My journey to Team Elite X-Training began on September 9th, 1966. I was 5 years old and completely mesmerized - Bruce Lee was on TV for the very first time. Though, it would take almost two years of convincing before my grandmother would sign me up for Judo classes, for the next twenty-five years, martial arts would define me. 

In 1980, while studying Philosophy and Kinesiology by day, I opened Tjader Harris’ Chinese Boxing Club in Oxnard, California, where I began teaching evening classes to SEALS from the local Naval base.  In 1982, I closed my martial arts school and moved to Los Angeles to choreograph fight scenes for film and television.  While pursuing film projects, I became one of the 5 original trainers at Matrix One Fitness Complex, widely regarded as the first true personal trainers in the United States.  A year later, the trainers of Matrix One would be called upon to consult with the American College of Sports Medicine, and I was personally entrusted with writing the industry’s first personal trainer accreditation program.   In the years that followed, I bounced between personal training and fight scene choreography until I happened upon two challenges with significantly higher risk quotients – motorcycle road racing in 1989 and rock climbing in 1991. Between the two, I would find ample opportunity to challenge both gravity and my body’s ability to recover from it when I guessed wrong. Over that period, an unfortunate but interesting pattern began to emerge, I would injure myself racing, doing stunt work, etc., then rehabilitate those injuries with activities I’d never attempted before.  I soon began to realize that, not only was I recovering quicker at a more advanced age, but the all-around nature of my conditioning (cross-training) was allowing me to transition from activity to activity with a much shorter acclimation curve.  I literally stumbled into becoming a better athlete!

It all nearly came to an end in 1999 when, while working on a film, I suffered a debilitating neck injury that resulted in partial paralysis of my right leg.   A year later, after achieving the best condition of my life, I created Team Elite X-Training. Since then, I’ve broken my pelvis (2009), my neck and back (2015), I’ve contracted Covid 4 times and at the end of 2023, I had my right index finger amputated. I’ve learned 4 things:

1. You don’t cheat gravity.

2. Love everyone. Not everyone will love you, but that’s on them.

3. Never, ever, EVER give up on yourself, challenge is how humans grow. Embrace it.

4. If you excel at 2 and 3, 1 is largely irrelevant.

Live Brave.