Kishi

Dude, welcome back! Had no idea you'd moved because I too am bad at social media.

Goal 1: 20/21 Goal 2: 16/21 Goal 3: 13/21 The once-per-challenge curveball got throwed yesterday! Yaaaaaaaaaaay~! One of the guys I rolled with at open mat texted us after and said he'd tested positive for COVID. Which means I've been exposed, and I need to spend the next five days in isolation. No mat time, no friend time, nothing. I'll basically just be stuck at home exercising and doing the job (because IIRC the protocol for me is to stay at home) and waiting to see if symptoms develop over the next 5 days. I'm not pleased with this turn of events, but of all the things to go wrong, I'm just glad it wasn't something in my control. And I can use this next week to rest up and really focus on grinding down my case load. Also, it's fortunate that all my work stuff is back here at home already. So on the whole, it could be worse. Today, I've trained. I still need to get the meditation and breathing done. Wasn't able to go home and see my folks, but did give them a call, which felt kind of nostalgic, like it was back in the beginning of the pandemic. Just remember kids: no matter how done with this thing you think you are, it ain't done with you.

Yeah, it's been a relatively relaxing week. It almost feels too good to be true. It's the kind of success that makes me itch, like I'm missing something. * Goal 1: 19/20 Goal 2: 15/20 Goal 3: 12.5/20 Past couple days have been really good. I made it out to the mats on Thursday, picked up some cool tricks. Need to start figuring out if any of this stuff has names or not because it's hard to go searching and build a reference library on YouTube without a name. "Simple Guard Pass" gives me hundreds to thousands of results and not a single one of 'em is what I'm looking for. I didn't make it out to the mats on Friday. I thought I'd be able to just coast my way through, but some stuff happened in my work day that I didn't control and it kept me working past the time I needed to take off and get out to class. I dislike this outcome, but again, it's a sign that the plan is working, because this used to be a bigger problem and it's shrunk a great deal. That it keeps happening on the one day we do strike sparring is an unfortunate coincidence. But then again, maybe that was for the best. Open mat today at my friend's house actually had a lot of bodies out there today, and I didn't have to come in banged up and tired. I out rolled a couple people and got smashed by the upper ranks, which was honestly about the best outcome I could have hoped for. Feels good. Meditation and breathing practice are coming along very well. Managed a time of 2:50 without breathing a couple days ago, which is a number I haven't seen in a long time. I might be able to find my way back to being over 3 minutes if this keeps up, but consistency matters a lot more than I thought it did if I really want to dig in and get a lot of benefit out of this. Anyway. Gotta get some food in me and then do some strength work.

Goal 1: 17/18 Goal 2: 13/18 Goal 3: 10.5/18 Haven't been on lately just due to general life stuff and staying busy, but it's been in the midst of a lot of good news. Boss got an early look at the stats and it looks like I'm going to be cleared to return to work from home. It's been 3 months in the making, but it finally happened. What a frikkin' relief. The other good news is that since my boss's boss has been out of the office this past week, I was cleared to sneak out and work from home all week. It's been really relaxing, especially since it's been a short week on account of the holiday, so a lot of the rules about being productive kind of fly out the window. I'm also pleased to report that the new work plan I've been implementing basically carried off without a hitch. I did wind up missing a couple days last week, between moved friend night and some meeting nonsense on Friday, but that was stuff out of my control, and I did go back to work overtime on Saturday like I planned to. It kept the proper people properly buried in work, and that's the desired outcome. In terms of goals, things have been good. The one day I skipped out on all training was the holiday; I basically slept late and got up in time to go hang with my folks, and that was an all-day thing. So, no credit for that. Meditation and WHM have continued generally apace, although I've noticed that my times with WHM are also influenced by the cadence of my breathing. What I've seen is that when I'm lazy with my breath, my times go down. When I breathe in the constant way that Hof demonstrates, my times shoot way up, even in the same session where I was lazy for one cycle and intentional with the other. This is good information to have. My mat time has been good too. Got the chance to roll last night with the teaching Professor; this one loves to do a lot information-dense teaching and I feel like a lot of it flies over my head at the end of the day. I think he thinks the same of me, but I think I surprised us both last night with how well I rolled. He pointed out some stuff that I was able to apply immediately, and I feel like I demonstrated some competence for where I am, especially since we were doing situationals and going off of mount, which is a weak position for me to attack from. Anyway, a feelsy thing finally resolved in the past week. I've been processing it and I think I'm on the other side of it, but I still feel the need to write it down. I'll block it out so you can skip if you want. The nice thing about a holiday week is that the normal work rules go out the window. Mat time has been easy, and I'll get more tonight. Cheers, y'all.

I got this I got this

Yooo! I imagine you must be busy, but I thought I'd check in and see how it was going.

Goal 1: 10 Goal 2: 7/10 Goal 3: 4.5/10 Again, so far so good. Finished way ahead of time, made it out to the mats, and it was a redux of Monday's grappling class. (Tuesdays are ordinarily Sci-Fi nights, but the host moved us to Thursday this week for Reasons that I'm sure I'll hear about tomorrow). Grappling was good; I was hoping to end on a relatively high note but I got paired with a wrestler who's bigger, stronger, and more explosive, so I got mauled pretty bad. He was friendly as hell, though, so it's hard to feel too bad about it. I did hit up WHM-style breathing at work. Had to do it out in the car, and I found that I lost like 30 seconds off my average times. For comparison, when I've got it done before, it's been after showering and stretching and meditating and being really relaxed, and so my averages were crawling into the low 2:00s, but yesterday I struggled to hit 1:42 for my top time. Which doesn't concern me. I'm quite cool about being open and receptive to what my body can give me on a given day, and I accept that different circumstances result in different performance. I just never thought it'd be that significant. Anyway, I've finished early again. So far, the load of work I've left for other people has remained stable. It's refreshing to have to devote so little bandwidth to burying other people. The plan, presently, is to get some writing done before I get out of the office and to get some more mat time tonight. Also, the quarter officially ended last week, so now they're tallying and running stats. Fingers crossed. I think I made it, but I've gotten extra case assignments from regional QA which might force me out of meeting expectations, and even if that's okay, I might have some processing speed issues due to our recent focus on old cases. But, if I made it, I'll be cleared to return home. Probably won't hear for a while, so I'm not going to obsess over it, but thar be the state of play.

Yup! That's the idea. I may have to pay my price, but there's no reason for me to pay it alone. * Goal 1: 9/9 Goal 2: 6/9 Goal 3: 3.5/9 Yesterday was a fun day. Work was done faster and with a lot less stress on my part. It was also done early enough for me to leave and get out on the mats. Striking was an hour of kicks and a finisher at the end. Coach was really wanting us to focus on technique; he had us set up on the walls with the planting leg in place, and if the leg moves, we all do burpees. Fortunately, we hate burpees, so nobody moved. Kicks were teep, front thrust, and roundhouse. For my part, I dunno if I was getting a lot of power or if my partner was just really strongly based. Also hard to say since I tend to prefer thrust side kick as my forward. Doesn't matter much I guess since there's always something to work on. BJJ afterward was a stealth judo class, and I was all like :D. Got to play around with blending the current Judo throws with some old school leg and ankle picks, which apparently used to be a thing in Judo before the IOC decided to kill them. (it's a whole can of worms, and it disgusts me to this day, even though I'm not a proper judoka). So we played with that and I did it okay; afterward, we rolled and even at the end of 2 hours of long grind with all my effort not amounting to much, I was still able to hold off my fellow white belts and even end the night on a couple submissions. Did handstand work after. Would have been better to focus on stretching, but it's been hard to get up early enough to train in the mornings, and I guess I thought that handstand work was more important? Took too damn long, though; if I'd just showered, stretched, and breathed, I would have recovered better and got down earlier. Although, I have to admit! This latest rolling session was my first real one since I started up on WHM and it really helped me. So it's good to know that even a low dose is effective. But a low dose is bad for my goals, and a higher dose won't hurt. So, yeah. Had a lot of fun yesterday. So far the plan seems to be working.

Goal 1: 8/8 Goal 2: 5/8 Goal 3: 3.5/8 Whoops. Got my training done on Sunday, but not the other stuff. I slept in really late, and got up in time to train before chatting with friends. Then spent the afternoon on chores before getting out to see the folks. Then got back home and it was late, and I was more focused on getting ready for today than I was on sitting and breathing. No particular reason beyond an ongoing sense that I Don't Have Time For This, which I'm hoping to resolve somewhat this week by reducing my work output. Might be able to find time during my workday to do some of this sit and breathe stuff again, which is a fond hope. The WHM stuff in particular is pretty time-intensive, and I'd rather get that done earlier in the day than later when I'm trying to get down to bed. (maybe that'll interfere with the job. Alas! It is a price I'm willing to pay). Anyway, things are on track so far, and I'm pretty confident they'll stay that way, although it does remain to be seen.

Correct! I actually benefit from being this far ahead since I get a steady stream of cases to close, so now it's time to figure out how to take my foot off the gas and coast since working harder isn't going to get me what I want.

Goal 1: 7/7 Goal 2: 5/7 Goal 3: 3.5/7 Well! Not much to report about yesterday. Open mat at my friend's place didn't happen - she hit a bunch of classes this week and her shoulders are bothering her, so we let it slide. I did my training but really I spent more time just chilling out and being easy on myself. And thinking about how to manage my work-life balance, hence the ruminations above. Honestly, the weekends are hard for sit-and-breathe stuff, so the fact that I got that done at all is a major win for me. Anyway, not much to say about today. The training is already done; I've got some stuff to get out of the way before I go to visit my folks and then after that I'll probably come home and then do the sit and breathe stuff. Cool. Let's get it!

Goal 1: 6/6 Goal 2: 4/6 Goal 3: 2.5/6 So, Friday did not carry off according to plan. I didn't make it it out to the mats because I didn't hit my quotas, so I wound up working overtime on my Friday night instead. I hit up my personal training, and I'm pleased to say that my handstand work is doing better - I'm not kicking up into my headstand so much as I'm getting better at lifting legs from the ground via strength and control - but I worked late enough and it took me long enough to chill afterward that I didn't get this done until late, and I chose to prioritize sleep and cooking good food over meditation and breath training. I have to admit, I don't like the way that I'm managing the job now. It would be a pretty long explanation to give you all the details, but the short version is that I'm sharing a caseload with some people and I'm outworking them to a ridiculous degree. My job is to get these cases closed, and I didn't close enough to be satisfied this past week. But I can't close those cases without the others doing their work on the load, and so my past response - to just work more cases - isn't useful now, because working more cases is just going to put me further ahead of the others without actually getting more closures. There's a possibility here where I could lean into overtime and weekend work to preserve my overall volume while reducing my workload on a daily basis, which would let me get out on the mats more for one and for another would also let me make more money for the same amount of work. Which I think I'm going to do until the budget says we lose overtime, because there's no reason for me not to make more money. And even if that overtime was just for added vacation - as it can be when the budget craps out - that still wouldn't necessarily be bad. Of course, the flipside of that is that in this new way of doing things, I'd be working 6 days a week, and that my result in its own work-life troubles. But life is troublesome, and if I can pick better troubles, then why not?

Goal 1: 5/5 Goal 2: 4/5 Goal 3: 2.5/5 Did it. Plan carried off. Was able to get everything done at the last minute and made it out to the mats. Primary focus was on snap down to turtle from the chin strap position. Translated to English: pulling someone down to all fours from a front headlock position. A lot of the initial tie up has common elements with grappling that I've done before and had recently watched video of, so it came out pretty easy for me. Also, rolled well afterward. Did gymnastic core work afterward. I've figured out that the Russian Twists, which are part of the program, are a little rough on my back, but I've also found that the hurting parts respond very well to stretching and laying on a LAX ball. I've also found that at least for this instance, it works better to apply the ball directly to the hurt place as opposed to rolling all the surrounding areas as they normally say to do. Showered, meditated, practiced breathing. I'm pleased to report that I'm already able to go more than 2 minutes without breath, which is exciting. Makes me brave. Anyway. Plan tonight is to get out and spar. Apparently there's a regular open mat Friday nights after, so I'm gonna see about hitting that up as well. I don't really know if I'm going to have the energy to do any kind of gymnastic work after that, but then again it's just handstand stuff and that's comparatively light work, and it's not like I have to be up early tomorrow.

Goal 1: 4/4 Goal 2: 3/4 Goal 3: 1.5/4 A little bit better yesterday. So you remember how I said the plan was for mat time but also that you couldn't predict how the day would go? Yeah, that wound up happening. Wound up needing to get work done and working overtime, such that I lost all mat time. Psh. The added money is nice, but I didn't need it that much. Anyway, I did my training such as I could. Managed some meditation and a cold shower, which I'm taking a half point for. Today, we'll see. I'm hoping to get some mat time, although I wasn't able to get my morning training done, so instead of trying to sneak into extended time tonight, I'll just try to make my one class and go do gymnastic stuff after. At least, that's the plan. ATM, looks like it'll carry off, but the day, ah. It is not yet done.

So when you say "go through an entire class 5 times a week," are you saying that you're going to 5 separate classes? Or are you saying that you're going through the structure of one class over 5 days?

Goal 1: 3/3 Goal 2: 2/3 Goal 3: 1/3 Welp! That didn't carry off the way I wanted it to. It was another day of being out of step with what has to happen. Was late to the job but got it done early, got home and futzed about too much instead of hopping right into training, so I wound up being late to dinner with friends. Fortunately, I only had to bring veggies, and one of my friends cooked butter chicken for the meal, which he does exceedingly well. Tonight, I should be able to spend a full night out on the mats, but that's going to depend on how quickly I get my job stuff done. Prior successes do not predict or guarantee future results.

Those salads look great. Eh. Could be better, could be worse. Getting after skipping rope and gymnastic stuff these days, which seem to play together well enough.

I envy this so much.

I hear you on picking up extra conditioning. Running is a tough way to do it, but I've heard it makes you tough too. Cool deal! Good luck!

Nice! Healthy versions of favorite things - especially if you're homemaking them - are a lot of fun. Any particular successes?

That's awesome, dude! Glad to hear!

Well, it's a long term goal. First goal is to get breathing right. Iron shirt is way far in a distant possible future. Anyway, there's no one Iron Shirt technique; there's apparently a bunch of different kinds, and Wudang quan arts like Taiji apparently have different methods for achieving the same result. It really just boils down to bodily conditioning to take blows. Any striking art that has you taking hard shots is going to have some kind of toughening component to it. This just happens to be the (allegedly) Shaolin version, and I'm drawn to it because it seems to be doable by a single person and that's the kind of programming flexibility I need right now. The bamboo brush, for its part, is a kind of beating/massage tool; the bamboo is for health, but a steel brush is used for Iron Shirt. This is an example of how they would be used: Even if I don't get to that point, the bamboo brush is allegedly still useful as an overall health tool via massage and skin stimulation. I have no idea if it's true, but worst case, I'm only out a one time purchase of $40 or so. * Goal 1: 2/2 Goal 2: 2/2 Goal 3: 1/2 Quick report. Things went well today overall. Trained in the morning, got to the office late, got my work done early, got some mat time but only striking since I needed to get back home to do some laundry. Meditation and WHM both happened, albeit later in the day than I would have liked. Ah well. I'll take the wins as I find them. Tuesday's going to be a challenge. Gonna have to do some cooking for friends and I'm going to have to balance goals against that and job. Job'll have to take priority, and training has a neat fit-in, so it's the sit and breathe stuff that's going to be tricky. Ah, but isn't it always.

Nice, hey, welcome back! Glad to have you. Goals look good and like something you can build on. Can't wait to see what that is. What style of karate do you do?

You step outside and it's like wrapping yourself in a comforter just out of hot wash. I do! And I think that critique is fair. Shi Yan Lei basically sells both a book and a DVD program together, but, ah, let's just say there are creative ways to get access to both without really having to pay money. It just takes a little patience and gumption. :'D Although in seriousness, I can say from his book that he does list off the names of his techniques, and you can look up videos on YouTube to get an idea of what he's driving at. Also, it's worth pointing out that I'm going to have a much simpler time, because he's basically offering qigong for people who are starting from no practice of any kind at all, and he's cool with people doing qigong as a cooldown for a program in place already, so I actually get to skip a lot of his warm ups and stretching based on what I've got in play already. Hell yeah! Understanding that I can only speak from my experience, I can say that there are some pretty scary places for me when I roll. I roll with one dude who has pressure that makes me feel like a sinner in the hands of an angry God, and even when I'm not dealing with him there are other places and situations where I have white belts who get me in a pin of some kind and just start squeezing for dear life when my head and my vision in particular are blocked off. So sitting in the dark like that with that sense of pressure is just really scary. It's true, I can tap out, and they'll respect it, but I don't like the idea of being driven by my fear. I'd rather learn how to take it and make it a strength of some kind, and when I've done this before, I've had the capacity to relax until they freak out and loosen up, and I just explode out from a place of relaxation and rest. * Goal 1: 1/1 Goal 2: 1/1 Goal 3: 0/1 Ah, and we're off to the races now. So most of last week was spent observing where opportunities are and where I'm going to have to work for them and how to balance that against the job. Some of these are easy - training and meditation are actually pretty easy. WHM is going to be hard, just because the practice itself takes a substantial amount of time and time practicing on the job is time spent not doing the job which has consequences for mat time and overall job stuff. I had thought that I'd be able to make opportunities daily just by getting my quotas done early, like I said, but that's actually proven to be kind of difficult. Or at least it was last week. Of course, if it was easy, it wouldn't be a challenge, right?