The Lightning Storm

Storm’s day started at about 4:30 this morning. A quick breakfast of fresh berries and a B vitamin and it’s out the door--personal training: 5:15. Shocked to see anyone else in that early, I nearly hit him with my car as I pulled into the Title parking lot around six. Like a bat out of hell, he burst from between the cars and came motoring past with his duckbill pulled low over his eyes, his sinewy calves churning like one of the auto factory conveyer belts from his Motor City hometown--a couple of out-of-breath female trainees trailing in hot pursuit.

Just another day in the life, Storm sleeps about four hours a night and works five jobs--some split time at the YMCA and Skies Unlimited, running a Spartan middle school program, and the occasional suit gig as a real estate agent. The grind is in hopes of one day opening his own Parkour-centric fitness studio--but until then--his main job is as a dedicated TITLE boxing trainer. Now he’s here at a cafe with me, with just enough time for a coffee before teaching his next boxing class. 

He orders a white mocha. No whip, but even still, he really looks like he should’ve been a straight Americano kind of guy. “Coconut?” No, supposed to be almond “Shit! I’m so sorry sir I’ll remake it.” It’s all good, it’s all good. he waves the barista off with a balmy smile.

“Is almond healthier? More protein?” I ask as he strides over--yep, more protein, less fat. Protein, complex carbs--the constant struggles and holes to be filled--like shuffling around a nutritional chess board. “What about green vegetables? Spinach and kale?”--lots of protein but you’d have to eat a whole bag...laughing--and that ain’t gonna happen. (oh, now it makes sense!) Hmm, ok--bulletproof coffee pre-workout? People have been telling me about that but I’m gonna do my own research and check with a doctor on that one--if I’m going to make suggestions to a client ya know, they gotta be able to take it to the bank.

“So nutrition is a passion for you too?”

It’s a side project, but man I love to cook. In between his daily hustle--saving the world one cardiovascular miracle at a time--Storm is a single dad. Today, he squeezed in time to teach his fourteen-year-old son how to make homemade bolognese on his lunch break. No humdrum recipes here--bit of this, bit of that. Gotta put some T.L.C. in it ya know, he grins. 

Everything about this man should be intimidating; the biceps set to bust through his t-shirt sleeves, the 20+ year background in the Army Special Forces--runnin and gunnin, runnin and gunnin--even the name, Storm. Etched by years of who-can-only-imagine, his face is framed by just a few gray hairs poking out from under his Spartan Trifecta hat. But wait less than two seconds, and it’ll split like a geode into a sparkling smile of adult braces and white teeth. Ultimately, this ex-military fighter who looks like he could make you have to get your mouth wired shut in a second is infinitely more likely to surprise you with a big bear hug than that deadly right hook.

At 47, he’s the oldest trainer at Title Boxing Club--keeping up with the young bucks. His boxing classes are top notch, thorough, and refreshingly unrelenting. But his true specialties are parkour and Spartan training--in other words: obstacle courses. I had heard of Tough Mudder but Spartan was a head scratch--American Ninja Warrior? Pretty close--but add anywhere from a 1-26 mile run on top of it. He also does individual PT and weight training. Many of his clients are in need of more than mere fitness; it’s rehab, many need to lose fifty pounds or more. A tall order, but Storm is the right man for the job. He’s been coaching people since he was 16 years old--80’s aerobics classes--no Richard Simmons hair and the string going all the way up the behind but he did wear bike shorts and a backwards baseball cap. Since then, he’s trained in everything from Tae Kwon Do, to body building and taught everything from women’s self-defense to Crossfit.

He grew up in Detroit. “Old school Detroit?” Yes mam-- Motown--that’s why I’ll start pullin’ out some 90’s in class like WHOOP THERE IT IS--jamming out--you gotta have fun with it man. The son of a single mother, his older cousin looked out for him back then. They played hide and go seek that would take up the whole block, 15 kids diving over fences and running and jumping. When his cousin joined the Airforce, he used to take him to training on base; obstacle courses thirty feet up in the air--ropes--the whole nine yards. I’m out there hooking and crooking, zipping through it with these full on adults like THIS IS AWESOME!! He pumps his fist and screws his face up in joy at the memory. Those guys were like... my god, this kid is insane!

The things that terrify other people delight him; he knew that he wanted to join the military from a young age. “A guy yelling at you to scramble over a wall?” I asked mystified. Well in basic yea, but Special Forces is different. The elite, the most responsible--he learned an almost wax-on-wax-off-level martial arts discipline from two Special Forces Tae Kwon Do instructors, one a Vietnam Vet. Ever the altruist, he became a medic with the Special Forces. From then on, it was running amuck, amuck, amuck across the globe--the middle East where this Christ-following man got the chance to see his faith in real life, to stand in the Tigris river and visit the ruins of Nebuchadnezzar's palace—the chance to go 10,000 feet up above the earth where he jumped out of airplanes hundreds of times with arms spread eagle like a real-life superman (a pose you might come across once or twice on the floor in one of his core workouts)--east Africa where he went from village to village doing everything from operations and pulling teeth to treating sick livestock. The soldiers took all of their emergency flares one night and put on a fireworks show for the kids, blaring music and setting off lights as the village danced around with chem-glow smeared on their faces.

As a medic--he was the guy working behind the scenes, and the first face people saw when they needed help, and to this day, he still carries his trauma kit with him in his car everywhere he goes. He calls himself a servant leader--his superpower was influencing and encouraging others. He loved people, and the humanitarian missions were his most rewarding. The hearts and minds of the locals were something that factored into Special Forces operations greatly, they train local militias, and by giving humanitarian aid were also protected in turn--Storm said families and elders in the villages would warn them of where not to tread and saved many lives. Everybody can go out and shoot a gun, Storm said. But it takes certain individuals to be able to remain human and keep their heads and their wits about them--you have to keep that human element with whatever you do, whatever your occupation is.

The only topic that Storm talked about with more joy than his time in the Special Forces was his students who had met fitness goals. Sometimes a medal, or even just crossing the finish line of an unthinkable race, a woman who he helped lose over 100 pounds and then completed a Spartan race--I like to see things in people, he said, I don’t give up on them. His voice sped up in excitement as he told me their stories, each more fantastic than the last. His voice was like a slow roll, rapid but smooth, like someone was turning a spindle and a ribbon of continuous thought was being fed from his mouth from a limitless energy plant.

Suddenly, he switched courses. And YOU-- he gives me an unexpected compliment on my performance in class and I start--unsure what to say--I don’t deserve this. Not from this man who’s twenty years my senior but could still run twenty mile circles around me, with a BMI that makes me look like Rosie O’ Donnell in comparison--but there it was. How?

Sometimes I wanted to ask him if it was ever frustrating--this world he lives in full of people who weren’t on his level. He could’ve been a surly trainer, sure he could--he would probably still get just as many clients because he’s just that good--but that isn’t his style. Storm said that the biggest part of fitness for him was seeing the change in others and knowing that he had a small hand in it. He doesn’t look at an overweight client and see a three-hundred pound lost cause, he sees the potential--he sees the journey.

Maybe that’s how this man can walk in every day with the biggest smile, the warmest hug--always a friendly word to say. Trite sounding I know, but here’s the kicker--he does it with sincerity too. When Storm says something nice he’s not just blowing hot smoke up your ass, he’s honest--that was an honest, heartfelt compliment he gave me. I stored it with an inner smile for a rainy day and sat quiet for a moment, thinking.

“Do you ever…?” I stammered, sheepishly, “Well...you know---have an off day? Like, do you ever just feel like, today, all I want to do is sleep?”

He laughed, a deep hearty laugh, and not even the slightest hint of disingenuous.  

Sure I do hun, absolutely everybody does.

“So how do you keep going? Where do you draw your power from?”

One of the things with being in the military and Spartan they work on teaching you as a coach is resilience...it’s not just the physical aspects of the body; it’s the mind, it can be your most powerful tool, or it can be your biggest downfall.

...so there’s that that gets me out of bed, he paused, But mostly, it’s the fact that people are depending on me.

Article by Kirsten Hall