Welcome to Issue #029 of Zen in the Art of Fighting

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Five Things Worth Sharing

1. A few things I'm writing

• ​For FloGrappling: A profile of Art of Jiu-Jitsu’s squad coming into the IBJJF Pan American Championships, one of the four Majors on the gi jiu-jitsu calendar.
• ​For Substack: A reflection on reaching the six-year anniversary of my first jiu-jitsu class. Every year, I write a piece on what I’ve learned–both about jiu-jitsu and about myself–in the previous year of training. The last year has been the one of the most growth so far.
• For the book: a full revision of my annotated table of contents (TOC), a piece of the book proposal that serves as a spicy, compacy book outline. It features short chapter-by-chapter summaries or enticing blurbs that tease the plot.

On the last point, compared to the version I had at this time last year, the TOC I have now is stronger, more concise, and more precise on how each chapter drives the action deeper or forward. I’m proud of how it looks now not only for the purposes of the proposal but also for guiding me through full chapter revisions through the rest of the year.

2. Something I'm Reading: Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel.

Continuing the fiction kick begun by Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, I’m diving into the work of St. John Mandel, with The Glass Hotel and Sea of Tranquility queued up after Station Eleven. The writing is beautiful, but I’ll admit it was eerie to start reading Station Eleven near the three-year anniversary of the pandemic: the premise of the book involves a civilization-ending pandemic and a group of traveling performers navigating the world in the wake of it. The book was published in 2014, but the way it describes the panic of global shutdowns feels very 2020.

3. Two Things I'm Watching: The IBJJF Pan American Championships and the latest season of Love is Blind.

One of these is slightly more edifying than the other but both could be considered research: the former, on concepts to consider to chew on as I prepare to compete again this spring; the latter, on what not to do when getting ready for my wedding in T-minus seven months

4. Two Things I'm Listening To: Lex Fridman’s interview of B-Team Jiu-Jitsu and Chael Sonnen on Flagrant with Andrew Schultz.

Though the B-Team is known for being comedic and outlandish, all three of its representatives (Craig Jones, Nick Rodriguez, and Nicky Ryan) are insightful, relatable, personable, and insightful on Lex's podcast. I liked and respected all three athletes more after hearing them on this interview.

Sonnen is hilarious and his understanding of storylines and promotion in MMA is peerless. Listening to this over slow cardio workouts, I've had to stop this interview multiple times to as to not fall off the treadmill in laughter.

5. One Good Picture:

I took a week of vacation and spent half of it on holiday with my mom in Florida. Highlights included moments like this one, taken at a favorite spot of my dad’s in Miami. A classic steak dinner at The Palm couldn’t have been a more fitting way to honor the man ~one week before the three-year anniversary of his passing.

That's all I've got for this round.

See you in two weeks,

EZ

PS: On Instagram, I shared a story with this picture of Maxine and the following question: "You come home to see this thing lying in front of your fridge. What do you do?"

A sampling of noteworthy answers from the Insta-fam:

• Go to bed hungry because that's his territory now.
• Spin it around a couple times idk I haven't read the manual.
• Give her crack.
• I'm immediately suspicious
• Leave