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I was going to do a Doctor Who-themed challenge, but I can meet you halfway on the Firefly theme, and go with the original Western-inspired criminal-rebel-misfits-in-space show, the grandfather of them all: Blake's 7. Gosh, that makes it look so... serious. I suppose I'll be disabusing you of that idea over the course of this challenge. This show's got a smuggler, and a computer hacker who broke a bank, and a petty thief, and a murderer, and two political criminals trying to topple a corrupt government: the lead, Blake, and Cally, an alien from Auron, who's an actual proper trained rebel. (Those who can count have noticed that's not seven. Yeah, slightly sore point there. They never got around to it and tried to claim the disembodied talking computer Zen was the seventh.) They're on the run, pursued by a madman with a grudge and the most dangerous woman from any TV show ever, planning rebellion and trying not to kill each other or snark each other to death, and, despite the show occasionally forgetting it has female characters, Cally is one of the best of whole lot: the committed alien terrorist and vicious killer who's also the kindest and most genuinely moral one of the entire bunch. (Admittedly, it's a low bar on that ship.) So it's time for some actual proper rebel training. My longer-term goal is weight loss and building up strength, flexibility, and good conditioning for martial arts, maybe take up some climbing or parkour on the side for kicks. This is Cally trying to interrogate and kill three of her future friends, as one does. The great thing about the DVD releases is that, now, after she pushes Blake down that hill and onto the ground, you can see her bootprint clearly on his chest. She genuinely got a good kick in there; that always makes my day. Also, I think there's some ukemi in there, or at least we'll say there is, cuz she takes a fall and ends up on the ground. It counts. So: Goal: Aikido training I'm dojo-less at the moment, but I want to get a training plan for what I can train, so that when I go back, I'm in better shape than when I left. The basic warmups from training sessions each morning, some ukemi training, some sword kata. Those seem like the immediate things to work into my training routine. That's Cally scaling a castle with Blake to free a deposed and imprisoned president because politics. The politics, and the president, were actually very interesting. But the important bit here is scaling a castle. Hauling your body weight up two storeys takes some strength. Goal: Strength Training I've been doing a strength workout that is more of a placeholder than a real plan. I'm going to start El Diablo's Start Bodyweight Training plan to scale up a bit. I like bodyweight training, and that's got some well-laid-out exercise progressions, which can be one of my frustrations as I hit uneven patches in my fitness. I've got a bit of weight to lose, so I'm going to be following his suggestion for weight loss, with some cardio and HIIT in between - I'm basically doing that now, but the goal is to get it all working with a scaled-up strength training plan. This is Cally meditating while... god, best not to ask. It was the '70s. I think the men are doing Space Yoga, which is like regular yoga, but infinitely dorkier. (And those who've seen the show will get the pun in that banner. That's the computer, Zen.) Goal: Meditation This doesn't seem like a fitness goal, but in a way it is, because in a sense it's very like aikido training for the brain, with the repetitiveness and the focus. My ADHD significantly gets in the way of my forming new habits, so that's the thing I need to work on for my fitness habits to stick. I feel like a terrible martial arts cliché here, but screw it: that's the training I need, so that's the training I'll do. My plan is to step up over the six weeks, so a passing score will get more demanding over the challenge and the habits can work into place gradually, rather than make for an overwhelming week 1 and 2. Aikido stretching/warmups: The goal is every day. In week 1, three days a week is a pass. In week 6, six days a week is a pass. (6 points total, 1 per week of pass) Aikido ukemi practice and sword kata: For this challenge, I'm going to aim for adding one session a week. I might want to increase to two or three, but let's start with one and see how it goes. (6 points total, 1 per week of pass) Meditation: The goal is every day. In week 1, four days a week is a pass. In week 6, six days a week is a pass. (6 points total, 1 per week of pass) Bodyweight strength/cardio training sessions: The sample plan is the basic strength training routine 3x/week, and 35 minutes of cardio (two steady state and one with Tabata intervals) 3x/week. Week 1, I'm going to consider a pass as three cardio days, and using the other days to find my baseline in the progressions and learn the exercises I don't know well. Week 2, a pass will be getting the scheduling right, but I won't consider it a fail if I run out of time and can't get the full session in. Weeks 3 and onward, getting 5/6ths of it done is a pass. (6 points total, 1 per week of pass) 0%0% (0/24)