sarakingdom

Week 3: Day 6 "... the only thing the good people are good at is overthrowing the bad people. And you’re good at that, I’ll grant you. But the trouble is that it’s the only thing you’re good at. One day it’s the ringing of the bells and the casting down of the evil tyrant, and the next it’s everyone sitting around complaining that ever since the tyrant was over-thrown, no-one’s been taking out the trash. Because the bad people know how to plan. It’s part of the specification, you might say. Every evil tyrant has a plan to rule the world." Fitness Points +6 hours of sleep-1 bad sleep life choices+1 liters of waterTBA meditationTBA workoutLife Points +0 All Control Starts With the Self (morning routine)+0 If You Can Stand the Excitement (time management)+0 Know What's Going to Happen (log planning)+1 Learn the Words (Duolinguo)Sunday Points +7 hours sleep+1 liter of water+5 writing+2 adultingTotal: 22 points

I'm not them, but there are no real formal ones that I know of, beyond Wheaton's Law: Beyond that, anyone's welcome, the Courtyard is pretty freeform, and we're here to help. (You can start a challenge thread if you want to join us midway-through, by the way. Not a problem.) Here ya go: There are a lot of good ukemi basics videos on Youtube. The is one I decided to use to clean up ukemi habits, and it seems pretty decent. (Mistr had a preference for training arm placement, as I recall, but I don't remember exactly what it was.) It's pretty simple to start, but you're trying to train muscle memory of a pretty simple motion - just not an intuitive motion. And it's very careful about neck and head safety, so it probably addresses the bit of muscle memory you're struggling with. Loads. (Well, at least four and a couple of former aikidoka.) We've also got Judo, TKD, Hapkido, karate, BJJ, boxing, various sword forms, tai chi, krav maga, some other things I'm forgetting...

Let me dig up the ukemi practice video I'm using to fine-tune mine, it's somewhere in one of my recent challenge threads. It's pretty darned good on training back-rolls (and from there, front rolls later). I'm assuming it's the back rolls that are the big problem, because it's so easy to not quite get that right if you hit the ground wrong or twist at the wrong time. A few minutes of drills on the mat before class can be a huge help.

That's the real problem. As shodan, he's a teacher. Not a "we all teach each other" teacher, but a mature aikidoka who's met a skill threshold and is publicly recognized for it. A big part of his role is being the mentor to all the little junior kyus he meets. If he doesn't know his shit well enough to teach other people, he shouldn't really advance that far, but that's still the lesser problem. If he's likely to carelessly hurt them because that's what he does with people whose ukemi isn't good, man, fuck that shit. I have some very strong words about that, and very strong words about any sensei who'd advance him anyway. You cannot legitimize the rank and authority of someone who can't control whether he hurts new students. (I may have strong feelings on this. The head of my style is basically zero-tolerance on preventable training injuries and on people being irresponsible with junior belts, and the senior ranks are where the buck stops, as far as he's concerned. Being attentive and taking care of the physical safety of the people you're training with is the primary, maybe only, really hard requirement of being a good student at any rank, and senior students who repeatedly injure junior students, unintentionally or not, I don't even have the words.) Seriously, reset the guy's hour count back to zero every time he injures someone, at a minimum. If he can't go 250 training hours without injuring someone, he doesn't fucking deserve it. That's not meeting the technical requirements of the rank, IMO. He can't control his technique to a standard of basic safety. And that's not a super-high standard, frankly, because we haven't even gotten to effective technique yet, just safe. Every single goddamn 6th-1st kyu I've ever trained with can manage safe. I've never seen a single training injury caused by the other person. Ever. Some minor self injury, like the odd jammed toe or complaining shoulder from a clumsy fall of one's own. Some minor bumps, like bruising, or a little abrasion from canvas, or unhappy knees, or some discomfort that you shake off by the end of class. One really bad sparring accident between two black belts outside training, when they weren't being as careful as they would in class. But I've never seen anyone injured by their partner during training. That's not a high bar.

D'oh!

I'm sure it's not intentional. But, man, if I awarded a shodan rank to someone incapable of controlling whether he hurt his partner in training, I'd be completely ashamed of myself. Honestly, it's pretty shameful that a 1st kyu can't control that, but to have someone on the mat in a hakama who can't control hurting people who don't have decent ukemi? Bad enough that he can't do effective technique, but that's not acceptable at all. I would be flat-out ashamed to be responsible for that. Honestly, the only thing I think your senior instructor can do at this point is not let him test until he has a track record of not hurting people. There's very little else he'll listen to, very little other leverage anyone actually has, and your dojo should absolutely not rank a shodan who can't control whether he injures the junior ranks.

Week 3: Day 5 Lord Vetinari was sitting in the palace gardens watching the butterflies with an expression of mild annoyance. He found something very slightly offensive about the way they just fluttered around enjoying themselves in an unprofitable way. Fitness Points +8 hours of sleep+2 liters of waterTBA meditationTBA workoutLife Points +0 All Control Starts With the Self (morning routine)+1 If You Can Stand the Excitement (time management)+0 Know What's Going to Happen (log planning)+1 Learn the Words (Duolinguo)+1 attention to diet+5 writing goalTotal: 17 points

Really? Cuz I'd say losing a student who hurts other students is the best possible solution, to be honest. I don't know, maybe the only option here is to pin his advancement on learning not to hurt the people he's training with. Quite frankly, I kind of have problems with someone who has a track record of causing injuries through careless or macho training making it to 1st kyu. That's not right. He should have been stopped around 3rd kyu, and stalled there if he couldn't do it. But, man, for the love of god, do not let someone like that test for shodan. His baseline hours requirement should be reset back to zero every time he injures someone.

Is some kind of couples counselling possible? Because this seems like something fixable, and where a professional would be useful in separating it from the depression - and also not like a pattern that's good long-term. Your SO seems well-meaning and understanding, but it's not a good habit to use your partner's depression as a way of avoiding uncomfortable introspection.

Look, at this rate, I'm ready to move in.

I don't have a lot of patience for someone who's been a problem for three years and is injuring people. It sounds like you're not the only one. This is... late in the game for people in charge to be talking to him, though better late than never.

The sleep is not entirely under my control. It's a being-sick thing. Lots of rest is inescapable. Not always at convenient times. Not sure yet about Duolinguo. It's certainly painless, but I'm not sure how good it really is for learning yet. Myself, if I'm clever.

Week 3: Day 4 "I believe you find life such a problem because you think that there are the good people and the bad people," said Vetinari. "You’re wrong, of course. There are, always and only, the bad people, but some of them are on opposite sides." Fitness Points +6 hours of sleep+1 liters of water+5 meditation+5 workoutLife Points +1 All Control Starts With the Self (morning routine)+1 bonus for finally remembering at the right time - incentivize the good behavior+1 If You Can Stand the Excitement (time management)+1 Know What's Going to Happen (log planning)+1 Learn the Words (Duolinguo)+2 productivity bonusTotal: 24 points

Yay, more Pratchett readers!

Big respect to you for keeping up with the challenge in the face of life stuff like that. Come back when you can for what you can manage, we miss you.

The eternal struggle, man. The struggle is real. Personally, I'd say that was much too far out, especially on someone his height. My take on it is this: full power is achieved at the foot, at the strike point they're intending to hit you with, while their hip joint is going to have the minimum power on that kick, and the closer you get to their body, the more that power drops off, because you're decreasing the strike radius. (I don't have any equations about speed and power at my fingertips, but I'd bet you it's something like an exponential drop-off.) The calf of a really tall person is going to be like 80% power, while on a really short person you might get lucky, because the spatial difference between 60% and 80% is going to be less noticeable and they'll have trouble getting up nearly the same power as someone with three and a half feet of leg. But either way, you're better off being where it's 20-40%, especially if you figure that's an exponential power curve. Get the fuck closer. Moar irimi. You want to be, like, invading his personal space, not maintaining a respectful distance. You want him to be all, "Whoa, RP, our public NF bromance does not cover this situation, and where even are your hands." That's how you know you're enough inside someone's striking range. (Also, get Mistr to confirm, because this is pure assembly of what I've picked up, not tried and tested, so I could be telling you nonsense. But I'd never want to be further out than just inside the knee at first contact, and my instinct is telling me that's an atemi from the outside while moving closer, something low-risk. Second contact maybe, after you've got that kick partially controlled. I'm recalling some techniques that grab the foot or knee after the first contact.)

Ooh, planks and supermen. I wanna do those today. I don't have hard evidence on this, though I think I Googled once and found some agreement, but I think a wider squatting stance is better for women, due to wider hips and narrower shoulders. I suspect the standard advice on leg placement is designed for men, whose shoulders and hips tend to be more uniformly-wide than women's. A shoulder-width base just doesn't seem wide enough to be as stable for women as it is for men.

IMO, it's tremendously hard to separate martial qualities fully out of aikido. One can easily do it without martial intent (and could even make a good argument that it's now meant to be done that way, for certain interpretations of that statement), but it's loaded with martial history and, for lack of a better word, art. Most techniques don't make sense without a martial context, and, as an art, it preserves a heck of a lot more classical martial technique than most martial arts bothered to preserve. That's not something that can really be said of Tai Chi. It's easy to do Tai Chi without any awareness of a martial context. But it does take a very unusual approach to martial mindset, and the degree to which an individual practitioner adopts a mindset they consider martial is mostly interpretation and preference. Yeah, do your blending with foot energy from somewhere mid-thigh, IIRC. Hanging out around someone's foot is 1) the wrong place to blend with their energy, and 2) neither irimi nor tenkan. (My rule of thumb is rapidly becoming, "When in doubt, just get your hip shoved against theirs somehow." Everything is better if you're invading someone's center of gravity a little. Or a lot.) Basically this. Most people do a little of everything in their time here, they just find a nice home base to come back to. Wherever you speak the same language as the other people, even if they're doing different things. It's the people in the group who are going to check in on you when you're having a bad week, or volunteer the advice you're looking for. They're the most important thing in the guild you join.

Week 3: Day 3 I am awake. And still alive at the present time. Fitness Points +7 hours of sleep+1 liters of water+5 meditationLife Points +1 All Control Starts With the Self (morning routine)+1 bonus for finally remembering at the right time - incentivize the good behavior+0 If You Can Stand the Excitement (time management)+0 Know What's Going to Happen (log planning)+1 Learn the Words (Duolinguo)Total: 15 points

Week 3: Day 2 "Oh, my dear Vimes, history changes all the time. It is constantly being re-examined and re-evaluated, otherwise how would we be able to keep historians occupied? We can’t possibly allow people with their sort of minds to walk around with time on their hands." Fitness Points +9 hours of sleep+1 liters of water+3 meditationLife Points +0 All Control Starts With the Self (morning routine)+1 If You Can Stand the Excitement (time management)+1 Know What's Going to Happen (log planning)+1 Learn the Words (Duolinguo)+3 task bonusTotal: 19 points

Week 3: Day 1 At last, Lord Vetinari looked up. "Is there some problem, Sergeant?" And Sergeant Colon once again knew a secret about bravery. It was arguably a kind of enhanced cowardice. The knowledge that while death may await you if you advance, it will be a picnic compared to the certain living hell that awaits you should you retreat. Fitness Points 8 hours of sleep1 liters of water5 meditationLife Points +0 All Control Starts With the Self (morning routine)+0 If You Can Stand the Excitement (time management)+0 Know What's Going to Happen (log planning)+1 Learn the Words (Duolinguo)+1 adulting+1 task bonusTotal: 17 points

I will just pretend I'm living your life and sigh contentedly a bit.

I made good progress on a new bottle of sriracha sauce. My respiratory system is too fragile for it today, though. It's decided to cough everything up, which is agreeably cooperative of it, but not a lot of fun.

Week 2: Day 5-7 "He's been replaced as Patrician? By the vote of the guilds? The unanimous vote?" "The Beggars and the 'Seamstresses' voted to adjourn. So did the Launderers and the Guild of Exotic Dancers." "So that would be Queen Molly, Mrs. Palm, Mrs. Manger, and Miss Dixie Voom," said William. "What an interesting life Lord Vetinari must have led." "No comment." Fitness Points 25 hours of sleep6 liters of water0 meditationLife Points +0 All Control Starts With the Self (morning routine)+0 If You Can Stand the Excitement (time management)+0 Know What's Going to Happen (log planning)+2 Learn the Words (Duolinguo)+4 self-careTotal: 37 points Big long sick-day of a weekend.

That sounds like a winner for a monking challenge. That'd be awesome. Sinuses are better, and lungs are clearing. I figure a little more moaning miserably for effect, and I'll be good.