Writin' Forty

  I can tell I haven’t written in forever because somehow I got through the entire 75 hard challenge and didn’t write about it. Lord knows I talked about it enough though   🤣 In case you don’t know 75 hard is a challenge created by Andy  Frisella . The requirements, every day for 75 straight days you have to work out twice a day for at least 45 minutes (one of them outside), drink a gallon of water, stick to a diet, read 10 pages a day of a  non-fiction  book, and no alcohol. Why the hell did I do this? Well, after going through the first half of 2021 in pursuit of a purple belt that I ultimately did get  I kind of  felt like I was just floating. I had a knee injury that I was sure was going to require surgery and so I slowed down a bit in jiujitsu. That does not mean I stopped going, quite the opposite. I kept going but I had to lessen the intensity. Which really bothered me at first, if I am being completely honest but a little feedback from Steve (...

  There’s this meme I’ve seen circulated. There was a guy who wasn’t good at swimming. He made the decision in his life to become a  trans  woman but still competed in swimming and went from being not so good as a guy to winning a tournament as a woman.  One time I saw the meme posted and about 5 comments were under it with various version of  smh  or I can’t believe it. The last time I saw the meme a cousin posted it. It was something she shared from a senator. I don’t know if the senator was a state senator or a US senator. For the sake of this discussion it doesn’t matter. What chilled me was the last sentence the senator wrote, something to the effect of: if you don’t understand what’s wrong, you’re a part of the problem. What’s the problem? That was the first question I had. Let’s assume that the statement this senator this senator wrote had no pretense to it, which of course it did. But let’s assume it didn’t. If the problem is that a  trans ...

  I could make excuses as to why the heck I haven’t written anything in so long but I have been paying attention to the lessons of the Stoics recently: you make time for what you want to make time for. I haven’t made time for writing and since I’m talking about the Stoics they actually recommend that you journal DAILY…I’m not sure if this is the forum to do that in that there are some things I can say that are my opinion (which I don’t mind sharing) but there are other things that are personal (which I absolutely DO mind sharing). Still, there’s been plenty in my life that’s worth talking about that I have mentioned before so hopefully I get to them in the next few write ups. I GOT MY PURPLE BELT and while I’m not going to turn this into some epic tale I will absolutely say I’m proud in any good way a man should be pro ud of an accomplishment.  With the benefit of some hindsight, let me weave a (probably not so quick) story: I mentioned in some blog or the other that I did not...

  If anything the theme I’ve been having repeat over and over in my life is that nothing is magic. Last blog I was talking about how the wife and I have found the house we are going to call home in North Carolina and while there’s some wonderment and awesomeness involved at the end of the day it was preparedness and opportunity that got us in the position to be able to receive the blessing that was the home. I am seeing the same thing apply in  jiujitsu  recently. Recently, as in since about the start of the year, my school has opened up the opportunity to attend training of some sort 5 to sometimes 6 days a week. A lot of this training has been centered around the fundamental levels of training, which I am interested in for all sorts of reasons:  I absolutely need this training in general, this training is crucial to me doing better on the purple belt test whenever that pops up again, and personally I want my whole thing to revolve around the fundamental principles ...

  Not much new has been going on in the life of the big guy here. Ok, that would be fibbing somewhat. I’m in the process of landing a beautiful home that might be what the  Mrs   calls  “our forever home”…I hate thinking in those terms. Life changes so quickly that we could have to pick up and leave for any number of reasons. But what I will say is that instead of renting the home we are in now we will be owning a home in Charlotte for the first time and that’s pretty damn cool.  In order to have money to buy the new home I sold the rental property that I held onto for 18 years. It’s crazy that I kept it that long. My idea was that it was going to eventually be a perpetual source of income but due to this  covid  situation I would have been a fool not to sell it. I put more money in my bank account than what’s ever been there and much like the kid with a few dollars, the money was burning a hole in my pocket to do SOMETHING with it and another house wa...

  Yeah, I didn’t get purple belt in  jiujitsu . The promotion ceremony was on the 16 th ; the test for it was on the 9 th ; I was told on the 11 th  that I would not be receiving the belt.  Was I disappointed? Yes. I definitely did everything in my power to give myself the best opportunity to prove to my head instructor, Steve, as well as the upper belts that I belonged in those spaces but the answer I received back was no, you need more time.  With a little bit of a smile and a little bit of a grimace, sigh. About 2-3 minutes into my test the thing that relaxed me the most is I’d already had my mind made up that regardless of whether I receive a purple belt or not I was coming back to class the following Monday AND that I would have a lot of things to work on regardless of whether my belt was purple or if it remained blue; purple belt was and is not the destination. That made me smile and I got to work on the rest of the test.  Got damn that thing was exha...

So I  tested for my purple belt in  jiujitsu  this Saturday. I’m here to tell you, that thing was tough. It was a whole thing. It was an experience. A lot of academies don’t have tests for purple belt. Fight to Win just happens to do so. The mindset that my head instructor Steve has is if he gives you a purple belt it means you are serious about wanting to learn  jiujitsu  from him; that you’re ready to take your training to the next level. In order to prove that you have to know a list of positions that he deems fundamental for every one of his purple belts to learn. Let me tell you. It’s not a short list. Let me also tell you, you have to repeat each move until he says move on. Let me also tell you, there are several people who are looking  at you do this stuff. So there’s pressure to perform there’s pressure to perform in front of people; there’s pressure to remember any of a number of positions and moves and steps within those moves. There’s pressure to...