Lou_be_Lou

Välkommen till sverige! Where in sweden are you heading? Have a brilliant time. I spent some time in Stockholm - loved much of it. Good luck with your swedish - I found it mortifying, tried speaking some, was always answered in english..... My parents lived there for about 16 years, they can read swedish, never managed a full on conversation in swedish, perhaps not helped by NZ vowels, but eventually they gave up on even attempting spoken swedish - they had a theory of how bacause few foreigners managed swedish, most swedes aren't used to accented swedish...... I look forward to reading about your adventures.

I was even more confused and thought the coconut cookies and black beans was one dish! Yes to reading comprehension being hard. Don't even have 5am class as an excuse...... YAY for toast and avocado and kettlebells.

This sounds cool - but wow, am I right in thinking Ba Gua is a flavour of kung fu? It sounds amazing. And it sounds like their approach is different both in rhythm and reactions - so yup, martial arts jazz. I am in no way ready for this! I'm discovering I like the headology - shouldn't be a surprise seeing as I love jazz, also squeaky gate music, oh, and beethovena nd bach. Yep, all of the headology right there. YAY!!!!!!!! Its Karinajean!!!!!!!!! Excellent. SOooooooo, I vanished. My bad. The first week was because of doing all of the things - good jujitsu class on the tuesday - new combinations rather than syllabus work, and some grappling (not my favourite, and memo to self, do not get caught between Nicola the power lifter's thighs), good class. Then lunchtime run with a friend (short and slow) on thursday, friday no exercise (rest day, apparently that is important), but went to a good concert (scottish national jazz orchestra, 1st half was Peter and the Wolf, which was good, yes a very different interpretation, 2nd half was a re-imagining of carnival of the animals, and it was spectacularly good, I would love to hear it all again, just glorious glorious music). Sunday was kickboxing again - fabulous. The next week started well, tuesday lunchtime run (short and slow and in light unexpected snow). And up to this point I'd been managing daily back exercises, good food, loads of veges, and generally was doing well, just not managing to post....... Tuesday night the stupidly heavy snows came. I was in the scotland red warning bit where the police were recommending that everyone stayed home, some of the roads near me were completely closed, some were partially open. It was rubbish, I didn't cope well. Ate almost all of the chocolate in the house, ate oven fries, did not do back care exercises, did not do yoga, did not use my kick bag. All of the fun stuff was cancelled, but I was unfortunately/fortunately close enough to work that one day I was called in for an alarm, and another day for looking after all of the cell cutures for the lab. Turns out I hate driving in snow. Not all bad, I had three big snow shovelling sessions (that counts as cardio?). I cooked a good batch of pea and ham soup which lasted for most of the snow in. By sunday I had my baking head on, so baked crispbreads (plus a batch of hummus to eat with them), gf bread x2, and muesli. And a lot of cushion covers were made. But wow, the snow messed with my head. Yesterday I managed to restart back care (and it doesn't just make my back feel better, my brain immediately felt more like itself - I just need to remember this). Today's felt even better. Tonight I was back at jujitsu - absolutely loved it. Was partnered with two brown belts (I'm blue), so got thrown a lot. They were practising their 25 throw series for their gradings, and a pile of counters, and combinations. Really really proud of myself - I used to be completely petrified by being thrown in valley drop throws, corner throws and rear throws - tonight I started out scared but willing, and about 20 landings later, I'm quite happy with them. I also relearnt how to throw a valley drop throw (three ways, from a punch, from a front strangle and from a rear strangle), not quite as many repeats, but yep, they worked just fine. YAY!!!! Loved it. It was also interesting, after a week of doing very little exercise I felt much more energetic at training..... Makes me think that I haven't got the exercise/rest balance quite right.......

Catching up rather belatedly. I feel your pain re losing your ganache supplier!!! Ok, massive envy for you having had a ganache supplier, and a GI tract that tolerates ganache (I've tried figuring out how to have ganache without cream, but so far that has been an utter fail). Yay for a happier GI tract. I do many many things for this - and yes it makes such a difference to so many things. Bonus for managing a division of chores. Well done for not caving and for training co-habitees. Extra bonus for managing freezer failure without having to bin all of the food. It sounds like all of the extra stress. I've never considered cranberries as an indicator food for defrosting before......

Oh, and I'm still laughing at your alpaca audience story.

Do you have other aikido options? Kyudo sounds like fun. But I know that I do miss the contactness of jujitsu when I lapse. Fortunately there the coach has a philosophy that we all need to be able to turn up at work uninjured the next day. So frustrating when you love it but......... There may be other clubs where gentleness is practiced.

Yay!!!!! I love the idea of your improv practice. That has to blow some cobwebs out of your brain. One of my favourite rehearsals was free improv - bass, sax ( and other blowy things), and poet, we kept managing to start on the same note as each other. There is no logical explanation. After the first few times we either just sat there on that note or collapsed into laughter. My other thought from your improv training - welcome to jazz aikido! With jazz and other music improv i like the idea of a " dynamic library " - all sorts of phrases and patterns that can be called upon. Again, not thinking of one note at a time. Instead, dropping in a complete phrase. Much like any good block and attack combination. Sounds like great fun.

Absolutely - thinking of the rhythm makes such a difference. But I know for music that I can have the right rhythm but still be thinking just on the level of one note, one note, one note. So the flow metaphor still needs some additional connection. I like the idea of not cutting things off. So some techniques need more time and space. Rhythm isn't the same as even temporal space. It's definitely involving an extra bit of my brain and is making me look forwards to playing with more headology.

All going just fine here not enough double bass playing, but it was a weird weekend, and I still managed one practise, I just wanted to do more. We had friends over for dinner on Saturday though and there was significant cleaning, tidying and cooking to do. Bonus cooking points though as I tried two new recipes in the weekend and they were both keepers (fennel and feta koftas, and some buckwheat pancakes with tumeric and cumin). I also managed to be social, always a challenge. Disappointing lack of leftovers, I have no idea how they ate that much food. Exercise wise I made it to parkrun, so a gentle 5k, without any walking, so that is my first continuous 5k this year. Yay. Then last night was kickboxing, it was fun, lots of interesting combinations, and I'm working on that irritating thing "flow". Describing it as flow just irritates me. But last night I had a bit of an epiphany. For the last few weeks I've been making my double bass students all think of bigger phrases rather than individual notes - so instead of each note of a Bb scale, play an entire Bb scale - surprisingly its making a massive difference to what they sound like. And this mysterious concept of "flow", ok, its exactly the same thing. Instead of individual moves being equivalent to letters or words, join them up, and you get sentences. All a bit of a DUH moment. Hopefully running with the scale metaphor I'll manage to change how I train from move, move, move, move, to something all together more beautiful and effective. Feels like a good bit of headology (with thanks to @sarakingdom). Oh, and morning back care happened today. Always a good start to a day.

Definitely cheering you on - especially for the just showing up part of the challenge.

Good luck with your night of house organisation - hopefully with a joyful 15 minutes of knitting to celebrate. YAY for repeatedly throwing the biggest, toughest uke in the dojo. That is such a good feeling! It sounds like you are back in the dojo.

Yep, about that managing stress thing...... I'm trying hard to work hard at work, then leave it behind. Right now, not managing it very well. Had some work surprises sprung on me in the last week, I think it means that I need to figure out 1) how to look after students without micromanaging (I usually can do this, but this year's batch seem to have more new (to them) techniques almost everyday) and 2) delegate. And yes, I love both walking and yoga - they're long time favourites. Feeling good right now as my work run buddy system worked - it was great getting outdoors in the middle of the day. A fairly slow lunchtime 4k, affectionately known as a slow short run. Much better than just sitting on my arse.

Getting shit done is important. Yay for getting moving.

Bows, and is really pleased to back on the mat. My current main goal is to turn up for exercise. No major achievements to tick off a list, just turning up, enjoying being there, and getting moving again. This week has been good - made it to Jujitsu training for the first time in a long time, and it was great. Yes I was sooooo out of practise, but being there felt great. And there was a chorus of "see you in six months" after class, so I have to prove those sceptics wrong. Today is lunch time run with a work run buddy. Good. Big reason for action = wanting to be fit enough and strong enough for music and life things. Plus, I'm feeling like a lapsed martial artist, and nope, I say no to lapsing. Goals for the challenge. 1) stay well (= avoid all of the gluten and most of the dairy, and pace myself with increased exercise) 2) decrease = moderate decrease in nutrient dense foods and increased veges. 3) enjoy exercise (I'm not setting a fixed schedule here, just get my butt moving most days, options include: yoga (at home and in class); walking, including stairs at work, thus avoiding work lift roulette (the number of lift stalls with folk stuck in it is well into double digits, step away from the lift); running (treadmill or outdoors); kickboxing on a sunday night; jujitsu on a tuesday; some swimming; and at home kickboxing practise. But I am not to try to do all of that every week because that will mean crashing and burning and becoming ill. Yep, I'm attempting to learn from past mistakes. 4) play that bass. Six days a week. Yes, really.

Belated wrap up - after losing the very end of the challenge to an irritating allergic reaction. All good again now. I managed less exercise than I'd hoped, but much more that I would've without the challenge, so I am counting this as a win. Bass practise, I'm happy with, managed a fair bit, and playing is feeling more routine. Mornings - most day's I managed some mobility stuff. This definitely helps me function. Phew.

Oh yes, this! I hope you got out and practiced making friends. Excellent summary of the challenge. Next is a strategy for solving it.......

Yep, plugging away fairly consistently here. Last week was a bit of a recovery week - stravinsky went well, but wow it was hard, and the weekend of the gig was a bit complicating timing wise, so I then did need to recover. But I kept doing back care, and eating loads of veges, and as much moving as I could manage. This week I'm feeling recovered, so morning routine is going well - most days I'm managing more than my minimum of back maintenance exercises. I don't know that I'll ever love mornings though. I'm enjoying the getting moving thing - recent highlights include a good kickboxing class on sunday and saturday I got to my first parkrun for ages. Today I'm meeting up with a friend at lunch time for a run (it had better happen now I've mentioned it). Bass playing is less panicked now - but still happening, and I'm enjoying a change of focus away from stravinsky and towards jazz (though a nielsen symphony is starting to knock at the door asking for attention - turns out that it is a little bit fiendish). I'm enjoying getting off my butt. And I've managed some life organisation - including my tax return - next year I won't leave it until the last week - oops. Apologies though - I'm not managing much time in the forum. One thing at a time.

The low bar height is about right..... Turning up and logging things here seems to be one bit of the bar that I'm missing a little. Various life things are going on - so I've managed to keep eating more veges (yum), morning back exercises, sometimes morning yoga, avoiding the dodgy lift at work, and I've been good about bass practise (mainly through panic about playing stravinsky this saturday). I would've liked to do more exercise, but there weren't many options for finding time for it without risking crashing and burning. So a couple of times sleep won. I'm happy with that. And even with doing morning back exercises/yoga I'm feeling more present in my body - this is definitely a good thing. Yep, this. I love how telling yourself that you can have fun with something can transform it. "Ugggghhh, I have to get up to do exercise" is much more challenging than "yay, I get to do my yoga this morning". Even if sun salutations with a black sky and visible moon and stars feels slightly inappropriate. Oh and for all my moaning about stravinsky, it is such a treat to get to play his music.

Yay for Hogswatch baking as a settling into your home ploy. Mmmmmm, gingerbread. How does coconut flour behave? I inherited some, and so far haven't opened it. Sounds like you've been doing a massive amount of life organisation. Excellent job. Plus, pork stock soup with ginger and garlic and mushrooms, yum!

oh wow, fingering weight, ouch, I've been there a couple of times, that is a challenge. The knitting is looking great. And I like how much pleasure you're getting from doing it. Plus, excellent hint about the highlighting tape. Yay for having a good week one with plenty of enjoyment and relaxation.

I like your goal of not fitting your uniform, and in the direction you'll be happy with. That will be fabulous. Who is turtle?

Oh yes, this! It is still a tricky lesson to learn...... Absolutely! My start to the week has been good. The weekend included a good bass practise on saturday - covered lots of things that I wanted to, including working towards learning some stravinsky which is on a tight timeframe (gig 20th January, and it is a challenging program). And kickboxing on sunday night - first class for the year, the coach was a little kind to us. It felt good to be back. The pressure to grade this year is already starting, I'm figuring I don't even start thinking about that until I show that I'm managing to turn up regularly. Monday, essential back exercises in the morning, rather than proper yoga, and a chunky rehearsal in the evening, so some moving, and some bass playing. Today, great morning , decent bit of yoga, and did a good bass warm up. After work is more stravinsky learning. I'm looking forwards to it. Oh and I'm managing to avoid the lift of doom - haven't stepped into a lift since the start of the challenge. Helped by it breaking again yesterday. Getting stuck in it once was enough for me. And yes I'm trying to get my head around doing a little and wanting to do more.

Good luck with staying warm.

hmmmm, learning from past mistakes? I think I've heard of this concept........ Trying to figure out how to be kind to myself and make progress. This week has gone well - managed a small bass practice (no, not a miniature double bass, a temporally challenged practice) last night, but it was much better than I expected, so made me want to play more. Yoga before work today, and am heading home for more bass. It feels like a good start.

hmmmmmm sick = being hard on yourself? I'm in agreement that meditation = good laundry and food prep = useful (life useful rather than work useful, but still useful). Rest up, or make chicken soup.......(current food plan permitting).