if you won't get better around here, that's a good place to go You're not gonna find any place better And I also have a little bit, I've done a little bit of mixed martial arts Myself, I had this cool, I guess the coolest experience I can tell you about was I had just lost a bunch of weight when I quit powerlifting I went from 370 pounds, you heard me right, 370 pounds Down to 235 pounds, it was probably not much less or much more than about a year I did that, it was crazy, it wasn't smart, it wasn't the wisest thing I've done But sometimes you reach a point in your life where you've got to radically change things To stay sane, that's one thing I did in this part of my life Fuck it, I'm gonna strip all this weight off, I'm tired of being this overly heavy, strong But ridiculously heavy guy in ill-fitting clothes I used to wear fucking cargo shorts and a polo short When I was in grad school, that was like my... That was my formal attire, how did the presentation in class, or for a class I was teaching or taking or whatever That had to look kinda presentable, that's what I would do I'd wear a polo shirt, like a triple X polo shirt, cheap ass polo shirt for all, maybe And some ill-fitting baguettes I don't know if I ever did cargo in a camouflage pattern, but I might have And I might have done it with sandals, so just bear with me, it was a long time ago I'll admit this to you now, cause I don't have any shame about it I'm sure you've done some embarrassing shit, don't ride me too hard But yeah, that was... I just was tired of that, I was tired of not... Imagine approaching a girl when you weigh 370 pounds in a bar And you're sweaty and puffy-faced, and you know... It really does look like a big fat ass, but just a huge person, that's what I was And it's hard to break through those barriers, it's hard to have anybody look at you as if you're anything less than just a jot fucking meathead all the time So I got tired of it, I dropped the weight, I ended up settling pretty quickly into about 250 pound range And I'm gonna get a little bit of strength back, a little bit of my athleticism back And I was cursed with back pain when I lost that weight, cause my spine was so destabilized It takes some time, if you ever lose a big batch of weight, you gotta give your body some time to adjust to that Cause all your leverages change so much, it's so unrealistic to expect yourself to retain all the strength When you drop even like 10 or 15 pounds, it's natural, it's normal After a month even, it'll settle back down, you'll be fine, but give yourself patience, trust me I got back into 250 and I felt like competing in something again, I felt a little good, so I went and did the, at the Arnold Classic in Columbus, Ohio Did the Naga submission wrestling tournament, as a open heavy weight, I think it was like 250 and up So I was just heavy enough to wrestle all the biggest dudes in competing in this event, of which I ended up wrestling three Making it to the championship around, but I'll tell you about that in a minute, like as Naga stands for, let me get ahead of myself I think it's North American grappling association, maybe of America, something like that It's kind of like Jiu Jitsu basically, it has submission work It's got a, and this open novice division is kind of non-threatening, if you're interested in it If you ever have only these meats close to you, if you're a girl or a guy, it doesn't really matter, it's fun if you're into it Give it a go, or go watch it, it's fun, just let a good young athlete to these things This huge expo haul, on the mixed martial arts side, there's got to be like 10,000 people on it tonight It's pretty wild, I was pretty nervous about it, so the first fight I had was against a giant guy, he was like 6'4, 6'5 It looked like an NFL offensive tackle, and I was like, holy shit I'm gonna get a wrestle with a 300 pound dude, I don't know what I'm doing, this could go bad And I guess it almost could have, he came at me pretty hard, I kind of tripped him up Got on top of him and put my forearm right around his forehead, like back of his head Which is not very efficient at all, to choke somebody out, I did this anyway And I squeezed his head into my chest, with everything I had to the guy just couldn't take it About 30 seconds later, he just tapped out and quit That's success, I was exhausted, I was like, oh, hey, hey, maybe I can actually do this Because that guy was much better, I ended up going overtime with him Winning on points somehow, he was much better than me, but I sneaked out of that And the process got just completely demolished, metabolically That is the hardest thing I've ever done, and then I had still, after that, the price of winning was that I had to go into the championship round Which is against this even gigantic er dude, who was at least 100 pounds over my way He had to be at least 350, if he was 400, I would not be surprised, giant giant guy Anyway, lock up for the championship, for the gold medal And he sort of tucks my head down and I dive, and he just kind of gets his weight on top of me, I fall down, there he is on top of me It's kind of like, no matter what you do in that position, no matter what you do If you've got a big fat guy on top of you, I tell people this all the time, it's like, you're pushing up into like 300 pounds of wet blankets You can't hit, you never feel any bone tissue that you can make contact with and actually move his body away It's just like pushing a bunch of flapjacks off of you, when you get one off the other one lays on you, there's no escape, but I finally did escape And got over the top of this guy, and then the same move, did a round the forehead move, or on this cheek and just squeeze, squeeze, squeeze This time I was like for a minute straight, and I was just by the end of that, which is dead I ended up losing that match on points, and failing to take the advice of my, the days Jiu Jitsu coach, who told me, you know, really all I had to do was make a little, make a little pointed, like a little Take my pointer finger, bend it, and then use that knuckle and kind of