Working alone on the deer paths managing a woodland provides plenty of thinking time. I made my rounds last week checking for storm damage & reflected I had started managing the site a decade ago. I’d achieved a lot of ambitions & didn’t have anything pressing on the horizon. As Louie Simmons said in one of his podcasts I was living in my own shadow. Illness crept up on me & I had to change a lot of things. Ambitions suddenly grew & doors I had thought were previously closed reopened.

In the woods nature continues regardless. These woods are old & many trees are dying. New ones are coming into the gaps they leave. I have become attuned to the locality. Working outdoors all year round gives an appreciation of the challenges & gifts of each season. Winter can be stark. The Romans, writing about their invasion of the UK lamented the bleak wet conditions. Grey skies, drizzle, hail, snow, frost, fog. The damp clinging heavily in the air can be particularly oppressive.

Winter sunshine is to be savoured. It lights up the drab leaves & highlights autumnal survivors. New animal trails stand out like neon lights. The resident deer seem happy for me to get close, even when dragging the heavy roller or noisy wheelbarrow around – so long as I don’t stare at them directly. The bark shed from overhanging branches shout out to me as loudly as the breaking of an overhead bough. The first green shoots of the bluebells crunch through the soil faster than the raindrops are falling or so I imagine. I stood silent in the woods & felt time shifting & spinning. I’ve seen 51 winters now. They’ve gone quickly & seem to be speeding up.

Progress in strength training & endurance sports is a lot like invasive fungi – a lot of growth goes unseen until it bursts out of the host. Some of the youngsters I wrestled last week are filling out their strength, their techniques starting to become natural expressions. It seems to have happened in a finger click. I take delight in progress. Seeing an ambition achieved through persistence is the gold of life.

In the woods strong straight trees get damaged by lightning strikes & big storms. Prevailing winds deform the exposed permanently, combed from the south west into ugly shapes. Roots get undermined by animals and the weak get pushed over. Sometimes they are propped up by strong neighbours, other times they bring them down too – it is the way of things. We too will not escape circumstance, nor prevent the inevitable.

To grow needs ambition. Something to strive & fight for. Progression can be found & earned in almost every activity. The impatient hope of youth may stall at the first setback. Panic can set in. The older guys must whisper in their ears before the calamity & again when it has struck. There is more work to be done, progress and growth will come.
Bluebell shoots pierce upwards amid the established trees swaying in the wind with their own whispers. Make the most of the sunshine amid the grey skies of winter. Spring is on the way & then summer. Make your plans.

See you down the road.

Thanks,

Dan

In 2019 Anders Axklo commentated for the live audience of the PAL TOP 8 (the worlds biggest arm wrestling show). I watched the broadcast. Around the same time the International Federation of Arm wrestling formed and I noticed it was him giving the opening broadcast as President. We met for the first time at the 2022 IFA World Arm wrestling Championships in Dieppe. I was in my first year as President of the Professional Arm wrestling Association of UK and IRELAND (PAA UK and IRE). We found common ground in our other interests of Strongman, wrestling and of course story telling. His jovial subtlety and turn of phrase is both humorous and agreeable.

Anders quickly noticed my presence in the UK team was not due to arm wrestling ability. Entry is not by selection at present – just who is willing to go. Many others are further ahead of me. Occasionally I’ve remembered basic things to get reasonable results. Mostly, not. I recall Anders was nursing an injury and one of us suggested having an arm wrestle which the other agreed to. With a few watching we had an impromptu unofficial super match in the break between heats and finals. It was a good battle and our considerable efforts did not crease his impeccable suit.

I gained a lot from the whole trip. Until Dieppe I had felt I was steering a juggernaut downhill with no brakes. I took over from Iron Paul Maiden as UK President and many doubted that I would be any good at following him. I was one of them. Meeting Anders and the other arm wrestling national presidents gave me some insight that many felt the same trepidation with different challenges. I returned home feeling I had grown into the role, graduated perhaps.

From then on we’ve been friends. At Euros in Finland we found we had different perspectives of the beautiful lake at Laukaa – I enjoyed swimming in it, he delighted running around it. At the Nordic open in Stockholm we met over breakfast to discuss the possibility of the UK becoming a member nation of IFA which came in time for the ’23 Euros in Poland. At the ’24 Worlds in Greece I was surprised when he told me he had ”channelled Dan Earthquake” to deal with a situation that needed an instant solution. At Congress I was asked to stand in for him for half an hour to oversee the election of a new vice president and a vote mandate for him to continue as President or select a successor. Needless to say that the mandate for him to continue was easily achieved. I mention this only to highlight his integrity – he felt that he should not influence the proceedings either way. We dined together in Estonia at the ’25 Euros and as with many long distance sporting friendships it is always a pleasure to share a story or six.

I’ve read his column in Max Styrka most weeks since I found out he wrote here. I have written regularly and irregularly elsewhere in odd places for a few decades and thought perhaps I could carry on the spirit of what Anders started. What can I offer? My life is like a lot of those late 70’s road movies that I grew up watching: I have unlikely adventures with exciting people. Sometimes chaotic, often comedic, I’m still learning, mostly falling forwards.

See you down the road.

Thanks,

Dan