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I’m Sorry & How Can I Help?
I read a fascinating article the other week.
I’d suggest you read it too, but I’m not sure it’s available at the moment.
Because, as you might have heard, Road & Track, as a part of a program sponsored by an energy company, sent a freelance, millennial, socialist journalist named Kate Wagner on a first-class F1 junket to Austin, TX.
Given how blindingly obvious it was that she’d come out guns ablazin’, (and she did,) that Road & Track was surprised with the results proves that no one was paying the slightest bit of attention.
Once they figured out what they’d done, they pulled the article as if it had never existed.
Thankfully, it was saved as a .pdf, and I got to read it.
One line stuck with me, as I’d said it recently to Jessie, with respect to someone with whom I’ve got beef:
“They’d rather be right than happy.”In the case of the R&T article, the writer said it about herself.
Lately, I’ve found it harder and harder to be around people who have a low opinion of me.
People who insult me, or drag me down.
It’s exhausting, building up all this positive energy, only to have to rebuild it again, once someone has thrown all their punches in my direction.
My wife and I teach our children: if you’ve said or done something to offend a loved one, you apologize, take responsiblity, and move on.
It’s Sesame-Street-level human decency.
(Though I do hate that fucking Elmo. Larry David was right.)
Treat people well, and if you slip up, because you’re having a bad day, or there was a misunderstanding, then say sorry.
That’s it.
But some people see apologies as weakness, and simply refuse.
It’s what drives all those Trumpers.
The pole is slanted, AND the road is sloped. Both things can be true. Simultaneously, another person in my life with whom I have beef, said some really unkind things on my birthday.
Called me “crazy,” and implied I was a failure, because I hadn’t become rich as a photographer.
Never mind two other people, in the last week, confided with me they’d left the field as well, things were so bad.
No, I was a disappointment.
When I asked for an apology, for saying such unkind things on such an important day, I was called “disturbed,” and a “pussy.”
(Not making this up.)
What could be more Trumper than refusing to apologize?
Probably calling them a “pussy.”
Here’s an idea.
How about when someone admits they’re having trouble, instead of telling them what they did wrong, asking “How can I help?”
Really, be honest.
How many times has someone said to you, “How can I help,” when you really needed help?
Not when someone waited for you to come begging.
Or watched you suffer, from a bemused distance.
But actually noted you needed help, and took it upon themselves to offer, out of the goodness of their hearts?
Anyway…
…as my kids like to say, in conclusion, if you’re not prepared to accept another person’s reality, their feelings, how they see things, without resorting to calling them mentally ill…
You might be a Trumper.
Learn to apologize.
Offer to help.You’ll be happier.
I promise.
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Secret Recipe: Eggplant Parmesan Lasagne
I turned 50 yesterday.
(You might have heard.)
I kept the celebration tight: just my wife, kids, dogs, and jiu jitsu community.
And as I don’t trust the crappy, over-priced Taos restaurants, and I enlisted Theo to cook twice over the weekend…
…I was in charge of my 50th Birthday dinner.
What to make?
Lasagne is not only a crowd-pleaser, but as it’s somewhat labor intensive, it also feels celebratory.
I did one six weeks ago, in deep Winter, with an Italian sausage sauce as the base.
Too heavy for early March.
Then the idea hit me: what about those pretty eggplants you bought?
What if?
What if I made fried eggplant, for eggplant parmesan, and then inserted it as a layer, WITHIN the lasagne?
Wouldn’t that essentially be two superstar dishes in one?
Yes.
Yes, it would.
And it was insanely delicious!
Here we go:
The fried eggplant
Wash and thinly slice one eggplant. Lightly salt and pepper the slices, then set aside. Once they sweat, (release moisture,) lightly pat down with a paper towel.
Set out three plates, one with all purpose flour, one with two beaten eggs, and the other with seasoned breadcrumbs. Then lightly season the flour and egg plates with salt and pepper.
Heat a cast iron skillet, add olive oil, and then dredge the eggplant.
First, pat it fully in flour, then coat in egg, then pat in the bread crumbs, before depositing in the hot oil skillet.
Flip each slice when it’s nice and brown, and then remove onto cutting boards or plates covered with paper towels. (To absorb the oil.)
The marinara sauce
The key here is lots of fresh vegetables, and two kinds of roasted chile.
Start by sautéing and seasoning on onion, then add in four diced cloves of garlic.
Continue to stir, and then add two sliced celery stalks, two sliced carrots, six large tomatoes on the vine, 12-15 small cherry tomatoes, and a handful of baby spinach.
One can of Cento tomatoes, four T of tomato paste, two NM roasted green chiles, one roasted poblano pepper, and then lime juice, mild paprika, sugar, honey, balsamic vinegar, white balsamic vinegar, parmesan cheese, and asiago cheese.
Blend with an immersion blender, once it’s been cooking for 20 minutes, and season to your liking.
Remember though: the sauce needs to be SUPER-FLAVORFUL to stand up to the cheese and fried eggplant.
The Pasta
I used Barilla, and it was great.
The Cheese
Galbani ricotta and chunk mozzarella
The Lasagne
Time to assemble.
I cook the noodles while I’m assembling, just dropping them into salted boiling water for about 1 min or so.
So in a large casserole pan, I made a layer of sauce, then a layer of noodles.
Then a full layer of ricotta, and a light layer of sauce.
Then the eggplant layer, grated parmesan, and a light layer of sauce.
Then another layer of noodles, a thick layer of sauce, and then the grated mozzarella.
Cracked black pepper on top, a grated layer of parmesan when it comes out of the oven, (about an hour at 350-375,) and you’re set to jet.
It was ridiculously good, and all four of us ate like royalty last night, so I hope you give it a go.
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Change is Constant in 2024
The View West, driving home from BJJ training the other night, Taos A robot car got attacked in San Francisco the other day.
Set on fire by an angry mob.
(With fireworks as the incendiary device.)
Each day, AI coders write code that, if successful, will render their jobs obsolete.
(The AI will eventually write its own code.)
Not to mention, media companies are hemmorhaging jobs like nobody’s business.
Day after day, journalists are getting the pink slip; waking up to the reality that there are no longer enough jobs to support the existing pool of applicants.
Much as the fine art photographers realized, in the last five or six years, that there were no longer enough people buying prints to support the gallery industry.
(In an ironic twist, the demographic that used to buy art photography now makes its own art photographs and hangs them on the wall.)
I felt the wrath of both trends, the cutting of artists and journalists, and as I was actually covering our industry, I read the tea leaves sooner than others.
And had to find another career.
You know this, if you’ve been reading Sunshine and Olly since its inception, nearly a year ago.
Few things are harder on a man than not being able make a decent living anymore.
Times may change, but that feeling is ALWAYS super-awful.
I imagine it extends to all other gender incarnations too, but as I’m only supposed to speak to my own experience in 2024, (lol,) I hesitate to speculate.
Rather, I’ll stick to my own script, and tell you that I intentionally picked a job that AI couldn’t do.
Now that I’m training trauma survivors, and older people, in MMA for healing and health, it’s a skill set no robot can do.
Martial Arts, with its grounding in the mind, body, and spirit, allows me to teach and connect with my students on the deepest levels possible.
To change lives, dramatically.
And I have!
But it also means I exercise all the time now, and have a dark dance with protein.
I can never get enough, and it’s super-expensive, but also, you have to be very careful what you put in your gut these days.
Our gut is a second brain, all the current science says, and given how hard BJJ is, you really can’t do it with unhappy innards.
Other guys I train with are in construction.
Electricians.
Because it seems we’re returning to the old days, where men are expected to make a living with our bodies again.
I get to use my mind and spirit too, thankfully, but the demands of the muscles are real.
(Which is why all the top people have saunas/cold tubs.)
Not sure today’s musings have a clear landing point, beyond the fact that change is a-plenty here in 2024.
So we best pay attention to the seismic trends.
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The Israel-Hamas War is a lose-Lose for everyone
Finishing up a 2.5 hour MMA training session on Saturday with my Sifu, Lawrence Martinez
I got a really nice email yesterday.
(Surprising, as it doesn’t happen that often.)
A photographer reached out to check in; one whom I’d met at a festival five years ago.
Not unlike when Stan wrote to me recently, prompting a column, this time, I also decided to respond via blog post, so I could share the thoughts with everyone.
Why?
Because the photographer admitted to double-checking her email inbox, wondering whether I’d written my take on the Israel-Hamas clusterfuck yet.
(I hadn’t.)
This photographer, though, correctly surmised I’d been thinking constantly about how, and whether to address the subject, but had not yet found the words.
Now I have, so here they are.
Israel and Hamas are both very, very wrong, and they’re bringing all of humanity to the brink of cataclysm.
It is beyond fucked up.
Two historically-disenfranchised-cultures are pitted against each other, mainly because both societies have been overtaken by extreme elements from within.
(It’s a classic example of how much damage right-wingers can do, when they seize the levers of political power.)
But I should probably dive a bit deeper than just saying both sides are wrong.
First off, as a Jewish-American, I felt horrified when I opened Twitter up on Saturday morning, October 7th.
Reality being what it is, I didn’t trust Twitter anymore, so I went directly to the NYT homepage, which confirmed the ongoing terrorist attack.
Such an awful situation, knowing Jews were being actively raped and slaughtered, but it was only the beginning.
Fight theory tells us it was a classic bait.
Hamas wanted to create a War, and so they have.
They’re an extremist Islamist political organization, masquerading as anti-Colonialist Don Quixotes, but as with all things in the 21st Century, it’s so complicated that even Hamas is not entirely wrong.
Because what Israel has done in the West Bank, (actively colonizing land for settlements that obviously will be a part of Palestine in any 2-state solution,) is just as extreme.
The most traditional of Jews believe the land is theirs by religious right.
Just as the most traditional of Evangelical Christians in America believe the same land will ultimately be THEIRS, once Jesus comes back during the Rapture to kill all the infidels, and lead to a new kingdom of heaven on Earth.
(Pause.)
You read that right.
As much as Jews are the current enemy of everyone, (sadly,) Israel’s biggest supporters in American politics are not the Katzenbergs and Geffens of the world, but the 30% of America that’s rooting for the Rapture, and voting for Trump.
But you don’t read much about that, do you?
Let’s just say this out loud:
Palestinians deserve a country. They can’t stay stateless forever, anymore than the Jews could after the Holocaust.
But Hamas isn’t it.
You can’t make peace with an organization that is determined to wipe you off the face of the Earth.
Fuck those guys.
(They hate me, I’ll hate them right back.)
But bombing children for months on end, just because Hamas is callous enough to have created that strategy?
Colossally stupid, morally reprehensible, and perhaps nasty enough to kick off World War III.
Be better, Israel!
True story.
At a Thai dinner in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, circa 2003, I broke down the endless cycle of violence between Israel/Palestine with a German friend, and predicted that ultimately, some UN-type, multi-national force would likely have to police Palestine for some period, to get Israel out, but guarantee a new terrorist state would not emerge on its borders.
Seems like the prediction wasn’t far off, as someone will have to rebuild Gaza.
But that can only happen once Israel stands down.
Bibi, stand the fuck down, and then take your medicine and let them vote you out.
You gigantic Asshole!
Let’s not stop there, though.
To all the young, Millennial and Gen Z Americans who are so enmeshed in Tribalism as to feel smug in hating Jews… Fuck you too!
Grow a brain, and learn some history.
(If you come for me, I’ll come for you right back.)
You dumb, dumb motherfuckers.
There are two sides to every story.
A progressive Duke History professor changed my life in 1993, and opened my eyes to humanistic liberalism.
Do your homework, kids. Fire up the Google.
The information is out there.
Hurt people hurt people, and Israel has made some horrifying blunders.
So yes, this iteration of an Israeli government is terrible, but there are still less Jews in the world than there were before Hitler killed 6 million of us.
80 years later, and we still haven’t caught up.
Furthermore, left-wing-zealots have killed just as many people, and been just as evil, as Pol Pot, Mao and Stalin will attest.
So if you want to act like an Ivy-League-Leftist-Nazi, and call for the Genocide of the world’s remaining Jews from behind the safety of your fellow college students at a big protest, instead, please come say it to my face.
Please.
(See how that works out for you.)
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Yin and Yang Rule The World
Jessie and the dogs on a walk this week
Yin and Yang are inseparable.
Conjoined opposites.
(Like Sunshine and Olly.)
I’ve had this conversation a few times the past week with some of my students.
The way it works is, when martial artists are first building themselves up, they need lots of Yin work to slowly activate the muscles, and fire up the body’s innate coordination.
(Yoga, Qi Gong, seated meditation, stretching, calisthenics.)
But once they’re strong enough for the Yang work, the proper fighting, (punching, kicking, knees, elbows, grappling, chokes, etc…) they never want to spend time on the Yin anymore.
The Yang stuff is THAT fun.
We all learn, though, too much Yang, and you burn out. Or get injured all the time.
Only with steady practice over many years do we develop our own balance, so we stay limber enough to be max-level-strong.
We need to continue to train our Yin, in order to enhance our Yang.
The water is required to help the fire go.
(Taoism is deep, bro.)
Catch you next time.
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Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?
On the podium for my NAGA silver medal in early December. (Photo by Amelie, who also got a silver. Her grandmother died the week before.)
Today is a national holiday in America, but I’m working later.
I’m down with honoring Dr Martin Luther King Jr, but have commitments, and aim to be there.
My life no longer revolves around the weekly deadline of an opinion-based photography column, nor consulting about photo books via Zoom, but these days, people IRL depend on me.
I have a regular Monday appointment, and am not rescheduling for the good Dr.
(Will definitely take a moment to think about him, though. Big ups for all you did for America!)
By now, if you’re reading this, you’ll likely remember I haven’t blogged for a very long time.
No emails have turned up in your inbox, nor reminders on social media to go check out my musings.
For the better part of 11 years, my life was defined by sharing thoughts, (and vitally personal details) about my life, with a global internet audience, every week, come rain or snow.
Having a weekly, public diary on APE was my primary artistic outlet, which went a long way towards whatever self-care I was afforded, in that decade+ phase.
Sharing, and at times over-sharing, was required, in order to outboard my stress, and process my life experiences.
In short, I was overly reliant on it, and once I left the industry at the beginning of last year, of course I started Sunshine and Olly to make sure the writing/blogging/public journaling outlet was available to me.
Bit by bit, though, as 2023 unspooled, I found myself taking less and less solace in this process.
Denied the large audience my bigger platforms once afforded, (The New York Times is as big as they come,) I began to question for whom I was writing anymore?
More importantly, I questioned whether I really needed approval from an amorphous, digital audience anyway?
(Especially at a time when it was CRYSTAL clear that swaths of the readership now considered me an old, cis, white-guy-Jew, of low status, rendering my opinions less valuable.)
Once, I craved the approval.
Sure.
I know that.
But 2023 pushed me so hard, in so many ways, to figure out my shit, that I’m actually healthy for the first time ever.
Fit, strong, and helping other people get that way, via one of the other passions I developed the past 10 years: martial arts.
I talk with my clients about how important it is to diversify our stress outlets, so we’re not overly reliant on any one at a given time.
2023 taught me the more I invested in getting my body right, to help my mind and heart, the better off I was.
Creative practice is vital, but if we put too much on it, and don’t develop concomitant stress/health outlets, the pressure degrades creativity.
Not good.
If I write here now, it’s because I feel compelled.
Because I have a damn good reason.
Because something of significance happens, that’s worth processing, or sharing.
In this case, right before my hiatus, (and trust me, LOTS of big things have happened since I went dark,) I wrote a piece about the value of the check-in.
How powerful it can be to let someone know you care.
Sure enough, last week, I got a (somewhat cryptic) email from Stan Banos, my most faithful reader over all the years. (Beyond my wife, of course.)
Because I’d gone dark on the blog, Stan wanted to see if I was OK?
Because he cares.
Oh man, what a lovely gesture. Thanks so much!
So here’s to you, Stan. If every now and again, I get a bug up my ass to write about something, (or someone,) at least I know you’re out there.
Paying attention.
Reading along.
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Making Moves.
Couple selfie, right after signing the lease. Jessie and I are making moves.
Yesterday, we signed a lease on a new mixed-use studio in the heart of Taos.
An A+ location, with parking and views of Taos Mountain.
She’ll use it for her therapy practice, and to teach dance, and Hip Hop Yoga.
I’ll use it to teach mixed martial arts, Yoga, Qi Gong, and as a photo studio.
To think how much has changed since I started Sunshine and Olly!
I have to check the dates, but it was almost exactly when I began training in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, which was itself a directive from my Jeet Kune Do Sifu, Lawrence Martinez.
The big man told me I couldn’t be a JKD instructor unless I studied BJJ to the point I could approach a Blue Belt level. (As a refresher, JKD is Bruce Lee’s mixed marital art.)
I put my head down, suffered a lot, and as you know, late this summer he gave me the instructor certificate. (Having proven I was sufficiently serious about grappling to track towards the Blue Belt.)
Now it’s mid-November, and as I wrote the other day, I’ve gotten the second stripe on my White Belt. Furthermore, I’m going to compete in NAGA, for the first time, in early December. (Having trained for 10 months straight.) On Saturday, in my first comp training match, I got a big win, both on points, and with two submissions.
The promotion, 3 weeks ago Today’s blog is about what can happen when you stay open, read the tea leaves, be willing to take risks, and persevere.
Anyone who’s read from the jump knows how unhappy I was in February.
It’s there in the archive.
(And while I might like to have more opportunities at present in the photo world, they’re not there, so it is what it is.)
Thankfully, having done some very hard work, my family and I are embarking on an exciting new journey.
We feel ready.
If I did it, you can too.
Obviously, I’ll write more about the new venture as we officially launch in 2024, but for today, I just wanted to share some good news.
For a change.
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The Power of the Check-In
Quick late-morning walk “Hi, how are you?”
Such powerful words.
The key to any good check-in message.
Of course, you could always go with “How’s it going?”
Or “What’s up?”
Regardless, the concept is the same.
You think of someone, then send them a text to let them know you care. That you’re curious what’s been going on in their lives.
So you take the time to ask. You express interest, and start a conversation.
Study after study shows how valuable this simple little action can be, yet so few people actually do it.
Now, I know how effective the check-in can be, because I used it for years. Looking in on, and after, people helped me build a solid, global network in the photo industry.
But during the early stages of the pandemic, as the stress was high, I decided to see what would happen if I stopped checking in on certain friends.
Ones with whom the friendship seemed one-sided.
Deep down, I knew I’d done all the outreach, all the time. So let’s test it, I thought.
Sure enough, with certain of those people, (and 2 for 2 on the first experiment,) I never heard from them again.
Poof!
The friendship was gone, all because I dropped the rope.
This year, as I’ve transitioned out of the photo world, (for lack of work,) I decided to stop checking on on certain people again.
Focus on my own life, and see how many people cared to check in on me.
Sad truth, not very many.
But because I’ve been working so hard to embrace this new life, new teaching path, new body, and new martial art, (BJJ,) my family and I are charging into the future.
That’s now, thankfully.
Earlier in the year, however, as the Sunshine and Olly archive attests, I was miserable.
Lonely.
Unhealthy.
Lacking community.Now I’m 40 lbs lighter, ripped, and just got my White Belt second stripe in jiu jitsu.
Sure, it hurts my feelings sometimes, knowing once I stopped doing the work, certain relationships fell by the wayside.
But it’s hard to build a new life while clinging to the vestiges of the old.
Onward.
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World Wars Start at Times Like This
Olly, Sunshine and Haley Here I am again.
Are you there?
Not sure I have an audience at the moment, but it’s all good.
As promised, I’m using Sunshine and Olly as a proper blog: a written diary of my thoughts and ideas, but (hopefully) coherent in a way that makes them interesting to you.
(Should you exist.)
Therefore, consider this a trigger warning, as I’m working through some major issues, and they will seem scary.
Right now, we’re about as close to World War III as we’ve been in a long time.
(Likely in my lifetime, but certainly since the degradation of the Soviet Union in the 1980’s.)
Even then, the US and the USSR had settled into a comfortable, detente situation, b/c of the theory of MAD.
Mutually Assured Destruction, due to equal-enough nuclear capabilities.
That was way later in its respective century, though. (The 20th, as opposed to our 21st.)
Better historical parallels to our time are comparable years in the 20th Century.
A massive pandemic, after World War I, in the teens, in the lead up to the Great Depression and World War II.
Unfortunately, my main man Barack Obama actually kicked this off back in 2012, when he backed out of his Red Line comments in Syria over chemical weapon use, then left the country to Putin.
He also let Vlad take Crimea and Donbas from Ukraine in 2014, with no significant pushback.
Yes, it was 10 years ago, but a lifetime dictator has the benefit of patience.
Putin’s 2022 War in Ukraine was his follow up move, once he realized he now had the power to fully destabilize the world, and engage in a proxy war with the US and Europe.
The second domino to fall was Nagorno-Karabakh, the autonomous Armenian enclave in Azerbaijan, which was taken by force back in September.
Russia normally supported Armenia, but distracted in Ukraine, they let it happen, as Turkey is the regional superpower backing the Azeris.
Domino 3 is personal to me, for obvious reasons, when Iran attacked Israel by proxy, via Hamas on October 7th.
I, like most American Jews, despise the apartheid occupation in the West Bank, and support some sort of a 2-state-solution.
I also think Hamas committing human atrocities against fellow Jews, in the name of terrorizing the world, is a world class dick move.
I hate those guys.
But this was really Iran testing America, through its alliance with Israel.
An obvious axis has emerged in the world: China, Russia, Iran, North Korea.
They mean business, and have encouraged or supported territorial aggression in places like Central Africa and Yemen.
If China takes the opportunity to jump in further, (by taking Taiwan,) as Iran has done, and continues to do by pushing War in Lebanon, the world is truly fucked.
We can only hope Xi Jinping shows restraint.
But the other side of that axis is the US, Europe, Canada, Australia, Japan, and likely Saudi Arabia. (India is wishful thinking.)
Xi and Putin have made great strides in Latin America and Africa, by playing off of legitimate gripes against the Colonialist West.
Much of the world is not rooting for US, and India and Canada are openly tussling, making an Anti-axis less stable.
In fighting, as in War, a distracted, weakened opponent is seen as an opportunity.
China knows this.
Hell, their society practically wrote the book, via Sun Tzu.
Which is why I’m concerned.
We should all be.
Time to pray for peace, and hope the US and Europe can show enough fang to represent the Democratic world, and keep the autocrats from making any more major moves.
(Fingers crossed.)
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Getting Healthy Breeds Success
Let’s see if this works.
I just went for a walk with Jessie, and wouldn’t you know it, but I took one photo of a green tree, against a yellow one, and then the blue sky.
I wasn’t thinking it might be the one photo that allowed me to blog today.
But here we are.
(A promise is a promise.)
Right now, I’m looking out the windows at the various colored leaves.
This week has been the most beautiful of the year.
75 degree days.
Perfect blue skies.
The occasional breeze to kiss your face, at just the right moments.
Part of how I’ve gotten to this place, (being the happiest, healthiest and fittest of my life,) is realizing it requires an all of the above strategy.
Exercise
Sleep
Proper diet
Community
Family
Creativity
Removal of toxic relationships
Going with the flow
Expressing Gratitude
Time in nature
Canine companionship
LearningIt’s a foundational approach, and if you’re not using all your tools, (or at least experimenting with them,) it’s hard to optimize.
For example, this was a breakthrough week for me in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.
On Monday, I got my first, proper seminal moment. (And another on Tuesday too.)
When I had my first tap-outs, and first properly controlled match, they were both against teenagers.
Strong-ish teenagers, true, but still teenagers.
As I approached the dojo on Monday, getting there 30 min early for a stretch, I was very present, and noticed a guy walking in just before me, (he didn’t know I was there,) and though I only met him once, he’d been something of an antagonist.
And older gentleman, in his 60’s, probably, but the first time we rolled, he knew a technique I didn’t, and after a proper battle, he eked out a win.
Dude was strong, and had skill.
He looked at me and said, “I thought you’d gas out. Old guys always gas out.”
(A backhanded compliment if ever there were one.)
I’m sure steam came out of my ears, but I just smiled and walked away.
That night, there were promotions, and this guy, whom I’d never even seen in the dojo, got promoted to his second stripe White Belt.
(Apparently, he’d had health issues, which was why we he hadn’t been around.)
I want my second stripe, so that ground salt into the wound, but I just smiled, and that was that.
Monday evening, though, it was perfect weather, and I really didn’t want to be crammed into the stretching area with this guy.
We met once, he barely beat me, and was a proper dick about it.
So I stood still in the parking lot, took a breath, then another, and looked around.
It was so fucking beautiful.
The Taos Eco Park, with a great walking track, was just a three minute drive away.
So I turned on the spot, went back to the car, and ended up having 15 minutes of walking meditation, soaking up every second of the blue sky, the sun on my face, and the amazing light against Taos Mountain.
Then, I drove back to the dojo, feeling refreshed, with a calm, regular breathing pattern, which I was able to keep through class.
Wouldn’t you know it, but I ended up fighting the gentleman again, and we hadn’t so much as nodded to each other during class.
I was working from guard, and as I calmly looked up at him, he was snarling through his mouth guard, giving 100 percent effort in trying to crunch my entire frame into itself.
I opened my guard, brought my knees inside his chest, and before I knew what I was doing, I rolled my knee to a leg, and then pressed my right foot directly into his chest, as he crunched my body into itself.
He pressured so hard that he leaned forward, and in a flash, I hurled him over and behind me, literally kicking him into the sky, and he tumbled to the ground, when I quickly rose up and crushed him in side control.
My biggest win ever, by a big margin.
Even better, after class, he came up to me smiling, complimented my jiu jitsu, and asked if I’d show him the move I’d utilized.
8.5 months of grueling training, getting my ass kicked over and over, all the humbling, the sweat.
The injuries.
In that moment, it came flooding into my system as dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin too.
Fuck, it felt amazing!
But if I hadn’t been in a good enough frame of mind to choose walking in the sun, and fresh air, instead of jamming myself into an airless loft, with an antagonist, just because I was inflexible?
The win never would have happened.
I needed to be properly relaxed to succeed.
So there’s the lesson for the day.
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Sunshine and Olly 