He has been a business traveler since working on
the Paris Stock Exchange in 1983. He and his buddies used to run
through the streets of Paris and do push-ups and callisthenics under
the outline of the Eiffel Tower and, in the summer time, jump right
in the fountains at Trocadero to cool off. As a young man, Slim
was also into resistance training with weights and machines but
realized in his early 30s that it wasn’t the way to continue for
his lifetime practice.
Slim worked part-time as a professional mascot for
4 years from age 28 – 32. This was a lot of fun and helped him get
super fit, but it also resulted in some repetitive stress injuries
from doing hip-hop dancing in a heavy, cumbersome outfit. He learned
Myotherapy from a family of health and wellness practitioners who
studied Bonnie Prudden’s “Pain Erasure.”
After that he spent 5 years visiting a highly-skilled
Japanese-American RSI (Repetitive Stress Injury) Consultant who
taught him healing through Shiatsu and Proper Biomechanics. Sifu
Slim adds, “He even taught me how to walk.” During that time he
spent time coaching high school amateur boxers. Then Slim started
doing martial arts: Tae Kwon Do, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Jeet Kune
Do. He also did Yoga, Tai Chi, and perfected his Maintenance Workout.
Starting with Jack LaLanne workouts at age 6, and
PE and scholastic sports after that, and over two decades of Maintenance
Workouts, Sifu Slim has done over 13,000 fitness workouts. He says
that not to be boastful but to show how he has picked up on the
passion which started with Jack LaLanne at an early age and has
never stopped. One of his softball coaches once told his team’s
base coaches to “send him" (tell him to go for the next base
whenever there’s a long fly ball past the outfielder and the throw
might come in close) “because he’s always in shape.”
Sifu Slim is not a "gym rat"
or a person who lives for working out countless hours per week.
Bruce Lee (one of Slim’s idols) might have been
the best mover of his mass in modern history; he was even once the
Cha Cha Cha Champ of Hong Kong. If Bruce were alive today, he might
tell you to take it easy. As many professional athletes and workaholics
do, he went at things a bit hard. A life practice is there to keep
you alive and well, not burn you out. Remaining a good amateur may
keep you more well, with less injuries.
Being fit, promoting healing, and educating himself
and others are Sifu Slim’s main passions. Slim is a well-rounded
intellectual. Years ago someone told him he was a Renaissance Man.
He looked that up and said, "Okay, let's go with that."
He speaks three languages, reads and writes daily, dances salsa
and old school hip hop, is involved in his community, and takes
time out for vacations which are usually learning vacations with
courses and lots of reading.
"Being a Renaissancer," he says,
"is a heck of a lot of work."
When he read Louis L'Amour's autobiography, Sifu
knew the work would never stop. Louis L'Amour was an athletic, hardworking,
learned man who learned by talking, traveling, and turning pages
of books. "He may be the most well-rounded Renaissance Man
I have come across. And he worked his craft--reading, researching,
writing, and talking--until the end of his life. Don't just think
'westerns,' try his other books and sit back with his autobiography,
Education of a Wandering Man."
Sifu Slim believes in learning by doing. He lives
in Santa Barbara, California where he enjoys outside workouts and
end-of-day Jacuzzis. Even though he is closing in on 50, he still
does recreational Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu with guys in their 20s. "In
2008, my instructor asked me to teach the grappling art."
"None of this gets any easier,"
he attests. "But feeling good on a natural high never gets
old.”
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