About Me
I was born here in Southern California and spent most of my life in Santa Clarita when my parents moved out here in the mid-80s. I went to Castaic Elementary, Castaic Middle School, and graduated in 2001 from Valencia High School. When I was a young boy I was fascinated by martial arts movies, in particular of Bruce Lee. I wanted to copy him, and at one point decided I would try to teach myself. However, my parents eventually enrolled me into a local karate class where my love and passion for martial arts and anything combat solidified.
I remember being quite fit during my teen years, able to run a mile in six minutes, and bicycle forever. One person who knew me from high school said that I was “unusually strong.” My journey through martial arts led me through different types of working out, when I was young much of my training had made use of cardio-type workouts and body weight exercises. Martial arts also led me into a spiritual journey through mostly Buddhism, and after high school at the age of 19 in 2002 I was ordained a novice monk with the name Phap Hanh which roughly translates from Vietnamese as ‘Method of Action.’ Although born a Catholic, I took to the Buddhist way of life quite well for some time and really sowed the seeds of self-discovery that would come later.
Although I enjoyed being a monk, I just couldn’t see myself doing it for the rest of my life. Thus, I disrobed and returned to secular life wondering where I would fit in. I attempted to go back to College of the Canyons, but decided that I didn’t want to do that. After some soul-searching I thought I would try my hand at Massage Therapy. I went to Clarita Career College and was certified after eleven months as a Massage Therapist. I then went on to work for a chiropractic doctor in Newhall, Dr. Tracy Cunningham. I really enjoyed it and felt happy helping people feel better.
Around the same time, I got back into martial arts and started training for amateur kickboxing. It was a lot of fun and although I never got to fight I started to get into great shape, but because of work around the holiday season I had to take a break and then never really went back after that.
It was the year 2006 where I started to really gain weight. When I was a teenager, I was about 160 pounds, in my early twenties I hovered around 220 to 225. That all began to change however, as I became more sedentary and began to not care about what I ate or did I started to really put on the weight. By the end of 2006 I weighed a whapping 250 pounds and although I never was measured probably had over 30 percent body fat! I was tired of it by then and my lovely and beautiful girlfriend Sandy decided that she would challenge me to lose that weight. I had 6 months to lose 50 pounds, which anyone who is trying to lose weight can attest to how much of a challenge just a few pounds can be and much work there is for that to happen.
Well I was ready and put myself to work; I regulated my diet and started exercising on a regular basis. In the first couple of weeks I dropped about ten pounds of water weight that I was retaining. After that, I had gotten back down to 220 pounds again in about two months, and by the time the sixth month came around I had reached – through hard work and determination – 200 pounds. However, I didn’t stop there, and in one year I had dropped over 60 pounds.
Up until August of last year, 2007, I had mostly done my own thing and did mostly a combination of martial arts, cardio, and yoga. Now I had returned back to College of the Canyons and interested in furthering my knowledge of strength and conditioning, took a class with College of the Canyons Strength and Conditioning Coach, Robert dos Remedios an instructor here at Spectrum. He really opened my eyes to real-world strength training, and conditioning methods, the methods that I had been looking for to take my training to the next level! Through working with Coach “Dos” or Robert as he is known here at the gym, I have really come a long way and decided that I wanted to help others on their journey as well.
After spending 2 and a half years in the personal training field, I left in order to pursue my Chiropractic degree. Since then, it has been a long bumpy road, after Cleveland Chiropractic College in LA closed, I decided to take some time off, get married and receive my CSCS credentials. While I will be starting school back up in January, I look forward to keeping up with my website and hoping that it will be a refuge of information for those abused by the internet.
I remember being quite fit during my teen years, able to run a mile in six minutes, and bicycle forever. One person who knew me from high school said that I was “unusually strong.” My journey through martial arts led me through different types of working out, when I was young much of my training had made use of cardio-type workouts and body weight exercises. Martial arts also led me into a spiritual journey through mostly Buddhism, and after high school at the age of 19 in 2002 I was ordained a novice monk with the name Phap Hanh which roughly translates from Vietnamese as ‘Method of Action.’ Although born a Catholic, I took to the Buddhist way of life quite well for some time and really sowed the seeds of self-discovery that would come later.
Although I enjoyed being a monk, I just couldn’t see myself doing it for the rest of my life. Thus, I disrobed and returned to secular life wondering where I would fit in. I attempted to go back to College of the Canyons, but decided that I didn’t want to do that. After some soul-searching I thought I would try my hand at Massage Therapy. I went to Clarita Career College and was certified after eleven months as a Massage Therapist. I then went on to work for a chiropractic doctor in Newhall, Dr. Tracy Cunningham. I really enjoyed it and felt happy helping people feel better.
Around the same time, I got back into martial arts and started training for amateur kickboxing. It was a lot of fun and although I never got to fight I started to get into great shape, but because of work around the holiday season I had to take a break and then never really went back after that.
It was the year 2006 where I started to really gain weight. When I was a teenager, I was about 160 pounds, in my early twenties I hovered around 220 to 225. That all began to change however, as I became more sedentary and began to not care about what I ate or did I started to really put on the weight. By the end of 2006 I weighed a whapping 250 pounds and although I never was measured probably had over 30 percent body fat! I was tired of it by then and my lovely and beautiful girlfriend Sandy decided that she would challenge me to lose that weight. I had 6 months to lose 50 pounds, which anyone who is trying to lose weight can attest to how much of a challenge just a few pounds can be and much work there is for that to happen.
Well I was ready and put myself to work; I regulated my diet and started exercising on a regular basis. In the first couple of weeks I dropped about ten pounds of water weight that I was retaining. After that, I had gotten back down to 220 pounds again in about two months, and by the time the sixth month came around I had reached – through hard work and determination – 200 pounds. However, I didn’t stop there, and in one year I had dropped over 60 pounds.
Up until August of last year, 2007, I had mostly done my own thing and did mostly a combination of martial arts, cardio, and yoga. Now I had returned back to College of the Canyons and interested in furthering my knowledge of strength and conditioning, took a class with College of the Canyons Strength and Conditioning Coach, Robert dos Remedios an instructor here at Spectrum. He really opened my eyes to real-world strength training, and conditioning methods, the methods that I had been looking for to take my training to the next level! Through working with Coach “Dos” or Robert as he is known here at the gym, I have really come a long way and decided that I wanted to help others on their journey as well.
After spending 2 and a half years in the personal training field, I left in order to pursue my Chiropractic degree. Since then, it has been a long bumpy road, after Cleveland Chiropractic College in LA closed, I decided to take some time off, get married and receive my CSCS credentials. While I will be starting school back up in January, I look forward to keeping up with my website and hoping that it will be a refuge of information for those abused by the internet.
