Kyellan -- Staring Down the Dragon

[Kyellan]

This thread is for me to record the things I'm proudest of, on the days when I really feel like I'm staring down the dragon. It'll also contain some weak moments, of that I am certain, because this thread isn't about image, it's about truth.

 

Now see, I love dragons--I hate the stereotypes, about how they're awful monsters that do nothing but wreck stuff. On the other hand, I like to think of a dragon as a colossal, immovable object with a smoky, golden-eyed stare and unfathomable wisdom.

 

My dragon is my weight. I've been carrying it around for 23 years, sometimes more, sometimes less. A combination of a badly-timed pre-growth bulk up at age six (first grade sucked, y'all) and my burgeoning nerd-nature meant that instead of staying active like I had when I was very young, I withdrew inward, and took comfort in food. Boy, I love food. Still do! =)

 

It's only since I found Nerd Fitness that I realized what my weight truly is--it's the suit of armor that my actual self is carrying as training weight. It's a heavy one, no doubt, at somewhere over 50 lbs. It's served well over the years, making sure that I hardly ever took chances, rarely got hurt, and always served as an excuse to myself why I couldn't do something. Never got into theater, because I was too heavy. Never continued with karate, because it was too hard. Countless excuses over two decades. I feel very lucky to be married to a wonderful person who saw through it, and lucky to be relatively happy in my life, but now it's time.

 

It's finally time to stare down the dragon, and take the armor off.

 

I think he's proud of me today.

 

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9/19/2014

 

I named a goal for this week: 4 sets of 10 pushups in a single workout. 6 months ago, I couldn't do 5.

 

Today I did 40 pushups in a single workout.

 

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9/20/2014

 

In addition to my 20 minute weapon session goal for the day (today was with my hand-and-a-half sword just practicing cuts and blocks, no footwork), I threw a little chaos into my life.

 

2.31 Miles on a bicycle (only just started riding this month after 20 years) in 24 minutes. Not an indoor, stationary bike--a real one, outside on the roads. Avg MPH 8.4, max 13.7. My legs feel like rubber, but I made it!

 

I'm 45 minutes away from completing a 16-hour fast (18:00 9/19/2014-10:00 9/20/2014).

 

Today's going to be a good day.

[Kyellan]

9/21/2014 -- Managed a 24 hour fast today. Wasn't as hard as I imagined it would be. Not something I want to do every day, but definitely doable.

Made it through two full BBWW circuits during strength training this AM, while bumping the plank time up to 20 secs. I'm managing two more consistently, hopefully should be able to start pushing into a third circuit this week.

My weekly weigh-in has me down 2 pounds. Not bad.

[Kyellan]

9/22/2014

20 minutes with my new 8-foot quarterstaff taught me several things. One: staff work is good for everything from hands to shoulders. Two: it's fairly easy to rattle your brain cage when you fumble the overhead spin. Three: um... What was three again?

16-Hour fasts are already becoming easy routine again!

Struggling a lot with a pain and fatigue resurgence tonight. Hopefully a little extra sleep will chase it off.

[Lalie Fanyarendil]

Three: By joining Star Corps, each individual tacitly consents to give up his inalienable rights to life, liberty, and adequate toilet facilities?

 

It sounds like the quarterstaff training must be going pretty well, though! You obviously didn't fumble the overhead spin enough times to interfere with spelling or typing abilities. ^^

 

I hope some extra sleep will help! Have you been doing any rest days?

[Kyellan]

Three: By joining Star Corps, each individual tacitly consents to give up his inalienable rights to life, liberty, and adequate toilet facilities?

 

It sounds like the quarterstaff training must be going pretty well, though! You obviously didn't fumble the overhead spin enough times to interfere with spelling or typing abilities. ^^

 

I hope some extra sleep will help! Have you been doing any rest days?

 

That was #3! Thanks! =)

 

Yeah, I definitely had a good time with my first staff session. Only nearly brained myself once, LOL. The warm feeling all the way down my arms after I was done was pretty neat.

 

Thursdays are currently my rest days. The extra sleep did help, and I seem to be back in good form now!

[Kyellan]

Battle Log: Stardate 9262014.2--er, I mean 9/26/2014.

 

Woke up this morning, warmed up, and cranked out three full circuits of Steve's Beginner Bodyweight Workout with my own personal improvements. I've been slowly building to it, but my last workout I ended on two strong circuits, not wanting to push into injury. Fixing my squat posture really helped with the whole knee thing.

 

Right now my BBWW looks like this:

20 squats, 10 pushups, 20 lunges, 15 dumbbell rows (10lb), 20 second plank, 40 halfjacks (the room I exercise in has a low ceiling)

 

I read somewhere that when doing circuit training, the correct amount of time to wait in-between circuits is the time it takes your heart rate to return to normal. This little piece of advice has really helped me out--I'd tried 60 seconds in the past, but it just wasn't quite enough. This morning I waited for my heart rate to descend in between each circuit, which allowed me to power through the exercises within the circuit better, and allowed me to do more overall. The wait time right now is roughly 90-100 seconds.

 

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Today's Little Thing: My sticky, misaligned, manual-open garage door now opens with a single smooth movement of my right arm from a standing position, rather than sticking halfway and requiring extra force to push it past the sticking point.

[Kyellan]

9/27/2014

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Two weapon sessions today, one longsword and one quarterstaff. Practicing footwork and blade drills simultaneously based on the Fiore text as illustrated by Guy Windsor. Really felt like a good day of genuine work toward my HEMA goals.

 

 

9/28/2014

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Managed a BBWW this morning without too much trouble--nearly fell when my left knee gave out during the third circuit of lunges though. No pain, no warning, just refused to go back up on the backswing of the lunge. Cut the last five lunges out of the circuit and went on to finish relatively strong.

 

For some reason I've been hit with an extreme version of exhaustion this evening. It's possible that I may be getting sick, given the throbbing in my teeth and the sudden increase in chest and head temperature. Really hoping I can just sleep it off tonight.

[Kyellan]

9/29/2014

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Woke up with a terrible, awful, no good very bad crick in my neck that demanded a resting day... so I gave it one. Spent all day working on stretches to try and stop the pain, but it pretty much sucked all day. Should have been a weapon session day, but my goals are flexible, so I'll just move the Monday weapon session to Thursday and call it good. Managed to fast without an issue, because when the hurt is that bad, it's pretty easy to not eat anything.

 

9/30/2014

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Guess all the stretching worked, because the frozen shoulder/neck muscle had relaxed overnight. I took the day off from work to do a complete brake pad/rotor replacement on my wife's car, but first I did three full circuits of the BBWW, which is still difficult but no longer feels like something to strive for... more like a baseline ^.^ I'm already eyeing the possibility of progressing into a fourth circuit. I think when I can hit five full ones, I'll start looking for a different set of exercises to make sure I'm getting the full possibility of growth.

 

I think I'd like to be able to do a chin-up. Never been able to do one in my life... literally, in 29+ years, I've never done one. The idea of being able to do so intrigues me.

 

I had a very tasty omelet made with shredded carrots and collard greens for breakfast, since I honestly expected the brake job to take all day and I didn't know when I might get time for lunch. As it turned out, I was done with the brakes in about two hours from the starting time, and I'd also replaced the windshield wipers and fixed the upside-down headlight bulb to boot! I am most definitely a computer geek through and through, but being a greasemonkey for a day is also pretty fun!

 

10/01/2014

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This morning I spent the first ten minutes of my sword session working on something Guy Windsor calls "The Stability Drill". I used an interval training app on my iPad to count 10 60-second intervals. The goal is to hold each guard position for 60 seconds and relax into it as much as possible, building familiarity with the stance, improving stability and comfort, and building the muscle memory to snap into them when required.

 

For the remaining 10 minutes I did basic cut-and-thrust drills with footwork. I found a new one in the book to work on for next time that will hopefully confuse me a little bit so that I have something nice and complex to work with.

 

Back to fasting today, no issues not eating from 6:00PM yesterday until 11:00AM today. Ate an apple as a snack (Sweetango apples are DELICIOUS!) and then had lunch around noon. Tonight's dinner is white bean chili, one of my favorites.

[Kyellan]

Today it's been 4 days since I did a full BBWW, thanks to the crazy weekend I had and nearly wrecking my legs trying to carry way too much stuff way too far.

 

After my warm-up, the first circuit of squats was really hard on my knees, and I couldn't figure out why. Stopped and moved on thinking that I might not be able to do them, and had very little trouble with the rest of the exercise set. So, when it came around for circuit two, I readjusted my posture... and the squats were fine.

 

I'm not sure whether my form was bad or whether my knees just needed more warm up before the first set, but I made it through a total of three circuits with no big difficulty, though I was not prepared to try for a fourth today.

 

Also, after reading the Intro to Parkour post here on NF, I found myself really impressed by the Irish guy who does the awesome flip-rolls from high places. I am in by no means great shape for anything dextrous, but the basic roll looked pretty easy, and so I thought I'd give one a try on my safely-carpeted floor.

 

Yeah. Ow.

 

I didn't hurt my neck (thankfully) but about halfway through the roll I struck pretty hard on my right side/back, and it felt like someone had donkey punched me in the kidney! It hurt for about 30-60 seconds before it faded into manageable, but I'm pretty sure I'll have a bruise back there. x.x So, maybe I'll wait for a bit more strength and maybe a bit less weight before I try that again.

 

I did end up back in the right position, though, so... yay?

[Lalie Fanyarendil]

How much rolling around are you used to doing? Do you feel like you're able to keep track of where all your body parts are in relation to the ground? That part is crucial for timing, so if you don't roll much, practice that in any form.

 

Also, how high off the ground did you start? (Standing? Crouching? Kneeling?) I remember having a hard time switching from a gymnastics roll when I started training martial arts because it felt natural to use my whole spine. The parkour tutorials I've seen show practicing the whole roll in one go, but it is possible to break it down more to figure out the form.

 

Starting position: weight supported on one leg and the opposing shoulder. Your free hand is reaching under your body for the roll and your head is in. Give yourself a small push with your free-ish leg to go forward. You will not have much momentum, so you might not make it to your feet on the other side. The point is to figure out the form without much force to hit the ground if you've done it wrong. The transition from your weight being supported on your limbs to your shoulder tends to be the place you'll go thunk first if form is wrong. The second place is when your weight goes from your upper body to your lower body. It can be hard to feel whether or not your lower back is actually rounded or not because it's a more subtle movement than when you round your upper back.

 

If you already knew all that, I apologize for all the text!

[Kyellan]

I would say that the amount of rolling I am used to is none. None rolling. down is not a direction I spend much time in.

I knew exactly none of what you shared as well, so thank you!! As I thought about it more, I realized that, like my knees and the squats, the pain was more likely caused by bad form instead of just being the wrong shape. I just wasn't sure where or how to start on figuring it out. Thanks Lalie!

[Lalie Fanyarendil]

Woot! I can be useful! Yeah, definitely do some rolling around, any direction. Supposedly it's good for you because it gets your ki/chi/energy moving in different ways. I actually managed to find one article that talks about the benefits from a purely muscular view.

[Kyellan]

Lalie, you're the best ^.^ I've realized that a) if I want to do awesome rolls I'm probably going to need to improve core strength and increase my flexibility, and my back is really kind of coddled. It spends all day sitting up against cushy chairs and not ever really having to do anything at all, which is probably most of why that first roll from kneeling hurt so much... well, that and bad form!

 

So I'm going to back off a bit, take it a little slower, work on stretching out my legs and making my back a little less fragile with some practice rolls before I jump back into knee-height stuff. That article you linked is great, thanks again!

[Kyellan]

 

So, I was running a little behind today (up too late last night, really need to not do that so often) so I decided that for my strength workout I would try this thing called the 7-Minute Workout that my wife suggested. Since it was about the same type of exercises as the BBWW (with a few extras added in) I thought hey, why not, maybe it'll spice things up a little bit.

 

I repeat: holy carp. This thing kicked my ass.

 

Turns out it's a form of HIIT, which I probably should have realized. Also, HIIT is much harder than it sounds.

 

I did pretty well on the things that I've already been practicing: squats, pushups, jumping jacks--the wall sit wasn't bad, lunges okay. The pushup with rotation... wow. That was really hard. I think I did three or four of them in thirty seconds, because not only could I not keep my balance, my arms were already worked pretty hard from the pushups.

 

Also, it turns out I've been doing planks wrong... I've just been holding the pushup position, but you're supposed to be on your elbows, apparently. This is much harder, since it takes the weight off your arms and basically puts everything on your core. Mine is not that strong, but I did manage to almost hold it for 30 seconds. The side planks, though, forget it. Maybe 10 seconds each side.

 

By the end I couldn't do anything but lay on the floor and pant for about five minutes until I could finally move, and then I did some cooldown and stretching.

 

It didn't help that my blood pressure was super low again this morning, which meant that standing up and then getting back down on the floor kept making me really dizzy. Does air pressure affect blood pressure? It's overcast and raining here today, and the last time my blood pressure was this low the weather was the same. Maybe it's just a coincidence.

 

I'm gonna be ringing like a bell all day from this, I think. Wow.

[Kyellan]

Okay, so: poor choices lead to poor workouts. Cause, meet effect.

 

I could list all the excuses, but the facts are these:

 

1) I didn't get to bed until midnight last night

2) The last thing I had to eat or drink was delicious, delicious beer

3) I woke up exhausted and dehydrated

 

And, as you might expect, my workout results were less than stellar.

 

I've been curious about yoga for a long time, and this morning I thought a beginner yoga set that I found on YouTube would be a decent to strong warm-up. Well, I learned two things: one, there is a reason for the yoga mat [ow my hands ow ow ow carpet is not enough] and two: it's a lot more work than it looks like, which I kind of already knew, but I guess I only actually find things out by doing them.

 

So I did about ten minutes of the super-easy-beginner yoga, and then transitioned into my usual BBWW, of which I made it through two circuits before I felt like a beached fish. I tried swapping out my usual squats for goblet squats with my 25lb weight, and I actually like the way those feel. There's a difference in the chest and core in addition to the legs.

 

I'm counting it as a strength workout since it technically was, and my goals are only to do them, not necessarily to do well at them... but I have learned a valuable lesson. Maybe several.

[Kyellan]

10/20/2014

 

After overworking my knees on the weekend, I decided that I would start learning a Taiji form as an alternative weapon session. Although it doesn't technically feature a weapon, I have decided on the Chen-style Old Frame, which is most definitely a self-defense form and not just a movement flow. The goal is the same as a weapon session--improved Dexterity and Stamina, so I have no qualms with this.

 

After 10 minutes of Qigong (8 Pieces of Brocade, pretty simple) I moved into the Chen workout. The movements are unfamiliar, so I didn't end up moving past Lesson 1. I want to make sure that I can follow the form by memory before moving on to the next piece. I'll do another go at Lesson 1 on Wednesday, and maybe move into Lesson 2.

 

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10/21/2014

 

My knees still hurt today, but only in deep flexion, so I cut out the squats and went for the rest.

 

Managed three full circuits while upping my pushups/circuit to 15, my 25-lb rows to 10, and my planks to 30 seconds. I also added a 30-second wall sit (inspired by the 7-minute workout as a way to still give my knees a bit of a push) and some other basic arm work with the weight. I realize that bicep curls alone aren't useful, but I really enjoy adding them on now and then because I like the feeling of explosive strength in my upper arm.

 

There is no doubt that I am definitely getting stronger, and I love it!

 

My warm-up this morning was a 10-minute Qigong routine (I am working on adding Qigong every AM and PM for balance, stretching and breath control) and then an additional 5-minute bloodflow-booster.

[Kyellan]

Okay, so the new challenge has begun, and I'm back after the two week break!

 

My goals are a little different this time, but overall the focus is the same--strength, dexterity, and discipline! I'm looking to transition into martial arts during this challenge, so those are the three core stats I'll need to focus on if I want to become the Monk I know I can be.

 

Today I did my first strength workout of the new challenge. I'm doing an 'enhanced' version of the BBWW for this challenge, adding in a couple more exercises and increasing reps of the existing ones to make sure I'm pushing myself. It means my circuits will go down at first, but I'm aiming to be able to do four full EBBWW circuits by the end of the challenge.

 

A new circuit is:

 

20 squats

15 pushups

20 lunges

10 25-lb rows (each arm)

10 tricep dips

30 second plank

40 side-leaps

 

Today I did two circuits with a relatively short break between, and then cooled down with some stretching and qigong. Despite being sick (I caught a cold at my office... huzzah...) I feel pretty good.

 

I started the challenge with the idea of adding discipline through tracking my food intake... I sometimes find that it gets away from me too easily if I'm not accountable somewhere. I'm doing so on my challenge thread, but I'm also trying out the LoseIt! app on my phone as a calorie tracker. We'll see how it goes--yesterday I tracked all intake and landed under a calorie goal which will ostensibly help me lose 1-1.5 lbs per week! My life goal is still to drop under 200 lbs by my 30th birthday next July, and I think I can do it.

[Kyellan]

Last night I took my introductory Hung Gar Kung Fu class--I'm actually not sure I've ever worked that hard in my life, or felt so good about it.

 

The class did a 50-pushup set--I managed 30 in the time it took Sifu to do 50.

 

I kept up with the 25/25 crunches/reverse crunches set, even though my range of motion is nowhere near what it should be. My extra 40ish pounds probably has something to do with that. >.>

 

Sifu counted to 50 jumping jacks, but we did two for every count, because he counted once and then the class counted the same number, so I'm pretty sure it was a set of 100. The counts were all in Mandarin of course, so I'm going to have to learn Mandarin numbers. Luckily my preliminary research indicates that they're pretty simple. I didn't quite keep up with the full 100 and lost count, but I probably did somewhere between 60 and 80.

 

I managed to mostly keep up with forms practice, although I still had some kinesthetic confusion about which arm went where and when at times. It's just practice that's needed. I had no trouble on the slow versions, but doing them at speed was pretty difficult.

 

Somehow I kept up with the running exercise at the end of class... I'm really not sure how. At that point I was totally buzzed on adrenaline and just couldn't stop. Run up, kick the pad, then either hop back across 10 pads or run through the cones, then again, a total of 20 circuits through. How did I make it without falling over? I really don't know.

 

Best workout ever!

[jaex]

Mandarin counting (please note, not the correct Romanization but an easy way to figure out the basic sounds though you'll need to learn the tones later):

1 - e (long e sound)

2 - arr (like a pirate)

3 - sahn (

4- suuh (think of the sound coming from back of throat)

5 - woo (like wool without the l)

6- lee-oo 

7- chi

8 - baa (baa says the sheep)

9 - jeo (emphasis on 'o')

10 - sure

 

To count above ten, just say the number in the ten's place, the word for ten, then the number in the one's place.  21 would be "arr sure eee"

[Lalie Fanyarendil]

YAAAY!! THAT'S AWESOME!!! Congratulations!! Was the Sifu good? Were your classmates welcoming? Are you going to keep going? Do you feel awesome now?

 

Agree with the above for Mandarin counting. Every year on Talk Like a Pirate Day I joke that 2 is the most piratey number, but it takes too much explaining for it to be funny. Not that that stops me.

[Kyellan]

Everyone was really nice, actually. The Sifu seems like a good combination of friendly and focused. He talks, he jokes, but when the real work starts, everyone follows his lead and gets very serious, which is exactly how it should be. The other students who were there were very kind to me, particularly one of the older guys, who took it upon himself to walk me through the exercises sotto voce and was very encouraging. I felt really awesome when I was done, and the only pain I felt was the regular worked muscle pain, and no crippling exhaustion yesterday or today either!

 

I'm actually going back again tonight! ...which should be interesting, given that I still don't feel fully recovered from Monday night. I guess we'll see just how far I can push this new-found endurance...

[Lalie Fanyarendil]

That sounds absolutely fantastic. I'm so happy for you!! ^o^

[Kyellan]

Thanks Lalie!! =)

 

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I figure this is the best place for my Kung Fu journal, so here goes:

 

Class 2

 

We started with meditation and intense stretching, the same as on Monday. We did a set of calisthenic exercises--I made it to 30 pushups this time before my arms couldn't take any more. The "in-outs" were significantly more difficult... my core muscles need work, although again, I can't imagine how much worse it would have been if I'd tried to do this before my first NF challenge! We also repeated the three-block combination (yut-yi-sarm, one-two-three in Cantonese) before moving on to the focus of the evening: line drill form practice. This is something I was roughly familiar with from my childhood karate experience, but we never did anything so much fun as the drills that Sifu taught me last night.

 

The first was deceptively simple-looking: starting in horse stance, step with away foot behind forward leg and block down-and-forward; pivot to uncross the legs and block high, then block outward with both arms behind; step open with forward leg, circle back leg forward with hook punch. The whole thing takes about five seconds.

 

The second was simple, but not by any means easy: from southern bow stance (a very aggressive, forward-leaning stance for driving power) open the forward foot, lift the rear foot into crane position, kick and come back down to a stable bow stance. I need to figure out the best way to improve my kick height.

 

The third also started in bow stance, and was much more complicated. 1) Step out with forward leg and turn foot outward. 2) Sword-hand chop high with opposite arm. 3) Change sword hand to grab. 4) Pull grab hand downward and come to side kick position. 5) Kick out. 6) Complete the 360-degree spin and come back to horse stance. On the next repetition, the first step returns to bow stance for the repeat.

 

This basically filled the rest of the class. Our challenge with each drill was to do them without advancing as far as instinct would take you--advancing just a little, but for the most part turning around the current stance to really deepen and strengthen it.

 

By the end of the class, I was so wired that it took me almost an hour after I got home before I could relax enough to finally go to sleep, but when tired came, it brought friends. =)

 

Next class is Monday, unless a miracle happens and I can go back tomorrow!!

[Kyellan]

So, I learned last night that the Hung Gar forms are not intended to be for public distribution, so I won't be going into detail about them here on my battle log. However, I do have a couple of things to share from last night's class:

 

Class 3

 

During the warm-up, my arms felt different while we were doing pushups. I can't even explain what the difference was, but something was definitely not the same as it had been last Wednesday... and I did 30 consecutive pushups, which is my record so far!

 

I can feel my muscles starting to stretch out finally. My legs have always been really tight, and I think they might be starting to give a little. I'm nowhere near grabbing my foot with my leg at full extension, but I might be getting there.

 

I've learned the first seventeen movements of my first form, called "Arrowhands". It's an introductory form, mostly used to build stability and later used for warm-up. My legs need work, and this is a good set of movements to really work them hard.

 

Combined with the line drills and general horse stance practice, I've got a lot of things to do on off days to keep myself moving in a strong and controlled way.

[Kyellan]

1/13/15

 

Kung Fu on 1/12 was over an hour of standing static drills. There were five students and we did 10 of each drill per person, which means each drill was 50.

 

Front Toe Kick (50)

Chain Punch (50/50)

Double Kick: Front Toe, Front Heel (50/50)

Front Toe Kick / Chain Punch (50/50/50)

Double Kick: Front Toe, Roundhouse (50/50)

High-Low-Mid Punch Combination (50/50/50)

 

Holy crap, that makes like 300 kicks and 350 punches that I threw last night!

 

...and I might have missed one. All of these were done from horse stance, and all kicks into crane stance first and following. I can't remember the last time my legs were so tired.

 

What a great workout!

 

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One of my challenge goals for challenge 3 is minimum-once-daily meditation. During the second half of today's 6-minute session, I found some new level when my breathing fell into a perfect, effortless in-out rhythm for somewhere between 30 and 60 seconds. I hope I can find it again.