My Own Version Of A College Education

             When I was 19, I had a lot of dreams but I also wasn't in the happiest place in my life at the time. One of my best friends passed away 6 months before Graduating high school and it devastated me. I just didn't want to be around many people and I gave up doing a third year of Track & Field. Although I did go back to weight training and drama, it just didn't feel right anymore and half-assed most of the semester. I did dream of being broadcaster because I was adamant announcing for a major sports team like the San Francisco Giants or the San Jose Sharks. After a week in College I quit and it pissed off many people especially my dad. I just didn't have the desire anymore.

            After going through two and half years of going to the gym, doing a couple jobs and recovering from my broken legs, I went back to college on the encouragement of a girlfriend at the time and just took fitness classes. I really didn't have the dream of honing a degree someone else wanted me to have and just chose to take classes that seemed to make me happy. I took up gymnastics, swimming, Intro to Physical Education and Functional Fitness that including weights, cables, running and all sorts of stuff. I loved it.

            During that time between 25-26 years young, I got to teach during my Functional Fitness class. My coach saw me warm up with Animal Movements before class and asked me if I could teach those movements to the class once a week and I jumped on that like a bat out of hell. It taught me how to train not just a group of people but people of different shapes and sizes. My coach would jump in to help out beginners but for the most part that segment was mine. This drove me to find my own education.

            As of now I’m certified in Massage Therapy and a certificate of completion in Superhuman Training so to me that’s like getting a degree. The type of education I'm teaching myself goes beyond fitness and strength training; there’s History, Mythology, Film, Physiology, Massage Therapy, Chi Kung, Mental Techniques, Body Mechanics, Writing and other things. I believe what I’m doing works far better for me than sitting in a classroom filling my head with bad textbooks and boring teachers (not the fitness ones they were awesome). I get to learn from very knowledgeable people and some of the coolest cats in the strength world. I get to utilize my interests and expand my horizons that’s fun, exciting and always coming up with new ways to learn.

            Why the hell am I telling you all this? It’s because there’s more to education than a textbook, classroom, desk and some teacher. I don’t go to an Ivy League school or a highly academic academy but I get to be educated in ways these types of schools can’t teach. You want to be more educated, learn what you love to do and expand it to wherever you want to take it. You may love things that I can never understand but we both are reaching for the same goal and that’s finding what we love to do and create a future with it. Education is important in any endeavor and we aught to be educated that’s according to our interests.

            Learning should be fun, exciting, interesting, the way it gets you up for the day and you can’t wait to learn and have an adventure. Most college programs have none of that and that’s why I left for good and started educating myself and I've never looked back. When was the last time you got up in the morning and said “Time to learn some awesome stuff and have a blast”? Isn't it about time to have that feeling everyday? Have fun and learn what you can that makes you happy. That’s the best education of all.

Animalize Your Exercise

 What do a tiger, a gorilla, a spider and a kangaroo all have in common? Every one of them is super S-T-R-O-N-G. Do you see a gym anywhere in the wild, no and so how do these animals stay fit and powerful? Simple answer because they have to be for survival and to take down what their food is for the next few days. They scratch, claw, climb, maneuver and have super strong tendons to boot. If there’s anything we should imitate it’s the strength of a wild animal.

 Am I saying weights aren't worth it, of course not they have their place but unless you have a truck, I highly doubt you’ll be able to travel with heavy equipment. Animal training is the type of fitness that can be done just about anywhere at any time. To get the best out your training, start where you’re at even if it’s taking little steps, you learn to progress. Once something becomes easier, challenge it at that level. People talk about doing 30 minutes of cardio and an hour of weights 3x a week and maybe throw in some of that aerobics crap that has god awful club music in the background.

 Want to know how many hours a week I train for the things I do, it’s not 10 hours, not 6, def not 4, it’s less than 2 hours and this goes on all week long. Training with this type of duration gives you rest, plenty of time to recover and still be able to do things you love to do, isn't it fun to gain than the average person?

 Kids today have it worse than when I was a kid. Back in the 90’s, there were issues like heart disease and such but obesity wasn't at a high level of concern, once I left high school, that’s when the obesity generation blossomed, it’s not on adults anymore, more and more children and teenagers develop bad habits. When I graduated high school almost a decade ago, Ipods barely were getting off the ground, ipads didn't exist, Myspace was the top social network and texting wasn't that big yet, today these kids have way too many privileges and don’t have the right sense of earning those privileges.

One of my biggest concerns for these kids is the way they socialize, half the time they’re texting friends but when their sitting next to them, they get bullied on Facebook and deal with pressures of having the newest cool gadget while trying to look cool for their peers. Damn sad if you ask me. Teaching the kids how to exercise not for punishment but for fun and learning how to push yourself productively and safely.

One of my mentors Matt Furey let his song Frank watch Winnie The Pooh but Frank had to earn that privilege so Matt tells him “Do your exercises first, pick ones you want to do an how many reps and when you’re done you can watch your movie.” Frank was hesitant at first but he did it and was proud of himself and was so excited to finally put on the movie. That to me is wicked cool because you’re not punishing your kid or forcing him to do it but if he/she wants something bad enough, sometimes they’ll have to earn it but encourage them to choose what they can do. It teaches how to accomplish something, it sets boundaries, rules and structure without making it look like you’re in hell.

 A child is already fit when it’s born, it’s very flexible and is learning on it’s own to strengthen themselves. As we get older, we lose sight of how we can stay fit and healthy; you start eating too much junk food, not enough exercise, no play time and rarely socialize anything with a pulse. Teaching the Way Of The Animal at a young age can set the tone for what they can develop, better brain power, strengthen muscles, define motor skills, productive competition, learning a sense of accomplishment, bring up self-esteem if you’re depressed, more relaxed if you’re hyper and create a better physical, emotional and spiritual state.

 Another component of training like a wild is something we've all striven to find, freedom. You’re out in the open and free to move and have fun while building your body to its natural state of muscular development and breathing deeply for a higher form of super endorphins. There are many ways to train like an animal, you can play tag, roll a dye, treat them as cartoons, train for 5 minutes or 1 hour it’s up to you that are true freedom. A key to freedom is to not analyze the workout hell don’t call it a workout call it going out and play, pick the way you want to do it and run with it, don’t worry how bad you are or if the other guy is better, just have fun and imagine yourself in the wild.

One of the beauties of being human is that we have a certain set of hormones. Men have Testosterone, Women have Estrogen and we learn how to balance these hormones for optimal results. As we get older, our hormones begin to go down by as much 5% a year by age 30, I still think its 25 but I could be wrong. In order to keep a balanced hormone levels we train according to our levels some people train hard and fast, others train mostly with for form and endurance but the principles still applies and because of Animal Training, it helps build those hormones we need to keep looking naturally young, have a spring in their step, live with confidence and happiness and if you’re looking to keep that spark with your significant other, it’s not a bad idea to train like an animal and fool around like an animal.

A lot of people look at exercise as a punishment or something they feel they have to or just don’t do it all. This type of thinking is why people hate to exercise and feel they won’t get results. Instead of thinking this way, shift gears a little just a little. Start with what you can do, instead of going through the motions like a robot, think as if you were that animal, you’re either running from a predator or catching your prey, picture as if you’re a gorilla defending your community, an ibex climbing the highest of mountains with ease, feeling graceful like a heron and one of my favorites a Mandrill just looking it was carved from granite with powerful washboard abs and the strength to break a man’s wrist if you grabbed it. Imagination is a beautiful thing to practice and using it with animalized training makes it that much more fun and exciting.

Last but not least about the great benefits of moving like an animal is that it’s very simple, just imitate as if you saw a wild animal at the zoo or on TV. Granted there are moves far beyond our limits but the ones we can use can give us strength that the average human can’t fathom. Never need to over analyze how you should move and which arm or leg goes where and if you can only move either straight or sideways, just do go with it, you’re learning to use muscles you normally don’t know that are there. Simple is better period. Give it a chance. Train with kids if you have them because whether they know it or not they crave structure and want to learn how to be better people and this can help that in ways that I can never explain. Have fun, be yourself and get your ass happy because nothing is more sacred than being happy.

The Difference Between Believing & Not Believing

 There are a lot of skeptics out there who don’t believe in certain ideals or they do believe in certain things but it’s by tradition and rules when in reality they don’t have the slightest notion of how to be open minded. For those wondering, when I speak of this article, I’m talking about fitness and health not religion or politics, that’s way out of my league and have my own views of what they are. Back to the task at hand, many skeptics are the ones with their guard up and never want to take it down and that’s not a good thing because they miss out on many things that they can work on.

 One of the best quotes I've learned since I was 13 was “For those who do believe you don’t need an explanation, for those who don’t believe no explanation will do.” Want to know where I learned that from? Believe it or not a pro wrestler named Jeff Jarret on the Unreal Story Of Professional Wrestling, talk about weird. A lot of people sometimes including myself feel like we need to explain our beliefs and what they’re all about but in the end, people need to figure it out for themselves. Its one thing to throw something at a skeptic but it’s a different ball game on how they figure it out themselves.

 One of my biggest peeves is people who do believe in something but only because they listened to someone’s word and not use common sense or research. The traditional belief in fitness is do a half hour of cardio and an hour of weights to get strong, eat less to lose weight, do push-ups for warm up and do bench presses to get a big chest and my all-time favorite, bodyweight exercises are only good for endurance once you reach a certain number of reps and than you don’t build strength. I’m sorry but tradition has never really been my style and going on someone’s word is just (excuse my language) bullshit. If I want to believe in something I’m going to try certain things out, do a little research and experiment a little to see what works and what doesn't.

 For you skeptics out there, drop your guard a little, not all the way but a little and try certain things, you never what you’ll get out of it. I know what it’s like to be a skeptic, I've been there many times before and still a skeptic to certain things but with a purpose and not just because someone says something and that’s it. Opening your mind is like opening a new door to a world you never seen before. To give you an example, I was skeptical about being athletic and agile as a big man, these guys told me try gymnastics and try hand balancing and all these different things but I was just so guarded about who I was that I can’t do all this stuff but the moment I dropped my guard just a little, I opened up a whole new door and kept an open mind and gave a shot at few things I felt I could do but get better at and low and behold, I got stronger, more flexible, more agile and more durable than ever before and never looked back since. Dropping your guard a little can be a big impact on how you do things. It’s up to you to do it, no one can really do it for you.

 To me the true meaning of believing is not by someone’s word and just believe because they said so but believe in your heart that it works for you and you've done some things to find that belief. A true believer is someone who wants to find what he’s looking for and believes in oneself and not from this or that, he/she believes this does work and it does give me something to do. Fitness wise, you can be a sheep and follow everyone’s word or you actually do something about it and find your own belief and create something out of the norm and make it your own tradition. Like before you don’t need an explanation as a believer, it’s there it works, you understand it from all angles and you learned how it works for you. Believe in yourself and trust it. It took me many years to figure that out but and I’m still learning a thing or two but it’s a journey and that I believe will go a long way to make me better at what I do and so can you.