Recently, however, Ryan has been on an unplanned hiatus from his normal impressive repertoire of physical feats. In July of 2016, he broke his ankle while skateboarding with his son. He had surgery to pin his ankle back together, and it took a while before he was able to put any weight on it at all.

Most of us would view a significant injury like this as the end of the world; a kind of training purgatory. Getting back to even a remote version of our prior physical selves would seem daunting, and other than physical therapy, the wait would seem endless. But as Ryan and I discussed his strategy for recovery, I realized his strategy was a great example of what makes GMB so effective, and what drew me to GMB in the first place.

A Bodyweight System for Physical Autonomy

“What do you really need in your life to make you feel good about yourself?” ponders Hurst, during a Skype interview. We are discussing fitness, goals, and the general evolution of GMB. The ultimate goal is something Hurst and his team call physical autonomy.

When Hurst started GMB Fitness in 2010, together with his friends and fellow martial artists Jarlo Ilano and Andy Fossett, their goal was simple: to teach “fitness and wellbeing through bodyweight training.” While Hurst incorporates movements and principles from things like martial arts, yoga, and gymnastics, it’s not really any of those things. Instead, it’s a curriculum and a methodology for developing usable physical abilities. It gives you the confidence to do “what you want to do, when you want to do it.”

I stumbled upon GMB in 2011, as they were launching their online programs. At the time, there were only two programs available: one centered around gymnastics rings training and the other around parallettes. As a longtime yoga practitioner, I understood the value of strength, but I was bored with traditional weightlifting, and wanted something that would give me both strength and body control.

As the company grew, so did their programs. In addition to parallettes, rings, and floor skills, they added programs to address general motor control, with regressions that broke skills down into manageable pieces.

Physical autonomy means you can do what you want, when you want, with your body.

The AAA Framework for Progress

One thing GMB doesn’t promise is shortcuts or hacks to achieve impressive skills. The GMB method is about consistency. “We have to go through that stage of being bad before we can be good,” Hurst says.

As someone who’s always been considered “naturally strong,” this is the aspect of skill acquisition that stumped me for years. When I wanted to learn how to handstand, I decided to fling myself up into the air several times in a row, a couple days a week, and assumed my body would get it. I tried this for a month, before getting bored with my lack of progress.

Finally, I abandoned the goal and moved on to things I can do. Why deal with my weaknesses when I could focus on my strengths? What I neglected to realize was this: until I worked on the different components of handstands and practiced the basics first, I was never going to consistently stick a handstand. This, and I needed to do a lot of bad reps in a thoughtful way before any sort of semblance of a handstand would reveal itself.

The foundation of all of the GMB programs is the AAA framework: 

1. Assess: Determine your fitness level right now to get a baseline of where you’re strong, and most importantly, where you’re weak. This allows you to focus your training on the places that will lead to the most improvement, and to gauge your improvement (or setbacks) as you train.
2. Address: Attack the areas that need the most work, starting with basic skills. As you practice the basics and your abilities improve, you start building towards more complex movements.
3. Apply: Put together all the skills and physical attributes you’ve developed into complex movements, combinations, and flows.

This framework can be applied to any type of physical goal. For instance, if you decide your goal is to deadlift 300lb, but you haven’t deadlifted in 25 years, the first thing to do would be to assess your ability to hip hinge. How is your form? Where are you getting stuck? How is your mobility? Next, you would address your weaknesses by improving mobility in restricted areas and working on motor control to perfect your form. These exercises might look simple, but they are laying the foundation for the complexity of the deadlift.

After working on this consistently for 3-4 weeks, you might retest your deadlift with light weight and see how it’s coming along, before demanding the strength, mobility, and motor control required to lift heavier weights. In other words, you start by building a solid foundation in order to hold the weight of the complex skill.

Train Where You Are Today

The AAA framework can also be used at different points in our training cycles. Hurst has used it daily since his injury to assess how he feels compared to the day before, address his current mobility and strength, and apply his improvement to more challenging training.

“Instead of doing bear, monkey, and frogger for 3 minutes each,” he says, “I did it for two minutes, and I broke it down into one-minute sections. I slowed things down so that I was really feeling the range of motion in the ankle, instead of cranking out a bunch of stuff. And I did the rowing machine because there is minimal impact to the ankle.” The day before, his ankle had been achy. So instead of pushing through the discomfort, he had his wife do acupuncture and massage on it, letting it rest. “It’s not that I’m not doing something. I’m just being smart and adjusting according to that day.”

There is a wisdom in this mindset that comes from experience. Hurst is in his 40s and says, “you can come back from injuries if you are true to yourself, listen to your body, and don’t do stupid stuff during rehab.” Nobody wants to be injured, but life happens. In his case, it was a freak accident that no amount of strength and conditioning would have prevented. For some of us, it’s a little more mundane, like overuse injuries from not cycling through workouts, or stepping into potholes while running in the dark (which I totally did this morning).

We tend to ignore what our body says during workouts. We push too hard, try to come back too soon, and get frustrated when the recovery process is set back, the strength we want isn’t there, or the skill or PR we are working toward eludes us. Learning to listen and accept where we are each day is what allows us to move forward and break through plateaus. 

If you don’t listen to your body, you’ll only sabotage your own progress.

Learn to Move Without Fear

The underlying goal of GMB is physical autonomy, which is the ability to use the body in all the ways you want and need to use it. The most basic program, Elements, focuses on improving strength, motor control, and flexibility in a surprisingly profound way. Elements taught me that years of running hills and doing lunges did not translate to the ability to move in a deep squat for minutes at a time. It was the work I did in Elements which finally gave me the shoulder mobility required to access a more consistent handstand. It also addressed basic mobility deficits I had been ignoring.

One of the things that drew me to GMB was this idea that strength, mobility, and motor control can empower you to move in an uninhibited way. Fitness tends to be neatly separated into compartments. You can be strong, flexible, or endure, but is it possible to have all three at once? GMB says yes, you can have all three.

“Do it for yourself,” Hurst says, while discussing why people should train their bodies. Does your exercise program help you in other areas of your life? Does it allow you to do things you want to do, when you want to do them? If you have a fitness hobby (i.e., running, yoga, martial arts, parkour), is your program helping you be better at those things? When you take time to discover your “why,” the bigger goal tends to unveil itself.

As we get older, our goals and perceptions of ourselves change. Hurst says recovering from his current injury has given him an opportunity to evaluate the next stage of his life. “Here in my life right now, I’m not an athlete, nor do I need to train that way, nor should I. It’s forced me to go back to the very basics, refine my technique, and look at my ease of movement, as well as the quality of my technique.”

Figure out your why, and allow your exercise regimen to support it. “It’s not about six-pack abs,” Hurst says. “It’s just not. Once you get those six-pack abs, what’s next?”

If you’re looking for a shortcut, don’t hold your breath:

There Are No Tricks in Fitness

The post Mastering Bodyweight Exercise: The Triple A Framework appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

It Started With School

Mike’s career as a photographer began in high school while shooting for his school newspaper and yearbook committee. Mike went on to study photography in college and eventually landed his first commercial gig taking pictures for a major department store’s catalogue.

Through his experience in advertising, Mike’s creative side began to blossom. After a while, he realized he could combine his knowledge and his passions into a single art. Mike began taking side projects, leading to his first bookings to shoot portraits. From there, he was only a step away from his current focus of capturing images of athleticism and physical beauty:

After working with a few athletes on capturing their physiques I realized that the fitness industry offered many fun creative challenges and opportunities for my lighting and also has many commercial applications.

Ultimately, Mike stepped away from his commercial pursuits and started shooting athletes and bodybuilders full-time. He realized he preferred the form and movement of the human body to the stiff nature of shooting objects:

Working with people is much more personally rewarding then working with inanimate objects in the commercial world, which is why I am drawn to this because it is in my nature to want to help people.

Today, Mike finds himself most fulfilled when his images are able to invoke a sense of passion and emotion:

My goal in taking pictures is more then just seeing a pretty scene and capturing it. Hopefully some sort of emotion moves viewers.The feedback I get from both my clients and viewers of my pictures is just overwhelming. I get amazing emails all the time from people telling me their stories, how my pictures have inspired them to push harder in their workouts or begin the process they already had plans to do but have been putting off.

You can visit Mike’s website to see more of his images and to learn more about his work.

Photos courtesy of MidAtlantic Photography.

The post The Beauty of the Body: Mike Cadotte (Featured Photographer) appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

He then powered his way through regionals with a third place overall finish, good enough to secure a spot to compete at this year’s CrossFit Games from July 25-27 at the StubHub Center in Carson, California.

Signing With the NPFL

In August, Craig Kenney will debut as an inaugural member the National Pro Fitness League (NPFL) Philadelphia Founders, one of the eight founding teams for the 2014 season.

The Founders are comprised of mostly North East athletes, including Kaleena Ladeairous, Eric Magee, Megin Oczkowski, Daniel Tyminski, Kirstine Andali, and Seth Silva (40+), as well as Amanda Allen (40+) from Australia. The team is coached by Jason Leydon  and owned by Ameet Shah, the founder of Wodify.

When Kenney first heard about the NPFL, he had no idea what the league was about, who was involved, or what the workouts were like, but he was excited about the concept. Two months later, after a conversation with Leydon and Shah describing how the league is run, Kenney jumped at the opportunity. He was the first athlete to sign with Philadelphia.

“After a bit of research and getting the okay from my wife, I signed with the Founders,” he said. “I am very excited about the NPFL and think this could be a great opportunity for me.”

Craig Kenney’s Training Methods

Kenney’s commitment to training gives him an edge over his competitors. From an early age, Kenney explored non-traditional forms of training, including pushing cars up hills, splitting and tossing wood, and throwing boulders.

He is the youngest of three boys, and having two older brothers to push him around on the field taught him how to hold his own in sports. He focused this mental toughness as a three-sport athlete in high school and later as a Division I football player at Northeastern University.

Kenny currently trains at Branford CrossFit in Branford, Connecticut. He is known in the community for having an incredible work ethic, a trait he credits to his mother. “She has the ability to take on many tasks at once giving 100% in every aspect,” he said. “She taught me how to work hard, and I also, for some reason have this deep desire to compete and prepare.”

Competing in CrossFit and the NPFL

Founder’s coach Jason Leydon calls Craig an “amazing athlete” who is especially strong for a guy his size. According to the Kenney’s CrossFit profile, he boasts a 525lb deadlift and 425lb back squat. For an athlete with a 6’0’’, 200 pound frame, Leydon says Kenney’s gymnastics skills are also on point, adding even more value to his spot on the team.

“The main quality to Craig is his work ethic, which is one of the best around and that is why Craig will be a great asset to Philly,” said Leydon. “He is amazing at this sport but he also knows how to fit in well with a team and be a team player.”

While Kenney currently competes as an individual in the CrossFit arena, he is looking forward to tapping into his experience working with a team for the NPFL, especially the strategy and comradery that is paramount for team success.

“In football, if the offensive line doesn’t do their job the quarterback can’t get the pass off, and if the wide receiver doesn’t get open and the balls not accurate, the play is a failure, just like a no rep,” explained Kenney. “If my teammate just hit a clean and jerk and I am up next to get us to the next station, I’m going to attack that bar and get it.”

Kenney believes that his biggest contribution to the Founders will be his ability to give everything he has in every set up until the whistle. “You have to count on one another and depend on one another to do your job, because team sports consist of many individual battles,” he said. “I will be prepared and my teammates will count on me being there to help us win, whatever it takes.”

Photo courtesy of Super Cleary Photo.

The post NPFL Athlete Craig Kenney: A Hard-Working Team Player appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Teaching a few beginner classes feels like a lot of commitment to me, but what if I co-owned a BJJ school like Emily Kwok? What if I was also a partner in a successful women’s grappling camp? Emily was the first female BJJ black belt in Canada and is a fierce competitor. She’s also a new mother and carefully planned her pregnancy in a way that allowed her to accomplish what she wanted to in competition and business, all while maintaining the status quo in the early years of her child’s life. I recently spoke to Emilyabout her experience and she offered a lot of insight.

Because Emily’s pregnancy had been so carefully planned, she was able to prepare her body beforehand and continue to train later in her pregnancy. Explained Emily:

I stopped training hard as soon as I found out I was pregnant and restricted my training partners to advanced belts whom I trusted and had established relationships with already. I trained until about three to four months, but taught until eight. I could demonstrate almost everything, but I had to stop some movements by about seven to seven and a half months. I was consistently weight lifting prior to becoming pregnant and I was able to continue working out till the last month. Lifting really saved me because I could control the movements I was making and how heavy my loads were. It really kept me sane. Being a very physically active person can work against you when you’re not able to express yourself as easily in a physical sense.

Emily sought advice from the professionals throughout her pregnancy to ensure the transition into motherhood was smooth.

I stayed active for as long as I was able to under the care of my physical therapist who is also my trainer. I found that by trying to maintain a normal exercise routine (which included teaching, drilling, and lifting weights) I was able to keep myself sane and healthy. I tried not to make my pregnancy too much of an ordeal, I figured if I felt good and healthy, then my baby would be too. I’m not sure if it was a fluke, but my baby is a perfect little human being.

My OBGYN is also not an alarmist. She was aware of what I did for a living and took no issue with me working out intensely. It was hard to find literature that supported active mothers, most tells you to not do anything strenuous at all – but she told me that it was fine for me to work out hard so long as I wasn’t trying to reach new heights. I scaled back my weights about twenty percent and adjusted everything accordingly as I got bigger. It helped that my physical therapist guided me through the whole process and advised me on the best exercises for my body as I gained weight and my ligaments softened. I worked out all the way up until my last month. Then my baby dropped into my pelvic girdle (which is supposed to happen) and caused so much hip discomfort and pain I couldn’t do anything anymore.

Three weeks after she gave birth, Emily was back on the mats. She said:

My business partner was terrified. I started working out at the same time. My physical therapist just warned me to go easy since my ligaments were still tightening up and my joints were beginning to move again with some resistance and load. I just taught and moved lightly for the first couple weeks, but was trying to train a bit harder by my sixth week post pregnancy. What has been affected more than my physical capability is my mental sharpness…that has taken awhile to get back. I have had a hard time getting my body to do what I want it to do as quickly as I want it to happen! I also have struggled to be as fluid and efficient with my movements.

With the physical aspect taken care of, I wondered about how Emily was able to manage her time with a newborn. She is fortunate to be self-employed and even more fortunate to have the support of her loving husband, BJJ brown belt Gerry Hurtado.

My husband is my biggest cheerleader so he gives me all the room to train. We work together so we can each get some mat time and it works out well. Having my own school is fantastic because I can teach a class while he watches her, then I trade off and watch the baby while he trains…or vice versa. I can also set up informal drilling sessions with him and other partners during off hours. Saya joins us on the mat but since I’m not responsible for teaching, I can take care of her while drilling a bit or work through a technique.

A lot of men are afraid of breaking their female teammateson a good day so I can just imagine how they must feel about training with a pregnant lady or someone who just gave birth. What can teammates do to help their female training partners during this time? Emily advised:

Don’t tell your pregnant lady partners what they can or cannot do. They will most likely understand their bodies well and won’t put themselves at risk. What they will want is to feel like a valuable member of their communities and they will want to feel like BJJ is still a big part of their lives. Be a good drilling partnerand allow them to move around a bit if the technique isn’t dangerous for the baby.

When they come back after giving birth, be happy to see them and work with them as they get moving again. Some people I trained with the first couple weeks thought it would be fun to go 100% with me…um…that wasn’t so cool in my books. I lost the baby weight pretty quickly so I suppose that people forgot I was pregnant and just reverted to training with me the way they always had. It’s a very drastic thing your body goes through – carrying a baby then giving birth!

Emily is looking forward to continuing to contribute her energy towards her BJJ school in Princeton, New Jerseyand Groundswell Grappling Concepts, which she owns and operates with black belts Hannette Staack, Valerie Worthington, and brand-new brown belt Lola Newsom. The learning never ends and Emily looks forward to continuing her own journey as a student of the sport and possibly getting back on the mats to compete. Andfter seeing the beautiful pictures of Saya, I can’t wait to see baby number two! Best of luck to Emily and her growing family!

The post Emily Kwok on Navigating Pregnancy in the BJJ World appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Homelessness affects 3.5 million people in America alone each year. With such staggering statistics, it seems like a problem too big to face. But Anne Mahlum, CEO of Back On My Feet, is making a difference in a unique way – through running.

A long-time runner herself, Mahlum started Back On My Feet in 2007. During her own morning runs, she would talk to men outside a Philadelphia mission.

Eventually Anne decided she could try to help them “if she stopped running by them and started running with them.”

Anne started a running club with the mission residents, and from these humble beginnings Back On My Feet was formed. The organization now has ten chapters nationwide, and is launching its eleventh chapter in Los Angeles at the end of this month. On average, 46% of members go on to obtain a job, housing, or both.

In an NBC interview, Anne Mahlum explains how running can combat homelessness: “When I watch somebody finish a run, and a smile just takes over their face, and they sit up a little straighter and give their teammates high fives – when you’re part of witnessing someone discovering their potential, and all they’re capable of, there’s nothing better than that.”

By showing homeless individuals what they’re capable of, Back On My Feet has helped thousands of members get into housing and obtain a steady job.

Last month, I had the opportunity to speak with one such member. You would never guess while talking to Meshach that a year ago he was homeless and struggling with drug addiction.

The man I spoke with was radiating with energy and positivity. “For me, this is what happened: I came into a homeless situation and was on drugs and alcohol.

For me, I just had to stop doing all that stuff. It was garbage and I was hurting myself. So I stopped all that and focused on something positive. I was waiting for something positive, and that’s where Back on my Feet came along. It came along, I grabbed onto it, and I haven’t let go.”

Meshach was first exposed to Back On My Feet while living at a homeless shelter. “These guys were getting up every morning and going out to run. They’d come back and be sweating, and it sounded like such a good thing, and I wanted to be a part of it.”

After applying several times, Meshach was accepted into the program and experienced rapid change. Now he has a steady job (and a recent promotion, in fact), has overcome his drug and alcohol addiction, and is part of an amazing community. “It is a family, and we love each other.

We express our love out there running, and participating in the program and not giving up on each other. It’s awesome.”

Not only is Meshach succeeding in life, but he’s also become quite an accomplished runner in the last year. One of the key components of the organization are the morning runs that are required for members.

On weekdays, members run two to four miles at 5:30am, with a long run on Saturdays in preparation for a half or full marathon. “I’ve done several races – wonderful. I ran a half marathon a few months ago, and that was one of the biggest challenges for me. The race was actually easier than the training! It is so, so positive. Anyone who wants to receive it can go as far as they want to.”

For Meshach, the running component has also helped in his struggle with drug and alcohol addiction. “It helps a lot with it, because you don’t think about it.

You’re just out there and you’re free, running with everybody else. You don’t want to be the one who drops the ball. I want to make sure I keep the ball rolling, because it’s a good, positive thing we’ve got going here… I’m around positive people. I’ve never heard one of them say a bad word. To be in that positive environment is so important to me.”

So in just one short year, Meshach went from homeless to employed and thriving – not to mention all the races and training he’s done this year. I asked him what was the most important thing he wanted readers to hear, and he answered, “I want to tell everybody don’t give up on yourself.

None of us are perfect. If you’re doing negative things, stop doing it. Grab onto something positive, whatever it may be, and don’t ever give up on yourself.

I’m 55 years old, and I feel so good about myself and the direction my life is going in now. If you want to feel good about yourself, do the right thing as best as you can.”

The post Back On My Feet: Running to Combat Homelessness appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

I fell into BJJ by accident back in grad school back in 1996. It all began when I was driving to a supermarket of all things to pick up some yogurt for my Mom. Pulling into the supermarket I almost hit these two drunken guys stumbling across the road from the neighboring bar. I blew my horn and weaved around them but they decided to follow me back to my truck which was now parked in the supermarket’s parking lot.

As I was walking to the store from the truck, they surrounded me and starting hemming and hawing about why I honked my horn at them. I was trying to talk the one guy down when his friend punched me in the side of my head. Funny thing is, instead of hitting him back I punched the guy I was trying to talk down instead. After that I have a hard time remembering what happened until I was holding the guy in a modified head lock. I mentioned to them the police might help us resolve our situation and they got spooked and ran. They were later picked up down by the 7-11″ and arrested for assault.

After that I went through the whole phase of wanting to defend myself. So I signed up for a martial arts class in town that taught kung fu. The class was great, but I noticed there was another group that would come in and put mats down on the floor and wrestle. My kung fu instructor was very open-minded and suggested I try it. I did and was hooked into BJJ for the next sixteen years.

In January 2010, Jesse founded Killer Bee Kimonos. I asked Jesse (pictured to the right) what behavior specifically makes the killer bee similar to a Brazilian jiu jitsu fighter. He replied, “Honey bees are defensive by nature and will only attack if threatened or disturbed. Killer bees are actually regular honey bees but hyper defensive to an excessive level of intensity. They are also very persistent in following you when you have been marked with their targeting pheromone. Normal honey bees may only chase you for about fifty to a hundred yards, stinging you merrily along the way. Killer bees will follow you up to a mile and in far greater numbers. It is almost like an off/on switch with them. The aspect of their nature of not attacking unless provoked, and when they do attack using such overwhelming intensity appeals to me.”

I read a lot of Brazilian jiu jitsu gi reviews and one comment that I always see about gis priced under $140 or so is, “great value for the money.” Although most of us don’t know how much it actually costs to make a gi, we are usually in agreement. Jesse, however, is not, as he noted:

I know how much a gi really costs after import duties, taxes, etc. I sell them for a comfortable level of profit for myself and will not go lower than that except on a special occasion such as a holiday sale. It is one reason why I have a hard time selling wholesale. Other companies may charge $180 for a gi and offer a wholesale price of $120. I am not able to do that because my prices are already as low as I need them to be for the level of profit I want to make. Basically, people can buy from me at an almost wholesale price compared to what other companies are charging.

Killer Bee Kimonos range in price from $80-$130. Jackets and pants are sold separately in different weights and sizes. The jacket weaves are named for honey bee subspecies, the lightweight Ligustica killer bee weave, (comparable to a pearl weave), the Meliponini single weave and Scutellata gold weave.

According to Wikipedia, the Italian apis mellifera ligustica is such a badass it may have survived the last Ice Age. The apis mellifera scutella are the African “Killer Bees” are easily agitated, quick to attack and have been known to sting humans to death. The Meliponini, on the other hand, is a tribe of stingless honey bee. I’m sure they would be just as deadly as the other bees if they trained BJJ.

For those of us who have a hard time finding gis that fit or who enjoy being creative, we can build our own gi at the Killer Bee Custom Gi Builder with the following choices for only $160:

• Jacket, sleeve and pant length measurements
• Male or female cut
• Three gi colors
• Three weave types
• Two pant types
• Thirteen contrast stitching colors
• Custom embroidery with six standard options as well as any font on dafont.com
• Custom logo embroidery

Gear designer and reviewer Seymour Yang has recently discovered the custom gi option at Killer Bee and has documented his design and ordering process. The mock-up he created looks amazing – see the above picture! Where a no gi line is in development at Killer Bee, don’t you think a Killer Bee rashguard designed by Meerkatsu would be the best thing ever? Or a rashguard with the same design as the Killer Bee t-shirt on the right designed by Evan Mannweiler? Why is this t-shirt only $10?

I’ve owned three Killer Bee gis so far: the kid’s gi, the women’s gi and a custom gi. All of them are top quality, but the custom gi has all but eliminated my sizing issues. If you’re interested in Killer Bee custom gis, be sure to visit the gi building site and use code CUSTOM15 to save 15% on your order.

Here’s a quick calculation of the cost for a custom gi. With the discount code, you can get a custom jacket, two pairs of pants and a custom belt for about $190. For off-the-rack gis, like Killer Bee Gis on Facebook and save 10% with code FACEBOOK10. The Facebook code makes the women’s gi approximately $85.

For my full interview with Jesse, download the complete PDF here.

The post Interview with Jesse Bellevance of Killer Bee Kimonos appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

OK! Kimonos founder Brendan Hufford (a Miguel Torres purple belt), is trying to change things for children who live in poverty. He learned about the Drive-In BJJ Academy’s efforts in Rio de Janeiro through Christian Graugart’s BJJ Globetrotter blog and the subsequent episode of the Real Rio web tv show. The owner of Drive-In trains children for free (as long as they do well in school) and buys their gis with his own money.

Hufford explained how he became involved in the charity project:

I teach in an urban school in one of the more dangerous cities in the U.S., and while I have never experienced any danger in the area, I have a lot of experience with children who want to learn but can’t because they lack the money, knowledge, or resources to make it happen.

I saw those exact same type of kids training at Drive-In’s academy and I couldn’t help myself. One day a friend and I were chatting about glorifying God over ourselves and it hit me that this was a perfect opportunity to help them. Since then, I’ve done a regional gi drive and even started a gi exchange program where parents can trade in gently used kids gis to be donated to Drive-In’s academy in exchange for a discount on my gis.

It’s obvious why Brendan would want to help under-privileged children, but I wanted to know, why the name OK!? “I chose OK! because I wanted something that was easy for kids to understand but also something that bridged language barriers. Around the world, people of many languages and cultures understand that ‘okay’ is a phrase of positivity and acceptance, which is a strong message for me and the brand. This way kids of all cultures and languages can enjoy it!”

That cuddly tiger baby winking at you (or showing you the eye of the tiger) on the sleeve of the OK! Kimono is the creation of one of BJJ’s favorite designers, Seymour Yang – also known as Meerkatsu. An early concept drawing for OK!’s first gi, the happy little guy is “fun AND ferocious.” Thanks to the OK! Kimono crew we’re going to hear this generation of BJJ kids ROAR!

The brand mascot symbolizes Brendan’s message for children. “I want kids to know that it’s alright to be silly, nerdy, and dorky and then step on the mat at a tournament and hit a flying armbar in six seconds.” Training hard, confidence and assertiveness are key but he doesn’t promote unnecessary aggression.

I’m Facebook friends with and a fan of both OK! Kimonos and Seymour Yang (pictured below). They’re among the liveliest and most positive people in the BJJ community. I imagined that it would be a lot of fun to work together designing a gear line for kids and I was 100% correct. According to Brendan, the process is sublime. “I pick up Seymour in London. He climbs aboard the OK! Kimonos private jet and we listen to Chopin, flying faster than the speed of sound, on our way to Greece. As we sit atop the Parthenon, hundreds of animals waltz in the background as Seymour and I discuss design and philosophy. It’s pretty much the first forty minutes of Disney’s Fantasia.”

In addition to the children’s gear, OK! has released a limited edition blue adult BJJ gi and is in the process of designing a Snow Leopard line for women with the help of actual women. I’ve seen established MMA and BJJ gear companies develop amazing gear for men to grapple in, yet offer a line for women that is best suited for yoga. Said Hufford, “I always chuckle at men who create lines for women without their input. I’m exceptionally happy to have some of my good friends helping me with development and R&D.“ Brendan feels fortunate to be “sort of a ‘patron of the arts,’” and new products are also being developed in collaboration with artists such as Scott Miller, Bong Abad, Evan Mannweiler, and Chris Bones.

Hufford’s passion for BJJ gis grew from his love of street wear and apparel. “There’s just a tremendous amount that you can do with them and I love that our art encourages artistic expression on our equipment, much like skateboarding. We can express our art and personality beyond simply training, but in our gis and other gear as well. This is typical of lifestyle sports and makes BJJ very different from other martial arts because I can express my outside life in my art and my art in my outside life, making them one and the same.”

Whether you’re new to the Brazilian jiu jitsu game or you’re just looking to replace a tattered old gi, Brendan Hufford can tell you everything you need to know about pretty much every brand out there. He and his Gi Reviews partner Dan Halpin have reviewed a massive amount of gis and offer a free e-book, Epic Gi Book, to anyone who visits their site. The generosity doesn’t end there, though. To say thank you for checking out our interview, use code “Sally” to get 10% off everything at OK! Kimonos. Brendan said he’d tack on free shipping, too, but there’s no need. Gis ship for free in the U.S. – all day, every day.

In regards to reviewing versus manufacturing gis, Hufford reflected:

Running Gi Reviews gave me a bit of perspective that I wouldn’t have had otherwise. But, honestly, nothing could have prepared me for the business of designing and manufacturing BJJ gis.

Manufacturing is an entirely different animal in and of itself. A tremendous amount of time, effort, and money goes into creating a product like a BJJ gi, but I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t worth it in the end. I’ve been blessed to have surrounded myself with supportive people and even when frustrating things would happen (like getting an entire order of gis that bled color all over the place, making them unable to be sold), I was able to keep going. In short, it’s definitely not as easy as people think and while a lot of people are starting ‘BJJ brands,’ this type of thing really isn’t for everybody.

If someone had told me when I was ten years old that not only would I be a purple belt in Brazilian jiu jitsu but I would also be reviewing gear for companies like OK! Kimonos, I wouldn’t have believed them. Now that I’m almost forty I still can’t believe my luck, but keep your eye on Breaking Muscle for my review of OK! Kimonos Tora Spats, guaranteed to improve your swagger by 95%!

To read my entire conversation with Brendan Hufford download the complete PDF here.

The post Interview with OK! Kimonos Founder Brendan Hufford – Helping All Kids Train BJJ appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Recently I had the pleasure to speak with just such a person: Jason Seib, author of The Paleo Coach, owner of Clackamas Physical Conditioning, regular contributor at Everyday Paleo, and co-founder of Everyday Paleo Lifestyle and Fitness. He’s also a husband and father of three litle girls. Jason is living his passion, which goes way beyond the paleo diet. First and foremost, Jason is a coach and this quality shone through during our interview.

Jason’s journey to the health and fitness world started where many other coaches and athletes have: in a typical commercial gym. However, from the start Jason was interested in more than bro science. “I never really turned into that ‘gym rat’ or the meathead-type trainee. I was more a geek right away. I was interested in the science behind all this stuff, in what was happening behind muscle hypertrophy and nutrition.”

After working in a commercial gym, Jason decided to open his own facility, Clackamas Physical Conditioning. Shortly after it opened, Jason discovered paleo and decided to use it as the exclusive nutrition method for his clients. After Sarah Fragoso came to visit his gym, Jason started contributing to the Everyday Paleo website with great success – his second blog post on scale addiction crashed the server, in fact!

Over the years, Jason fine-tuned his approach, based on constant research and a desire to go beyond mainstream advice and delve deeper into fitness and nutrition. “I don’t really have this amazing success story, as far as I didn’t lose 100 pounds to get the way I am now. I just simply wanted answers.” His research has led him where he is today and also provided an effective and health-based philosophy. Here’s what Jason had to say about that approach and getting results:

At the end of the day, we all should be trying to get as healthy as you possibly can. That’s the only thing that’s ever going to make sense, regardless of your goal. If your goal is just to look really good in a bikini, and that’s the only goal you have and that’s as deep as you ever intend to get with it, it doesn’t matter if you don’t pass through health. Any results you get will only be temporary.

The success of Jason’s approach is based on a variety of factors that all work together. “I do never and have never separated the concepts of exercise and nutrition and sleep and stress. Those are all components of creating a healthy human. To pretend that one of them is more important than all the others and can be your saving grace all by itself is ridiculous.”

So that sounds great in principle, but I wondered how Jason has actually achieved the success he has with his clients. Here are two things they do at Clackamas that help clients attain remarkable results:

Nutrition:

Although Jason encourages a holistic approach to fitness, at the same time nutrition is a cornerstone for his clients. “The results that you see here are at least eighty percent nutrition. If you think you’re gonna be able to come here and out-train bad nutrition, you’re going to have to rethink that.”

However, Jason doesn’t simply tell people what to eat and what not to eat. He also offers nutrition classes that are free and open not only to gym members but also the public. “I do that because I want people to come and learn and bring their friends and family, those people they need on board in order to change.”

Strength Bias:

In terms of physical conditioning, at Jason’s gym the most important factors are strength, walking, and mobility. Metabolic conditioning – a mix of HIIT and sprint training – is the icing on the cake, according to Jason. First and foremost is gaining strength and re-gaining mobility.

That approach has produced some impressive numbers, particularly for the ladies. Seventy percent of the women in Jason’s gym deadlift over 200 pounds, and Jason could think of at least two female clients over 52 who can do a strict pull up. “That’s the stuff that gets me out of bed in the morning…Getting someone fit for the first time in their life at 52 years old.”

His years of experience as a coach and the extensive knowledge he has obtained serve as the foundation for Jason’s new book, The Paleo Coach. Being a coach offers Jason a different perspective that makes his book and overall approach truly one-of-a-kind. “I think the advantage I get from being a coach is that big picture, that 30,000-foot view that’s often missing. It’s not human nature to maintain that view. We see this everywhere. We want to isolate individual factors and make a narrower and narrower point of view until we can finally blame one thing.” Jason’s approach, on the other hand, focuses on regaining health and ditching the severe calorie restriction, scale addiction, and other unhealthy practices people sometimes use to become “fit.”

So what lies ahead for Jason? One thing that’s definitely not in the picture is leaving his gym and his clients. “I will never sell my gym, I will never quit training clients. If I ever quit training clients it’s because I’ve officially retired.” At the end of the day, despite the fact that he’s now a published author and part of one of the largest paleo communities on the internet, Jason’s home is in the gym working with clients – “where the rubber meets the road,” as he put it. “I don’t really have these visions of growing my gym into a 500 person gym. I just want it to produce amazing work and continue to teach me things.”

You can follow Jason on Facebook and also tune in to the weekly Everyday Paleo Lifestyle and Fitness Podcast to learn more about his approach to fitness and nutrition.

The post An Interview With Jason Seib, the Paleo Coach appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

JW was kind enough to share some of his experiences with me recently. He told me that when he went to Thailand in 1996 at the age of nineteen, it wasn’t easy to find a training camp. The Thai people depend upon muay Thai to make a living and frown upon training foreigners. The Australian native explained:

In 1996 not many camps would take westerner fighters, the Thais didn’t want to share their secrets in case one day we got too clever and started beating them at their own game. When I won a big tournament in Thailand winning one million baht, my Thai trainer did a radio interview. They asked him, “Why would you teach a farlung our secrets to take our money out of the country?” He told them I was like a brother so what was he supposed to do?

Three months after he arrived in Thailand, Loomingkwan Gym accepted JW as their first foreign fighter. For the next four years, Parr became Thai superstar Sangtien Noi’s “sparring partner, grappling partner, and pretty much his all-around bitch.”

Training in Thailand was a dream come true, but Parr missed his life in Australia. “It was crazy. At nineteen years of age I move to Bangkok and I was the only white person in the area the size of Brisbane. No one spoke English. TV, radio, and newspaper were also in Thai. Back then there were no phones or Internet, if I wanted to talk to Mum I would have to post a letter, then wait two weeks for a reply.”

He slept on “a wooden floor side by side with the other fighters. My toilet was a squatter, and I had to pour water into my hand to wipe my bum.” Although the lifestyle began to seem normal after a couple of years, JW doesn’t miss it now that he’s back home.

Having a toilet paper isn’t the only thing that’s different. On June 23, 2012, JW fought in the first Caged Muay Thai event in Australia and defeated Jordan Tai in the fourth round. The new promotion has all of the same rules of the ring, but fighters face off in a cage wearing 5oz MMA gloves.

As JW explained, “Everyone loves the cage in Australia, but ninety percent of people I talk to say they don’t like the groundwork. All the most exciting parts of UFC are muay Thai strikes anyway, so why not give the fans the best part of a product?”

The fans have wholeheartedly embraced JW’s new concept, but the fighters also love it. According to JW fighters like it because, “What you can do in training you can’t do on the ring because your hands are in big clumsy gloves. With the fingerless gloves you can grab kicks, use your hands in the clinch and are a lot more free to pull off cool tricks.”

JW has since begun referring to the traditional gloves as “bitch mittens,” but they didn’t hold him back in the ring. In addition to his nine world titles in muay Thai, he is the former Australian middleweight boxing champion. Of all of his opponents, The Contender: Asia winner Yodsanklai stands out:

Yodsanklai was my nemesis for a number of years. He was a southpaw, and kicked and punched the hardest I have ever felt in 114 fights. We fought three times, and every time I was busted up, bruised and swollen. The third time we fought I was lucky to win on split points, but still ended up with fifteen stitches and a right arm that needed X-rays to make sure it wasn’t broken.

To the average Joe, fifteen stitches is a big deal but in total, Parr has had 216 stitches over his career. He’s been in a lot of wars. To prepare, JW told me:

I run 12km in the morning then train another hour on pads and ground work. Afternoon run another 5-7 km then 2 more hours pads and bag sparring. Thailand was a whole different world though, 3 hours morning, 3.5 hours afternoon, 7 days a week. All we did was eat, sleep and train. I do not miss those days.

In fights, JW described his style: “I like using my hands. I also have a pretty good left kick to the body helping me win a lot of fights. My front kick was also a good tool to get me out of trouble when being attacked.” There’s a lot more to a fight than striking though. I wanted to know how John Wayne mentally dismantled his opponents. Turns out, a big part of that was his defense. “Once people realize they couldn’t hit me after a round or two, I would watch their body language change. From that point I knew the fight was going to be mine.”

The caged fight in June was Parr’s final fight. His focus now is training others at Boonchu Gym in Australia. JW shares his 25 years of experience in seminars across the country but he has also released an instructional DVD set called Locked & Loaded, which covers muay Thai techniques from the fundamental strikes to advanced drills and pad work as well as the clinch and grappling. (Check back soon for my review of Locked & Loaded.)

Although I discovered muay Thai in 2008, I’ve only recently begun training regularly as I focused primarily on Brazilian jiu jitsu since then. JW said the biggest mistake beginners make is focusing too much on weights. He said, “You are not going to be a great fighter because you lift something heavy. You’re only going to be a better fighter by training to be a fighter.”

The best way to condition the body, according to him, is to “spar as much as you can. That is the closest thing you are ever going to get to a fight. This is where you are going to learn muscle memory and hopefully fight time you have seen it all before and nothing is going to come as a shock to you.”

Now that JW has hung up his gloves, only one person could lure him back into the cage: Buakaw. “It would be the biggest fight on the planet and as a promoter I am sure we could fill any stadium in Australia. Besides that I am quite content on my career, I fought all the major fighters in the world. Win, lose or draw they were always entertaining fights.”

In or out of the cage, John Wayne Parr continues to be an ambassador of the sport with his Caged Muay Thai and his amateur promotion Tomorrow’s Champions. Be sure to check out Caged Muay Thai and JWP’s Facebook pages to keep up with the latest news about the evolution of this exciting promotion.

The post Interview with John Wayne Parr: Muay Thai Fighter and Promoter appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Sarah and Andrew have known each other for some time; in fact, they first met because one of Andrew’s friends was dating one of Sarah’s good friends. Their friends ended up breaking up, but Sarah and Andrew met each other and hit it off right away. According to Sarah, “We pretty much spend all our time together, and we still like each other!” Running a business together hasn’t come in the way of that, either. “When we decided we wanted to start developing a bar, nobody really thought it was going to happen, and a lot of people were like, ‘You guys don’t want to work together,’ but really that’s the whole reason why we did start the company.”

After spending five days in New York for a Christmas party with Andrew’s company, only to come back to going their separate ways with different jobs, the dream started to take shape more concretely. “I was dropping Andrew off at work, and he was like, ‘We have to do something about this. I want to work together all the time.’ We were literally driving to his work and we decided to start a company!” That day, Sarah went home and started formulating the first of what would be many recipes for their new bar.

So why Squarebar? Not only does Sarah have a longtime love for baking and cooking, but both Andrew and Sarah live a healthy and active lifestyle. “When we started dating, Andrew was just eating steamed brown rice, broccoli, and baked chicken breast. That was like, all he ate. …I started making all these meals for him, and I think that’s maybe why he fell in love with me!” Combined with Sarah’s love for baking, clean eating was also a primary factor in the evolution of Squarebar.

For Sarah and Andrew, clean eating isn’t just an abstract food philosophy, but a passion that they live out in their own kitchen. Sarah told me about the difference that clean eating has made in her own life. She was diagnosed with asthma at the age of 11, and as a competitive swimmer and water polo player, it was a constant struggle. After years of refusing treatment with steroids, Sarah’s asthma finally got so bad in high school that she was on constant medication, which led to struggles with chronic bronchitis in addition to her asthma symptoms.

Things took a new turn in college, when Sarah had a few attacks that landed her in urgent care. Ironically, the doctor at the urgent care center recommended the book Ultraprevention by Drs. Mark Hyman and Mark Liponis. Sarah discovered that she is sensitive to both gluten and dairy, and after eliminating both from her diet, she observed an immense decrease in her asthma symptoms. “I just cut all that out, and it totally changed everything. I was on steroids – Singulair, Claritin, Albuterol – and I don’t even have an inhaler any more.”

For Sarah and Andrew, clean eating at its best also means free of GMOs, and they hold these high standards for their products as well.  When they started formulating the final recipe for their bars, Andrew and Sarah decided to become a part of the Non-GMO Project , a non-profit organization that provides verification for GMO-free products. Squarebar has been verified from the very beginning, since all the ingredients used in the bars are already verified. “Since we were formulating our product from the very beginning, we were the first product to actually come to the market already verified. We actually did it from the beginning. We were Non-GMO verified before we were even organic certified or gluten-free certified. That was the very first thing we did.”

In addition to obtaining certifications for their product, Andrew and Sarah put a lot of work into developing the final recipes. “When you make recipes, you can’t just triple a recipe. Sometimes it just doesn’t come out quite right…so we were really kind of scared to see what happened when they [the manufacturers] made 50,000 of our bars! So when it came, we were so happy and relieved it was so good. It was the most rewarding experience, because that was our first demo.”.

So what’s the biggest challenge they’ve faced? “I think time,” Sarah said. “Andrew and I were both working full time jobs, and it was hard to find the time.” Sarah and Andrew self-funded their company and also did a Kickstarter project just before they started manufacturing their product. It worked! “That was amazing. We got this following right away and got this amazing funding. I think our goal was $12,000 and we ended up getting almost $14,000, which was really cool.”

Unlike many companies and particularly food product manufacturers, Sarah and Andrew didn’t just develop their product with mass production in mind. Every step has been intentional and well planned out. “We started everything from the beginning. We started saving money from the beginning, building the website from the beginning, coming up with the branding from the beginning – at the same time that we were formulating…a lot of stories are like, ‘They were making this amazing salad dressing, and everyone loved it and now it’s this amazing food company. That wasn’t like us. We wanted to start a company, and we did it all from the beginning.” Andrew learned how to build websites and do the product designs on his own. At the Natural Foods Expo in 2011, Andrew and Sarah set their goal. “We just walked the Expo floor, and we just looked at each other and said, ‘This is our goal. In one year, we are going to be here.’ And we did it!” Sarah and Andrew launched Squarebar at the largest natural foods expo in the world – quite an accomplishment!

My husband and I dream about starting our own business some day, so talking to Sarah was so encouraging and eye-opening for me. But even if you’re not an entrepeneur, just seeing the passion and dedication that Sarah and Andrew put into their work is inspiring. The health industry will thrive with companies like Squarebar at the center. Check out my review of the three Squarebar flavors to learn a bit more about the product ingredients.

Squarebar was released in northern California Whole Foods in summer 2012, and as of our conversation they were available in 21 stores. They are also available in various natural food stores throughout the country, or online at Abe’s Market.

The post Two Heads Are Better Than One: An Interview With Andrew and Sarah of Squarebar appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Cameron has also learned to channel the anger, “rage, even,” he felt as a child because of his relationship with his father toward more productive ends. While that rage initially sustained him, driving him to prove his father wrong about him, he was eventually able to transform it and come to a place of forgiveness through the writing of his book Caged: Memoirs of a Cage-Fighting Poet. “I no longer felt angry at his words or his actions because I began to understand where they came from.” Cameron’s father had also been mistreated. “He was part of the cycle.” While this didn’t excuse his behavior, it helped Cameron see him more objectively. He also recognizes how important his circle was – his mother, his grandparents, and some trusted friends – and how the self-made man myth is just that, a myth. “It may seem like it’s only Georges St. Pierre in the cage, but it’s really his entire team, from his coaches and family to even the country he was raised in.” Cameron recognized that while he worked hard, he had numerous assets. “It all matters.”

From here, it wasn’t a great conceptual leap for Cameron to recognize, as he wrote in Caged, that to an extent, we can control how happy we are, no matter the outside circumstances. “In our everyday lives I think it’s easy for us humans to think we control everything.” We make decisions about our lives – where to go, when to wake up, what to have for dinner – that contribute to the illusion. “But the reality is that much of life is totally outside of our control. Shit happens,” and not necessarily for some higher reason. Once we accept this, we can stop trying to control what’s happening and instead focus on controlling how we respond. “This also ties into the Dalai Lama’s message about using empathy. No matter what is happening in our lives, there is someone, somewhere in a situation just as bad or worse.” We must remember this; remember that we are never alone.

Cameron also fights to spread the word about how our differences as people make us beautiful, that “different is okay.” His travels in the Far East have driven home this concept, as he has had the opportunity to visit Vietnam, the Philippines, Bangladesh, Singapore, Malaysia, Myanmar, and Cambodia from his home base of Thailand. “There are so many different cultures and religious and environments, and it’s all beautiful because it is at once fully connected to everything else and entirely unique.” He votes, uses social media, speaks out, and lives in a manner reflective of this ideal. “There’d be less hatred and wars in the world if we saw each other’s differences not merely as differences but as beautiful and something to learn about and from.”

Cameron has several books forthcoming, all of them poetry. Until You Make the Shore will be released in March 2013 by Salmon Poetry and is about his experiences teaching creative writing to female residents of a Tucson, Arizona juvenile detention center. Chittagong: Poems chronicles his experiences in Bangladesh. And Malaria: Poems is his “quest to make the disease matter,” chronicling his travel to regions suffering from malaria and to meet with experts on the disease.

If you missed it, read part one to learn how Cameron became the Warrior Poet and how MMA saved his life. For more information about Cameron and his projects, visit cameronconaway.com.

The post The Warrior Poet in Action: Poet and MMA Fighter Cameron Conaway, Part 2 appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Wrong, if Cameron Conaway has anything to say about it. Dubbed “The Warrior Poet” by a mentor for his pursuit of both mixed martial arts and expression through the written word, Conaway demonstrates that the values and tools of the warrior and the poet are arguably two sides of the same coin. And he has used these tools in a variety of ways to make a positive impact on the world, as a teacher, a fighter, an author, a speaker, and a human rights advocate.

I had the opportunity to find out from Cameron how he became the Warrior Poet and how he lives this philosophy today.

Cameron’s childhood was less than idyllic, as he endured financial hardship, the challenges of having a father who alternated between being absentee and being abusive, and all the normal issues children and young adults face as they try to learn who they are and want to become. As a teenager, Cameron discovered mixed martial arts, one of the galvanizing influences in his young life, by accident, “walking through the movie rental store looking for porn,” and instead finding a UFC video featuring Ken Shamrock. In his book Caged: Memoirs of a Cage-Fighting Poet, Cameron commented that “Ken was fourteen when Bob (Shamrock, Ken’s adoptive father) rescued him. I was fourteen when Ken’s memoir (Inside the Lion’s Den) rescued me.”

Some fifteen years later, Cameron is still passionate about the sport, claiming it contains all he needs to know. “In a way, the sport filled the gap left by my father. It taught me to be flexible and humble and to strive for well-roundedness.”

Cameron’s childhood experiences also positioned him to take to writing and poetry, given his retreat into his own imagination because of his life circumstances. “I’ve met so many writers with nearly identical stories,” he said. “I was too young and too scared to brazenly confront these issues, so I thought about them and eventually developed a sensitivity to my emotions and the emotions of others.” An introductory poetry class he took in college set the wheels in motion for him to become a writer.

Thus was a fighter-writer, a Warrior Poet forged. To Cameron, the definition goes far beyond his own experiences as a professional MMA fighter and graduate student of poetry. “It’s an awareness of balancing the physical and the mental, of questioning, of not letting bias blind reason.” For him, it is about striking a balance between self-improvement and service to others.

Cameron is retired from MMA, but when he was active, he observed that he was a better fighter when he wrote about it. “To really write a great description of a move or even of an emotional state is to understand it as much as possible.” With every revision of Caged, parts of which he reworked upwards of twenty times, he moved closer to an understanding of what he was trying to convey. “Writing, for me, was the mental equivalent of drilling a move over and over.” Conversely, Cameron also finds that physical health helps him with his writing. “When my diet is solid and I’m in a good rhythm with training, I feel my brain fires quicker and I can get more done in a shorter period of time.”

And others can understand the confluence. Those who appreciate the complexity of MMA are better able to appreciate Cameron’s love of poetry. And “most poets totally get the fighter side of me. I think it’s overlooked how tough and rebellious they are.” Being a poet in this day and age “is an act of utter rebellion against the status quo.” While Cameron finds poets to be more interested in the fighter side of him than vice versa, “one way to bridge the gap is to believe that we all have fights in life. We’re all fighters in one way or another.” Cameron has developed a series on The Good Men Project called “What’s Your Fight?” that speaks to this belief.

More recently, Cameron’s fight has turned to human trafficking. When his fiancée’s professional and personal goals inspired a move abroad, they chose Thailand. In addition to helping him with his writing (“I can think of no better supplement for a writer to take than travel.”), the trip to Thailand stepped up his pre-existing interest in human rights by exposing him to the grim realities of Thailand’s sex trafficking industry. He was inspired to write Never to Be Sold Again, and since then has attended conferences, written articles, and become the Social Justice editor at The Good Men Project. “Fighting for others is my new fight, and it’s a fight that will last a lifetime.”

Read part two of my interview with Cameron to learn other ways he has transformed fighting and poetry into action.

The post The Development of a Warrior Poet: Poet and MMA Fighter Cameron Conaway, Part 1 appeared first on Breaking Muscle.