druzilla

Backstory

Ever since I started college I haven't been in the happiest of places, and going into the second semester of my junior year, I'm hoping to change that. I've divested myself of an unhealthy relationship that tanked my emotional state and gave me a bizarre relationship with food and exercise, I've found a good place to live, I have a job and a plan for graduating in four years. Now that I have these basic necessities in order, I want something more... I WANT TO RAIN DOWN CRUSHINATION UPON MY FOES.

And by that I mean I want to be stronger and healthier.

Some basic stats:

Druzilla
Age: 21

Height: 5'6"

Weight: Not quite sure because I don't have a scale right now; will possibly update later. 180ish.

BF%: I don't know; I lost my calipers.

Goals

1. Lift things and then put them down (3x per week)

More specifically, I'm planning on just following StrongLifts exactly for the next six weeks, starting nice and slow because I've never done any kind of barbell thing before and I am terrified out of my mind of the weight room. So really, this is half a strength goal and half an emotional well-being goal. I don't want to be scared of what random people in the weight room I'll never talk to think of me.

Point scale:

Miss 0-2 (16-18 total): STR +4

Miss 3-8 (10-15 total): STR +3
Miss 9-12 (6-9 total): STR +2

Miss 13-15 (3-5 total): STR +1

Miss 16-18 (0-2 total): NOTHING

2. Consistently beat up my friends (3x per week)

One of the side effects of my crazy year was neglecting some of the training I really care about. This goal's about getting back on schedule with martial arts. I'm committing myself to going to at least 3 kung fu practices and SCA heavy fighting practices per week, in any combination. More than that is bonus, and I won't feel guilty if I miss out on one of them for a week so long as I do three of the other. I'm hoping this will let me not burn out on either form.

Point scale:

Miss 0-2 (16-18 total): STR +1, DEX +4

Miss 3-8 (10-15 total): STR +.75, DEX +3
Miss 9-12 (6-9 total): STR +.5, DEX +2

Miss 13-15 (3-5 total): STR +.25, DEX +1

Miss 16-18 (0-2 total): NOTHING

3. Know what I put in my mouth (every day)

Food journal time. My relationship with food is doing the wacky right now, so I want to try to fix it by nonjudgmentally recording everything that goes in my mouth for the next six weeks. Since I'm working on modified primal right now, this is sort of a tool for that, but I want to base this around consistency more than judging myself for my food choices. This is about quantity of entries, even if quality of food is a nice side bonus.

Point scale:

31-42 entries: CON +3

21-30 entries: CON +2

10-20 entries: CON +1

0-10 entries: NOTHING

4. Bonus life goal: MAKE THINGS

Again on the theme of consistency, I'm going to work on some kind of needlework project every day. Some will be nalbinding, some will be garb sewing, some might be completely unrelated to the Society for Creative Anachronism entirely like the thing where it's winter and I have no mittens. But I'll do at least a little every day.

31-42 days: CHA +1, WIS +2
21-30 days: CHA +..75, WIS + 1.5
10-20 days: CHA +.5, WIS +1

5-10 days:  CHA +.25, WIS +.5

0-5 days: NOTHING

Greetings from the Midrealm! I'm also relatively new--I authorized to fight in July and fought my first Pennsic in August, but I've been doing A&S for a few months before that. I only fight sword and shield, both melee and tourney, though mostly melee because that's what my household focuses on.

kite shield is almost as big as I am! (5'2" and 106 pounds of skinny nuthin)

I'm one of the smallest people in my melee unit, and the only female fighter, so I can empathize. We're part of a Roman household, so in melee we use those ginormous rectangular scuta, and when I brace mine on my greaves it covers my face almost completely. A big shield compared to your body can be an advantage in melee--it's hard to get speared when your entire body is covered with shield.

The strength comes as you practice. A quick trick I used to build up strength and endurance right before my authorization (for a variety of reasons, I didn't have a lot of ime to practice) was to carry my shield with me around the house and hold it up in a guard position while doing random household tasks, or watching tv, or whatever else I happened to be doing. Plus, this also gets you thinking of the shield as an extension of yourself because you get so used to having it in your hand, which helps make your guard more natural.

And I'd definitely recommend plenty of pell work in addition to your regularly scheduled fight practice. Pell drills for us are like scales for musicians. You can never do too much pell work, in my opinion.

Hi everyone!

I was very, very briefly here under a different name (briefly like under 20 posts, for reals) and for a variety of reasons I felt I need to switch names to this one, which is both more appropriate for me and easier to remember.

Basically, I am here because I do Northern Shaolin kung fu and shuai-chiao, as well as SCA heavy combat (European medieval armored fighting, with rattan sticks instead of live metal), and also I am a girl, and not the strongest girl, and while that is not an issue so much in kung fu and shuai-chiao given divisions and weight classes, we don't have weight classes in the SCA, and all the big burly dudes in my melee unit make me feel weak in comparison. I'd like to change that, so I'm looking at cross training for fighting with barbell lifting, which I have never done before but hey, and probably some interval training to build up stamina so I don't lose my breath in the middle of gloriously vanquishing my foes on the field of battle.

I've also gained around 30 pounds in the past year--nearly all of it fat--due to a variety of reasons but mostly because I'm recovering from what was not actually an eating disorder but shared a lot of the symptoms. Once I got out of the unhealthy relationship that was causing those symptoms, I guess my metabolism didn't really know what to do with me suddenly eating food again, and I don't really feel like I look like myself anymore.

Long story short, I'm here to lose fat, gain muscle and skill, and generally make myself a better fighter. Unrelated fun time interests include: historical needle crafts, trashy fantasy/SF novels, playing double bass, and attempting to graduate college with a BA in English.