My Hobbies

I grew up playing football which carried me thru my early years and into college. After college however like many athletes I struggled to find an appropriate outlet for that competitive energy.

 I eventually took to distance running. In 2010 I ran the NYC Marathon on behalf of Team for Kids, a non-profit who seeks to improve the quality of physical education programs in NYC. Having run a marathon I decided to see how far I could push my body so I ran the North Face Endurance Challenge 50 miler in FDR Park in Columbus, Georgia.  I realized having completed 50 miles that I was, in fact, done with running.

I turned my attention to grappling, more specifically Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, which combines wrestling with submissions. Unlike running Jiu-Jitsu is both physically and mentally demanding. Often called "human chess" the sport offers an ever changing level of complexity as one competitor attempts to counteract the movements of their opponent. I dove head first into the sports, and in 2018/19 I won both a Eurpoean Championship as well as a World Championship. I concluded the 2019 calendar year ranked #1 in the world in my division.

I am a lifelong learner, spending the last decade focusing on learning foreign languages including: Spanish, French, Italian and German.

I have been a member of Mensa since 2014.