I want to take a moment to be honest. I was not always in this good of shape. I was always physically active. But I am a totally different person that I was 5 years ago. A lot of choices made an impact in my life.
I want to thank everybody that made an impact in my life. I took the last few days to thank everybody.
Do you know what they did? They helped me make the best decisions in my life. They were role models. They went above and beyond the call of duty when there was nothing in it for them.
I spent all of my high school years and 2 years after that working on perfecting a method. I developed this system. Trust me, it wasn't any training system that I use now. It was the best system. I traveled up and down the east coast. I even went to Europe to perfect this system. I had a partner in the R&D department. He tested out all of my ideas. He was my lab rat so to speak.
I created a World Champion out of a World Champion. I took the best and made him better. I transformed everything he thought about training and competition and TURNED IT AROUND.
We developed a system for nothing like you have ever seen before. We developed a system to solve the Rubik's cube Blindfolded.
Haha, no joke. I'm pretty slow and I can still solve the cube in 20 seconds or so.
Now why did I turn to fitness? Imagine being a body builder and you literally got disgraced by your competitor. What about going into the ring for a boxing match and just getting embarrassed. Did you ever just totally bomb the most important play in a game?
It happened to me. I used to compete in speedcubing and blindfolded cubing. Yes, it is competitive. Yes it is a sport of speed, dexterity, and hand-eye coordination. Just like Golf is a sport. Maybe not very physically demanding, but it is still a sport.
I would not call golfers or speedcubers athletes, but they do practice sports. So anyway, I made Chris Hardwick into a world champion. He kept breaking his own world records. Meanwhile, I was catching up to him
We were actually really close friends. We were in healthy competition with each other. We were training partners and competitors. As I shaved off minutes off my times, he shaved off seconds. Then something ended my speedcubing career. Well, a few things.
I lost my job that funded my trips to Florida, New York, Georgia, North Carolina, D.C. and Europe. Oh well, on a budget. Something else happened first. I was just outright embarrassed and blown away by a competitor.
Matyas Kuti ... 16 years old started breaking the records set by Chris. He broke 10+ World Records. What was that?? He just totally crushed me at the 2007 World Championships. He had a big huge grin on his face too as he claimed all of his medals and cash prizes.
I also made a big mistake in my one solve. I will never forget the mistake. It was a valuable lesson learned. I flew all the way to Europe to win the gold medal and a couple hundred Euro too. Just to botch my attempts and get beat by a teenager?
You know what? I was depressed. I actually got lost in Europe 2 or 3 times. All of my friends were about to call Stateside and notify them of a missing person. I got lost on the Tram headed back for my flight back to the U.S. too. Europe was Crazy. It totally impacted my life.
So, I failed, right? Boo hoo. Oh woe is me. Such a cruel, cold world. Wouldn't you be pissed off if your competitor was banned for steroids after he embarrassed you in front of hundreds and thousands of people? I bet you would be. This scrawny Hungarian may not have been using steroids, but he cheated. 12 months later, they confirmed it. He cheated. What the hell?! He cheated. I busted my butt, trained hard, studied, practiced, and he cheated? Really?
So anyway that's just half of the story. I used to be so obsessed with speedcubing, I made little time for real exercise and fitness. I was a scrawny individual. I was active and athletic, but puny and weak. Meanwhile, back in Europe, Chris and I were touring Europe.
We went spelunking, we climbed to the top of castles, we sat up on mountains, and we even sat on a hill and watched the bridges light up across the Danube river. Ironically enough ... guess what the name of the Hill was? Matyas Hill. Haha. Irony of Ironies!
We left that hill ... and that's nothing yet. We were crossing this ancient bridge. It was so cool, there were gargoyles on the 4 corners of the bridge. It was solid stone. There was an underpass and two lane traffic headed both directions down below. What did we see on the top of this pedestrian bridge?
Holy Crap, that guy is doing a handstand on the edge of the bridge!
No, he isn't standing ... he is walking along side of the bridge
... on his freakin' hands.
Chris said, "oh I've heard of that before. It is called Parkour ...
That made the biggest and probably the hugest impact in my life.
Welcome to the Ground Game.
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