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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.

I skipped last challenge as I was too busy to make goals & track stuff and just had to get on with life and doing stuff! Fortunately things have calmed down since then. Main Quest: Grow a Healthy Snowdrop Baby I am finally pregnant with what will hopefully be my first baby. Goal: Eat enough protein Goal: Take medicines/vitamins every day This one is proving hard as I can't swallow whole tablets and the multi-vitamin tablet (that I have bought 3 packs of) makes me immediately start retching if I so much as taste the inside of one of the tablets. In fact, just thinking about it is making me feel sick! Goal: Do deep breathing every couple of hours Side Quest: Regular posture checking Since being extremely ill a few weeks ago, my posture has gone to pot. I need to go back to noticing & adjusting my standing posture at least 10 times a day (preferably more - whenever I remember). Side Quest 2: Find something else to occupy my brain I don't have much going on at work, so my mind is obsessing over the exciting news. From previous experience, it isn't emotionally healthy to think about it all day, every day, so I want to find a decent distraction. I'm not sure what this will be at the moment, as I feel extremely lethargic, often very fatigued and somewhat nauseous, but I need there to be something! I figure I can have a second side quest as the diet-related one is in my life quest I haven't thought about grading yet, but I'm not feeling all that great so maybe that's something for later!

Hello and welcome to my journey, Relieve Some Tension. The purpose of this journey is to cure my lifelong struggle with myself being tense and nervous all the time to the point where I walk very stiff and my core muscles aren't present. My mind is always busy and I'm here to learn how to calm it down. So here's the breakdown as to what I hope to accomplish for the next 6 weeks of the new challege starting June 9th. Main Quest: To become uniform with my mind and body in order to have control of how I react, adapt, breathe and take action. Here are the steps I'm taking to accomplish this: 1. Do the DDPYOGA workouts 3 times a week which I'm on my 4th week right now. 2. Allocate time in the day to meditate and focus only on my breathing for 5 mintues a day to help calm and relax my mind. 3. To build strength to be able to lift my own bodyweight and do amazing things with it. Side Quests: I have a couple that I would like to accomplish: 1. Build Muscle and Burn Fat: Losing weight is for the birds. The DDP YOGA program not only focuses on flexibility but also bodyweight and dynamic resistance exercises that helps in this area of fat burning and muscle building. The second and most important step is to follow the Primal Blueprint diet from Mark's Daily Apple to help me achieve the goal of melting off the excess fat and the great joy of eating real food and not that processed garbage. 2. Become 5K Ready in Running: Running is one of my favorite past times and I would like to get back into my routine of running 2-3 times a week for 30 minutes/workout to be prepared to run a 5K should one become available within the next 6 weeks. I plan on re-reading the article about running on here and adopting some new training tips on how to get more out of my running. Oh and it would help for me to get those insoles from Fleet Feet since I'm flat-footed. LOL Life Quests: 1. Keep on hammering down my debt until I become debt-free 2. Since I've mastered HTML and CSS programming, my next goal is to make my own website using these technologies. 3. Start learning JavaScript and JQuery to increase my skillset in the world of web development. Thank you for reading my journey and I plan on looking at this at least once a week to keep myself on task.