Liz Carmouche – MMA Fighter / Marine Veteran

Please click and drag the white arrows to see my underwater transformation.

My name is Liz Carmouche, 35 years old. I was born in Louisiana and raised in Okinawa for 17 years. I currently live in San Diego, CA with my wife and son.

I’m a marine veteran and serviced in Iraq. MMA has been a therapeutic experience. I had a lot of road rage and other things that I was dealing with. MMA gave me an outlet to channel all my negative energy.

Also Underwater Torpedo Leaque (UTL) has gone to another level in the process. The mentoring from the staff as well as the lessons it has offered have improved my mental focus. In order to succeed in UTL you have to find a calm while also pushing yourself as hard as possible. That focus has helped in my personal and professional life.

The idea of doing a photo shoot underwater had never even occurred to me as a possibility. When I saw the beautiful shots Erena took as well as how she was helping veterans I knew I had to get involved.

I didn’t have a set agenda for the photo shoot. I wanted to engage in it organically and see how it would evolve and where things would to take us. My son is three so I knew having a plan to focus on was kind of out of the question lol. With him I was just looking to play in the pool and share with the camera one of our favorite activities to engage in together.

Water has always been my calm and happy place. Growing up on an island, I was always a few minutes from the ocean. The ocean was a place for fun but also to reset on any grievances in my life. I always have to be a body of water. The water whether in a pool or the ocean is my home. I also want to say that all the pain goes away when I’m in the water.

So I was looking forward to doing something different like underwater photo shoot!

The photo shoot was really fun! My eyes burned for the rest of the day but it was a lot of fun. Erena allows for creative opportunity to explore and experiment. She had shots she wanted, but allowed me to do some silly things I like to do underwater.

I was upbeat after the photo shoot. I was kind of stressed going into it about my son participating but only because of his attention span. But he had fun and that changed the experience for me.