I hope you, your family, and friends are doing well in these crazy times. I had been training for the All Japan Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Masters Tournament on March 1st. This was going to be my 1st tournament. I had completed all of my training and was resting for a few days prior to the tournament. I was training up to 14 times a week between my classes and supplemental workouts at the gym. I was going to be competing in the Master 4 82.3 KG and Master 4 Open Classes. A few days before they ended up canceling the tournament due to the spread of COVID-19. A few weeks later Japan declared a state of emergency and my gym closed for a few months. I’m holding off on going back to training until there is a vaccine for COVID-19. I have asthma and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is the direct opposite of Social Distancing. It’s not worth the risk for me.

I’ve been working from home since mid-March. I haven’t ridden a train or subway since then either. For the most part, I’ve been living on Zoom 8-10 hours a day. I have been traveling around 200,000 miles a year, typically several flights a month. It’s quite a change to be home all the time. It’s great to be able to spend more time with my family. The great benefit of working from home is I don’t have a door to door commute of 45 minutes or so. I don’t have the normal distractions in the office. So I get back 1.5 hours of commuting and an hour or two of office interruptions. I have so much time back in my life each day. It’s easier to do things before work and after work before dinner. I find myself super productive during the day and appreciate the extra time for my hobbies and my family.

It’s been a huge change from training in Jiu-Jitsu all the time to doing nothing each day. After a few months of that, I ended up buying a single-speed bicycle with a perk allowance my company provides so i could start exercises again.

Like most things I do, this hobby quickly escalates as you’ll see. I kept calling my good friend John Hall I went deeper down the rabbit hole for advice to keep me balanced. Wait a minute. Come to think of it, he is the same person I called when I thinking of a new camera or lens and his standard response is ‘why not, go for it!’. Maybe he is not the best person to call…