The Start Of Something

I always enjoyed writing, music, art, and just being open minded and creative. This always bled into my fighting style and early cage entrances. The music and entrance to the fight are both very important to me. Wearing a few different masks in my early career. Even as a kid I would always imagine elaborate storylines for the G.I.Joe men with mismatched and painted parts. G.I. Joe were assembled by a screw in the back of the figure and a rubber band holding the legs and waist while the arms and head fit into the torso. Then I would paint designs onto their faces and bodies. Comic books were another very important part of my childhood and a hobby I kept until I lost my entire collection in Hurricane Katrina. We will get to that story some other time. To writing short stories and poetry throughout my life and in college. Then through the years of playing music in my late teens and early twenties. I was even a body piercer at tattoo shops on and off for almost 8 years. Even worked in a really cool shop that was half tattoos and body piercing and the other half was a custom Harley Davidson shop. That was an eventful time and the shop I worked at when I had my first MMA fight in August of 2002. I stopped though to pursue a career as an MMA fighter. I had something to prove to myself and everyone that I would ever meet. This is why I have endured rough times in many ways to see this fight thing through. I have relied on the generosity of others for places to crash at, bedrooms to borrow and have even slept in the gym a time or three. But through this I have learned to always be kind to people and people will be kind to you. Positivity is more contagious and addicting than any drug I have faced. This creativity I still heavily rely on in my now constantly improving Gi Brazilian Jiu Jitsu game. Keeping an open mind and listening to myself. Being willing to try different things, no matter how odd or different it may seem, has not only greatly improved me as a martial artist but as a human.