Kishi

Rhubarb!? How did I miss this? Gah, I think I was just out of college the last time I got to have Rhubarb pie. It's been many years since then. Anyway, I hope the ice cream protocol proves effective! And worst case, it's a learning experience, right?

Those food pics, tho

Am I late, or are y'all early? Or did I start this precisely when I meant to? It's totally me, I'm late, you guys, I don't know how it happened I'll let you ponder that. I skipped out last challenge because I didn't know what I was doing and I didn't really know what I meant by saying I wanted to "Maintain." And truthfully, some of that is still at play now. My old workout routine has completely flown the coop. I don't really have a routine anymore so much as a series of touchstones that I try to touch every week. Instead of thinking about particular movements, I think these days in terms of patterns - press, pull, squat, hinge, lunge, invert - and do a little core work on the side as it relates to or enhances my martial arts. (At this point, that means hanging leg raise progressions, loaded carries, and side planks with the goal to develop a Copenhagen Plank for adductor strength). I walk more these days too. A lot more. I managed to get a pedometer app on my phone and it's been mindblowing to see how little I was moving beforehand. It's not perfectly accurate, but it's consistent, and I can work with that. I'll document that some in the logs this week to give you an idea of what this comes out looking like. I feel really good these days as a result. My busted shoulder is nice and quiet. I'm better-rested, and I feel like I'm moving better as a result. I've been going easier in the rolls out on the mats for BJJ these days and I've had to get technical since I'm not using strength so much. I think I'm better, and even when I'm tapped, I find that I don't care about the tap so much as getting tapped safely (ie don't be stubborn, tap early, tap often). I got a couple things coming up this challenge. One of these is a belt promotion this Sunday, 8/6, which I'll go to. I don't have any expectations; the job has consumed me and I'm not making the time that I want to for this, so, I'll go, but I'm not so certain that I'm going to be promoted. It's fine if not. I've been meaning to go to these things for a while anyway, and it'd be good to be a part of the community. The other thing is a GoRuck challenge out in Denver at the end of the month. This will be with my brother, who is apparently arranging the whole thing. I've bought the tickets and the weight, so now I just need to get a couple other pieces of safety gear and I should be good to go. Just need to get some training volume. This particular event is slated to just be a 12 mile hike in 5 hours with a 20 lb weight. I think that's too easy given how it went the last time I did one of these, but I think I'll be better-prepared this time. More prep time would have been better, but I couldn't accomplish that with the equipment I had, so, I'll just have to make the most of what I can do now. I have three goals for this challenge. Surprisingly, only one physical, but that one physical goal will cover, like, everything, so for the most part I'll just be logging that stuff here. The other two goals are to keep working at my writing and to meditate. I'm up to 5 minutes at this point, so I'd like to hit 6 minutes for the remainder of the challenge. And, uh, yeah. That's that. I'll be about. Good to see you all again.

Frankly, I think you're making the right call. As someone who trains most every day, I've noticed that I've really had to be mindful about what kind of volume I'm putting up and when. I have most recently experimented with 10 minutes of strength and conditioning a day, with shockingly good results, and while I've expanded that some in terms of my time commitment, the only extra stuff I'm doing is mobility and play. So, really, all I'm doing is making room for myself to have a good time on top of my strength and conditioning work. Which isn't to try to drive you one way or the other on anything. It's just to point out that volume isn't just in any one session but is in fact something that happens to people over the course of time. Everything exists in context with everything else. So! I hope these changes get you to feeling better.

Yeah, that's what I did, but I think got them. I do believe their art name is Ibuki Satsuki. I need to make a point of gathering the internet art I like in one place. Hunting it down is inconvenient.

Hey, so down here in NC, the heat is bullshit and it's humid and my landlord likes to keep us hot because he doesn't want to shell out for A/C, and unfortunately I have to get my steps, so I go outside and get humidified and come back to little or no relief. The answer, so far, has been cold showers. Which sounds miserable, but! But! Here's the thing! Because it's so friggin' hot, we don't actually have cold water, so once the initial burst is past, the temperature actually mellows out some and it becomes kind of pleasant. It helps a lot more than I would have thought before trying it. I respect that there's a major mental hump to get over to take cold showers, and if it's not for you, it's not for you, but it helped me. Maybe it'd help you too? Hey, yeah, so, who's the artist? Where you finding these? I think they're really cool and I want to follow those people too.

Well, howdy! Welcome back! I feel you on that flexibility goal - being able to kick high is just fun, and you don't get that without some active work there. Hope it works out!

Argh, I didn't communicate well. You're right in that I don't mean to dojo storm people; I absolutely don't want to be that guy. I also don't want to show up some place and get caught up in some kind of pecking order, or have a target on my back because I'm some foreign colored belt and all of a sudden everyone's got something to prove. I'd rather just put on a white belt, play a defensive game without expectations to win anything, and part in peace. So, I mean, yeah, I'd play whatever game I got to play regardless of the color of my belt. I don't see how I'd do anything else. I'm more just trying to keep the social aspect chill.

Can confirm. Japanese written language uses three scripts: Hiragana: the native script Katakana: foreign script; same sounds but different characters. These are for loan words and pronunciation of foreign words; also, they tend to be used for advertising. Kanji: Mandarin characters. My understanding is that they didn't take all the Mandarin characters, and they don't necessarily know how to read them all, so sometimes you'll see tiny little hiragana characters to tell you how to pronounce them. In that context, they're called furigana. I don't know what other similarities exist in the languages. One difference I know is that Japanese doesn't have the same emphasis on tones as Mandarin does. You have "questioning" and "declarative" tones similar to English, but it's not like the 4 tones with Mandarin where the same spoken word means something different depending on how you say it.

I mean, speaking for myself, the day comes when I'm not a white belt, I'll probably still roll as a white belt if I'm traveling out of town. I'd mean to go easy with folks and try not to present as someone with something to prove. Because, I'd like to think, I won't have anything to prove if/when that time comes.

One of the good things that happened after I had to switch phones is I wasn't able to keep all my games, and I've found the loss of them to be wonderful as far as maintaining my attention on what's here in front of me. Which happens to be YouTube. A lot of the time. ... ... oh no

Nah, see, that's what I've heard of as being normal. Since the sport itself doesn't come with an off-season, you have to build it for yourself with logistics and scheduling. But the idea of going to tourney once I'm bored is a way of thinking of it that I hadn't considered. I dunno. I think that might be a good approach, since I'm focusing less on submitting others and more on surviving and running away. Thanks, and good to see you again. <3 But, yeah, you're right, and I get it. I think for me, it's not necessarily that I don't have much to say - I've learned to be comfortable with saying what I have to, even when that something is nothing at all - so much as that I'm not being present and witnessing people in the way that I said I would, or in a way that is true to the role that I volunteered for. I dunno how much we even need it - the Monks, I'm proud to say, are a bunch of self-starters and go-getters who don't wait on me to be their awesome selves - but I said once a long time ago that I'd do the thing, and it bugs me when I'm not true to my word. Thanks. I have to remember that for myself sometimes. ... yeah. Yeah. It's so weird. There's this sense of pressure to carry on everything like it's normal, but there's this voice deep in the heart of me that keeps shouting "Everything is shattering!" Gramsci comes to mind. "The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters." * Friends, it feels like it's been longer than a week, and the challenge snuck off and ended itself while I wasn't looking. As happens sometimes. Despite how weird I sound in referencing Gramsci up above, life is actually pretty decent for me personally. My job takes too much of my time, but it pays me for that time and I need the money more than I thought I did. I don't make enough mat time, but what time I do make is high-quality; I learn well when I'm on the mats and lately I've been able to preserve myself shoulder and all without having to ask for people to go easy on me. My strength and conditioning work has been good to me too; it's this ongoing sense of "consistent novelty" and I keep progressing with everything I do. Even better, it seems to actually translate back to what I'm doing on the mats, and I'm picking up the ability to gently ragdoll lighter folk while keeping up with the more athletic folk in my weight class. I'm also able to stymie the more athletic/spazzy people with technique and pressure, which makes my jiu-jitsu feel good. I dunno if I'm gonna rank up next month, but even if I don't, I feel like I can be happy with what I've achieved so far. Anyway, I do have some things that I want to do with myself for the upcoming challenge, so I will be about for that. Thank y'all for stopping by! See you next round!

Girl, tell me about it. I've had the chance to go play with a local Thai boxer who has provided a bunch of different ways to punch that I've not been exposed to before. It's revelatory, and also a ton of effort, but it's fun to know that there's more to learn even with the relatively limited palette of skills that stuff like boxing and Muay Thai provides. Sounds like you're having fun. Keep going!

Heh. So it seems all I'm really doing instead of going around and talking to people is just showing up in my challenge to write and then just run about hitting react buttons on people's challenges. And it's not even that many; I'm just hitting up the Monks because they're the ones I'm supposed to be responsible to. So much for being social, I guess. Which wouldn't bother me except I said I'd do better. And I'm not. Sorry for that. Um, Friday wound up being a lifting and practicing kind of day. Saturday was my first ruck in a while. Managed 2.5 miles at a 18:37 pace, which is a good pace for the event in August. Now just gotta build up that distance. Having a dedicated plate for this kind of thing felt really good, but it smoked my traps something fierce and pike-stand practice afterward (a precursor to handstand work) was just brutal on top of that. I'm following the beginner advice as laid out here, and if I hit it right, I'll be doing about 9 miles the week before I go out to do 12 miles in a single ruck; I'll actually have a few days to rest before then too which, given the amount of notice and the logistics is about as good as I could have asked for. More time would be better, I think. But I think it'll be survivable on this amount of preparation. The hardest part will be the mental component. Just another reason to meditate, though. Which I also did, last night. My monkey mind is far more active than it used to be, I'm surprised to find. I got my mat time the past couple days. I got people asking me when I'm going to go out for tournaments again, which is flattering. If I'm honest with myself, I do want to go back to doing that stuff again, and even do striking tournaments too. I just... feel like I'm in a really constructive place right now and I don't know how to adjust and incorporate that with tournament prep. Specifically, I know for a fact that I'm going to be manhandled in whatever division I go to, and even if I find myself in a relatively even place, my grappling is really defensive and my striking withers under intense pressure. I feel like I learn a lot every time, but I also feel like I'm paying money to get my teeth kicked in, and that sucks. Still, in a way, maybe the preparations I'm undertaking for the GoRuck can be a proof of concept, because if I'm training with only 10 minutes a day of dedicated strength/power work and the rest of my time spent on conditioning, and that proves sufficient? I mean. Holy smokes. Anyway, that's all I have time for for now. Gotta go get cleaned up so I can go visit my folks. Catch you later!

Thanks! I'll be around for the next one, for sure. Right now, I'm just vibing and trying to be present for folk. Seems I'm doing much better being present for myself here rather than everyone else, though. Don't worry, I see it. 😅 Not much of a challenge here, Padre. Just running my mouth and spinning my wheels. * Job is falling back in line, although I've fixed things too late to meet my standards for the week. Also, got a case of the micromanagement blues right now, which is bothering me a lot more than I would like. One of the D&D podcasts I listen to had a player character go through a satori moment (it was a monk, naturally) and it's really lit a fire in me to extinguish the fire with meditation. I think I need more than I've been allowing myself. Of course, I say that a lot, and it doesn't generally work, but, man, listen. It's a good struggle. Really. (the podcast, in case anyone's interested, is Rude Tales of Magic. Very soft on rules, very big on dirty, foul improv, but sometimes they can't help but do dramatic and cool stuff. It's definitely not for everyone, but I like it a lot, and I do recommend it. Just, you know. Setting expectations). Um, ooh, also, my shoulder's doing a lot better. It's got to the point where I can take forward breakfalls on the mats now without any immediate pain. There was some delayed soreness in there when I was off the mats which has me remaining cautious, but it's a damn good sign, and I'm glad. I was actually kind of itching to take the brakes off of my rolling at the end of class, but I probably need to keep flow-rolling for a while and keep taking it relatively easy. After all, it's not like I'm getting ready for a tournament, and I don't have to kill myself getting ready for that. Come to think of it, though, I don't really know how to periodize my training such that I'd be in good condition for that anyway. The 10-minute strength and conditioning work that I'm doing is really, really good for me right now and between that and me getting my steps up, it's helping to get my obesity under control and even begin to reverse. But it's not designed as a formal S&C program either, which means it's not designed with the idea of being periodized in the first place. Oh well. It doesn't really matter until my shoulder's good. I'm due for a follow-up with my PCP at some point about it and depending on what she says I'll either be cleared or else I'll be sent for further treatment. Not sure if it'll be further injections or if it'll be PT; if it is, I've got a place lined up for where I want to go, but I don't even know if I'm going to need it or not. Anyway, it's a rainy day today, so steps look like they're proscribed for the moment. Booooooo. I can still lift some heavy things, though.

Thank you! Things have smoothed out somewhat since then, so I finally have the ability to, you know, show up here a little bit. It's not 100%, though. There's some other job stuff I'm having to unsnarl right now, which this time actually is my fault, and it's gonna be a bit before that gets back on track. I don't know how it's going to interact with my mat time priorities in the short term, although in the long term it's the thing that permits the mat time goal to even be a thing in the first place, so. It's fixing to be a situation again where I need the job to do what I want, but I get so stuck on the job that I never get to do what I want. I hope your car troubles turn out to be nothing major! Yeah. And it's weird. By the time the promotion happened, I'd found my peace with the situation, and I totally wasn't expecting anything. And even when I was called up to have the stripes put on me, I only thought it was going to be one. I'm still not sure how I rated 2, but that just motivates me to show up and prove myself. Thanks. It's nice to be heard. I could have done something, though. Worst case, I could have just done a maintenance challenge and logged my observations here. Could have been a supportive presence for folks. - An eventful past couple of days. My phone problems were resolved, no thanks to most of the parties involved. The very short version of it is that I tried to switch from Cricket to Mint Mobile, but rather than buy a new phone and do all that, I tried to change out the SIM card. In order for that to work, my Cricket phone had to be unlocked, but it couldn't be despite my compliance with procedures; even with a factory reset, the Cricket tech would automatically relock the phone. So I went to buy an unlocked phone from Best Buy, which they thought was unlocked, but it locked itself immediately on activation to Verizon, and Verizon ultimately wasn't able to help me unlock their phone either. So I had to go to Best Buy again, and they couldn't unlock the phone, so I wound up trading in for a newer and better phone that was actually unlocked while also being a refurbished (read: lower carbon footprint) model. Best Buy was the coolest part of this whole process; I hope those workers get a raise and control of their store. Anyway, that's done. Now to work on getting the job caught up and back in order again.

Hi. So, you ever find yourself in a situation where you've got a challenge to plan, but you don't really know what your challenge is, because you think to yourself, "I mean, it could be better, but it's honestly pretty good, but I don't want to just maintain, but I don't know where to go from here. Ah, well. I'm sure I'll figure it out in time." #relatable, amirite? Anyway, I didn't figure it out in time for a challenge, and then things got busy. Out of nowhere, I was ranked up in BJJ from a 2-stripe white to a 4-stripe white. This is one step below the next belt - blue - which my academy only promotes at certain points of the year, and it was heavily intimated to me that I should show up for the next time. So getting out to the mats has been a huge priority for me. My brother contacted me and invited me out to do a GoRuck challenge with him in Denver. Not the hardest thing in the world, this time; just a hike around the city with 20 lbs on my back. I am deeply suspicious of this setup. It's too easy. So I've been trying to do some kind of distance work in my spare non-mat time. My job, ofc, doesn't care about what I'm doing to take care of myself because it's not translating directly back to labor for them, so I have to take care of these people too. Which means lots and lots of overtime. The "S Belt" in my car - the central timing belt w/o which nothing works - started making "I'm Dying" noises at me, so I had to get that squared away. And it turned out there were a bunch of problems beyond just that which still need to be addressed. I couldn't even afford to get them all fixed. My cellphone provider offended me for the last time and I decided to switch providers. All well and good, but for the fact that the new provider, um, doesn't seem to work. The problem appears to be on their end, but they haven't been terribly communicative with me about what's being done to fix it, meaning I've been having to take the initiative in following up with them. Normal enough, I suppose, but not exactly ingratiating. All of that while trying to carve out the time to work out in bits and bites throughout the day, which, thank God it's easy to do, because nobody and I mean nobody is helping me in terms of making my life easier. So, it's been... a lot. Really, it's a situation where I just wake up and I hit the ground running, and I just don't stop. Which, of course, sounds terrible; really, I do stop, but even when I'm stopped, my time is taken up by other folks around me. And you know? It's really not bad. I don't feel bad at all. But it's not a situation where I could stop and breathe and really think about what I want to do to level up my life. The one part I regret about this - the thing that's actually been itching in my brain the most - is that I haven't been making time for y'all, and that's something I regret. So I don't really have a challenge here, and I don't really have a plan beyond getting around to as many of you as I can with what time is given to me. But it didn't feel right to just drop in without saying at least something about what's been going on. I'll see you when I do. I hope you've all been well. Although, I suppose I'll find out soon enough.

FWIW, I watch a lot of How To Drink on YouTube and pretty much any time he needs some kind of a fizz, he'll carbonate some water on set. May be an option, although depending on what you've got available, maybe not immediately so.

Pheeeeew, man, the past couple days have been busy. Lots of running around like a chicken with my head cut off. Goal 1: 25/34 Goal 2: 28/34 Goal 3: 31/34 Ah my God I did it. I don't know how. But I did it. Even if I did absolutely nothing tomorrow, I'd squeak by with an 80% right on the dot. I guess it's a function of how I did the past couple days. OK, so, Wednesday I was in the office. I got my steps in. Made it out to go hit pads afterward, which was fine and fun. Got my studies done. Thursday, my friend out in Zebulon wanted to meet up, so I grit my teeth and actually went to a noontime class. And it went fine! I actually was able to pick things up and understand what I was being told. Sparring was mostly fine - on the one hand, hit a very clean judo throw and got a submission right off of it, which was nice; on the other hand, I had the experience of someone muscling their way out of a submission in a way that I've never experienced before. Twice. I'm taking moral victory on account of the fact that I got to those places at all on this guy and also that he didn't get me worse than he did. Something I'm realizing with the past few days leading up to the tournament is that I'm not playing very explosively. I tend to be a drawn-out, survivalist attrition kind of guy. It works, but I have to live through an awful lot on the way to it working, and I don't know how good that is for a tournament. I know the guy I'm rolling with on Sunday. He's very nice. He's also explosive and built for our division and I'm not; I'm just this kind of heavy, gangling kind of guy and I don't have the athleticism to keep up with people there. I know I can beat him, but it's not certain, and I can see this going the way it usually does where I get beat off the blocks and blitzed into submission. I'm not worried about it. Not really. Losing to people I like is a way better outcome than I normally get in tournament, and it's also the worst possible one this time, so whatever happens, it'll be all right. As long as I walk out under my own power and without getting hurt again, I'll count it as a win. Tangentially, my shoulder's doing pretty good lately. I've cut my warm-up down to ten minutes of Turkish Get Ups and ten minutes of flow rope, a training modality that I'd heard about that looked fun and allegedly has therapeutic benefits for my shoulder. I did my Get Ups today Bottoms Up, so with bells above my hands rather than resting on my forearm. Can do them with 8 kgs, although I'm having to play with the load a bit as just 1 on each side is about as much as my grip can take for now. Thank God I got a 4 kg to play with too. Shoulder's feeling nice and quiet after that, which is an auspicious start to this way of doing things. I hope it continues to get better. Drove out to Zebulon last night and did some in-depth character bible work. Good stuff, but rather time-intensive. Need to get after this with some aggression. Along with everything else. Today, played and studied, but no walking. Job's been kind of A Lot the past couple days and what time I wasn't spending on the mats or on mat-related research I had to give to the job. I ran out of time for walking, and it's late enough that it's better for me to get some food and go to bed. Especially since I managed to get some time with a Muay Thai trainer tomorrow morning. That'll be fun. Need to be up in time for it, tho. But, uh, yeah. We'll see what tomorrow brings. Whatever it is, it'll be a win.

I mean, all you can do is all you can do, right? It's better than nothing.

I have to admit, as much as my mind is drawn to end of life stuff these days, I really need to get some stuff in writing from my folks for when the time comes. Or that I need to do that writing myself, for myself. I'm not at a stage of life where that's a huge thing to worry about, but still.

I did. I'm really glad for what I was able to do. Thanks! I think it'll happen sooner rather than later. Just need to wait for the supervisor to get back. * Goal 1: 24/31 Goal 2: 25/31 Goal 3: 28/31 Still holding steady. Still losable, though, so no reason to slack off now. So, Sunday carried off about like I said it would. I didn't really get the amount of time walking that I said I needed to comply with my goals, so I didn't count it. Monday was a hecking busy day. I was good to the job, but between that and getting out at lunch to do mat stuff, I didn't really get the time to do any walking. Still got my study done. Also, the friends wanted to get together to watch the new Spiderman film, which I'm pleased to say is excellent IMO. Good to the point that it made me despair of ever making anything that good, which isn't a healthy emotional response but is also a sign that I really enjoyed something. And I was able to walk myself back from that ledge pretty quick, so, you know. Good times. All that to say that I didn't get my steps on Monday. I did do some leg work with the kettlebells, though, which felt like a good challenge. Yesterday, I was at the office but I didn't get my steps in. I have no excuse. I also didn't get to make mat time. I do have an excuse here in that we were visited by some bigwigs up the chain and I had to dress nice for it, and I left some of my clothes at home and couldn't get out of work on time to get back there and get that stuff done. Also, I was feeling kind of old and rickety in my joints, and I realized that I didn't really have a plan in place unlike before where I'd just take a dedicated day off every 5 days or so. So I talked myself out of going and instead went home to work on mobility. I think it was the right call, although in the future I should be mindful that mat time doesn't have to include sparring and that I have other options in place for training. Of course, generally, I'm also better situated to get out there too. I made a breakthrough in my research about Maeda's methods in that I finally found a video where he talks about how he trains. Truthfully, I was pretty close already in terms of figuring out what he does, but there were some additional details that I didn't know about that kind of gave me a sense of enhanced perspective once he explained it. I think I get it, but I also think I don't get it too, and there's more work to do as far as figuring this out. But whatever. I'll take it. It's kind of refreshing to have that off my mind. Today is today. Got the research done at home already, so now it's just down to walk and play. I'm at the office, so getting up and walking is going to be easy, and I plan to get out and do some striking practice tonight since my shoulder's feeling good. I'm also working to get some additional time there with one of the other coaches so I can buff up my striking to keep it sharp as I continue on this grapple-centric chapter of my martial journey. Hopefully he shows up tonight. Guess we'll see.

Goal 1: 24/28 Goal 2: 23/28 Goal 3: 25/28 So I lied. I went out to train on Friday and I was so excited at the concept of doing training that wouldn't leave me feeling beat-up after that I just jumped on over to doing 10-minute daily training. And it's not quite what it says it is. Even Maeda admits that he's doing some kind of movement practice for 15-20 minutes before he actually goes to do his main lift for the day, whatever it may be. But that's been perfect for me because I've been using animal walks and martial drills for my warm-ups and feeding many birds off a single scone. And y'all, it's been the right call for me. It feels like I'm hitting everything hard and well, but more importantly I'm hitting these things in a way that makes sense for me on a given day. So, like, for instance: Friday was class, and then there was dip work, and I did some relatively challenging movement there. Then Saturday I went out and did the drill class with a professor who chose violence that day. Was absolutely blasted by class; was so tired that I could barely think straight when all was said and done. That day's training was just 10 minutes of loaded carries, and that felt fine. Today was a more cerebral day because of the seminar, and I didn't spar so much. Got back and did some relatively hard pulling work, and it felt appropriate. So far I'm feeling pretty good. I feel like I have a lot more energy out of nowhere and like I can focus better on life, such as it is. I think that the question of whether or not I'm ever going to get to be strong enough to do some of the really crazy stuff I see Maeda do is an open one at the moment, but it's one I'm willing to explore at leisure and without a sense of urgency. Walked the past couple days, which was nice. Took some detailed notes about stuff, and that was nice too. Today, the play and study parts carried off just fine, but I wound up so far down the rabbit hole that it's late and I'm wanting to get to dinner, so no steps for me today beyond walking to and around the grocery store, which... it's better than nothing, but it's not the dedicated time I told myself I'd take. I dunno how this new turn is going to go, but I'm really, really excited about it, and I can't wait to see how it turns out.

Goal 1: 22/26 Goal 2: 21/26 Goal 3: 23/26 Holding steady. Got another 9 days counting today, but if I hold steady, everything should be fine. One of the things that's been a really pleasant surprise is how well the mat time is going. Even though I've completely violated the terms of the goal, counting in rest and recovery, I've been remarkably compliant, and when I'm out on the mats I'm having more fun and I'm more present with my partners/playmates when I'm there. So I feel, 4 weeks into this challenge, like I'm doing a lot better. Or if I'm not, I'm a lot happier with what I'm doing which for a given subjective measure of how this is going is about as good as I could ask for. Now if I could just get that 4th day at home and split up my Wednesday training so that I did the no-gi stuff at noon and came back for kickboxing, that would be the best. Because as it is, if I want to train on Wednesday, I'm basically out grinding on the mats for a couple hours - 1 hour with kickboxing with the goal of gassing us out, and then 1 hour of relatively complicated jiu-jitsu. It's a real drag; hard to recover from and I'm tired enough at the end that it's hard for me to get up and make dinner for myself. Also I don't think my shoulder likes it very much. I don't really know what to do about it, beyond trying to change my work from home days so that I always work from home on Wednesdays. Because otherwise, that time becomes only conditionally available rather than being consistently so. It's a neat solution to the problem and may be what I ultimately do going forward. The other thing is that I have to admit that I'm obsessed with the notion of 10-minute workouts. For the life of me, I can't figure out how Maeda does it, but I think I want to try it out after I'm done with this present round of strength and conditioning work. I'm finding increasingly that I don't really like how long my present training is taking me to complete and I'm finding myself in the "living to train" place rather than the "training to live" place that I want to be. I've been watching his videos, trawling his comments, and I'm 'bout to start listening to podcasts where he's guest-starred in order to figure this out. But yeah, I'm increasingly wanting to try this weird, odd-object martial breathing stuff that he does, because I kind of feel like it's going to give me the most opportunities to try out all the strange things I see and want to try without necessarily having to sacrifice anything. I've got about a week or so to figure it out if I want to get after this. We'll see. Although I'm not going to stress about it if I can't figure it out between here and there - like I said, my main complaint is that I'm taking too long for my liking, and that's a relatively solvable problem right now as it is. I got out last night to get a walk in between the scattered showers pouring out over my part of the state. Got back and did my writing without my friend. She apparently needs to meet in-person in order for her to get any work done, and I offered to facilitate that before I could think better of it. Dunno how good an idea that is for me in the long run since I'm really paranoid about my finances after the road trip and she's far enough away that it'd eat into my gas tank pretty heavily. Oh well. It is what it is. Got out to the mats today for lunch which was dope. Got some study material for tonight. Now just to get my other training done and go for a walk. Oh and finish out the job, I guess.