The Beginning
Tjader Harris
The roots for Team Elite X-Training began to sprout on September 9th, 1966, I was 5 years old at the time and I'd just seen Bruce Lee on screen for the very first time. Though, it would be almost two years 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 and began teaching evening classes to SEALS from the local Naval base. In 1983 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 trainers at Matrix One Fitness Complex, widely regarded as the first true personal trainers in the United States. A year later, we would be called upon to consult with the American College of Sports Medicine for whom I personally wrote the industry's first personal trainer accreditation program.
The next few years were a hectic mixture of training the entertainment industry's elite and working on film and television projects. Undertakings that would soon introduce me to two sports with higher-than-average risk quotients - motorcycle road racing in 1989 and rock climbing in 1991.
In the years that followed, 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 was allowing me to transition from activity to activity with a much shorter acclimation curve. I'd become a more well-rounded athlete.
It all nearly came to an end when, in 1999 while working on a feature film, I suffered a debilitating neck injury that resulted in the partial paralysis of my right leg. The surgery and year long, recovery prognosis could have meant the end of my life as I knew it... had I listened. Instead, a year later, after achieving the best condition of my life, I created Team Elite X-Training.
For me, every day is an opportunity to be that example others can follow with absolute confidence in my integrity. That means I train clean; I eat well, and I actually do or have done the things I encourage others to do. This allows me to maintain a reasonable expectation of the results we should see over a given time, and make the necessary adjustments for those who've entrusted me. It's a win-win and I wouldn't have it any other way.