I wrote this for Darla. Darla is my friend and she is opening up a fighting gym in a small town in Northern California. She intends to train fighters and those who want to train like fighters.  I am probably wasting my time in writing it for her in that I know she already understands…

My father was not a learned man. I found an old junior college report card of his once filled with D’s and F’s and he quickly snatched it from me and stared down at it.  “I dropped out not long after this,” he said. He was embarrassed. He told me several times, even after retiring…

“This is a memoir, but please understand that (to any writer with a good imagination) all memoirs are false. A fiction writer’s memory is an especially imperfect provider of detail; we can always imagine a better detail than the one we can remember. The correct detail is rarely, exactly what happened; the most truthful detail…

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED May, 2015 I don’t want to help my kids anymore.  I used to but I am over it now. A few months ago, I was on a bike ride with my two oldest and stopped by the creek to hangout and rest. They were tossing rocks and arguing about something or other. Annoyed…

In every problem in our lives, one thing is constant. Every time someone screws us over or does something to us, every time some stupid system or rule gets changed and it affects us, one thing is the same. When our job (or jobs) prevents us from making a workout or eating right – when…

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED July 22, 2012 “Out of every one hundred men, ten shouldn’t even be there, eighty are just targets, nine are the real fighters, and we are lucky to have them, for they make the battle. Ah, but the one, one is a warrior, and he will bring the others back.” ― Heraclitus As a…

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED December, 2012 The Newtown Connecticut School shootings hit me on many levels. When I first heard, I struggled to even tell my wife about what happened. Our two oldest, second and fifth grade, were at school and I was a few hours from being able to see them. I have walked many paths…

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED March, 2013 I keep my life pretty busy. Between work, CrossFit training and coaching, self-defense classes, combatives classes etc. – my time gets pretty thin. I try to plan time specifically with the family and kids, but I know I am not always successful. A few days ago, I came in and my…

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED May, 2015 I went spelunking with a friend the other day. We had to drive down this old fire road that hadn’t been maintained. We really needed  an off-road car rather than his wife’s all-wheel drive Honda Pilot, but that is another story. At the bottom he found a trail that he remembered…

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED June, 2015 I did my first lead climb last week. It was pretty scary. For those that don’t understand, in rock climbing, a lead climber is the first one up the rock. He pulls a rope up behind him. In our case, we were sport climbing, meaning there were bolts drilled into the…