Be an asset.

Do not be the reason somebody does not make it home to their loved ones. If you are unwilling to prepare for the mental and physical rigors of a violent profession on a daily basis. You are a risk and liability to those who depend on your preparedness.

If you haven’t already noticed the theme in my recent posts. Time management has been a heavy focus of mine lately. Building a better daily routine to accommodate family, work, jiu jitsu and strength training. All time consuming endeavors if done correctly.

My goal has been to trim the fat off my life. Cut away the unnecessary and time stealing activities. Let me be clear that these are not sacrifices. We are talking about things that in your death bed will be meaningless. If I don’t get to binge watch a Netflix series every night. I am pretty confident that I won’t die or miss out on too much.

You will find that if you dedicate time to pursuing only things that make your life better. Your life will get better. It’s weird how that works out in that way.

I watched an interview with a guy who did the CrossFit “Murph” workout everyday for a year. He was a regular guy, had a wife, couple of kids, and a job but decided to dedicate an hour a day into grinding out this workout.

You know what one of his biggest takeaways was after a year? How much unnecessary time he was wasting on unimportant things. He had to do this hour long brutal workout everyday, and spend time with his family. He still wanted to be a husband and father, so cut out the insignificant activities.

So after a month off for an injury to my back. I went back to jiu jitsu last night for 2.5 hours of training. Brutal, painful and absolutely amazing! Two classes. An hour of drilling fundamental techniques, plus an 1.5 hours of drilling submissions and positioning…

So after a month off for an injury to my back. I went back to jiu jitsu last night for 2.5 hours of training. Brutal, painful and absolutely amazing! Two classes. An hour of drilling fundamental techniques, plus an 1.5 hours of drilling submissions and positioning rolling.

As men, we forget how bad sometimes that we need to work out aggression. A controlled environment of violence to have our egos checked, and abilities put to the test. It is a great way to self-assess ourselves. Evaluate strengths and weaknesses.

We have to test ourselves continuous, push the limits of our training. A real self defense situation is not the place to find out how gas you have in the tank, or the effectiveness of your technique. Fail in the gym where the worst consequence is being submitted, not critically injured or dead.

I have stressed this heavily to the women in my life. They are typically the biggest targets in parking lot attacks. Women are extremely vulnerable while putting groceries in the trunk, or fighting an angry kid into a car seat. Typically, they have their back to public not looking at who is around the vehicle. Easy ambush targets with the added stress factor of having a child present. They are overwhelmed by these fast attacks.

The same mindset must be applied to your jiu jitsu, wrestling, boxing, Muay Thai, or other form of combat sports. You have to spar with gloves and head gear. Strike a moving target, defend against strikes, work stand up and takedowns, and defend against being taken down.

You have to fight on the ground while striking and defending against strikes. It changes your defense and attack options. It highlight weaknesses.

There are a lot fancy moves in jiu jitsu that work great at ADCC, but will get your head kicked in on a bar floor.

If you conceal carry but never train drawing your pistol from a conceal holster. You are not doing yourself any favors in a self defense situation. You’re not walking around with a gun belt on, or casually hanging out with your gun on a table.

A little bit of dry firing goes a long ways.

Push-up Test.

Army ACFT Hand Release Push-up

As many Hand Release Pushups in two minutes.

Still doing hanging leg raises x100 reps every day! Essential chores! Somedays it sucks, somedays it sucks less, but still slugging it out!

Pick a physical task to do 100 reps everyday. An area you need to improve on with something that can done without hindering your normal workouts. I’ve done upright rows with just the barbell or a band, shrugs, sit-ups, leg lifts. A lot of options out there.

It becomes something more than just a workout. It’s a must do task now.