Jason Alan Griffin :: The Blog

Hi. I recently had a crazy idea how to share my personal training with people at a super low cost. The more I thought about it, the less crazy it sounded until finally, I thought I'd share it with you now. This makes me super excited; I’m so glad I thought of it. So here goes.... Typically, my rates are $80/half hour for single session, or for a small package of sessions. I also work on a retainer basis; being available for as many sessions, phone calls and emails as the client needs for success in the program I’m prescribing. The monthly rate for that is $399, quarterly is $999 and to have my unlimited services for a whole year is $3600. But now I am announcing my latest product, which is JAG Virtual Training. For the low price of $95, I will offer my unlimited support for a month. This can include phone calls and emails and possible even my creating personalized videos for you. It’s basically everything that I include in my standard personal training monthly support except fo...

As we are approaching the holidays, I need to talk about an unhealthy attitude that tends to permeate the traditional proceedings. You may have heard someone say, (or you may have said) “I ate so much last night, I need to work out extra hard today.” I even see fitness professionals falling into this trap, by advertising a “Burn off Your Turkey Workout Class” for the day after Thanksgiving.  I resent this paradigm.  I always tout healthful living; which includes a healthy attitude towards eating and exercise.  The holidays celebrations are a part of life and I believe they should be fully lived and enjoyed. But I also have a deep respect for moderation, which should also be practiced within the context of these celebrations. Keep in mind to start with, you don’t HAVE to overeat at holiday meals.  You don’t HAVE to get drunk at the holiday party. You can eat and drink and be merry without going nuts. I have enjoyed many holiday meals and had a few bites of everything ...

I have a very common affliction. The scientific name is onychomycosis but we know it better as that yellow toenail fungus.  My mom had it, and my brother has it, so it seems to be something in our genetic makeup that leaves us susceptible to it. Mine has been going on for a number of years, and I haven’t been too overly concerned about it.  Of course, I wish it weren’t there. It isn’t attractive and its embarrassing.  And since a lot of my work is done in bare feet, I don’t have the luxury of hiding my affliction from my colleagues inside socks and shoes. I’ve looked into treatments, but the main one, Lamisil, is very hard on the liver and has some scary side effects that range from diarrhea, to losing your sense of taste, to liver failure and death.  All in all, I would prefer the yellow toenails. I did attempt every ‘natural’ remedy I came across.  I tried tea tree oil, vinegar, hydrogen peroxide, clove oil, garlic and sunshine.  Some of them did ke...

Refined sugar and chemical sugar substitutes are like narcotics; they are harmful and addictive.  Without getting into too much science, they cause a hormonal response that leaves the body feeling depleted in a way that can only be satisfied by having moresugar.  Splenda is 600 times sweeter than sugar and not only causes the same hormonal response as sugar, but both create a heavily distorted sense of what level of sweetness is appropriate for our healthy bodies. The taste of 'sweet' is very important to our palate. Without the taste of sweetness, it is hard to satisfy our appetite as humans. I recommend to my clients that they have a sweet taste in all of their meals and that they make a point to have that taste in the last bite they take of that meal.  The important thing to remember is that the degree of sweetness that we need is much lower than many people use on a daily basis.  Most people in our society are sweet abusers.  The sweetness from a meal coul...

As a culture, we eat too much.  WAY TOO MUCH!!! I’m not pointing any fingers.  Maybe you think you eat the perfect amount. Hey, I would have said the same thing about myself until about six months ago. I was recently inspired to begin experimenting with the concept of “LESS” throughout many aspects of my life. I have improved my mindset and increased my strength and agility by breathing less. (I wrote about that in a different blog post.)  I have also increased my sensitivity and my enjoyment of life by slowing down the rate at which I walk.  (I was living in New York City, among some of the fastest walkers in the world, so it wasn’t easy. But it was totally worth it.) And I've increased my energy level and improved the look and feel of my body by reducing the amount that I ate. I focused on eating smaller meals and on not just reacting immediately to the hunger feeling.  But I found that living with the feeling of hunger for just a couple of hours made a ...

Today was the eighth day after River’s surgery.  The clinic nurse told me that I shouldn’t let him get wet while the wound was healing, but that after eight days I could finally bathe him.   And he needed it. When the shelter takes in a stray dog, they have a five day waiting period before they are officially documented and checked in.  During that waiting period, they get their basic shots, but no baths or surgeries or walks.  So River had the stink of whatever he had gotten himself into before being picked up, and then the kennel smell, and then eight more days of unbathed activity.  He was a stinky pup. So today was the day I was looking forward to.   Bath day.  I wasn’t sure how well he was going to behave or if he’d cooperate at all or if he was going to hate it. I decided, first to go outside without him and play with the bucket and the hose and the cloths.  I let him watch me from inside for a few minutes.  Then I went back inside, jus...

River has fully recovered from his respiratory infection and now is back to his good old self.   He's got a lot of energy. It’s obvious that he needs a lot of exercise.  If he doesn’t expend all the energy that’s coursing through his body, he becomes frustrated and takes it out on those around him.  Not in an unhappy or aggressive way, but he’ll jump and play and challenge you to a wrestling match.  He doesn’t bark, but he does sometimes use his mouth and play-bite.  He’s basically just a big, dopey guy.  And while his jumping doesn’t necessarily hurt me, it’s not a good practice and it could easily hurt someone smaller than me. Clearly this is not something you want a full grown, muscle-bound pit bull getting into the habit of, so the answer is to give him lots of exercise and to train him that using his mouth when playing with humans is not acceptable.  For the first week I had him, he was recovering from his neutering surgery and I was told he coul...

Last night after dinner, River took an unexpected turn.  He was sleeping a lot, which I attributed to him being kept active all day. And then, at one point, he raised his head and looked at me.  And I don’t know... I can’t explain how I knew, but he was trying to tell me he wasn’t doing well.  He seemed very lethargic and borderline delirious and he started to convulse. I would call them convulsions, but Zeke was saying no, that it was more like shivering and not full on convulsions or seizures.  But every few seconds, he would clench his whole body as if he were bracing against something. He did it most when he was laying down and relaxing.  If I put his leash on, he got up and stood at attention like he always does for his leash, although now a bit less enthusiastic. When I took him for a short walk, he perked right up. Not to his usually bouncy excited self, but to a state seemingly without discomfort and fully present in the world.  So we went back in ...

Today's 'road trip' was very stimulating.   He has just been neutered so he's not supposed to get much walking.  But this guy has so much energy, I had to take him with me when I went to pick up my tickets to Bumbershoot at the TPS offices in Seattle Center. We really only went all of six blocks to where we were going to catch the bus.  And it wasn't a quick walk. He's learning not to pull on the leash, so there were quite a few stops and waits and restarts while he was getting the feel for how he's supposed to walk with me.  He actually seemed pretty beat by the time we got on the bus. I know I'm not supposed to exercise him for a few more days, but he would go nuts if I didn't walk him at least a little.  Then we took a bus ride and then a short walk to the park where he could do his Embryonic on the grass and watch the kids and the skateboarders. Then another walk to another bus (turns out River REALLY likes the bus, the only time he pulled on ...

River was found tied to a stairwell down by the waterfront during the weekend of Hempfest here in Seattle. I didn't find  him myself. Someone phoned animal control and they came and put him in the shelter. That's where I met him. I didn't know this, but it is illegal to tether a dog and leave him unattended in Seattle.  Even if you're just going into the store. It’s also illegal not to have him licensed and registered, so when they found him breaking two laws, they took him in. They kept him for six days before allowing anyone to adopt him, just in case his original owner came in to claim him.  He doesn't seem to be too familiar with life indoors, so I'm teaching him a lot, and he's a good, motivated learner, and basically eager to please but still alas, a teenager with the requisite short attention span, tons of energy and a slightly rebellious streak. So I got him. I hung out with him for three days when he was in the shelter.  Well, not the whole time, ...

New York City, July 2011. Our last pictures as New Yorkers.  Don't we look happy? It was over 90 degrees and humid the day we had to shlep all of our luggage through the city.  We were both drenched with sweat.   (Notice the appropriate graffiti on the poster behind Zeke.) ********************************************************* Seattle, August 2011. Here’s the new house. The lower right set of windows is the guest room, which has its own, separate entrance and a dedicated bathroom. The lower left set of windows is my office/studio. The second level is the master suite, the bedroom on the left and the bathroom on the right. The third level is the living room on the left and the kitchen on the right. The bay window is the dining area. Behind a security gate, there is a formal outdoor entrance area with stone benches and planters and a back entrance, which I end up using a lot more since it’s so convenient.  There’s also a two-car garage going to waste at the ...

Today was day six.  And I worked, struggled and sweat for three more hours on my yoga mat, swung some kettlebells, tried to lay my left lower leg on top of my right lower leg and tried to be calm and relaxed and endure the discomfort as my hips screamed at me, “WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO US!?!?!”  Emotionally, mentally, I don’t know what, exactly, but I seem to have hit a wall. Not physically. I’m doing fine physically.  But I started to get the feeling that I don’t care about yoga anymore.  I don’t see the point anymore. I started to wonder what my life would be like if I never got my hips any more flexible than they are right now. And it didn’t seem so bad. I’m not in any pain.  I’ve never noticed any problems with my hips how they are. It’s never interrupted my quality of life. What happened to, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it?” Glenn has talked about the Buddhist concept of beginner’s mind.  And I think I went there. I suddenly became a yoga novice agai...