Monday, August 20, 2012

What I've Been up to this Summer


Lots of my usual work, like this blog and other responsibilities, have been slowed down this summer in pursuit of some very interesting new opportunities. I apologize for the lack of blog updates and videos in the last month, but things are relatively back to normal and consistency will be restored! Thanks for all the continued support during my neglectful period. I received tons of emails and social media messages from people encouraging me to keep doing what I'm doing and I think that the break allowed people to re-visit some of my older material and also allowed newer members to catch up. In any case, everything is back to normal now! It's going to be great to get back into a normal routine and share some thoughts with you guys again. Thanks for being patient and supportive. Here are some of the very cool things I was up to this summer that took me away from my regular duties:

Volunteer Work
For those who don't know, I like to do volunteer work whenever possible. I've been involved with a youth camp for about 16 years now and have taken on more responsibility there this year. Over the years, I've been a councilor, a recreational program director, a Core Team member and helped train new staff through a Councilor-in-Training program. I've also taught martial arts, yoga, women's self defense and sports workshops as well. The weeks leading up to the camp take up a big bulk of my time and this year I was also invited to help with animating and maintenance with another camp that shares the site. Very rewarding work that charges my spirit like a battery for the rest of the year. You can check them out at www.visionscamp.ca to get more of an idea of what we do.

High Intensity Interval Training
Not overwhelmingly time-consuming, but worth mentioning. I actually plan on writing a much more detailed post about this, because I've seen amazing results very fast and want to encourage more people to incorporate this into their training. I was able to lower my body fat percentage significantly, drop several pounds and cut my workout time down. Really effective, but quite challenging. I will be writing about this a lot more in the coming weeks.

Video Game Consulting
Sadly, I'm not allowed to discuss this in any real detail, but it's a project that I'm very excited about and can't wait to share with everyone. I'm going to leave this vague for now, but with a promise to explain (and brag, maybe) as soon as I'm allowed! As a lifelong video game geek, I never would have imagined that my training would lead me to such a cool project!

Book Writing
After a year of writing, editing and re-writing, I finally finished a book project that I've been working on. Very proud about this one! The book is for modern martial artists and focuses on effective goal setting for performance enhancement in training. It also features examples of universal lessons learned in the realm of combat that have also helped me in my personal life. Each chapter also features a personal story of real-world violence that I've been exposed to (or created) and how proper focus and goal setting helped me survive. I really think this book will help people in their training and hopefully encourage others to start. It's in the final stage of editing now and will be available on  the site within the next two weeks.
If you're interested in reading an excerpt, just email me at jordanbill@scrapyardfighting.com and I can send you a chapter. Also, if you email me, I'll be sending out a few free copies, chosen at random, for preliminary reader feedback and questions. In exchange for the free copy, I would use your feedback for a testimonial and your questions for my FAQ section. More on this soon, but make sure to email me!

More Teaching
I was booked for even more teaching contracts this summer than usual, which I love! More people pushing themselves to share my passion with! I consider myself to be a very lucky person when I get to do what I love for a living, so I take my job as a teacher very seriously. In exchange for people allowing me to live the life I've always wanted, I make it a point to always push myself in my own training, exploring different methods and practices thoroughly so that I'm always bringing the best information possible to anyone who wants to learn. Teaching has pushed my personal training further than any other motivation before so I always appreciate new opportunities to share.

Gathering Affiliates
Something I've been meaning to do for a while, but just haven't found the time to do so. For years I've been following the work of other professionals both in person and online. I've finally gathered the nerve to contact them and get their permission to make them official affiliates to ScrapyardFighting.com. Surprisingly, everyone was excited by the idea. The purpose of this is to make it as easy as possible for you and anyone who visits the site to also see what other professionals are up to and writing about. People who like my work will get a chance to also see the people who influence me as well. The online affiliate section of the site is being made as I'm writing this and should be up on the site soon. I look forward to sharing the work of some amazing people with all of you!

So that's the bulk of what has kept me away for the last little while. All very cool reasons, but no excuse for the lack of blog updates and for that I apologize. Not only have these opportunities allowed me to challenge myself in new ways, but they've also provided all kinds of new material and thoughts to write about! I look forward to sharing more with you in the coming weeks and thank you again for your patience during this low activity period. Hope to hear feedback from everyone and will be back soon with more. It's good to be back!

Jordan Bill
Fight or Die

www.scrapyardfighting.com
www.combatsystema.com
twitter.com/jordanbill
twitter.com/scrapyard514
youtube.com/scrapyardmartialarts
facebook.com/scrapyardfightingcom

No comments:

Post a Comment