Mike Wazowski: Nationals Prep

[RedStone]

36 minutes ago, MikeWazowski said:

THANKS FRIEND!!!! It’s been a pretty great part of the journey.

 

<3 Seriously <3 Lets keep this good stuff going  

[Gemma]

8 hours ago, MikeWazowski said:

Quick update on the cut: It’s probably obvious here, but I’m finding a higher calorie target and a more relaxed approach much easier to stick to. On top of that, I’m finding that when i do have “junk” food I’m enjoying it more - probably because it’s not coming with a helping of guilt, lol. On top of that, progress is still chugging along slowly - this past week of weigh-ins was down below 175 for the first time this year (I had days here and there, but not a full week) and I’m seeing some progress (I think) in the mirror as well. It was certainly noticeable putting on the same shirt I wore at nationals last year earlier this week.

 

 

Whoo hooo!!! 

 

If "hunger is the best sauce," I'm pretty sure guilt is the worst!

 

I can't wait to hear all about Nationals. Is it über-weird that I get a vicarious adrenaline rush just thinking about it? I haven't danced in decades, never really competitively, and never ballroom, but I'm sooooo excited for you!!!! 

[Mike Wazowski]

56 minutes ago, RedStone said:

<3 Seriously <3 Lets keep this good stuff going  

Here's hoping!! I've got my next challenge goals planned out, I think you'll be a fan.

 

13 minutes ago, Gemma said:

Whoo hooo!!! 

Thanks!!!

 

13 minutes ago, Gemma said:

If "hunger is the best sauce," I'm pretty sure guilt is the worst!

Never heard that saying, but I LOVE IT!!! And yes, food guilt is the absolute worst.

 

13 minutes ago, Gemma said:

I can't wait to hear all about Nationals. Is it über-weird that I get a vicarious adrenaline rush just thinking about it? I haven't danced in decades, never really competitively, and never ballroom, but I'm sooooo excited for you!!!! 

I'm a hell of a weird dude myself, so I can't say for sure on weird. But I do love knowing that I've got friends rooting for me!

[Mike Wazowski]

Week 3, Day 7 (Sunday): Woke up and read for a bit, went to mass with dance partner's family, got down to practicing, got back to her parents' house and tried to chill, but I was riding the no chill train real hard. So instead I did my taxes, minus the last bit of actually filing (need to call my parents for some info there). Watched a bit of the Oscars while faffing around on the computer (BB-8!!!!! Easily my favorite part of the whole show). Stretched out and tried to go to sleep and get plenty of rest, but ended up tossing and turning a bunch - not ideal.

1. Comply with calorie and protein targets: Overshot a bit, but it's fine
2. Allocate 8 hours / night for sleep: Yep, but sleep was restless again - not sure what's going on here
3. Keep working out as scheduled: N/a
4. Do scheduled adulting tasks each week: Over-achieved here, got my taxes all done save for actually hitting the submit button (thank God for TurboTax auto-import)
5. Make another Mac n Cheese recipe: not yet

[raptron]

ALMOST NATIONALS TIME, WOOO.

[karinajean]

OOOOH I AM LATE FOR THE CHALLENGE BUT HERE IN TIME FOR NATIONALS!!!

(day-um I planned this one perfectly)

[Mad Hatter]

On 3/5/2018 at 2:40 AM, Gemma said:

I can't wait to hear all about Nationals. Is it über-weird that I get a vicarious adrenaline rush just thinking about it? I haven't danced in decades, never really competitively, and never ballroom, but I'm sooooo excited for you!!!! 

ME TOOOO!

[Mike Wazowski]

21 hours ago, raptron said:

ALMOST NATIONALS TIME, WOOO.

WOOOO!!!!

 

11 hours ago, karinajean said:

OOOOH I AM LATE FOR THE CHALLENGE BUT HERE IN TIME FOR NATIONALS!!!

(day-um I planned this one perfectly)

Assassins, yo. You people (and me, cause LBH I'm probably half assassin) 

 

1 hour ago, Mad Hatter said:

ME TOOOO!

WHEEEEEE!! Hopefully I'll have great updates for y'all.

 

Spending the day at my partner's parents' house waiting for her dress to arrive - because, yes, our dressmaker went down to the actual wire on making the dress. We're a shitshow every time except when we're on the floor, haha.

[Grumble]

4 minutes ago, MikeWazowski said:

Assassins, yo. You people (and me, cause LBH I'm probably half assassin) 

 

Not gonna make a half ass joke, not gonna make a half ass joke...

 

Seriously though, super excited to see how you do.

[Gemma]

Obviously I totally forgot to ask you before you left what your travel plans were and when you would be back, so I don't know how soon it is reasonable to expect an update and check-in re: how you are doing ... but I just wanted to let you know I been thinkin' about you (in the non-creepiest way I can manage). Hope you had a great time!

 

 

 

[Mike Wazowski]

On 3/6/2018 at 9:56 AM, Grumble said:

 

Not gonna make a half ass joke, not gonna make a half ass joke...

 

Seriously though, super excited to see how you do.

Thanks, friend. Unfortunately, not a super great showing for us, more info below.

 

20 hours ago, Gemma said:

Obviously I totally forgot to ask you before you left what your travel plans were and when you would be back, so I don't know how soon it is reasonable to expect an update and check-in re: how you are doing ... but I just wanted to let you know I been thinkin' about you (in the non-creepiest way I can manage). Hope you had a great time!

 

 

 

Ha, more like I totally forgot to set expectations. We competed Thursday and flew home Friday, but I've been intentionally absent on the forums this weekend.

 

Unfortunately...nationals did not go well for us. At all. In ballroom we met expectations and finished near the bottom of the field (we've been dancing the style about 6 months, and were competing against a field with mostly a lot more experience than us). Actually, we may have even overperformed a bit here by not being absolutely dead last.

 

Latin, on the other hand, we had much higher hopes in, but we placed in the bottom half (meaning we only danced our program once). We did better two years ago when we looked like a dumpster fire half the time, but this year and last were both the same story - cut despite knowing that our level of quality should have done better than we placed. We were both PISSED (and I also felt ASHAMED - I have these voices in my head that tell me I'm not a "real dancer" if I don't achieve competitive success or have a stereotypical "dancer's body"). And I was basically ready to quit for good, then and there. Text conversations with my coach were not helpful either - this is the 2nd time in a row where talking with him has made me worse in a wanna-quit state, so what I've learned is not to seek that kind of support from him in the future since it's counterproductive.

 

I've...done a lot of soul searching over the past couple days, including relistening to the entirety of "Big Magic" (incidentally, @Gemma, I think you'd really enjoy the book - it's the author of "Eat, Pray, Love" talking about carving out time for creativity in your life for the sheer love of creating). I realized my primary motivation as a competitor of late has been less about dance for its own sake and more about achieving some semblance of success and recognition through dance. Not a healthy motivation, especially for a competitive performing art. Given what my partner and I have already committed to, and knowing that quitting competing is a difficult-to-reverse decision for me (partners who are dedicated are *rare* in my neck of the woods), I'm committing to trying to reframe my motivations for the next 3 and a half months leading up to our last planned competition and I'll reassess at that point. If I'm successful in reframing my motivations, or at least making progress on that front, I'll be happy to continue. If not, well, it might be time to hang up the competitor shoes and focus just on teaching. I'm hoping it doesn't come to that second option though.

 

Believe it or not, before this **** went down this week, I was already planning on making next challenge focused on emotional / mental / spiritual health, and now it seems even more apt. Details coming...soonish. Probably this evening.

[Emerald_Dragonfly]

Hugs my friend.

 

[Gemma]

8 hours ago, MikeWazowski said:

I have these voices in my head that tell me I'm not a "real dancer" if I don't achieve competitive success or have a stereotypical "dancer's body").

 
I've...done a lot of soul searching over the past couple days, including relistening to the entirety of "Big Magic" (incidentally, [mention=63821]Gemma[/mention], I think you'd really enjoy the book - it's the author of "Eat, Pray, Love" talking about carving out time for creativity in your life for the sheer love of creating). I realized my primary motivation as a competitor of late has been less about dance for its own sake and more about achieving some semblance of success and recognition through dance. Not a healthy motivation, especially for a competitive performing art.

 
Believe it or not, before this **** went down this week, I was already planning on making next challenge focused on emotional / mental / spiritual health, and now it seems even more apt. Details coming...soonish. Probably this evening.

 

Hugs, prayers, support, all the things, my friend. I’ve been there with the “I’m not a ‘real’ writer” struggle often, so thank you for that book recommendation. I have added it to my "want to read" list, I'll check tomorrow to see if my library has it. 

Seems you have identified a highly appropriate opportunity to introspect and figure out what’s the right way ahead for your love of dance.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Mike Wazowski]

3 hours ago, Emerald_Dragonfly said:

Hugs my friend.

 

Thanks, friend. Always appreciated.

 

1 hour ago, Gemma said:

Hugs, prayers, support, all the things, my friend. I’ve been there with the “I’m not a ‘real’ writer” struggle often, so thank you for that book recommendation. I have added it to my "want to read" list, I'll check tomorrow to see if my library has it. 

Thank you, my friend. It is so helpful to come here to nerds who have the same struggles and the same difficult voices in their heads. I hope, if you track the book down, you find it useful.

 

1 hour ago, Gemma said:

Seems you have identified a highly appropriate opportunity to introspect and figure out what’s the right way ahead for your love of dance.

Indeed - I'm a little (or a lot) terrified to do this introspection. But I guess sweeping the need for it under the rug won't do me any good in the long run.

[Scaly Freak]

2 hours ago, MikeWazowski said:

 

Indeed - I'm a little (or a lot) terrified to do this introspection.

 

There's a reason that cave on Dagobah remains the most frightening thing in any Star Wars movie ever.... if introspection isn't frightening, that means we're doing it wrong.Personally, I think of it as the mental/spiritual version of a root canal - it hurts to all hell and back, but we still have to do it, or we'll eventually be so much worse off than we are now. And if reality worked like Persona 4, at least we would have cool summoning powers after it's all over and done with... but it doesn't and we don't. Good luck and courage to you, with your next challenge.

 

Sorry to hear the Nationals weren't fun for you. You seemed like you were looking forward to them at lot. If I may make a suggestion, it's probably not a good idea to make a difficult-to-reverse decision before doing the introspection... only when you know what you really want and need, will you be able to decide what is best for you.

[raptron]

On 3/11/2018 at 12:03 PM, MikeWazowski said:

I realized my primary motivation as a competitor of late has been less about dance for its own sake and more about achieving some semblance of success and recognition through dance. Not a healthy motivation, especially for a competitive performing art.

A lot of people thrive on competition as a motivator and find that striving for recognition in their field is a good goal for them. I wouldn't say that in itself is a bad motivator, but rather how you react helps you figure out whether it is the right kind of motivation for you. I found that trying to be top was not great for me mentally because it gave me a lot of negative feelings of inadequacy. Pursuing things because I enjoy doing them and have FUN doing them is when I thrive, personally, as an athlete so I spend a lot of time framing competitions as "this is to see what I can do" and "I'm here to have fun." 

 

On 3/11/2018 at 12:03 PM, MikeWazowski said:

Given what my partner and I have already committed to, and knowing that quitting competing is a difficult-to-reverse decision for me (partners who are dedicated are *rare* in my neck of the woods), I'm committing to trying to reframe my motivations for the next 3 and a half months leading up to our last planned competition and I'll reassess at that point.

I hope you find reflection time to be helpful in figuring out what motivators work for you without putting undue stress/pressure on your psyche. 

 

On 3/11/2018 at 12:03 PM, MikeWazowski said:

Believe it or not, before this **** went down this week, I was already planning on making next challenge focused on emotional / mental / spiritual health, and now it seems even more apt. Details coming...soonish. Probably this evening.

Excellent.

[Mike Wazowski]

Also, teased it earlier, but my next challenge is going to be solely focused on spiritual / emotional / mental health.

 

Why am I blurring all those together?

Spoiler

For me, I'm not sure that my spiritual health is separate from my mental / emotional health, vs. just being a facet of the same thing. I find that when I'm going through an especially rough patch where I'm doubting my own worth as a human / worker / athlete (whatever it is that day), the concept that I have inherent worth as a human by virtue of being made imago Dei (in God's image) really helps me regain a sense of self-worth and self-compassion. I know it's possible for a lot of folks to find their self-worth through a non-theologically grounded humanist perspective, but I'm not that person, so spiritual health is an important part of my mental health.

 

I'm gonna be tackling this area of my health in four parts:

1. Lay the foundation: Schedule 8 hours for sleep, every night. I have an easier time with adversity when I'm well-rested.
2. Begin each day on the right foot: Morning Qi Gong flow (or my poor approximation of it), at least 5 deep breaths every day while my coffee's brewing and toast is toasting
3. Reflect and be grateful: Daily Examen every evening (common Jesuit prayer going over the events of the day, what I'm grateful for, and where I could've acted with more patience)
4. Don't go it alone: Keep having monthly anxiety coaching calls (free through work), try out online therapy option at least once (also through work)

I'll still be in the Warriors, because I like all y'all. In the background, I'll also still be cutting and working out - though I'm going to be fully giving the weights a break and shortening my morning training time because in parallel with attempting to reframe my dance motivations, I'm also going to carve out additional practice time so that I have more time for deliberate practice in my week. Now my leg strengthening work is going to be 2 15-minute-ish circuits of bodyweight work per week; am I likely to lose some strength? Probably, but that's ok since it's not a target attribute for my sport, really.

[Mike Wazowski]

17 hours ago, scalyfreak said:

 

There's a reason that cave on Dagobah remains the most frightening thing in any Star Wars movie ever.... if introspection isn't frightening, that means we're doing it wrong.Personally, I think of it as the mental/spiritual version of a root canal - it hurts to all hell and back, but we still have to do it, or we'll eventually be so much worse off than we are now. And if reality worked like Persona 4, at least we would have cool summoning powers after it's all over and done with... but it doesn't and we don't. Good luck and courage to you, with your next challenge.

Thanks, friend. It's frightening for sure, and that's without me even really going deep into the cave yet.

 

17 hours ago, scalyfreak said:

Sorry to hear the Nationals weren't fun for you. You seemed like you were looking forward to them at lot. If I may make a suggestion, it's probably not a good idea to make a difficult-to-reverse decision before doing the introspection... only when you know what you really want and need, will you be able to decide what is best for you.

Ya, I was looking forward to them - maybe too much in retrospect. Something about low expectations so you're never disappointed.

 

5 hours ago, raptron said:

A lot of people thrive on competition as a motivator and find that striving for recognition in their field is a good goal for them. I wouldn't say that in itself is a bad motivator, but rather how you react helps you figure out whether it is the right kind of motivation for you. I found that trying to be top was not great for me mentally because it gave me a lot of negative feelings of inadequacy. Pursuing things because I enjoy doing them and have FUN doing them is when I thrive, personally, as an athlete so I spend a lot of time framing competitions as "this is to see what I can do" and "I'm here to have fun." 

I think it's a bad motivator for me in that competitive success is something I'm never going to feel like I've achieved - I started way too late and I'm not in a situation where I have any hope of catching up to achieve top-level success, so I'll perpetually be frustrated if I make competitive success a target variable.

 

5 hours ago, raptron said:

I hope you find reflection time to be helpful in figuring out what motivators work for you without putting undue stress/pressure on your psyche. 

 

Excellent.

Fingers crossed!

 

 

Piling on the suck-age: partner cancelled her trip to Dallas this weekend for a competition we were already registered for. Because she didn't finagle her work schedule to make it work early enough (i.e. she forgot to ask about swapping shifts til today). Seeing as it was already over a month since our last in-town weekend for me, I'm more than a little annoyed by this, AND we've got another month til our next training trip with actual lessons.

[Scaly Freak]

5 minutes ago, MikeWazowski said:

Ya, I was looking forward to them - maybe too much in retrospect. Something about low expectations so you're never disappointed.

 

 

Nope. Definitely not.

 

Anticipation, that thrilling high from truly looking forward to something that you know will make you happy, is one of the greatest pleasures available to us. Don't deprive yourself of that simply because what was supposed to make you happy failed to do so.... especially since it sounds as if you are well on your way to figuring out why that is.

[Gemma]

 

44 minutes ago, MikeWazowski said:

I'm gonna be tackling this area of my health in four parts:

1. Lay the foundation: Schedule 8 hours for sleep, every night. I have an easier time with adversity when I'm well-rested.
2. Begin each day on the right foot: Morning Qi Gong flow (or my poor approximation of it), at least 5 deep breaths every day while my coffee's brewing and toast is toasting
3. Reflect and be grateful: Daily Examen every evening (common Jesuit prayer going over the events of the day, what I'm grateful for, and where I could've acted with more patience)
4. Don't go it alone: Keep having monthly anxiety coaching calls (free through work), try out online therapy option at least once (also through work)

 

This is "brilliance in the basics." Presence or lack of decent night's sleep + a bit of quiet time in the morning (for me it's Bible study and Headspace meditation) is an almost scarily good predictor of how I will handle anything that happens that day. I want to add an evening reflective/prayer time back into my life too, it fell away in a busy season and I miss it.

 

I'm so happy that you are staying here for the next challenge! 

[Mike Wazowski]

16 hours ago, scalyfreak said:

 

Nope. Definitely not.

 

Anticipation, that thrilling high from truly looking forward to something that you know will make you happy, is one of the greatest pleasures available to us. Don't deprive yourself of that simply because what was supposed to make you happy failed to do so.... especially since it sounds as if you are well on your way to figuring out why that is.

Fair - even as I was typing that it felt off. Highlights a real tendency I have to cut myself off from all emotional experience to avoid the negative ones, not exactly ideal. I may be accidentally misrepresenting how far along I am on the journey - my coach and I have a catch up scheduled for tomorrow evening and the list of topics I sent him is...quite lengthy.

 

 

16 hours ago, Gemma said:

This is "brilliance in the basics." Presence or lack of decent night's sleep + a bit of quiet time in the morning (for me it's Bible study and Headspace meditation) is an almost scarily good predictor of how I will handle anything that happens that day. I want to add an evening reflective/prayer time back into my life too, it fell away in a busy season and I miss it.

 

I'm so happy that you are staying here for the next challenge! 

Thank you - I'm hoping that the morning quiet time does wonders, though I'll admit I phoned it in yesterday and today; just not handling the swirling emotions in me especially well yet. I'm also slipping back into falling asleep on the couch with the TV on, which I *know* is strongly linked to me feeling shitty about myself and my life (chicken and egg, not sure if it's a cause or a symptom, but it might be a vicious circle from a sleep deprivation perspective).

 

New challenge is up!