Virginia Beach, Virginia
About
The short version: I train, I coach, and I write about the mechanics underneath both. The longer version is below.
Most of what I do comes back to one idea: a body, a day and a decision all run on rules, and most people are following rules nobody bothered to design. Training is where that shows most. I write my own programming — explicit progression rules, the arithmetic done before I get under the bar — and I eat off a system rather than a meal plan I will abandon in week two.
The Grammar of Grappling came out of watching beginners drown in technique lists when what they needed was the mechanics underneath: pressure, leverage, base — the handful of physical rules every technique is an instance of. It is in final revision.
I played Zerg in StarCraft II at Grandmaster level around 2015 and 2016 — in and out of the top two hundred on the North American ladder, practising with a team, and finishing plenty of seasons at Masters. That is less a trophy than a long apprenticeship in reading a system under time pressure: economy against army, scouting against commitment, when to hold a decision open and when to close it. It is also where I learned to resent losing to a coin flip after out-playing someone, which turned out to be a design opinion rather than a complaint.
I coach the same way. Training and nutrition, but also the parts of a life that decide whether the training survives: how you spend a day, how you carry yourself, how you deal with people — dating included. And I will argue about almost anything worth arguing about: moral philosophy, the case against religion and against veganism as a moral requirement, and what actually governs attraction between men and women.
To pay the bills I help manage a bar in Virginia Beach. Before that I was briefly a hibachi chef, cooked at Virginia Tech's Owens dining hall, and sold cars and remodeling. On the side I am building two things that are nowhere near ready to show — a planning system called Homeostasis and a strategy game called Longbarrow.
Otherwise I read — science fiction, philosophy, social strategy, inter-gender dynamics; The 48 Laws of Power, The Prince, The Art of War. I take photographs, and I am slowly working toward a boat that can cross an ocean.
How I work
I start from the end state and work backwards. Define what the finished thing actually is, find the prerequisites, work out what can be automated, then sequence it. Most projects fail in the ordering, not the effort.
I hyperfixate. When something has my attention it gets blasted through and finished, often faster than it should be possible to — and there is usually more than one of those running at a time. A book, a training block, a planning system, a game. The honest version is not a short list; it is a lot going at once and a lot of hours.
What I believe about design
A system should be able to explain itself. If it makes a decision on your behalf and cannot show its reasoning, it has not earned the authority.
Beauty should amplify function, not compete with it. An interface that is gorgeous and unreadable has failed at the only job it had.
Randomness should not overrule a better decision. That is true of games, and it is mostly true of lives.
Availability
What I’m open to
Taking names for one-to-one coaching, and available for podcasts — dating, relationships and philosophy shows as well as fitness ones. Happy to take the unpopular side of an argument and defend it — moral philosophy, religion, veganism, inter-gender dynamics. Open to brand partnerships with things I would use anyway, and to anything on camera: acting, film, skits, YouTube, or a shoot with another creator.
The Valentine Dispatch
Follow the whole project.
New writing, training notes, and first word when the book and the programs open. One list, sent when there is something worth sending.