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First challenge! Woooo! I'm going to be theming my challenges around the Japanese abstract strategy game, shogi. I've being playing a lot of shogi recently because I have too much time on my hands and I thought it'd be cool to centre my challenges around the attributes of the pieces. Anybody interested in the rules of shogi can learn more about the game here. The pawn (歩) The pawn in shogi appears to be the weakest piece. It can only move one space forward and it doesn't possess any of the special moves granted to pawns in western chess (rather, it has more limitations than the other pieces). However, as captured shogi pieces can be dropped onto the board, the weak pawn becomes a mobile adversary at the head of a variety of devastating tactics. Additionally with the prospect of promotion in the enemy camp, the pawn can become formidable in a moments notice. This challenge is going to be fairly straightforward. I'm not going to centre it around any of my activities; that'll be coming up in further challenges. Rather, this challenge is about building habits and small changes to my lifestyle. Habits are just like shogi pawns; they may not have special jumping abilities or cover many of squares, but they're foundational to the success of any attack or defence. Now, I'm heading to Crete in two weeks for a holiday. Given that I won't really have much time to spend at gyms and the like, I've designed my challenge with this in mind. 1. FOUNDATIONAL TRAINING (BODY) There are two skills I want to get better at that'll help me a lot in rock-climbing, weightlifting and gymnastics. That is: Hand-balancing Grip strength A long time ago, I was able to hold my handstand for around 30 seconds freestanding. At the moment, I can only muster around 5-10 seconds. When it comes to grip, I'm currently training to close the No.2 Captains of Crush gripper. I'll be practising my handstand every day, at least ten attempts. Grip training is more demanding, so I'll be doing that three times a week. My ultimate goal when it comes to hand-balancing and grip training is to hold a one-armed handstand and close the No.3 CoC gripper. This are incredibly difficult skills to achieve! I'll hopefully be able to tackle them when I reach Level 20 or something. Stay tuned! One day!!! 2. FLEXIBILITY I hate stretching. It's painful and it takes a lot of time to see the benefits. I'm fairly mobile as it is, but I want to be as limber as my cat! This part of my challenge will build upon three main movements. I will be stretching every day. Front splits Bridge Shoulder splits 3. DIET I have a confession. Food is my greatest weakness. This is my face whenever I contemplate giving up chocolate: (Yes, that is an anime character in a shogi pawn outfit. I do not know where it is from.) For the four weeks of the challenge, I will eat NO junk food. No crisps, no chocolate, no bonbons, nothing. I'll be keeping a food log on this thread, where I'll track every piece of junk food I've eaten. This is by far the hardest part of my challenge. Every fibre of my willpower will be tested here. Wish me luck. 4. (bonus) ART OF (CHESS) PROBLEM SOLVING I study mathematics and theoretical physics at university and spend a huge amount of time learning about these topics. I want to go onto graduate study, so I need to be the best I can be. I need to develop my general problem solving capabilities until they are absolutely razor sharp. I'm already engaged in some pretty rigorous self-study in advanced topics in maths and physics, but I simultaneously want to develop my expertise in problem solving; that is, to become more imaginative and efficient when I solve problems. Therefore, I'm going to be digging through the internet in search of difficult mathematics/physics problems to solve. This'll be a great way to improve my foundational mathematics and intuition at the same time. I'll be solving three independent Olympiad-style problems daily. For example: (...any tips?) Change of plans: I want to play in a national chess league next year and I need to train for it. Instead of maths problems (which I do anyway), I'm going to be focusing on tactical study in chess: 20 tactics daily. ADDITIONALLY: I'm going to make 05:30 - 06:30 the hour in which I attempt these problems. I'll need to wake up early! Therefore, I'll be waking up at 05:00 every day. I'll be scoring myself daily for my challenge and adding up my score as I go along. My level-up criterion is 70% as an overall score. And there you have it! A fairly easy to deal with challenge (apart from the chocolate ) that'll ease me in. Looking forward to training with you all!