Kyellan Tames the Tiger (In the I-Shaped Pattern)

[Kyellan]

 

Well, the madness of August is over. I didn't manage to do a whole lot other than work during that month, but I did put one major accomplishment under my belt: I finished memorizing the "first pillar" of the Hung Gar system, the foundational techniques known as Gung Gee Fook Fu Kuen, or "Taming the Tiger in the I-shaped Pattern". It's taken about a year of work, and it is a very long form with something like 350 individual techniques. 

 

Now that I've memorized it, the next step is to internalize the movements so that they all flow naturally, without thought or error. I'm doing okay on that so far, but that is pretty much going to be my physical focus for the next month or so. 

 

My data logging fell off for about two weeks due to the stress I was under, so I'm also reviving that. Still hovering around 205 lbs, give or take one on any given day, which I'm fairly happy with; despite the stress, I didn't fall off the plan too hard. 

 

I've started making breakfasts for myself: batch cooking English muffin breakfast sandwiches on the weekend and freezing them for the week. They're not the most amazing thing ever, but they're pretty cheap and come in between 350 and 375 calories, which isn't bad at all.

 

I'm taking a long weekend this week: 5 days in a row of no work to focus on. Hopefully by the start of the challenge this bruised-brain feeling will be mostly gone, and I'll be feeling more like myself again. I worked myself into full burnout, and I'm still struggling with it a week after the worst of the craziness ended.

 

The plan is to practice my Gung Gee flow, and get better at it. Attend class regularly again, and get myself back up to feeling healthy and strong, instead of bruised and weak and tired. 

 

That's pretty much it. Nothing fancy here, just patient recovery of my abilities and improvement of skills.

[Kishi]

That's still impressive that you have 350 different moves memorized.

 

Also, those breakfast sammiches sound really great. I still love my meat and nuts breakfasts, but I was always a fan of the concept of breakfast food mounted on bread. You should make 'em up with biscuits, do it Southern style. That way's pretty tasty.

 

Anyway, good luck with getting back to healthy and strong. Get some rest, eat lots of vegetables, and just relax into things. You should find your way back.

[RisenPhoenix]

On 9/12/2017 at 1:57 PM, Kyellan said:

I worked myself into full burnout, and I'm still struggling with it a week after the worst of the craziness ended.

 

When I first read this last week I was like "Weird, I'm not feeling that at all.  So much for being twins."

 

Then the weekend hit and I was a burnt out puddle.

 

Seriously.

 

WTF is with us.

 

On 9/12/2017 at 1:57 PM, Kyellan said:

Nothing fancy here, just patient recovery of my abilities and improvement of skills.

 

And then we both end up with similar challenges.

 

Go figure.

[Kyellan]

On 9/14/2017 at 10:07 AM, Kishi said:

That's still impressive that you have 350 different moves memorized.

 

Also, those breakfast sammiches sound really great. I still love my meat and nuts breakfasts, but I was always a fan of the concept of breakfast food mounted on bread. You should make 'em up with biscuits, do it Southern style. That way's pretty tasty.

 

Anyway, good luck with getting back to healthy and strong. Get some rest, eat lots of vegetables, and just relax into things. You should find your way back.

 

I'm getting myself comfortable with it, and then I'm going to do a video of myself going through it. Mostly for my own reference, but I may use it from time to time to demonstrate for people I know just what it is that I am working on. =) 

 

They're pretty delicious sammiches! I'm trying different combinations and such, looking for the sweet spot. Still not quite there, but getting closer! I may try biscuits, but it will definitely cost me more calorie-wise  

 

I think I can see my way back to where I want to be... it's just going to take some time. Hopefully not too much, though!

 

20 hours ago, RisenPhoenix said:

 

When I first read this last week I was like "Weird, I'm not feeling that at all.  So much for being twins."

 

Then the weekend hit and I was a burnt out puddle.

 

Seriously.

 

WTF is with us.

 

 

And then we both end up with similar challenges.

 

Go figure.

 

It is simply the way of the world, my brother. We walk parallel paths, for reasons unexplained. One of life's great mysteries.  

 

============================

 

No major update here. Things are good. Struggling with some knee pain, but that's no surprise given the injuries. The dog slammed his head into my left (uninjured) knee late last week during some playtime, and I'm still sporting a bruise there that smarts from time to time. The joys of pet ownership =)

 

The spirit of the tiger is beginning to flow more smoothly in me. I need to start working on my tiger call--certain techniques in tiger kung fu call for a specific sound. It's similar to the idea of the ki-ai from Japanese martial arts, but the sound of the tiger is "WAH". It's supposed to be driven from the diaphragm in a pitch specific to each person, a primal and fierce roar. I have... some reluctance to make loud noises, as I've always been a soft-spoken kind of guy, but it's something I need to start practicing. 

 

I'm now confident that all the movements of the form are in my head. I just need to make each transition so familiar to my brain that I can do it without pausing to think. Then I can begin training each technique to perfection.

[Kishi]

1 hour ago, Kyellan said:

They're pretty delicious sammiches! I'm trying different combinations and such, looking for the sweet spot. Still not quite there, but getting closer! I may try biscuits, but it will definitely cost me more calorie-wise  

 

Well, nothing worth having is free.  Besides, I haven't even told you the best part, where you cover the insides in molasses. Because if you're gonna go, might as well go big.

 

1 hour ago, Kyellan said:

I think I can see my way back to where I want to be... it's just going to take some time. Hopefully not too much, though!

 

No hurry! Take what you need. Rush back into this too soon and you'll run the risk of hurting things further. At which point you'll spend all the time you would have spent anyway and then some.

 

1 hour ago, Kyellan said:

The spirit of the tiger is beginning to flow more smoothly in me. I need to start working on my tiger call--certain techniques in tiger kung fu call for a specific sound. It's similar to the idea of the ki-ai from Japanese martial arts, but the sound of the tiger is "WAH". It's supposed to be driven from the diaphragm in a pitch specific to each person, a primal and fierce roar. I have... some reluctance to make loud noises, as I've always been a soft-spoken kind of guy, but it's something I need to start practicing. 

 

Eh. There's utility in it. Breathing like that causes tension in the extremities; timed with striking, it gives you some extra tension at the end that lets you hit harder. It'll level you up some.

[Kyellan]

Well, to be honest, gang, things ain't going so well. I initially thought my 5-day break was enough, but I'm still suffering from burnout pretty bad, I think. I'm having trouble concentrating, and everything just feels like an assault on my brain. There's too much to do, too much expected, and honestly I'm not handling it all that well.

 

I haven't made it to class regularly at all, because by the time I get home from work I'm genuinely concerned about my ability to drive... I'm just so stupid tired. Then I got sick over the weekend, but still had to help build a fence for my mom's yard (which I did, hopped up on all kinds of cold meds to keep myself from coughing and hacking to death), and now I'm totally wiped again.

 

This week I have to get one of our cars registered/inspected, figure out how I'm transporting 400 square feet of shingles and other roof supplies to my house, and then attend my niece's 1st birthday party on Sunday with the 30 invited people. No rest for the wicked, I guess. Maybe I should try being good, because I really need some rest...

[Kishi]

That sounds incredibly frustrating.  To need rest and not be able to get it is an awful feeling.

 

It might not be a bad idea to scale back on everything for a while. Take a look at the basic things and see how they're going. What's your sleep looking like these days? Are you able to get down early, or are you too wound up?

[Kyellan]

On 9/26/2017 at 8:59 AM, Kishi said:

That sounds incredibly frustrating.  To need rest and not be able to get it is an awful feeling.

 

It might not be a bad idea to scale back on everything for a while. Take a look at the basic things and see how they're going. What's your sleep looking like these days? Are you able to get down early, or are you too wound up?

 

So, the real problem has not been getting to bed too late, but rather that I can't keep my eyes open past 7pm or so. I'm crashing out super early, but when I wake up I'm not actually feeling better. I think that's a symptom of my longer-term burnout problem. My maximum capacity is significantly reduced from where it should be. I just can't handle as much as I should be able to. So, even a mildly stressful day at work turns into a total crash when I get home, which means I don't feel safe driving, and then I don't go to class, and the spiral goes further downward.

 

I've been trying to scale back, but there's so many things that need to happen. They just keep coming, and a bunch of them have deadlines. My sister's getting married in three weeks, plus the roof thing, plus some other things and it's just hard to get a handle on all of them.

 

Last Thursday my low back did the seizing thing again, probably a combination of stress and lack of real rest. It's mostly better now, but I suffered in pain the whole weekend. Gah, it sucks when it does that. It wasn't as bad as the last couple of times because it didn't happen from a specific movement, so it didn't lock solid right away... kinda did it slowly instead. Not fun. 

 

My niece's 1st birthday party was cute. She's an adorable little rugrat and I like her. The party may have been a little overkill, but hey. That's up to her parents. It's still weird to see my little brother as a dad... messes with my head ^.^

 

On the (very small) bright side, I'm actually integrating my head with the new form pretty well. The moves flow well together and I feel okay about that, if not about much else these days.

 

Hopefully I can get to class more than once this week :/

[RisenPhoenix]

1 hour ago, Kyellan said:

I just can't handle as much as I should be able to. So, even a mildly stressful day at work turns into a total crash when I get home, which means I don't feel safe driving, and then I don't go to class, and the spiral goes further downward.

 

Goddammit.  Can we STOP BEING TWINS FOR CRYING OUT LOUD?!!?

 

I get this.  It seriously helped me to take a week or so where I went and did nothing but shit that was required - as in, I worked because I need money, and that was it.  No peopling if I asked.  No lifting.  No stairs.  No dojo.  I was terrified I would get all manner of comments and forget everything and get fat again and and and and.

 

And it was wonderful.  I went to bed when I wanted.  I woke up and lounged in the morning.  I had a whole bunch of "I'd liked to"s that I nixed until the following week and saw it didn't cause the world to burn down (and that included telling family to piss off).

 

So, my prescription for you, O Twin of Mine, is do the same thing.  And don't worry about the small stuff. (And you know how that phrase ends, right?)

[Kishi]

Hmmm.

 

So, at the risk of stating the obvious, it sounds like you have a lot of responsibilities. More than you can take right now because of the burnout. Meaning, then, that you're not in a position right now to actually take those responsibilities.

 

And don't say you don't have a choice. You do. You don't have to take a responsibility that you can't handle. And it's not bad to not be able to handle a responsibility. Knowing what you can do and what you can't do is very, very wise, and I would argue that it's the first responsibility that all people actually have.

 

You are responsible for what you're responsible for. That and that alone. And how much you can take is a truly variable thing. There's no shame in admitting that you can't take a responsibility. It's better that you do, so that you don't hurt yourself or others.

 

So, maybe it's time to take an honest look at what's being asked of you and what you can actually handle right now.

[Kishi]

Oi! You holding up okay over here?

[Luciana Valerosa Culming]

Hopefully you can recover quickly. Wish you well. It's an odd feeling, when you can't do, what you were used, too. Be patient and don't stress yourself more.