Thick-cut, peppered wisdom of the ages

Had a great time at the Ouano tournament on Saturday. There were some exciting matches, I got to hang out with some friends, and I got to run the stopwatch, which always makes me feel powerful. And when time was up on the matches, I got to throw a knotted up towel at the ref to put a stop to the action. Big Jason was my fellow table worker, and he's got this time, score, and bracket keeping down to a science. So I held the stopwatch and he basically did everything else.

Oh wait. I also ate Hershey's kisses, a hamburger, and some Skittles. So I did that too. I have a trick I can do with Skittles, M&Ms, Reese's pieces, or any small candy (and believe me, I have put in a lot of practice) where I flip a piece of the candy into my mouth super fast. Big J was suitably impressed. Or, at least, he claimed to be. (He knows me well enough to know that you just have to nod and smile enough and I will eventually pipe down.)

I have to say, I was incredibly impressed with New Breed's kids. Not only did they all do well at the tournament, they also demonstrated unbelievable sportsmanship--far moreso than many adults I know. First of all, there were enough of them so that some of them had to compete against each other. So they just acted as if it were another day in the academy, fought hard, and then were pals again afterward, regardless of whether they won or lost. And after some confusion about the outcome of one match, one of the kids stepped aside so his opponent (from another school) could advance. How many adults do you know who would do that? They should be very proud of themselves; they certainly taught me a thing or two about poise and why people look up to athletes. So, huge congrats to them for many, many reasons.

There are lots of other things going on that I will report on soon, but for now, I'll report on the most important piece of news, which centers around my visit today to my friend Traver for an acupuncture treatment in Santa Barbara (he and I met at our old CrossFit gym, CrossFit LA, and he opened http://www.crossfitpacificcoast.com/); my alopecia has come back, not as bad as before, but any alopecia is too much. And it's an indication that something isn't quite right.

So I intend to treat myself better. The upshot, according to Trav, is just that I work out a ton--I usually CrossFit once a day and grapple once a day 5 days per week. I rest like crazy on the weekends, but my weekly regimen is pretty intense. So I've tried to increase the amount of sleep I get, and Traver said I need to eat more red meat. He's also going to put me back on the Chinese herb regimen he had me on last year, and I have committed to getting a massage before the end of the month. And I skipped training tonight, so I only worked out once today. And I will say that that little physical activity seemed decadent.

But that's not the important piece of news, speaking of decadent. What was really important about that appointment is that Traver gave me a piece of chocolate that had bacon in it. I had never seen, let alone tasted, such a thing before, and I'm a little irritated that I've lived this long without knowing about it. It was life-altering. I highly recommend that everyone try it, whether they need Chinese herbs or not. And if bacon chocolate is one of the cornerstones of acupuncture, then the Chinese are wiser than I had originally believed.