Kyalii

Omg I am so glad to see I'm not the only one who feels absolutely terrified of stretching after a hamstring injury!!! I tore mine in June while stretching (in a somewhat stupid manner, but dancers stretch in stupid manners all the time, so you know), and pretty much anything that moves my leg above 90 degrees in any direction is like RED ALERT DANGER SCARY. I can't even remember what it felt like to stretch before my injury anymore >.<

Well how 'bout that. Thanks!

Yeah.... I definitely read the "Read this first" post second (because I am bad at following directions) and saw that a little too late. I tried editing the post, but it won't let me edit the title >.< Next time for CERTAIN I will do this!

I can't believe it's a new challenge already! Hi all, I'm Lisa, and after your guild member shaarawy encouraged me through the last challenge, I decided that maybe I could fit into the assassin's group rather nicely. I have a pretty eccentric fitness practice--I dance ballet 2-4 times a week and I'm training for my third degree black belt in tae kwon do (just call me Natasha Romanov). I also swim, and often find myself doing random bodyweight workouts before TKD class. It's been an interesting year or so for me: I tore my hamstring this past summer, which set me back a TON, and also found myself battling severe depression, which didn't exactly help either. So, last challenge was all about getting back in the game, and overall, it went pretty well. This month, I'm going to focus on increasing and expanding the base of fitness that I started to redevelop last month, and also developing some habits that should (hopefully!) help prevent injuries, since I seem to be so gosh darn good at getting injured. SO. Without further ado, I present to you: THE CHALLENGE Goal 1: Flexibility. Dance and TKD both require a fair amount of flexibility, which is something that has never come naturally to me. After I tore my hamstring, I stopped stretching almost entirely, both out of frustration and fear (I tore my hamstring while stretching, so that's cool). I've been stretching sort of haphazardly for about a month now, and I've seen minor gains, so now I'd like to focus more on it. Flexibility Challenge: Perform the same stretching routine after every TKD and Ballet class. I've chosen a group of stretches that I like from a martial arts flexibility book and written a routine, so I always know what I need to do. It takes about 10-15 minutes to do. Goal 2: Strength. Although my ultimate goals require more specialized strength (higher kicks for TKD, higher everything in dance), I know I need to make sure my foundation is solid first. Strength Challenge: Two bodyweight workouts a week. Each HAS to have at least one plank in it. It can be tough for me to actively schedule bodyweight workouts because we sometimes do them in TKD, and I run the risk of doubling up and not getting enough rest. So, by doing two, I can schedule around the lack of predictability in TKD (don't do one on Tuesday? Okay, let's make sure I request one on Thursday and Saturday). I hate planks so much but they're so darn good for what I want to do, so I'm making it an additional challenge/requirement, because I can, that's why. Goal 3: Don't forget Cardio! Ballet and TKD are great, but I find that neither really helps improve cardiovascular endurance, which is something that is really helpful for both activities. And you know, for life and stuff. These days, my cardio of choice is swimming since I'm so hard on my body in other areas of my life. Cardio Challenge: Swim 2x a week. Increase swim distance by 100 yards each week. Last challenge, I swam 1000 yds 2x a week, and that went well. I realized, however, that my brain was getting stuck at the 1000 yd mark, so now I'm going to work to move past that. 1100 first week, 1200 second week, 1300 third week, 1400 first week. That's it for now! See y'all around soon

I can't run anymore (too many achilles issues--I save my legs for tae kwon do these days), but I can cheer people on! But only if there is pie.

Here we are at the final stretch! Last week was not great, fitness-wise. I think I was fighting off some sort of illness (my fiance was sick all week), and I spent all of last week feeling exhausted and run down. I didn't swim at all as a result, but I did do my ballet warmup and my pushups, even though they weren't pretty. So now that I write that out, I guess it wasn't THAT bad. I'm feeling better this week, and I have enough energy to focus on my nutrition again, which is key to me being able to meet my fitness goals (I have a horrible tendency to either not eat, or eat way too much unhealthy food--food is really hard for me, guys). On the plus side, I got all of my law review stuff done on time!!!! YAY ME!!!!!

Okay, well just knowing that somebody is checking in actually helps a bit--I adjusted my calendar to match new dates, and I got my last assignment in on time! Yay!!! Next assignment will need to be taken care of starting Saturday so it can go out by Tuesday, so I'm just putting that out there now. I'm awesome at public guilting

Hmmm, that isn't a bad idea at all. Problem is that I just like the fitness stuff so much more than -real- life! Maybe I need to rope my fiance into this... see if she can some up with a carrot for me

In the US, it isn't unless you're working 20+ hours a week on top of being in school

Hey peeps! Just dropping in to say hi! I live in St. Paul, although I spend a fair amount of time in Woodbury because my Tae Kwon Do studio is there If you all ever do a meetup, I'd be down!

Can you tolerate legumes? Beans are a super cheap source of extra protein that would pair well with your brown rice, and would help ensure that you're getting the proper amino acids you need to build/repair muscles. Dried beans are cheapest, but unless you have access to a stove and a pot, or a crock pot, they can be difficult to cook. Canned beans are a little more expensive, but do the trick. I'm both a poor student and always pressed for time, so I usually cook up a pound of beans and a pound of rice on Sunday and eat that with a cheap vegetable like collard greens for lunch every day for a week. Also, I don't know where you live, but if you're in the United States, a lot of dollar stores have a small freezer section these days, and you can usually find packs of frozen veggies there for only a dollar, which is AWESOME. Frozen veg is pretty much as good as fresh, but a lot cheaper. You can microwave it in the bag if that's all you have access to, but you can also saute them, or even thaw them out, drain, and roast them (I do this with frozen brussel sprouts all the time). If you don't have access to a freezer, most dollar stores usually have canned veggies too--again, not the best, but better than no veggies at all!

What about a group that shares what they've learned at the end of a month, or just some random dancing, good, bad, or otherwise? Maybe as like a mini challenge?

Yeah, I've definitely made my instructor a believer in the dance/martial arts cross training. He was super skeptical when I first told him what I was doing, but 2 years later, he can't deny how much I've improved... :-D ALSO, here is an early week 2 update! Dance goal: perform 3 rounds of a warmup/strengthening routine before each dance class. This is going well! Part of this routine involves a plank, which I had planned on starting at 45 seconds, and increasing in time as I felt stronger. Well, this week I did a 50 second plank! So... yay, five extra seconds!!! I'm getting a little concerned about some of the foot exercises, because I think they're exacerbating the effect that the extreme cold weather is having on my formerly-injured-but-sometimes-still-gets-inflamed-achilles, so I think I might sub them out this next week in exchange for eccentric heel drops and some extra calf stretching. I don't want to stop working on my feet entirely, but maybe I'll do one round with the feet and two with the heel drops. We'll see. Tae Kwon Do goal: perform a 100 pushups workout 3 times/week. This is going swimmingly--the last workout I did called for ten pushups, which I haven't been able to do ten unmodified pushups unbroken in quite a while, but I managed it! I'm glad my pushup strength is coming back quickly. Twenty, here I come! General Fitness goal: swim 1000 yds or more 2 times/week. This is also going... swimmingly (hah!) I very much wanted to skip today's swim, because I was feeling all depressive and anxious, but I finally managed to drag myself over to the pool about an hour after I had originally scheduled my swim for today. So I'm super proud of that. Of course, I immediately channeled all of my emotional energy into my swim, which was a TERRIBLE idea because I gassed myself on the first half and had to do the second half feeling like somebody had attached lead weights to me, but I made it through. So, my two swims for this week looked like this: Wednesday, I did 100/200/100/200/100/200/100, and today I did another 3x50/2x100/1x150 ladder. OH. ALSO. Despite my gassed state of being, I decided to challenge myself and do negative splits on the last 3 50s--something I've never actually attempted before (I never said I had good judgment). But to my surprise, I DID IT! I dropped 5 seconds off of each 50 at the end, for times of (don't laugh, actual swimmers, I know I'm beyond slow) 1:05, 1:00, and then :55. So, cool! Life goal: Create calendar with all of my Law Review Editor assignments on it by January 10, and complete all of my assignments on time. HAH. You know how I'm doing SO WELL on all of my fitness goals? Yeah that would not be here. On the plus side, I have the assignments I needed to complete this week done, but I in no way shape or form did them according to my calendar. I'm struggling with this. Any advice much appreciated.

I can't think of any way to start this post except with an obnoxious YOU CAN DO IT! Soooo.... YOU CAN DO IT! *cheerleader hands* But seriously, I know where you're coming from. Depression is that ugly liar in some of our lives that tells us things like 'nothing will change,' and it can be SO HARD to tell it to go stuff it. I'm struggling a bit too with my challenges, but heres what is helping me get through it: 1. I keep telling myself that I'm only obligated to do this for a month. If, after a month, I don't like what I've accomplished, or if I feel like I haven't accomplished anything, then I change courses, go about my business, whatever. But (and here's the part that's making it useful for me), the catch is that I'm not allowing myself to do any "tests" about whether or not I've improved anywhere until the end of the challenge. So I really have no choice but to show up and do the work, because I can't find out if it's working for another couple of weeks. 2. Take it one day at a time. I'm fortunate in that each of my fitness goals is something I do on a separate day. Monday is dance, Tuesday is TKD which means pushups, Wednesday I swim (and dance), Thursday is TKD which means more pushups, Friday I swim... That means all I have to think about is what I'm doing that day. Pushups aren't important to me on Friday because I don't do them until Saturday. Swimming isn't important to me on Saturday because I won't do that again until Wednesday... It helps keep things from getting super overwhelming. 3. This is my personal favorite, although I struggle with it, I think it's an awesome coping mechanism when you can remember it. Name your depression. Literally. Like I named my depression Steve, after Steve Carlsberg from Welcome to Night Vale (a character who the narrator absolutely HATES--if you listen to WTNV, you know what I mean) (Not to be confused with Steve Kamb :-p). So when I recognize my depression telling me lies (aka, nothing changes), I tell myself "Steve is at it again. Steve doesn't know what the heck he's talking about. Steve needs to shut up." It's kind of silly, but it helps. My fiance also listens to WTNV, and she knows this tactic of mine, so she helps too. If I'm struggling, she can ask me "Is that you or Steve Carlsberg talking?" It helps. It doesn't always fix things totally, but it can help take the edge off. WOW THAT WAS LONG. OKAY. SO. BASICALLY. Keep at it! And if you mess up a day, whatever. Come back anyway. If you mess up a bunch of days, whatever. Come back anyway. We won't be disappointed, or upset, or judge you. We'll just be happy you came back. Seriously

You started at 21 and are en pointe? Super jealous! I was not blessed with good feet, so I might never be able to do it, but I hope to try eventually! Also I totally agree--I never danced a day in my life before age 23, but since starting ballet, I've had the opportunity to do some beginner classes in other styles of dance, and I always feel like I have an advantage over the other first-timers, even those who have done other types of dance like swing. There's just something about your brain on ballet that makes you so incredibly coordinated (once you know, you become ballet coordinated... there are still days where I wonder who on earth gave me permission to have four limbs, because they're hard to control all at once)

Aww, yay, thank you! The nice thing about martial arts is that they're always there waiting for you when you come back to them. I started when I was a kid, but fell out of it in my early teens--I was self-conscious, and my instructor heavily played favorites, so I kind of lost my love for it a bit, but I came back to it in college! When I was younger, I never expected to even test for 2nd, so to be looking down the barrel at 3rd is a little terrifying, but exciting too. I really want to achieve 4th so that I can teach at my own school someday, so 3rd is the next step. I started attending classical ballet classes a couple of years ago, and I love it. On one hand, it's totally different from martial arts, but at the same time, there are a lot of parallels, especially with the focus on technique and details. It's helped me get so much more confident in my own body and my movement capabilities Plus I'm waaaaaay more flexible now! I don't think I realized assassins included dancers I'm kind of eclectic, so I was thinking I would stay with the rebels, but maybe assassins is where I'll end up instead... :-p

Hey guys! Does anybody else feel like they're going to go absolutely insane on rest days? I have some sort of fitness thing going up to six days out of the week, but I always make sure to reserve at least one day to do nothing. It drives me nuts just sitting around, however! On top of that, I really struggle with eating on those days--either I forget to eat and end up eating almost nothing all day, or I way overindulge in unhealthy foods because I don't have any planned workout to keep me eating smartly those days. Does anybody else struggle with this? Has anybody struggled with this in the past and found good solutions? Help!

Got to focus on one thing at a time! Hapkido is cool, but I have to say TKD is where my love lies. I very occasionally compete, but I'm not a huge fan of it. I get kind of weird mentally about competitions. I'm starting to harbor the idea of training up for a proper sparring competition maybe later this year--something I haven't done since I was a kid, and definitely have never done at the black belt level. It would be a huge mental and physical challenge for me, but I'm not quite sure yet. I really find joy in working through the techniques, perfecting the motions, and moving my body and creating power with it. So I guess for me it's more about the art. Theres no feeling like when a combination or a technique comes together and just flows so perfectly. It feels like you're flying, and that you were always meant to do so. I also love teaching. I co-teach the children's class with my studio, and it's so much fun. Plus, I'm incredibly fortunate in that nearly all of my class is young girls, which is COMPLETELY different from when I started as a kid (and I was one of like... 2 in a class of 30+). Getting to train the next generation of young female (and male, I love my boys, too) martial artists is the most incredible privilege.

I'm excited to be back in a healthy place, mentally, so that I can safely challenge myself physically again! I'm also excited about continuing to improve as a beginning dancer, and growing in confidence in my body's ability to move!

Week 1 update: Dance goal: perform 3 rounds of a warmup/strengthening routine before each dance class. This went fairly well. I did this on Monday with no problems, had to miss dance on Wednesday for a job interview (important stuff), but then I woke up a bit late on Saturday, so I had to modify my warmup in order to get it done before class. I was only able to do 2 rounds fully, and then I added the most important exercises for the third time for a sort of abbreviated circuit. So, it got about 80% done, which I think is a fairly decent success. I'm most proud that I didn't just give up after I woke up late, and that I at least did SOMETHING instead of just rushing off to class. Tae Kwon Do goal: perform a 100 pushups workout 3 times/week. Check and check! This is such an important movement in the martial arts, so I'm glad that I'm working towards building my strength up again to be able to do unmodified pushups. Not that there is anything wrong with modified pushups, I just used to be able to do a bunch unmodified, and as a young and healthy second degree black belt, I feel like that's something I SHOULD be capable of doing. So this is going well, and I feel encouraged. General Fitness goal: swim 1000 yds or more 2 times/week. I did it! Getting to the pool on Wednesday was super hard--I wanted nothing to do with going there, but I dragged my butt over anyway, and I'm glad that I did. My workout on Wednesday was 10x 100yds, and my workout on Friday was a ladder: 3x 50 yds, 2x 100 yds, 1x 150 yds, and then back down again. Not counting my warmups, that means that I swam exactly 1000 yds in both of my workouts. I'd like to get to that "or more" point, but I need to remember to take it slow--I haven't been swimming for long, and I haven't been in the pool regularly in a couple of months, so for now, 1000 yds is just enough of a challenge. Life goal: Create calendar with all of my Law Review Editor assignments on it by January 10, and complete all of my assignments on time. Weeeeellll.... I DID create a calendar for this. I then immediately missed my first deadline. SO, there's that. I just feel absolutely no motivation to do this stuff. I really hate it. I've been doing some thinking on larger quests--like, what exactly am I hoping to get out of all this nonsense? Where will I be in six months? Well, I have one answer for certain now: in six months (almost to the date, actually), I'll be testing for my third degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do. This is a huge deal for me--I really want to be able to own my own studio and teach in the future, and to do that, I need to be a fourth-degree black belt, minimum. So, this is the next step, and it's a pretty big one. Now, in my organization, there are plenty of 2nd degree (and even some 3rd degree) black belts who are not what I'd call super fit--I don't belong to a group who believes that you need to be 25 and at the peak of fitness to be a good martial artist. We believe there's a lot more to it than that. But for me, personally, I am both young and capable of a high level of performance, so I believe it would be wrong of me to show up and be anything less than that. I've been struggling for the past year to be focused on improving myself for a number of reasons--chief among them being law school, and crippling depression/anxiety, complete with suicidal ideations at one point. But that's under control, and I'm in a place that I would safely deem "recovery," so I feel good about challenging myself again. That's the main driving motivation behind my general fitness goals. And at least after this week, it feels really good to be back at it again. It also feels really good to be sitting around doing nothing today (yay rest days!!!). I have a date with my foam roller later...

Dance is awesome! I started classical ballet at age 24 because it seemed like a good way to cross-train for Tae Kwon Do, and two years later, I can't imagine my life without dance! I've loved music my entire life, but something about dance just brings it to a whole new level. I agree with what everybody else says--find a beginner class or two, and go take it! I know how it can feel taking formal dance classes for the first time in your twenties, and even though it's scary, it's totally worth it. Even though it feels like everybody is watching you, I promise that they're not--they're all too focused on improving themselves!

I practice mainly Tae Kwon Do, although we mix some Hapkido in there as well. I've also dabbled in Krav Maga, which is SUPER fun, but I just don't have the time for right now. re: walking: walking is great! Try not to get too down on yourself for "only" walking--it's still more physical activity than doing nothing! Plus, you get to see cool things like kangaroos, which is effing awesome (I'm from urban Minnesota, all I see are maybe some squirrels)