The journey of a thousand miles...

...begins with a sore leg. It's been two days since my first session at Inferno MMA in Bentonville, AR.

I'd met the owners through my work, as a video producer. After shooting footage of both his adult and child students, I was intrigued. As I put up my gear, I decided I was going to give Mixed Martial Arts a try.

I am not a healthy man, as the title of this blog makes perfectly clear. I've always had a weight problem, but over the past few years, I've developed chronic illnesses. Type 2 diabetes runs in my family, but it seems to crop up earlier and earlier in each generation, my grandfather in his sixties, my parents in their forties, and me at around age 25.

I've dieted, I've exercised on my own, but I've never felt comfortable enough in a "meat-market" gym, so I never had the benefit of professional instruction.

When I came to shoot that commercial, I saw men, women and children of all shapes and sizes, getting healthy, learning discipline, and gaining confidence and camaraderie with their fellow students. Competition and even confrontation are certainly key elements to MMA, but at Inferno, starting with the kids on up to adults, respect and teamwork are heavily emphasized.

I went in for my first session, wearing an awkward combination of athletic shorts and a muscle shirt (Wal-mart didn't have any plain t-shirts with sleeves). I jumped right into the warm up exercises, first laying on my back in an exercise called "shrimping" (or was it "squidding"?). Whatever the name, it set the tone for the day's exercise. When the height of your normal exercise routine is to walk on a treadmill for half an hour every week or so, you forget about the "work" in "workout." I won't forget for a while.

Kaleb Plank, the owner and chief instructor at Inferno, paired me with a student named Patrick, who helped me learn some basic grappling moves. I soon wished I'd invested in some 80's style sweatbands, as I was essentially raining on the poor guy. I must have sweat off ten pounds by the end of the night.

Once grappling was over, and my adrenaline wore off, I soon realized why athletic pros eat power bars instead of Taco Bell. I cooled off and talked to some of the students while watching the progressive grappling class.

Then it was time for Kickboxing Fundamentals.

One of the many disadvantage of being 6'3" is getting a jump rope of proper length. For most of the warm up, I was hitting myself in the shins or back of the head, but I kept jumping, because everybody else was. I tried jumping higher, but couldn't keep the pace up. Thankfully, bag drills were next.

We took turns, in teams of three, working the bag, holding the bag, or doing squats. When we adding kicking, the squats changed to pushups. I weigh nearly 400 lbs. Too put it mildly, I hate push ups, but I did what I could, butt in the air at first, then slowly wilting into granny-style on my knees.

I was paired up with Patrick again for work on the Thai bags, kind of mock sparring where you work on your technique. I felt sorry for Patrick, who had to spend most of his time showing me how to hold the bags properly, instead of getting the benefit of working on his techniques, but he was patient and helped me learn a great deal in a short time.

We finished out the night in lines, practicing footwork. It was bit like going to the club, and being the only one who doesn't know the moves to new dance, but the only way to learn is to try. After a brief bit of theory about how centripetal motion is the key a proper kick, we paid our respects, and the class was over.

I don't know if it was some sort of inner peace, or perhaps I was on the verge of stroke, but my mind was completely unclouded by work, money, and even how much my body was going to hurt (and hurt it does).

If this is what MMA can do in one trial session, I can't wait to see what it does after a few months or a year.

This is going to be a log of my journey toward fitness. Wish me luck.

Starting Weight 395 lbs.