King Leonidas struck me with one of his most philosophical, yet timelessly relateable speeches in Steven Pressfield’s “Gates of Fire.” “When a man seats before his eyes the bronze face of his helmet and steps off from the line of departure, he divides himself, as he divides his ‘ticket,’ in…

One of my biggest epiphanies in developing wrestling technique came from a book about chess. In Josh Waitzkin’s The Art of Learning, an insightful retelling of Waitzkin’s journeys to world class performances in two seemingly unrelated fields (chess and tai chi push hands), I found many insightful gems on how…

“Hang in there, Che! We’re almost there.” Two of my teammates on the Thai national wrestling team accompany me in the back of a pickup truck as I am being rushed to the hospital (this is legal in certain parts of Thailand). My entire body cramps. Searing pain shoots out…