Mad Hatter's tea party

[LouCarJo]

5 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

Monday 13 Nov

 

Stretched my hamstrings in the morning, that's about it. I'm experimenting with shifting my sleeping patterns but at the moment my body's just confused.  What I'm trying to do is to wake up earlier, with the reasoning that when I get home from work all I want to do is to curl up and read books and eat cookies. Work has been so intense that it's quite often left me drained at the end of the day and the darkness doesn't help. It's not even that I've necessarily been physically tired, it's more like I simply shut down and enter hibernation mode, and then it's soooo hard to motivate myself to do anything strenuous. But maybe if wake up early enough I can do the strenuous things in the morning? That's the idea anyway. The problem there is that the sun doesn't rise until 8:30 so now it feels like it's the middle of the night when I wake up and that makes me want to go back to sleep or at least snuggle up in bed even when I'm not actually tired. As I said, my body's confused.  Could be worth a try though.

8.30, wow, no wonder your body is confused.  Sounds like you’ve got a plan to try though.  I’m about to buy the new book on sleep by Matthew Walker - it’s been advertised everywhere here and from the interviews he’s done, it sounds pretty interesting.

[Mike Wazowski]

Found you!

[Elastigirl]

Well now you are making me grateful for how much daylight we actually have. I feel like this time of year it so dark. But when I got up this morning at 7:30, the sun was starting to rise. Dark by 5 though.

 

Do you have a light lamp? I turn mine on in the morning and that helps. But it's getting light when I get up right now. Next month I'll be in the same boat as you

 

[Lara]

So YOU are the one who is going to get up at 4am and not me, ha!  

[KB Girl]

I'm really sensitive to light, I'll usually wake up at the first sign of it. Even the darkest curtains don't completely block it out.. so I'm always happy when it's winter time. More snoozes. 

Good luck with this project though. Once your body gets used to it, it does sound like it'll be nice! 

[WhiteGhost]

15 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

now it feels like it's the middle of the night when I wake up and that makes me want to go back to sleep or at least snuggle up in bed even when I'm not actually tired.

I really feel you on this.  I get up early to get Ghostlet to school and then when I get back I have an hour before I would have had to get up for work. This works perfectly for scheduling morning workouts, but when it is still dark (and cold) out I really just want to crawl back into bed.

 

My bed, it caaaaalllls to me  

[Mad Hatter]

18 hours ago, raptron said:

In for some flexibiliteaaaa.

Ahh the pressure.  

 

18 hours ago, Echocheanic said:

I suck at waking up early when I don't need to. If i need to go somewhere, my body will wake up at 7-8am no problem, I don't even need coffee, but if I don't, I hit snooze and sleep way more than I should, get a headache and feel like crap. And no amount of sunlight fixes it. So I guess I lack discipline? 

I am not that far north so so far it has been getting dark at 3:30 pm ish here.

I don't do well with snoozing either. I tend to get more tired than when I started, especially if I start getting weird dreams. 

 

16 hours ago, LouCarJo said:

I stayed in Germany on the Wallonia border a couple of years ago and was surprised that it was all German one side and all French the other.  I was a good English tourist and spoke their languages though ;-).  We actually stayed in a Dutch hotel where most stuff was written/said in Dutch only - I just about managed to guide my husband round the buffet but had no idea what was being said on a little tractor tour we were taken on after dinner at the middle of which everyone drank some purple liquid - ranks as one of the weirdest experiences of my life!

 

I miss expat friend circles.

Think you mean bad English tourist.  

 

Tractor tour and random purple liquids sounds so dodgy.  

 

16 hours ago, LouCarJo said:

8.30, wow, no wonder your body is confused.  Sounds like you’ve got a plan to try though.  I’m about to buy the new book on sleep by Matthew Walker - it’s been advertised everywhere here and from the interviews he’s done, it sounds pretty interesting.

Not sure if it's a plan or a series of random experiments.  Let me know if the book is interesting!

 

15 hours ago, MikeWazowski said:

Found you!

Yay!

 

15 hours ago, Elastigirl said:

Well now you are making me grateful for how much daylight we actually have. I feel like this time of year it so dark. But when I got up this morning at 7:30, the sun was starting to rise. Dark by 5 though.

 

Do you have a light lamp? I turn mine on in the morning and that helps. But it's getting light when I get up right now. Next month I'll be in the same boat as you

 

I used to, but I didn't quite find it helpful enough to keep...

 

12 hours ago, zenLara said:

So YOU are the one who is going to get up at 4am and not me, ha!  

Haha maybe not 4 am. That kind of insanity is more your style anyway.  

 

11 hours ago, KB Girl said:

I'm really sensitive to light, I'll usually wake up at the first sign of it. Even the darkest curtains don't completely block it out.. so I'm always happy when it's winter time. More snoozes. 

Good luck with this project though. Once your body gets used to it, it does sound like it'll be nice! 

Good thing you don't live in Finland then where it barely gets dark at all in summer!

 

We'll see, it could be really nice - or it could be a disaster haha.

 

5 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

I really feel you on this.  I get up early to get Ghostlet to school and then when I get back I have an hour before I would have had to get up for work. This works perfectly for scheduling morning workouts, but when it is still dark (and cold) out I really just want to crawl back into bed.

 

My bed, it caaaaalllls to me  

At least my flat's really warm in winter, otherwise I'd be in real trouble.  

[Mad Hatter]

Tuesday 14 Nov

 

Yesterday was extremely lame. I used my morning time to tidy, did nothing at home in the evening and nothing at work for that matter. We just finished the massive, painfully frustrating task we've been working on for the past many months (yaaaay!) and didn't really have anything to work on so I spent most of the day relaxing and drinking tea and chatting to people.

 

Other than that my brain was struggling a lot yesterday, which honestly made my newly imposed early bedtime a bit of a relief...

 

Wednesday 15 Nov

 

Woke up at 5.45ish with an alarm and without any issues! Spent some time listening to a podcast and drinking tea and just letting myself slowly come alive. And then I did some backbend training, woot!  I've forgotten how intense backbends can feel, it was quite rough going! But it felt really good afterwards and like my poor programmer body really needed it. Honestly I wouldn't be half as motivated if @WhiteGhost and others hadn't built up this false picture of me actually being flexible.  Now I'm doubly motivated to get my flexibility back! And to work on my nemesis, aka active flexibility, so I won't feel like a hypocrite haha. 

[LouCarJo]

Tuesday at work sounds like a well-deserved chill after chaos - you need times like this so not lame at all.

[Mad Hatter]

28 minutes ago, LouCarJo said:

Tuesday at work sounds like a well-deserved chill after chaos - you need times like this so not lame at all.

At work sure.  The rest of the day was mostly crappy. But no point in dwelling on that now, that was ages ago.

[WhiteGhost]

11 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

Honestly I wouldn't be half as motivated if @WhiteGhost and others hadn't built up this false probably pretty realistic picture of me actually being flexible.

It all comes down to perception and a standard of comparison.  I am pretty sure you are not as flexible as the girls on the dance team at Ghostlet's school (some of them can bend over backwards and look at you from between their legs without putting their hands on the ground  ) but to someone who gets excited when he can almost reach his ankles you are most certainly flexible  

 

If it helps with you motivation, though, I can (continue to) imagine you could probably moonlight as a contortionist  

 

In all seriousness, I have no idea how flexible you actually are, but you certainly know a lot about flexibility and continue to be an invaluable resource to me as I try to improve, and I thank you for that  

[Echoceanic]

You sometimes need a day where you do nothing. When I have those days I try and practice being as chill, calm and balanced as everyone seems to find me usually.  

[raptron]

On 11/15/2017 at 11:36 AM, Mad Hatter said:

Honestly I wouldn't be half as motivated if @WhiteGhost and others hadn't built up this false picture of me actually being flexible.  Now I'm doubly motivated to get my flexibility back! And to work on my nemesis, aka active flexibility, so I won't feel like a hypocrite haha. 

False schmalse.  

 

Congrats on you guys finishing the Big Annoying Thing! It is great to have a relaxed day after something like that. 

[KB Girl]

That sounds like a good morning! Yay for backbending! Hope you get to do some more soon. And then go punch that imposter syndrome in the face because you don't always have to compare to the bestests. (Or even the good!)

[Mad Hatter]

On 11/16/2017 at 6:18 AM, WhiteGhost said:

It all comes down to perception and a standard of comparison.  I am pretty sure you are not as flexible as the girls on the dance team at Ghostlet's school (some of them can bend over backwards and look at you from between their legs without putting their hands on the ground  ) but to someone who gets excited when he can almost reach his ankles you are most certainly flexible  

 

If it helps with you motivation, though, I can (continue to) imagine you could probably moonlight as a contortionist  

 

In all seriousness, I have no idea how flexible you actually are, but you certainly know a lot about flexibility and continue to be an invaluable resource to me as I try to improve, and I thank you for that  

Ok sure, I'm a little past reaching my toes.   It's just I'm so far from where I'd like to be. Well, it's time to stop moping and do something about it!

 

Haha it does actually help! Your newfound interest and motivation is really inspiring.  

 

I do find flexibility training really, really interesting as there are so many misconceptions about what it is, and in general our knowledge about it is really slim compared to strength or endurance training. There are so many components to it, most people only think in terms of tight muscles, but muscle is only a small part of it. Then there's nerves and fascia and other connective tissues that play a role, and different people need to train very differently depending on how their joints work and where the restrictions lie. On top of it it ties into psychology and hormones so it's all rather complex. While most people think it's just this boring thing where you flop around a bit that you're supposed to do after a workout.  

 

22 hours ago, Echocheanic said:

You sometimes need a day where you do nothing. When I have those days I try and practice being as chill, calm and balanced as everyone seems to find me usually.  

Do nothing days can be great, do nothing days when your brain's going crazy not so good.  

 

13 hours ago, raptron said:

False schmalse.  

 

Congrats on you guys finishing the Big Annoying Thing! It is great to have a relaxed day after something like that. 

Pfft.  

 

Now the Next Big Annoying Thing! Unfortunately the next project has the potential to be almost as bad as the first. 

 

10 hours ago, KB Girl said:

That sounds like a good morning! Yay for backbending! Hope you get to do some more soon. And then go punch that imposter syndrome in the face because you don't always have to compare to the bestests. (Or even the good!)

Yay! More is definitely on the agenda. And more regularly I hope from now on so I'll stop get weird DOMS from neck to hamstrings.  

 

Thanks for the reminder.  I'll just have to start from square... 2 again. On the plus side noob gains will hopefully be kicking in.  

[LouCarJo]

8 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

 

Do nothing days can be great, do nothing days when your brain's going crazy not so good.  

Oh I know this feeling so well!  I love days when I actually relax and feel good about it, but I’m far more frequently completely burnt out yet still unable to turn off!

[raptron]

8 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

I do find flexibility training really, really interesting as there are so many misconceptions about what it is, and in general our knowledge about it is really slim compared to strength or endurance training. There are so many components to it, most people only think in terms of tight muscles, but muscle is only a small part of it. Then there's nerves and fascia and other connective tissues that play a role, and different people need to train very differently depending on how their joints work and where the restrictions lie. On top of it it ties into psychology and hormones so it's all rather complex. While most people think it's just this boring thing where you flop around a bit that you're supposed to do after a workout.  

Why can't it be this though? That's so much easier than real flexibility training.  

 

And potential to be almost as bad, well at least you guys know you can get through at least one Big Annoying Thing anyway.

[Elastigirl]

9 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

It's just I'm so far from where I'd like to be. Well, it's time to stop moping and do something about it!

Yes, but when you get to where you want to be, that line will be moved up, so by that metric you could be as flexible as say the real Elastigirl, and you wouldn't be able to call yourself flexible. You may not be ready to audition for Cirque De Solei quite yet, but I agree with others you are flexible.

I have tended to neglect flexibility training, maybe if I studied all the nerdy aspects of it, I'd be more interested.

[Mad Hatter]

2 hours ago, raptron said:

Why can't it be this though? That's so much easier than real flexibility training.  

 

And potential to be almost as bad, well at least you guys know you can get through at least one Big Annoying Thing anyway.

I guess it is exactly like that - when you're 11.  Shame it doesn't work for us oldies.  

 

Ha that's one way of thinking about it! And I'm going to do my best to get through this without taking out my resentment on my colleague this time.  

 

2 hours ago, Elastigirl said:

Yes, but when you get to where you want to be, that line will be moved up, so by that metric you could be as flexible as say the real Elastigirl, and you wouldn't be able to call yourself flexible. You may not be ready to audition for Cirque De Solei quite yet, but I agree with others you are flexible.

I have tended to neglect flexibility training, maybe if I studied all the nerdy aspects of it, I'd be more interested.

Touché.  I guess the problem is that I use circus artist flexibility as the baseline rather than office worker flexibility.  Not contortion level, just generic circus person level, which for me sets the baseline as having all splits, a flat pancake and a "nice" bridge. Which is not too much to ask for (for most people). And I've had all of that at some points in time, but now I don't have any except maybe the pancake but even that is not the greatest atm. But hey at least I can still make people stare in the climbing gym.  

Maybe - but honestly you already do a lot of mobility work with the GMB stuff. I don't think flexibility training is really necessary for most people as long as you're moving and mobile and all that. It's all about being mobile enough and everyone has different requirements.

[Mad Hatter]

Thursday 16 Nov

 

Went to bed too late and woke up too late at 7:45 so all I had time to do was cook lunch. But at least I did that - GO ME! The weather was really nice in the evening so I walked home from work. And by really nice I mean it wasn't raining and the wind wasn't ripping my head off.  

 

This shifting sleeping patterns around is turning out to be tricky. If I don't go to bed early I wake up too late, but if I try to go to bed too early I'm not tired enough! Setting an alarm would probably stabilise it quicker but my aversion towards alarms is too strong for that.  

 

Friday 17 Nov

 

Woke up at 6:45 (I'm all over the place this week!) and tried to handstands. Yeeeah, no that's not going to happen in the a.m.  I'm too much of a klutz in the morning and have neither the reflexes nor the subtle coordination that handstands require. It could also be that I'm out of practice or that I need to tweak my warmup, but mostly I'm just a klutz and it's probably better to stick to other types of morning training for now.

 

Work was really fun today, no particular reason just extra fun atmosphere. And we got served bubbly wine during our afternoon demo session, which certainly didn't make it worse.  Especially since my colleague was extra generous when pouring my glass - because we're in the same "team" (of two) - and I'm such a lightweight these days.  

[sylph]

55 minutes ago, Mad Hatter said:

 Not contortion level, just generic circus person level, which for me sets the baseline as having all splits, a flat pancake and a "nice" bridge.

I have none of these things and there are very few people (outside coaches/instructors) who have all of them at my circus gym, so it's possible even your 'generic circus person' standard is a bit high. I'd say more like 'advanced circus person'

[Mad Hatter]

9 minutes ago, sylph said:

I have none of these things and there are very few people (outside coaches/instructors) who have all of them at my circus gym, so it's possible even your 'generic circus person' standard is a bit high. I'd say more like 'advanced circus person'

Fine, point taken.  But I can settle for an advanced circus person baseline.  

[sylph]

38 minutes ago, Mad Hatter said:

Fine, point taken.  But I can settle for an advanced circus person baseline.  

Totally fair!

[Elastigirl]

5 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

I guess it is exactly like that - when you're 11.  Shame it doesn't work for us oldies.  

 

Ha that's one way of thinking about it! And I'm going to do my best to get through this without taking out my resentment on my colleague this time.  

 

Touché.  I guess the problem is that I use circus artist flexibility as the baseline rather than office worker flexibility.  Not contortion level, just generic circus person level, which for me sets the baseline as having all splits, a flat pancake and a "nice" bridge. Which is not too much to ask for (for most people). And I've had all of that at some points in time, but now I don't have any except maybe the pancake but even that is not the greatest atm. But hey at least I can still make people stare in the climbing gym.  

Maybe - but honestly you already do a lot of mobility work with the GMB stuff. I don't think flexibility training is really necessary for most people as long as you're moving and mobile and all that. It's all about being mobile enough and everyone has different requirements.

If you compare yourself to 99% of office workers on flexibility you win hands down. And even though you may not be quite as flexible as you were, you are stronger. Life kind of cycles like that.

I think for me the thing is, now that I've been doing more GMB stuff, I can see where flexibility is holding me back with some of the strength stuff, so that motivates me to want to do more flexibibility. And the thought that one day when we start our own NF circus, I want to be a part of it.

[WhiteGhost]

3 hours ago, Elastigirl said:

And the thought that one day when we start our own NF circus, I want to be a part of it.

If NF did that I would totally run away and join the circus