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Welcome, aspiring heroes of the Rebellion! If this is your 1st NF Challenge, then you've come to the right place! I'm the Professor Oak who gives you your first Pokemon. I'm the Old Man of Hyrule who gives you your first sword. I'm the Hagrid that guides you through Diagon Alley. I'm Luke Skywalker, and I'm here to rescue you! Wait, Luke was the hero. Maybe I'm Obi-Wan? Whatever. I'm the helpful dude you meet near the beginning of your journey. You get the point. My NF nickname is Hazard. I'm the Guild Leader for the "Level 1s." That's you. And this ... is your Call to Adventure! This Level 1 subforum is your Starter Zone. As in pretty much every role-playing game ever made, no matter how much or how little playing experience we have, we all begin a new game in the same place. The starter zone. This is the tutorial level. Don't worry too much about making grand fitness progress in the next few weeks. In the beginning we do make progress, but in the starting zone we're mostly learning/practicing how to play the game. Please take the time to read the 8 steps in these Challenge Instructions. There are helpful resources in there for exploring goal ideas. Here's my streamlined alternative version: Pick a "Big Picture" goal. This is your current Main Quest. Why are you here? What's something you'd like to accomplish? Pick 2 - 3 S.M.A.R.T. goals (smaller quests) that support your Main Quest. These supporting quests are what you’ll be doing during the weeks of this NF Challenge period. The 2-3 supporting quests should be things that, as you work on them, help move you forward toward achieving your current Main Quest. Create & Post your Challenge thread in this Level 1 / First Time Challengers subforum. In your challenge thread: Introduce yourself. Tell us a little about who you are, how you found Nerd Fitness, what ultimately led to you joining in, and tell us some of your hobbies, favorite tv shows, movies, games, etc; doing so is a great way to connect with people who share similar interests. Tell us what your current Main Quest is. And tell us what your 2-3 supporting quests are. Over the weeks of this NF Challenge period, post updates on your Challenge thread letting us know how you're progressing on those goals. The more clear and well-defined your Main Quest and 2-3 smaller challenge quests are, the more likely you'll be to succeed with them. Quick Note about Tapatalk If you're posting to these forums using Tapatalk, please log in to your Tapatalk account settings and turn the Tapatalk signature off. It's advertisement spam, and advertisement spam is not allowed on the NF forums. Thank you. About the Guild System The Guild System was created many moons ago on NF. Guilds are intended to bring together people who have similiar-ish Challenge Goals. After you've completed your Level 1 challenge, it's our intention that you leave this starter zone and make your way into the wider NF world, by picking one of the guilds to do your next challenge in. No matter what guild you choose for your next challenge, don't worry about your choice too much. You aren't locked into a single guild. In fact, when the guilds were created, it was intended that people would do each challenge in whichever guild made the most sense with regard to that person's current challenge goals. For example, if you're trying to learn to become better at deadlifting, you might do a challenge in the Warrior guild. But as that challenge nears its end you decide you've got the basics of deadlifting down and now you want to learn to do pullups, so the next challenge you do with the Assassin guild to learn to pullup better. Then, realizing you'd like to try parkour but need better running stamina, the next challenge you do with the Scouts to learn to how to run longer. Then you realize running alone in a park can be dangerous, so you do the next few challenges with the Monks to learn some basic self-defense techniques. Get the picture? Before each Challenge begins, make sure you have a clear current Main Quest, and then pick your 2-3 smaller goals/quests that will help you move forward toward completing it. Then think through which Guild would be best for helping you complete those 2-3 smaller quests - (whichever of those quests you think you'll need the most help with). That's probably the guild you should choose to do that Challenge in. Here is a list of the current Guilds, with a brief description of each: Level 1 / First Time Challengers: That's here. Where you're reading right now. If you've never done an NF Challenge before, this is where you should be. After you've completed your Level 1 Challenge, you'll move on to play in the guilds below. Adventurers: The Adventurer guild is for people whose quests are achieved by exploring our big beautiful world: often through pursuits such as touring, hiking, climbing mountains, sailing, sea diving, etc. Assassins: The Assassin guild is for people whose quests involve bodyweight strength training, skills, agility, and flexibility: often through pursuits such as gymnastics, calisthenics, parkour, circus arts, dance, Ninja Warrior style obstacle courses, etc. Warriors: The Warrior guild is for people whose quests involve strength training via lifting stuff, pushing stuff, pulling stuff, throwing stuff, carrying stuff: often through pursuits such as powerlifting, strongman, weightlifting, etc. Scouts: The Scout guild is for people whose quests involve endurance training; often through pursuits such as distance walking, jogging, running, cycling, swimming, triathlons, etc. Rangers: The Ranger guild is a hybrid guild that was created for people whose quests involved roughly equal interest in weighted strength training (warriors) and endurance activities (scouts): often through pursuits such as rucking, Crossfit Games, Tough Mudders, Spartan Races, etc. Monks: The Monk guild is for people whose quests involve combat/martial training: often through pursuits such as boxing, wrestling, Kung Fu, Karate, Tae Kwon Do, Judo, Jujitsu, firearms, etc. Druids: The Druid guild is for people whose quests involve contemplative/meditative training: often through pursuits such as focused/guided meditation, Yoga, Tai Chi, etc. Rebels: The Rebel guild is for people whose quests don't seem to fit anywhere else. If you look through the other guilds’ descriptions and find yourself thinking, "None of these specialized guilds seem quite right for the 2-3 quests I'll be pursuing in the upcoming challenge," then you should do that challenge in the Rebel guild. "Take Me To Your Leaders" Guild Leaders (GLs) oversee/run the various guilds. We create content for our guilds, we put together the pinned/stickied threads, we choose/recommend new Guild Leaders to join our team, we choose/recommend new guild ambassadors, and we're here to help you - in general - with anything you need help with. You may find us making posts in your challenge threads giving you support, encouragement, or advice from time to time. And, if you have questions, or concerns, please don't hesitate to bring them to your guild leader(s). GLs are also moderators for the forums. We have the power to delete, move, or edit threads, posts, signatures, profiles, etc, and to ban users if necessary. If you ever have any questions or issues, again please don't hesitate to bring them to your guild leader(s). Also be aware that you should be seeing a "report post" option at the top-right of every post. If you see something you don't think should be on the forums, please bring it to our attention by reporting it. You will also most likely see Guild Ambassadors (GAs) around. Guild Ambassadors are representatives of the guild that they are 'ambassadoring' for. Guild Leaders can't be online 24 hours a day checking in on everyone. So we have Guild Ambassadors to act as helpers. You may find GAs popping into your challenge threads here in the Level 1 guild, also offering you support, encouragement, and advice. You may find your challenge thread being visited particularly by ambassadors from guilds whose fitness specialties seem to coincide with your current challenge goals. I hope that helps answer some of your questions and gets you started. If you still need help getting started, or with anything, there are many ways to get my attention. You can post your question in the pinned/sticky thread: Questions for Guild Leader Hazard (Ask Me Anything) You can also send me a private message via the forum's PM system: Click on my forum avatar at the top left of this post to go to my profile, then click the Send Message button that likes to hang out on my profile banner. You can also type @Hazard in any post, wait for the popup list of usernames, and choose mine from the list. See in that last sentence how there's a blue background shadowing my username? That means it worked. Using the @Name forum function with my username sends me a notification that somebody mentioned me in a post. I can click on the notification to go straight to the post you "called" me to. Neat, huh?

What's this reading club all about, then? Lately we've had a lot of Discworld re-readers and new readers who weren't sure where to start, so we thought we'd start a book club. People struggle with where to start reading, because there are so many places you could start, and it's a fairly common opinion that the worst place to start is the actual first book. The books are all pretty self-contained, with a few exceptions that just work better if you know the characters, and there are so damned many, and everyone has a favorite and a totally different recommendation on where to start. So we thought we'd start the first three challenges with good starter books, introducing the major sub-series of the Discworld books: Challenge #55 (December) - Guards! Guards!, the most commonly recommended starting book, which introduces the hapless police force of Ankh-Morpork, Discworld's biggest city, one of the major sets of characters followed through the series. This is the book where people often feel the writing matured into something fully representative of the series that followed, and it introduces Sam Vimes, one of the major characters we follow through the books. Challenge #56 (January) - Wyrd Sisters, which introduces Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, and Magrat; a trio of witches in the rural Ramptops mountains, who carry another major subseries of the books. Granny Weatherwax lives in a town called Bad Ass, and it might as well be named for her. Challenge #57 (February) - Mort, which is the first major book in a series focusing on the Grim Reaper and the consequences of his questionable parenting decisions. Death is the third major character in the series. Challenge #58+: We'll take a vote to we see who's here and what they'd like to read next. So if you're curious about Discworld and couldn't figure out where to start, this is (still) for you. Any of these challenges will be a great place to start. All three would be a great intro to the major characters and themes of the series. If you find the holidays rough or winter depressing, these are fairly light, humorous action books with a solid core of human decency. They're good winter reading. If you've been away from Pratchett books too long and are looking for a re-read, this is your chance. (And we'd welcome a couple of old hands pitching in to keep discussion rolling. We've got a blackboard monitor for Wyrd Sisters - @Luciana Valerosa Culming will be modding for January - but we're muddling through on the rest.) (Future people reading the book two years from now, please feel free to use this thread for discussion. Just beware of possible spoilers as the thread goes on.)

Lately we've had a lot of Discworld re-readers and new readers who weren't sure where to start, so we thought we'd start a book club. People struggle with where to start reading, because there are so many places you could start, and it's a fairly common opinion that the worst place to start is the actual first book. The books are all pretty self-contained, with a few exceptions that just work better if you know the characters, and there are so damned many, and everyone has a favorite and a totally different recommendation on where to start. So we thought we'd start the first three challenges with good starter books, introducing the major sub-series of the Discworld books: Challenge #55 (December) - Guards! Guards!, the most commonly recommended starting book, which introduces the hapless police force of Ankh-Morpork, Discworld's biggest city, one of the major sets of characters followed through the series. This is the book where people often feel the writing matured into something fully representative of the series that followed, and it introduces Sam Vimes, one of the major characters we follow through the books. Challenge #56 (January) - Wyrd Sisters, which introduces Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, and Magrat; a trio of witches in the rural Ramptops mountains, who carry another major subseries of the books. Granny Weatherwax lives in a town called Bad Ass, and it might as well be named for her. Challenge #57 (February) - Mort, which is the first major book in a series focusing on the Grim Reaper and the consequences of his questionable parenting decisions. Death is the third major character in the series. Challenge #58+: We'll take a vote to we see who's here and what they'd like to read next. So if you're curious about Discworld and couldn't figure out where to start, this is for you. Any of these challenges will be a great place to start. All three would be a great intro to the major characters and themes of the series. If you find the holidays rough or winter depressing, these are fairly light, humorous action books with a solid core of human decency. They're good winter reading. If you've been away from Pratchett books too long and are looking for a re-read, this is your chance. (And we'd welcome a couple of old hands pitching in to keep discussion rolling. We've got a blackboard monitor for Wyrd Sisters, but we're muddling through on the rest.) Discworld Reading Club - Guards Guards (Challenge #55) We'll start with Guards! Guards! in the December challenge. This should give everyone about two weeks to tell all their interested friends and get their hands on the book, which should be in most libraries in book and quite possibly audiobook form. The Discworld audiobooks are really good, especially the later ones, so you can't go wrong if you prefer to listen rather than read. (Future people reading the book two years from now, please feel free to use this thread for discussion. Just beware of possible spoilers as the thread goes on.)