steamboat28

Sorry to necro this thread, but I have a question similar enough that I felt bad starting a new one. I've tried the Beginner Bodyweight Workout like three times in the past, and the first two times I was much more active, so the soreness wasn't so bad. I started up again Monday after probably the most sedentary 6 months of my life, with plans to do it 3x/week (MWF). The squats and lunges murdered my legs. It's Wednesday, and I can't get things out of the bottom of the fridge without groaning like I've been stabbed. Do I work through it by keeping on-schedule, find something less intensive, or take the day off and try again on Friday?

WOW. did I fail hard. *sigh* guess it's time to try again.

Well, for starters, I need to get into a routine. Motivation is the death of me, both in fitness and in writing. I just can't keep on task. Once I figure out a way to fix that, the rest will be cake. I'm mostly a small-time nobody right now, but I enjoy writing sci-fi. It's an interesting way to put problems into perspective.

It has been my experience as a chronic dabbler that internal and external styles are as different as slow-cooking a roast and microwaving a burrito. Most Westerners find "the best" martial arts styles to be external styles in which the most violent and explosive techniques are used as demos and where the "result" is front-loaded. This makes external arts, which have an early focus on combative motions and tactics, extremely attractive to martial arts enthusiasts in the West, because you get a sort of instant gratification and a gentle learning curve. By contrast, most Westerners find internal arts to be either completely useless, or suitable for everything except combat. T'ai Chi Chuan, for example, has been sold in the West as an meditation for young children and the elderly, a way to calm ones mind and grow the spirit. Internal arts have a steeper learning curve and less "immediate" results, because they focus on things that aren't necessarily as flashy or showy as foundation techniques. This makes most (not all, mind you) Westerners assume they're useless for combat, because they can't see anything coming out of their early training. I think the problem with this Western viewpoint is that it completely eschews the "dynamic balance" of Taoism--internal and external arts deal with two different halves of the same whole of Self. They're basically named for the part of you they focus on most; the external is more visible and flashy, and very Yang, whereas the internal focus on a building of subtle strength and power, and are more Yin-aspected. Neither is better than the other in general, and in fact, they work very well together. The only 6 months of my life where my lower back didn't kill me 24/7 was when I was taking t'ai chi, and between the relief of that pain, and the new, fluid footwork I learned in my t'ai chi class, I started performing better in fencing, as well. I honestly believe that nobody should study an external art very long without finding a complimentary internal style as "cross-training." A sifu once told me that, if a person trains in them long enough, they will see the focus of the external art shift inward, and the focus of the internal art shift outward. He said that change comes with understanding that we must be whole, inside and out, to be effective combatants, for if our knowledge of self is imperfect, so will our fighting be also.

"Hi, Dr. Nick!" I'm Mitchell, and I'm a sack of lazy writer that used to be a free-running, martial artist, archer type person. I'ma try and fix this It's nice to meet y'all.

*waves at all the people* I've been a fan of this site for a year now, and this is my first real attempt at interacting with the community. I've attempted the NF Beginner's Bodyweight routine, and it worked wonders--until I had a minor surgery that kept me from exerting myself for a few weeks. After that, I got lazy. I'm tired of being lazy. Nothing changes if you're lazy. So, here's the part where I interpret the first-time challenger rules. Main Quest To establish a basic fitness routine that I will stop flaking out on. Goals Work out three days per week for at least twenty minutes. Shut down my computer before bed to avoid using the Internet as an excuse first thing in the morning. Eat a decent breakfast every morning. No more of this cold-processed-cereal-after-physical-exertion crap.Maybe this time I can get it through my thick skull.