thatgirljj

Challenge update: Things are going OK. I'm missing a workout today, but not entirely stressing about it because my day has been insane, plus I tried to go to the gym but got their childcare hours wrong and by the end I was just so exhausted I decided it was better to just take a rest day. Yesterday I kinda tweaked my shoulder on the paralettes, so it's probably reasonable to take some extra rest. No boxes unpacked. Life update: I didn't much fill people in on the stuff that happened between challenges. Not only did the family catch the flu (at least it was short since we had gotten vaccinated). Then the next week? My son tripped in the living room and bashed his head into a shelf of our bookcase. I was upstairs and did not see it immediately, but my husband saw the gash all the way down to the skull bone. So we spent an evening in the ER and he's got a hefty set of stitches across his head now. So that was an adventure... And I don't remember who was my Mythbusters geek buddy (Nymeria? Elastigirl?) but OMG, OMG, OMG... Herding Cats!!!! Like seriously that was a total moment for our family. Like seriously... HERDING CATS? F-Yeah! I know, right? I try really hard not to get into that with my younger friends. People are at the place they are in life. Mentally there's a lot to be said for being older, but the body? The body only recovers more and more slowly after a while.

Typically we simply serve them steamed with mayo on the side. It doesn't get much better than that. But if you want secret magic, I often make a variation on this lovely artichoke salad recipe, but I substitute out about half the artichokes for quartered button mushrooms (roasted along with the artichokes). And if you were just looking for a great dipping sauce that's a step up from mayo, this is the recipe for the dip at my absolute all time favorite restaurant artichoke. Walt's Wharf artichoke sauce. If you have the chance to grill artichokes, it's absolutely sublime.

Oh holy hell, that sounds nightmarish. The good news is, the more you train through your recovery, gently and intelligently, the faster and better you'll bounce back. Don't worry about the bugs... I'm just slightly paranoid because I haven't touched mine in a few months (bad assassin!). And your playing of Clair de Lune is absolutely lovely!

I got Garland pose, will be back with a photo as soon as the kiddo is off at his kung fu lesson. Here you go...

I like your meal planning goal. I live and die by our meal plan, but I wish I'd discovered the magic of it when I was college age. It would have saved me years of really unhealthy eating. And oh do I hear you on the headphones + yoga business. I keep wanting to buy some of those cordless headphones because it's like yoga + twister to keep moving my phone where the headphones stay in my ears. I may have to get in on this beer yoga business...

Just now catching up on your thread, but ARTICHOKES!!! If you need a hand with them, just let me know, girl. They're the closest thing my family has to an ancestral crest. We love those suckers.

Lady, you are a BEAST!

Hi there! I don't know how I missed that your ACL ate it. You're right, it's a common gymnastic injury... a friend of mine tore hers simply dismounting from a static trapeze. Damn knee ligaments are tricky. Sounds like you're doing a kick ass job of working around it for the time being though. And now you've got me back to staring balefully at my rice bucket. Damn bucket. It's so boring, yet so helpful. I should maybe check mine for bugs before I stick my hand in though.

No, I did not. Thanks for the heads up. Yeah, I don't think anyone can underestimate a 40 year old mom on patience & discipline! Also, how did I miss that your ACL was screwed... like I missed that LAST challenge too? Grrr... I gotta get better at keeping up with my peeps. Handstands are awesome!!!! :-) Now that I'm becoming a regular at the Muggle Gym I get stares for doing 1 minute holds between sets of R. deadlifts, but hey, they're fun!

Haa haaa... Yes my darling hatter, I am moderately good. But I'm trying to learn a really hard apparatus (straps), and that's going to be a challenge to get to the level where I am on hammock. So I have two lovely things this First Tuesday of The Challenge: Ira Glass being fucking awesome on the topic of how to level up: And a hugemongous victory... I got a muscle up last night on straps! Not just one but TWO!!! Me and two other people were working hard for a good half the class on strengthening the parts of the muscle up and correcting our form on each part, and then I did it. I did the first one and I stood at the top squealing in joy. Then my friend Hope goes "What are you so excited about? Oh you got it? Let me see it..." and I did it AGAIN... although the second one I fought for the press something fierce, but I got it. This is #1 a huge personal accomplishment and #2 proof for me that my focus on pressing motions with P1 last challenge is paying off. Heavy dedication to using that grind to correcting my weaknesses actually works! Yipiee!!! Now for more grind. Because, now I've got to get a muscle up again next week.

Ah... it's challenge time again. And once again, my epic quest is to become moderately good at a really hard thing. I had all these other ways to couch that quest before, more romantic, sexier, more "epic"... but frankly, it is what it is. I am an intermediate level recreational aerialist. And I'd like to keep working at becoming moderately good at it... which is a loooooooong slow process. Sure, anyone can learn the first few tricks, but to keep progressing, to start to develop into the major strength skills? It's a day-by-day, brick-by-brick slog. You know when you're grinding out to level up your experience and get to the next level, yeah... that's where I am. It may seem like a miserable place to be, if you're a jumpy 18 year old. But as a 40 year old mom, I really just love playing the game. I love that my body even can play the game. And so this challenge, I'm coming into it with a different attitude. Gratitude to my body for bringing me this far, and the patience to grind through calmly till I can hit the next level. Even if that takes a few challenges or a few years. I'm cool with that. My actual EPIC goal for the year would be to achieve either a press up handstand or a roll up on straps. That may not be do-able, and that's OK, but I'm working hard to make it happen. With that out of the way, my goals: 1. Stick to my new and improved circus+GMB training schedule, now with 100% more squats. Basically, Monday & Saturday is handstand or aerial training. Tuesday & Thursday is some basic lower body compound lifts in the gym (squats & rom deadlifts). Wednesday & Friday is phase 2 of the first level of GMB P1. Basically my goals are to continue to stabilize my back and get a good strong handstand position (to enable progress in aerial moves requiring back stability), as well as add some overall power and strength in the gym. Sticking point here is actually doing the GMB wrist & shoulder conditioning even on days when I'm training something else. Also, I'm going on vacation to Palm Springs for part of the challenge, so I get a few days off of extra rest and playing in the pool with my kiddo (and just maybe a massage!). (If you remember my last challenge, we were supposed to go on vacation at the end. I was going to try skiing. It was going to be great! And then my whole family caught the flu 1 day before we were supposed to leave. No vacation. My challenge ended with a fever and sinuses clogged all to hell, so that sucked. I'm really hoping the family vacation happens this round!) 2. Six days a week do at least one, 1 minute handstand hold at the wall and stretch my hip flexors. 3. Three days a week do theraband & bungee conditioning for my shoulders. This takes maybe 10 minutes, but is going to be critical for injury prevention. And lucky #4, my life quest: Continue to unpack one box a week. We moved last summer and we still have a garage full of boxes. And a couple of boxes in the master bedroom. And a few in my son's closet. If I just do one box a week, that's 6 boxes by the end of the challenge, solid.

Hello, hello fellow assassins! My internet was down for a while. Sorry. I could NF on my phone yes, but I really hate typing loooooong missives on my iphone, so I saved it for when our connectivity was back. (Note I said back, not fixed. Grrr...) But many things have been happening, many, many things. 1. Last week I upped my daily handstand training to at least 2 full minute holds at the wall. After a good month of 1 minute per day, I feel confident upping the ante, my wrists and forearms are recovering well. 2. Handstand class this week was awesome! That is until I strained something in my shoulder. Boo! I was walking up and down blocks (with a spotter) and I did the push to get my weight up onto the block and something just shifted painfully deep in my shoulder. The good news is, it appears to be a small stabilizer muscle and although it hurt a lot, it seems to be recovering fairly well if I just don't overhead press anything. And I really don't need to be overhead pressing anything. I can still do handstand holds, but I backed down to 1 hold a day and am skipping 1 day of P1 training, just because I really do NOT want to take chances with my shoulders. 3. Tuesday, I did a local morning news broadcast for my friend's aerial yoga studio. It was totally fun, but started at 4:45 in the morning (!!!!!) so I had a ton of caffeine and adrenaline running HOURS before I usually even wake up. I was a wreck all day, but it was neat to do. I'll see if I can figure out how to pull a screencap off my DVR if anyone wants to see it. 4. I joined a gym. Yup. Me. Little Miss "I only train bodyweight, and fuck cardio" went out and got a gym membership again. I've been putting in a really hard look at my goals, reworking my training schedule through March and making some changes. I'm going to more seriously pursue building overall strength and power, so adding some heavy compound lifts to my weekly schedule. Plus the gym has a good quality Concept II rower and I love those things. I've been looking to do some full body endurance work to enhance my aerial endurance (which frankly sucks unless I'm training for a performance) and rowing is spot on perfect for that. As for my actual challenge goals.. I'll update them closer to the end of the challenge. I'm still keeping up with my spreadsheet and calendar even with the interruprtions from being sick and minorly messing up my shoulder, so I have good records to pull from.

Alrighty... feeling better. I still wasn't feeling 100% the last couple of days, but today I'm better. I did go to straps on Monday, but it was mostly conditioning, and I hung in as well as I could (and I spent a bunch of time helping a newer girl learn to wrap her straps properly). Yesterday I rested and today I was back tackling P1 with no worries. So, I really only missed one full workout to illness. Yay! NO! Straps are definitely not easier than handstand work! But with my head all stuffy, the straps class was better than handbalancing. I can't do repeated 1 minute handstand holds with a head full of sludge. I can do negative muscle ups with a head full of sludge. I'm not at the level where I can do a whole lot on straps, so it's a whole class full of conditioning for me.

DING DING DING DING!!!! We have a winner!!! :-) OK, reporting in: We have a bit of a detour this week, since I've been sick all weekend. On my Friday morning p-bars workout I only had a scratchy throat (I did the minimum reps), but by Friday night I was definitely sick. Yesterday I stayed in bed and played video games all day, feeling miserable. Today I'm staying in bed and playing video games all day... less miserable, but my husband is having a kung fu movie marathon and I don't want to get any of our guests sick. But it's probably good for me to chill the fuck out. So... I'm not going to hold myself accountable for any workouts I expected to do between noon Friday and noon Monday. I'm going to straps tomorrow night, but mostly because I couldn't transfer into the flexibility class. Ah well, straps is probably going to be easier on my clogged up sinuses than handstands anyway, same effort but less time upside down. In better news... man, it's been ages since I spent two days straight mostly gaming. :-) It's been a little rough on my wrists, but very fun. Anxiety? Uh... I am not being social because I don't want to be typhoid Mary, thus I haven't been triggering any anxiety anyway.

Checking in with you, and I'm happy to see that you are having some success at self care. Hang in there, you can't find the way out if you give up, and sometimes keeping your head above water is the best you can do. I saw that on his FB, and I was considering trying that. I'm a little iffy about my knees, but I may give it a go next challenge.

Handbalancing last night was super fun. We had two instructors and they split us up for the main handbalancing part of it, and I was working with B who is also awesome and is more focused on getting me to hold with totally correct form, rather than letting me hold longer with sloppy form (both strategies have their benefits in terms of building up strength). He really took the time with me to hammer out my form and stop me from doing the halfassed semi-contortion handstands that I often do. The good news is that the totally straight and locked form means I was able to balance better, the bad news is that it's exhausting. We also spent some time working out the form for weight transfers from hand to hand... according to him there's two ways of doing it cleanly, either staying locked and extending through the opposite foot, or going into a wider straddle/slight pike and bending at the waist. I tried both, and clearly the locked/extending worked waaaaaay better for me. But... more exhausting than just hanging out with my hips piked back. Oh and we also did a pressup drill, so more work on those (still mostly negatives for me). I also had two of my buddies in my half of the class, so we got to chat during conditioning & stretching which always makes it more fun. Anxiety report: Better. I was able to enroll in the ukulele class, buy a uke, AND make small talk with some of the parents at my son's school & his swim lesson. All good things. Bad thing is I was supposed to go to a friend's birthday party tonight and I bowed out because I couldn't handle that I didn't know any of the other people going. It's kind of two-steps-forward, one-step-back. This is all really, really true! Every word of it, down to the stressing out about stressing out! The good news is that not only is it true, I've heard it before (from my therapist about relapses) so it's even more awesome to have you repeat it because it reminds me to believe what I already know!

OMG finally I am all caught up on your challenge thread! Sounds like you're doing great. I love to hear about all the stuff you're learning and re-attacking in the gym! That's awesome. I am totally in awe of your hardcore training schedule. Ugh, we do the lower half of these (to the pike position) for conditioning and they're super tough even without the handstand. The handstand? I can't even. That looks totally bananas, but also way fun. And I don't know why but knees are always trickier on the down (whether stairs or hills). Haa haaa... pro married person tip: throwing a party always requires WAY more than you planned. I'm glad you had a great time though and happy belated birthday.

Weekly update: Goal 1: I did 6/7 days of my training schedule. The day I missed was yesterday, and I didn't do the mobility drills for my recovery day. We took the kiddo skiing for the first time yesterday, I had to be up at 5:15 and I was the one pack-muling & fussing over 3 kids while everyone else took to the slopes or did a lesson. By the end I was frankly too exhausted/cranky to even do 10 minutes of mobility at the end of the day. But the rest of my week was good. I had a very good silks/hammock class on Saturday, despite getting super crazy arm fatigue... but it was just three of us, so that meant no rotations, we were always on an apparatus. Less people = more work = more tired. But we worked on wheel-downs, which I love to train, and putting a combo together on hammock which is my favorite apparatus of the moment right now. Goal 2: So I'm doing my 1 minute handstand holds 6 days a week. But I am not doing the lotus holds, and I'm not sure why I can't remember to do them. I was going to work them into my regular training schedule, along with the GMB mobility stuff, but I keep forgetting. My tactic for next week is to do them along with my coffee in the morning, that might be a good trigger to remember. Goal 3: Only trained flexibility once last week. (See goal 1 for why Sunday didn't work out.) I need to do this at LEAST twice next week. I have to skip a yoga class on Thursday though (stupid foot doctor appointment), so I'm going to target doing my usual Tuesday stretching and also do a session while my hubs is at kung fu on Thursday. Hopefully also get a session in on Sunday. Anxiety report: Ok, so I had some anxiety issues on Saturday, mostly about getting ready to go skiing on Sunday, but I worked them out semi-constructively. I also snapped at my husband a bit over it, but he was doing something that was increasing the amount of internal anxiety I had, so that was actually productive for me to express to him rather than just mull over it. On Sunday I was too busy being tired and taking care of kids to be anxious about making small talk on the side of the mountain and that was very good. I also called the music lesson place (facing my phone anxiety) and talked to the lady about starting ukelele lessons. Yay!

This is a fine plan! I approve. And your trip to the Louvre, and all the delightful touristy Paris stuff sounds soooooo wonderful. I'm jealous. Enjoy!

OK... you guys know I have a near obsession with conditioning & recovery for wrists & forearms, right? Well, check this out... the first half of this video from Kujo (who's a b-boy & a chinese pole athlete) is chock full of great suggestions. I don't know what folks can do to help, but just provide a safe space for me to talk it out a bit. The history here is that I went through CBT for social anxiety in late 2012 & early 2013. It was helpful, but sometimes I'll go through phases when I get out of practice in talking to people and when I try to restart the anxiety becomes a problem again. I've been pushing myself through it, doing the steps I need to do... but I also need to remind myself to cope with the anxiety itself instead of just letting it overwhelm me. To be really honest, I need a new, challenging hobby that's not fitness, food or gaming.... not to be a dork, but I was thinking of taking up the ukelele. And no idea about the next showcase... possibly April or May? I may actually skip it because training for showcase would interrupt my handstand progress, but we'll see how I feel when it comes up.

That's annoying. I have some classes where we have a responsibility to do our own conditioning on rotations, but generally you should be getting a workout in. Here's hoping the new studio is better. And YAY GETTING A PLACE!!! Yipiee!

Hang in there. When you're sick, you're sick. Take some medicine. If you have grocery delivery, order a few cans of chicken soup and just do some self care. Put the cleaning aside, and be kind to yourself. And then set a date in the calendar two days from now when you'll be feeling better enough and clean that day.

Noon workouts are awesome. Get it in, get it done, get out!!! And planning is everything when it comes to eating. I'm always amazed at people who don't plan their meals... especially with kids in the house... if I didn't plan we'd have plain pasta every night and nothing else. :-P

Stuffity stuff stuff.... So I've been having a lot more anxiety issues again lately, to the point where I'm soothing anxiety by overeating. Yeah, not so great. I've been trying (and suceeding) for the last several months to have healthy balance in my eating and just be chill and relaxed about food. That's been a big positive for me... and all of a sudden I find myself doing awful at it, and I realized it's because I'm having a recurrence of my social anxiety as well as some major anxiety about my son's social development. I need to make a commitment to myself to step back, review some of my CBT material about the social anxiety and do some things that actually make the anxiety less (like yardwork or crafting) rather than things that make me more anxious (overeating, anything that allows me to sit and ruminate). So that's my new secondary goal... to take positive steps to deal with my anxiety. And I'm glad that handstand drill was helpful for folks. Right now I'm working on sanding down some 2 x 4's to use as handstand blocks so I can work on it more often. Yeah, there's a little push through the shoulder that's the main movement to get up actually *on* the block. If you hadn't seen Ido Portal before his things are interesting. In some ways he's a little bit of an out-there mystic and I'm not always sure what he's talking about, but he also has some rather brilliant insights. Meh... I don't know that they're harder than rings actually. The grip is different and you do have the pain factor of the straps around your wrists, but I think it's fairly on-par with rings, and there's more flexibility in what you can do. It's becoming a big thing these days. I actually LOVE partner acrobatics/acroyoga/partner-balancing, but I don't get an opportunity to do it much.

Alrightly, last night was handstands class. Our normal instructor S was back (he was traveling for shows over the holidays) and I literally haven't taken handstands with him in a year and a half? Maybe 2 years? He seemed pretty impressed at the amount of stability I have now, I can hold about 3-5 seconds freestanding, which I feel pretty good about. He also has the class walking up and down blocks now (with a spotter), and I've really wanted to learn that. It was challenging for sure (especially on my "bad" side), but an accessible challenge. The hardest part was when I'd move the blocks back into place if they weren't perfectly aligned it micro-torqued all the way up into my shoulder joint. Not dangerous, but good conditioning to work through, and it makes me work on getting it aligned right! I think I'm going to sand down some blocks and work on this against the wall at home. Otherwise, last week's report GMB + training schedule: missed one recovery day last week. Not bad though. Last week totalled 4/6 of my 3 minute holds. And I stretched twice. For this week I'm on my training schedule, did my 3 minute holds both days and I stretched today. Yay! Oh man, the drop at 1:10 and then the cartwheel into meathook at 2:25 are both amazing! Straps is for sure one apparatus where it's actually at least as hard as it looks, if not harder. The thing is, I'm really putting straps on pause right now until I start to get the press up... one of the seminal straps tricks is a roll up, and it is a pretty closely related movement to the press up into handstand. I think I could try to get it for years on straps and not get it, but if I cross train for it, I might actually get there. And believe me, I'm surrounded by athletes so wonderful I *could* question why I started... but I don't... I admire them and I do my best as myself. I will never be them (ever, ever... I'm a freaking 40 year old mom), and that's OK. P.S. thank you, thank you, thank you on the costumes! That's something I can do well and I'm very proud when they work out! :-)