My Passion Has Always Been Exercising Consistently
Immunity/ Happiness Tip: Stay active and stay passionate about good movement. Make this lifestyle a habit—make it part of your overall story. We love exercise! We need it! It took us a long time to make exercise such an ingrained habit. If we miss more than one day of good movement, we shouldn't feel right in our minds and moods.
All mindful moments are good exercise to me. Every compassionate moment is Yoga.
Compassion is not spiritual to me. It's logical. It's intelligence. I think about this kind of stuff all of the time, which I guess makes me into a philospher. I move around a lot to balance all that chatter in my head. Exercising and philosophizing balance each other. They are what we were designed to do by nature. Think and move.
(Above photo: SCUBA has been a longtime passion of mine since 1992. That's me in the Bahamas some time in 2013 or 2014).
I took so many moronic risks with my body in my lifetime. I am grateful to be here to think about it. Now, it's all about using those wild experiences to "perfect" my understanding of my body and mind.
(Above photo: Me versus Jason Teitelbaum, Friday Night Fights, Circa 2005).
In 1991, I discovered rock climbing and ultimate frisbee and I became obsessed with both sports. Ultimate frisbee is not the most glamorous sport, but it is an unbelievable team-field sport. While rock climbing and mountaineering in the "Gunks" in upstate New York, I first discovered skydiving.
In 1992, I made my first tandem jump with my cousin at The Blue Sky Ranch in Gardiner, NY. The Ranch is legendary and still going strong.
In 1995, I started a skydiving video training company called PIER Media. I produced five very popular videos for the pre-internet era. To this day, no one has managed to produce anything that replaces these videos. Also in 1995, I broke both of my feet landing on concrete barefoot. I was being very stupid and I was preoccupied with a stunt-skydive. I am lucky that my accident was not worse. I was immobile for 90 days before returning to the sport.
I retired from skydiving in 2005 with 2,300 jumps. I made a lot of great friends that I still keep in touch with today. I loved sport skydiving so much! I let it go in 2004 and swapped it out for training and fighting in competitive Muay Thai Boxing.
I transitioned out of the danger zone of skydiving into the "less dangerous zone" of competitive Muay Thai Boxing. I made my first competitive fight in 2004 and fought for another 3 years. My training camp is still Five Points Academy in New York. What a great crew of people! I recommend training with that team if you are looking.
(Above video: This is a cool video, but, I lost the original footage. This was shot by my friend Max Cohn. Circa 2005, Gardiner, NY).
I retired from skydiving in 2005 with 2,300 hundred jumps. I made a lot of great friends that I still keep in touch with today. I loved sport skydiving so much! I let it go in 2004 and swapped it out for training and fighting in competitive Muay Thai Boxing.
I transitioned out of the danger zone of skydiving into the "less dangerous zone" of competitive Muay Thai Boxing. I made my first competitive fight in 2004 and fought for another 3 years. My training camp is still Five Points Academy in New York. What a great crew of people! I recommend training with that team if you are looking.
Evidence points to the benefit of a lifestyle that includes intense exercise at least 3 or 4 days a week. This is subjective and proportionate to individual abilities, but as long as we’re trying hard every day, that’s what I mean by intense! Work hard and challenge your body. Create great routines and habits. These habits will carry us through in hard times. There is evidence that working out and physically exerting ourselves everyday will reduce the risk of many degenerative diseases.
(Above: Circa 2005, Fight Night in New York City. Me and my long time friends and trainers, Arjan Steve Milles and Arjan Simon Burgess of Five Points Academy. I am cooling down between rounds).
All the while, I have been a devoted yoga practitioner. I was thinking of changing my name to Sri Maharishi Marcus (LOL), but then I would no longer be able to remain commercial.
I love the Ashtanga system of yoga, traditional hot yoga, and I had several great teachers in New York, including Jared McCann and for a short time I practiced with Eddie Stern. There are many other great Yoga teachers I have encountered including my most profound teacher in the late 1990's, Sri Sat Guru Yogi Parmahansa. He is the The Master.
(Above: Me in the leopard trunks jamming my foot into this guy’s digestive system. This was my first Muay Thai fight somewhere in Virginia back in 2003 or 2004).
Back in the late 1990's I had one great yoga teacher, Sri Sat Guru Yogi Parmahansa. He is from Japan and I believe he taught me the most about Yoga. His lessons took me about 20 years to begin to understand! If there is such a thing as an enlightened person, he certainly is one.
Nowadays, I practice a lot of traditional hot yoga. This system helps me focus better than any other form of yoga that I have practiced. I love the very specific nature of this practice. I love the heat and the various challenges that it creates. (I must denounce the fake-founder of hot yoga because he behaved poorly to his students and others. Luckily the 26 and 2 Yoga is not his creature, neither are the individual postures).
The system of 26 postures popularized by Bikram is just simple postures with simple transitions. The postures are as easy or as hard as you want to make them.
I love all good yoga. I love Ashtanga Yoga. I love Dharma Yoga. I love Integral Yoga. I love making up my own system. I love walking. I love running up the escalator at the 59th street #6 train station.
(Above: Scary Yoga. Me “sit-flying” in a Thai Boxing jumpsuit. This was around the time when skydiving was fading from my mind and competitive fighting took me over. Falling over Gardiner, NY, Circa 2004).
(Above: Smashing Yoga. Me - Flying knee or attempting the flying knee at Five Points Academy for a photo shoot for an article that was in the WSJ).
(Above photo: Combat Yoga. Circa 2005, Marcus Antebi vs. Brian Robertson, NYC Mulberry Street Fights. Muay Thai fighting. Bare shins and knees to the body were allowed. Yeah)!
The scientific evidence that I have been given directly from my health and wellness mentor Fred Bisci indicates that "intense" exercise can make a person happy. There is research that shows this type of lifestyle pattern reduces the risk of Alzheimer's.
(Above photo: I cut down from 165 pounds to 140 pounds in 72 hours for weighing in for a fight back in 2005. So much fun! I learned how to fast and live on juice and smoothies during these years. Training 6 days a week on very low calorie diets. I do not miss cutting weight).
For at least 30 years of my life I have been obsessed with my physical fitness, and to this day I can't let myself slip.
My version of a hard workout today is different than what I could do 10 years ago. However, I still work out until I am fatigued at least 3 days a week. I do some level of exercise 7 days a week.
Since 2016, I have been obsessed with traditional hot yoga. All yoga. It's just good movement and a great way to relax the my mind.
I have the patience for a slow work out that involves total presence of mind. I do some kettlebell training, light bag work/pad work, running, ocean swimming, and other seasonal activities.
Exercise keeps my mind in balance. It's an integral part of life. I am also learning the importance of rest. It was something that I was never good at. I never expected it to be something I had to learn to do! If you're reading this still thank you.
(Above photo: "Standing Head to Knee", my favorite pose. The back is rounded in the Traditional Hot Yoga posture. August 2019).
(Above photo: "Balancing Stick" Pose from the Traditional Hot Yoga Series, 26-2).
(Above photo: "Horny Gorilla" Pose, My favorite Yoga posture. Falling at 120mph and laughing the whole time. Circa 1996, DeLand, FL. Me with Bill Hallett, barefoot, in PVC pants and a polyester flowered shirt from the 70's).
(Above photo: My signature "move" at all Juice Bar store openings. Me falling out of a head stand on a hardwood table. April 10, 2023. Hey look there's Peter Kay, my favorite juice bar operator. His genius was squandered by his last boss. Fckng squandered)!