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Matt and Cherie Chan

 Outside of the Crossfit community, where they are rock stars,  Matt and Cherie Chan might not be household names but they are world class individuals who are an inspiration to the people who know them and it's my pleasure to present them to you here. I was as excited to meet them as I've been to meet anyone in a long time.  I had admired their candor, elegance of being and their pursuit of excellence from watching prior interviews with them and from watching them compete. These people embody what it is to be Life Athletes and it was a supreme pleasure to be able to sit down and have this chat with them. The topics range and I've done minimal editing so that you can get a sense of who these people are. 
 Matt Chan was crowned the second fittest man in the world after placing second in the 2012 crossfit games and his Wife Cherie has been a high level competitor also competing in the Crossfit Games. They have a number of videos on Crossfit.com and have a blog detailing their current adventure: http://theeternalpursuit.com/

Reid Koss of the Seattle Sockeyes talks about Sports and life.

The Seattle Sockeye are one of the top Ultimate Frisbee clubs in the United States. Earlier this year players from the team came to Ulsan South Korea and put on a skills clinic. Here are four excerpts from an interview with Sockeye player Reid Koss where he talks about tips and techniques that he's learned through his Ultimate career that have helped make him successful on the field and off. 

Habit: act. now.

Welcome Life Athletes!
    This week’s habit is one that comes from a number of sources as well as my own observations. That said, Eben Pagan put it perfectly in his program Get Altitude when he said that the one trait all successful people share is a fast “rate of implementation”, so we’ll use that term for it.  

This is one that I’ve struggled with and have been injecting into my life lately so it’s close to my heart.  Essentially, those who are successful in any field do things and they do them now. They take action while other people are still thinking about any number of things other than. 


The thing about this habit is that it’s counter to many parts of my thinking as well as many others I’ve spoken to.  We want to make things perfect, we want to consider, ponder and observe. However well those traits have served us, it isn’t until we focus on this habit that we can move things forward and start creating what we want in life. 

While I’d be the first to extol the virtues of the clever and the cautious, I think that there’s a danger to them, one expressed beautifully in one of my favourite quotations:

If we listened to our intellect, we'd never have a love affair. We'd never have a friendship. We'd never go into business, because we'd be cynical. Well, that's nonsense. You've got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down.

Ray Bradbury

A fast rate of implementation means that when you hear something that you think is a good idea, an idea that would serve you and your life, you take an action towards putting it into effect immediately. 

It’s simple, magical, and people throw fits for the right to do things later.  

It can’t be denied that the people who I’ve met who exemplify the habit of a fast rate of implementation make lots of mistakes and have jumped the gun from time to time but what they also do is take notice of their mistakes earlier than most and act to change them. 

My father, who might be the living embodiment of this habit said this when I mentioned this topic to him: “The thing about doing things that are new is there are going to be new problems. Seeing too many sides is a definite disadvantage and god help you if you can see what might go wrong that will turn your guts to liquid. You need to be a little bull-headed for sure”. Watching him operate in his life can be dizzying and at times befuddling to me but what he’s accomplished in his business and in his life are impressive by any metric.

He expects problems but unlike the people who get stopped by them he treats problems as a driver would react to other cars on the road.  Sure it’s easier to drive when the road is clear but it’s not always that way and waiting for the road to clear is a good plan if you want to spend the rest of your life in your driveway. 

I made a comment to a friend of mine a little while back that my dad would have already completed some of the projects I had been just starting to plan.  It wasn’t that he had more money than me, he does, or that he was more clever, although he might be.  It was his ability to put things into action and not stop until it was finished, or he was, that would have got it done. 

That realization is why these last few posts are going out imperfectly. They don’t have photos, they might not have the best prose I could muster given the time to craft. What they do have is the distinction of being good enough and published. “Good enough and published” beats “perfect but existing only in my mind” any day. This is me putting a success habit in place, one post at a time. Life Athletics isn’t about being perfect, it’s about seeing where you’re weak and taking action to make those area stronger to benefit you, your loved ones and your life. What action are you going to take to make your life better today? 

Action step: Take some action towards your goals now. Listen to the reasons you have for not doing it now and ask yourself if those reasons sound familiar, then take the action anyway. 


Journal it. 

How to get what you want.

Last week we spoke of the importance of habits and then focused on the habit of “being responsible”. This week we’re also looking at a mental habit and it flows from the same vein as the first. 

I picked up this habit from Brian Tracy and want to give him full credit. I read what I’m about to share, put the book down, shook my head, rubbed my eyes, and felt like I’d found the secret to happiness.

So... without further ado, here is a paraphrased version of Mr. Tracey’s concept. 

Happy and successful people think of two things exclusively, while unhappy and unsuccessful people think of another two things exclusively. In order to be happy and successful, you must train your mind to think of the two things in the happy column and... that’s it. 

First, unhappy and unsuccessful people think only: “What don’t I like?” and “whose fault is it?”. 

To me that was a powerful revelation. I immediately saw a myriad of experiences from my life which weren’t working as I would have liked fit the “unhappy and unsuccessful” format perfectly. 

One that is both shameful and funny was how much I blamed my mother for my poor basketball skills. I’m tall and all my life people have asked me if I played basketball. In fact it happened on the subway again yesterday. I  didn’t grow up playing organized ball but played with my friends and always wished I’d be on a team. I was raised by a single mother who was also a student and sports weren’t a priority and so, my potential languished and in my head it was all her fault. 

Even later when I was able to go to practices on my own and take some responsibility for my own experiences, the blame stuck around and so whenever I felt as though I wasn’t as good a player as I should be, I would immediately blame my mother in my mind. It wasn’t conscious but it was powerful as it completely stopped me from being able to improve. My mind worked to make me “right” and so I had to stay at a low level. 

Once I caught this blame loop, I was able to unhook, apologize to my mom and I made a HUGE jump in skill on the court. I’m certainly not a world class basketball player but I’m good enough to have fun and have played in gyms and parks with a smile on my face all over the world. 

Disliking that I didn’t have the basketball skills that I felt I should have and blaming my mother for not putting me in a situation to have developed them at a young age was a road map to failure and upset. While I didn’t like seeing that I had so often frequented that neighbourhood, I also felt relieved that I was now aware of the road signs and would be equipped to steer clear in the future. 

It’s important not to go into a blame loop of your own upon reading the above “bad” habit. Some people I know have responded by saying “I do that and I don’t like it! It’s (fill in whoever’s name... it doesn’t really matter) fault because (fill in whatever reason... it doesn’t really matter)!”,  or they might blame themselves for not having caught and changed this habit sooner. My advice is to skip that blame cycle entirely and move onto the next part: moving toward happiness and success.

According to Brian Tracy, the two questions that all happy and successful people asks themselves are: “What do I want?” and “how do I get it?”. 

A Life Athlete is actively practicing this by aiming their actions to drive them towards their goals. All people will fall into the “what don’t I like and whose fault is it” trap from time to time but it’s your job to make sure that the majority of your thoughts revolve around some form of “what do I want” and “how do I get it?”.  When you find yourself participating in the thoughts of the unsuccessful, stop and think the thoughts of the Life Athlete, “What do I want in this area?” and “How do I get myself there?”.

This week:
-Look at 1-3 situations in your life where you’re happy and successful and see if your thinking in that area matches “What do I want? and how do I get it?”

-Look at 1-3 situations in your life where you’re not happy or successful and see if your thinking in that area matches “What don’t I like and whose fault is it?” 

-Be aware through the week of instances where your mind clicks into one mode or the other. 

-Challenge yourself to operate from “what do I want and how do I get it”

-Journal your responses. 

Dave Smart: Celebrating  the lows.

Of the many successful people I have spoken to, Dave Smart is perhaps the most used to winning. In the two years I covered the team he coaches, I think I saw them lose once. The Carleton Ravens in Ottawa Ontario are now the National Champions once again and that marks their 9th championship in the last 11 years. Despite this unprecedented amount of winning, Smart's focus might surprise those of us who aspire to that level of success in our chosen fields.  

Habits

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.”
-Aristotle- 

Life Athletics, for those of you new to the site, is about living your life well. It’s not about being anything other than the best version of you.  To that end, best practices are sought out and highly valued. The core of a Life Athlete's philosophy is that they are defined by their actions and thoughts. They are their habits of thought and habits of action. If you want to have a better life, start with cultivating better habits.

Classifying your habits into the categories of thought and action is convenient but can be misleading. We’re still going to keep doing it but first; an attempt to clarify. Often our actions are governed by our habitual thoughts. In other words, they’re connected. Being aware that the things you do regularly are a direct result of the way you regularly view yourself and the people and things around you is a powerful and necessary step in building yourself into the person you want to be. 

Every week Life Athletics is going to highlight another habit. It might be one of thought, or of action. It could be something to do with finance, or romance, or fitness or... anything really.  Don’t feel like you need to try to adopt each one mentioned. Try them on, see how they fit and keep the ones that you think will improve your life, leave the rest. 

The habit this week is the foundation for living the life you want. Make this thought a part of you: “I am responsible.”

Now, quickly... how did you react to that? Some of you have already internalized this practice to a high level and will just nod and move on. Others will read “take all the blame” where I wrote “be responsible” and for those people it needs to be made clear that responsibility has NOTHING to do with blame. Responsibility simply relates to having a say in the matter and that your experiences are yours. As soon as you resist that concept, you’re setting the table for upset. If you are not actively living as though you are the cause of the experiences in your life, you are going to struggle and will until you give up that practice and adopt complete responsibility for your life. If you LOVE your job, you’re responsible. If you HATE your job, you’re responsible. If you tolerate your job, you’re responsible. Hopefully by this stage you’re getting the point. No matter what you’re experiencing in your life, claiming total responsibility will allow you to begin moving towards something you truly want. 

As a teen, my chiropractor broke the word down for me as “the ability to respond” and I think that’s a beautiful way of looking at it. Unless you accept that you hold total responsibility for your life, you won’t be able to respond to anything powerfully and you certainly won’t be able to put any new habits in place that will make you a more effective Life Athlete.

This week:
-Look at 1-3 situations in your life where you’re happy and fulfilled and pat yourself on the back. Congratulate yourself for creating those in your life and being open to experiencing them.

-Look at 1-3 situations in your life where you’re not happy of satisfied and ask yourself “if I was 100% responsible for the success of this situation who would I be and what would I do?”

-Journal your responses.



Spencer Wilkerson - Team buy-in

"If you want to build a ship, don’t herd people together to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea."

— Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Three seasons ago, in the Ultimate frisbee league I play in, I watched an expansion team lose by one point in the finals. They lost but there was no shame in it and they opened a lot of eyes. They played a crisp, confident style and appeared, to the gathered crowd, to be a team that had played together for years. Again, they hadn’t, they had just formed up and soundly beat teams who had been together for some time.

I wanted to know how they did it. I wanted to know if there was some secret to their success and so I asked their captain, Spencer Wilkerson. I asked how he got his team to play together with purpose and with passion. 
I wanted to know how they got to be so good so fast. What he said struck me. He said, “I asked them.” He said that he put it to them that they could play and have fun and be a pretty good expansion team or they could allow him to coach them and they could work for it and they could be great. They thought about it and each of them chose the second option. They all bought into this vision that he’d laid out and together they became a dangerous unit on the field. 

In the summer after their second season I asked Spencer to revisit that conversation on camera during a beach tournament where we played together and he was generous enough to do so.

This season, his team’s third, they won the league championship. 

I remember sitting in a bar at a league event after doing the interview and talking about the idea, and importance, of a team buying into a unifying team concept and an engineer who was sitting at our table said that it was exactly what he was trying to do at work. He told me that it was something he and his team were actively working on. He became excited as he saw how the idea related to his work, which was gratifying as it’s what Life Athletics is all about.

It’s important not to focus so much on the actions of leadership that you forget to make sure that everyone is all in. This applies in sports, in business, in relationships, and in life.



"You can have brilliant ideas, but if you can’t get them across, your ideas won’t get you anywhere." – Lee Iacocca

Tyson Gay

Tyson Gay, the American record holder for the 100m dash and 4th place at the 2012 London Olympic games, with a blistering time of 9.80 seconds, stopped and talked with us at the Daegu Track and Field world Championships last year. 

Having not even heard the words "Life Athletics" before the interview started, Gay answered our questions thoughtfully and in a way that made it seem like he was a regular visitor to LifeAthletics.com.

Don't worry about "it", just do something!

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Contributing writer Vince Nance encourages you to find fitness wherever you can.

Get up.

Our ancestors didn’t live their lives with the intention of “burning calories” or “getting in shape”.  They didn’t do pushups or sit ups, but they did push things and sit up.  They didn’t have stair machines - but they did have stairs.  They didn’t have treadmills, but they ran.  They didn’t have pools, but they swam.  They didn’t have ipods, but they had songs.  They didn’t have pull up bars, but they climbed.  They didn’t have “weights”, but they lifted things.


All of our advances in fitness technology have done some amazing things for our understanding of health and exercise, but it’s important to remember that there was a time when they didn’t exist - and we weren’t all morbidly obese without them. 

One of my favorite quotes is, “If it’s important, you’ll find a way.  If not, you’ll find an excuse.”  Well, I think that our intricate network of technology, memberships, supplements, etc can be as much of an obstruction as they are a tool.  How many times have we all used a lack of technology, equipment, access, or time to justify lethargy?  The bottom line is that you don’t NEED all of the toys, trinkets, and tech.  All you need is a few minutes, a cubic meter or so of space, and a decision to move - everything else is a detail.  Don’t let your goals get lost in the details. 

We all have hours and hours a day when we’re doing nothing - literally standing around wishing that something was happening faster, ending sooner, already here, killing time, checking our watches, surfing the Internet, checking our makeup, or rereading messages.  The problem is that those “hours and hours” are broken up into 2, 5, and 10 minute segments.  Our ancestors moved - pretty much constantly - from the time they woke up until they went to sleep.  We evolved to eat ENOUGH food (and  the quality, quantity, and type of food you’re eating is highly significant, but I digress...), and DO lots and lots of things with our bodies.  Being “fit” is no more than returning to the environment in which your genetics succeeded.  What’s my point?  MOVE MORE.  How?  Do it in small doses.  

You don’t NEED a solid 2 hour block of time to start pursuing your fitness goals.  You don’t NEED a gym membership, or a new credit card to buy all of the drugs and chemical powders that plenty of people will tell you that you NEED.  These prerequisites are all imaginary.  MOVE!!!  Go for a walk, take the stairs, do calf raises or curl your groceries in the elevator or hallway, do some pushups before lunch, do 10 squats in the bathroom before your shower, do 5 minutes of Tai Chi or yoga outside or on a roof once a day, lunge walk to your car or house, do a pullup or hang from anything you can get your hands around that won’t break, keep two bottles of water and do some simple shoulder exercises for a minute or two, do sit ups or crunches whenever a commercial comes on, do iron chair against a wall when you’re bored - WHATEVER YOU CAN!




A lot of people develop formulas for what works and what doesn’t, what is worth it and what isn’t, and these formulas are either irrelevant, distracting or just plain bullshit.  Something will always be better than nothing.  Suppose there are two versions of yourself.  One version does some exercises every day for a year, whenever they can, and eats as healthy as they can.  The other version does no exercises because they can’t afford the time to do a “real” workout and don’t bother caring about what they eat because they can’t go 100% vegan/organic/raw food diet yet.  Which version do you suppose will have less fat and more muscle?  Which version will feel more energetic in the morning?  Which version will sleep better and look more vibrant?  Which version is more likely to take the next step in their fitness goals?  Which version is more likely to even HAVE fitness goals?

I’m not selling anything.  If you find that you need something - buy it.  If having a gym membership or pool access or taking a class is available, I certainly think that’s a great idea.  But don’t think for a second that just because you can’t do everything, you can’t do anything.  You can do something, right now, today - to improve your fitness.  And it won’t take two hours, any money, or a commute.  Just do something.

MOVE.


-Vince Nance-


Vince Nance is a Brazilian jiujitsu and MMA fighter, rock climber, women’s self defense instructor, writer, creative consultant, English teacher, and Ultimate Frisbee player in Busan, South Korea.



Looking Good Naked.

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There’s more to life than being really, really ridiculously good-looking, but why not BE really, really ridiculously good-looking while you do those other things? Contributing writer Stefan Edwards shares how to get there in two simple steps. 

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With beach season fast approaching, many people are scrambling to desperately shed that unwanted fat that defiantly stands in the way between them and their “ideal” beach body.  Some people will succeed and turn heads for a few weeks; others will fail miserably and throw in the towel almost immediately. Regardless of which dieting demise people succumb to, almost all of them will end up back where they started, or possibly, even worse-off than when they began. 

What’s going on here? 

For starters, your body likes being fat.  Yes, you read that last sentence correctly.  You may think that your body wants you to have the chiseled abs of a Greek God, but the truth is that your body loves having body fat, and the more of it the better. 

Your body doesn’t care how you look or if you can fit into a pair of skinny jeans.  The only genes it cares about are the ones you need to pass on before you die. Fat is a valuable tool in this regard: if you have a lot of fat you can survive a famine and live another day to sleep around.  Obviously there is a point where being too fat hinders one’s ability to procreate/do anything other than lie around being fat; however, unless you’re one of the lucky ones with a good working fat set point[1], this is irrelevant - the majority of us will continue to put on weight long after the point in which that extra body fat changes from an advantageous survival buffer into a liability.

So although it’s possible to lose body fat, it’s not as easy of a process as many people believe.  Mathematically it’s simple, but in actual practice it’s quite difficult.  Your body will literally fight you every step of the way, doing its best to hold on to as much of that coveted fat as it can. This may sound depressing and make you not even want to try and lose weight, but the truth often isn't what we want to hear, and those who ignore it will never amount to much.  By understanding how your body works and being honest about what it’s going to take to change it, you can win this seemingly lost battle and achieve the level of leanness you desire.

The first thing you need to do is admit that your goal is an aesthetic one.  Repeat this out loud: “I just want to look good naked.”

Done?  Good. 

Although being overly narcissistic isn’t an admirable trait, lying about your goals because you’re embarrassed about simply wanting to look better isn’t going to get you anywhere either.  

Now that you’ve admitted to yourself what your goal is, you need a plan to achieve it.  There are literally hundreds of thousands of programs out there all offering their respective “magic bullet” protocol, but I will tell you right here and now that almost all of them are either completely and utterly fucking useless, or are only maintainable for a short period of time. 

Cutting edge gimmicks and trends help to sell programs, but ask anyone in the industry who actually knows what they’re doing what you have to do to look good naked, and they will give you this very boring and simple response:   

“Dial in your diet and lift heavy 2-3 times per week.”

That’s it. 

If you want to look good naked you need to shed body fat and hold onto as much muscle as you can.  You lose body fat by creating a negative energy balance (expend more energy than you take in) and you keep all that hard-earned muscle you have by lifting heavy.  There are some tweaks you can play around with like intermittent fasting, carb-cycling etc. to further optimize your results, but without the above-mentioned applied as a base, you won’t get anywhere.

It’s not exciting and it’s sure as hell isn’t very appealing, but it’s what has worked, and until we merge with machines and become cyborgs, it is what will always work.

Stay-tuned to Life Athletics next week for part 2 of this series where I discuss how to correctly set-up your diet and training to get your naked sexy on.















































































[1] “Body Fat Set point” refers to the level of body fat one’s body can maintain even when consuming excess calories.  This explains why some people can eat whatever they want and stay lean.  This is a highly complicated system involving various mechanisms and is far outside the scope of this article.







John Britton

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Immediately prior to this interview, John Britton did not perform up to his expectations or standards during workout four of the 2012 Crossfit Regionals: Asia.  He was visibly upset while it was going on and he shows a high level of generosity and candor during the interview in talking about: bouncing back from setbacks, handling adversity, where his drive comes from, contribution, the spillover effect of training, among other topics. 

Health and Fitness  

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Take a deep breath, take another, now get going. 

Whether you want to kayak, rock climb, dance all night, carry your child in your arms, carry your groceries home from the store or simply go for a walk around the block comfortably, your level of fitness and your general health can help or hinder you. It’s up to you to determine which will be your life’s story. 
Life Athletics is for people who want to live life well.  The state and management of their body is a HUGELY important factor in that pursuit. 

Whether your goals are aesthetic, athletic, health-based or your own crazy blend of motivations, making your body work the best it can pays dividends across the board and I would say that it is the duty of a Life Athlete to take care of their body as best they can. 

This is not simply about getting sweaty and building muscle either... although we’re big fans of that around these parts.  What we’re talking about is treating your body like the finely tuned machine that it is. Your mind, emotions and lifespan depend on it! 


Bestselling author, success coach, “O” network TV personality, and really tall guy, Anthony Robbins says that “the fastest way to change your psychology is to change your physiology.”  He goes on to say that your mood can be determined by your posture. He says that if you sit like you’re depressed you’ll feel depressed and if you stand like you’re strong, powerful and happy, that will soon be how you feel. One of my favourite exercises/ experiments of his is to pretend like you’re wearing a superhero cape while you’re walking down the street. Imagine that it’s whipping behind you in the wind and pulling your shoulders back, forcing you to stand tall... I dare you to do it, everyone I know who’s tried it has loved it.

Studies have shown that smiling, even fake smiling when you’re in a pissy mood, can dramatically improve your emotional state and apparently the bigger your smile the longer you might live. There’s a great TED talk about it called “the hidden power of smiling.” 

Other studies have shown that poor dental care can adversely affect your overall health. 

The point is that the body is connected and it’s up to the Life Athlete to do what they can to ensure that every part is working as well as it can be. 

Sure, looking good is a part of the equation but it is not the only part, and your health and fitness goals should take all of your life into account. A sprinter pays special attention to how they stand on the starting blocks, but if your mood, and therefore your outlook on life, is swayed by your posture and your smile then it is up to you as a Life Athlete to pay attention to how you hold your body and how you use your face all of the time; and for goodness sake floss!  

We’ll also be looking at the more standard issue fitness topics as well but do not forget that every little thing that you do, to and with, your body has an impact on your health and well being. 

Life Athletics is built on the idea that each Life Athlete is meant to create their own goals. It‘s your life and you determine what a “win” is for you. That said we’re all Life Athletes and there will be a lot of overlap  between us and what it is that we want from the area of fitness. What we’re doing here is attempting to find and implement best practices across the board. What is “best” for one might not be “best” another, however so we’re going to have a few voices chime in on what works for them and then you can select what best works for YOU. 


Remember, first and foremost, we believe that your fitness should serve your life and not the other way around. Training to live is, in our view, far preferable than living to train. We want to be fit so that can we have the physical capacity to try new things and/or to continue doing the old familiar things that bring us joy.


Health and fitness also extends past ones athletics abilities and into the more mundane and less sexy areas of basic self care. How are your teeth? Is your digestive system happy? How about your skin? What about your energy levels? Are you dragging yourself around? Are you always sore and stiff and wanting to stop and lay down? If you’re not feeling strong, vital and vibrant, you might want to look at how you’re managing yourself and maybe try something else. Life is meant to be enjoyed and when your body stops, so does your life. 

Now might be a good time to look at your horizon, target and milestone fitness goals... go on, we’ll be here when you get back. 

Life Orienteering: The first step.

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Life Athletes, is this familiar? You have an idea about something you want to implement or change in your life and then stall for a moment as you wonder what to do first. People often have a swell of motivation after making a decision in their lives and then seem to want to change EVERYTHING before that feeling vanishes. 


In their mad scramble to jump into action, two steps are often overlooked. These steps can mean the difference between reaching your destination and being lost. 
(Read the full article)