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I'm still picking up the pieces from 2013, and I'm two days behind on posting. I'm still kicking butt though. Getting closer to fulfilling my epic quest. Main Quest: To get back to silks. My strength has really improved, so I'm focusing on slowly integrating air workouts this challenge. Goal 1: Lower my assisted pullup weights by 20 lbs. I'm nearing the final stretch of my assisted pullup weight, so I know I progress is going to slow from here on out, so I'm realistically looking at a 20 lbs decrease over the next six weeks instead of the weekly decrease I've been doing since I began working out again. Pass/Fail Goal 2: Go to 1 aerial class a week I'm a little short on funds, so I can't go all out and take daily classes like I used to, but if I want to get into the air, aerial classes are the main step in the right direction. Pass/Fail Goal 3: Calisthenic workout 3 x a week I want to get that pistol squat! A - 6 weeks of completed workouts B - 4-5 weeks of completed workouts C - 2-3 weeks of completed workouts D - 1 week of completed workouts F - 0 weeks of completed workouts Goal 4: Stretch an hour a day Essential for aerial work. A - 6 weeks of completed workouts B - 4-5 weeks of completed workouts C - 2-3 weeks of completed workouts D - 1 week of completed workouts F - 0 weeks of completed workouts Goal 5: Daily Yoga Practice Another good practice to get flexibility, strength, and endurance right for aerial work. A - 6 weeks of completed workouts B - 4-5 weeks of completed workouts C - 2-3 weeks of completed workouts D - 1 week of completed workouts F - 0 weeks of completed workouts Side Quests It seems I have a laundry list of things to, so I'm going to pick a few as side quests, and hopefully it will push me to do them. Side Quest 1: Continue Hooping (at least once a week) I know this will be a more obtainable goal once it warms up, because I am cold, all of the time. And it is cold, all of the time. Maybe there's a pattern there? I'll stick with it if I'm doing it at least once a week. Side Quest 2: Enter the bodybuilding.com transformation contest It starts the 13th of January. I'm really interested in doing this, because, well... the money... but also, the sense of accomplishment even if I don't win! Side Quest 3: Actively post on this board 4 times a week Last challenge, I think I only posted an average of once a week. I want to be more active on the boards, but with so little time, it's either workout or surf the internet, and I'm sort of glad I choose the former. I'm going to try to squeeze more in during the week, if I can, but I'm not holding my breath. Life quests Life Quest 1: Continue writing weekly letters to my son. Easy Peasy life quest. Life Quest 2: Work on German 30 minutes a day. My German is getting shotty. I want my son to be able to be fluent in German, so I need to make sure mine is still in working order. Life Quest 3: Start blog! Been trying to do that since I found out I was pregnant over a year ago...

I don't want to wait until November 11, so this will be a 7 week challenge, starting with week 0... Week 0 is a trial week to sort out the goals & set the pace, but won't count towards the total. Inspiration: I just started another rewatch of my favourite TV series – Star Trek: The Next Generation and I have decided to draw upon that for inspiration. I love many of the characters but on is my clear cut favourite. And I think he is a great role model! Jean-Luc has many awesome qualities that I want to focus on in this challenge: he is reliable, responsible, driven, hard-working, passionate and values his health – he is in great shape! So when I am wondering if I should, for example, eat ice cream instead of practicing handstands, I can simply ask myself “what would Picard do?â€. Main Quest: Short form: feel better in my body and do awesome things with said body. My life is pretty great. I have achieved a lot of the big goals that I have worked towards. My family is rad, and I have friends that I love and hobbies that make me happy. However, I constantly dragged down by my insecurities and general feeling of self-lameness (less severe than self-hate, but still not good). My main quest is to get right with myself! I can do this my treating myself well – mind and body. I am an advocate of healthy living and I want to be a positive example. And equally importantly, being fit and feeling comfortable in my body makes me happy! Exercise is great for my soul and helps me get through my hectic life. Self-care is important, and exercise and healthy eating are some of the best things I can do for myself. Often when I struggle, I get in a rut. Ruts are bad. So to counter this, I am adding a “never two in a row†rule. That means that I have to turn it around the next day. I can’t skip two daily work outs in a row. I can’t eat poorly (self-evaluated at C or less) two days in a row. This main quest is rather abstract and immeasurable; I am okay with that. Within the framework of this main quest, I can develop many specific and attainable sub quests. Which are as follows: Diet Quest: Short form: a. log my food, grade my eating & b. lose 5 pounds. Resulting from an unhealthy relationship with food, I am a few (many) pounds heavier than I would like to be. I know what healthy eating looks like for me, and I feel best when I eat healthy. But sometimes my emotions and thoughts get in the way and I use my fork to self-destruct. I keep learning more about myself in this regard. Anyways, the quests! · Every day, I need to log what I eat and grade my eating. My grades will be assigned based on how closely I follow the diet laid out by my person. I’ll average my marks at the end of challenge and assign stat points accordingly. (2 CHA) Strategy talk: Sometimes I make shitty decisions. Now I have a plan! Before I eat, I will ask myself ‘am I hungry’. If I am not, rather than giving myself a food hug I will do something else nice – go for a walk, do some gymnastics, snuggle my dog, focus on my breathing, have some tea. If I feel crazy, I can ask myself ‘what would Picard do’? And I can watch this helpful inspirational video: · Weight loss…. The entirety of my success on this part of the quest is not dependent on the scale but my weight does matter to me. I would like to lose five pounds over the course of this challenge. That will get me a bit closer to my goal weight. Forward progress is great, even if it is slow. (2 CHA) o November 5 weigh in: 176.2 lb Fitness Quests: Short form: a. daily flexibility routine b. work out at least 5 times per week. I started gymnastics a few months ago, and I am head over heels in love. I have never loved a sport this much. I can’t get enough. What I lack in skill (I am very lacking in skill), I make up for in enthusiasm. I am still working on the basics – I want to get them down solidly before I move on to more complex skills. Currently, I am only focusing on tumbling. The ‘basic’ skills I am working on: cartwheels, handstands, bridge, kicks, front and back rolls. I am working towards: front and back walkovers and round offs. Gymnastics and aerial training have made me very aware of how weak and un-bendy I am. I want to address those shortcomings in this challenge. · Daily practice: I am going to work every day to improve in key areas – splits, shoulder flexibility, bridge and handstand. I will record my progress in this sheet https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ai4WicKAma42dFFKYzBYQ3c1RVd1SGNvSGR4YjFEckE#gid=0. The workout doesn’t need to happen at the same time, but I need to be sure to warm up for the splits, kicks and bridge work. (4 DEX) · Weekly workouts: I would go to most of these anyways, but for a few of the work outs I need that ‘extra’ motivation. Below is the general schedule – but things change week to week. Ideally, I will work out every day; however, if I work out 5/7 days of the week I am counting that as an A. (2 DEX, 2 STR) o Monday: Gymnastics o Tuesday: Strength o Wednesday: Gymnastics o Thursday: Silks & Trapeze, Conditioning & Flexibility. Optional – drop in handstand practice o Friday: Spin o Saturday: Strength until I start Saturday gymnastics in December, or aerial open gym. o Sunday: Run, strength or hot yoga. Life Side-Quest: Short form: early to bed, early to rise. Recently I have been getting up late (and getting to school late). This is probably because I go to bed late and have poor sleep hygiene. I plan to correct this by going to bed 15 minutes earlier every week. My average bed time is midnight. So I will be in bed, lights out and no TV at 11:45 in week one (one hour later on the weekends). I can read my textbook in bed after this time, but nothing else. And I can only hit snooze once. I will set my alarm for when I want to get up, and get up then. (3 STA) Revision! I flourished when I was working towards my last 'life' goal and I want to focus on that a bit more before moving on to something else. So, the goal is to study for at least an hour every day and to go to every class unless I have a conflicting academic commitment. And I will try really hard to be early! (3 WIS)

Main Quest Sunshine-y beach-y vacation toward the end of March. While right now I look 'fine,' I'd like to get beyond that. Getting rid of some stubborn back fat is the primary goal. Visible abs by the time the trip rolls around would be awesome. I have 125 days total for this. Yes, vain. Sue me. Supporting Quests 3x strength training/week 3x cardio training/week Decrease diet pop consumption. 2/day max allowable during weeks 1-3, 1/day max allowable during weeks 4-6Life Quest I don't seem to have one at the moment. I paid off my student loans this summer, am happy in my job and generally love my life, so... to maintain the awesome? Motivation Prevent rot. At some point, I'll be old enough or have some condition that'll prevent me from being active. I'd like to be as far up the physical ability ladder as I possibly can at that point so that even as I decline, I'll still be in relatively good shape. Cheerful, no? Additional Background Not new to fitness, weightlifting, etc or even NF, but never completed a 6 week challenge. I've been "regularly" training for approximately the last five years, with considerable dabbling prior to that. I've made intermittent attempts at logging my progress here and elsewhere but generally find a simple notebook to be the way I'm most likely to stick with. We'll see how I do here. I have newly discovered the world of aerial silks (and LOVE it), so am allowing myself to substitute up to one strength workout/week for a silks class, typically it'll probably replace back/pull day since it involves a lot of the same muscles. Current stats Female 5'3 115 lbs (or thereabouts. haven't been on a scale in awhile) Probably low/mid 20s for body fat percentage. Not chubby, but I'd like to see if I can get leaner. If I flex really hard in the right light, I can almost see abs. Edit: Scale this morning said 114.6 lbs and 22.7% bodyfat. I know the bodyfat # is bunk, but we'll see if I can make it decrease over the next six weeks. Progress pictures may or may not be incoming, depending on how motivated I get this weekend.

Hello fellow assasins! This challenge it is back to epic quest time... when last we saw our heroine, she was trying to get stronger to build and perfect her aerial performance skills. Well... this quest it's SHOWTIME! Aside from the whole epic quest business (which is a long term real-world goal), it is indeed showtime. My circus school is staging it's biannual showcase in December. I had to sit out spring showcase for a variety of reasons (financial, and I got in a car accident the week after auditions), so I'm super excited to participate this time. While I'm not totally at the strength level to realize some of my long term performance vision, I'm definitely moving in that direction and getting into the groove of what I really love about aerial work. In addition to the showcase stuff, I turn 40 this Friday, just before the challenge begins. So I want this challenge to be fun, to celebrate what's great about being older and stronger and about what's great in my life right now. So without further ado... goals: 1. To perfect, rehearse & perform my showcase piece. I got lucky this time, I was paired with someone who normally does private lessons. Due to showcase discounts and the fact that I put aside some of the money from my accident, I can afford to work on two-person private lessons for several weeks. This is AWESOME for me. I feel like we're going to have a chance to put together something good and really polish it. However, as a "goal" this is a bit of a chaosassasin thing... I'm not going to put together a specific schedule or anything, it'll just be based on when we can work with our coach and what classes I can get in when he's out of town for Thanksgiving. Basically 2-4 classes a week in corde lisse or hammock, and plenty of stretching on my own. Possibly do some cardio (rolls eyes) to build up my endurance. 2. Handstands every damn day! Goal: go up into a handstand every day. No requirements for time or technique. Freestanding, belly to the wall, contortion handstands, it's all good. If I'm feeling sick or tired, just kick up against the wall at least once. 3. Hand, wrist & forearm recovery protocol. I'm reviving this from the August challenge (it'll take a bit for me to go back in time an find the protocol). Basically every day do 1-3 types of recovery tasks. I'm going to be adding a few to the list, including the GMB "active recovery" for rings and some inner elbow skin conditioning for elbow hangs on the corde lisse. I found this whole approach really helpful when I was building strength back from my car accident, so I'm going back to what works. 4. Bonus personal challenge: We moved house this summer. I have an office & training space! It is still a gawdawful mess of boxes. So my personal challenge is to devote some time to unpacking it, getting it organized and doing some decorating so I have a nice space to work and to do yoga. I'll post some "before" pictures it's pretty bad right now. Issues: OK, I do have to acknowledge some possible issues in this challenge. Last challenge I was diagnosed with a bone spur on my big toe joint, that makes push ups, planks and burpees problematic so I'm working out some possible alternatives for warm-ups and conditioning. Other issue, and this is a GREAT issue to have: my husband is training for his blackbelt test in roughly the same timeframe I'm training for showcase. I'm super excited for him and I want to support him as much as possible, but it's going to be a busy time for us. -jj

Epic Quest I want to perform an aerial/contortion/burlesque act. I have the dream, plenty of ideas and a deadline. What I don't have is the the skills or even personality. There's work to be done. Motivation Because pictures say more than a thousand words... Main Quest This challenge doesn't have a specific focus, I just want to become leaner, stronger and bendier Side quest 1: Shed the flab (WIS +3, CON +2) To do what I want to do I need to gain confidence in my body as well as skills. The excess fat is a hindrance to both. The plan is to a ) average ~1800 cals/week (revised halfway through the challenge) b ) eat ~130g protein/day A Average 1750-1850 calories + max 1 day/week missed protein goal B Average 1851-1950 calories + max 2 days/week missed protein goal C Average 1951-2050 + max 3 days/week missed protein goal D Average 2051-2150 + max 4 days/week missed protein goal F Average >2150 + >4 days/week missed protein goal Side quest 2: Practice contortion skills 1x/week (DEX +3) Chasing the shiny things! There's a few skills that I'd love to nail during the challenge but I need some extra practice outside class. A 6 times B 5 times C 4 times D 3 times F <3 times Side quest 3: Pull-up training 3x/week (STR +3) Not sure if it's realistic but I'd love to be able to do one pull-up before the end of the year. Training starts now! A 17-18 times B 15-16 times C 13-14 times D 11-12 times F <11 times Life Quest: Do something Burlesque related 1x/week (CHA +4) In the first challenge I took burlesque dance classes, but classes are not enough to make my epic quest happen! I need to learn to not only dance, but how to perform, walk in high heels, costumes etc... A 6 times B 5 times C 4 times D 3 times F <3 times Let the challenge begin...

Contortion 11/09/2013 Apparently I need to work on my attitude, I'm letting my brain take over too much. I have to trust the process! Also, went to dance physio on Monday and I noticed some definite improvements where she had done her work. Warmup Leg swings, front, side, back Stretch Butterfly Diamond Pike Straddle (twisting to the side) Pancake - Improvement, cheek to floor Front split sequence: Lunge Reverse lunge (pointed foot) Deep lunge - Right leg improvement, lots of thigh on floor Reverse lunge (flexed foot calf stretch) Lunge bend knee Reverse lunge (hands as far forward as possible) Front splits Frog stretch Middle splits - Improvement in form and strength Oversplits (front splits, middle splits) Assisted shoulder stretches (above head both sides, cross behind back, elbows towards each other, hands interlaced on head) Cobra holds Cobra (arm varying distance) Bridge (pushing stomach to ceiling, straight legs, hands as close to feet as possible, elbow bridge, bridge to camel) Skills Bridge walk Twisting in and out of bridge - Why am I still struggling with this?! Stand to bridge to elbow bridge to roll - New fun skill! Forearm stands - Need to practice kicking up Tic-tocs (onto thick mat) - Not much toc still, maybe one-legged bridges will help? Bridge flip over side walks - Got them half-way at least... Back lifts

Hi all This is my first challenge. Fitness was never a pleasure for me when doing it for it's own sake.I am naturally lazy. Dance was my first love! A few years ago I discovered pole dance and aerial silks/hoop/trapeze.I found myself wanting to do pushups/V ups/leg raises and running so that I could get better at my sport! My body type is not naturally agile, however I gain both muscle and fat easily. I wish my starting race was an elf..but I'm more like a cross between a dwarf and an orc?I am naturally quite flexible and if I was a superhero I would be Elastigirl!I used to say I had the weakest arms ever, but noticed improvements in strength after all my circus work! This year I've had a number of injuries/barriers to training this year-disc injury to back,broken nose and recently bereavement in that order. MAIN QUEST My aim is to get back on the horse!!Have enough stamina/strength etc to last 3 hour class again. SMALL GOALS FOR MAIN QUEST 1.Do one core workout per week/one cardio and one strength 2.Take stairs at work every day (5 flights) 3.Up iron intake!(I am vegetarian,don't like eggs and avoid dairy-except for cheese!I forget to take my supplements and end up being anaemic.This does not help with training) LIFE QUEST I'm skipping the life quest since I have a tendency to burn the candle at both ends. Can you do an anti-quest?If so it would be to relax more and slow down! Once I've completed this quest I would probably like to join the assassins guild. Although I'm a druid by nature (even in WOW),my training is more assassin focused. Wish me luck!! Angelyn

The assassin looked out over her audience. The slave revolt against the corpulent Prince and his scheming consort hinged on one thing... an absolutely stellar command performance would provide the distraction her compatriot needed to execute the assassination. And if the plan didn't work? Well, there was always the knife hidden backstage... but that was a far riskier route than the poisoned wine. She could see that her troupe had already lulled the Prince, but could she turn the heads of the guards long enough for the serving girl? So many hours of training... it was time to take the stage. This change in challenge format was easy for me, I had already formulated an epic quest for myself earlier this year: to develop a aerial performance piece and execute it in a way that makes me really proud of myself. Say what? OK, let me backtrack a bit. I'm an amateur aerialist mostly silks & hammock, I've been addicted to circus fitness for nearly 4 years now, and I've done a few amateur showcase performances. However, over the last year or so, my direction has been wavering a bit, I've been exploring other apparatuses and disciplines... my doubles partner and I decided to stop working together. Earlier this year I was working through some questions with a circus-y friend and decided that I really want to go all out... pull out all the stops, and put together something extraordinary. I've seen my friends do this, guys & girls with a moderate amount of amateur performance experience suddenly have the performance of their lives. I want to make that happen. But going the direction I want to go means some serious training. The vision I have involves combining straps skills (very gymnastic, mostly done by men) with either fabric or hammock. I've seen acts that use some combo of the two, and I love them. Plus it fits my potential abilities... I'm more strength oriented than a lot of the other women. And I'm lucky that my school already has several dedicated women in their straps program, so it's not out of reach. OTOH, this is also going to involve really refining my performance. Fitting in adult beginner ballet whenever I can (I think once a week when my son starts kindergarden), working on expression, training my legs to stay straight, my feet pretty and my shoulders down. So there's a LOT of meaty stuff to do here, and this is probably a quest that will extend over several NF challenges (and possibly several years of my life.) That's the big picture. It sounds overwhelming, but I'm already solidly on the path, so it's easy for me to see what the next few steps are, even if I'm not sure how to make it all the way to the top of the mountain. Goal 1: Aerial training. Straps on Mondays, hammock performance on Wednesdays & adv. conditioning on Saturdays. Optional: adv. beg. ballet & open workouts when I have time. Originally this was going to be a hybrid aerial + GMB R1 training goal, but a friend of mine opened up a 7 week hammock performance workshop (started last week), and I knew it would be a good opportunity. So I'm pushing off R1 for the following challenge. Goal 2: Prehab & cross training for forearms wrists and hands. 1-2 times a day. I'll do a separate post listing out the various options here. Basically, I don't want to commit to one boring cross training modality, I want to stay agile and have fun with it, all while giving my hands & forearms a bit of love. Goal 3: Weigh <118 at the end of the challenge. The range of 115-120 is where I feel like my sweet spot is. I was there earlier this year, but the combination of a car accident and a wonderful vacation had me back up several pounds. I'm at 122 right now, I'll give myself an A for <118, and a B for <120. Losing at least 2 pounds in 6 weeks is pretty reasonable. The plan here is just to keep on keeping on with my low carb primal eating (semi-keto), and my training. I'd like to put some effort into getting a consistent 10,000+ steps on my fitbit. Nothing crazy... just a nice slide back into a good weight. (This also saves my wrists & forearms a few pounds of strain.) Goal 3: Eat in a healthy maintenance range for the completion of my challenge. Focus on nutrient rich, whole foods and relax about specific macronutrients. Life Quest: OK... my life is going through a TON of changes right now. That's why I love having an epic quest to focus on because that is not messy. The rest of my life is messy. We just moved to a new house, I'm scaling back to contracting 10-20 hours a month for my job, my son is starting kindergarden and we're rehabbing our old house to rent out. CHAOS!!!! CHAOS & STRESS! So my life quest goal is do two very simple practices that have helped me a lot in the past: meditation and my "credit log". Meditate for 5 minutes upon awakening (or if I missed it in the morning 5 minutes before bed). And use my teeny log book to write down 1-3 things a day that I accomplished or can otherwise give myself credit for doing a good job. I may also post a little bit about my ongoing quest from last challenge to learn to ride a bike better. Right now, I need to step up to a geared bike because our new house is on a hill, so that's kind of on hold until I can afford to buy a new bike. -jj Bonus training photo from yesterday... the bottom depth of my skin-the-cat.

I'm starting a new personal Battle Log because I've been inspired to really take things to the next level. Back story: I'm an amateur/recreational aerialist. I've been doing it for about 3.5 years now and have a fairly intermediate skill level. For about the past 9 months I've been working on building my flexibility up, and I have a fairly good strength base, however I don't do any cardio or endurance work whatsoever, aside from an occasional adult beginner ballet course. I've been kind of searching around for what's going to be my "next level" for a little while and I think I've come up with a plan. What I really want, long term "epic quest" style is to be able to do one really great aerial performance. Something within my skill level, but executed really well. What's standing in my way? Refinement and endurance. So this battle log is really about taking things to the next level. Refinement: I need to work on 2-3 really great signature tricks, things that capitalize on my strengths and I can execute beautifully. This is something I need to work on with my instructors. I have two main strong points, strength and flexibility. Ideally I'd like to identify 2 strength moves, 1 move that utilizes my hip flexibility and 1 move that utilizes my back flexibility and work on them until they're back pocket moves that I can pull out whenever needed. Then when it comes time to put an act together I'm not struggling to identify my highlights. Endurance: OK... so I'm strong for a girl. But right now I simply don't have the endurance to make anything of that. I can do something that my coaches call "boy moves" but then I can't really integrate them because I'm fairly spent. During this NF challenge I've been reading up on some of the cross guild challenges, and I've come up with a plan to work on improving my endurance in a complementary way: TRX. I have a TRX, but I've only used it when traveling and only the strength type workout... it came with a jumprope interval training DVD, but I've never used it. So... here's my plan: Right now, I need to do some rehab on my neck/traps/shoulders following a car accident. So step 1A is to complete my PT, so I can get back on the trapeze & silks. Step 1B is to start learning the exercises on the TRX interval DVD. Review the whole DVD, work on form for the ones I can do right now (the squats & lunges), cognitively review the ones I can't do because of my shoulders and do a few minutes of jumprope 6 days a week. Step 2: As soon as I'm cleared by the PT and have full ROM back in my shoulders, learn all the TRX moves to be able to complete the DVD. Carefully return to normal aerial training schedule, no open workouts. Continue a few minutes of jumprope 6 days a week. PT as needed. Step 3: Do the TRX interval training DVD 2 times a week, substituting out lower intensity cardio for the jumprope as needed. Normal aerial training schedule, 1 open workout a week (when I can) working on overall conditioning. Step 4: TRX interval training DVD 2 times a week with jumprope intervals. Normal aerial training schedule, 1 open workout a week working on overall conditioning and drilling signature tricks. Today I started out the morning with 1 minute of jumping rope, twice. Check. -jj