credentials / titles / certifications I've held

I started drawing at a young age, inspired my my grandmother, who painted china, and my aunt, a traditional painter. In my teenage years I was obsessed with comic books, and comic-style art.  I drew comics and cartoons well into my high school years. I even drew the official school comic in my school newspaper. in 1997 I enrolled in Art Institute Houston (for profit college is a scam) and bounced around majors for 2.5 years until I washed out with no degree. I enjoyed sketching, charcoal, inking, and colored pencil.I attempted to follow this professional path for several more years before shifting my energy elsewhere, due to changing interests as well as my perception (that I gained in college) that I wasn't good enough to hack it as a professional visual artist.  The level of skill and competition there was insane, and coupled with half-committed and marginally engaged teaches who regularly lost art projects representing weeks of work while taking a hardline zero tolerance stance on work "not turned in (aka lost") creating a learning environment that does NOT foster creativity, originality, or self expression. They also provided zero promised job placement assistance, which was a major selling point.

Don't go to for profit college, especially any art institute of __________.

I had rhythm in my body long before I knew it.I longed for anything to bang on to make rhythms, and learned to beatbox at a young age. An ADHD stemming behavior I developed at a young age, which became my system for writing beats in my head as well as keeping time drumming with a band, was what I call "clicking," where I create a full drum / percussion set inside my head by rhythmically rubbing and clicking various teeth surfaces against each other, tongue / sinus clicks and breath noises.  

At 12 my mom agreed to buy me a cheap electronic drum kit from toys R us, and promised if I practiced regularly I could get a real set.  I played that kit every day until it broke, and she took me to the local music store 

(remember those?) and bought a super cheap plywood trap kit.

I played it as hard as I could until it disintegrated and I got my first Tama kit. My inspirations were Lars Ulrich, Herb the Ginseng Drummer, and Jean-Paul Gastier.

I was introduced to the art of DJ'ing and producing by my friend Jordan "Sifu" Kolar, who was at the time half of a nationally successful MP3.com trance Live PA, "303 Infinity" in 1999. (Funny note: the first track I ever produced, "Tetris Boonch," which combined the BG music ripped directly from an original Tetris cart on an old school game boy with the stock loops that came with ACiD DJ, reached #1 on the mp3.com video game music charts.)

I started out with a set of gemini direct drive turntables, a cracked copy of fruity loops, and Acid DJ 2.0.

I didn't know exactly what genre to spin, I learned to beat match on analog vinyl using drum & bass tracks.

I eventually settled into my sweet spot of full bore tongue in cheek party music called UK hard house.

I immediately began trying to figure out how to make my own sounds, loops, elements, remixes, and tracks.  My first successful attempt was a release (lost to time) called Tetris Boonch.  It reached number 1 on mp3.com's video game music category after a number of weeks.

to be continued...

Worked at Alvin Cinema for 2 years, as assistant manager, projectionist, and projection engineer.

I loved being a part of this and getting to be fully immersed in the final days of analog, old school 35mm film projection. I could take apart and clean every projector in that place, that were all cobbled together from parts that didn't necessarily go together.

I have stories. lol.

While at AIH, I was approached by a rep from Fox Sports Net, a terrestrial cable station that created content for as well and managed programming schedules, creating multiple concurrent regional cable feeds that went out to different US viewer markets. Worked here about a year for free before I realized I was getting screwed.

Martial arts I've studied: kung fu, karate, boxing, kickboxing, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, Japanese jujitsu, judo, freestyle wrestling, wing chun, jeet kune do, kali, aikido, systema, SPEAR system, combat focus shooting, SPEAR system, Crossfit defense, tai chi... etc

Movement systems I've studied: Yoga, Crossfit, chi gong, Z-health, freestyle ground flow / rolling, Ido Portal movement culture, Kelly Starrette Supple Leopard, myofascial release, quadrupedal movement... etc

Flow / fire arts I've studied: poi, rope dart, meteor dart, staff, dragon staff, sword, fire safety, fire breathing... etc

Certifications I've held (lapsed/disavowed)

Mushin Dao martial arts (black belt sensei)

Life Ki-Do martial arts & life skills (black belt sensei)

Crossfit (lvl 1 coach)

Tony Blauer's SPEAR system (lvl 1 coach)

Lower ranks I've held:

Northern Shaolin & Praying Mantis kung fu (green 5)

Gong Yuen Chuan Fa - Pai Lum kung fu (orange)

"hung gar tiger crane" kung fu (yellow) (disavowed)

Relson Gracie Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (blue)

My first Sifu, Luis Garza (RIP) was a master of the Shaolin chain whip, which in those days was a rare weapon, as well as the Guan Dao; the walls of our tiny dojo were lined with trophies taller than my diminutive Latiné Mexican-American teacher. I recall many times, all 6-8 students in attendance hugging the walls of our tiny industrial garage unit as the flag on the end of that 9-link chain with a deadly teardrop on the end roared like a demon out of hades.  That sound and those movements were embedded in every cell of my body.

in 2000, I saw a guy at a rave, with a glow stick on the end of a long string, doing moves I recognized from Sifu Garza's chain form.  When he finished, I approached him, and said, "hey, that's kung fu, huh?"

That man was Sifu (at that time Sihing) Jordan Kolar.  The man who would become a lifelong friend, and get me started on DJ'ing, Producing, Dancing, and above all, Rope Dart. We trained together for another 2 years or so, I joined his kung fu school, and was honored to participate in his transition from Sihing to Sifu.  Funnily enough, his handle used to be "DJ Trance Ninja" until I suggested he change it to "Sifu."  He still today goes by the handle I suggested.

He never even gave me an actual rope dart lesson.  I just watched him, and copied the moves as best I could, combining them with memories of Sifu Garza's chain whip, practicing by myself with a handful of washers on a keyring, tied to a length of paracord.  I took the flag off my first Chinese broadsword and tied it to the keyring. I practiced with this, by myself, never meeting another rope dartist until 2014 when I found Frank Hatsis, the Facebook group Rope Dart Tech, and the global rope dart community.

I posted a video with my brand new flowtoys LED dart, on that springy-ass flowcord. Frank noticed me, and began our long relationship, by sending me an early copy of the Rope Dart Academy manual, and a length of his favorite rope. I used that rope for years, first on my "LAX hammer" lacrosse ball dart, then eventually it became the leash on my fire dart as I became a fire performer. 

more to come...

I was blessed with the honor of learning the art of capital "P" Partying and the global decentralization movement from the creator of the DDP, creator of DogeCoin, Gary LaChance; and was the "Gary" of the DDP: Austin, as well as the Burning Flipside theme camp, "The BoomBox Cartel: BBC 88.5 FM" for the duration of their existence. 

I will write more on the movement, and how it changed my life, and will make some video about it as well.