The life of Vinny Paz is truly a testament to the human will to never give up. To look at life’s worst possible circumstance and to continue onward and upward.

One day while Paz, was riding in the passenger seat of a car, the car was struck head-on while traveling near his home in Warwick, Rhode Island. Paz suffered two broken and one dislocated vertebrae along with his spinal column.

He was told that he would be lucky if he could just walk, and as far as boxing was concerned, he was told to forget that idea.

But the doctors had no idea who they were dealing with.

Vinny Paz had to make a life or death choice, quite literally. The decision was to have an operation on his vertebrae and never box again or to have a halo spinal traction and make the boxing comeback of the century. Vinny chose the later.

The above image is Vinny Paz right after the accident.

After 13 months, Paz was back in the ring. Defying all reason and logic, and not only defeated the Dominican Republic’s Luis Santana in a 10-round unanimous decision but also would continue fighting for the next 13 years.

His life is a true inspiration, so much so that a movie was made about his life.

Of course, I was super thrilled and honored when I was given the incredible opportunity to interview Vinny Paz.

Here is the interview:

Could you tell us a little bit about how you got into boxing? Also what other types of training do you currently do?

Since I was six years old, all I ever wanted to do was box.  I was inspired by Muhammed Ali. To this day, I train with weights and hit the bag, you can see me at Twitter @5Xpaz.

You have inspired people all around the world, who has inspired you in your life?

Muhammed Ali was my all time favorite hands down. And I also go to fight my idol Roberto Duran, and now I corner his son, Roberto Duran, Jr.

If you could thank three people in your life who would they be and what would you say to each of them?

My Parents! They have always been there for me, for sure. They are great people! Another person I would thank would have to be Mauricio Sulaiman, the President of the WBC,  for always including me in the conventions and in the honorary WBC Belt. He is a good man and very good to many including myself!!

There are a lot of myths or just plain non-truths when it comes to boxing in general and what is one that you seem to hear over and over?

The only myth really is that you can have a long career in boxing, most of the time it doesn’t happen. Only a very few can have a long career, for the rest their careers are short, and you have to be a bit lucky really to make good money and fight at the top. Boxing has changed a lot over the years, and I’m glad I fought during the time I did in my day.

What’s the most important lesson you have learned in life either personally or professionally?

You have to stay tough; life is tough; things happen, you can’t quit!

In one sentence or phrase, how would you define success?

Everyone has their own meaning, I have to tell you, if you can get through the tough times that’s success.

What was the most challenging or difficult decision you had to make?

That’s really a tough one, obviously, it was the Halo and when I broke my neck. I had to roll the dice and rolled it big.

As an inspirational and motivational role model, what pearls of wisdom or words of advice would you have for those chasing their dreams?

Don’t quit! Its that simple just don’t quit

What was the best decision you have made?

Boxing because it really is all I ever wanted to do!

What question should I have asked you that I didn’t ask? Why is that question important and what is the answer?

The only question I would have asked me is what’s it like to have a movie made about you? It was a bittersweet situation I loved Miles Teller playing me, but I would have never allowed the way they put my movie out there. I didn’t like how they did it! It could have been a blockbuster, Miles Teller and the cast Aron Eckart and Katey Segal were great but I wasn’t happy with a few of the producers, they really let me down. So the question would have been about the movie and what I would have liked to happen? But that’s life! And if it inspired one person then I won. Thanks stay strong 5XXXVP

Thank you!!! Vinny for being an inspiration to millions around the world. You a true model of perseverance and not giving up.

For more information about Vinny Paz, you can follow him at his Twitter account:
https://twitter.com/5XPAZ

And here is the trailer to the movie about his life story:

It was something super small, that I wanted to share with you folks.

The other day I had taken my clothes to a local tailor in the small town where I live, and she had agreed on a price at the completion of her work.

She told me to come back next Tuesday to pick up the clothes I wanted altered and that it would be 40€

I came back late Tuesday around 6 PM to pick up the alterations and the seamstress looked astonished and surprised to see me, and told me that I was early and that I had to come back Thursday.

Of course, I was a bit taken back, and replied, that I thought it was today.

She looked at the ticket and it was indeed Tuesday that she had agreed to alter the clothes.

She told me to come back tomorrow.

When I came back, she had me try the clothes to see how the alterations were, and then told me that she had to do a lot more work than she originally thought. She told me that the pants required a lot of work and that she worked really hard to get them altered to the highest quality.

She then told me that the two pants each would be 5€ X 2 = 10€ and the jacket 40€ for a total of 50€.

Of course I was taken back and reminded her that she had agreed upon a price but she began to tell me her sob story about how she has to pay taxes and that she really doesn’t make that much with the IVA (the taxes).

I reluctantly acquiesced, and walked home a bit perturbed.

It never fails to surprise me how a person can sacrifice their honor and integrity for some measly paper notes.

I can honestly say it’s a bit sad to see just how far we have come as a “civilization”, the very word, “civilized” makes me begin to doubt the legitimacy of the very word. We are neither civil or civilized when it comes to how we treat one another.

I remembered a movie that I had seen awhile back that starred Robert De Niro and Cuba Gooding, Jr. called, Men of Honor.

The theme song was quite memorable and poignant and for some time it was sort of my mantra. Here are the lyrics:

My favorite part of that song was and still is, “See I promised myself that I’d never let me down.”

For me honor is all about, respect. It’s about having respect for yourself that you will never settle for anything less than the best version of you. The absolute very best. It about valuing and appreciating the single most important thing on this planet. YOU.

Integrity, is about following through on your truth, whatever that may be. We all can not be honest 100% of the time, I realize that, but it’s our integrity that gets us back on course.

Its integrity that helps us to recognize that we have not been so truthful and a little reminder to get back on course.

Integrity is about following your own internal moral compass whatever that maybe, so long as you cause no harm, damage or physical, mental, emotional or spiritual violence to any living creature.

Honesty is telling the truth and integrity is how well you can live that truth.

Probably what most disappointed me about my encounter with the seamstress was not that the price had changed, but it was that she felt justified in changing her prior agreement.

When will we learn that no amount of money, power, fame or prestige can make up for our own honor and integrity?

When all is said and done, at the end of our lives we will have two final questions that will forever haunt us and the answers to those two questions will sum up your time on this planet:

1) Did you live to the very best of your potential? Compared to the very best version of you, did you do and be your very best? Did you live to your full potential?
2) What did you contribute, what did you give? Not what did you get out of life, but what did you give?

Life is short, far too short to compromise our honor and integrity.

So please do not settle for second best.

Be the very best version of you.

What you and I choose to do with those moments is our decision.

Regardless of age, sex, race, religion, education or the supposed lack there of, your socioeconomic standing, where you live, who your parents are, whether or not you are adopted, handicapped, or whatever malady or misfortune you can dream up or defend. We are all created equal when it comes to good old fashion time.

That’s right.

We all have the same amount of time each and every day. 86,400 seconds to do with that time as we see fit. (No pun intended)

For the vast majority, many would rather make excuses than to actually do something with their precious time on this planet.

You see, there really is no difference between the greatest athletes of the past or present and yourself.

The major underlining story is that the so-called “gifted” and “special” elite athletes are no different from you and me.  They just astound us but they are no different, the real difference, is their mental toughness.

Their refusal to quit and give in.

For those of you that might not have heard of the incredible true story of Derek Redmond, in the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona I would like to take this moment to share his truly awe-inspiring tale.

Derek was favored to medal in the Olympic 400 meter race however 150 meters into the race he felt a searing pain in his leg.

In agony he fell to the ground from a torn hamstring.

Not willing to give up, determined to finish the race he continued.

Breaking through security a man came to Derek’s side.

It was his father.

“You don’t have to do this,” he told his son.

“Yes, I do. ” he replied.

“Well then, we’re going to finish this together!”

Together father and son continued.

Shortly before the finish line, Derek’s father let him go to complete his race.

Receiving a standing ovation from a crowd of over 65,000 people.

Another great story of not willing  to quit, that I recently read was about Kobe Bryant.

Stories abound about his relentless work ethic and other stories are just down right hard to believe.

I thought I would share this story straight from reddit:

Thanks to Reddit user RobertAlert, here’s one of those stories.

I’ve been a professional athletic trainer for about 16 years and have been able to work with a range of athletes from the high school to professional level. Right now I run in a clinic in Cincinnati and have most recently been training with some players on the Bengals.

I activated my reddit account just a moment ago and because I’ve been seeing the videos of Kobe’s most recent dunks and the comments you guys have had to share I decided I might as well chime in what I know about the man. And let me just state by saying that this story doesn’t touch on anything we don’t know about Kobe but rather that he simply is not human when he is working on his craft.

I was invited to Las Vegas this past Summer to help Team USA with their conditioning before they head off to London, and as we know they would eventually bring home the Gold (USA). I’ve had the opportunity to work with Carmelo Anthony and Dwyane Wade in the past but this would be my first interaction with Kobe.

We first met three days before the first scrimmage, on the day of the first practice, early July. It was a brief conversation where we talked about conditioning, where he would like to be by the end of the Summer, and we talked a little bit about the hustle of the Select Team. Then he got my number and I let him know that if he ever wanted some extra training he could hit me up any time.

The night before the first scrimmage I remember I was just watched “Casablanca” for the first time and it was about 3:30 AM. I lay in bed, slowly fading away when I hear my cell ring. It was Kobe. I nervously picked up.

“Hey, uhh Rob, I hope I’m not disturbing anything right?”

“Uhh no, what’s up Kob?”

“Just wondering if you could just help me out with some conditioning work, that’s all.”

I checked my clock. 4:15 AM.

“Yeah sure, I’ll see you in the facility in a bit.”

It took me about twenty minutes to get my gear and out of the hotel. When I arrived and opened the room to the main practice floor I saw Kobe. Alone. He was drenched in sweat as if he had just taken a swim. It wasn’t even 5AM.

We did some conditioning work for the next hour and fifteen minutes. Then we entered the weight room, where he would do a multitude of strength training exercises for the next 45 minutes. After that we parted ways and he went back to the practice floor to shoot. I went back to the hotel and crashed. Wow.

I was expected to be at the floor again at about 11 AM. I woke up feeling sleepy, drowsy, and almost pretty much every side effect of sleep deprivation. Thanks, Kobe. I had a bagel and headed to the practice facility.

This next part I remember very vividly. All the Team USA players were there, feeling good for the first scrimmage. LeBron was talking to Carmelo if I remember correctly and Coach Krzyzewski was trying to explain something to Kevin Durant. On the right side of the practice facility was Kobe by himself shooting jumpers. And this is how our next conversation went — I went over to him, patted him on the back and said, “Good work this morning.”

“Huh?”

“Like, the conditioning. Good work.”

“Oh. Yeah, thanks Rob. I really appreciate it.”

“So when did you finish?”

“Finish what?”

“Getting your shots up. What time did you leave the facility?”

“Oh just now. I wanted 800 makes so yeah, just now.”

My jaw dropped. Mother of holy God. It was then that I realized that there’s no surprise to why he’s been as effective as he was last season. Every story about his dedication, every quote that he’s said about hard work all came together and hit me like a train. It’s no surprise to me now that he’s dunking on players ten years younger than him and it wasn’t a surprise to me earlier this year when he led the league in scoring.

Thanks for reading and allowing me to share you my Kobe Bryant story. If anyone has any questions I can clarify. Sorry if the story was at all hard to follow as this is my first time on reddit.

These are just two of the countless accounts of people not willing to settle for second best.

They are willing to put it all on the line.

Life is all about the questions we ask ourselves and how we choose to respond and answer them.

So my question to you is…

What would you do if you knew you could succeed?

I wanted to discuss the practice of what in modern terms has been called, “Mind-fullness” which is really just being aware and observing the thoughts, images, feelings, and general mental state you are in.

There is a great little quote, that I am not quite sure who is the person responsible for coming up with it, but it goes like this:

“The past is history, the future is a mystery, but today is a gift—that’s why they call it ‘the present’”

For many of us, being mindful might mean taking a back seat to your life as you observe your thoughts and emotions, but is really more than that.

It’s about being an active participant in choosing to not just jump on every passing and fleeting idea that your mind can conjure up. The mind runs at an incredible speed and if we try to keep up with it it might actually be detrimental.

detri (Latin) = to wear away

mental = mind

So essentially wear away of your mind.

With the onslaught of so much information from so many sources, like social media, news, YouTube, etc. it can all be so daunting. But with the daily use of meditation it can seem less overwhelming.

I want to state that I am in no way an expert in meditation, in fact, I am a bit taken back when people pay big bucks to learn from some so-called meditation “guru”.

Meditation is a personal experience and really has nothing to do with spirituality although many spiritual traditions incorporate this tool into their practice it does not mean it is religious nor spiritual.

I have meditated off an on for some 30 years and as I stated before I am no expert.

I use it as a tool to do as the late great self-help and business philosopher, Zig Ziglar, likes to call it, ” a check up from the neck up.”

In calisthenics, we are sometimes so focused on the physical that we sometimes can negate and even avoid caring for the mental and emotional components of our health and well-being.

I implore you to take a look at mindfulness and the practice of meditation.

There are many forms and although I have not tried them all, I can say that like anything in life it comes down to finding the one the works best for you.

To learn more about the benefits and how I meditate you can check out a past post I wrote:
https://www.calisthenicsmag.com/real-benefits-meditation/

In fairness, I believe in keeping it simple.

If you want to meditate just stop what you are doing, however please do not try this when driving or operating any type of machinery.

Close your eyes, because by closing ones’ eyes you eliminate some 70% of external stimuli, and just focus on your breath.

If it  is loud or noisy where you at, then take your hands and place them gently on your diaphragm, between your navel and your chest.

Just observe as your hands rise and fall, with each inhalation and exhalation.

The amount of time you do this for is not important. What is important is that you are now focused on the present. For many of us this is how we feel when we practice calisthenics.

No thoughts of the past, or things that we have to do in the future. We are in the now.

I hope this post helps.

And I wish you a Happy New Year.

I think it might make sense to first talk a little bit about fasting and the origins.

Fasting is not inherent to humans, although we would like to think we came up with the idea. It’s a pretty common thing among animals in nature.

It would appear in some respects animals are far more smarter than us humans when it comes to listening to our bodies.

If you have ever seen an animal even your own dog or cat, when they are injured or sick, one of the last things that they often do is eat. They instinctively know that they need to give their body a rest to recover and repair.

If you stop to think about it, digesting food is one of the most energy intensive things your body can possibly do on a daily basis.

The digestive system incorporates at least six organs to do its job, including but not limited to: mouth, esophagus, stomach, pancreas, liver, small intestine.

Here is a great table that breakdowns the functions:

The six primary processes of the digestive system include:

1. Ingestion of food
2. Secretion of fluids and digestive enzymes
3. Mixing and movement of food and wastes through the body
4. Digestion of food into smaller pieces
5. Absorption of nutrients
6. Excretion of wastes

When we factor in the cycles our body goes through each day just to maintain us it is simply amazing.

Cycles Of The Body

According to the concepts of Orthopathy also know as Natural Hygiene the human body’s diges­tive sys­tem goes through three, eight-hour cycles every twenty-four hours:

Noon – 8pm: Appro­pri­a­tion of food (eat­ing and digestion)

8pm – 4am: Assim­i­la­tion of food (absorp­tion and use)

4am – Noon: Elim­i­na­tion (excre­tion of waste)

Understanding these cycles is critical to one of the most important parts of the boy, the digestive system.

So what does this all mean?

Well in a past post I wrote about this subject with the intention of explaining the health benefits of detoxification through fasting. The fact that many are using this to get cut and lean, aka intermittent fasting is no real surprise.

The whole subject of intermittent fasting is can be summed up in one sentence: Give your digestive system a break for an extended period of time.

Of course there are variations on this idea:

In some contexts, fasting allows the consumption of a limited amount of low-calorie beverages such as coffee or tea.^[2]

One form of intermittent fasting, alternate day fasting (ADF), involves a 24-hour fast followed by a 24-hour non-fasting period. This is sometimes referred to as every other day fasting or every other day feeding. Alternate-day calorie restriction may prolong life span.^[3]

Modified fasting involves limiting caloric intake (e.g., 20% of normal) on fasting days rather than none at all. A study suggests that this regimen may retain most of the benefits of intermittent fasting.^[3] The scientific literature for intermittent fasting, in its various forms, was extensively reviewed in 2014.^[4] Another form involves eating only one meal per day.^[5]

More generally, forms may choose to specify various ratios of fasting to non-fasting periods. The BBC2 Horizon documentary Eat, Fast and Live Longer^[6] covered people who committed to fasting two non-consecutive days per week. Known as the 5:2 diet, people consumed 400–500 calories (women) or 500–600 calories (men) during the days of fasting. During feed days, the diet was regular.^[7]

Human health

Studies on humans suggest possible benefits:^[4]

• Alternate-day fasting may encourage fat oxidation.^[17]
• Alternate-day fasting may reduce body weight, LDL, and triglyceride levels to the same degree regardless of maintenance of low fat or high fat diet on the feeding day.^[18]

The above mentioned benefits are just a couple of the massive advantages that come from fasting. Of course, like anything in life, if you do it in excess it can become detrimental to your health, so please don’t go overboard on fasting or intermittent fasting.

It is a tool like anything else.

I personally incorporate mini-fasts each day, usually not eating anything until 1 or 2 PM. Normally I may take a smoothie before hand but nothing that can serious tax my digestive system. I also, use fasting, when I feel a bit under the weather or sense my body is a little off. Typically with the change in seasons, the temperature can drop and the barometric pressure can affect me.

This is anecdotal and I have not double blind study test results to prove the change in temperature or barometric pressure affects everyone, I am speaking just from my own experience.

What I tend to do, is just refrain from eating heavy foods, and normally just take vegetable juices or fruit smoothies as completely whole and with no processed foods mixed in like rice milk, etc. Just vegetables, fruits and water, juiced or blended. I do this, as soon as I feel something off in my body.

And the next day, it’s like a reset button for my body, I feel recharged and renewed.

In conclusion, intermittent fasting, is nothing new. It’s just giving your body and more so your digestive system a well-deserved break. There are many different methods but I personally like to just refrain from eating anything until 1-2 PM. Just juices or water.

I hope this helps to shed a little light on this subject.

One more thing, here is my recipe for fruit smoothies:

1-2 Tablespoons Vitamineral Green

2 Apples

1 Tablespoon Goji berries

2 cups of sliced mangos

1 banana

Blend and enjoy