Welcome to Shanghai

I started in early January of 2010 to work for an Online Fashion Company that I had been in love with since I had met the CEO at a business unconference in Vancouver in 2007.  I had stayed in touch with the CEO Kyle Vucko, and when I was ready to move on from my SunPoker job, randomly an opportunity came up with Indochino and I jumped on it.

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This moved me from my little Caribbean Island of Antigua, where I was training with Ahssan Merrai, back to Vancouver where I was told I would be going to Shanghai for 1 month to become acquainted with the new business.  1 month turned into 2 months and now the goal is 6 months to a year that I will be living here.

I had found Shanghai BJJ when I first came here in January and went to one class, where I felt I held my own while rolling with the blue belts, even though I have little to no gi experience.  After that class I didn’t have a chance to go back, as work became super busy, then Chinese New Years happened and I traveled to the Tropics of China to get the sun I was craving since I left Antigua.  After I came back from Hainan, I decided it was time to get back into shape and that I was going to start training that week.  I did a small workout which consisted of Burpees, Situps and Push Ups and went to bed.  The next night I started to feel terrible pain in my chest and back but shrugged through it for the night, but after an hour of terrible sleep,  I woke up, hardly being able to breath or move.. I felt like my lung was punctured and my spine was broken.

After realizing I had no idea how to even say “hospital” in mandarin (phonetically: ee-ywen by the way) and none of my Chinese friends picking up their phones, the other co-founder of Indochino saved the day and with his broken Mandarin, got me to the hospital.  Turns out, I had fractured my rib while training either in January at Shanghai BJJ or when I was helping Brad Causey train for his fight at Pride Gym when I was back in my hometown of Rossland BC, Canada during Christmas, and the burpees, situps and burpees managed to somehow turn that fracture into a bigger fracture.

So once again my training was put off for another few weeks as I was put on some of the cheapest but most potent pain killers I have been on in my life.

I have felt a lot better for the past week with no sign of pain at all.  I even did 1 situp, 1 pushup and 1 burpee to see if I would keel over in pain, but so far all systems are a go.  So tonight I have decided to sign up with Shanghai BJJ and start my Mixed Martial Arts Training in China there.

The cycle begins again as I move back to the bottom of the gym’s ladder and start again as a white belt.