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by Tracy Lee, combatlifestyle.com

A whim... Thats what I call most of my thoughts of late, and it's the only way to reason with myself on why I'm now in San Diego. I had every intention of staying home for a few days; instead now I have myself booked on a flight to Providence, RI to head to Connecticut for the IFL that flight leaves Vegas at 12:35 wednesday night, so with the crazy schedule I am keeping the week after, I decided that it was my only chance to follow KJ Noons around as he readies for defending his belt against Yves Edwards. I called him around noon; he called me back about 4. He agreed that I could come out, and I was on the road by 7:30.

At that point, I started booking flights. I hadn't decided whether or not I was going to make IFL, and at that moment it was like all the pieces of the puzzle fell together. Redeye on American for Wednesday night meant that I had to be leaving San Diego with enough time to repack my bag for another week and then get dropped off at the airport.

Four and a half hour drive has me sitting where I am now, but the time in between then and now has been filled with nonstop activity. Three and a half hours of my drive was entertained by Crooklyn on the phone; my only stop to pull over to a Starbucks to use their internet. I sat blocking the drive thru for at least 20 minutes. Lucky for me people had kicked their caffeine habit for at least that 20 minutes. I continued on the drive into beautiful San Diego as a slight rain welcomed my arrival. Midnight found me settling into the extra bedroom in the condo that KJ shares with his gorgeous girlfriend, Melany. As I walked in, I notice two things. KJ's pride and joy, his Elite XC Lightweight Championship Belt, and a dog's barking coming from their room; he says,"That's Rocky. We're leaving to the gym at 830am, ok?" I was up for a few more hours working before calling it a night.

8:15 came and KJ was knocking on the door to wake me up. See, I do sleep sometimes! He tells me we're leaving in 15 minutes.. I rush to check emails and get ready to run out the door. He has already made his protein shake breakfast, but shares with me the ingredients. He puts ISO Extreme, a meal replacement with glutamine in orange flavor, multi vitamins, body octane (powder supplement) and water in a shaker and drinks it on his way to the gym. I asked my typical question; He weighed 172 when he woke up that morning.

Rocky comes running out of the bedroom and its at this point I get a good look at the dog. It's a Yorkie, and Yorkie's are small, but this has got to be the smallest one I've seen without it being a puppy. Hardly the dog I expected given the name, Rocky Balboa. But the dog was a total sweetheart and won me over with his excellent behavior and for lack of a better term, puppy dog eyes. I spent a small amount of time trying to get a picture of him, but anytime I hold my camera up (which is very easily the size of the dog) he escapes down the hallway in fear of the unknown.

I give up and head down 4 small flights of stairs to the garage where KJ's white M3 sits. It sits on 18inch BMW rims, and has a red and black leather interior. We got in the car and he jammed his foot on the pedal and slammed the shifter into each gear as if we just took off from the start line of a 1/4 mile drag strip. A smile played across my face as he did so; memories of my old car club came flooding back for a moment.

KJ's condo is over right near the San Diego Sports Arena and directly around the corner from the Throwdown Training Center. He lives within minutes of World Gym located right off the Garnet exit of I5, which is where his first training session of the day was. We met Shoshana, his stength and conditioning coach there.

Now if there's one thing I know about World's Gym, is that there are some SERIOUS people working out there. When I say serious, I mean sometimes the women even have more muscle than the men, or that it looks like the layout of last months Muscle and Fitness. And as we walked into the door to this haven of vanity and sinewed tissue, I felt a little intimidated a everyone behind the desk turned to look at us. KJ spoke to them a second, they turned back to what they were doing, and we followed Sho into the weight room.

Tuesday was back and shoulders day for them. THey proceeded to do two excercises at a time, and take turns switching off so that while KJ was doing one, Sho was doing the other. They did 4 sets of each excercise, doing about 10 reps each set. They worked on a total of 10 different excercises rotating with other members of the gym. KJ's weights were light to work on building lean muscle. After lifting, Sho helped KJ stretch out, as i've seen many trainers do with their fighters.

When we were leaving, KJ grabbed a rapid recovery drink from the gym, and we went to pick up his friend Bailey for their daily run on the beach. AS we were driving KJ explained to me, "I used to think that lifting weights was bad for boxing and MMA; that it would slow me down. I thought it would make me bulk up. Shoshona is helping me build lean muscle and it has helped in my boxing to increase the power of my punches and take downs. I definitely had misconceptions about it. I'm leaner and more powerful than I ever was!"

I took the time to do a little research on his trainer, Shoshana Treichel and found her resume to be more impressive. A professional bobdy builder with impressive wins in a ton of competitions, as well as overcoming much adversity in her life, this woman is more than qualified to show someone how to strength and condition for various different sports. She has also trained a number of professional athletes and holds a degree in Excercise Science. Here's one artticle I came across about her: Shoshana Treichel.

We picked up Bailey in Pacific Beach and went down to the boardwalk. They took a 4 mile round trip run down the beach in the sand, so I took a small walk to enjoy the gorgeous San Diego weather. As I waited for them patiently over at the Seaside Cantina, I ordered a fruit bowl and a smoothie. They arrived just as it came out and shared my delicious breakfast with me.

We dropped off Bailey at his house and made a quick stop in Pacific Beach at the City Boxing Gym that KJ is a part owner of with Mark Dion. The location is located within blocks of the beach and has a large mat area, a sparring ring, heavy bags, as well as cardio equipment. Parked out front of the location was a 2008 escalade wrapped with a huge dragon graphic and the city boxing logo. The vehicle (Mark's) is a twin to one that KJ also owns.

We continued back to KJ's where I finally successfully got a photo of Rocky as KJ made us lunch. He has a pretty strict diet schedule that he keeps to; one prepared for him by Shoshana and stuck to his refridgerator by a magnet. He started separating egg whites into a bowl; 3 egg whites and 2 yolks each. He scrambled these and I then showed him a trick for making cold, hard rice hot and fresh again. He heated up some chicken apple sausages (1.5 each instead of the 2 on his diet schedule) and we sat down to eat. Can I tell you I'm a HUGE chicken apple sausage fan now? He showed me his collection of pills, supplements, and protein powders and then took off to his room for a nap.

I involved myself in the activities of the UnderGround and was surprised how fast the hour went by. He was soon up and grabbed all his gear, walked Rocky, and we jumped into his friend Brad's truck to go to the gym for his afternoon workout.

The Downtown San Diego City Boxing Gym is located at 14th an C. It's a 6000 square foot facility that boasts 20' sully sanctioned ring, a sparring ring, heavy bags, speed bags, and a full weight room. It's 2 levels and includes separate shower areas for men and women.

The guys all wrapped their hands and then began jumping rope to warm up. They continued on to shadowboxing for about 15 minutes. They turned to the boxing ring next, where a couple of the guys started sparring. KJ grabbed his Elite XC emblazoned hear gear and patiently waited his turn in the ring. Boxing gloves donned, it was moments and he climbed in to start his sparring session.

He went two five minute rounds with one of the guys in the gym. Not sure if the guy is normally a southpaw, but in this situation he was standing south paw to emmulate Yves fighting style. In between rounds they had a minute break where KJ's boxing coach cornered him.

This is where it gets a bit interesting. KJ's boxing coach is Pepe Morales. He has trained 3 WBC World Champions, 2 WBO World Champions, 2 WBA World Champions, and 7 Mexican National Champions, Jose “Pepe” Morales is one of the most accomplished and experienced boxing trainers in the World. And doesn't speak a drop of English. So his way of cornering KJ had a lot of pointing and sign language. It seemed to work cause KJ nodded as if Pepe was getting the point across.

Bailey jumped in the ring next and also stood Southpaw although thats not his stance at all. They went close to two rounds before an uppercut from KJ got him square in the nose and it started gushing blood. They took a one minute break, and Dennis jumped in the ring for the next two rounds. Most of their session was stand up although they did take it to the mat a couple times. KJ rocked him so hard that tears came to his eyes, and they swapped in Baruch, KJ's BJJ trainer.

Baruch received his black belt in brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt from the legendary Carlson Gracie in 2002, and is a seasoned MMA competitor. He was not lucky enough to walk away unscathed that day though, and found himself at the end of KJ's eigth round with a black eye.

After his eight rounds of sparring, he continued on to hitting the double end bag, and finished it off with a session on the speed bag. He had incredible cardio; he didn't seem to slow down at all! He did some stretching excercises and then we grabbed our stuff and headed back to the condo.

He cooked again, this time making chicken and Veggies before taking off to his massage appointment at 4:30pm. I stayed at the house working until he and his girlfriend, Melany both arrived home at the same time. I took the opportunity to snap a family portrait as she wasn't joining us for his ritual tuesday night dinner at Brad's house. Rocky was on the invite list and accompanied us for the evening.

Every tuesday, their group of friends gets together at one of the houses and Brad cooks for them. I lucked out in being there on that night. KJ and I stopped at Vons to pick up a few items for the meal, before parking his M3 at City Boxing. We stopped in for a moment, and he introduced me to one of his other boxing coaches, Vernon Lee, before we walked over to Brad's apartment, adjacent to the gym.

Brad is a chef at one of San Diego's upscale restaurants located in Pacific Beach called Tower 23. I knew I was in for a treat as we walked in the house to the aroma of chicken. He had baked some chicken breasts and made a salad, spinach, and cheesy rice to go along with it. It was nothing super fancy, but was extremely delicious. Kj packed a plate for Melany and called it a night. I went to the movies with the rest of the crew to see the newly released, "What Happens in Vegas" with Ashton Kutcher and Cameron Diaz. It's a must see that I suggest to everyone looking for a bunch of laughs. I was dropped off at KJ's house by 12:30 and passed out by 2.

To be continued..

for more info on KJ Noons, check out his website: www.kjnoons.com and his myspace: http://www.myspace.com/kjnoons