Urijah Faber’s Ultimate Fitness

By Bob Cox

For some college graduates, the path before them is a straight line as they jump seamlessly into their chosen career field. For others, like Urijah Faber and Ben Braddock, played by Dustin Hoffman in the movie The Graduate, the future has more twists and turns than the Pacific Coast Highway. Faber, who would eventually become a phenomenally popular and successful mixed martial artist; has been widely regarded as an MMA pioneer for establishing legitimacy to lighter weight classes.

Urijah Christopher Faber, aka The California Kid was a student at the University of California at Davis back in the late 1990’s when he parlayed his passion for wrestling from a walk on spot on the wrestling team and into a full scholarship. His rare combination of speed, strength and skill helped him qualify for the NCAA tournament in 2001 and 2002. After earning a bachelor's degree in Human Development, Faber entered a new arena: The ring of life.

Faber managed to weave several income generating enterprises into a viable living. He worked as an assistant coach for the UC Davis wrestling team, started a business on the side coaching younger wrestling students and even bussed tables at a local restaurant. If that wasn’t enough, a new endeavor presented itself: The opportunity to earn money doing the thing he loved most, fighting.

During the early days of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), which was established in 1993, the organization hadn’t fully evolved into the incredibly popular sport that it is today. Since it lacked lighter weight divisions for smaller guys like Faber, Urijah chose to fight for a few local organizations, which did. Those fights, which were held at various random locations like Indian casinos, gave Faber and the UFC time to develop and come together.

From those initial humble opportunities until now, Faber has accepted every challenge and has gone on to become one of the UFC’s most popular and successful fighters. He won the WEC Featherweight Championship in 2006 and has enjoyed a long and prosperous career doing something he’s passionate about. Now that he has just recently retired, Faber is in the process of reinventing himself once again by offering everyone from fighters to fitness enthusiasts the ideal place to break a sweat: Urijah Faber’s Ultimate Fitness!

I spoke with Josh Espley, the General Manager of Urijah Faber’s Ultimate Fitness, to learn more about this state-of-the-art 22,000 square foot multi-purpose fitness facility that’s opening this summer in East Sacramento. Here’s how our conversation went.

Q: What amenities does your fitness facility have?

A: Our facility has a wide variety of martial art and fitness classes to choose from. We have several martial arts classes, including boxing, kick boxing, jujitsu, submission grappling and Muay Thai. Our fitness classes include yoga, Pilates, advanced based fitness, cardio, boxing cardio, kickboxing cardio, MMA programs, cross fit programs, functional fitness programs, circuit training classes and boot camps.

Q: Does your facility have a section for those who prefer to work out by themselves?

A: Yes, we have functional fitness equipment, weights, barbells, Olympic dumbbells and high tech cardio equipment as well. Other amenities include a cafe with a Wi-Fi lounge, clean and spacious locker rooms, saunas and a kid’s zone that gives all members two free hours of child supervision.

Q: Do you have any fitness activities for kids?

A: Yes, we have several fitness programs for kids so the entire family can work out at the same time under one roof. Our youth martial arts program consists of kids striking, kids kickboxing, kids wrestling and a youth jujitsu program as well. Those classes are run Monday through Saturday, two times a day.

Q: How did you and Urijah come up with the idea of creating a multi-purpose fitness facility?

A: When we were originally conceiving this idea, we wanted to bring in all the activities our fighters from Team Alpha Male were participating in and have it all in one place. We thought it would provide inspiration for our other fighters and gym members to see them giving it their all. We actually had two of our members called up to the UFC and they’ve been training with us since they were 10 years old. We’re finding more and more kids who dream about becoming an MMA athlete.

Q: What is Team Alpha Male?

A: Team Alpha Male is an organized group of professional fighters that was founded by Urijah in 2004. Our group trains primarily out of our original facility in midtown Sacramento and includes Cynthia Calvillo, Justin Buchholz, Danny Castillo, Chris Holdsworth, Chad Mendes, Paige VanZant and Cody Garbrandt (the current UFC Bantamweight Champion).

Q: How will your new facility differ from the original facility in midtown Sacramento?

A: We’re evolving from a primarily fighter base of customers at the midtown location to more of a family oriented facility in East Sacramento. This gym is really a culmination of putting all of the knowledge Urijah’s gathered over the years during his fight career and using it to give back to the community he grew up in. He’s a very humble and down-to-earth guy and very appreciative of everything he’s got.

Q: What’s been the primary motivation for Urijah to open this gym?

A: This is Urijah’s next chapter and he truly wants to give back; give back to the team, give back to our gym members and give back to the community of Sacramento. We’re offering a very good value for everything we’re providing. We’ve heard that some local martial arts studios are charging $150 a month for one discipline while we’re offering five disciplines taught by the world’s best instructors for just $99 a month.

Q: What’s the biggest hardship Urijah has faced in life and more importantly, how did he overcome it?

A: From my knowledge, the biggest hardship that he’s had to overcome is the longevity in this sport. That’s something that most guys are troubled with. Because he’s been able to overcome that, it enabled him to become the fighter that he was. He had a solid career while avoiding any major debilitating injuries and he never backed down from a fight. He took every fight that was thrown at him and he parlayed that into great success.

Q: What character traits have helped Urijah achieve such extraordinary success?

A: I think perseverance and humility have served Urijah well. He kept doing what he knew best and participated in several local fights early in his career. He even sold tickets to his fights to a large network of friends. His talent and friendly personality helped him became a fan favorite. He’s always been that down-to-earth, humble guy next door that everybody can be friends with. He didn’t have rich parents or an extreme amount of opportunities. He just worked hard, persevered and made it happen.

Editor’s notes: For more information about Urijah Faber’s Ultimate Fitness, visit their facility at 6700 Folsom Bl. or call (916) 444-3357.

Knocking Out Drug & Alcohol Addiction

Better Decisions Gives Youth a Fighting Chance

By Bob Cox

Imagine the level of chaos and outrage we would have in our country if five large passenger jets full of people crashed to the earth every week, killing everyone aboard. The public would simply not tolerate this extreme amount of death and destruction and surely our best and brightest would rally together to find a way to make our skies safer.

Tragically, that number represents approximately the same number of kids (50,000) who die in the United States every year from alcohol related incidents, according to Alex Noriega, the Program Manager for Better Decisions Counseling Services in Rancho Cordova, CA. “If five jet liners fell out of the sky every week, the world would be crying to change that and yet, five jet liners worth of kids die every week and very few are doing anything about it”, said Alex.

Janina Guarino, the founder and owner of Better Decisions understands the urgency of helping young people and believes that the key to helping them knock out drug and alcohol addiction begins by establishing a foundation of trust and respect. “We genuinely listen to them and ask them what the problem is. Many teens think the importance of having money in their pocket is the number one thing they need. So, we’ll offer to help them find work and create a steady source of income after we’ve helped them get clean and sober”, Janina explained.

At the root of drug and alcohol addiction is a person who feels completely incapable of dealing with intense emotional stress without the aid of their favorite mind altering substance. “The alcohol or drug will take the pain away in about 20 minutes, but what we really need to do is to change our thought patterns by asking ourselves, ‘What is the next right thing to do’? A high percentage (97%) of the population deals with stress in a dysfunction way, so the next logical step along the road to recovery is helping people make healthier choices”, Janina said.

The key to encouraging kids of all ages make a healthier choice is helping them replace the drugs and alcohol with the things they enjoy doing. “A child struggling with addiction has gotten away from their true loves, like baseball, martial arts, cooking and exploring new places. Those kinds of activities will fill the void, relieve the pain and release the serotonin that makes us all feel euphoric”, explained Janina.

Janina and Alex both struggled with addiction as young adults, so they have a very real understanding of the despair and helplessness their clients feel. Because they’ve conquered their addictions with many years of hard work and self reflection, they are in a very unique position to help others do the same. Their desire and empathy for helping others succeed has resulted in an extraordinarily high success rate.

Before working at Job Corp. two years ago, just 30% of their clients managed to stay clean and sober. With Alex’s inspiring background and boundless enthusiasm, their success rate nearly tripled (86%)! Alex believes that helping kids paint a brighter picture by activating their imagination is crucial to a successful recovery. “What will you do for a living and how can we get you there now that you are clean? We don’t just get them clean and leave them there. We help our clients continue on the path towards a complete transformation”, explained Alex.

Janina and Alex believe that another key to their high success rate for rehabilitation is offering their clients flexible and customized counseling sessions. “In conventional 12 step programs, the client must acknowledge a higher power and a lot of kids and adults don’t share that belief. They don’t like to be forced into those kinds of programs and there’s a lot of forcing going on. We are not like that, which is another reason why our clients love being here”, Janina said.

If you have a child who is struggling with drug or alcohol addiction, or you would like to make a charitable contribution, pick up the phone and call Better Decisions today at (916) 368-0700. They offer both individual and group counseling sessions and they have a vast network of crucial resources to help the entire family.

Carmichael Chiropractic Care for Kids

By Dr. Beth Blakely

When a small child trips and falls, many adults feel compelled to rush to their aid, reassure them that they’re okay and then encouraging them to get back up and play. Strangely enough, if we were to trip and fall, don’t we tend to react as though the end of the world has arrived? I could easily go through an entire box of Kleenex just thinking about it!

Why do we have such a double standard? Perhaps part of our rationale can be explained by the laws of physics. Since kids are smaller, lighter and closer to the ground, the pain they feel must be inconsequential to the agony we would endure should we suffer a similar plight, right? While it’s true that generally speaking, children are not only smaller and lighter, they are remarkably resilient. While they often bounce back quickly from many injuries, they are not bullet proof. Some falls can result in painful injuries that don’t disappear, even with heaping servings of positive reinforcement.

If such a situation should befall you (pun intended), gentle chiropractic care can be an excellent option. A lot of parents don’t realize that children can benefit greatly from chiropractic care. It really is a great health care choice for kids because they will avoid the risk of potentially harmful pain killing drugs that often have serious side effects.

We provide patients of all ages with a very gentle adjustment with the aid of an impulse instrument. This instrument is not only extremely effective in realigning the spine when a fall or other type of jarring impact occurs, it’s also painless. The results I’ve achieved with kids have been amazing. I think kids do really well with chiropractic care because they are very open-minded and they heal remarkably fast.

I’ve adjusted a lot of children, some as young as four months of age who were injured during a traumatic birth. I’ve treated a few younger patients that had trouble moving their heads in both directions. With several gentle adjustments, I was able to help them get full and unencumbered movement. Several years ago, I treated a four month old patient who could not hold his head up straight, so we adjusted him for a few months until he finally got to the point where he could hold his head up straight and he’s been able to literally hold his head high ever since.

If you have a child that you believe could benefit from chiropractic care, bring them in now while the problem and the child are still small. 

Happy Wives Day

By Bob Cox

Is it just me or does it seem like every year in America, we’re snookered into celebrating another new holiday? It’s become almost as obnoxious as the pharmaceutical industry; how they invent a new disease just about every week and then come to our rescue by securing a patent on yet another cash cow disguised in tiny pill bottles. Thank God they’re here to look out for our best interests! But I digress. If you think I’m exaggerating about the holidays, don’t take my word for it, visit our know-it-all friend and guru we call Google.

By the time the 2017 calendar year ends, we will have observed 231 total holidays in the United States. Imagine all the cake we could enjoy at the office if we took the time to celebrate each and every one of them? On second thought, forget that idea. That would just be another massive payday for the pharmaceutical industry, with large quantities of office workers being rushed to their nearest hospital from sugar induced comas.

We celebrate all things large and small in our crazy country, including a cute and furry rodent (Ground Hog’s Day: February 2). We pay homage to our jobs and the people who put up with us: Employee Appreciation Day (March 3), Administrative Professionals Day (April 26), Take our Daughters and Son’s to Work Day (April 27), Labor Day (September 4) and Bosses Day (October 16). We party like it’s 1999 for the folks that brought us into this world: Mother’s Day (May 14), Father’s Day (June 18) and Parents Day (July 23). We tip our hats to the young and old: Senior Citizens Day (August 21), National Grandparents Day (September 10) and Child’s Health Day (October 2). We’ve even set aside a special day to show mad respect for shopping and the almighty computer: Black Friday (November 24) and Cyber Monday (November 27).

What’s next, we celebrate a color? Oh yeah, we already do that: National Red Wear Day (February 3). Yet, despite the mass quantities of holidays we’re forced to endure, dare I toss yet another idea into the already overstuffed suggestion box that’s sincerely overdue and worthy of serious consideration? Yes guys, how about we take time out of our pathetic little lives to celebrate the ladies who do so much for all of us lazy slobs they fondly refer to as their husbands. Yes, it’s about time we start celebrating our wives!

Generally speaking, many wives do the brunt of the household chores without breaking a sweat, running circles around us by handling most or all of the shopping, cooking, cleaning and child raising while also holding down full-time employment. They also manage to get much of it done before we slink out of bed and have time to cry in front of the bathroom mirror at the hideous sight we’ve become. Sound familiar? I hope not.

I know I shouldn’t act like a self-appointed spokesperson for all husbands because not every guy is lucky enough to marry their best friend and soul mate. But since I was, I owe it to the world to express my gratitude for being fortunate enough to have a woman by my side that I love, adore and respect with all my heart for these past 20 years. A woman that loves me unconditionally while inspiring me to be a better man.

What’s truly important isn’t the number of boxes that my wife Diana checks off on her never ending to do list, but the hearts and minds she’s impacted during her amazing journey on this earth. Through her life’s work as a massage therapist, she’s been a devoted masseuse and trusted confidant that’s offered sage, life changing advice that’s helped countless friends and family members break free from the invisible chains of pain and suffering to reveal a happier and healthier person.

I could go on and on about the many virtues of my wife, but I would likely run out of ink and paper doing so. Of course I realize that she’s not a perfect angel and just like the rest of us, she has character traits that can be improved upon. On the other hand, the way she puts up with all my weird little quirks and disorders, especially my obsessive and compulsive tendencies; forget about it. She must be an angel, so Happy Wives Day Diana! 

Standing Behind the Rugs You Stand On

By Bob Cox

When it comes time to clean your carpet and oriental rugs, why not call your local carpet cleaner and have them wash your rug with their truck mounted steam cleaning system? What could possibly be more efficient? After all, just like your carpet, your rugs are nothing more than a floor covering you stand on every day, right?

Ah, not so fast. Majid Moghisaei, the owner of Shanei Persian & Oriental Rugs here in Gold River and over 10,000 of his delighted customers from as far away as San Jose and Reno would be eager to share a different perspective that’s grounded in something even more solid than the floor beneath your feet: the truth.

While sitting on the floor of his warehouse and meticulously working on a rug, I asked Majid what he was doing with that particular rug. He told me that the rug had been cleaned and damaged by a local carpet cleaning company and he was restoring it. With the touch of a skilled artist, Majid gently applied a fine paint brush and a mild solution upon the rug to provide a stunning contrast to the damaged areas where the colors had bled into each other like feuding neighbors. “This rug is from a nice lady who gave it to a carpet cleaner and as you see, all the colors are blending together. So I’m taking the running color out inch by inch to reveal a clear and clean design”, explained Majid.

Majid went on to explain the biggest difference between how he cleans a rug when compared to a typical carpet cleaning company. “We clean rugs by hand, just like they do in the Far East, like Iran, Pakistan and Turkey where these rugs are woven. We wash both sides of the rug with water and a special mild shampoo and then rinse it very well so there’s no shampoo left. Finally we clean the fringes. The rugs are then air dried. We vacuum the dried rugs and wrap them in plastic for pick up. When our customers get their rugs back, they always say that it looks even better than when they bought them”, Majid explained!

Shanei Rugs offers more than just rug cleaning. Majid also has a vast knowledge base when it comes to restoring damaged rugs. “In the past 35 years, I’ve only said no to two rugs and that was because the cost of the repair was far greater than the value of the rugs. I’m a Weaver, so we are able to repair practically every part of your rug, including the fringes, borders, moth holes and stain removal. We also buy, sell and appraise rugs”, said Majid.

Majid shared how he got into the rug business, learning from his father and grandfather. He told me that it is still a family business as two of his brothers also restore and sell rugs in Italy. “My rug business was established in 1989 and I am still enjoying bringing old rugs life back to life”, explained Majid.

When I asked Majid what made his business truly special and unique, he emphasized the selection and quality. “If I don’t like the quality and design of a particular rug, I never buy it. I’m not just a rug salesperson that sells whatever. I must love a rug enough to be able to talk about it, so I normally choose my rugs for sale”, Majid said.

That laser focus on premium quality and service is something that keeps Majid’s customers coming back for more. “Every rug we sell is in excellent condition and our customers never have to worry because we always thoroughly examine and clean every rug before we sell them”, Majid explained.

If you’re looking to purchase a rug or have a rug that has not been washed for over 3 years, remember Shanei Persian & Oriental Rugs in Gold River. Their address is 11267 Coloma Road, their phone number is (916) 792-5408 and their website is www.shanei.com. If you have large or heavy rugs, no worries: Shanei Rugs offers pickup and delivery service as well.

A Message from Your Four Wheeled Friend

By Dave Trux

I’ve heard several drivers recently say that spring is in the air, and I’m sure that must be true, despite the record setting deluge of the wet stuff falling from the clouds these past few months. Why am I so confident about what season we’re in? Because I’ve been watching you buzzing around the house, cleaning and organizing everything under the roof, including my crib that you refer to as the garage.

While I do appreciate all your hard work to make my space cleaner and more organized, I am feeling a bit neglected and underappreciated these days. After all, you’re giving the house all your time, energy and attention while I’m out here alone in the cold, shivering in darkness for hours at a time. Where’s the love?

Don’t I deserve a day at the spa; I mean the mechanics shop for a much needed once-over? After all, I’ve been dutifully protecting you and your precious family from the elements, including torrential downpours and howling rain, not to mention those nasty tire eating potholes, whisking you all about town in your various travels from point A to Point B.

Okay, I see you’re now laughing at the idea of spring cleaning for your car, but I’m serious. Just look at the nasty dirt caked on my cabin air filter! Did you know that stuff was once floating in the air you and the family have been breathing for months with those windows rolled up tight all winter? And don’t get me started on that other filter lurking under the hood!

I don’t mean to be a nag, but even though the weather outside has transitioned from frightful to delightful; the long and scorching days of summer will be here before you know it. Wouldn’t this be the perfect time to give the old air conditioner a quick test run, just to make sure it’s blowing cold air (unlike the hot air I’ve been blowing at you this entire article)? Or even better; why not give me a much needed day off at the spa for a thorough spring cleaning. I hear they’re offering that at Valley Motorwerks!