Most people treat health like a performance. It becomes a game of looking good, chasing aesthetics, or holding on to youth by sheer force of will. Real health, though, is not about appearance so much as it’s about capacity. It’s about how well you can live, move, act, and serve, not just for a week, a month, or a year, but for decades.

Peter Attia, in his excellent book “Outlive”, offers a clearer lens: focus on healthspan, not just lifespan. The idea is to move and eat to maintain your ability to function as long as you possibly can. It is not enough to just live longer if you spend the final years broken, hunched, or trapped in a body that no longer obeys. Healthspan is about maintaining the strength, stability, energy, and clarity to keep showing up for the people and work that matter.

In the Tribe of the Fire, this is more than just a wellness goal. It is a sacred responsibility. If the soul is what drives us, then the body is its container. A failing body muffles that signal. When we train, we are not just chasing strength or speed, we’re preserving our ability to love, protect, and contribute. Every meal we prepare and every rep we grind is a declaration: I will not let this vessel rot before its time.

Personal Journey with Movement and Tribe

As a kid, I played baseball, football, and wrestled. I wasn’t great at any of them, but that never really mattered. What hooked me was the movement itself; the rush of sprinting across a field, the intensity of a wrestling match, the physicality of just being in a body that could move, react, and collide. I loved being part of a team, and even more than competing, I loved pushing other people to dig deeper. That feeling of shared struggle stuck with me.

Adulthood brought a different rhythm. I would throw myself into one physical pursuit at a time. I’d immerse myself in running for months, lifting religiously, getting deep into MMA or jiu jitsu, and then life would shift, motivation would dip, and the habit would unravel. This cycle repeated more times than I can count. It was passion without structure, drive without roots.

What finally changed everything were the tribes associated with the activity. First it was the “Hobby Joggas” running group in Michigan. Then “San Diego Fight Club” during our jiu jitsu and MMA chapter in California. Finally, “El Diablo Combatives” here in Colorado, a gym we built, trained in, and bled for. We didn’t just get fit; we forged friendships. We fought side by side. We laughed, competed, shared meals, hosted UFC watch party nights, and played games with our families. It turned training into celebration, and workouts into ritual. When we closed that gym, it wasn’t the workouts I missed most. It was the Fire. The Tribe.

The Tribe of the Fire exists to reclaim that… not just movement, but movement together. Not just food, but food as offering. We train because the body is a gift. We eat together because celebration is sacred. And we show up, not because it’s easy, but because the ones beside us deserve our strength.

The Philosophy of Play and Physical Connection

Play isn’t a childhood phase we’re supposed to grow out of. It’s a fundamental part of how humans bond, learn, and regulate emotion. Evolution didn’t build us to sit still and grind through life. It built us to move, to compete, to chase and be chased, to test limits in ways that are fun and functional. Play is how we practiced survival long before the gym existed.

And it still works. Physical play between adults, whether it’s jiu jitsu, trail runs, lifting together, or pickup games in someone’s backyard, does more than build muscle. It forges trust. It burns through emotional static. It gives us a shared language that doesn’t require words. When you roll with someone on the mat, you learn who they are in minutes. When you haul ass up a mountain together, sweat-soaked and breathless, the masks fall away. These are not hobbies. These are rituals. They create identity. They maintain connection. They make us feel alive.

When adults stop playing, we don’t become wiser or more focused. We become disconnected from each other, from our bodies, and from joy. In the Tribe, we use movement-based play as glue. It’s not optional; it’s foundational. Because without play, everything gets heavier. And eventually, we forget what it felt like to be free.

Functional Fitness: The Training Trifecta

Functional fitness isn’t about aesthetics. It’s about building a body that can carry the weight of the life you actually want. Not just now, but decades from now. Peter Attia’s “Elderly Decathlon” flipped the script. The goal isn’t to max your deadlift this year. The goal is to be strong enough at 85 to lift your grandkids, hike without pain, carry groceries, rise from the floor without struggle, and live without fear of fragility. Attila’s idea is to pick the ten movements or activities you want to be able to do when you’re eighty. Start practicing those ten things right now, today, and don’t stop. 

That’s what we train for in the Tribe. Capability. Longevity. Sovereignty.

Our foundation is a trifecta:

Weight training builds muscle and bone density, protects joints, and preserves explosive power. It’s the antidote to the slow decay of modern life. Strength isn’t optional. It’s a form of armor.

Running taps into our evolutionary lineage. We were built for distance, for pursuit, for motion across vast landscapes. Running is not just physical; it’s psychological. It trains the lungs and the mind. It’s active meditation with primal roots.

Fighting through jiu jitsu or other martial arts fuses strength and endurance with alertness and humility. It teaches spatial awareness, self-control, and how to stay grounded under pressure. You don’t truly know someone, or yourself for that matter, until you’ve sparred at full speed. 

Together, these three disciplines forge more than fitness. They shape the body of a warrior and the heart of a guardian. A man or woman who trains this way doesn’t just survive. They stand ready, for fatherhood or motherhood, for hardship, for brotherhood and sisterhood, and for legacy.

Now, these are MY recommended activities, but this is obviously not an exhaustive list. All of us should be well-rounded, and if we take the idea of play seriously, we’ll engage in all kinds of physical activity and games. Variety and novelty are the spice of life, and exercise is no exception.

Diet: Eat Like You Give a Damn, but Don’t Be Neurotic

Humans are adaptive machines. History demonstrates we’re built to survive on almost anything. That’s both a strength and a trap. Just because we can process garbage doesn’t mean we should live on it. Eating well isn’t about chasing purity or worshipping macros. It’s about giving a damn… about your future, your energy, your presence… but without turning food into a prison.

Diets don’t need to be complicated. They need to be sane. If your food choices make you miserable, you’re not going to stick with them. If they require spreadsheets and apps to track every bite, you’re feeding anxiety, not your body.

Some simple rules carry most of the weight:

• Eat whole, minimally processed foods. Plants, animals, and things your great-grandparents would recognize as food.
  
• Do most of your shopping around the outer edge of the grocery store. That’s where the real stuff lives.
  
• Save sugar and ultra-processed crap for celebrations, not Tuesdays. It’s not about abstinence; it’s about reverence.
  
• Eat slowly, gratefully, without shame. Pay attention. You’re feeding a future self.
  
• And most importantly, cook with others. Share meals. Build rituals around food that reinforce connection, not isolation.
  

Food isn’t just fuel. It’s culture. It’s bonding. It’s sacred. When we eat like it matters, we live like it matters.

Tribe Integration: Eating and Moving Together

The Tribe of the Fire doesn’t just talk about fitness. We live it. Sweat is sacred here. Not because of the calories burned, but because of the bonds it forges. Shared hardship breeds trust. When you roll with someone in jiu jitsu, run beside them on a cold morning, or spot them under a heavy bar, something ancient awakens. You become responsible for each other’s growth. That’s not exercise. That’s initiation.

Food follows the same pattern. We don’t eat alone unless we have to. We cook, feast, and clean together. The meal becomes more than fuel. It becomes a memory. It becomes proof that we show up for each other. Around the table, we drop pretense. We laugh, argue, tell stories, and remember what it means to belong.

When you bind movement and meals to story and shared struggle, they stop being chores. They become culture. They become the pulse of the Tribe. And that pulse keeps us from drifting; from falling back into the passive, isolated habits of modern life. This is how the body becomes the doorway back to the soul, and how discipline becomes a living, breathing form of love.

Final Thought: Your Body Is a Torch

It carries your fire. Not for decoration, not for comparison, but for use. This body is the instrument through which you show up, for your purpose, for your people, and for the days that ask more of you than you feel like giving. It’s the hinge between your intention and your action.

So treat it accordingly. Train not because you’re afraid of getting old, but because you still have shit to do. Because you want to play with your kids without pain. Because you want to hold your partner with strength, not fragility. Because you intend to walk into your later years with your head high, your hands steady, and your will intact.

This is what we do in the Tribe. We eat like it matters. We move like it matters. We live like it matters. Because it does.

~Jason

###