TAO 道: THE PATH
We are all on a path leading somewhere, whether we chose that path or it was chosen for us. Raised in the U.S., as a kid I was on the typical American trajectory, which included hours in front of the television eating Frosted Flakes, cheese sandwiches, fruit rollups, pop-tarts, hamburgers, fried chicken, ice cream, etc.
A path not of my design, that I wasn’t even aware I was traveling—that is until my early-teens when I started cutting weight for wrestling tournaments. Unsure of how to proceed, I asked my coach for guidance. He told me to swallow a few bites at each meal, then chew and spit the rest out. Oh, and completely stop drinking water the day before. Uh, okay, anything else? Well yeah, that morning wrap yourself in garbage bags and stand in a hot shower for twenty minutes.
Honestly, he just didn’t know much more than that. Nervous about missing weight, I went to the drug store and found the section of body-building magazines. Remembering how the women and men on the covers were always shredded, I figured they must know something. So I skimmed every nutrition article on the rack. Most advocated copious amounts of the protein powders found in the advertisements, but they also touted the need for wholesome vegetables, and also avoiding frozen dinners and canned foods such as raviolis in tomato sauce. Of course this rings like common sense today, but at the time I’d never heard such nutritional heresy. I mean, what the heck’s wrong with frozen chicken pot pies or Salisbury steak and mashed potatoes or canned ravioli? I gazed at the models in the article, then around at the other patrons in the aisle. That’s when the disconnect hit me hard, harder than logic would seem to warrant, and glancing down at my feet I suddenly saw that the path dictated by my culture (government food-pyramids hanging in the school lunchroom near vending machines loaded with candy and soda), that path was winding down to a valley of preventable medical conditions that I could not yet properly name, but included first and foremost obesity, not to mention high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, etc.
THE HERO’S JOURNEY
In martial arts lore, nothing is more lionized than The Path, and it’s often expressed like this: a Warlord’s gang attacks a rural village, and during the pillaging and marauding a young girl escapes into the dark forest. Desperate and grieving, she survives using her intuition and wits until on the trail she encounters a wily Mentor (think Obi-Wan). The Mentor teaches her a few important skills, usually Mental, Physical and Mystical, then, after barely grasping these lessons, she’s forced to continue on her journey and soon faces some formidable foes (which represent inner character flaws), each requiring her to finally master and integrate each skill. Throw in a love interest, and a not-so-shocking betrayal, and in the end she finally meets the dreaded Warlord (a mirror of her own shadow), and defeating him she reaches the glorious destination at the end of the Path: her Optimum Self.
From Weakling to Warrior the Hero’s Journey is a template as old as time, repeated again and again across every culture.
Why?
Because the template is true: The Path is how we transform ourselves.
Yet, early in my own quest for transformation, when at 34 I was overworked, overweight, over-stressed, and unhappy despite family and career successes, I thought I could merely adopt a diet, lose a few pounds and magically attain the balance I sought. But the weight losses were always temporary. Once I quit the deprivation of this food or that (South Beach, Zone, etc.) I found myself in an even worse predicament as the program-of-the-month failed to prepare me for the looming inner-battles (stress, intense cravings, blood sugar swings), and I got smoked, which left me defeated and full of shame.
It wasn’t toughness or willpower that I lacked, I needed a Mentor to show me the Path that would lead to transformation.
A medieval scroll demonstrating Jiu Jitsu techniques for when Samurai lost their swords during battle.
THE MOST RELUCTANT MARTIAL ARTIST EVER
I never wanted to train martial arts. As a kid I would watch Grindhouse Kung Fu flicks—Fists of the White Lotus, Enter the Dragon, The 36th Chamber of Shaolin—then reenact fight scenes with my little brother, oh and The Matrix is still on my top 10 list, but over the years I turned my head at any sort of training. Sure, I watched the inaugural UFC event in 1993, but I considered it more spectacle than sport. Then in 2000, in the basement of what would soon become the official UFC headquarters, I received an introductory Jiu Jitsu lesson from MMA fighter John Lewis. I thought the experience was interesting, but it really wasn’t my thing. At least not until a decade later, when I started traveling to UFC events around the world and writing the book, Into the Cage: Rise of UFC Nation. That’s when I decided that for proper perspective I needed at least a superficial exposure to martial arts training, maybe a month or two I should dip my toe in that pond, eat from that bowl, etc., etc., so—
So as a complete newbie at 43 years old, I resolved to give Jiu Jitsu a proper go. But where? Just two days later I was surfing the Newport Jetties with a friend who was a black belt, so I asked where he recommended I start training. Nowhere, he told me, because I’m opening a gym next month with these phenom kids, the Mendes Brothers, and trust me, they’re the best in the world, ask anyone.
Really? Wow, perfect timing, I thought, kind of weird that this opportunity surfaces the moment I start seeking it, but okay. (Coincidence? To my materialist mind of course it was, but we’ll return to this point later.)
Of more importance, on Sunday July 1st, 2012, at the grand opening for the Art of Jiu Jitsu academy, mere blocks from my home in Newport Beach, California, I walked through the doors, and once I slipped into a kimono and stepped onto the mats, I was struck by how much fun everyone was having. Women and men rolling around with each other—yes, learning deadly techniques, yes, sweaty and gasping—but all so giddy and childlike.
That was one of many ah-ha moments, when I realized that not only was martial arts training rewarding, above all else it was fun. Right then I caught the bug, and soon committed to learning the art to the best of my ability. I started attending classes every day, watching videos at night and drilling incessantly.
Competing in over fifty tournaments, I won some, lost some, but these losses always sent me back to the grindstone to further sharpen my blade—sparring and drilling with some of the best in the world, logging thousands of hours. Eventually I won a World and/or Pan American championship at every belt. As an acknowledged competitor in the academy, as opposed to a hobbyist, only then did I receive a promotion. After just seven years I earned my black belt.
ESOTERIC SAMURAI PRACTICES
Most Jiu Jitsu practitioners focus on developing effective submissions, or an unstoppable top-game, or a highly-technical guard. I was immediately drawn to the esoteric aspects of the mental game employed by elite competitors. Techniques developed by ancient Samurai, only mentioned in passing and never once, even to this day, have I heard taught in a formal class. Maybe these practices piqued my interest because I started meditating very young (thanks to my beautiful hippie mom), or maybe because of my favorite SciFi book Dune and its emphasis on Mentat training, or maybe because I used to carry a worn copy of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance around in my college backpack (this at twenty-four inspired a solo trip across the United States on a $225 beat-up motorcycle).
Under the tutelage of my Mentor, Rafa Mendes, I learned the techniques he employed to calm the inner chaos during competition, such as Mushin Mind (無心). To test my progress using this obscure technique, once I started competing I would step onto the mat against an opponent just to watch my mind freak out:
Quit…
Fake an injury…
This is so stupid…
Every match I would note the inner chaos, disengage from it and, when I was on-point with my physical and mental training, during the match I would watch my body react not with emotion or even logic, but the highest form of response: intuition.
In this way, the term martial-art is so precise. A great painter like Michelangelo studied under a Mentor, Bertoldo di Giovanni, for many years, honing his physical techniques so he could lose himself in the flow, creating great works like ‘David.’
Being the extremist that I am, I approached Jiu Jitsu training like law school and poured through and highlighted all the ancient texts I could find. The Masters inscribed much of this knowledge in secret scrolls and later books—The Book of Five Rings, The Tao Te Ching, The Art of War, Hagakure, etc.
These amazing tomes taught everything from mental training to combat techniques to nutrition, but let’s face it, in the ensuing centuries, especially the last twenty years, our understanding of human physiology and performance psychology has exploded.
So I searched for a modern Samurai manual, comprehensive in the vein of the old scrolls, but found none. Thus sprouted the seeds for The Inner Blade.
FITNESS & NUTRITION
Competition forced me to also prioritize strength and fitness, and so (again with the extremism) in 2014, in order to further my knowledge, I started a podcast that allowed me to sit with nutritionists, genetic researchers, best-selling health & wellness authors, successful entrepreneurs, sports psychologists, and yogis. Plus I also wrote a weekly column for Vice Media’s Fightland on these same topics.
Since then I’ve travelled and taught seminars not only across America, but in such far-flung locales as Russia, Amsterdam, Portugal, France, Ecuador, Costa Rica, Poland, Mexico, Chechnya, Spain, to name a few.
No matter the language, the one question I always, and I mean always, get is: How at fifty-four are you so lean and muscular without eating meat for thirty-five years, and without the use of TRT, HGH or any type steroids?
A decade spent learning from my Sensei 6x World Champion Rafa Mendes, at the famed Art of Jiu Jitsu Academy in Newport Beach, California..
Teaching a seminar to a young competitor in Florida.
NUTRITION IS KING
The number one mantra we hear from the sick and dying, regardless of income, achievements or country, is this: Health is priceless. Cherish it and guard it with your life for there is no greater treasure.
Visiting Blue Zones around the world, searching for the secret to staying young and fit as long as possible, an obsession of mine since first encountering the work of author Dan Buettner, and later, Dr. Valter Longo, Director of the Longevity Institute at USC—I met the most inspiring people. Old people. Young people. Entire villages of content happy people. No obesity in sight, yet their main exercise consisted of walking, something I rarely did in California.
Realizing I could only learn so much as a two-week tourist, I (of course) dismantled my entire life in the United States, offloaded my custom Sprinter van and condo, and moved to Sicily where I immersed myself in a primitive Mediterranean lifestyle. It was a mind-blowing adventure, to say the least. Living in the village where my grandfather was born, and where my family lived for nearly a millennia (according to family lore they were artisans who helped construct the famous il duomo di Monreale in the 1100s), I rented chambers in a hunting palace built in the Middle Ages. No one in the village spoke a word of English, so I learned Italian, and more important, I learned to walk miles every day. Each morning after visiting a cafe for the richest espresso, I would stroll through the town square—the old men in their wooden chairs would wave and shake their heads in confusion as they couldn’t imagine someone from California, whose grandfather left the village a century earlier, would move back! Through the winding stone streets I walked to the local market, and there I picked out fresh vegetables, herbs and delicious red wines. Every night I rode into neighboring Palermo and taught Jiu Jitsu to my young students eager for such advanced techniques. I sparred with them every day, correcting their mistakes and teaching them competition strategy, alongside mio fratello Ruben Stabile, the owner of the gym. One of my proudest accomplishments came later that year when our small team won the Sicilia Open. On weekends I explored the island on my motorcycle, visiting castles and ruins while connecting with my heritage.
I was a Stranger in a Strange Land, savoring every moment.
THE FINAL METAMORPHOSIS
Then something unexpected happened: despite eating as much of the most incredible foods as I could stomach every day, my body began burning through its remaining fat stores, until I found myself more lean at 54 than 18, when I wrestled varsity and trained intensely 3-4 hours per day while starving myself to make weight.
Not only did I grow ripped and vascular, I had more energy, my joints stopped aching, and visiting friends even remarked that I looked younger.
Holy shite. Was it the water? Or had I somehow actually stumbled upon the mythical geriatric Spice? If I could figure out how to bottle this transformative-whatever-it-is into a pill, how much would others pay for it?
Not thousands or even tens of thousands… but millions!
hahaha
After serious analysis, blood tests and discussion with one of my Jiu Jitsu students, Dr. Federico, a young cardiologist in Palermo, we pegged the metamorphosis not to a few dietary alterations—more olives, capers packed in salt, fresher tomatoes—but the result of a completely different lifestyle, or rather, a New Path that inadvertently combined both Samurai and Blue Zone practices.
December 2021 I underwent a 3-Level Cervical Artificial Disc Replacement Surgery… for months I could barely turn my head… Doctors said I would never train Jiu Jitsu again
MIND OVER MATTER: Almost one year to the Day of the Surgery in 2022 I returned from Europe and won a Second Black Belt World Championship
In the tournament I represented my ancestral homeland of Sicily via my newly acquired (dual) Italian passport.
THE INNER BLADE
Samurai believed that a warrior’s true blade existed not in the hands but in the heart, forged of discipline and constant polishing, a blade both resilient and highly effective.
Now, after twelve years of training, traveling the world like a Rōnin and kneeling before some of the greatest minds of our time, I have humbly moved to Mentor, teaching others what I call The Inner Blade—a collection of 50 Practices that integrate Mind, Body and Spirit. While interviewing the most disciplined martial artists in the world and their coaches, again and again these three elements surfaced.
Mind.
Body.
Spirit.
Ignore one and the alchemy breaks down. Now some bristle at the mere mention of Spirit. I get it, I was one of these people. Maybe it’s the lawyer in me, but my mind always demands proof, preferably via peer-reviewed papers, especially for anything that I recommend to others. So I was shocked to learn that the data is there: cutting-edge research conducted by Dr. Lisa Miller, author of The Awakened Brain, demonstrates via fMRI studies of the brain, the need for a holistic (three-prong) approach to optimum health.
So this Tao or Samurai Protocol or whatever you wish to call it, involves all the principles that I have integrated into my life, and used with students to lose weight and transform their own lives, including: healing with nutrition; yogic breathing; targeted resistance training; cold exposure; proper sleep & recovery; and Mushin Mind (combat mindfulness to calm anxiety and enter a meditative state).