What’s left, is arguably the quintessential summer day. It was far from perfect, and yet it was everything we needed it to be.

Like a lot of things, maybe it was a bigger deal in my head. This lofty expectation that I strained for, and probably fell short of. But god damn did it feel good trying.

This is obviously quite a while after the fact. I hope you can all find activities to bring your family together in these dog days of summer.

That you can find joy in the pursuit of that quintessential summer day. And, just maybe, some serenity along the way.

Finishing off some beautiful summer nights in the mountains

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

Satisfaction

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. This week, I want to talk about satisfaction

As the Rolling Stones once said, “I can’t get no, satisfaction”, but what really had me thinking about it was finishing the book Perseverance Life and Death in the SubArctic, by Stephan Kesting.

I had purchased the book a few months back and it had been sitting in my eternally backed up reading queu.

I found Stephan Kesting more than a decade ago as a fantastic online resource for Brazilian Jiu Jistu techniques and training material.

While I’ve never met him personally, you watch the way he teaches and interacts, and ingest enough of his content, and you get a pretty good sense that he is a great guy.

Hopefully the last of surgical procedures for mr Speedy

When covid wreaked havoc on BJJ gyms and training, Stephan offered his instrcutional courses to the public free of charge.

This was his way of giving back to the community at a time when they couldn’t train.

So, as a long-time subscriber to his content, I was excited to be able to support him when he wrote to his followers and customers, requesting we preorder his new book about sub arctic exploration.

I don’t know that I have a whole lot of interest in sub arctic canoe exploration. But I do place a lot of value on transformative life experiences, especially those that involve endurance, sweat, and maybe a touch of masochism.

The story Stephan tells, of his 50-day solo journey through the sub arctic, a significant portion of it upstream, checks all those boxes.

Stephan masterfully describes the natural beauty, the connection to earlier times and explorers, as well as the excruciating physical and mental toll of the journey.

It was a quick read, that left me with a lot of respect for Stephan. The planning, execution, and the grit required to see through the project were all very impressive.

But what stuck with me the most, was the books closing remarks. Below are some quotes from the final pages of the book.

“Finally, one of them blurted out, “That’s a really cool trip, but did you enjoy it?” The question took me aback, and it took a while to collect my thoughts. When I finally spoke, I explained that this was probably the wrong question. Yes, this trip had many enjoyable moments, but the trip hadn’t been about enjoyment.”

“yes, I had been happy sometimes, but the trip hadn’t been about happiness. Most of the time, I had been worried, cold, wet, scared, or exhausted. The totality of the journey wasn’t as simple as
seeking enjoyment.”

“The afterglow of satisfaction is much more durable than the fleeting
sugar high of happiness. And yes, the whole thing had been profoundly
and immensely satisfying. Experiences that give you satisfaction transform
who you are, and you can bring those changes back to the world with you.”

I think Stephan does an incredible job summing up the experience, albiet to a bewildered friend. Asking about happiness is the wrong question? Your friends already think you are crazy for going on this trip and then you drop that on them.

I completely agree with him, and I know where he is coming from. I take on lots of activities and challenges that make friends and colleagues question my sanity.

Most of those activities leave me very little in the way of happiness. But they do leave me with a deep sense of satisfaction. A sense of accomplishment and a sense of self. A sense that I can take on more challenges in the future, be they planned or unexpected.

Stepping on the mat with another person whose goal is to try and choke you unconcious. Riding your bike up a mountain high enough that pilots require supplemental oxygen. Snowboarding through tree wells on an unfamiliar slope after a decade away from the sport.

A couple of nice layover runs before the summer heat bears down

The common point in all of these activities is, as Stephan so eloquently wrote, the lasting changes you can bring back into the world with you.

Being brave and prepared enough to have these types of transformative experiences is hard enough. Being able to effectively communicate the message to the public, especially a public who has not had similar adventures is a duanting task.

In my own small way, I hope that’s what this blog does. Communicates the profound satisfaction I get from these types of adventures. The changes that they have produced in me. The lessons they have taught me. Lessons, which I hope to pass on to my boys and share with you.

The rolling stones might not have gotten any satisfaction, and happiness might not be the right question. But, I think Lynyrd Skynyrd’s mother said it best. “All I want for you my son is to be satisfied”

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

Mountains win again

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. I recently had an adventure in the mountains, a challenge of sorts that I wanted to share with you.

“It seemed like a good idea at the time.” “When am I going to be here again?” “I’m not getting any younger” these are the things I was telling myself as I made the slogging climb up Pikes Peak on my bike.

The whole thing was thrown together rather haphazardly. A few days before the trip, I realized how close my layover hotel was to the mountain.

Spring break, cousins, and Orlando City, a new yearly tradition

I started looking at routes, bike rentals and weather forecasts, and realized that,maybe, it was doable.

Not necessarily that I could do it, mind you, just that it could be done. All the parts could come together for a pretty epic bike ride from downtown Colorado Springs up to the summit of Pikes Peak.

It was going to be a beautiful day in the mountains. Highs in the upper 60s or low 70s in town. Sunny and mostly clear skies. Light winds and temps above freezing at the 14,100′ summit.

I wasn’t exactly sure how to plan for that. I ordered a pair of fleece lined full leg bike bibs and a fleece lined cycling jacket that would arrive just before I left for the trip.

I knew I would be hot, and as the title suggests, very sweaty on the way up the mountain. But I was nervous about steep descents on slippery roads in temperatures much colder than I’m used to riding in, so fleece lined options won the day.

I got to the bike shop before they opened and was able to get a little bit of an early start thanks to some helpful fellow cyclists.

Winding out of Colorado Springs and through Manitou Springs, the road started to pitch up almost immediately. Not urgently but consistently and noticeably. With the base of the mountain at 5,900′ above sea level even these small changes in pitch got your attention.

The climb started in earnest with an ever so slight turn onto the pikes peak highway. A not unsubstantial climb from the turn before you even reach the toll gate.

At the gate, I paid the fare just like a car would, with a strange sense of equality mixed with superiority. It’s nice to be treated the same as a car on the road, despite knowing we have two very different paths ahead of us.

The toll collector told me the top 3 miles of the road were closed due to snow melt that refroze overnight. Simultaneously disappointing and comforting news as I was already sweaty and winded with a lot of climbing left in front of me.

This may have been one of the friendliest roads I’ve ever ridden on. Every car, regardless of direction, gave a wide berth and were quick to offer cheers and moral support. Many wanted to chat, or perhaps question my sanity, though my responses were often short while fighting for more oxygen in the thinning air.

I stopped frequently. I stopped when I wanted to. I stopped when I needed to. I stopped when the views took my breath away. I stopped when the slope and elevation took my breath away. When I needed to eat or to take a picture, there was no lack of stops on the way up.

At some point, a plow truck pulled up beside me to chat. Fighting for air, struggling to keep my cadance and the front wheel attatched to the steep slopes, he told me the summit had been reopened. “Good news or bad news?” He asked, maybe reading my reaction and body language. A bit of both I suppose.

I stopped once more at the Glen Cove Inn at 11, 450′ it would be the last easy pull of spot before the summit. Already feeling winded and unsure of the outcome I lingered and tried to recover as much as I could.

My stops were becoming more frequent, but the real estate for those stops was becoming scarce as I continued my ascent. Restarting presented its own challenge, clipping in on the steep slopes with no momentum and traffic potentially hurtling down the mountain and around hairpin corners unseen at any time.

Eventually, my legs, but more so my lungs and my heart made the decision inevitable. The mountain would win this day.

The risk calculus just wasnt adding up in my favor any more. Pushing myself into exhaustion in three to 5 minute bursts for ever shrinking distances didnt seem like a good idea. The shrinking shoulder of the road and the sheer cliffs loomed as I felt my will to continue slip away.

I took my jacket out of my pack and zipped the sleeves tight. I took one last picture. It was beautiful. Despite my failure, it was a pretty epic climb and a reluctant smile crept across my face. Type II fun was in the bag, now it was time for some type I fun.

I reminded myself that while this was the fun part, it was also the part with highest risk of catastrophe. Decending down a mountain on your bike can take your breath away in more ways than one.

I decided for the first and steepest part of the descent to keep my fingerless cycling gloves, rather than my windproof running gloves. I didn’t want any doubts about my grip or my ability to use the brake levers.

This came at the expense of very chilly fingers. Plunging down the mountain, braking against the building speed into the hairpin corners, as I zipped through the frigid apline air.

I stopped again at the visitor center rougly halfway down my descent and switched gloves. Even if there was decreased grip, it was the better alternative to frozen fingers.

I continued my snaking downhill ride back through town and dropped the bike at the bike shop before walking back to my hotel.

It had been a great day. Maybe not the ride I wanted, or the outcome I wanted, but a great day none the less.

I wrote a while back about a concept called misogi. A quest or an adventure that tests your limits. The challenge should be set hard enough that the odds of success are a coin flip.

Nobody wants to fail. Setting out knowing there is a good chance you won’t reach your goal is daunting. But it is also inspiring.

Failing to reach the summit was inspiring. I can’t wait to go back and try again. Finding out where your limits are is rarely a fun experience. In this case, being able to look out over the mountainside to the town below showed a tangible reflection of how far I had come. How high I went, even reaching my limit that day. The summit ahead, unreached, served as a reminder that the limit can still be pushed farther.

Some cool findings on my way back into town

While thinking back on my time in the saddle up Pikes Peak, the Blues Travelers song popped into my head

“I pick up my smile, and put it my pocket. Hold it for a while, try not to have to drop it. Ooh can you feel the same? Ooh you gotta love that pain, ooh it looks like rain again. Ooh feel it comin in, the mountains win again.”

I hope I get another chance to climb that mountain and reach the summit. I am grateful for the experience and the lessons the mountain has already given me, even if it won this round.

Thanks for joining me, stay safe, and stay sweaty my friends.

Output

It is somewhat fitting, Equal parts ironic and opportunistic that my last post was outcome. I recently competed in my first bjj tournament at black belt, and in the lead up to that competition, I was constantly reminding myself to focus on output rather than outcome.

The main t ake away from Output, was that outcome is never certain. It can be out of your control, even with the best of preparation. But output, is always in your control.

So that is what I tried to focus on going into this competition. Control the output. Deliver a performance I could be proud of. And, let the chips fall where they may.

View from the sauna and view from tbe chair

That is easier said than done. Especially in something so personal and ego centric as one on one, hand to hand combat.

The day of the competition was my 38th birthday. My matches were scheduled for later in the evening.

Maybe I was feeling my age. Maybe it was harder to get warmed up at a time when I would have otherwise been eating dinner. Maybe I am finally losing my appetite for cutting weight after three decades.

Whatever the reason, I followed my normal warmup routine, but I didn’t feel the same fire. I felt prepared. I felt ready to compete. But just without that extra edge.

In the aftermath of previous competitions, I realized I had relied too much on my wrestling and not gotten a chance to really test my jiu jitsu. I vowed to change that.

I had a game plan going in. A few wrestling setups and takedowns I felt confident with, all attempted within the first 30-40 seconds. If those were unsuccessful, the plan was to get into guard and get into my jui jitsu game.

The first part of the match was a perfect execution of may gameplan. A few takedown attempts, not successful, but enough to make him think. Then straight into a guard I felt comfortable with.

I played my guard game, moving, adjusting, attacking. Everyting going to plan. I wrestled up from my guard attacks finishing a takedown and ending on top.

So far I was executing the game plan, and the game plan was working. I continued to apply pressure from top position, looking for a place to attack.

I found an opening for a knee bar and trasitioned quickly. Another part of my game I was focusing on from previous competition was being decisive and explosive when the window was open, knowing that windows in high level bjj close quickly.

I didn’t finish the knee bar, but I was thrilled with my recognition and quick, decisive action. Again, sticking to the game plan and improving on past performance.

We scrambled up and I ended up wrestling back down to mat, taking his back with one hook in and attacking his lapels for a choke finish.

As time expired, I was delighted with my performance. My game plan was solid, and my execution was everything I could have wanted. Explosive, aggressive, opportunistic. I used my wrestling to set up my jiu jitsu, and my jiu jistu to set up my wrestling.

When the referee had to go have a conference with another referee before coming to announce the decision, I got a sinking feeling.

The scene from Cinderella man started playing in my head. “They take this long to make a decision, they’re gonna decide to screw someone”

The referee talked with my coach before coming back to the center of the mat and raising my opponents hand.

He had been given credit for a sweep when I attacked the knee bar. I only had one hook in on his back and was not awarded points. The final score was 2-2. even though I had a dominant performance, his points coming from my aggression and attacking without any real advantage to him, he scored last, and that was the tie break criteria.

It was a weird feeling. I couldn’t feel happy. I lost, and that win would have put me in the finals. On the other hand, if I could have scripted my ideal performance for my first five minutes competing at black belt, it would have unfolded very much like that match.

The outcome was not what I wanted, but the output, was almost perfect.

I tried to mentally reset and get ready for the consolation match, hoping to win and be able to compete for 3rd place.

If I was in a weird space before my first match, this was even weirder.

I came out a bit flat, and my opponent was aggressive with his take down, taking advantage of my slow start.

No matter, I got right to work in my guard, again using my jiu jitsu to set up my wrestling and wrestling up.

We scrambled and ended up back in my guard, and I found myself attacking an ankle lock that I feel very confident in.

This is a movement I train every day in the gym and have a great deal of success with.

This time however, I felt and heard a crunch in my left rib cage. I knew something wasn’t right but I continued to attack the ankle lock.

My opponent had to defend, and I took the opportunity to again wrestle up. There was no power though, any tension through my core caused my rips to pop back and forth like a snap bracelet.

I tried to establish my guard for another 30 seconds or so before deciding that discretion was the better part of valor and tapping my opponent, signaling he won and would advance.

Two weeks later, I am still struggling with my rib. Two losses, and an injury on my birthday. Not the outcome I was loking for.

But the outcome was never really in my control, never entirely anyway. But the output. In just over 7 minutes, less than a match and a half, I covered almost all of the positions and techniques I wanted to test at this level.

I transitioned seamlessly between my wrestling and jiu jitsu. I was explosive when the window opened. I tested myself rather than trying to rely on an older and more proven skill set.

It is taking some time, and the rib is a constant reminder that the outcome was far from desireable. I am struggling, but, I am finding peace, knowing that the output was something I can be proud of.

SerenityThroughSweat, earned, struggled for, fought for. It isn’t given, and the outcome is never certain. But, you control the output, and you always have a fighting chance to find it.

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

Outcome

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. Normally this time of year, I am thinking back on my somewhat ill-advised tradition of the christmas half marathon. This year, I want to talk about a different tradition.

For almost as long as I can remember, Christmas time around my house has come with fudge.

Growing up cutting weight for wrestling during the holidays, there were many years where I was less enthused with this tradition.

I still partook of course. It just meant a few more sprints, and envy as I handed out whole tins of fudge to teachers, coaches, and relatives who could enjoy it without thoughts of the scale nagging at them.

The fudge recipe has been passed down through at least three (and now four) generations on my moms side of the family.

My wife and I received the recipe along with some tutorial batches this christmas.

I have always watched my mother make fudge, even helping from time to time over the years. Licking the spoon counts as helping, right?

What struck me most about this tradition is a small line at the bottom of the recipe. I cannot share the recipe as it is a family secret, but I think sharing this part is ok.

“It is truly a learning experience, and even after 40+ years of making fudge, the outcome is not guaranteed.”

Now, this particular quote talks about some of the steps in the recipe that are more art than science. They require some judgment and experience rather than just blindly following steps.

It made me think about some of our other traditions, how they, too, are not guaranteed.

It would certianly be easy to skip my annual half marathon. There have been many years where it was a struggle to fit it in. Years where I wanted to walk (or hobble) away in the middle of it.

Even just getting together as a family, especially with the amount of time I spend away as a pilot, is never a guarantee.

What makes it a tradition, what makes anything a tradition really, are a few people’s stubborn dedication to make something stick.

And not just to make it stick, but also to make it meaningful. To make it something we look forward to. To make it something that we associate with that holiday or time of the year.

I’m grateful for the many traditions that we have in my family. Even more so now, because of the appreciation for how easy it is to let them fall by the wayside. The outcome is not guaranteed.

It also gives me a sense of hope, for those traditions that have lain dormant for years. That maybe with that same stubborn dedication, they can be revived.

It gives me a renewed sense of purpose. One of our main roles as parents is to be teachers, mentors, and examples for children and other younger members of our family.

Maybe that is a bit too much philosophizing over making fudge, but I think we could all use some more stubborn dedication to family values.

The pursuit of passing on what is important to us, to the generations that follow, knowing that the outcome is never guaranteed.

13th annual Christmas half marathon and the first run of the new year

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

Progress

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. A few weeks ago, I earned my black belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, and I wanted to reflect on that today.

I started wrestling when I was 5 years old. I have been grappling in one form or another for most of my life. For all intents and purposes, I have been throwing other people around, and getting thrown around myself, for longer than I have done any other activity in my life.

It’s kind of weird to think about it that way. I went to school from kindergarten, all the way up through a masters degree, but I have still spent more years on the mats than in a classroom.

I’ve only been working a real job (if you can even call flying an airplane a real job) since I was 18. Again less time than I’ve spent manipulating sweaty bodies.

Earning a black belt was never something I sought out or aspired to. In fact, growing up as a wrestler, I thought they were kind of a joke.

Every martial artist thinks their art is the toughest, and their gym is the best, and wrestlers are no exception. But, wrestling doesn’t have any belts, so the idea always seemed silly to me.

Even when I transitioned to Jiu Jitsu, the idea of belts seemed less important, and mote symbolic than anything. With so much wrestling experience, my white belt in Jiu Jitsu quickly became a point of frustration for my training partners.

Even as a blue belt and a purple belt, I would have lots of frustrated peers in the gym comparing themselves to my belt color without the understanding that thousand of hours of wrestling weren’t factored in to the rankings.

I started teaching and instructing as a brown belt, and any of those misconceptions that had existed before, melted away quickly.

Even when I received my black belt, and I knew the honor was coming, I wasn’t sure what it meant to me. I knew I would be asked to speak, and I wasn’t sure what I wanted to say.

I said some thank yous to my coaches, my mother, my family, and my teammates and training partners. I talked about how wrestling and Jiu Jitsu have been a release for me. A safe place to de stress and decompress. To get out of my own head and out of my own way. Serenity Through Sweat.

I felt that my remarks after receiving my black belt were inadequate. I was unprepared to explain not just what it meant to me, but what grappling has done for me, what it has taught me, and how it has shaped me.

Thankfully, I have this space, to explore and share those thoughts. I also have, hopefully, many more years on the mats to share those thoughts and the knowledge gained with anyone who will train with me.

My biggest takeaway from grappling, the thing that I learned on the mats through blood, sweat, and tears across three decades, that yranslates so well to everything ends in life: progress is not linear.

If you put in the work, really put it the work, doing the right things, you will make progress.

Sometimes, that progress comes in leaps and bounds, slowly and then all at once. Those are the magical moments we remember. When something finally clicks and we level up.

Sometimes progress does come in a steady trickle. You grind out the reps you are supposed to and are rewarded in kind.

A lot of the time though, certainly more than we would like, progress is infintecimally small. What seemed at one point like a steady climb becomes filled with plateaus and false peaks.

It is easy to feel like you are treading water or stuck in a rut.

I can’t tell you how many times across my grappling career I have felt stuck. How many times I didn’t know if I could improve or how. How many times i thought i had leveled up, only to be humbled and feel like I was starting from scratch again.

My senior year in high school, coming off championships the previous two years, I didn’t score a single takedown on my main training partner in the practice room all year. Not one

I still went on to win the state championship that year and advance further than I had previously. A whole year of treading water in the practice room. Feeling like I wasn’t making any progress, but my persistence was rewarded in the end.

Im reminded of the scene in Catch Me If You Can (obviously a favorite of pilots who wished they looled half as cool as frank abagnail jr strutting through the terminal flanked by attractive young flight attendants)

Frank’s father gives a speech about two mice thrown into a bucket of cream. One mouse struggles so hard, he churns the cream into butter, and crawls out.

Treading water, but making progress. It certainly wasn’t linear, but rather slowly, and then all at once.

That’s how I feel about my black belt, and that is the lesson I hope to pass on to other grapplers, and to my boys, wether they choose to follow me ontonthe mats or not.

Progress isn’t linear. But, if you keep struggling, keep churning, keep climbing the mountain through the false peaks and plateaus, you will find the summit.

The journey is a worthy endeavor, and there is plentynof serenity to be found along the way.

Thanks for joining me. Stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

Thanksgiving

The crisp air felt refreshing, rather than the typical dry ragged burn of icy dryness down my throat. The sun came in blinding flashes through the trees, still clinging to the last leaves of fall. The horn section of the ska track greeted me with enthusiasm despite the combination of running earmuffs and headphones chaffing my cauliflowered ears as I bounded through the park.

Sometimes, the music just sets you up for the right kind of day.

I flew into JFK this morning and meandered my way through heavy traffic both, vehicular and sidewalk, to get to Central Park.

I’m not sure what it is, but there is something special about running there. All the other people enjoying the outdoors. The protected green space, surrounded by a concrete jungle. Running fast enough to pass all the horse drawn carriages (and avoiding stepping in their steaming piles).

It got me thinking about all the things I’m thankful for. The list is long. I am very blessed. But, at the forefront, I’m thankful for a life of adventure.

Raising kids is an adventure. Choosing a life partner is an adventure. Traveling to new places and actually exploring those places leads to all sorts of adventures.

These past few months, in particular, I have been seeking out more and more of those adventures.

Part of it was training and preparation for the six gap century ride, (a grand adventure in its own right). But, I think that training also reawakened in me the thirst for adventure.

What started as a way to get in some extra miles morphed into something beautiful. Opportunities taken, not squandered, and approached with reverence and appreciation.

I’m eternally grateful for these opportunities. To travel, to explore, to interact with these new and familiar places in new and exciting ways.

I’m grateful for the physical health and wellness that enables me pursue these passions.

Riding 90 miles around Lake tahoe, knowing I have an early morning and a long day of work ahead tomorrow.

Fumbling my way on a rickety hotel bike to a trailhead for a hike in Montana

Racing ahead of my new group ride friends on unfamiliar roads so I can get back in time to drink wine with my wife

Struggling up a sandy logging road in the back hills of Boise during wildfire season.

Riding through the fall foliage in Roanoke on the blue ridge parkway late enough in the season that it is closed for cars.

Taking Speedy and El Duderino on a boys weekend trip immediately after returning from a red eye.

I’m grateful for the joie de vivre, that gets me out of the hotel and out of the house to explore. Grateful that it is something I get to do, not something I have to do.

I’m grateful to both of my parents for instilling that sense of wonder and adenture in me. I hope that my words, and more so my actions, instill that same sense of wonder in my boys.

That they can see the plethora of adventures that await them. That they can see all the joy waiting for them to reach out and claim on their own paths.

I hope that they get a chance to explore the big, beautiful world i am just starting to explore.

I hope that they see the value in adventure and are inspired to follow their own passions

I hope that they find their own serenity, even if only for the briefest of moments, and maybe they even get a little sweaty along the way.

I’m grateful for the opportunity to watch them in that endeavor, for as long as I can, knowing that tomorrow is not a guarantee.

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

Auto pause

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. A few weeks ago, I completed the six gap century ride and I wanted to reflect on that experience.

It was not the ideal backdrop for the 104 miles and 11,000+ of climbing. Hurricane Helene had just pushed through north Georgia and western North Carolina. Roads were wet, trees and debris were all over, and the forecast was for rain and fog in the mountains.

A lot of the participants, including some of my friends and teammates, were delaying their departure, thinking the event might be rescheduled or canceled.

It’s difficult to explain the mindset leading up to a big event like this. Most of the time, it is something you haven’t done before. The most miles, the biggest climb, the longest day, maybe all three, for this particular event.

All the training and preparation lead you to this moment on the starting line for something you’ve never done before. The uncertainty of the outcome and the uncertainty of the circumstances combine to test your resolve in a strangely invigorating way.

It’s important to go into any event with a plan. But, the longer the event, the more likely it is that the plan is going to blow up at some point. So, it is important to be able to pivot and be flexible within your overall framework.

I gave myself plenty of time to wake up, stretch, and drive to the event parking area, even leaving in some extra time for the unexpected.

The unexpected came in the form of my third trip to the port-a-potty and my new bike computer failing to load the route within the final minutes before the starting horn. Better to get it out beforehand, I suppose.

Two thousand of my new best friends and I started through the quiet streets of Dahlonega, a parade of multi colored lycra and flashing bike lights.

We climbed and descended, weaving our way through small mountain towns, making our way through the foggy peaks and fall foliage.

The steepest of the climbs on the day, Hogpen gap came 37 miles into the ride. Averging a 10% gradient with parts of the climb above 15%, it was a slow and quiet climb.

The road had been closed off to vehicle traffic, which made the climb eerily quiet. The slow clicking of pedals and deep rythmic breathing echoed off the trees and the damp cliffside rocks.

Not having the route on my bike computer, I didn’t know how far into the climb I was or how much I had left. (The precise feature I had purchased this bike computer for, c’est la vie)

Looking down, I noticed that the computer was paused. I had not turned off my auto pause feature. This is a feature, (usually helpfull for Florida training rides), where the bike computer realizes you aren’t moving and pauses the activity tracking. It auto resumes once it detects movement again.

So if you stop at a traffic light, or break to eat or refill a bottle, your training stats are not affected by the pause.

The trudging dance of pedals up Hogpen gap was slow enough that my bike computer thought I wasn’t moving at all.

That was a little deflating.

But, the bike computer doesn’t know the struggle. It doesn’t know the experience. It is binary. Above this speed is moving, and below it is stopped.

The whole thing made me think of Einstein. One of his many famous quotes, coming from a letter to his son, was, “Life is like riding a bicycle, to keep your balance you must keep moving”

Even when it looks like you are standing still or treading water, struggling to keep your head afloat, the movement is what saves you. The movement is what balances you, literally and figuratively.

I made it over the top of Hogpen gap with lots more miles and lots more climbing still in front of me. I kept moving. It wasn’t always fast, and it wasn’t always pretty, but it was always forward.

Every bike I have had since I started racing has had a name. This bike was purchased with the six gap ride in mind. It had to be nimble up the climbs and fast and stable down the descents. I struggled to come up with a name for the first few months I had it.

Her name came to me while listening to this Shawn James song on a training ride, looking out over the mountains.

“So you think you got it all figured out?
All this money in the bank and the women all about. Well, now what you gonna do when your ship starts to sink?
Caught in a monstrous sea and you won’t be able to think. Yeah, and it’s there you’ll learn what I know. That all of this world will fade You gotta learn to let it all go, oh And flow like the river”

Flow like the river. Always moving. Always forward. Changing course if something blocks its way, but constant power and movement.

One of my favorite TV/movie combos is Firefly/Serenity. It features a rag tag bunch of outlaw space adventurers defying the odds aboard their shuttle ‘Serenity’. The story centers around a character named River.

Constant movement, serenity, an incredible cinematic journey, some funky blues guitar, it all lined up perfectly for what I wanted this bike to be.

Flow like the river

A reminder of why I keep coming back to new endurance challenges. To keep growing. To keep moving forward. To find serenity. To flow like the river, whether the world thinks you are on auto pause or not.

Thanks for joing me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

Here it is your moment of zen

Recalibrate

Sometimes, ego gets in the way.

My heart rate strap, the large puddle of sweat underneath me, and my own intuition after thousands of hours on the bike were telling me one story.

My power meter was telling a very different one.

The same course and roughly the same intensity, with a recalibrated power meter.

I knew something wasn’t quite right, but I didn’t know how to fix it. As much as I tried to ignore it, the numbers on the display are there to be used, and when they are not right, it can be disheartening and distracting.

The whole experience reminded me a little bit of my days as a college flight instructor.

I can remember the flight instructor meeting vividly. Sitting in the conference room, a bunch of type A personalities in our matching flight instuctor polo shirts.

Having just sat through a training presentation on the new avionics suite that would be installed in our new Piper Warriors, one of my friends asked what our students would be expected to know and be tested on.

“So, air data goes in, and pretty colors come out?”

This was almost all of our first experience with a “glass cockpit”. All of us had learned and instructed on mechanical flight instruments.

A knowledge of how those mechanical instruments were built and how they functioned was critical to understanding the data they were giving you.

It was also important to understand the limitations of the mechanical systems. To learn any potential fail points or errors. How or why might the instrument give you bad data? What could you do about it?

So when those instruments are transtioned from mechanical devices to data computers, the fundamental knowledge of how those instruments were doing their respectively similar job went down.

Back to my sweaty bike trainer on the back deck, I knew something wasn’t right. I suspected my power meter, but my understanding of the decice was similar to that of the new air data computer. I push on the pedals, and pretty colors and numbers show up on the screen.

Why was I getting bad data? Was it bad data? How does the tool even work? Is it something I can fix? Am I just being a wimp? (The power data being shown was tragically low compared to what i was expecting/used to seeing)

Taking all the jerseys and bumping up the FTP numbers

These were all the questions going throughy my head. I decided to phone a friend and found that my pedals just needed a simple recalibration.

By recalibrating the pedals to a new zero set point, they immediately started showing the correct (and much more reassuring for my delicate ego) power numbers.

But I still didn’t really understand what I was measuring, or more accurately, how I was measuring it.

God bless the internet. What a time to be alive.

A power meter, measures torque using an electricity sensitive strain gauge. Basically, an electrical mesh is placed inside of whatever surface or tool is being strained. A small computer measures the electrical resiatance in the mesh. When torque (twisting force) is put on the surface or tool, the electrical mesh feels some of that force and the electrical resistance changes. The computer measures those changes and then transmits them to another device for display.

I had a basic understanding of pedal harder more power. Push on the power meter and pretty colorful numbers show up on my bike computer. Only the numbers were less pretty and more disheartening.

Even the idea of recalibrating, while it made sense, left me with an unfinished feeling. That went away once I researched how the power meter worked.

I think that’s an important part of the recalibration process that gets overlooked. Something is broken, or something isn’t working right. We recalibrate, and the issue is resolved, but we don’t know enough about why it was giving us bad data in the first place.

Without that knowledge, without that insight into the why and the how, we are left with input->computer->pretty color display. When things break down, that becomes painfully insufficient.

I try to remind myself of this silly lesson whenever I need to recalibrate. We all need a reset sometimes. Underatanding the why and the how, and getting back to baseline can help on the path to serenity.

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.