Can someone please beat Ryan Grady!
Life Athlete 2016
Wednesday, July 31, 2013
Friday, July 26, 2013
The Title Take Back
A picture of the Nation winning the title in 2011. But in 2012......it was taken from us.
This Sunday The Attitude Nation Takes back the title. Nationals......two days out.
It's videos like these two below that get my blood pumping.
Thank you to Derrick Johnson and Jacob Naranjo for including me in this extremely awesome and motivating Video. Training with THE Derrick Johnson was an honor and a pleasure. Salute!
The Motivation does NOT STOP THERE!! My man Teddy Fox (aka) Steven Spielberg goes HAM fucken sandwich on his brand new video below! I almost threw the hotel lamp right out the window after watching this one! Both these videos have me more jacked up than ever for Nationals this Sunday.
Thank you again to Teddy, Derrick and Jacob. And thank you to the whole Attitude Nation family for all the support. LET'S TAKE BACK THE TITLE!!!
Gold Medal 2016
Wednesday, July 24, 2013
Caleb Ward & The Beauty He Possesses
This is my once team mate and very good friend Caleb Ward clean and jerking the Junior American record at the Arnold Championships. Best technique in the world hands down. Best Superman pull, best bar body contact (aka) Tyson Hips. Best Arched Angel (aka) Tom Brady on a white horse. Fastest lifter under the bar ever (aka) ripping the head off a lion. Best bar oscillation in both the bottom of the clean and the dip and drive in the jerk. Superb fast feet (aka) Ali Feet. Just an all around smooth and beautiful athlete. Caleb Ward has mastered his art and continues his journey for perfection.
Watch this over and over and over. Yes Caleb is a hip cleaner, and yes.....he upper cuts the hell out of the bar. If the bar was a person, a KO would ring across the world like the sound of a giant pounding amongst his chest.
The international coaches call Caleb "big body" What some people don't know is this 300 pound plus pound tank can smoke 10 consecutive back flips in a row. The power of a weightlifter is stronger than pride itself.
PS: Caleb Ward is a great lifter but an even better person. A class act I am proud to call my friend.
The international coaches call Caleb "big body" What some people don't know is this 300 pound plus pound tank can smoke 10 consecutive back flips in a row. The power of a weightlifter is stronger than pride itself.
PS: Caleb Ward is a great lifter but an even better person. A class act I am proud to call my friend.
Freak athlete 2016
Monday, July 22, 2013
The Quill
The most lonely popular man in the world sits beneath the ruble rocks and the cracked dirt, writing for the unknown faces that watch and speak to him from somewhere afar. He pictures their land green and rolling, yellow from the flowers, and blue from the sky above. His dirty water stirs in circles from the inside of its plastic domain. Small sips while typing gives his fingers just enough juice to continue the journey he sees in his mind. A rhythmic adventure, mostly filled with emptiness from those he has not seen in years, those that have left him in the down deep, where the light only seeps through the small snake holes that surround his dirt palace, a dirt palace he calls home..... holes that are too small for an escape route. Face full of dirt, mind clean as a whistle, he sails on paths that move with the clouds above, fast like a smile, and long like his stay below. His heels tap the dirt below, as his toes stay dug into the dry dirt. A drum set for writing, a musical escape to explore new worlds above. His eyes glaze over as the feather moves frantically under his chin. His sniper rifle up against the dirt wall, broken, and never used. A gun that has no chance to fire, but awaits pertinently when duty is called upon. The gun is like the writer, broken but steady, filled with life in a lifeless hole. Dreams above march as nightmares below dwell.
A long stare at the dirt ceiling above pierces the dirt like a nail gun to wood, jump starting his mind to write! Jump starting his mind to think outside of his thoughts. To fight against the norm of pacing amongst his caged limits reality left him with. To write is to see beyond your limits, to feel what you have never felt, to witness a moment you have never seen, and to feel the impact of something that has never impacted you before. The dirt lob of sweat stung his right eye, as his left hand unconsciously wipes away the frantic run for freedom his legs truly believe they are on.
"Run, young lad!" A character possibly made up, or possibly a real live human that he somehow remembered as a very young boy appeared under his feather, walking a horse by a lonely tree. Old man, with a young walk and tall legs yells from afar. "Run for your life!" The wise looking man yells again as the dirt from the walls that slowly fall like ash after a burning, right to left, lower and lower the pieces of his future lay quietly onto his leather paper like a bedtime story before bed. The smell of homesick burning as the sting from his lower gut snakes up his neck and into his brain. His hands react to his hair, sliding his long nailed fingers throughout the forest of dirt, dreads and grease. The taste of his once family leaves his gums white and bloody, stained and in doubt. His memories muddy while his parents wait in heaven as he awaits in hell, for the day this dirt cage falls upon him, ending what he now knows as life itself. His feet now digging into the ground below his small ant hill of a table, digging like a horse showing its strength before raising its black polished head for the cameras to see and the rich to ahh over. Golden black, and ready to hoof the next mother fucker who yanks him down from his high and mighty pose. The rope around the neck of the beast only makes the beast's teeth grow long and sharp, hungry for blood, and dangerous beyond belief. Black from a dark soul, with eyes of white that see beyond the horse's reality. Hope the horse sees, if only the horse could write, he would write words of hope, pastures of green...... he would nay words of freedom.
Freedom the man in the dirt farm felt, as his writing became more intense, finding its way through the leather and into the dirt behind. Eyes red from a lack of blinking, and feet half way deep in dirt from digging. If only this young man could write himself out from this rock, this prison blocking his thoughts.....he could set himself free forever. His eyes squinted low and sharp, focusing on the world he saw in his head, the world his hand was painting for him. He saw the horse and the old man once again, this time further down the path he was running on. A path that has signs that read unknown. Signs that read turn around! But around the turn he went, faster and faster as the horse that once laid under the lonely tree by the old man now up and running fast like the wind, smooth like the grass, and blacker than the end of the young man's pin. The horse escaped the rope attached to the race. Free from the people who once kept him on the dirt circle. The young dirt man writing remembered horses in his past life, and pictured the most elegant and beautiful horse he could think of. This was the horse running beside him. How he was keeping up with the horse he didn't know, for knowing didn't hold any water at this time of escape. The faster he wrote, the faster they both ran. The harder he wrote the older he became. Young behind the pen, a future that guaranteed doom, spoke the opposite under the pen. He ran and fast! He wrote and hard! He wrote so hard that the dirt around him started to shake, and his skin started to turn. The hair on his sweaty red knuckles turned from black to grey, as his knee that bounced his feet that dug into the dirt slowed down from an irritating ache. Green grass starting to sprout around his broken sniper riffle, while the small snake holes opened wider and wider letting in rays of blue sky and patches of warmth amongst his now wrinkled skin. He didn't seem to care, he just kept writing as if his pen were his legs, and the ink was the horse beside him. Run and write, type and fight, freedom in sight and a mind full of might.
The old man that once stood below the lonely tree was no longer. For the black ink captured his character, while the horse became his way out.
Write 2016
A long stare at the dirt ceiling above pierces the dirt like a nail gun to wood, jump starting his mind to write! Jump starting his mind to think outside of his thoughts. To fight against the norm of pacing amongst his caged limits reality left him with. To write is to see beyond your limits, to feel what you have never felt, to witness a moment you have never seen, and to feel the impact of something that has never impacted you before. The dirt lob of sweat stung his right eye, as his left hand unconsciously wipes away the frantic run for freedom his legs truly believe they are on.
"Run, young lad!" A character possibly made up, or possibly a real live human that he somehow remembered as a very young boy appeared under his feather, walking a horse by a lonely tree. Old man, with a young walk and tall legs yells from afar. "Run for your life!" The wise looking man yells again as the dirt from the walls that slowly fall like ash after a burning, right to left, lower and lower the pieces of his future lay quietly onto his leather paper like a bedtime story before bed. The smell of homesick burning as the sting from his lower gut snakes up his neck and into his brain. His hands react to his hair, sliding his long nailed fingers throughout the forest of dirt, dreads and grease. The taste of his once family leaves his gums white and bloody, stained and in doubt. His memories muddy while his parents wait in heaven as he awaits in hell, for the day this dirt cage falls upon him, ending what he now knows as life itself. His feet now digging into the ground below his small ant hill of a table, digging like a horse showing its strength before raising its black polished head for the cameras to see and the rich to ahh over. Golden black, and ready to hoof the next mother fucker who yanks him down from his high and mighty pose. The rope around the neck of the beast only makes the beast's teeth grow long and sharp, hungry for blood, and dangerous beyond belief. Black from a dark soul, with eyes of white that see beyond the horse's reality. Hope the horse sees, if only the horse could write, he would write words of hope, pastures of green...... he would nay words of freedom.
Freedom the man in the dirt farm felt, as his writing became more intense, finding its way through the leather and into the dirt behind. Eyes red from a lack of blinking, and feet half way deep in dirt from digging. If only this young man could write himself out from this rock, this prison blocking his thoughts.....he could set himself free forever. His eyes squinted low and sharp, focusing on the world he saw in his head, the world his hand was painting for him. He saw the horse and the old man once again, this time further down the path he was running on. A path that has signs that read unknown. Signs that read turn around! But around the turn he went, faster and faster as the horse that once laid under the lonely tree by the old man now up and running fast like the wind, smooth like the grass, and blacker than the end of the young man's pin. The horse escaped the rope attached to the race. Free from the people who once kept him on the dirt circle. The young dirt man writing remembered horses in his past life, and pictured the most elegant and beautiful horse he could think of. This was the horse running beside him. How he was keeping up with the horse he didn't know, for knowing didn't hold any water at this time of escape. The faster he wrote, the faster they both ran. The harder he wrote the older he became. Young behind the pen, a future that guaranteed doom, spoke the opposite under the pen. He ran and fast! He wrote and hard! He wrote so hard that the dirt around him started to shake, and his skin started to turn. The hair on his sweaty red knuckles turned from black to grey, as his knee that bounced his feet that dug into the dirt slowed down from an irritating ache. Green grass starting to sprout around his broken sniper riffle, while the small snake holes opened wider and wider letting in rays of blue sky and patches of warmth amongst his now wrinkled skin. He didn't seem to care, he just kept writing as if his pen were his legs, and the ink was the horse beside him. Run and write, type and fight, freedom in sight and a mind full of might.
The old man that once stood below the lonely tree was no longer. For the black ink captured his character, while the horse became his way out.
Write 2016
Saturday, July 20, 2013
Friday, July 19, 2013
The Curse
The clacking of my shoes tap quickly against the shingles on the roof. My red cape sways effortlessly behind my running body, while my eyes stay glazed full of water, as the cold night time air daggers my eyes the faster I run. No time to think, no time to blink. Side to side I sway, swooping past the midnight chimneys and the dinner time steam, swirling through my body as safe families lay comfortably below my rabbit like feet. The orange glow from the apartments below fade away from the light blue sky above. Car horns honk while violins play songs on the outer decks, platforms that float on the side of the tall brick buildings give everyone the chance to be seen and heard. I can sing, and I can write, but feeling is something truly made up of might. Songs of happy, and songs of sad, every violin has a story to tell as I find my foot steps running with the rhythm of the strings below. I jump not fly, but for flying is what I truly believe I can accomplish, air is something I truly believe I can become. Take out your contacts what do you see? Not bad vision my friend, what you see is a sea of air that you can touch and feel, air that you can breath in and out while moving between love and hate. At times you may rest upon desperate measures, hearing only violins that scream horrible crimes and never forgotten lies. Angry yells from others below, drowned out from the cold air that steers your ship closer to the blue glow.
I am an upper. I live high on roof tops with a belly full of coffee. I stay high and running forward for many different reasons. Coffee is not a choice, it is a must, without it my blessing becomes a curse. I am an upper, a person that needs to live high at all times, for when I am not high the bottom is much too low.... lower than most people will ever know. Prescribed energy drinks to keep my knuckles clean from blood. Red bulls to keep my thoughts from spiraling into a bottle of vodka. Monsters to keep the monsters away. Miss Brown eyes to keep the only rocks in my life the ice that dances in her soul.... the ice that makes me a better person. Don't look down, stay high. Keep chugging coffee so the streets of regret don't capture your progress onward.
The rain from the now cloudy dark blue sky makes the shingles wet and slippery, hard to run on and all so blurry. My vision gets lost by the cloud's fog, while my coffee gets low, my foot steps slow. I try my best not to look down, so I sip the last of my coffee before Miss Brown Eyes takes the deadly fall off the roof, ending her life by hitting the ground below. I stop my running in panic to find sugar, a feeling of life or death as my thoughts take over. No! I yell on top if this roof, as my hands shake and my head swivels from side to side, looking for anything that will keep me high. The families below slap their windows shut, keeping my double edged sword far from their now tucked away kids that lay safe in their beds. Millions of beds just like these, scattered below the roofs of so many like these. My legs tighten as my gut aches, the Monsters in my gut began to take. My knees hit the wet roof, and my hands fall into my head, my thoughts turning black from the blue sky's cloudy blend. My cape that once flapped effortlessly, now strangles my neck cutting off the air I once could see and feel. Now my high is looking low, my life that I once knew is burning slow. The violin sounds have now turned from love to death, motivating to straggling, higher than high to lower than low could ever go. The cape around my super hero neck finally cuts the pipes closed that once screamed motivations to those who ran fast over dinner cooked steam. Now I fall into the depth of my own demon.
Stay High 2016
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
Cut grass and Cold Lemonade
The moldy teddy bear wrapped around her broken heart, as the small little girl squeezed the air right out from his lungs full of stuffing. Her tears became his, as they both sat in their own abandonment......their own sorrow, their own closet full of skeletons. The salt that leaked from her scars made the teddy bear become that much more human, as the salt seeped through his old dusty skin. Lost and afraid, empty and dark, lonely from the backs of so many that have walked away, as the little girl and her teddy bear stayed cemented down on the squeaky cot they both called home. No sign of hope, besides the nighttime flicker from each other's eyes, as they hope to awake in each other's arms once again. The clacking sound of silverware to plates echo the mess hall as the other children and their teddy bears eat with sorrowful eyes and long hair that drapes into the food, as they stir the colorless and odorless food in front of them with smooth long circles like a long stick on a glassy lake. Walking back to their room carries no drive to look up and out the windows that beg their attention. The sun piercing through only covers their bodies with warmth, as their naked feet slap against the cold floor. The windows are only a reminder of what not to come, of how alone they truly are. The little girl sits outside of her room like a guest awaiting pick up after a long meal. For she is no guest, she is here to stay, and her ideas are here to die.
The girls in the rooms down the hallway used to play with one another throughout the hallways and corridors. Now the silent tapping of the rain above their heads makes up for the sound of laughter and taunting. Missing her once adapted family only makes the cold night worse, as memories and feelings make her tiny cot feel like a bed full of thorns that cut her skin and dagger her heart. Once someone listened to her, once someone shared their ideas and dreams as she did with them. Once someone related to her ambitions and thoughts, once someone told her everything was going to be okay. Now her teddy bear does all the speaking, as his eyes close her cuts and his soft fur stops the bleeding.
9 years old now, and with every chatter of her teeth, a minute of her life dies in her hands. The thought of not trying, not opening doors, not turning the corner to see what lays around the bend makes her teeth grind while she pulls out her hair one rip at a time. The older she gets the less her teddy bear speaks, the less his love affects her. Her sadness has been replaced with hate, and her teddy bear has been replaced by inflicted pain onto herself and to those whose backs face her everyday from this small enclosed cell barred deep amongst others. A crunch of gravel and a small chuckle outside of her glass window made her think what it would be like to live outside of the walls of this fostered flustered camp that imitates emotions of happiness that soon becomes drowned by black spider blood and left behind wax from the on-slaughter of false reality and an inception of normalcy amongst kids soon to be adults. Adults they will soon become, and the real world they will soon meet, face to face, teddy bear or no teddy bear.......the smell of cut grass and the taste of real food awaits her behind the tall black fence. But will she be ready? Will she really know what to do when released from this government prison called home? Her dirty feet tap against the cold concrete floor of her room as she reached for her teddy bear for the first time in years. Right away she regretted not spending more time with him, she felt awful for her abandonment of him, like the world to her. His smell reminded her of Christmas spent in the library down below, as they played dolls together and rolled in the opened wrapping paper. His old but soft brown fur felt smooth and warm against her cheek. As she began to rock with wide eyes and thoughts the felt closer to reality than ever before. Her teddy bear whispered in her ear, "Run like magic, turn this floor into cut grass, your water into cold lemonade, and your thoughts and ideas into dreams you can touch and feel....... RUN!"
The teddy bear's eyes seemed to break the stitches that kept him together. His soft chest became hard and strong, and this time his salty tears feel deep below him, crashing onto her cold feet, making them warm and ready for take off. She sprung up so fast the teddy bears arm almost ripped out from his body. Magic leaves appeared around her like a twisting tornado made her body run faster, and everything around her scurry out of the way. Her black long hair covered her face, as her teddy bear guided the way down the long hallway full of rolling beds, closed doors, flickering lights, and bloody hearts beating but broken and hanging from the ceiling and bouncing up and down throughout the floor of the hallway. There was blood everywhere, the closer she got to the doorway where she could hear the chuckles and lawn mower cutting grass, the more blood filled the hallway. Red blood turned into black as she slipped and fell into a pool of twisted veins and spider webs made up of blood vessels from her own body. Crying echoes rang aloud as the other kids jiggled the door knobs trying to release themselves from their rooms. She found her body wanting to stay, but her teddy bear and her mind wanting to leave and fast. She tried her hardest to open the doors to let her fellow broken hearted sisters out from their cages, but the doors didn't have a handle for her to open them, all she could do was listen to her once self bang against the medal door crying out for help. She stood there while the banging increased, the blood raised, and her teddy bear loosened his grip from her hand. The two swinging doors were swinging open and closed from the cool wind that whistled freedom and creaked words of happiness and love. She was at a crossroad, free herself while the others died from the pool of broken hearted blood rising higher and higher soon about to drown everyone with no hopes of the outside world.....or stay and die with the others she has called her family for so long. She looked down upon her now bloodied teddy bear, while a tear fell from her eye to his, she told him that she loved him and always will, and that he is her true family, he his her true heart, that he is her cut grass and cold lemonade. He smiled back and re-gripped his hand tight around hers, showing comfort and strength. She took one of the empty soup cans that was floating past her waist from the blood river that seemed to be rising faster than she thought. She handled the soup can just right so the sharp edge would expose the vein down the crease of her elbow. She took a deep breath, gave her teddy bear one last look, and then slid the sharp edge violently through her bulging vein....................
Blood poured out like a waterfall in the child hood books she used to read. But nothing happened. She was not light headed, not dizzy, not falling asleep......she.....well......she felt fine. The blood stopped from her body becoming empty. The river of blood slowly crept back down her legs, draining out from somewhere in the dark cold government building where her sisters now laid quietly behind their bedroom doors. Her teddy bear with his eyes closed, and his grip loose and fragile. All she could hear was her loud breathing. All she could see was normalcy coming back into the picture. Fog from her breath captured her line of sight, as her arm not only felt fine, but the cut was all together gone and somehow healed. She then realized she has been dead the whole time. The End.
Accept the darkness, accept the hell, accept there are more bad days than good, and you will succeed in this sport of weightlifting.
I'm back 2016
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