My name is Angelo Ferrer and I'm a 2nd generation Puerto Rican. As I mentioned earlier I was born and raised in Escondido, California (North San Diego County). I really never planned to move to Japan and become an Expat. But things sort of just worked out that way. 

It it all started when I complained to my wife that I hated my job. I was a self employed road side assistance technician. It was hard work and being on the side of the freeway had some high risks. My wife being Japanese, suggested that maybe I should look into teaching ESL overseas. I found out that if I could attain a Bachelors in any subject, I could teach English as a second language in Japan. This is what started my academic journey. Admittedly, I hated school and thought it was a useless brainwashing institute. I was 25 years old, working full time, while taking care of my father dying of cancer and taking care of teen brother. Needless to say I was not your average college student. Eventually,learned how to manage my workload and even enjoyed the process.

I declared a double major in Psychology and Social Science.My perspective about higher education started to change and my professors started to encourage me to get a doctorate. As it turned out, I was top of my class and became really good at running research studies with human participants. I actually started considering going to graduate school and getting my doctorate in Sociology. That was until my life Judo tossed me into the ground head first. 

I had a really rough year in 2009 ( my father died, I adopted my kid brother 16, my wife had a miscarriage). This is when I started re-evaluating what I wanted to do. My wife was depressed, I was depressed, hell everyone in my family was depressed. But as a martial artist I decided I would fight back. I looked into infertility programs in California. I figured that if what I learned about infertility was true, there was only a 10% chance that my wife was completely infertile. 

Unfortunately, infertility programs are for rich people. We lost over $30,000(pretty much our life savings) and didn't get any results. The doctors still couldn't give us a clear reason for the infertility. I was almost done with school and decided that before we looked into a surrogate or adoption, we would go to Japan and get a second opinion.

Sure enough, the affordable doctors in Japan, told us that she had issues with endometriosis and that it would take several in vitro procedures to have a child. We came back to the states and decided we would move to Japan after my little brother started college. 

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Long story short I'm living in Japan with my baby girl and my lovely wife. I ended up getting my Masters in Psychology, through an online program, because of my life circumstances. I teach English as a second language to kids and adults. Living in Japan is way different than I thought it would be, but it provided me with the life I have and I can't complain ( although sometimes I do). 

I've always loved surfing and traveling. So it worked out pretty good. I never thought I was going to stay out here forever ( and still hope to return to California to retire), but I am out here for a long haul. 

Along with Surfing, I've also been studying martial arts for over 20 years.  I hold a 3rd Degree Black Belt in the Hawaiian Martial Art of Kajukenbo (Hawaiian Kenpo) and I'm also a certified martial arts instructor. I've been competing in Open Martial Arts Tournaments for over 15 years. When I moved to Japan in 2013, I started doing Amateur Kickboxing and moved into MMA( mixed martial arts) in 2016.

I don't compete to become a champion, but to learn more about full contact competitive fighting in order to teach. There are a lot of fake martial arts instructors out there and I don't plan on becoming one of them. Although I plan to retire from competitive fighting soon, I would like to get a few more fights in.Mostly I'm trying to gain experience to be a better martial arts instructor.I own and operate my own MMA gym out here in Japan. You can follow the gyms activity on Instagram @levelupgym1 or Facebook Kajukenbo Hyogo Japan.

Because of being involved in so many different things, my website tries to present a variety of topics that follow my lifestyle. I hate labels and I don't  want to let any of my labels define who I am. This is the reason why my show and my blog have so many topics.

Although I may not agree with some peoples opinions, I still want to hear what they have to say and why they feel the way they do. This is something my show and blog, try to captivate in a non-scripted organic manner. 

I'm working on my personal blog to talk more about my adventures out here in Japan with my family. If you want to see what I have been up to check out Angelo's Adventures  to learn more. I also hope you enjoy reading my research articles  and listening to my podcast .

Thank you for checking out my website!