Happienumber

3 hours ago, Rookie said:

Fullstack with VB.Net back-end.

As if i need more reasons to have respect for you. VB gives me fits.

3 hours ago, Rookie said:

How could you not lol I was like this is my new pet and she relies on me to feed her

🤣😂🤣

3 hours ago, Rookie said:

made beef bourginougn or however you spell it.

With as many unnecessary letters as possible so i think you nailed it

12 hours ago, XBlackWidowX said:

Wow, you life is so diverse!

Lets see... in the past I've been a janitor at a paper mill, a dishwasher, an afterschool monitor, a logger, a bookseller (at  few places), a computer repair technician (at a LOT of places), a grocery teller, an aupair, a photographer, a gas station attendant, a housekeeper at a ski resort, a snow shoveler, a window tinter, a roofer, a house painter, a call center operator (for four hours then I quit), a concrete pourer, a landscaper, a library clerk, a science outreach teacher at the library, a lighting technician at a opera house... I feel like I'm for sure missing some.

13 hours ago, XBlackWidowX said:

I've never heard the word "dogsitting" before, for some reason it sounds so funny

I sit on dogs lol

13 hours ago, XBlackWidowX said:

It's always much better to have more knowledge as injury prevention and for a better progress.

Yeah for sure. I already felt a difference in my mobility workout yesterday; all the exercises felt more effective and working into my problem areas.

On 1/12/2023 at 9:45 PM, Elastigirl said:

It was me saying I get now clothes because I am getting stronger!

YES!!! This is the best!

38 minutes ago, Mistr said:

What kind of work are you doing in your other jobs?

I manage the database for a library, and I do freelance graphic arts/video game design work. I actually also pet sit fairly regularly. I should probably count that as a fourth job. I'm usually dogsitting for a few weeks ever other month or so.

The library job pays the least but has the most steady work. And job security. Because I built the database (previously they kept everything recorded in three ring binders. Hundreds. I digitized all over the course of three years) and no one wanted to learn it, so when I physically moved away from that library's region, they made the database management remote and kept me on. It's dull but incredibly simple, so I can literally watch YouTube or TV all day while I'm working.

I watched this video today, and it was pretty informative and sparked quite a bit more research. The first half is really where most of the information is, as the latter half he leans a little hard into selling his mobility program, but he seems very knowledgeable based on follow-up research and there's some really helpful assessments in the first half.

Doing the leahey stick test was eye opening. I'd always done the "back flat, arms to wall behind you" test and thought i had pretty good mobility.

Even there, my right arm had a bit of twisting.

Doing the tests between 8min-10min, I found my range was at or above standard for lats and pec major, but the test for subscapulris was super tight. Doing some release work on it and some targeted stretches, feeling into that muscle, its a lot of where I feel the stretch, the tightest part, in my bridge. Doing the tests around 19;20-29, I found my low traps and external rotators couldn't even handle body weight (just lifting my hands) and felt really weak, but my rhomboids, mid traps, and rear delts could lift weight and about 1 foot higher than the others and felt pretty strong.

What I found neat was with follow up research, I discovered that there are several exercises that both stretch the subscapularis and strengthen the low traps and external rotators. In fact, almost all the exercises I found had that overlap. Which makes sense that they are connected, having a weakness in one side of the muscle group causing a tightness on the opposing side to protect the joint. One of the main ones? The same exercise I've been given by three physical therapists for my shoulder issues.

I should be doing that one, eh? Go figure lol

My current shoulder mobility routine included a few of the exercises/stretches I found, which is why i saw some improvement, but also had a few that were stretching an area that is already hypermobile (unsurprisingly, they were the exercises that felt like they were doing nothing.) With EDS, I have to be careful to not overstretch hypermobile areas and focus on strengthening the joint, so that was important to realize and weed out.

So now I have a similar but slightly modified shoulder/upper back mobility routine, minus three of the original exercises and plus two new ones (well, one very old one from PT.)

That second progression looks like it's going to be a game changer. We'll see.

I'm gonna try it on a cheese mat first I think. Idk. That'll give me a little elevation.

22 hours ago, Mistr said:

Maybe GMB has some exercises you could try?

They do have kip-up stuff now!!

https://gmb.io/kip-up/

That's really exciting. I always loved GMB's stuff. I have their floor 1 program, I should dig that out.

Going through and watching the videos/reading the descriptions, I realize that I'm 90% sure my kip-up bottleneck is exactly the same as my handstand-to-bridge bottleneck (mobility, mostly shoulder and upper back but also hips. Also like...end-range core strength.)

For that reason, I think it makes the most sense to just combine goals 1 and 2 because the exercises for the kip-up progression from GMB have a TON of overlap with stuff I need to be doing for my handstand-to-bridge/handsprings/ect.

so for this week I'm at

1. 45/60 minutes mobility work

2. 5/2 videos watched

My boss gave me some Instagram accounts to check out that she follows for coaching tips, so I'm taking a look at some stuff on there. For the purposes of the challenge, I don't think I'll count like 30s-1min Instagram videos though. Or maybe like ten Instagram videos equals one tally mark? Idk.

16 hours ago, XBlackWidowX said:

Heyy!! Good to see you back! You are a gymnastics teacher now, yes? Wow, congratulations! Are the kids enthusiastic?

He!!! Good to see you too!!

Yep I started this week 😬 Thank you! I'm a little overwhelmed but having fun. Also the classes go by SO FAST. Like I don't think this will ever be a job where I'm like "wow I want to go home, time is moving so slow."

All three classes I've done so far it was like "holy crap there's only five minutes left! We barely got started!" I worked for 7 hrs yesterday and it legitimately felt like 2, maximum.

The kids are pretty enthusiastic, yeah! There are three that are going to be a challenge to keep on task but they just have lots of energy and want to socialize a lot.

16 hours ago, XBlackWidowX said:

I felt as if the place belonged to me!

That's exactly how it felt! It was so much fun! I talked to my boss about ours and when I can come in to train, and she said once I get a key I can come literally any time I want and have the place to myself (obviously wen we aren't having classes.) Until I get my key, I'll be working out Sunday, Monday, and Wednesday nights. Sunday is after work and I'll be by myself. Monday and Wednesday there's just a small group of 2-3 older gymnasts who work out in only one part of the gym.

Since I'll be having two days in a row, I'm going to have to be careful not to overtrain the same muscles. I'll have to sit down and work on a program.

On 1/9/2023 at 7:17 PM, Rookie said:

 I have max 3 months left. It was just so sad because a lot of these people I’ve been working with for 6-10 years and we are all pretty close.

That's so rough 😭 I'm sorry.

That's a really long time and its going to take a while to grieve the loss of that, even aside from the stress of finding a new job.

I'm confident in your job-acquisition skills, though. You're going to find something great.

I forget, what kind of programming do you do?

On 12/29/2022 at 5:01 PM, Rookie said:

Meet Francesca ☺️ my baby sourdough starter

Low-key obsessed that you named her. Top-tier behavior. 100/10.

So shadowing the gymnastics classes today was overwhelming, but I was reassured that it was ok to be overwhelmed at this stage and they are really happy to have new coaches and are happy to train. So I'm trying to give myself a bit of a break about being like

and just letting it sink in and remember that i shadow like 4 more times before I will have to do one alone (gymnastics that is. I only shadow once more for parkour before i take over. But for that, I'm feeling petty confident to create my curriculum and teach.)

It was certainly not a disaster and I do think after several more times I'll have it pretty down, especially if I keep up with my coaching videos goal.

One of the kids tonight was also in the ninja class s I already knew her. She got left out when everyone paired off for stations so I spent some extra time with her so she wasn't all alone. She's on the quieter side and I have a feeling that happens a bit.

5 hours ago, Mistr said:

Maybe GMB has some exercises you could try? They have a lot of gymnastics-based movement and strength training.

I'll take a look. I'm sure there's a ton more stuff on there since the last time i checked.

5 hours ago, Mistr said:

Heck, Dumbledore and I will pick a town an hour away to go explore on a weekend, just to see something new.

it really is so much fun! You never know what you'll run into.

On 1/9/2023 at 12:07 PM, Mistr said:

Your handstand to roll looks great. That should be enough to get you credibility with the kids.

Thanks! My ability to still do a handstand roll after 3 years of not trying was a pleasant surprise! I thought it was going to take a while to get that back.

So far I'm at:

1. 15/30mins of kip up work

2. 30/30mins handstand/bridge work

3. 4/2 coaching videos watched

I've started a notebook to write down coaching techniques and things I learn at shadowing. I shadow again tonight for three different gymnastics classes (the ones I'm more nervous about than the parkour class.)

A friend from five hours away randomly texted me yesterday and said her and hr family were in my area for vacation and so i met up with her and we took  spontaneous trip to Montreal last night which was kind of silly because we basically drove 1.5 hrs each way to get dinner and walk round shops for two hours and not buy anything lol but we had fun. So I didn't get any workouts in yesterday.

I'm also hitting a wall with trying to figure out what other kip-up progressions I can try, because the rolling to my feet thing doesn't seem to be doing much. Granted, I only worked on it for 15 minutes but I truly felt like I made zero progress.

Any ideas?

I'll write something more wen im less sleepy but one of my takeaways is that im much farther off from my kip up than i thought. Body mechanics feel all wrong. It's very much not clicking.

Had my first day today! There were only two kids and it was super manageable. I did feel a little overwhelmed with one of the kids but I'm going to try to be a better adult next week (I am primarily shadowing this week and next.)

They also just let me stay alone in the gym after closing to d m workout LOL im like. Its my first day. You don't even know me. lol.

Last week goals fell apart due to depression cave but so far this week:

1. 15/30mins of kip up work

2. 30/30mins handstand/bridge work

3. No videos watched yet.

On 1/4/2023 at 2:51 PM, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

That's really rough. That anger is coming from somewhere, and I'm sure it's frustrating not to know WHERE. I hope you can get some resolution soon.

My therapist was pointing out all the various ways it triggered me an it was almost laughable. I was like, oh, ok, it just hit all buttons at once. I see.

On 1/6/2023 at 7:06 AM, Mad Hatter said:

My pole dancer had only been poling for a few months before teaching and felt a lot of impostor syndrome (ok still does) and she seemed to have solved it by arming up with knowledge.

That makes m feel quite a bit better actually.

Quote

Very nice progress on your bridge! It's very encouraging to see because I really want to get mine back but it hurts my ego to work on them.

*Infomercial voice* With these ten weird exercises, you too can make bridge progress.

Quote

Are you only focusing on your shoulders/upper back for now or the hips as well?

I feel like I'm mostly tight in my shoulders but tbh my hips are not great either so that could for sure be another bottleneck

On 1/6/2023 at 10:28 AM, Mistr said:

That sucks that your brain spoiled an otherwise fun evening with friends. You showed great awareness and restraint by not taking out your emotions on the people around you. I hope you will find more ways to defuse those emotions for the next time.

I had a good DnD session tonight with most of these people so at least i know i didn't permanently ruin all the relationships.

On 1/2/2023 at 6:30 PM, Everstorm said:

I mean, I'm no physio or anything (and the loose-ish clothing kind of breaks up the lines of your body), but in the after photo, the angle of your upper arm is significantly deeper.  In the before photo, it was almost parallel to the floor.  As far as I can see, the arch of your back is relatively the same, but again hard to see with the shirt.

yeah good point the clothes throw it off. 
Im hoping my coworkers might be able to give me a pointer as to where the bottleneck is for the flexibility. 
 

For now I’m going to keep doing the workout I’m doing because it’s a

obviously working, and then adjust to lean more into the thoracic mobility or the shoulder mobility based on what my coworkers at the gym think when I do my bridges. 
 

So far this week I’ve done

1. Floor work: 15/30 minutes bridge work

2. Kip-up: 0/30 minutes 

3. No video watched yet.

I had a really rough week so far 

so my workout yesterday was a heavy bag session to get the aggression out followed by an antianxiety med to knock me out lol. What a workout chaser. 
 

But I need to get gloves because my knuckles did NOT appreciate that. I’m missing some skin. 

10 hours ago, Everstorm said:

Can definitely see more RoM in the shoulders.  That's good improvement for one week!

Im having  a hard time seeing if it’s mostly should or upper back flexibility that’s holding me back. Like which on to spend most time on. You see it in shoulders mostly?

This is the workout I've done three times this week and went from this:

to this:

So I feel like is making some progress

So I decided on my challenge goals and edited my topic post to reflect this.

1. Working on my level 2 floor skills at least 30 mins/week.

This is mostly bridge work and handstand-to-bridge work, as that's my primary skill that I can't complete for level 2.

2. Work on kip-up progressions 30mins/week

idk if I'll get my kip-up this challenge, but i hope so. That's the ultimate goal.

3. Watch 2 coaching-related YouTube videos pr week.

Something to get me feeling more ready. Whether it be spotting techniques, watching an entire recorded class and taking notes on the coaches methods and phrasing, or just child management videos like how to teach preschool. Anything to get my brain feeling like I have a toolkit to pull from.

A loose idea of how I might schedule my training:

How does this look? Over training, under training? Any idea on what to add/re-arrange?

21 hours ago, Rookie said:

But with your personality… beginner isn’t beginner lol

LOL what does this mean hahhahaha

21 hours ago, Rookie said:

If these kids are in ninja school /doing parkour its because they want to be there lol 😂 whereas science class at the library there’s a larger chance their parents might of made them.

Yeah I think that might be part of it, so it might be easier for this. But there's always a problem kid (i WAS that kid in my gymnastics classes) who can't/won't pay attention or who wanders off to do their own thing.

I've already been warned of one, and I haven't even started lol. I'll cal him L for anonymity but my boss has already made the comment of "maybe you'll be the one to solve the L problem" so now I feel the pressure to actually do that LOL even though its not REALLY pressure. Apparently he likes to try to get other kids in trouble.

(Ironically I already have a theory on what might help without even meeting him but you you as sun tsu sad "no plan survives contact with the enemy" (not that i consider the kids enemies, just as a saying) so it will likely mean nothing once I'm actually interacting with him.  But I have a based-on-essentially-nothing hunch that maybe he needs to feel separate from the group and in some way extra special to the coach so I'm going to try giving him lots of tasks to do like "L you look really strong, can you help me move this mat" and involve him in cleanup and stuff. I remember when my coaches would ask me to help set up and break down the equipment I fell like The World's Most Special Boy™ so maybe it will help. It also could spectacularly backfire so....)

21 hours ago, Rookie said:

Huge congrats on the new dwellings and job!

Thank you! It's really made such  a difference not having housemates. All my decisions are my own and it's such a weight off my mind. It's made a hug difference in my cat too!! He had such anxiety living with other cats, he'd rub his eyebrows off and then raw. Now he's got fur there again!! He seems really happy here.

16 hours ago, Rhovaniel said:

I think you're going to be great 😊

Thank you!

I'm trying to believe it, because every single person I've talked to about it has said the same thing. That its the perfect job for me. That's got to mean something.

So we'll see lol

2 hours ago, Mistr said:

You have a low bar to success in comparison.

I hope so. I do know that the other three gymnastics coaches either:

1. Have been NCCP trained and certified, or

2. Competed in gymnastics at a higher level than me or are still competing (young coaches)

I don't know about the parkour coach. But they DO know I'm not certified and only competed until I was nine and hired me anyway, so that' on them lol. I can see how the would be pretty desperate as it's not like our area is known for its gymnasts. Hockey players, sure. Gymnasts, not so much.

2 hours ago, Mistr said:

Take a look at what kind of misbehavior you tend to see and what you could do about it. Make a list.

This is really good advice. Writing  down a list of most likely issues and coming with counter-moves for each one.

I think a large portion for me is determining exactly how to speak to them in a way that conveys authority but isn't mean.

I've been watching a lot of you tube videos of coaches coaching ad trying to build up a little toolkit of phrases to have on hand.

3 hours ago, Mistr said:

I can't do a full bridge. Maybe mobility is part of my problem. I thought it was just lack of strength.

I think mobility is the biggest part of it, actually. I mean I guess it varies by person, but I know a lot of people who can bench and press huge weights but not bridge because of the mobility issue. I've personally never seen it the other way around, though I'm sure it happens.

This is my starting picture. It's improved since this, but I'll wait until the end of the week to post my updated picture.

On 12/27/2022 at 4:58 PM, Mistr said:

@Happienumber - so good to see you here!

 

How have things been going?

 

I have missed your staff twirling and knife-throwing inspirational videos. 🥷

Missed you too! It's bee a rollercoaster but I'm glad to be back!

5 hours ago, Mistr said:

I went to weapons class last Friday and got a lot of personal coaching because only one other student showed up.

This sounds like a blast! What did you learn?

5 hours ago, Mistr said:

Sitting with my feet up - not so much.

Somehow as expected lol

5 hours ago, Mistr said:

Now I am going to enjoy a nice laid-back zero week.

Good!!! And do it for real this time!

On 12/26/2022 at 10:27 AM, Gemma said:

In January I will start weekly voice lessons. 🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯

OMG CONGRATULATIONS!!

You did so may scary things to get that going. You're amazing.

On 12/26/2022 at 10:27 AM, Gemma said:

Aaaanddd - he is doing it in a steampunk circus setting.

So color me intrigued

Uhhhhh.....me too!?!! I'm actually fascinated to see how this plays out (pun intended??)

8 hours ago, Gemma said:

I'm taking my practice exercises really easy because the last thing I need to do is strain my vocal folds right before I actually start classes! 

Yeah for sure, take this easy.

Well I just had moment of semi-relief. I've been barely able to get up in to my back bridge at ALL. And i was running through those drills mentioned above for the first time yesterday at my friends house and one of my buddies goes "so whats this for" and i was like, well as you can see i cant even do a bridge" and then proceeded to push up into a decent bridge that i could hold for 20 seconds so

1.YAY these stretches are effective and

2. They seem to be effective FAST

Perhaps I'll be ale to get my handstand-to-bridge faster than I thought. Still probably not in two weeks, but the situation feels less dire.

2 hours ago, Snarkyfishguts said:

You're not an imposter, you're a person in progress.

I like this a lot.

On 12/26/2022 at 2:17 PM, Gemma said:

Keeps me on my toes, though  

There is that tho! Never gets boring!!

46 minutes ago, WolfDreamer said:

I've actually been consistently waking up between 0430-0515 for a while now, so this won't be so bad.

Wow. Impressive. I'll be thinking of everything you've already accomplished for the day when I roll out of bed three hours later thinking I'm getting an early start lol

I love Pavel Tsatsouline haha I cant wait to see how everything goes with this! I hadnn't heard of simple and sinister before this. My buddy gave me a bunch of pavel's books back in like 2007 but I haven't seen his newer stuff. That looks like a lot of fun!

Some of the exercises I'm going to be working with this week:

That butcher block stretch is SO helpful to me. Holy Hannah. That's so tight but I can feel how big a difference it makes in my mobility after I'm done.

10 hours ago, sarakingdom said:

Showing students how to learn things they don't know is a huge skill, and it means being okay with demonstrating the process ourselves.

44 minutes ago, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

I once heard that the best teachers are those for whom things came with a struggle, cause they know how to help people struggling to learn.

These are really good points. I think this is why I've always liked working with neurodivergent kids because I've been able to see them struggling with something and be like, "hey i struggle with that EXACT issue, here's what helps me, let's troubleshoot together and see if i helps you" when a lot of the other adults in their life didn't have that perspective. I really like helping kids over that stumbling block and finding solutions so maybe that will translate over here.

1 hour ago, Everstorm said:

Maybe look for a capable student in the class who could demonstrate?  There's always one showoff who can do everything before the rest of the class 😂

🤣😂🤣 You're SO right! I think that's probably going to be a huge resource.