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Well, obviously, I am back from Afghanistan and it took about a week for the jet lag to wear off. When I got in at around 6 PM my buddy Johnny G picked me up from the airport and ran me over to Equinox to do my 7:15 pm class… Yes, and I did this is after 27 hours of travel.
If you miss me in Atlanta you can always take the YRG Workout class with Dr. Craig Aaron aka The Yoga-Doc on every Thursday night. Don’t forget the YRG Certification class is going on April 13th and 14th in Los Angeles if you can make it out there. See more at www.YRGWorkout.com
There were times we laughed so hard we were wiping the tears from our eyes and sometimes that was in the worst of conditions. On the first day of the tour, Jimmy and I kicked off the 5K race (no, we didn't run we just kicked it off with his mega-phone) and then hit the DFAC autograph session. Afterwards, some of the guys who just finished a 5K run came over to my YRG Workout class at the gym on the base where we had about 80 of them. Jimmy, Hammer and Nikolai (our gang) actually did the YRG Workout also to support me. Colonel Kizner was so impressed with the YRG Workout he talked about incorporating it into their PT program. At the end of the workout we did the 10 second push up contest... 10 seconds down... 10 seconds hold and 10 seconds up... they are hard as hell. We started off with 24 guys and gals... yes, gals as well... these guys were so inspired to win the "I Survived YRG with DDP" t-shirts that the winners (there were 3 of them) actually did eight 10 second push-ups... I stopped the contest right there because they were all winners and I was blown away that they had the intestinal drive to get that far.
Then we were off to FOB Sharana where we did an autograph signing that they really appreciated…this is a place that people rarely get to. A lot of the signing was just us walking from one building to another to greet the troops…they had to keep working so we went to them. One of the things that was funny to me was that Jimmy Hart had brought all of his really fun “Jimmy Hart” jackets that he wore to the ring but he only got to wear one of them because it too cold to dress like that. If you see Jimmy wearing what looks like the same outfit in every picture that's because that was the warmest thing he had. Same for all of us... Another thing that made this trip so funny was that Nikolai would tell the same bad jokes over and over again. It got to a point were they actually did get funny... well to us anyway. His delivery was priceless and Jimmy would always egg him on. "Come on, Nikolai, tell them the exact same joke again." It's one of those you had to be there moments. By the way, Nikolai is an unbelievable magician... he really is... I want to thank First Sgt. Baptiste for taking us to the Afghani flea market where I got a sweat deal on a really cool watch for me and my girl.
We went to a couple of other bases and before you knew it we are back to Bagram AF. It was there we saw the FALLEN COMRADE Ceremony for 2 soldiers…now, that was heavy. All soldiers, Marines and Airmen lined up in total silence saluting 2 American Flag draped coffins as they were carried to the aircraft to be flown home…this hit all of us really hard, especially Jimmy... I was honored to be there. A Afghanistan is really hard core place to be and it really doesn't have many places to remind you of home ... the only place that felt like home on this tour was a ski chalet that the USO built. At least they have that. This is where the guys get to watch movies and actually have wireless internet that works occasionally. A lot of the places we stayed were tents or shells in the freezing cold. So a lot of your time was spent at the USO if you were in that area. We were actually supposed to head back home the following morning when we got the news that we could actually fight out that night. Hammer was so happy, he jumped up and yelled, "Jimmy, we're going home tonight!" We were really stoked... I thought to myself, "Wow... imagine what these guys must feel like when they find out they're actually going home and we had only been there for 9 days". We were stoked to go home but we were still dreading our 7 hour flight back to Qatar because the plane would be freezing and we had to go through customs again. We were supposed to leave at 12 AM... didn’t leave until 4 AM... around 3 AM I ran into and old friend I hadn't seen in nearly 20 years from my days when I used to run night clubs in Ft. Myers... His name was Robert Campbell... What a surprise crazy how I run into people I know everywhere...
We were all so psyched to knock 3 hours off our flight. We were psyched until we found out we would be sitting 5 hours listening to one miscommunication after another at customs. All I could do was Breathe... So by the time we got to Qatar we were totally spent because we were up for close to 36 hours straight and had to get up the next morning at 4:00 AM to make our flight back home. Since we had to get up so early and we REALLY wanted to have a beer before we took off so we all took a 4 hour catnap, got up, ate, and had our beers... even Nikolai had one. We were in full force “Mickey Mouse with tattoos mode” meaning we were constantly entertaining and talking and taking pictures with our guys. To this day it always makes my day when one of those guys over there lights up like a Christmas tree when they see one of their heroes they grew up watching who took the time to come there to see them. It's a very special feeling. The reality is that they're not the marks (wrestling term for fan)... we were... They are the real heroes. Thank God we got to the airport 4 hours early because they had no record of my flights... too MUCH right... Breathe... Luckily there was a wrestling fan at one of the counters who actually recognized me from my short run in TNA… wrestling fans... my life would be completely different without them. I was getting no help at all from anyone so walked over to the section of the guy who knew DDP and gave him a signed picture and said Bro can you help me get out here. Finally, I got on my plane for the 27 hour journey home. Which leads me back to the front of this story where I showed up with Angella at the YRG Workout in Santa Monica, CA. Next week I'll fill you in all the Great stories I have from Afghanistan... Get Healthy... Stay Strong... Be Unstoppable and Do your YRG or else! D. Dallas Page
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I have gotten a lot of positive feedback from the people going to the YRG
classes in at the Sports Park that Angella was teaching for me while I was gone and they told me how she was kicking ass and had made the YRG workout her own... Which was very cool. This is really why I wanted to sneak in and
take her YRG class at Equinox. While Angella was
in the “Down Dogg” (not looking up) position I slipped into the back of the class and
joined in. She was about 10 minutes into the workout and doing a tremendous job being
Angella the Drill Sergeant when Johnny G came in carrying my bags to join the class and Ang
said “Oh my God, I think Dallas is here”. At which point she scanned the
room, caught my eye and screamed “You are here” I said “Yeah, keep teaching”.
But she insisted I lead the class. So I bounced up front and continued.
So now you know that if I am on the road and not in LA, there will still be
YRG Workouts at Equinox and in the Sports Park because Angella’s got my
back! Also, added to the 
A lot of you want to know about my trip overseas with the troops. I left
Washington, DC and 22 hours later arrived in Qatar at Camp As Sayliyah.
This is the place where the troops can come to get some R & R and have a beer that they so deserve.
Of course, they are only allowed 3 beers but after 6 months of being dry it
gets you a good buzz. We were so burned out we checked in and went to
sleep for 3 hours and headed right for our “3 beers”. Since Jimmy Hart
and Nikolai weren’t drinking, the Hammer and I had 6 each. I gotta tell
you right from the get-go I have had a lot of respect for these guys for years
but I never thought I would bond so closely with each of them as
individuals, but I did.
The next morning we where off on a C130 to Afghanistan…I thought we were in Afghanistan but I was wrong. Qatar is it's own country. Little did I know the place I was leaving was like Beverly Hills compared to where we were going. A 7-hour flight to Bagram landed us there at 4:00 AM. The thing that really made it suck about getting there at 4 AM was everyone thought we were coming in the following day…it was F’n freezing! They shuffle us off to our quarters which we would call the “Crack House”…I am not kidding. The area we were in was just plywood with a crack in the door that was about 3 inches and the freezing wind came blowing right in... the bunk beds were so small that Nikolai and I couldn’t fit in them…we had to put the mattresses on the floor and remember hot air rises. So we had to just laugh it off. Looking back at it now it is actually funny. The next morning, they also found us a better place to crash so went and did our autograph sessions and then visited the hospitals. Then we went to the AFN interview with Sgt. Kruise to promote the rest of the tour and my Inspirational Speaking segment “Living Life at 90%”. Keeping the morale up for the troops was the main reason we were all there, and Living Life at 90% is exactly what that is about.
Next morning we were off to FOB Salerno. You need to understand... every morning we had to take a flight at 7:00 AM…which means we need to get up at 4:30 AM to be there by 5:00 AM. Did I tell you it was freezing? We got to see some of the troops do tactical maneuvers. This place had been bombed 6 days before we got there and 8 days before that. Which really hit home with Jimmy because his son is with the 82nd over in Iraq. This whole trip was extra special for Jimmy because his son is on his second tour there. I remember walking from one building to another when Hammer said to me “You know, this place has been bombed twice this month” I said “Yeah”. Then he said something that was really funny to me, “This place is actually like a real war zone”…I was like “yeah, imagine that”. It was the Hammer's first time there. Later that night I did a YRG Workout class in a small Dojo. It is so dark over there that you literally have to walk around with little blue lights because you can’t use white ones because of bombings. I don’t know how anybody found this dojo in the pitch dark and when I walked in to it nobody was there. Within 5 minutes there were 20 troops and as you may have guessed it was freezing. So to warm up we started our YRG engines. This is the first time I had started a workout with about 20 people and by the middle if the class there was up to 40 troops doing YRG with me. Nikolai again stayed and did pieces of the YRG workout that he could do while Jimmy and Hammer went to get something to drink. After the workout was over, one of the soldiers said to me "I can't believe a non-military man just kick our asses" and I said "How old are you, bro?" and he said "22" so I said then you need to start off that sentence saying that you can't believe "a 51 year old non-military man just kicked your ass" everybody got a kick out of that. Afterwards, we did the 10 second push up contest... this time we started with 8 guys and ended with 2 ... these guys got to 9 before one of them went down... talk about warriors... Remember how dark I told you it was, well after Jimmy and Hammer left.... Hammer ran into a pile of bricks, took a bump and cut his leg open. Jimmy helped him get his act together and busted his chops every day after that. Jimmy is a funny SOB! And Hammer has a great sense of humor.
s always, we went from building to building signing autographs and ended up at our biggest event where we did a 2 hour autograph session at the Clam Shell. As a joke, Jimmy and some of the troops presented Hammer with a “Pink Heart” award for the bravery and courage he showed by surviving his confrontation with a pile of bricks. I then went into my Inspirational Talk “Living Life at 90%” which I was treated with a standing ovation. From there, we went right into the YRG Workout. At the end of the workouts, as always, we had 10 second push-up contests… and this was a first ever... the winner was a 47 year old girl who beat out all the guys... she did 5 10 second pushups. The really cool part was the guys were really proud of her because she was a total warrior. I wanna thank Jason for filming my talk and workout while we were there.
Our second surprise was we did not find ourselves on a C130 (a cargo plane) but a C-17. The Boeing C-17 Globemaster III military airlift aircraft is capable of carrying payloads up to 169,000lb, and has an international range and the ability to land on small airfields. It is so Sweet! If you wanna check it out ... 