Like father, like son. Since we are doing Snap Downs in BJJ this month, here Gunnar explains how to collar drag into Front Head Lock into a Guillotine at the 2004 CSW Camp at the Inosanto Academy in Marina Del Rey. 4 years old growing up on the mat and just playing around is the best way to start your journey. Then when you get in your 50’s just keep doing the same thing. ‘The wise man keeps the heart of a child’ and some of us keep the mind of one as well 😜

Most of us are born tough. We have to be to get through all of life’s battles and fights. From the beginning I ran and pushed the rules. Injury #1, I stuck a screwdriver through my tongue on a slide. Can’t remember how old I was but, it did t stop me from pushing on hard. 

You can’t boil the ocean, so start small. It’s like when learning takedown, submissions and ground & pound. Don’t start with big people that can beat you…start with small children and build your confidence 😁 Life Hacks!

A little Whiteboard wisdom: you can have everything laid out for you, all the instructions spelled out, even have great instructors showing you the way but, if you are not willing to use all that has been laid out, spelled out, explained and taught to you… Good Luck! I’ve been on both sides of this, still am in some areas. As a coach I show what I know, and what has worked well in the past for others. However, the worker has to do the work, not only that, they have to figure stuff out on their own. I am still trying to do both, the work that I need to do and figure stuff out. Unfortunately, I use the ‘figure stuff out’ excuse to not do some work I need to be doing. Life’s a fight, fight back!

Ups and Downs, good and bad, happy and sad, mountain tops and deep dark valleys, wins and losses, dreams and despair… this is what life is made up of and everyone has to deal with them. If you have to cry, cry hard. If you have to scream, scream loud. If you need to fight, fight with everything you got. If you need help, get the best help you can. But, just NEVER GIVE UP! I can tell you the worst things in my life, which I still have residual effects 16 years after, guess what, I am healthier, happier and have more energy than now than I did a couple years ago. The battles will come and go, some big, many small. Just know you are never alone and NEVER GIVE UP! 

Mistakes are made, we do dumb stuff, do more than we can handle, ‘good ideas’ backfire, things go wrong…Live and learn! Sometimes the lessons are really painful, they may take a while to figure out. Never allow a fixable problem, a mistake that you can recover from, anything that you can survive to take you out of the fight. Take your lumps and then get up and get after it. Never Give Up!

Some feel that certain techniques are “cheap shots.” There was a time when leg locks were ‘cheap’ or when you take a wrist lock… nonsense! Now, in a self defense situation there is no such thing. Context is everything in everything. Whenever I hear someone say, “That was cheap!” I always say, “A cheap shot is a great deal” and smile. Now, don’t be an asshole, or malicious, unless it is necessary, and you better know when it’s necessary. However, when you see an opportunity, take it! Some people don’t want to jump on an opportunity before someone else because they think it’s a ‘cheap shot’. Go back to the asshole rule. If they don’t act and you do that is not a cheap shot and you are not an asshole. So, son, a cheap shot is a great deal. Take’m when you can!

Training hard and pushing yourself day in and day out is the secret to being mentally and physically tough. There is no secret pill and no hacks to make things easy. Hard training is hard! You get tired from training and purposefully push yourself to the edge. It builds heart, a tough mind and a willingness to push through perceived limits. But, if you don’t build that heart and you get tired in a fight, your opponent will feel it, see it and keep attacking to break you… and that is bad, bad, bad!

I’ve always been active and training, pushing boundaries and testing myself. However, I’ve have never been tested so much as when I was battling cancer. Now, looking back I was training hard but, I was not sleeping enough, wasn’t eating as well as I could have, always on the go burning the candle at both ends and the middle was melting. The same mental and physical toughness that I developed to push my limits to become stronger may have played a part in my eventual cancer. However, that mental and physical toughness allowed me to never give up when I was at my weakest and frailest, crawling through the valley of death. Now, I am still training, but I sleep, eat healthy, do things to develop my energy and well being, focus on health and happiness, live life like I love it, with excitement and enthusiasm. Believe me, everything is easier after fighting for my life and now living a lifestyle to be energized, healthy, happy, have a positive mental outlook with overall well being.

Pretty simple. The more you push yourself in realistic training the tougher you become. The tougher you become the more you push through in training. Victory favors the Tough and Trained!