Spartan Hurricane Heat - A Review in Retrospect

Seattle Spartan Hurricane Heat 2016 - 4.23.2016

The aftermath.

The token of remembrance.

The hurricane heat opened my eyes quite a bit. Operating as a unit. Amplified characteristics. Complainers who complained louder. The people who take charge without coordinating. The quiet ones who go about business and get it done. Those put more rocks in their buckets. Those who push through the pain. This was just that: life amplified.

Finding out how leaders lead in turmoil. The concepts that they use. Without unnecessary words. Straight to the point. I respect that. I keep referring back to it. Make a mistake, own it. Own all of it and then GET AFTER IT.

Find a way to make it happen. Chip away one step at a time. Bear more weight, so you can bear more weight.

We cant think out our choices in life, we must live them. This has helped me out so much in terms of taking action and not over-thinking things. Not being scared. Make the call and do it. Over thinking creates obstacles, action breaks down walls. In the end, there are no mistakes. There is only your reaction to it. How will YOU respond?

dragondoor hkc hardstyle kettlebell certification - review

This 1 day course was held at Ambition Athletics in Encinitas CA. We went over 3 lifts during the program: the swing, goblet squat, and the get up. 

The course was taught by Master RKC Max Shank. I found him to be an amazing coach. Similar to John Wolf at Onnit Academy, the flow of the course had a structure but he allowed us to veer according to the questions we asked him. He's been coaching for a long time, so he definitely knew what his goal was.

I would highly recommend this course to anyone considering. 

Psychological pains = mental gains

"Walk outside on a clear night and just look up into the sky. You are sitting on a planet spinning around in the middle of absolutely nowhere. Though you can only see a few thousand stars, there are hundreds of billions of stars in our Milky Way Galaxy alone. In fact, it is estimated that there are over a trillion stars in the Spiral Galaxy. And that galaxy would look like one star to us, if we could even see it. You’re just standing on one little ball of dirt and spinning around one of the stars. From that perspective, do you really care what people think about your clothes or your car? Do you really need to feel embarrassed if you forget someone’s name? How can you let these meaningless things cause pain? If you want out, if you want a decent life, you had better not devote your life to avoiding psychological pain. You had better not spend your life worrying about whether people like you or whether your car impresses people. What kind of life is that? It is a life of pain. You may not think that you feel pain that often, but you really do. To spend your life avoiding pain means it’s always right behind you.” 

Michael Singer - The Tethered Soul

LA Marathon 2016 - a mental journal

"My mind feels extremely cluttered at the moment. The state of the union, my union, has been depressed. Things feel grim. Change feels dampened and unattainable without bouts of suffering. Pain is inevitable. I must keep on fighting and pushing through."

These are the words of a man who is doubting himself. Someone who is scared. Someone who fears the future as he treads through the present. These are the words of someone who is finding struggle in life, in the moment and at this moment.

Drawing parallels to fitness seems an option when examining your life. In many ways, life and working out is hard. You must do the work in order to get the results. There are some, for whom this comes easily. There are some whom gets this by cheating. Truth be told, the most solid foundation is built through true and genuine hard work. Get ready to suffer and you will find the way. The reason you are scared is because in your life, you are not used to suffering. You are not used to the pain. You are used to things being easy. When you are growing through pain, you are not bored. Progress is not always progress at a surface level. You bounce back stronger when you repair the damaged soul.

One of the most interesting things in life is to be able to examine it from the other side of fear. In reality, it wasn't so bad. The thing you thought would break you, turned out to be wonderful. The thing you were scared to do, wasn't so scary. As I ran the marathon, the pain in my legs were extreme. I wondered if I would be able to finish. It became a mental game. Purely mental.

"Was this a smart thing to do? Is it wise for me to press on when I can barely run at this point? The person that I blazed by at mile 5 is now passing me at mile 23. How much longer can I go? I'm worried that i'm dehydrated. Im worried that I will start cramping. I still need to drive back home. I haven't eaten anything today except liquids and energy gels. I feel like I'm getting sunburned. My arms feel skinny. I'm really suffering."

These are the words of a man who is doubting himself. Someone who fears the future as he treads through the present. These are the words of someone who is finding struggle in life, in the moment and at this moment.

Upon completion, I never wanted to do it again. I felt like it was a rather odd experience. To put your body and comfort on the line for a few hours, just so you can prove to yourself that you could do it. I felt weak, exhausted and could barely walk to my car. 

The next week, I signed up again.

This is how you overcome and grow. You struggle through doubt, pain and fear. When you push through it, you sign up again. 

SCAA Barista Level 1 and 2 Certification

I had a wonderful opportunity for the past 5 days to undergo Barista training through the SCAA held at the Apffels Campus in Santa Fe Springs, CA. To respect the process, im unable to present photos, but I personally came away with a ton of useful information and some really great contact's and friends. I wanted to especially thank Matt and Abi @ West Oak Coffee Bar in Texas for a ton of great information and insight.

I will highlight some of my key takeaways and look forward to presenting some new and exciting things to come.

My biggest takeaway from the week is this: there are no absolutes in coffee. At the end of the day, coffee is just as much as an art-form as it is anything else. I am continued to be amazed by the powerful unity behind this commodity.

coffee con los angeles 2016

coffee con los angeles @ the magic box la / the reef

coffee con is an annual coffee festival that brings together all of us local coffee geeks, roasters, shop owners and manufacturers into one super caffeinated location for a day. there coffee samples, brewing labs and different lectures on anything from butter in your coffee, to tokyo method brewing. we also attended the separate "how to taste coffee like a pro" session. by days end, my mind was on another coffee induced level. full disclosure: i did have a few cups of coffee before showing up. 

green coffee samples on display.

chemex demonstration @ the peet's coffee booth.

another chemex demonstration right next door by chemex.

lela buttery, a biologist and coffee shop owner of another kind of sunrise giving a lecture on "buttery brew".

hario v60 lab.

peter giuliano leading a private coffee tasting session.

kenyan murang'a from bar nine roasting.

the focus of the class was to be able to describe the experience of coffee into 5 categories, here are my notes:

fragrance/aroma - to coffee people, they mean different things. fragrance is dry, aroma is wet. notice the difference between the two. sometimes they're the same and sometimes different. aroma is the smell once it interacts with water. both are perceived in the nose. 

acidity - acidity is a good thing for coffee. people are monkeys and monkeys love fruit. the acid from oranges are similar to the acid in coffee. the acidity of an apple(malic) is different. both acidity is found in coffee and a positive aspect of its flavor. 

flavor - taste and aroma. cross modal sensory experience - you are not only tasting it on your tongue, but also the aroma that is going up through your nasal airways.

body - the sensation in your mouth. tactial sensation. think of whole milk vs skim. thick va thin. 

aftertaste - the flavor of coffee in your mouth after its left. how persistent it is after you've drank it.

the flavor wheel below is used as a guide to help direct your senses and explain what you're tasting. it takes a bit of trying, but in the end there is no right or wrong when you are tasting your own coffee.

onnit academy foundations level 1 - austin, tx

i had been aware of onnit for a while from being a listener of the joe rogan podcast. i signed up for the academy that they run out of sheer curiosity. they offer this foundations course as well as different varieties of advanced kettlebell, steel mace and other type of courses. i will admit that half of my reasoning to sign up for this course was to also visit ausin texas for the first time having heard of how nice the town was.

on day one of the course, we checked into the onnit gym and received our instructors manual. the manual itself goes briefly into the philosophy of onnit and its warrior spirit. it's mainly focused on a holistic approach to fitness stressing inner strength as much as outer strength. i am definitely on board with this approach.

the gym itself was fairly large and offered lifting platforms, dumbells, barbells, sleds, blocks and a large selection of different types of equipment. the course did not have us conduct basic barbell or dumbbell lifts, which was perfectly fine with me.

our instructor/trainer was john wolf and his ability to instruct and break down our goals for the weekend was the highlight of the course. he was very humble, knowledgeable and a very experienced instructor. he knew his stuff very well, but also did not come off as pretentious or a self proclaimed guru.

half of the course was conducted in the newly constructed 10th planet jiu jitsu academy in one of the adjacent rooms. here we reviewed basic concepts, warm ups, stretches and sandbags instruction.

day 2 was conducted in the main gym where we reviewed battle ropes, steel clubs, maces kettlebells and finished the certification with a high intensity workout.

the man with the master plan.

there's an old saying: the more you learn, the more you realize how little you know. i admittedly felt rather humbled in the face of basic movements such as kettlebell swings and even a basic squat. regression is often the source of progression and is a necessity of life. i recommend this course to anyone willing to learn and keep an open mind about what they think they know and what they are willing to improve on.

a big shout out to onnit.