Just Above My Head: Our Crucible

Part 1 of 5: The Introduction to the Ride to The End.

For Alcides I, Lily, and Alcides III.

For the future rides that will take place in the Rush, Tellow, Tait, and Garay households.

Watch the love grow.

Book One: Have Mercy

“Daniel

saw the stone

that was

Hewed out of the mountain. 

Daniel

saw the stone

That was 

Rolled into Babylon

Daniel 

Saw the stone

That was

Hewed out of the mountain

Tearing down

The kingdom of this world!”

(traditional)

Our Genesis

The attachment I had to fitness and combat melted away viciously on the day my son was born on May 31st, 2019 at 3:11PM. What I believed they meant gave way to an understanding of responsibility linked to a barely audible heartbeat. At twenty-six years old, I felt a discernible aging and occupation of a bigger, more paternal seat, and I became a young man stricken with the urgency to immediately provide. Weaponizing the skills that I had spent cultivating–my life spent wrestling, more recent life given to the practice of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, and a perpetual infatuation with the strength training that unified all of those pieces and would possibly result in creating something that would give my tiny namesake more opportunities than I had were what the emblems of fitness and combat became to me after the birth of my son.

The time that was afforded to me that during the onset of the global COVID pandemic year saw school districts country-wide attempting to nail down an efficient, remote structure that saw massive, daily pockets of time become available throughout the day of work (we were responsible for posting work then large blocks of time “answering questions”--I might have received one or two per day). As a public school teacher, I spent this time beginning to tear through any and all literature that would begin to have me understand what effective program design looks like, or what that even means. I converted that time of public school disarray into earning my CSCS and hammering through the Strongfirst kettlebell system to apply a well scaffolded structure to my public school students that had no affordable/local access to a gym, as well my sister–a mother of two children with no time to leave to a gym–and my mother who was nearing fifty years old with concerns of her own health. The goal of giving my son something of value or even just his own room was always embedded in whatever I was creating, but it was my extended children–my students–that benefitted from Wildlife as it grew before our hands. This was all important, but it was what my wife, Lily, did that forever changed my trajectory as a coach, husband, and father.

Post-training, wrapped up in a book—strength on all ends is what this was about from the beginning (2021)

In addition to pouring her heart-soul into our infant’s development and developing Black Belt baking skills, Lily sought out new adventure and this came through the brilliant idea of purchasing a green, $100 bicycle from Amazon with the accompanying child’s seat that would land a massive strike to the imposition of boredom and uncertainty that mystified what our lives would look like after the COVID pandemic. I had not ridden a bicycle since my time riding to and from the railroad that I would use to see Lily every weekend when I was an undergraduate student, before we made our home in New Jersey in 2015. This meant that I knew I would not be riding the bike, and watched as she set it up in our living room. 

Our first bike ride, ever (May 2020).

Eventually the bike went unridden, and it wasn’t until a few days before my son’s first birthday that I decided to strap him in and ride the bike for the first time. This came not as a planned event, but as a direct consequence of his sudden tantrum that sent my wife sprawling and myself finding a shiny, green novel manner in which to give them each the time they needed. As we rode, he slept nearly immediately–even though he just woke up less than twenty minutes before the ride. As pictured above, the little constellation of limbs, hands, and feet that he possessed barely made up the middle part of the seat, so it took quite some time for me to feel comfortable with speed, but once I, we, settled in, this became the linchpin of my relationship with my son that lives ever-present even to the moment I am writing this piece.

Our first summer ride, pictured above (2020).

Currently, with my son’s ever-increasing limb length at 5 years old, riding with him behind me has become increasingly difficult, and so a really exciting and kind of terrifying goal has been set—strap him up to the seat one last time for a 138 mile ride from the World Trade Center to the end of Montauk, The Lighthouse—a place so special (pictured below) that housed the last moment that Lily and I shared while we were still waiting for him to emerge. It was the final spring break we had before we officially became parents, and spent it (Lily most graciously did so at eight months pregnant) finally seeing the end of the island that we grew to love so much as we became adults, together. On August 18th, 2024, Alcides, my best man Eric, and I will ride along the entire over 100 mile path that saw Lily and I moonlight walk, stagedive, skateboard, thrift treasure chest necklaces, and spend our first real paychecks at record stores–all of which became the most revered memories we have as the family that stands today. 

Lily, 8 months pregnant, at our proposed final destination at the Montauk Lighthouse.

How Riding Influenced Both Fatherhood and Program Design for Strength/Performance

Nearly 2 Years old, our coldest ride up to that point (2021).

The bike for us has taught me some of the most salient lessons about being THERE and setting an example as a father, and I know have shown the virtue of applying physical/mental grit in exchange for joy at the completion of a goal. So many times we could have rode the car out to a park twenty miles away, we jumped on the bike and he saw us work for that time to play. I was never interested in riding, and I don’t really enjoy it—the only attachment I have to it has been to make my son happy. We began conversations on this bike with sounds, then a few words, then counting/practicing Spanish words (moon-a instead of Luna never got corrected), and now he tells me full, articulate sentences about his amalgamated fears/bravery for his incoming kindergarten year. MY education as a father and husband came principally through the time spent on the bicycle. This was time spent giving Lily the space she needed in the times that she was burnt out from being everything at once. I spent so much time developing my business and my craft in the sport of Jiu-Jitsu in his early life, that I missed a lot, and made some mistakes that I use as hard lessons to continue being the man that I know Lily and Alcides deserve to stand before them on a daily basis. What it has done, principally, is grant time that allowed me to have these close, special interactions that I missed so often throughout the day with my son on these one to two hour rides.

Riding with Alcides has radically changed the way that I approached program design for myself, as well as seeing the value for conditioning that was so easily ignored as a young man training Jiu-Jitsu 5-7 days a week. When the bicycle came, I was about two hundred post-it notes deep on the first fifty pages of the Westside Barbell Book of Methods, and I had never considered the inclusion of conditioning seriously into my training that saw so many sparring rounds that never really left me “tired” on the mat. Seeing that the bicycle would check the box of slow, long distance aerobic work saw me buy a heart rate monitor immediately and spend two to three times a week for one to two hours at a time riding up and down Union and Middlesex County towns at 50-60% maximum heart rate. Whenever Alcides would fall asleep, I would try to explain to myself the concepts and principles that were underpinning my work with program design at the time, and whenever he would wake up, I would immediately volley into Spanish practice and conversations about the little moments of his day. This bolstered my practice as a strength and performance coach, but majorly complimented the amount of hardstyle kettlebell training and jiu-jitsu that I was hammering through on a daily basis.

How Will Training Be Structured?

Completion of the strength goal for this 16 week cycle came June 27th, as the 300 pound sandbag was shouldered.

Training will be structured in a four day system, the beginning of it coming at week 10 of a planned 16 week cycle that saw an entry point as a running pre-assessment that resulted in establishing a (terrible) anaerobic threshold baseline for myself, as well as an objective strength baseline of shouldering a 300 pound sandbag. As of the beginning of these final four weeks leading into the big ride, the training structure will feature more cycling–one 40-80 mile ride per week leading up to the ride–but will continue to cover the hallmark bases that are addressed in my training methodology. This is encompassed by movement preparation, dynamic mobility, power/speed, back strength pre-max, main strength work, attack weaknesses, specific capacity work–all of which galvanizes the armor I need to step onto the bike, jiu-jitsu mat, wrestling room, football field, hardcore punk rock stages, skateboard park,  hockey rink, roadwork, whatever. Training days are 45-60 minutes maximum, and will be detailed in full as preparation is documented, and will speak to snapshots of certain components that are included to bolster performance on the incoming ride. Planning and program design will be difficult here, considering the time I need to devote to jiu-jitsu, recording follow-along training for my Patreon students, and trying to work more and more academic “games” into our days (“Zingo” and “Shut the Box” have been phenomenal for sight words and counting).

Earning my Black Belt on July of 2024 only further fixated Jiu-Jitsu as a main priority for me to constantly address the added stress in my own training.

Why Does This Matter?

For the Reader: I hope that this poses an example in some form of the radical possibilities of joy with your family and peak physical strength that do not have to be separated to be fulfilled, and the quality of one does not have to cause the other ruin. I did not begin to understand how much riding meant to my son until he returned home from school and his activity was to draw what his favorite day would look like—and it was a drawing of him and I on our bike. Out of all the medals, the people I have coached to titles, my wrestlers Isabelle and Adriana’s County Championship titles, my wrestlers Gianna and Alex winning matches and winning against themselves, my Graduate degree, my Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Black Belt— that is endures as the greatest accomplishment of my life up to this point. To do all I have done on the physical end, and complete an essentially 41 pound loaded bike ride for nearly 140 miles, hips, knees, ankles, back, neck all have to be fully engaged and ready to endure the stress about to be imposed on them. I am ready, already, and this ride was decided upon a week ago. There are thorough elements of what is done on the strength and performance end that have fortified a body and mind to rise to this occasion for Alcides as well as continuing to perform beyond expectations on the mat, the road, on the bike, and performing my obligations to my family, students, and training partners to a high standard.

Lily, my son Alcides, and I. His perpetual attraction to the coast of Montauk that began while he was still being carried.

For Us: The excitement here is mounting principally because my son understands what the ride represents—it is the ultimate crucible that signals the end of the summer, as well as the end of our time riding together, the end of his time being a daycare baby, and upon completion of this ride, he will get to choose his own bicycle—he understands this, and expresses excitement and concern for this ride. My wife is brilliant for many reasons, but buying that bike amidst a global pandemic was the most critical thing that happened for me as a man, and it acted as the genesis for a young father to be what his son needed in his early life, and allowed that same boy the time to learn who his father is while seeing the world from the back of his dad’s bike.