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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.

In judo, we have a laugh during unilateral work where we say "warriors don't wobble." Which is really appropriate here since I'm probably more of a warrior branching back into monk stuff for something that'll become official later in the year. A couple of years ago grappling took a step back so I could get to grips with equipped lifting, but It's something I have a lot of fun doing and I'm getting my conditioning back up and looking to compete properly again. Drills Recent training has highlighted that while I have good instincts and a good base from TKD and Judo I really need to understand and being able to drill some basic movements other than shrimp and arm bar (it got a a 1st dan in Judo but it's gonna take more in BJJ.) Goals: By the end of week one, have a program for movement drills to be done in the morning and do these drills for the six week challenge. Gym I needed a new gym, I just didn't get on board with the philosophy at my last gym. I got some good advice at the weekend about gym loyalty and the fact that I was gaining so much from my adventures in visiting lots of new gyms and learning from different perspectives. Lets face it, cross training is why I took up BJJ in the first place. Goals: Find a new gym/ gyms and train there consistently during the challenge. At least one fundamentals per week and one rolling. Sleep I will need at least eight hours a day if I'm working morning sessions back in. Goals: 8 hours a day and up at 7am for morning drills. More Fruit Bulking out my macros with micro rich food seems to work well for my body composition. And without coming across as big headed I'm starting to tread into a territory where that extra 5% in performance is going to matter. My micros and macros need to fit now. Goals: aim for at least 5 a day with two being fruit portions. Some pretty pictures to make it interesting.

Anyone know any good swimming drills, or maybe some websites where I could find some? I've recently got back into swimming (I swum competetively for a while, but that was years ago) and although I'm loving being back in the water, I feel like I should be doing more than just laps while I'm in there. I remember doing lots of drills back when I trained properly, but honestly can't remember what we exactly did... can anyone help? I've got my own kickboard and will be buying a pull buoy soon.