January 8th, 2011

This last week I have been in Colorado Springs for our winter training camp. The training was good, and I was able to fine tune a couple of techniques that should help me throughout the year. The majority of training for camp this year was live wrestling, twice a day, most every day. One of the more intense practices that we had for this camp was yesterday afternoon’s grind match.
For those of you who don’t know, a grind match is a match where the normal rules of wrestling don’t always apply. The goal of the grind match is to try to mentally break your opponent or get him to give up. The theory behind this is that if you learn how to break someone in the grind match that you will also be able to break any opponent during a regular match. However, in a grind match you have anywhere from 1 to 2 hours to break your opponent. This is much more difficult to accomplish in 4-6 minutes during a regular wrestling match with regular rules. During the grind match, walls are in bounds, and you are encouraged to be a little meaner than usual. I spent most of time in my match on top of my opponent controlling him and wearing down his arms, neck, and shoulders. My goal was to take him down three times and keep him down for an hour and 27 minutes. I got pretty close with 4 take downs and closer to an hour and 20 minutes of holding him down, but I felt okay about that. I am glad that it is over now and I have had today to recover because I had a hard time getting good rest last night. My body is starting to take a little longer to recover than it used to.
Now that camp is over for me, I am getting ready to fly to Russia on Monday to wrestle in the Ivan Poddubny tournament. This will be the third time that I have competed in this tournament, and I am very excited for the chance to compete with some international competitors. There have only been two Americans to ever win this tournament, which I think is a testament to the caliber of athletes that will be competing. In terms of World and Olympic champions, the Russians have the best training system in the world. They are constantly leading the competition in greco roman wrestling, and any time that I have an opportunity to compete with them I am excited to learn new things.
The wrestling won’t be the only challenge. Last year the tournament was held in Tyumen, a small city located somewhere in Siberia. I made sure to pack a warm coat and stocking hat this year so I don’t freeze. Last year when we were flying from Moscow to Tyumen, the bus left us on the runway for a good twenty minutes in sub zero temperatures before we were allowed on the plane. It was a nightmare, but I suppose that it always makes for a good story.
That is my update for now. I realize that I have been very sporadic with the posts that I make to my blog, and every time that I write a post, I seem to want to recommit to posting more frequently. I have made some plans, and I will be making an effort to follow through with them this year. My wife got me a laptop for Christmas so that fact combined with the fact that I work for an internet marketing company does not leave me with any excuse to not post more frequently on my blog. I hope to keep you up to date with all the latest news on my adventures.

August 27th, 2009

This summer has been a great one! My wife and I moved to Boise, ID to start working with Russell Brunson, a great internet marketer. I have learned a ton about marketing and how the internet is such an amazing tool when it comes to using it for that purpose. I am so excited about how that is benefitting the Greco Training Center that we have started here. We recently had another Utah native move up to Boise to start training and working with us, Cheney Haight. We are excited to have Cheney here, and next week we have another handful of athletes who will be moving to the Boise area to continue pursuing their Olympic Dreams.
I continue to pursue my Olympic dreams here in Boise as well. I have been training for the past couple of months as well as learning more about the industry and working to help put all of this together. I never realized how much went into building a team of elite athletes. There are so many things that I took for granted when I was training in Colorado Springs and I didn’t realize that I would eventually be responsible for organizing these same aspects of a training center after I moved. It has been a fun and exciting challenge. I appreciate all of the support that I have received throughout my wrestling carreer, and I am very excited to be training and competing again. I am doing everything I can to be ready to make the Olympic team in 2012. Thank you for your support and for following me through this journey.
I almost forgot to mention that earlier this summer we had a baby girl, Brinklee Ashlyn Ruiz. Being a father is one of the most amazing experiences that I have ever had. She is barely starting to smile and kick around a little bit more. It is exciting to see her start to grow bigger and bigger and develop. She is daddy’s little girl.

July 11th, 2009

We are very excited to have Ivan Ivanov come aboard our team in Boise, Idaho. We feel that by having a world class coach like Ivan training our team that we will be some of the best wrestlers in the world. Read more about Ivan at: http://themat.com/section.php?section_id=3&page=showarticle&ArticleID=20555
Since the announcement of bringing Ivan aboard our team to coach we have also had a handful of other athletes who are also looking to move up to Boise to begin training. This will be a wonderful opportunity for all of those athletes who do decide to come take advantage of this training situation. In the future it will be possible to follow all of these athletes and their progress towards their Olympic dreams at the new website that we will be unveiling shortly. We will be offering a variety of ways to help other athletes and fitness enthusiasts to reach their competitive and fitness goals.

April 4th, 2009

Last Thursday I had a great clinic at Kearns High School in Utah. Thanks Coach Linnel and all of those wrestlers who attended. I was really happy with how hard all of the kids worked and paid attention. It made for a great day and was honestly one of the highlights for my week. It would be great to be doing clinics everyday and being able to be around the kids more often. One of the things I stressed again to the kids is to set goals and work to achieve them. There really is no better way to success than through using the goal formula.
I am attempting to keep regular weekly posts on this site, and as part of that I will be including a tip of the week. Most of the tips will have to deal with wrestling, however, at times the content may be applicable to other areas of life. This week’s tip is on the power of focus.
Since August I have been working with hydrovac trucks that serve the unique purpose of hydro-excavation or digging with water. The truck comes equipped with a pressure washer and a vacuum. The pressure washer cuts through the earth and exposes gas and other utility lines while the vacuum sucks the debris away. If the hose to the pressure washer pump has no special fitting on the end, the flow that comes from the hose looks about double what you would expect to come from an ordinary garden hose. The water won’t do much except wash away the very top layer of dust and dirt and make some mud. However, when the dig wand is attached to the end of the hose the water is forced through a tip with an opening about the circumfrence of a paper clip. Water shoots out of this tip up to 4,500 pounds per square inch of pressure and enables the stream to slice through earth, sandstone, some shale rocks, and even two by fours! In both scenarios the pump was exerting equal force at equal rpms, but the difference that the tip of the dig wand made was applying focused intensity to a stream of water. By also applying focused intensity to the efforts that we make in our lives we can become much more effective. By focusing on a few specific areas of interest or necessity we can go from average to exceptional. This applies to many activities in life, but we can especially apply this to our wrestling. When we go to practice instead of doing just a little bit of everything, let’s focus on one move that day that we want to do perfectly. By setting daily goals and acting on them with focused intensity we’ll see a great positive result. We will improve our skils dramatically, and we will see our dreams materialize. Let’s focus on doing whatever it takes to improve ourselves. We know what to do so let’s do it. Fight for your dreams!

March 24th, 2009

Last Thursday I did a clinic at Syracuse high school. There was a good turnout of kids, and they worked hard from start to finish. I would like to thank all of them for attending as well as Coach Brown for putting it all together. It is so much fun to be able to share what I have learned over the years with other kids who have similar dreams and goals as I did when I was their age. Who knows, maybe one of those kids might someday be a world or olympic champion.
One of the things that I shared with the kids that I think is the most important thing that I can share with them is that of goal setting. I told them that if there was one thing that they should get out of the clinic was that it is never too early or late to set goals and that they need to write them down. Without a clear direction or purpose how can you expect any kind of desirable result? Too many people spend too much time without direction and without purpose. Just think how much easier it is to make a trip if you know where it is that you want to go! Can you imagine boarding an airplane that didn’t have a destination set. Would you pay money to get onboard and then say “Well, I guess wherever this takes me will be just as good a place as any other.”? Of course you wouldn’t so why would you want to do that with your life? Take the time to sit down and figure out what it is that you really want, what it is going to take to get it, and then start working on getting it done. It is a simple process, it might even sound easy, but unfortunately it is also easy not to take action. Therein lies the struggle. Good luck to you and may you be successful in deciding what it is that you really want out of life and achieving it. Thank you for your support and Fight For Your Dreams!

February 26th, 2009

Last night I had the opportunity to do a wrestling clinic in Big Piney, Wyoming for a group of great young wrestlers. It is always so exciting for me to be around young wrestlers and to be able to see all of the enthusiasm that they have for the sport. When I am around kids like that it makes me want to get back on the mat like never before. I would like to thank all of the wrestlers who came as well as the parents for providing their kids with the opportunity to go to the clinic. I really do appreciate it so much.
One of the things that I talked to the kids about last night was about setting goals. I let them know that even as young as they are they can set some goals for the future. I am personally amazed at the power of a well thought out, specific, written down goal. It seems as if the moment that you write it down on paper and commit to it that you dramatically improve your odds of success. Even if you don’t succeed the first time, you can always re-evaluate what you are doing and what it is that you want and set a new target deadline for your goal. My wife and I had set the goal to be in a position to be able to move back to Colorado Springs in February so that I can start training full time again for the Olympics. However, after evaluating where we are, we are shooting to be back in Colorado by the end of September. It is a little longer than we would like, but we are going to make it happen! There is no doubt in my mind that I will be once again training and working toward becoming an Olympic Champion. I will find a way to make it work.
This spring and summer I will holding some clinics to help prepare young wrestlers for their freestyle and greco seasons. I will also be holding a summer camp in June. As soon as I have more details finalized I will be posting them either on my blog or on the schedule section of the website. I also have some t-shirts that I finally had printed and will be selling on the website. Feel free to email me to let me know if you would like to purchase one. They are $20 each and we can get you whatever size that you would like whether it be an adult size or a youth size. Thank you everyone who has helped support me up to this point. I wish you the best, and remember to keep on fighting for your dreams!
Here is a youtube video that is full of greco highlights from the 2008 Olympic Games. Enjoy! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36oSF8vNd0A

May 31st, 2008

Tomorrow it will be two weeks out from the Olympic Trials. I am so excited to compete in Vegas. I have spent many years of life in preparation for this upcoming event. I feel blessed in the fact that I have been able to do something that I love, and also that I have dared to dream. In today’s mostly negative society, people do not give themselves the opportunity to dare to dream. Obviously dreaming is not enough. There must be hours of toil and labor in order to make a dream become a reality. However, I am very grateful that I have had friends and associations who have encouraged and supported me to help me reach my dream. Regardless of what happens in two weeks at the Olympic Trials I am grateful for the opportunity to dream. But what happens in two weeks is still just the beginning of things to come. This next event is a step to take me to the next level to compete on the world’s largest sports stage, the Olympics in
Beijing, China.

I am working on my dream, and I love it. I hope that you are giving yourself a chance to dream. Believe that you can achieve! Believe that you can succeed! Give yourself the gift of hope, and don’t let yourself give up on that dream because someone wants to discourage you. Think about that next time someone else shares their dream with you. What are you going to do? Are you going to tell them all the reasons why they can’t do it? Or are you going to tell them, “You know what? I believe in you. I think that you can succeed. Let me know how I can support you in your decision.” Imagine how that could affect your relationship with that person! I am sure that it would probably surprise them because most people are told many times in their life that they can’t do something. By helping and encouraging that person think about the boost that you just gave them personally, not even to mention the strength that you just gave to your relationship. If your friend follows through or not, that is on them, but you have the opportunity to possibly be part of the turning point in that person’s life. Constructive criticism has it’s place, but at least encourage someone to take action. If it doesn’t work obviously they will have to evaluate how to make it work, and that is when suggestion is useful.

Here are a couple of my favorite quotes. The first was written in an article by Jim Rohn, “I will climb the mountain. They’ve told me it’s too high, it’s too far, it’s too steep, it’s too rocky, it’s too difficult. But it’s my mountain! I will climb it. You’ll soon see me waving from the top or you’ll never see me, because unless I reach the peak, I’m not coming back.” Another one is by hockey legend Wayne Gretzky, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”

May you be well. Good luck with your dreams. I wish you the best.

May 24th, 2008

The Olympic Trials are just a few short weeks away. I am so excited to be preparing for the Olympic Games in Beijing, China! It is hard to describe the feeling that there is right now in preparation for the Olympic Games. There is just an excitement in the air that is energizing everyone that is involved with the Olympics. I am very grateful for all the help and support that I have received to help me be living my dream. I cannot wait until I get the chance to compete in Las Vegas, Nevada!
I have been staying busy with training, fixing up our house, doing some work on the side, and trying to get organized with some fund raising. Last month, I won the US Nationals, and in doing so I am qualified for the finals of the Olympic Trials. It was my fifth US title and it was a great experience. Shortly after the nationals, I went to Chicago for a team building summit for team USA. It was a great experience to be able to listen to some of the keynote speakers as well as mingling with and getting to know some of the athletes that will be on team USA for their sports.
One of the most beneficial pieces of information that I pulled away from the event was to practice like it is competition and to compete like it is practice. Peter Vidmar, a 1984 Gold medalist gymnast, shared his experience of how at the end of every practice that he would pretend that he was doing the routine for the Gold at the Olympics and how that would motivate him. He said that if he nailed his routine that he would be on top of the world and he could go home and say, “I just won the Olympics.” If he didn’t do as well as he wanted, then that served as motivation for him to keep improving and to get it next time. I have been applying that into my own wrestling, and it has made a huge difference in my training. I feel so motivated and energized when I visualize myself wrestling for Olympic Gold. It is amazing!
Good luck to everyone. Love the game, improve daily, and enjoy the process!

March 29th, 2008

Temple, originally uploaded by jbar2008.
My wife Sarah and I were sealed in the Salt Lake temple on March 13, just a couple of weeks ago. Here is a picture of us with her family on the steps of the temple after the sealing. It was such an awesome day.
I am starting to just blog from my phone because I can send pictures right to the blog. There may not be as much writing as in some of my other entries but as the old saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words.
I am so excited about life right now. I feel like I am on track to accomplish my wrestling goals and I am accomplishing many of my other goals in life as well. There is nothing like setting a goal and reaching it that will keep you motivated to just keep going. After going to the convention that I just went to in vegas I am more excited than ever about the American dream and living it.