Kishi

That's wild! I did some of my growing up in White Lake. It was a long time ago. So cool to meet another Wrimo! * Goal 1: 2/2 Goal 2: 2/2 So far so good. I've been able to get up early enough to get done what I want to get done. This is a very flexible framework for the sleep goal to take place in, but I do wonder if I'm being a little too flexible, like if I've set a goal that's so easy that it doesn't actually meaningfully challenge me. Like if in following the letter of it, I'm breaking with the spirit of it. Ultimately, I don't think so. The spirit of the thing is to get enough rest to be well, so it stands to reason that I shouldn't be hurting myself with less sleep just to hit an arbitrary target. Like I said at the start, the big thing I'm worried about is missing out on striking work on Fridays, and I could just get up early on Fridays to make that happen, and if the worst thing that happens is that I just make a point of making that happen, I can live with that. I'm just okay with an organic shift in my habits versus trying to force it, I guess. Writing goal happened, which was good. There's some tension in my draft at this point, which is that what I thought were conflicts are in fact info dumps which are... not bad, exactly, but not exactly compelling reading. Which may be a reflection of poor structure or lack of skill; I'm not sure which just yet, but fortunately these can both be corrected and in fact probably just will be over time. One thought that's coming up repeatedly these days is that I may just not like the particular structure that I'm using. Looking back a long, long time ago, when I wrote lots and lots of fanfiction, my planning scheme was really different. I planned out chapters specifically, and would just let happen what would, and I put out a lot of words and had a lot of room to get to where I wanted to get to in interesting ways. My readers seemed to like it. I seemed to like it. Maybe that's a natural inclination to follow and lean into. But next draft. Finish this one first. I'm not done learning my lessons yet. Today's docket should be leg work, TGUs for shoulder rehab, and the ortho visit. I suspect I'm in for another bout of PT, which I'm okay with if it comes to that but it almost seems to be kind of too much. I guess we'll see.

Hey, man, take it easy. It's been fun playing with you, and I'd love to keep going, but I'd hate for you to see the game as a source of stress in a stressful time. You gotta do what you gotta do, and I mean to support you either way, so to be clear you have no obligations to me about when or how you show up to play. Besides, it's a daily game, right? We could do 1 move every 5 days and it be fine.

Sounds like it's worth an experiment at least.

So, something that surprised me in 2022 was that pickled fruit is actually really good. I wound up getting some pickled watermelon rind from a friend of mine and it was super tasty. Took all the flavor from the brine and had its own unique, fresh element. I'm willing to bet this is gonna be good.

Good to see you again.

Wow! That Dan Dan Mian dish looks really colorful and I bet it was super good. Good food has a funny way of leading to good times, sooner or later. Glad to see you get to enjoy it!

The story of your 6-yo wanting to read with you is just super adorable and as a non-parent I just want to say that it sounds like you're on the right track.

I can see how it would be, but I didn't find it to be so. I was actually really pleasantly surprised at how much it got my heart to work and how it played with my shoulder. It's admittedly designed to become a time sink, which, I mean, we'll see how it goes, but presently at 25 minutes, it's not worse than the other stuff I've done.

Dude, you and me both. I just wish we got more people excited about making them than we did about eating them. But eating them? So. Worth it. Hey, good to have you! Heck yeah! I've loved NaNoWriMo whenever I've done it. I only ever got a finished draft once, but it was darned educational. I think the reason I framed the 90k in the way I did was that 1) I do need to work on being consistent with my writing, and 2) I generally really dislike my prose during NaNoWriMo and I find that taking only a page a day usually gives me the chance to slow down and think and be deliberate in a way that I like. Which region did you ML for? I did it a couple times for Raleigh-Durham. It was a lot of fun. * Goal 1: 1/1 Goal 2: 1/1 Day 1 down and in the bag. Fortunately, as a Sunday, sleep is not a big deal, and the writing happened, although I held off on that for too long. Wound up doing it last thing before going to bed because I was like, "Do I really want to have to report that I screwed up my writing goal first thing?" and then I was like So that was cool. Most of my day was spent doing the walking snatch program and playing Hades. The sequel's been announced, and I didn't want to go into it cold. I've already beat the main story, so now it's just post-story epilogue type stuff and playing for pride. Today I had to get up to go out to lunch with my folks, which was good as ever. Now I just gotta wait for the brick of food in my stomach to dissipate so I can do headstands and flexibility work. (shoulder's still doing well there and actually seems to have liked the snatch work. That slow, steady return to rack position seems to have done a minor wonder).

I'm feeling your number 4 goal pretty hard. I'm thinking that in order for me to advance, I'm going to have to spend some time sitting at the academy and waiting for class to start. It would be good to have a book with me to do some of that reading I keep telling myself I'm going to do.

Nice challenge, and also being part of a HEMA collective sounds amazing. I like the look of the stuff you're brainstorming. I get the sense that it can all fit together really well. All that's left is the doing, it seems.

Thank you! Yeah, but it's so rare! I'm genuinely glad that the sleep goal has so much support. Hopefully, if I have a hard time getting around to everyone this challenge, it'll be because I'm asleep. Hey, good to have you! * T-minus some hours before the start of the challenge. Mat time didn't happen on Thursday due to a need to get some chores done. Did still do my home training, though, which was good. Friday was no-training. I worked a half day before going over to my Sci Fi Friend's house to make pirogi with him. It's this yearly tradition, where we basically get together and make a shit-ton of pirogi. It's kind of soured some, though, on account of the fact that my friend's neighbors caught wind of it and they like to put in requests, and both my friend and his wife like to be generous. This year, they really took advantage of him, and he knows it. We made a lot of pirogi, but it took all day, and most of the folk that came by to help were more interested in the 'party' part of pirogi party than they were in anything else; about half of us were more concerned with drinking my friend's good beer and socializing rather than helping us to make food, and when all's said and done and portioned out, my friend isn't going to get what he considers to be a fair portion of some of the more expensively made pirogi (we kind of went nuts on fillings. Crab rangoon, philly cheesesteak, and curry fillings as well as the standard potato/cheese). My part was to play boiler and packer, which I did well I think. Nobody had any bad things to say about how I did, and I was a lot less frustrated with myself compared to prior years, which was good. But yeah, after that, ate a bunch of Chinese food, drank some good brown, and binged through a couple hours of Lower Decks. We're on season 3 now. It's markedly better than season 1. I'm really glad I stuck it out. I didn't get to bed early, but I did get down at the normal time and I thought I'd let my body dictate to me whether I went out to the mats or not. Body knocked me out and kept me down until 1 PM, which usually means I needed it. I'm trying to play a little more conservative with my training recently; at the last tournament I went to on 12/17, I got a pretty bad shoulder strain, and it's behaving kind of weird. Felt pretty bad yesterday, but I think the constant movement of ladling and packing pirogi might have been therapeutic somehow? It feels remarkably better today, but I'm still set for an orthopedist visit on 1/3. Strongfirst has put out what reads like an on-ramping program for The Quick and the Dead, which I think I'm going to switch to just for now since I'm still working with lighter weights. It'll mean programming things a little differently, but my body's been playing well with this strength work-as-rehab approach, and having something be explicitly designed as a way to build into my endurance program would be better than my present piecemeal approach. I think. Otherwise, today I will probably drink tea, play some Hades, and strength train before going off to visit my folks for the holiday. Should be fun times, I think.

Steady on, man.

Man, I started digging into chess when the pandemic closed up all the matspace. It's good stuff. I hope you have fun. Let me know if you want to play a game!

Good to see you again!

Yeah. It's practically a rite of passage. It's not the end. It'll get better.

Hey, points for ritual. I don't do cream in my tea first thing in the morning, but I do hot and sweet and, I dunno, the day just feels better with that start. Also, gotta say, your checklist pattern is really striking. I legit just stopped on the way down to the reply box and stared in appreciation.

No kidding! I finally got a bug to see what the hubbub was around the Cosmere universe, and it's been a fun time. I'll probably take a break after Words of Radiance to read Kim Stanley Robinson's Ministry for the Future, but I plan to be right back at it once that's done. It works, don't worry. * T-minus some days. Sleep and writing didn't happen like I'd wish they would. No excuses. I was doing exercise late at night, and I really could have done that and got to bed early, but I wound up slacking off after BJJ last night and by the time I got the wherewithal to train, it was late. I did TGUs and some farmer's walks, and that was it. I wanted to do some stretching too, but that would have carried me past midnight and I thought that would be excessive. The plan yesterday had been for me to get the lifting stuff done early in the day, then go to the office, then mat time, then come home and stretch. That plan didn't carry off. I signed into my job and let myself get distracted, which I know better than to let happen. But it felt urgent. We'd been off for five days for the holidays, but people don't stop freaking calling, so I came back to, like, all the voicemails, and I thought that was relatively urgent. It wasn't, really, not in hindsight. Like I said. I know better. Today, a friend of mine was in town, so I went to lunch with him. After kettlebell swings and burpees. I'll do some core training later once the brick in my stomach is dissolved, and I'll be hitting up the mats again tonight. We shall see how it shakes out.

Hey, welcome back! Looks like life is still going on. Novels, you say? Do go on!

You ask that like I'm not doing kettlebell farmer's walks at, uh, 11:39 at night

Ah yes, your tables are right this way. Also, @Everstorm, I know your quote! I'm on book 2 of the Stormlight Archives. Can't believe I slept on this one. (shhh, ignore my challenge goals here, shhh). How many have you read? That's just so unnecessary

Sure! Ryan blends a lot of basic gymnastic movement with a lot of BJJ/basic tumbling stuff. It's a good mix, and what I particularly like about it is its emphasis on checking in with yourself and being present and giving what you have to give to a session as opposed to sets and reps being the be-all and end-all no matter how beat up you are when you get there. I believe you can also mix and match their programs to create something that helps you toward your goals; I'd advise talking to them before trying it, but they're super chill and friendly about that sort of thing.

Wait, wait, hold up, you're telling me that this challenge is going to pop off on January 1st? Just lines up like it's meant to be? Well. I guess I know what I'm doing! Howdy, everyone! Kishi here, your friendly neighborhood itinerant monk. Took a few weeks off the forums just to chill and focus on end of the year shenanigans, but that was then and this is now! Even though now is technically then, but it will be then by the time the challenge officially starts. As a rebellious rebel, I'm not a big believer in the old Rule of 3 + 1. I instead believe that you can change one thing, and that one thing interact with and change all the other things. It's all connected, man. Of course, that being said, no real reason to have just one challenge when two will do. In my case, the big thing that I really want to hone in on is getting to bed earlier and getting up earlier. Reason being that I want to get my job done earlier in the day so that I can make more mat time. I'm about 80% of the way there, really, but the striking sparring only happens on Fridays and it's an earlier class than the others. So technically, I only really have to be early to bed and early to rise for one day of the week, but that one day will be easier if I'm keeping those hours other days of the week. Also, I suspect it will be better for me. So, you know. There's that. The other goal is a writing goal. Just want to do a page a day. 50,000 words in a month is nice and all, but 90,000 words in a year that you actually like? That's better. I think. Maybe. Never got there. Sure would like to, though. So, those are my two challenges for myself this time around. And... yeah.

Sounds like a good guess to me. I have a white belt friend who started about the same time I did who had to go down to the coast to another academy for a while since she was doing grad studies. She apparently outpositioned a lot of people up to and including brown belts via high mount, and she suspects that she altered the curriculum of that academy for a while as they apparently started teaching high mount escapes a week later. IDK. It's not exactly the same thing, but I suspect it's part of a general pattern wherein profs are either protective of their students or else feel a need to justify themselves when strangers show up and show off their (the academy's) shortcomings. Firas Zahabi's on the record as saying that jiujiteros and MMArtists should be doing gymnastic work since that blends strength and mobility work together. That might not be a bad idea, if that's something you're interested in. Although Juggernaut Training System's apparently come out with a BJJ curriculum, and I have to admit, it looks freaking dope.

Thanks! It's actually a lot easier when you realize that 80% of being effective with socializing is just a matter of showing up. People will do most of the work for you in terms of making of it whatever they're looking for. * 50,202/50000 And I am crazy late in wrapping this up, but it's because the world is balanced in such a way ATM that showing up is a low priority. I know, I know, so much for my talk about needing community, but in truth it's less that I need this place less than that the aforementioned balance is perfect for keeping me on the grindstone and out of this place, where I've said I want to be. It doesn't help any that my preferred web browser doesn't seem to like the security protocols in place for the site too, but that's a me problem, so... just gonna let that sit there. Broadly speaking, I like it, but it's not perfect and since the end of the month it's been hard to keep writing and pay my dues to the job and the mats. Dunno if it's just a natural sense of lethargy after the end of the month or what, but it's being helped by the impending tournament on the 17th. Got some new areas to troubleshoot between here and there, but I am surviving with technique and rolling better as a result. I went to a beginner's class last night - that's what life allowed me - and I rolled with a guy I hadn't seen in a while who was bigger and stronger than me and he couldn't get the better of me for nothing. It's a good feeling. Now, whether it's enough to win a match is another problem, but TBF I'm a lot less concerned about that than I thought I'd be when I started hitting tournaments months ago. Even with the knowledge that my folks are going to be there. I don't care. They were proud of me for losing with style last time, and... all the pressure's gone. As to the challenge, it's worth pointing out that I have the better part of a draft of the novel done, and while the draft still needs to be finished for what it has to teach me, it's still more honest work on a novel than I've done in a while. I got what I wanted, and more since I know more about what I want to accomplish than I did at the outset. I have no complaints. And so, the challenge comes to an end. My thanks to @Mistr, @KB Girl, @Jupiter, @Everstorm, @Tanktimus the Encourager, @Gemma, @Stronkey Kong, @oromendur, @Sovalis, @Mad Hatter, @sarakingdom, and anyone else I missed. I don't think I reciprocated y'all's support for me well, especially after the NaNo Nerds were cool enough to invite me into Discord with them, so let me take this moment to unequivocally state how much I appreciate you and hope that things went well. That's the end, folks. See you next round!