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I didn't expect to find the strength to heal in moving to Japan. There I was, barely a year removed from a broken neck injury that left me nearly paralyzed. I stepped off the plane upon my arrival to Tokyo as a lost 23 year old boy trying to piece my life together as the surgeon had done with my reconstructed vertebrae. The only difference was I had no operating room or nurses to assist; alone...thousands of miles from home, surrounded by an unfamiliar language and swamped in a sea of foreign faces. "What.Have.I.Gotten.Myself.Into?" was literally the first thought that crept into my head that initial day in Japan. As a former college athlete, maintaining peak physical condition had always played a major role in my life, but the dream of competing at a higher level came to an end when I suffered a complete fracture of my C-4 through C-7 vertebrae. Having sports stripped from my life left an internal scar much deeper than the surgical wound I now permanently donned across my neck. Feeling as isolated as the islands of Japan, I felt as if I would never truly be able to embrace exercise and physical activity again. Junk food and self-pity became my steady diet of decay--until that day I stepped off the plane in Japan. Once the initial shock of those first few steps into the airport wore off, I explored the capital city of Tokyo with a renewed sense of energy that a change was exactly what I needed at that point in my life, which ultimately lead me to the rural Japanese countryside town of Nanbu in Tottori Prefecture. Nestled between Mt. Daisen (the Fuji the West) and the Sea of Japan, the seemingly sleeping town breathed life into my scarred soul and began to heal me from the inside out. A regular diet of fresh fish and sushi, rice, and miso soup fueled me with the focus to not only rebuild my health but also my body. What started with short walks through mountain trails and along the beach eventually blossomed into an impromptu decision to join a running club. Given the fact that I wasn't 100% convinced that my conditioning could handle running with adults, I ran with kids instead to build my confidence. "Fight-O." "Fight-O." "Fight-O." the students would say in unison as a means to encourage one another as they circled the track. Unbeknownst to them, the power of those words did more than simply provide a boost to my daily running routine. They gave me strength, a renewed zest for life, and helped show a once lost 23 year old boy the path towards becoming a man...becoming whole again.