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I'm going to try out a daily battle log for a while. One of my gripes with NerdFitness's format is the constant need to create new challenges on the website's schedule. I'm going to attempt to take the power back for myself and do my own thing. Everything's and experiment and nothing is forever. I'll come back and fill edit this first post from time to time to fill things in, either questions that come up a lot or links to topics in the thread as it grows. But for today, on to the good stuff. Note for myself:

See? It's topical. Sorry I'm late. As I like to say, I think of challenges as things that we do first and foremost, and I started the challenge but I never posted it. So here are the big goals for the year: I want to get my freaking apartment cleaned up finally. I want to lose a significant amount of weight, because I have a significant amount to lose. I want to graduate to pain free movement. I want to complete a draft of the novel and get it before some beta readers. I want to go to therapy. I want to start dating again. A lot of these goals are... in progress already. After asking @The Most Loathed and thinking about it some, I decided to download the Renaissance Periodization diet app. Not because I need someone to tell me what to do but because I think it's useful to have something to help me track general trends in weight and tell me, "Hey, this is looking good," or "Hey, this is looking not so good and maybe you should change some things." I started up a weight loss phase for myself officially on the 17th and so far I'm looking good. You wouldn't think having a line chart trending the proper direction would make a big difference, and maybe it doesn't make a big difference for most people, but it sure does help me. My training, in the meantime, is helping my knee feel better, and work got off my back enough for me to start making mat time again, which is heckin' dope. So, looking back at my goals, I'm kind of vibing with the cleaning goal the most. It feels appropriate to the season, and a bunch of stuff kind of started to happen to convince me that it's just time: found some apartment repair opportunities that I don't want to haggle with my landlord about and I'd rather do myself I'm meditating more lately and it's cleaning out my headspace something nice I got another calcium score for my heart and it looks like there's more calcium in there despite our best efforts. This is an early warning of potential coronary artery disease, and given my family history of heart attacks, it's only a matter of time. After talking it over with my primary care provider, we're looking at starting up EDTA IV treatment, which is something that's normally used for things like lead poisoning and the detoxification of other heavy metals. It's not guaranteed to do anything about my heart, but it's not contraindicated either and there's a chance it could do me some good. I'll be paying out of pocket for it, I think, but that's what my HSA is for and I'm always under budget on that thing anyway, so it's not like I can't afford it. I think. I guess we'll see. So, just a lot going on to make me feel like it's time, and with the onset of spring, I figure, what the hell? The goal is a riff on my standard thing. Normally it's been clear up one piece of trash or properly store one thing. The riff is, I'm going to double that - two pieces of trash or 2 things properly stored, or a combination thereof. Each of these is going to be from the 2 spaces in my apartment: one from my job space, and one from my personal space. I'm also going to spice this up with some rewards, too: I picked up a book on home repair and it includes some tool lists for some of the jobs I want to get done. Every week that I do 80% or better, I will reward myself with a trip to the hardware store to pick up a tool. By the end of these 5 weeks, I should have the tools I need to start on the repairs I want to do. Whether that starts or not at the end of those weeks is gonna depend on where and how I find myself, but that'll be a problem for future Kishi to solve when he's collected enough data and changed his circumstances enough to make an intelligent decision. As I said, I've been at this now for a bit and the stats are as follows: Goal: 2.5/4 That is not 80%! So, I'm going to have to pick up (harrrr) my pace a bit if I want to get what I need to get my work done. The week's been decent so far. I've been missed at the academy, which warmed my heart some to realize, and so this week I've been pushing myself to get my "Strength At Length" work done in the morning. It's worked the past couple days, but it didn't happen today, so tonight is strength/rehab and rest. I've been recommitting to home drilling too to keep myself honest and sharpen up a little bit. Today's been kind of shit show, enough to derail my training but not more or worse than I've complained about before here. And hey, it's a short week on account of Good Friday, so a 3-day weekend will be nice. Only bad part is, they're gonna hold me to a full week's worth of productivity without a full week to do the work. That's never fun. But that's par for the course, and I did manage to solve some significant problems today. So that's good news. This is fine. Yup. Nothing to see here, folks. Just keep on moving. Fire cleanses, after all.

Kind of inspired by @Red1263. And I like the vibe of this one. Even though it is a monastery, and a separated space, it doesn't feel as isolated as the other fantasy pieces do where the monastery is built in the mountains. That is, it doesn't feel as removed from day to day concerns as the other pieces tend to. I like it for that. Feels truer to life somehow. Also, I like the feeling that it mixes East and Southeast Asian aesthetics for a real fantasy vibe. But that's just me tho. Anyway, howdy, y'all! Welcome to another challenge. Peace and be welcome. Last challenge, things went really great. I stopped leaning so much on caffeine and got really sensitive to it as a result, and I ranked up to a blue belt in BJJ, which caught me by surprise, and I advanced in my writing to the point that I'm writing prose on my novel, and... I just feel good. Good enough that I feel like I can make some significant changes in my life this year, things that I want for myself. This was my wishlist as I was able to articulate it to myself: I want to get my freaking apartment cleaned up finally. I want to lose a significant amount of weight, because I have a significant amount to lose. I want to graduate to pain free movement. I want to complete a draft of the novel and get it before some beta readers. I want to go to therapy. I want to start dating again. But you might notice that my topic and my tags, along with my tendency to only do one goal for a challenge, kind of makes it sound like I'm not getting after any of these. I beg to differ. It's been my observation that nothing exists in isolation; rather, everything relates and exists within a context. Training exists in a context with sleep and nutrition, and these exist in relationship with job and income and privilege, and these exist in a social context within which I have to live and move and have my being. It sounds like highfalutin nonsense, but what it basically boils down to is I can't change one thing without changing a whole bunch of other things at the same time. In this case, a movement goal helps me get after the clean up goal, the weight loss goal, and the pain free goal, because my place is messy enough that it interferes with my movement I weigh enough that it impacts my joint health (although it also provides free resistance too, so it's not like it's all bad) moving pain free is dope So, big ol' wind up. What does it all mean? Well, those of you what know me or followed me for a while know I've got a tendency to mix and match stuff from a lot of different trainers/training philosophies, but it's only been in the past month or so that I've really come to internalize the concept of "Junk Volume," or Bruce Lee's maxim of "Absorb what is useful, discard what is useless, and add what is specifically your own." I thought for a long that what I was doing giving myself an opportunity to express my body in a lot of different ways, and maybe that was true, but I wasn't being truthful with myself in terms of why I was doing what I was doing. Truth is, I was mad at myself for developing obesity, and I've been punishing myself for it, working beyond my ability to recover, and really failing to develop the attributes that I actually want for myself. That's not to say I don't want cool shit like front lever rows or heavy kettlebell snatches or long-distance heavy rucking or things like that, but I don't want them at the expense of pain free movement or the ability to do striking and grappling well into old age, and I suspect that that's what I've been doing. So after a lot of thought, I've elected to go with Ben Patrick/Knees Over Toes Guy's programs, specifically with the goal of building toward the BJJ strength program that he put together along with Nsima Inyang. As I mentioned to @The Most Loathed, I've been listening lately to Dr. Mike Israetel, a jiujiteiro/bodybuilder/Dr of Sports Physiology, and I eventually stumbled across one of his videos from some years ago where he talks about blending strength work and grappling, and he specifically recommends that there be as much separation between these as is possible so that they don't interfere with each other. And you might not think that a knee/body rehab program would count as bodybuilding/strength work, but Mr. Toes has personally said that he considers his work to be a mix of bodybuilding and yoga, specifically because he seeks to develop "strength at length." 7 weeks in, I think that claim is worth taking seriously, especially since I do have a feeling that my martial arts and my strength work have been in conflict with one another. So, what is my goal? My goal is to get myself to the point that I'm doing my strength work 4-6 hours before I go out to the mats. This will mean doing my strength work in the AM, and doing mat time at night. Night time mat time isn't going to be an option all the time, however, and my scoring for the challenge is going to account for that. Knees Over Toes (KOT) program presently runs Monday to Friday. Saturday and Sunday are rest days. Night training is only available Monday, Thursday, and Friday. Saturday and Sunday are noon and morning, respectively, but it doesn't matter, because those are rest days. Therefore, Monday, Thursday, and Friday training will each be worth half a point. So KOT is half a point, and mat time is half a point. Tuesday, Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday trainings are each worth a full point, because only one kind training is available to do on those days if I assume that the goal is for these to harmonize with one another rather than interfere with one another. Half points are still possible on days where I follow one program and not the other when I could have feasibly followed both. I will bias toward KOT because of its rehab benefits and its carryover to more of my life than mat time. If you followed me last challenge, you might recall that I could have a potential obstacle in that the building's washing machine busted, but I'm pleased to report that my landlord actually took care of this in a timely fashion and I have laundry facilities restored on the premises. So that's good news. Making this work is going to mean getting to bed earlier and getting up earlier, something that I've allowed to slip. It's also going to mean balancing my work-life balance a bit since I'm cleared for OT with the job right now and I need to work as much as I can/they'll let me before it cuts off at the end of the month again. Not sure how it's going to bear out since our legislators can't budget for shit these days, so I might get more next month and I might not. Just gotta be like water, I guess. But hey, here we are, on time for once. Cool. Looking forward to seeing how this one goes.

I come to every challenge with huge aspirations but then I start to try and flesh it out and it takes on a life of its own. Soon I've written pages of text and spent hours trying to frame the perfect challenge. In an effort to prevent perfect being the enemy of good, I'm going with something pretty basic. Body Weight Last week I averaged 211.9, this week it’s 214.7. By the end of the challenge it will be less. Somewhere around 200 ish. This will be accomplished by dropping my calories to about 2,200 per day while maintaining my workload. Training BJJ - Submissions For the duration of the challenge I’m putting away the arm triangle from mount. I’ll be using the leg triangle from mount, which has been something I’ve wanted to work on for about 6 months but those darn arm triangles are just so enticing. But they’re not allowed. I can still use my side control and back attacks of choice, only arm triangle is banned. Lifting I’m due my first ever deload week in this challenge and I plan to take it. Then I’ll start a new meso following a very similar pattern to my current one. Work I’m going to start taking an hour out of my work week to let myself sleep in a couple mornings of the week. Other projects: Google Forms - I’ve created some forms that I’m using to track some data. This is just something I plan to tinker with for the coming months. I can choose to stop or change them anytime Guitar - same ol’. I struggle to come up with a better approach to this Cooking - I’ve gotten a bit out of the habit. I’d like to cook two new recipes this challenge but they have not been preselected

Happy New Year, everyone! "Kishi! What the hell, man, you disappeared last challenge!" Details. I had a meditation goal and I basically struggled with it until I found my way back to "Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Everyday Radicals," which imposes some external structures that I find useful for consistent meditation. As a result, I've been meditating more and it's been helping me. I feel good about that. So what am I talking about as far as slowing down? Well, in the course of my ongoing research about how to care for myself, I found out about this idea of caffeine cycling. Basic idea is to lay off the caffeine a bit - lots of low-caffeine days with some high days as needed. Highlights include cutting off mid-afternoon caffeine, instituting no-caffeine days, and regularly attempting to reset the sensitivity for it rather than coming to rely on it. Because I'm finding for myself that I don't really care for the degree to which I'm coming to rely on this stuff. I think my sleep is better when I'm not using or when I use less late in the day, and I worry that it's bad for my heart long term. So, my goal is to institute the "Green Tea Protocol" listed in the linked article - 2 days of coffee, 4 days of green tea, and 1 day of rest/decaf. The trackable for this goal is a 3 PM cutoff. Not sure how far the cutoff goes - might eventually go to 2 PM, then 1, but I want to take this challenge to watch myself and see how I'm doing. If my sleep improves to a satisfactory degree, then I see no reason to go any further, but that remains to be seen. The other hope in slowing down, ironically, is that I'll be better about being here and being present for y'all rather than focusing solely on myself and my problems. I find that the caffeine causes me to hyperfocus - very useful for work and training, but very difficult for transitioning over to being here. Here's to a New Year. I have a kind of Epic Challenge in mind for the course of the year which I'll write about once I can articulate to myself what the hell it is I'm trying to accomplish.

Goal: 1/2 The name of the challenge gives away the whole thing, really. Basically, I've hit a point where I like myself more the more I meditate. I'm successfully carving out space for myself to make it happen - only 4 minutes at a time so far, but it helps. I want to stick to that amount for the rest of the challenge. As I've observed, small changes applied consistently without flash or fanfare create some truly substantive results. Also, between it being the end of the year and my own theological leanings, it just feels right. Beyond that, right now I'm just solving a bunch of optimization problems, mostly having to do with joint health and actively working to feel better. The writing's doing well; I've found myself adding organically to my cast of characters as I've needed to without having to bend or break the existing ones to Make The Plot Happen. That's something I wasn't sure I believed in myself enough to do but I'm really happy it's happening. One other thing is that I'm doing more to take care of my place these days - regular vacuuming and cleaning of even some spaces is actually really good for me, and it helps me feel accomplished in a way that doing my job does not. I've also been kind of crafty lately in that I made a cloth mallet out of a cast off chair leg and some scrapped sweat pants. A cloth mallet is a conditioning tool for the Iron Shirt stuff that I asked my brother about and finally getting that made was good. Also, I've finally learned how to step away from the job to go for short walks over the course of the day, including getting my errands done early, so when I get to the end of the day, I don't have all this extra stuff to do to get in my way for getting down early. I'm not saying that the meditation is doing all of that, because I don't think it is, but it's taking place in the context of all this extra stuff I'm doing right now and it's... helpful, I think. But, yeah, that's things for now. Happy to round out the year with y'all.

Took a week for me to figure out the one thing I want to change, and the way in which I want to change it. I've known for a while now that I need to get up earlier. I'm pretty good at starting to for a bit, but it doesn't take: eventually, something goes haywire somewhere and I wind up being up late and needing to sleep late to make up for it, and before long I've regressed to the old mean. Meaning (harrrr) that I need a new mean. Instead of getting up at 9:30 AM, I'm going to spend the next few weeks focusing on just getting up at 9:00 AM. Get myself used to what life looks like there get a feel for making happen what needs to happen when it needs to for me to hit that target consistently. I don't need to be perfect, but landing there 80% of the time should get me somewhere like where I need to be. Exciting news on the job front. I put in for a promotion last week, which I've said before I'd be a shoe-in for. Didn't have the means to put in previously as HR didn't open up any slots, but when they did this past month, I went for it. It's a decent bump in pay and apparently the extra work isn't that much harder. Other good news is that the job opened up overtime again! It's only a little bit, but it'll help the paycheck and the caseload, and that's all I really want. Also, figured out that the head cold is actually just seasonal allergies based on its responses to medication, so I'm cleared to get back to the mats. Though I still need to figure out how to honor both the job and my desires. Because the writing's going well and I'm not willing to negotiate on that. Ah well. It'll be sorted. In the meantime: Goal: 1/1.

The Hibernation Project is in effect The next couple months are about rest and maintenance. I'm going to survive the holidays and the cold winter of the north by turning down the intensity, turning up the recovery and getting ready to get some stuff done in the new year. Anyone who's read me, the format will be pretty much the same: complain, complain, bikini shots, complain..oh wait, that's my instagram. I'll continue logging the same things but trying to keep the focus on physical efforts a bit dialed back and use these months to continue to work on my sleep and recovery. Calendar Week 0 (October 16 - 22) - Strength deload/reset (brining back dumbbells), In-Laws visiting over the weekend Week 1 (October 23 - 29) - normal Week 2 (October 30 - Nov 5) - normal Week 3 (November 6 - 12) - normal Week 4 (November 13 - 19) - Likely parent visit Week 5 (November 20 - 26) - normal As you can see, I have an uneventful calendar coming up, which is lovely be me Standard Week Monday - BJJ Tuesday - Strength + BJJ (hardest day of my week) Wednesday - BJJ Thursday - Strength (easiest day of my week) Friday - BJJ Saturday - Strength (most commonly missed workout of the week due to errands, family visits, etc) Sunday - BJJ (2 hour open mat) Standard Week Day 0530 - 0600 wake up and make coffee 0600 - 0730 begin work 0730 - 0800 breakfast 0800 - 1000 work 1000 - 1300 training & lunch 1300 - 1530 work 1530 - 1600 afternoon meal 1600 - 1700 work 1700 - 1800 guitar 1800 - 1900 dinner prep 1900 - 2000 dinner 2000 -2100 clean up 2100 - 2200 in bed relaxing 2200 - lights out Starting about 5 pm theres more wiggle room than the schedule above implies but I was just trying to set out a basic template. I never get a full hour of guitar practice there but sometimes work runs over, other times dinner prep will take a little longer so I start earlier. The biggest takeaways are that I train midday which is a great feature of my work-life balance and that, as a result, my workday is split in two big chunks. Also, I like to got to bed early but I also get up pretty early. Areas of focus during this challenge BJJ - I've focused pretty hard on this over the summer so I'm back off this focus. I'm still training 5 days a week but I'm being more playful and seeing what emerges. I'm taking chances in rolls to get out of my comfort zone. I'll keep working on escaping pins and I'll take some shots at leg locks Strength- I had an injury over the summer that I'm still shaking off so I'm sticking to dumbbells and machines only. I'm aiming for hypertrophy more than strength gain. I'm in my mid forties and don't have much opportunity to gain muscle left in my life. Diet - After losing 30 lbs over the summer my goal is to hang around 215ish through the new year before I make another big push in January & February. I and people around me are still adjusting to my bodyweight. Sleep - I have had very bad sleep habits in the past. I continue to work on them. I was able to make some improvements in the last challenge so I'm going to keep pushing on this Mobility - It's been a long running challenge for me to get some basic stretched and/or yoga. I fully realize those are not synonymous but for now, I'll take either. If you look at the schedule above, there's no room for it. This remains a challenge for me. Guitar - I've been practicing for years and been pretty meh about it. I'm trying to build a better habit. The biggest thing I am seeking in guitar right now is finding an intrinsic drive to play more. I have played out of discipline and block headedness so far but I want to learn to want to pick up the instrument. Games - This is new this challenge but I've been dabbling in it. I'd like to intentionally spend a little more time gaming, board or video. Enough setup

Howdy, y'all! Hope you're doing well today. In a sign of how well I'm rebalancing my life, I'm here early, just like I used to be in easier times. Because it turns out I have a lot more say in how I get here than I thought. For those of you just tuning in, I'm Kishi. Been around a while, and still a work in progress. I'm coming off a big win challenge where I challenged a lot of my assumptions about training and lifestyle and the choices I have. It's been freeing, in a lot of ways, although these new freedoms come packing a bunch of new responsibilities with them that you might not necessarily expect. For example: I have learned that I can effectively strength train on 10 minutes of work a day. It's true. I'll tell you some more about it sometime. But the responsibility that comes with it now is to actually spend that 10 minutes well, and not put it off and put it off until the end of the day when I really need to be eating dinner and winding down. It's a virtuous thing in the sense of promoting wellbeing, but it's a virtuous thing that can feed into a vicious cycle if I let it, and I don't really want to do that. Figuring that out was a big part of last challenge. It's dialed in pretty well now, though. So now that I have a minimum effective dose for training, I want to turn that to my writing. Although maybe not in the way you might think, because the trick with minimum effective doses is that you don't necessarily know where that is and it's very easy to go below that minimum and maybe not even necessarily know it. I've had a minimum effective dose for my writing for a while of just showing up and staring at the draft, and sometimes that's felt like enough, but on the whole I'm dissatisfied with it. I feel like I want to do more, but more than that, I want to feel good about the amount of work I've done in a given day. And I know that feelings aren't a thing I control, so chasing a writer's high might not be the most responsible thing to do. But OTOH, "If I do what I've always done, I will get what I've always got." I want something different, so I gotta change it up somehow. The goal of this challenge - single goal, because that's how I roll - is to show up daily to write and to work on the story to the degree that I feel good about it. How much is that going to be? I dunno, man. I think it might vary depending on the task and where I am mental health-wise on a given day. I want to give myself grace and space for that. But I also want to have discipline too. I want to work. And I want to feel good about it. That's what this challenge is about. And also, you know, being part of an awesome community that I genuinely like too.

Am I late, or are y'all early? Or did I start this precisely when I meant to? It's totally me, I'm late, you guys, I don't know how it happened I'll let you ponder that. I skipped out last challenge because I didn't know what I was doing and I didn't really know what I meant by saying I wanted to "Maintain." And truthfully, some of that is still at play now. My old workout routine has completely flown the coop. I don't really have a routine anymore so much as a series of touchstones that I try to touch every week. Instead of thinking about particular movements, I think these days in terms of patterns - press, pull, squat, hinge, lunge, invert - and do a little core work on the side as it relates to or enhances my martial arts. (At this point, that means hanging leg raise progressions, loaded carries, and side planks with the goal to develop a Copenhagen Plank for adductor strength). I walk more these days too. A lot more. I managed to get a pedometer app on my phone and it's been mindblowing to see how little I was moving beforehand. It's not perfectly accurate, but it's consistent, and I can work with that. I'll document that some in the logs this week to give you an idea of what this comes out looking like. I feel really good these days as a result. My busted shoulder is nice and quiet. I'm better-rested, and I feel like I'm moving better as a result. I've been going easier in the rolls out on the mats for BJJ these days and I've had to get technical since I'm not using strength so much. I think I'm better, and even when I'm tapped, I find that I don't care about the tap so much as getting tapped safely (ie don't be stubborn, tap early, tap often). I got a couple things coming up this challenge. One of these is a belt promotion this Sunday, 8/6, which I'll go to. I don't have any expectations; the job has consumed me and I'm not making the time that I want to for this, so, I'll go, but I'm not so certain that I'm going to be promoted. It's fine if not. I've been meaning to go to these things for a while anyway, and it'd be good to be a part of the community. The other thing is a GoRuck challenge out in Denver at the end of the month. This will be with my brother, who is apparently arranging the whole thing. I've bought the tickets and the weight, so now I just need to get a couple other pieces of safety gear and I should be good to go. Just need to get some training volume. This particular event is slated to just be a 12 mile hike in 5 hours with a 20 lb weight. I think that's too easy given how it went the last time I did one of these, but I think I'll be better-prepared this time. More prep time would have been better, but I couldn't accomplish that with the equipment I had, so, I'll just have to make the most of what I can do now. I have three goals for this challenge. Surprisingly, only one physical, but that one physical goal will cover, like, everything, so for the most part I'll just be logging that stuff here. The other two goals are to keep working at my writing and to meditate. I'm up to 5 minutes at this point, so I'd like to hit 6 minutes for the remainder of the challenge. And, uh, yeah. That's that. I'll be about. Good to see you all again.

Welcome to a challenge that will undergo a pivot halfway through and yet, will try and remain cohesive. Winning August 5th I have my second Submission Only tournament. I'm traveling down to Des Moines, IA to fight weirdos like myself. I have one goal for this, win. I don't know the people i will be competing against, I don't even know how many matches there are but there are no excuses. I win or I lose on my merits. Losing I'm in a phase of being hyped about dieting for weight loss so I'm going to do that. To that end i have joined the weightloss PvP well. Based on my weight loss I had charted previously, my goal for the end of this challenge is 237. However, this morning I was 237.2. So let's aim for 230 even. It's a bit of a stretch goal. I will be focused on winning and losing, both for the first two weeks than I'll take a week off from caring about winning, but not losing. Then we'll start a long ramp up towards winning that will stretch off into the future. Processes Diet The basic plan is ~100 g fat, a little under, a little over, no big deal. 100-200 g protein. I find this hard to hit but I aim for 150 as best I can. As many carbs as fit into my calories for the day, this is also between 100 and 200, 300 on a crazy day. I'm continuing to try to push more fruits and veg into my diet to get these carbs. I try to not let these be chips, fries, sugary drinks. Training I do jiujitsu 5 times a week and lift followed by cardio 3 times a week. The astute among you will realize that this means I have at least one day a week with more than one workout. Those are Tuesdays usually. I'm still building out my strength program and I expect it to develop over the course of this challenge Recovery I suck at recovery but it's an ongoing process. I sleep a lot more than I used to but I still have room for growth in this area. I need to do more stretching, mobility, and foam rolling but I just never make the time. I expect that to be the focus of my next challenge as this one is already full up. Documentation Documentation is key for me. I use MyFitnessPal to track food and let it estimate my caloric needs based on my training for the day. I track my weight using a scale that store the info in my phone but then I tend to copy it to a google sheet to play with. I record what we learn in class and what I recall of rolls in this log. Calendar Week 0 - 07/24 - 07/30 Monday - BJJ Tuesday - Lift (Leg Testing) , Cardio, Marathon Roll Wednesday - BJJ, Stretch, Guitar Thursday - Lift (Upper Body Pull), Cardio, Wine Party Friday - BJJ Saturday - Lift (Upper Body Push) , Cardio Sunday - BJJ Week 1 - 07/31 - 08/06 Monday - BJJ Tuesday - Lift (Legs), Cardio Wednesday - BJJ Thursday - Cardio, Cut Salt Friday - Cardio?, Cut Water, Drive to Iowa Saturday - Competition, Dinner out with parents Sunday - Drive back home Week 2 - 08/07 - 08/13 Monday - BJJ (Marathon Monday) Tuesday - Lifting Program Actually Starts (Push), Cardio, BJJ Wednesday - BJJ, Guitar Thursday - Lift (Pull), Cardio Friday - BJJ Saturday - Lift (Push), Cardio Sunday - BJJ Week 3 - 08/14 - 08/20 Monday - BJJ Tuesday - Lift (Pull), Cardio, Marathon Roll Wednesday - BJJ Thursday - Lift (Push) Friday - BJJ, Date Night Saturday - Lift (Pull), Cardio Sunday - BJJ Week 4 - 08/21 - 08/27 Monday - BJJ Tuesday - Lift (Push), Cardio, Marathon Roll Wednesday - BJJ, Guitar Thursday - Lift (Pull), Cardio Friday - BJJ Saturday - Lift (Push), Cardio Sunday - BJJ Week 5 - 08/28 - 09/03 Monday - BJJ Tuesday - Lift (Pull), Cardio Wednesday - BJJ Thursday - Lift(Push), Cardio Friday - BJJ Saturday - Lift (Pull), Cardio Sunday - BJJ No plan survives first contact with the enemy.

Hi. I'm going to vague post a bit for now, and I apologize, but having thought about what I want I basically have to conclude that I don't really have the time to explain everything in detail. The very short version is that I've spent the past week thinking about what I want for this challenge and concluding that I've got a lot of interconnected problems that may require some relatively drastic solutions. I'm tempted toward drastic changes now for the first time in a long time, not because my life is particularly bad right now but because I feel a pretty profound sense of disconnect between where I am now and where I want to be in terms of my health and personal development. The good news is, moving on from my situation doesn't really require any sudden dramatic shifts. Slow and steady and consistent change suits my temperament better, and I can get after it. Having got the heavy movement (my strength and conditioning) dialed in for the most part, it's time for me to turn to two other kinds of movement: daily movement, or Mobility, and martial arts, or Play. These will be my goals for this challenge. Goal 1: Mobility I don't like how sedentary I've become. It's bad for my waistline and for my mind, and I need to set a boundary for myself here to get up and move. The standard of 7,500 steps is a little too drastic right now for me to take, not because that much walking is hard but because that much walking is long. There is one way to get that many steps a day though in a relatively short amount of time: the Dreaded Running. Which I'm not convinced is a good short term idea to just jump into, but I think in the long run would actually be very beneficial for me. That's probably more Epic Goal than anything, but the first step (hah!) toward that is carving time out of my day to get away from the job and move. So, goal is to get a half hour every day of walking. That's it. Goal 2: Play You ever have friends who were your enemies? I'm kind of there now. I have a lot of wonderful friends whom I love very much and whose lives I want very much to be a part of, but they're getting in the way of my mat time and so I'm becoming less and less the person I want to be in order to be more and more the person I think they want. There is a solution to this, and it's one I've been holding off on because I don't think I'm worthy of it, but avoiding it isn't making me more worthy of it, so I'm just going to have to do it, and that's this: I need to make a point of doing noontime classes for martial arts whenever I can. The one day I've been doing it consistently, it's been good for me because I get to honor both my obligations to myself and to others. I need to do that more. Along with that, Goal 3: Study Dedicated study of what I learn. Detailed notes on the things I'm taught so that I can keep engaging with what I'm learning and internalize it better. And... yeah. That's that for now.

Howdy, y'all! Getting in early on this one as I'm taking off to the beach in a couple hours and I don't know if I'm going to get the chance to post on time. In keeping with the last challenge, I made a point of redistributing my training tasks to win back some much needed time. I applied that the past week as follows: Monday: Simple and Sinister, Farmer's Walks Tuesday: Straddle Planche progression, Side Lever progression Wednesday: Rope Climb progression, Single Leg Squat progression, Manna progression Thursday: Hollow Back Press progression, Front Lever progression Friday: Simple and Sinister, Farmer's Walks Saturday: Handstand and Neck work Sunday: ??? It all sounds like a lot and very heavy until you realize that at this point it's just planks and push ups and inverted rows and super basic things at this point. But I tried it out and, uh, it worked like gangbusters! Everything's done really fast; nothing takes more than 20-30 minutes and I hit enough of my body to feel good for having done it. I've even been able to retain my qigong practice, although that too has changed some. Shi Yan Lei, whose work I'm following, wants like 5 different stances in addition to the qigong, as part of a combined program of qigong and kung fu. Well, I've already got enough leg work in my kung fu program as it is, and only 2 of the stances he provides show up in the qigong movements, so there's no real reason for me to faff about and waste more effort. And the thing is, the training workload as it was distributed last challenge had some substantial effects on my ability to get after the non-training portions - the meditation and the writing. So I want to attack those problems again, but this time with this new set up, just to see how it goes. For those who didn't follow along last time, it goes like this: Goal 1: Training Like it says on the tin. Qigong is going to happen as it does; I actually want to try to get to 3-4 times a week, which I think will be quite doable. This was another one of those things that suffered under the prior load, but really it's more a matter of being an opportunity than something I'm going to pursue aggressively. Goal 2: Meditation Gonna shift this goal a little bit and set a time of 2 minutes as my minimum. To be clear, even if I miss this goal, I'm still going to take my deep breaths at bed time and get some benefit. So it's not an either/or situation by any stretch. I just want to challenge myself to do more, and having a hard standard that I won't wiggle out of will help. Maybe. Or maybe I'll be lazy again. IDK. Goal 3: Writing I found a more detailed version of the Snowflake Method. I think I'm going to use this one, since it has a more integrated approach to character profiling and stuff like that. The old 6-step program on Reedsy that I referenced before was a good starting point, but it was also looser in a way that I had a hard time connecting with. I still think I can use their character profiler as a way to construct a dossier on my characters for reference, but it's hard to use for the planning stages, at least for me. My figuring at this point is, plan out -> write the damn thing -> fill out dossiers afterward with the information I develop. But we'll see. 1st step is to follow the plan. Those are my goals this time. It works out to being mostly a repeat of the last challenge. There is some stuff I want to do/get into, but I don't really have a realistic way of approaching that just yet, so that'll be something that hums along in the background. No worries. T-minus a couple days. See y'all when I do!

In my last challenge I focused on jiujitsu and keeping records of my classes and rolls. I was also supposed to be working on mobility a bit but never made any time for that. During the challenge I also went to the doctor and was diagnosed with hypertension and put on medicine for that. I also had my usual struggles with having more to do than I can make time for. All of this tees up this challenge. Analog Record Keeping - I've got a ton of notebooks around. You know, you buy a two pack of nice notebooks, use one, put the other away and forget about it. Or buy a notebook for some specific use case then realize it's not a good fit and put it in a closet. I dug one out and experimented last week with a couple different versions and settled on a daily log. Digital Record Keeping I've also been experimenting with using my phone and accessories to document things like blood pressure, HRV, and so on. I'll continue to do that. Finally, long for record keeping, journalling, will belong to NF. I used it last challenge to record my BJJ classes and rolls but also worked to get back in the habit to just use it a place for journalling a bit more and more. I'm going to continue that growth. That's it. In some ways it may not seem like a challenge in the standard list, I'm not trying to lose 5 pounds or save 20 dollars. I'm just trying to sort out where I record stuff. However, if you look into the details of what I'm recording it includes: Sleep Recovery Blood Pressure Activities Guitar Mobility activities Hygiene Dietary no-nos BJJ academics and more I think it's going to be a lot but ideally it will build a foundation to stand on for future challenges.

I'm closing in on 4 years in the forum now, having done my NF Introduction back right before leaving The North. I've finally been able to catch-up on updating my original training log, Third World Warrior: The Eight-Year Training Log (after some technical difficulties deleting like 2 years of logs) and I'll be using the Daily Battle Logs to both track my training and consolidate my challenges. I have been all over the place most of my life, hence many challenges with Rangers, but my issue is that I feed my training ADD and just ride the tides, making hay when the sun's out. Because of this I've gained proficiency in many things, but I'm having trouble tracking if I'm actually getting better in any of them. Hence, a long-term log. I've always been a fan of public training logs (for myself). I was never worried about how my competition was training, I was always focused on what I was doing. However because of this I tend to buy my own BS. A long term training log tracks progress, and allows others to call me out whenever I'm becoming too full of myself. (Perhaps having an Epic Quest might be of use as well, to keep the goal the goal.) I've always been very stubborn and secretive, even to my coaches. This can also cover training while I use 4-week challenges to work on life.

Hi! So this past Tuesday, I had something of an epiphany. I went home to help my dad out with some chores about the place. Nothing strenuous in particular, but it reminded me of an old guideline from Simple and Sinister about testing yourself against unusual and unorthodox demands every now and again. This has always worked out for me to being a matter of serving others somehow, because everyone needs help with moving their couch. I found that I missed the program a great deal. I've also been working on losing some body fat per the latest iteration of Berkhan's Leangains protocol, which is basically all protein all the time. He's suspicious of "fuckarounditis," or trying to train everything and ultimately training nothing. My latest measurements indicate that I'm actually gaining fat on this protocol right now, and that's a matter of compliance more than it's anything else. The past month has been remarkably social, and I've not had all that much opportunity to be compliant. I can't do anything about the social component beyond damage control, but I can do something about my training, and I think it's worth it. New plan is to hit S&S on as near to the daily as I can. GB training is going to be broken up some as a result - no more core movements and one upper-body movement per day, plus one leg movement and 1-2 days of handstand work. Reason being that GB's protocols call for integrated mobility, and in their core series they all ultimately work out to having a lumbar flexion component that Pavel warns against. S&S in its current iteration fortunately can make space for this - once I get back to lifting the 32, the recommended days drop off from daily to 3-4 days per week, and I can return to core training then. In the meantime, the work I'm doing will build me toward a Hollow Back Press, and a Straddle Planche, which are non-flexion core strengtheners which would be good to have a base in by the time I get to the point that it matters. Fortunately, everything should work just fine, I think. The past few days have felt pretty good in terms of me getting what I want. Now the trick is to work in qigong and stretching, which I think I can do as long as I'm focused properly on it. So here are the challenge goals: Goal 1: Train Bit of a gimme, but consistent logging is good for me when I make changes like this, so I can confront myself and be honest about what's happening and whether I like it or not. Goal 2: Meditate This fell off in the past week. Dedicate 10 minutes a day to relaxing my mind. This feels like something I can get after now, but I'm reserving the right to adjust if needed. Goal 3: Write This fell off in the past week too. No excuses, and the good news is that when I've done work, it's been good, deep, structural work. I've been figuring out what kind of cast of characters I need and who they are in relation to the structure of the story, which is good to do. Now I need to keep going. I don't really know how to quantify it at this point beyond "just sit down and do the thing," but I think I can do it. And, yeah. I've been writing down what I do on the mats afterward and that alone has been helpful, but I've had a hard time with actually doing the homework of reviewing videos and taking notes. This could be better. Just a matter of making time, really. Can do. Will do? That remains to be seen. But, uh, yeah. T-minus a couple days. Let's go.

Challenge 2 already of my return. I'm not ready. So, I'm going to keep most of what last challenge was because it's what I need right now. So, I'm going to be boring and do the same things again, because they aren't done. Plus, the things I'm actually working on are, in fact, boring. My BJJ is boring. That's on purpose and it's how I like it. If you roll with me, unless you're on a totally different level than me, it will start with me getting a take down. Then I'll likely leg weave pass or tripod pass with an underhook (pray it is the former). Then I'll look to take mount. From mount I'll put your arm over your head wrap my arms around your neck and arm and you'll tap. I may get derailed from the path from time to time but I'll come right back to it every time. Which brings me to my first focus. Submission I'm continuing to push my submission game in BJJ. I'm decent (for my experience) at controlling the roll but I don't take enough submissions of off people so I'm committing to honing this craft. I attack submissions now and I'm refining my skills. I will be know as a life taker and heart breaker. I've been a remote work since 2019 and I love it but I felt the need to prove that I was spending the amount of time I needed to on work and I felt the need to differentiate my work and home life. To not allow the thing to happen where I'm just never not working. So I got into tracking my time. I also got out of the habit of any kind of journaling. So I'm going to try and keep the former and bring back the latter. Documentation Personal - try and get in here and just jot down a few selfish, journally thoughts. Professional - keep up my time track but try to investigate the Work Admin slush fund I have set up. Figure out what I'm doing in that time. BJJ - Last challenge I got in the habit of recording my submissions for a class and writing down the lesson and found it really valuable. I'm going to keep that up. Mobility I had mixed success last challenge with working on my mobility so back at it. Initially, let's say 15 minutes x 4 times/week is the goal.

Welcome to my first NF challenge in years. So much has changed. So much hasn't changed. To learn more, check out the battle log that will link challenges together over time. If you want to learn more history, go backwards into my battlelog. There are myriad challenges I would like to set myself but I'm forcing a max 2 3 to stay focused: Challenge The First Submission I recently took double gold in a BJJ tournament. My professor has not let me forget, though, that they were all on points. So, my goal is the pretend kill people. Yeah, that's right, that's what we play at. For BJJ Nerds, I'm studying the New Wave 4x4 system. It's already been improving my submission frequency. My goal, in rolls, is to pull 1 break or kill per 2 minutes off whites belts, 1/5 mins off of blues (my level), get some on purples, minimize how many I give up to Brown and Black. Challenge 2 Documentation This crosses many levels and is left to a lot of interpretation so here is my attempt to give it rigor: Personal: I've always overshare on NF so here I am. Want to hear something you shouldn't? ,,, I kind of miss just journalling on here so I'm returning to that. I'm a bit of a prude when it comes to logging my personal life so don't get too excited. Professional: For a long time I have attempted to treat myself as a consultant, tracking my hours and work. Lately I've gotten a little lazy about it so going to brink it back. I work for a single company and my leaders have never cared but I personally prefer it. BJJ: Arguably the hard bit. Certainly the least established bit. I want to keep some kind of an eye on what I'm doing well and poorly at. I will have to figure this out on the fly to some degree. The inital plan is to document drilling (not class time), submissions given and taken. However, I know that when I go to open mat it's hard for me to remember all the rolls. Challenge C Mobility I've always had bad mobility. I still have bad mobility. The only solution is the work that it takes. If I get 5 days a week, I'm gonna be doing great. Not a challenge Food: I'll talk about food. It's a thing that I do I won't be tracking calories or macros. Should I? Maybe but Sleep: My sleep has been bad forever. It still is. I'll talk about it but it's not a goal. Guitar: I've been practicing for several years and have never been happy with it. In the future I'd like to make some goals around it. A Day in the Life We all have very different lives and I think it helps to contextualize what one expects in their own day. You don't need to read this but it is here: Most weekdays 0530 - wake up 0530-0600 - make coffee 0600-0700 - practice guitar 0700-0730 - get dressed and make any breakfast I plan on eatine 0730-1000 - work 1000-1300 - workout / shower / lunch 1300-1800 - work 1800-1900 - dinner prep 1900-2000 - dinner and clean up 2000-2100 - relax 2100-2200 - reading and lounging in bed 2200-0530 - sleep A Week in the Life Monday - normal work day, BJJ 11-12:30 Tuesday - short day, rec time 11-12 ( cardio and kettlebells), 6:30 - 8 Marathon Roll Wednesday - sometimes normal, sometimes very short. 11-12 BJJ, 4:30 - 5:15 Guitar every couple of weeks Thursday - "quiet day" rec time 11-12, nothing else planned Friday - BJJ (no gi day) 11-12 Saturday - chores day Sunday - Open Mat at Akagi (not my home gym) 10 - 1 but I'm usually there 10:20 - 12:30 The Plan Post 5+ days a week Do my usual training but write it down Keep working through 4x4 (strangle people) Actually do mobility and keep myself accountable on it Do my guitar but try to be a bit more focused Really work on getting back to documentation my time in and out of work Feedback welcome.

Wait, wait, hold up, you're telling me that this challenge is going to pop off on January 1st? Just lines up like it's meant to be? Well. I guess I know what I'm doing! Howdy, everyone! Kishi here, your friendly neighborhood itinerant monk. Took a few weeks off the forums just to chill and focus on end of the year shenanigans, but that was then and this is now! Even though now is technically then, but it will be then by the time the challenge officially starts. As a rebellious rebel, I'm not a big believer in the old Rule of 3 + 1. I instead believe that you can change one thing, and that one thing interact with and change all the other things. It's all connected, man. Of course, that being said, no real reason to have just one challenge when two will do. In my case, the big thing that I really want to hone in on is getting to bed earlier and getting up earlier. Reason being that I want to get my job done earlier in the day so that I can make more mat time. I'm about 80% of the way there, really, but the striking sparring only happens on Fridays and it's an earlier class than the others. So technically, I only really have to be early to bed and early to rise for one day of the week, but that one day will be easier if I'm keeping those hours other days of the week. Also, I suspect it will be better for me. So, you know. There's that. The other goal is a writing goal. Just want to do a page a day. 50,000 words in a month is nice and all, but 90,000 words in a year that you actually like? That's better. I think. Maybe. Never got there. Sure would like to, though. So, those are my two challenges for myself this time around. And... yeah.

Hi! I'm writing a novel this month. For those of you just tuning in, this is not new. I've done this most years around this time, but I think this is the... 2nd ever time that I walked in with a really concrete idea of what I wanted to do and where I wanted it to go. (the first time was a sci-fi riff on Ragnarok meets A Yankee in King Arthur's Court. I would definitely not write it the same way this time, but I should probably go back to it someday since it's the story that taught me the most). As you might imagine, though, that's my only official goal. As if the other stuff is going to be put on hold; it won't be. But keeping all the plates spinning with this new wrinkle going on is going to be challenge enough, I think. Goal is 50,000 words. I will provide my word count here as my goal for the challenge. I do note that the challenge cuts off on 11/26. I might carry past it. I might not. I don't know if I'm going to finish the draft before I get to 50K, so if I do, I'll consider the challenge a success. Had tournament this past weekend! Best showing yet - got to medal contention and went the distance on that match, even winning points, which is the first time that's ever happened. I still didn't win. It was fine. I showed growth, and when I went to class yesterday I was recognized along with a bunch of other people for having gone out and done stuff. Yesterday was also our last day in the old building. They're going to the new building tonight; they're still capping class sizes, and I thought I'd have an errand tonight that it turns out I don't, so I reserved a spot on the waitlist. Might not make tonight. That's okay if it happens. Also, last night was Halloween! Went to hang with my friend for Sci Fi night; the Halloween tradition when that happens is for us to sit outside with Adult Beverages and pass out candy along with treats for the adults. This year, the entire cul de sac got in on it and it wound up being more of a block party than anything, especially since there weren't that many kids on account of inclement weather. Today is the first day. I will update with my word count later.

Howdy! Kishi here. It's the start of a new challenge, and I really only have one goal: show up here. I'm sure I could really put together a bunch of stuff for a challenge thread, but truthfully, everything's kind of set as well as I can expect it to be for now. A lot of life at this point is really just about showing up and doing the work. But that part's easy. The hard part's showing up here. And while I'd be the first to say that challenges are "done" rather than "talked about," at the end of the day, I'm still part of a community. I don't feel like I've engaged enough for my own sake, and I'd like to change that. Now, it might sound too easy and too self-serving to set up a "show up and blog" challenge for myself, but the thing is, y'all are awesome, and being here reminds me of that. It pushes me to show up for others, and I'd hate to put a number on something like that and turn it into an obligation. So, with that being said: GOAL: 1/4 I had a bjj tournament this past Saturday. Not my first. Best showing, though: 1 round, 1:33. Yeah, it's not great. But the odds say that most of us what show up to do this have to lose, so it's not like I was unusual or something. Also, my dad showed up to watch, and while I hated losing in front of him, I actually felt overall positive on account of being able to explain what I did and how I lost. Sunday I went to open mat with video of my failure. They were cool about it and they've since decided to make me their pet project by fixing my two deficit areas - takedowns and pressure response. Which means I'm going to get chucked around like a ragdoll and have the life crushed out of me for the next x amount of weeks until I have demonstrated sufficient improvement. But honestly? It's damn decent of my friends to want to help me get better at something I care a lot about, and I really appreciate them for it. So, I'm going to keep working on these places and we'll see what happens. FWIW, I've reaped benefits almost immediately. Beyond that, the past few days have been relatively inconvenient, but not eventful per se. Landlord's putting new siding on the apartment and the contractors knocked out our Internet. So that took a couple of days to deal with. Had to go to the office on my out days (booooooo) but my boss decided to let me count Monday and Tuesday as my two days in and to work the rest of the week from home (YUSSS). Meditation and breathing have been good. Haven't been about my writing so much as I'd like, which is a shame because I'm at a really exciting part in the plan. I have a crazy notion that I could finish my plan in time to NaNo this thing in a couple months, which would be fun. You know, have an actual project to do instead of farting around and proving to myself again that I'm a writer. And, uh, yeah. I'll get around to y'all as I can. Because

Well, howdy there, folks! I'm Kishi, an inconveniently itinerant monk. Good to see you again or for the first time, as it applies. I was scrolling through Facebook one night and I came across a piece about Felipe Costa, who's a BJJ black belt of some renown. I read something that struck me: apparently, he was a competitor who never won a "major" tournament up until he hit his black belt. I was struck by that - black belt takes a long time to get in this art, and to go that long and fight that hard without getting anywhere... well, maybe that sounds crazy, but I found some inspiration in that. Like a release from pressure. So when the word came down that there was a tournament up in September, I took 20 seconds of courage and applied for it. (and then thought about how, just because he didn't win a "major" tournament didn't mean he didn't win a "minor" tournament, or didn't medal or otherwise outperform a lot of people that I might not necessarily do, but we're past that point now). Now, you might think that I was getting ready to do a lot of crazy shit for training to get ready for this thing. I will be doing no such thing. For one thing, the new demands on the body would detract from training for the tournament. And for another, the last time I went out for tournament, I didn't even make it past the first fights in my divisions. I have no reason to believe that any particularly exotic training will get me where I need to go. Instead, I want to focus on my mind. Because I know that's where I tend to fail the most. The tournament's going to present a twofold problem - one, the weight of public performance, and two, my lack of intelligent aggression. The second of these is actually going to be easier to deal with than the first. Knowing that it's something to work on, I've gone out and rolled and started fighting better, at least with folk around my weight class who are similarly skilled. That can fly out the window at any time for a bunch of reasons, but the general trend is better and I believe it will only improve with practice. That means dealing more with the first. Which is more of a mindset confidence thing than anything else. I've picked up some resources about that which I'll be studying over the course of the next five weeks leading up, but it doesn't track neatly onto the challenge, and I'd rather it have room/time to work and be effective. But there is a challengeable way to approach this too: Goal 1: Meditation Keep that up. My blood pressure's gone way down thanks to this and I want to keep that going. Anything goes; regular practice is 10 minutes, but if I can only manage a few deep breaths before sleep, that's okay too. Ideally, I'd carve out another minute, just because I want to. Goal 2: WHM Breathing helps. Keep doing that. Goal 3: Writing Writing also helps. I'm not going to journal or anything so much as just keep showing up to write. Participation in any part of that process sets my mind at ease, and I want that. Beyond that, my training isn't going to change much. I've added a third day of skipping rope, but that's only for a minute. Not a lot of conditioning yet; this is going to be about building my connective tissues instead. I've also added suitcase and farmer's carries specifically to help with my lower back. This is a method that is apparently endorsed by Dr. John Rusin, who I'm inclined to trust given @Shotokan's past endorsement. I've also adjusted my stretching regimen to be a bit more challenging, which is helping me feel better. I'll also be going for the bamboo brush after all, but even then, I'm not going to be doing that much in terms of qigong this time. I'll be working on the first movement of that routine, but that shouldn't really constitute a strenuous load on top of the other stuff. I guess if I wanted to, I could make a fourth goal of sticking to my training and not changing anything, because that would be the hard part, but this mix honestly feels dialed in enough that I'm not going to have a compliance issue. Anyway. T-minus a few days until the challenge. Let's go to work.

LOL Right now progress is slow, but I am making progress and its good progress. I turn 50 in one year. I sure don't feel that old and I have a plan to make sure I don't feel that old for a very long time! Keep doing what I have been doing: make the next best choice that I can right now eat what is good for my body and try to not overeat exercise when I can don't overwork myself but stand up for the folks who work for me Love my family, friends and myself all the time Slow, smooth and simple! https://www.mindbydesign.io/slow-is-smooth-and-smooth-is-fast/

Well, howdy there, folks! Good to see you again, or for the first time. I'm Kishi, a monk prone to itineracy and general quietude. I hope you are well. I had a challenge last time and I disappeared. Unfortunately, I can't say it's because I was really doing my challenge, but fortunately I can say it wasn't for any dramatic reasons. Life just got busy, and instead of developing my meditation like I told myself to, I found myself falling back on a lot of other challenge habits like my cleaning and my writing. I'm pleased to say those are all doing better, and my own drilling/shadowboxing/chess and such are doing better too as I've been prioritizing mat time and responding to the input I get from people. Also, the reward I chose for myself came to make less sense, and I just didn't feel driven to press the reset button. I guess to continue the game metaphor, I got lost in the side quests, and by the time I cared about my main, the game was over. But you may notice I have a meditation tag again, along with some others, and I reckon that deserves some explanation. My reasons for meditation, beyond the mental health benefits, are also physiological: I have heart issues to worry about at the ripe old age of 36, and meditation is a useful practice for heart health. Fortunately, there's good science to say I need less of it than I've been trying for to get the benefits I want. Which is good news. More is not always better; sometimes it's just more, and in order for more to be better, sometimes it has to be less. Because less is more. Huh. Right. Cool. There's some other stuff going on too. I've finally returned to striking sparring, and it's proving to be a real shock to the system. The caliber of striking here is relatively high compared to what I've seen in a while, and it's Thai-Dutch style boxing, which means high volume striking at close range with the head as a viable target. It's a lot to work with, and this in a hot academy in the opening of an NC summer. It's not going to get colder. So I need to work on my conditioning; going back to the GST folk, the two recommendations they have are running and skipping rope. Running would take a lot of time and wouldn't come with the coordination benefits or the raw lightness of foot that comes from constant bouncing, so skipping rope it is. Another thing I need to work on is my recovery. I've been using glucosamine to help out with joint pain, and while I did find an effective brand, it's also pricey, and I'm getting real sick of having as little money on hand as I do at the end of the month. (especially since my job is just being icky with pay right now). So I'm looking into recovery methods and found the work of a Shaolin monk named Shi Yan Lei, which I'm finding fascinating on account of his pedagogical preferences. He has a book on qigong for longevity, which I'm willing to gamble would help with recovery, so I'mma do it. My goal with this is to deal with and prevent joint pain over time without having to go the supplement route. Between this and the mobility training in GST, I'm hopeful. The goals are as follows: Goal 1: Training The qigong routine calls for 3-4 times per week, but before I even get into that, I need to learn to breathe. Shi Yan Lei calls for a kind of "reverse breathing" in his method, which is a kind of chest breathing for energy. I need to practice that first before I even get into adding extra movement. Also, the skipping rope is going to be done 1-2 times per week to start with, per the recommendations of the Jump Rope Dudes and Crossrope. These will be very small practices: 5 breaths, and skipping for 1 minute, because what I need is consistency right now and something to build on. These are being lumped onto/into my general training as it stands, so this is really about making the logs simple. Goal 2: Meditation Meditate 10 minutes a day after whatever nightly stretching I'm doing. I've fallen into the evening routine of coming home from mat time, showering off, and stretching while warm. This is a really freaking nice way to end the day. Meditation afterward would suit, I think. Goal 3: Breathe So, out of left field: the Wim Hof Method, which is fantastic for grappling because it teaches you not to be afraid of time without air. I just grapple better when I'm doing this. I like grappling better. I like the lack of fear, and I'm already taking cold showers these days just as it is. Might as well complete the process. As to my reward? Well, if I get the breathing right, I'll be taking the next challenge to begin work on movement. But Shi Yan Lei isn't just talking about movement. He's also talking about massage, with a possible avenue toward Iron Shirt training. This would be incredibly useful and has been something I've tried to cultivate on my own without any success. The Shaolin method for this training involves the use of very specific brushes to massage the body. The first step would be a bamboo brush. This is used in conjunction with the qigong program anyway, so once I've demonstrated my seriousness to myself, I'll reward myself with the brush. These goals excite me. Can't wait to get started... so. Might as well.

Well, okay, see, look. After the last challenge, things were good. Things were really good. So I just shifted gears and got onto the next thing that I wanted to work on like it was nothing. And it was so smooth that I pretty much just blended into it without ever really coming back here. I kept telling myself I would, but part of blending into things has been staying busy, so I kept breaking my word to myself that I would come back, and then a whole week was gone. It's been eventful! Among other things: I finally read all of Berserk. For those who don't know, Berserk is the quintessential dark fantasy and has been a major influence on a lot of games and media, most recently Elden Ring. It is a deeply dark and disturbing story, and it's not for everybody, but it's not cheap or schlocky in being so and I find it to be a genuinely profound and moving story. Had my job performance review for the last quarter and I've basically made huge improvements all over the place. In fact, I did so well that I've been removed from remedial supervision and, if I keep this up, I'll be on track for a promotion in the next year. My boss is super-proud of me; I think she wanted me to be surprised and pleased, but I'd kept such close track of my stats that when she said she was proud of me, I thought, "Damn right you are." Still not good enough for me to return to work from home, though. Like I said, I'm out from remedial supervision, but my improvement in my stats happened after the quarter numbers were in. So me being released from supervision was actually my boss going out on a limb for me (although I know she doesn't care for the paperwork, so it's not like she didn't want me out from under her thumb either); I won't be under consideration for working from home until the end of this quarter, and that assumes I stay on top of things. The future is not set in stone. Managed to finish building a magic system and now know it well enough to know what is and isn't a good idea at a given time. Sweet. Now I have to do it again for another system, because. So. At this point, with all cylinders firing, the goal is to make sure they keep doing so. That's going to mean self care, which means meditation and sleep. Meditation is the one I have the more direct control over ATM, so that's what I'll be focusing. I'm up to 14 minutes at a stretch, and I'm finding so far that weekdays are easy. Weekends are hard. No particular reason for it. I've been tracking the number all along as if I was in challenge mode, so I'll just jump in if that's cool with you. Goal: 6/9 As to a reward, I actually think I'm looking at some tube-style exercises bands for grappling work. Need to look into that more, but that's what I find compelling at this point, so. Sorry for being late! I'll be around to y'all just as quick as I can. Hope you've been well.