Mistr

Excellent day! Sorry about the damaged tire. Those are always a hassle. I hope they can patch it. I need to replace a pair of tires real soon now. They are pricey, even for my little car.

I love that you were sore an unmotivated so you only ran 4 miles, did your push workout and abs work. If you had plenty of sleep, a good breakfast and supercharging with caffeine and sugar I bet you could do a triathlon in the morning then do a Cirque du soleil performance in the evening.

Most of the ice cream was homemade. I still have cantalope sorbet and coffee Heath bar crunch. There was a small container of turtle ice cream that showed up in the freezer. It's gone now. I am disappointed with the Ben & Jerry's hot fudge recipe. It was great when I made it but it turned grainy in the jar in the fridge. I am disposing of the evidence on commercial vanilla ice cream. I might make fresh vanilla ice cream later this week. I bought peaches to make peach cobbler. That calls for vanilla ice cream. Most of the veggies I prefer cooked. I'll eat raw celery and peppers with hummus. I have raw carrots a lot. Everything else is cooked. I use frozen veggies in the winter. Unfortunately I've been spoiled by fresh local veggies. I will only eat organic frozen ones and those are expensive. I try to stick mostly to what is fresh and in season. Right now we have: sugar snap peasgreen beansswiss chardcelerypeppersturnipsspaghetti squashThe last two my partner got because he has cooking plans for them. The peppers and celery are for snacks and to put in other dishes. The guys will eat more raw celery than I will, or at least they say they will. Eating cooked greens is a new thing for me (in the last couple years). I have two recipes I like - one with bacon and onions and one with garlic, lemon and pine nuts. I'm willing to eat a whole batch of greens over a week. In happy news, my partner has discovered My Fitness Pal and is tremendously enthused about calorie counting as a way to lose weight. He also renewed his YMCA membership and found a friend to lift with several days a week. He is down several pounds over the last couple weeks. He might even sign up for the next challenge here. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that he will stick with it.

Yeah, I understand how that happens. One of the advantages of working in biology is that I could gross out people who tried to do that. "Sorry, I don't want to watch gory movies with you. I have to deal with enough blood and gore at work. I don't do that on my free time". I was working in the veterinary school after I finished undergrad. I once told a stuck-up guy who condescendingly asked what I did that "I kill pigs for a living". I may or may not have mentioned the experiments I did once they were dead. Saying "not my idea of a good time" should be enough for any friend. If not, I would reclassify the relationship to acquaintance.

^^^^^^^^^^^ I agree. I have been doing planks picking up one arm at a time, alternating. Those are HARD. Adding weight would make them killer. Man-makers might be harder in a cardio sense but dumbbell rows holding a plank from an unstable base are much more difficult as a core exercise.

That is a testimony to the power of experimentation. You tested program after program until you figured out what worked for you. And it works well enough that you can resist the power of a new shiny program. I understand how you feel though. I'm seriously thinking about trying the new NF yoga program when it comes out. The exercises I'm doing for my knees are sort of working, but I feel myself getting creakier. Yoga might help with both strength and flexibility. It's worth a try. <nods> Yep, some nights at the dojo are like that. You show up and hope something sticks somewhere in your brain where you can't see it.

If your tires have lost air overnight you probably need to mend a hole in the innertube. They should hold for at least a week if you are riding every day. They lose air faster when the bike is just sitting still. Physics is weird that way. How far is your commute?

So much happy news! I'm glad to hear that your back is feeling better, your son is graduating at the top of his class and being stationed in visiting distance, and you conquered the paperwork monster. Great start to the week!

Yay for getting outside to play frisbee and run! Good thing you got done before you got badly sunburned. Hey, you posted a song I already know - that never happens! My partner and roommate love Ghost in the Shell. I've enjoyed the episodes I've watched with them. It builds as a series. The first episodes seem to stand alone, then you start to put together clues. I want to watch more and find out how it ends.

Book question: sometime last month someone here mentioned a good book on brain chemistry, exercise and positive reinforcement. Fairly recently published. The author is a female neuroscientist. Can you point me to the link? Edited to add: Found it! Googlefu for the win! Healthy Brain, Happy Life by Wendy Suzuki. The review was on Scalzi's blog, not NF. http://whatever.scalzi.com/2015/05/20/the-big-idea-wendy-suzuki/ This looks interesting enough that I am going to buy it in hardcover. There are 30 holds on it at the library (which has 10 copies). I can use the gift card to B&N that my niece gave me for Yule.

Short update By Friday I was more than ready for the week to be over. I went to aikido for two hours. We worked on the fine points of a jo kata for the first hour (at the request of my Wednesday morning training partner). There was a brand new person for the second hour. I liked the way sensei showed a complicated technique to the class (ushiro tekubitori shihonage) and a simple version to the new person. By the end I was a zombie. I decided that being a zombie in a grocery store was a good idea. Friday night is a quiet time to shop and it leaves Saturday blissfully free of errands. Good thing I had a written list. I was down to impulse power only by the time I got home. Saturday was lovely. I did a mix of fun and useful things. Fun: lunch with a friendembroideryplayed pianoplayed sudokuate ice cream to my heart's content (this was my reward for no sugar on Friday)picked the first raspberries from the gardenUseful: Exercised - 20 minutes ball wall sits, bridge curls, side steps.gave a friend a ride to the dojo and workshort co-op grocery shoppinghosed down and scrubbed the tarps that I used for compost and wood chips, dried and put away.planted the last flowers that I picked up on sale back in June, weeded and mulched that garden bed.balanced my checkbook and updated the accounting program.Sunday was less successful. There is a pattern here that I need to break. I think the first step is going to bed earlier on Saturday. Sleeping in on Sunday feels good at the time but puts me behind on everything for the day. If I don't do exercises first thing on weekends they just are not going to happen. Ditto meditation. Fun: Walked to a park with my partner and picked mulberries.Read NF and emailDancing 1.5 hours - except for the parts where my left knee randomly hurtUseful: Short grocery shopping with my partner. Before lunch. Big mistake.Laundry and ironing.Cooking. Made broccoli salad, started a chicken dish. Frustrated that the chicken was not ready in time for supper. My plan for this week is to continue picking small tasks that I can finish. The feeling of having something done makes me feel better when so many other things are waiting. I also want to cook more veggies. My weight is staying steady around 160, which is about 5 pounds higher than I would like. I have cacao nibs at work to counter the sweet temptations. I need to have more easy-to-pack food to cover meals on days I'm gone from morning to night. We bought plenty of veggies at the farmer's market, they just need to get transformed from ingredients to food.

Yes, I agree both on your opinion of the mythical "perfect" diet and on frustration with your own progress. My guess is that frustration is at the root of the problem. Specifically frustration with your job which leads directly to eating more treats. Possibly also frustration at the challenges of being in a long distance relationship. You and your sweetie both want to lose some weight and get more fit, but your idea of a good time together involves eating outside your usual plan. Right now you are feeling like you've stalled out everywhere. In fact, you are making great progress in aikido, have a relationship that is so successful you are considering relocating, and are applying for better jobs. You get up at the crack of dawn every Wednesday and do crazy things with NP that you would not have dreamed of two years ago. I don't know what to tell you to get around this problem. You have to choose your battles. You are already exercising the way you want to. That means you need a different strategy for dealing with food and frustration.

Agreed, rank is weird. The whole system of ranks is modern, subjective and inherently controversial. That said, everyone agrees that there is a relationship between practice time and skill. You are at that lucky place in your life where you can practice almost every day. On top of that, you are young and fit so that your body is perfectly happy with that level of exertion. It makes sense that you are progressing at a fast pace. There is a young woman in my dojo who is doing much the same. She tested for second kyu last summer. I expect she will test for first kyu this fall and get her shodan in another year or so. She has the advantage of being home-schooled so she can come to class pretty much every day. In my previous dojo the fastest progression I saw was five years from start to shodan, after training in other arts. He was a natural martial artist who studied technique intensely on his own time outside class. He went on to study other arts. In contrast, I took the slow and roundabout route to my shodan. All in all it was 28 years from my first class to my shodan exam. There were long stretches (four years in college, six years before and during grad school) where I didn't practice at all. I was pretty much ready to test when I finished grad school and moved. Switching to a new school added about four years to my time. Not that I cared much about getting the rank. I was training at the level I was at. I felt like a brown belt when I moved. I felt like a shodan a year or two before I took the test. At this point I am in no hurry to test again. I can keep training and work on my rough spots without an official certificate. So yes, I think you have the right attitude. The people who just want a certificate tend to drop out when they get it.

How has your week 5 been going?

My boss has been very good about making sure everyone knows they are appreciated. Unfortunately for my eating habits, this means candy in the afternoons and other treats (in addition to personal encouragement). We are interviewing and have permission to fill at least two of the open spots. The problem is that we have not found good people yet. More phone interviews next week and two in-person interviews scheduled for the week after that. Our target population is desperate post-docs who want to get out of academia. There are lots of people in that situation. We want ones who enjoy teaching and troubleshooting and have good people skills. That's the uncommon skill set. I know I can survive the next several weeks. I made it through grad school with considerably less support. I can let my house get messy for a couple months and clean it up when I get a break. Even if things get as bad for time demands as grad school, it won't be as emotionally stressful. I have a stable job, relationships and place to live. I don't have to worry about getting my experiments to work or getting a paper published. I've got this. It reminds me of a story: During the D-day invasion in WWII, a unit was advancing under heavy fire. The officer in charge asked one of his men how he was doing. The solider said "Sir,this is almost as bad as Achnacarry". Achnacarry was the commando training center for British and American troops in Scotland. As for throwing people to the floor so they bounce, I have every intention of going to two hours of aikido tonight. The second hour we are likely to work on koshinages. These are the throws where nage flips uke over her hip into a break fall. Uke should bounce. Unless we are working on soft falls, in which case uke should roll off like a leaf on the wind.

Interesting observations on the goblet squats. I'm thinking about trying these. I don't have access to a squat rack. So far I've just been doing bodyweight squats. I could start adding some weight and see how it goes.

I'm glad to hear that you took it easier on yourself. Getting up at 4:30am is a huge drain on your willpower reserves for the day. Then you had to work at an unfamiliar and very busy location. Taking the evening to relax and do mindless chores makes good sense. I hope you got a good night's sleep and are feeling better today.

That sucks. Here you were responsible and stayed home from judo and you still did not get more rest. Have you tried meditating? The issues you describe with having trouble letting go of work and having trouble sleeping sound like the kind of thing that meditation practice addresses. Thanks for sharing the link from Toronto.

Good for you keeping your mouth shut when you get annoyed. That is something I struggle with. I know there is no point in saying anything when the other person is not in a frame of mind to listen. On the hard kotegaeshi, I would ask the person "please do this more slowly so that I can work on my ukemi". That makes it a favor for you and gives you time to take the pressure off your wrist. At this point I think kotegaeshi should control through the shoulder, not through the wrist. Pain control is not sufficient in a real world situation. You need physics on your side. My sensei advises people to be cautious before offering advice. She says to wait until you have practiced with a person several times. This applies to people at seminars and who have done aikido elsewhere, not to absolute beginners. Of course we all help the beginners as much as we can. It is best to wait until your partner shows signs of frustration or better yet, asks a question. That shows he is ready to receive feedback. Before then the advice has less than even odds of being helpful.

Hmmm. Maybe your subconscious is trying to tell you something? At least you got some rest time for your body. You deserved to have a restful week after your shodan test. Now that you have leveled up you have new challenges to face. Things get more interesting, not easier.

Yay for making crepes and playing your bass. I totally understand telling your friend that you have a jujitsu class and have to postpone a date. If he is not sympathetic to your practice schedule you need to know it now. I hear you on bass playing. I have been playing piano again. Just a little bit here and there. I decided that playing piano for 15 minutes was more fun than playing a game on my phone. I'm making a lot of mistakes and sound like crap but it is getting better. Hopefully if I keep it up I will actually be able to play music again.

I'm glad that you made it through the MRI with minimal freaking out and a clear diagnosis. You can substitute other exercise for unloading the truck. I can just see you sitting by the storage area with your whip as you tell your employees where to put the cases of food. I hope that getting rid of the housekeeping supervisor solves the continuing problems with that department. We should compare war stories on interviewing potential employees. My sympathy on your son deciding to leave early. Good reason or not, you will miss him.

Thanks for sharing the video. I had to look twice at your photos to figure out which one was you. Your hair looks much darker in the progress photos and you look taller in the video. You make a good doctor. I appreciate your explanation of what you mean by deload. Not sure I actually get it, but hopefully I will gradually pick it up from context. Sounds like work has been one frustration after another for you. And you are dealing with it like a mature adult. Some grousing to friends, taking the steps you need to take care of yourself and doing what needs to be done. I'm way behind on comments on your thread. One thought that I want to share before I forget. You would like to meet compatible women who share your interests. Your dojo is very small, but that may still be an entry into bigger things. Does your area have friendship seminars where people from several dojos practice together? Special sessions with visiting instructors? Summer camps or workshop weekends? Larger gatherings of martial artists are great places to meet compatible people.

My sympathy on poor training partners. I am incredibly lucky to have a good bunch in my dojo. We don't have any brand new people right now. A couple transfers from other dojos. I think they will be trainable. You could say something like "we are glad that we can broaden your aikido horizons" when the guy makes those comments. I agree, kaeshi waza is mind bending. I get confused about who is attacking whom. We get so used to the attacker always falling down. Having the attacker stay connected and do a throw is a challenge. Sugawara sensei has several kata series that practice kaeshi waza movements. They are very helpful in developing continuous connection and flexibility.

Here is an interesting article for all of you: Quantification of biological aging in young adults http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/07/01/1506264112.abstract The authors followed a group of over 1000 people born in one town in 1972-1973. They took health and interview data at 26, 32 and 38 years. Some people showed much faster aging than others. This is more of a descriptive study than an experimental study. That said, it supports the contention that good habits and exercise in a person's 20s and 30s will make a difference in better health as they get older.