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Hey there! Long-time no see. I’m still trapped in my cage of Maths and Physics books as I type this, but there’s not too long to go until I break out. Due to these circumstances, my challenge will be in action for four weeks rather than six. My last exam finishes right at the third week of this challenge starts! When I break out of this dreaded cage of equations and proofs, I’ve got a hell of a lot of things planned. My summer will consist of harsh mental and physical training. I’ve already put on a bit of flab during my time in the cage been bulking whilst in the cage, so it’s time to get leaner and stronger. Without further ado, here it is! Challenge Three: Mandrill becomes the Monkey King! (Wow, that picture is badass. I'm making this my profile picture.) My favourite character in all of fiction is Sun Wukong, the Monkey King. He’s wild, cunning and… completely overpowered. He unified the monkeys of the world into an organized force, mastered magic and martial arts and eventually took on the forces of Heaven itself! Only the most powerful being in existence was able to keep the furious Monkey King in check… but that’s a different story. ^^ Here are my missions. 1. Master the Somersault Cloud! Sun Wukong’s most famous ability was his ability to ride a cloud that allowed him to leap through the sky at astonishing speeds. Whilst I can’t do that, I can work on my somersaults, handsprings, back flips and so on! I also want to get started with slacklining, just like the fella up there ^^. Attend gymnastics three times a week. (Wednesday, Thursday, Sunday)Buy slack-line and set it up! 2. The Magic Golden Clasped rod! The Monkey King’s most famous weapon is his staff, the Ruyi-jingu bang. It’s a fearsome weapon, able to change from a heaven-supporting pillar to a needle at its owner’s command. The staff is said to weigh approximately 9000kg, but Sun Wukong’s strength and martial skill allowed him to wield this weapon with ease. No, I won’t be trying to do any of that. I’ll start by learning to deadlift, bench-press and squat.. and hopefully get into Olympic lifts, too. Weightlifting – I’ve been inspired by rebels like Godnattish, Symphonic Dan and Raptron. This summer, I’m going to start weight lifting! 3. Water Avoidance Charm! One of the Monkey King’s abilities was his ability to remain underwater for an indefinite period of time.I can barely swim. I know how, but I haven’t swum for a decade. That changes now! I live right next to a leisure centre with nice swimming facilities. I may as well use it! ^^ Swim three times a week. Because I’m cheap and my local pool charges less for non-peak hours, I’ll get this done at 6:00AM in the morning. ^^ 4. Martial arts! Sun Wukong was a completely overpowered martial artist. His fighting skills were immense and he could hold his own without his notorious weapon. I was gonna do capoeira for this part of my challenge, but it clashes with gymnastics! That's a no go. So, we're back to stage one. I'm going to be going around town, looking for martial arts schools. These are the arts I'm going to be looking into: 1. Boxing 2. Choi Li Fut 3. Hapkido 4. Taekwondo 5. Karate Pick a martial art! 5. Life-quest: Cunning. Can’t call yourself a monkey king if you don’t have the brains to back it up! Sun Wukong was a master strategist and magician who studied under a renowned Taoist master. I can’t be a magician and I’m not going to search for any Taoist masters, but I will be doing a number of other activities with my free time instead! Draw every day. I’m a useless artist but I want to improve!Play my guitar every day. I used to play a lot but life always caught up.Play chess every day. Chess is awesome for developing a number of mental skills. Plus, chess grandmasters are all kinds of badass.Learn a language! Spending half an hour on Duolinguo doesn’t seem half a bad idea. My French teacher used to call me a useless student and I just… sat there nodding my head. Well, that’s going to change. I’m no longer the type of person who accepts failure. Plus, one of my best friends is french and I'd love to surprise her one day by just randomly starting to talk to her in her own language!Mathematical skills: I know, I know, why the hell would I want to do more maths after my exams? Well, I need to keep myself sharp! I found this website called Brilliant.org yesterday and it has all sorts of problems that I have no idea how to do… well, that’ll change. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- FOUR WEEKS. JUST FOUR. Now that I've written this and I've solidified what I want to do after my exams.. I just have to destroy my exams! Cannot wait until I can start this challenge. Holy shit, it occurs to me now that I'm basically following the path of Ido Portal. I can't stand the fellow myself but I gotta hand it to him; he knows what he's doing. ^^

Previously: Overall goal: 49.629% completed Lessons Learned: Work can get crazy hectic due to quick turn around projects. It would seem that I easliy loose track of time as well as the challenge ended a week before I thought it would as I focused on solving issues with projects and focused less on working out. I need to work on setting better goals, or at least setting a good reward system for myself to stay motivated due to lack of viewed progress in Character level. Steps Forward: Boost my confidence to get back into the gym to work on my weighted workouts; strive to work out a minimum of 3 times per week focusing on strength and 2 times per week to run interval sprints or distance. Build the habit of posting the day/week results. Discussion below regarding goal completion and level advancement Main Quests: Work out to improve overall health, document and improve personal record of weighted workouts, improve running to run 5k [30:05 Accomplished on 9 June 2014], 10k, perhaps half marathon, Ruck march 20 miles in full battle weight (Civil War soldier inspired, can be modern soldier weight). Become proficient with bow, hand gun, and long arms (rifles and shotguns). Learn a martial art; learn a sword style. Learn a second language; learn a third language. Earn a Master's degree. Dive Florida Keys; Dive Australia/Great Barrier Reef; Dive Japan. (Keeping this list as my living document) Fitness: Strength training workouts 3x/week (STR +2, DEX +2) [DEX due to heavy emphasis on body weight workouts]Substitute one body weight workout with a workout in the gym using free weights/bar weights (STR +2, CHA +1 in addition to above) [ For those that have been following, you know that I am gym shy and intimidated, CHA increase if I overcome this goal]Aerobic workouts 2x/week (CON +1, STA +2)Run 5k and record time at beginning and end of challenge [seeking to improve time] (DEX +1, STA +1)Unit PT will count (Sports or Intramurals) Life Quest: Post at least 1x per week (Sunday night) push to 3x per week, MW(F+Sa+Su)+TeTh(Sa+Su). (CHA +2)Pay off at least twice minimum due on Student loan to pay off early (WIS +1) Notes: These goals all look incredibly familiar (as they are essentially the same goals I have had since joining NF). I just have never completed my fitness goals at 100% like I have wanted to and only leveled to 1 due to the fact that I followed the Level 1 baseline of completeing 3 weeks. My understanding of Level 2 was completing (my definition is 100%) the 6 week challenge by completing (100%) all of my goals. This system has now been proven and showned to be an epic plan for immenint failure as I have had one thing or another come up sametime halfway into the challenges (not a fortune teller here obviously). I have become increasingly demotivated due to the fact that I feel like I am leveling up my life, but my character wasn't due to the harsh goal standard I was using. Re-reading the rules, it seems I misinterpreted how to level up, but I am still confused as one line states participation is a level, and another says completion (which to me is 100% goal completion). This time around, to increase my motivation I will use another system in which I will grade myself by percentage and award myself even with partial completion of goals and challenges. From the previous challenge Wrap Up Thread: A - 100% B - 75% C - 50% D - 25% F - 0% To make things easy for me, I will assign 100 points per goal per week (100/600 max possible score per goal per week; 400 points per week [first bullet listed, sub-bullets are supplemental or additional] for a total of 2400 points for the challenge. I will use these percentage breakdown and apply to my stat bonus for the end of the challenge. Huge question now is; how do I set the level goal? I would like to focus on the fitness goals and tie it to it, but that hasn't been working out. Should I tie it to completing fitness goals of at least a C level or should I just tie it to following this challenge to the end and assign the level based on participation of the challenge itself? Stats: Male 24 years young 5'11 according to the Air Force (I say I am really 6'0) 160 lbs (as of 5 June 2014) Lean body with minor muscle definition Although I am not looking for body building, I think it would be nice to be able to see some definition in my abs. I have seen the lines forming and I know there is muscle behind the layer of fat (what little there is, but I am more concerned with what my body can do as opposed to how it looks). My biggest concern is for developing the muscles underneath the fat to improve my performance. I am an engineer and I firmly believe that functionality is grossly superior to aesthetics, so I won't make my goals focus on looks. I have a chart comparing body weight to lift weight and I am considering adding in getting to a specific level as according to the chart. Perhaps that will be for the next challenge when I can move away from just getting the workouts in and avoiding life's complications. I have also recently started waking up earlier to get to a run and swim clinic this week and I feel like this may be something to look into to ensure I get a workout in the day before Priorities have a chance to override my workouts. Workouts: Training Session: 30 seconds exercise with 20 second rest 3x :30 Pushups 3x :30 Burpies 3x :30 High Knees 3x :30 Body Squats 3x :30 Reverse Pushups 3x :30 Jump Lunges 3x :30 Reverse Lunges Ab Attack: 30 seconds exercise with 20 second rest 3x :30 Air Bike 3x :30 Mountain Climbers 3x :30 Hand-on-ground Sit ups 3x :30 Sit Ups 3x :30 Left Side Crunch 3x :30 Right Side Crunch 3x :30 Double Leg Lifts 3x :30 Beach Bodies 3x :30 Center Plank 3x :30 Right Side Plank 3x :30 Left Side Plank 20 Minute Drill: 15 Body Weight Squats, 10 Pushups, 5 Pull ups Complete as many rounds as possible in 20 minutes Vert Jump Workout: Weights to be included 5x10 Cleans superset with 5x10 Front Squat 5x10 Back Squat Chest Attack: Weights to be included 2x10 Dumbbell Press Warmup weight 2x10 Dumbbell Press Medium Weight 2x8 Dumbbell Press Medium+ Weight 1x6 Dumbbell Press Heavy Weight 5x10 Slanted Bench Press superset with Pushups Back Attack: Weights to be included 2x10 Deadlift Warmup 5x10 Deadlift 4x10 Straightleg Deadlift 4x10 T-Bar Row 4x10 Row Leg Destroyer: Weights to be included 2x10 Back Squats Warmup Weight 10x10 Back Squats Medium Weight Kettle Bell Workout: 7 rounds of each exercise working out 30 seconds on 20 seconds off of Kettle Bell Swing, Burpies, and then Kettle Bell Squats Interval Sprints: 6x400m Pyramid Sprints 1x200m 1x400m 1x600m 1x800m 1x800m 1x600m 1x400m 1x200m