Mu develops her inner HS puppy

[Norgaard]

amazing video! you do great! what do you do with the ball?

[KB Girl]

Those lever spins are awesome!

 

[RogueLibrarian]

On 4/15/2019 at 5:32 AM, Norgaard said:

that banana fish scares me!

 

On 4/15/2019 at 5:34 AM, KB Girl said:

The banana fish is going to put me off bananas for a little while... 

 

I'm glad I'm not the only one afraid of the banana fish.

 

Also, I know that HS stands for handstand, but every time I see the title, I have to stop and think, wait, not high school... ah, right

[@mu]

2 hours ago, RogueLibrarian said:

Also, I know that HS stands for handstand, but every time I see the title, I have to stop and think, wait, not high school... ah, right

 

tss Then I have another one for you: HS in French stands for Hors Service = out of order.

 

On 4/23/2019 at 9:21 PM, Norgaard said:

amazing video! you do great! what do you do with the ball?

 

Cheers!

At the moment I mostly use it to drill hamstring flexibility with a flexed foot (I hold the ball in a flexed foot and do pike or straddle leg extensions). I previously used it in aerial practice, I still do every so often but not as much. I have used it on parallettes a few times, maybe I should try handstands with it I also practice rolls and throws. But I don't do that very regularly at all these days.

 

7 hours ago, KB Girl said:

Those lever spins are awesome!

 

 

thanks! hélas today there were elusive again.

 

Lots of coding these days, I'm exploding my job prep item.

 

I did a sort of acrylics doodle, painting randomly and then trying to find meaningful shapes (the story of human beings right ) to elaborate on. So far I have a male and a female octopus, and the male looks scared shitless. I might continue on that road with pens. 

 

~Practice ~

Wed = REST (ha brilliant!)

Thur = Cirque physio x1 + P2 custom trial run, kept things light, about 2/3 the volume I'm planning.

I did not manage full lever spins this time.

At the end, I still had some good energy and I worked on HS line + kick to straddle HS. My legs are bending so much on that one, it's indecent It was funny to watch on video because it doesn't feel THAT bad really.

And I tried for 5mn to kick in HS with my ball, I tried various options: flexed foot, between the ankles = NADA. It's super hard! The most doable seems to hold it between my legs. Maybe I could try even higher, between thighs. It is oddly hard. Maybe I also fear the bail because the brain is stupid sometimes (no don't hold onto the ball, let it go and use your legs & feet to land please ... it's pretty obvious right? but I'm not sure it will happen that way...)

 

On a happy side note, I told you my father gave us some food plants and they are GROWING, the cat is not really doing anything to them weirdly enough, she is more attracted to the green ones inside.

But here is a glorious basil pic if you remember my numerous fails at growing this thing in Tehran...

 

To be fair it was much harder back then because I only had seeds + limited sun exposition + pollution + the cat was obsessed with it and so on... and this one on the other hand does not require much work at all ... I acknowledge that But easy happiness is ok by me

Let's see how long it lasts. My father says I should manage until November at least. We also have parsley, chives and mint. All doing well so far.

 

/* Challenge Log */
     last P2 cycle |Deload 
P2:            3/3 | 1/1
Press2HS       3/3 | 1/2
HS:            3/3 | 0/1
 
Stretching:    2/2 | 1/2
Cirque-Physio:18/18| 7/12
Legs:          2/2 | 2/2
Ball-flex:     4/4 | 2/4
Pull:          5   | 1
 
Job-prep:     10/10| 12/10
Drawing:       1   | 1

 

[raptron]

Ahhh, look at that robust basil! 

 

29 minutes ago, @mu said:

painting randomly and then trying to find meaningful shapes (the story of human beings right ) 

[@mu]

 

Here is some kicking to straddle HS, it's not pretty but logging it as my starting point. It also has a bit of rabbit in it (light but present).

NB: it's a kick to straddle with a posterior pelvic tilt (butt tucked), this is why it's pikey, but for once it's normal this is the form Kirsty asks us to use.

Yeah legs I know

 

 

[WhiteGhost]

56 minutes ago, @mu said:

I did a sort of acrylics doodle, painting randomly and then trying to find meaningful shapes (the story of human beings right ) to elaborate on. So far I have a male and a female octopus, and the male looks scared shitless. I might continue on that road with pens. 

I can't wait to see what you end up with  

 

 

[Mike Wazowski]

Ahhh that basil looks glorious!! And love that you found a starting point for your press to handstand journey.

 

Post pics of the acrylic shapes? I feel like that'd be a fun crowdsourcing experiment.

[KB Girl]

Might not be pretty, but still very impressive. 

[@mu]

Ha ha, I didn't take a picture of the first random shapes (the “Big Bang” moment ).

But here is the doodle as it stands:

 

 

I'm afraid the other octopus has been obliterated into elephants parts and eyeballs, and maybe some other stuff, I need to think about it. The main octopus is now looking scared/ecstatic. I added a bird, a clownish figure, a ship in a storm and a horse. I'm not sure I can make something coherent out of this

 

On 4/25/2019 at 7:43 PM, Mike Wazowski said:

I feel like that'd be a fun crowdsourcing experiment.

 

Or group psychotherapy. E. just asked: "is it me, the octopus?" And that actually had crossed my mind in a weird way. And then we got into a very interesting conversation

 

Drawing: +0.5 added a bit to my doodles

I bought guesso for my cardboard project but I haven't done anything yet.

 

Job-prep: a lot of coding, +3 points again.

 

Practice: Cirque Physio x2 + hanging raises & straddle-ups + back-bends + silks alignment

The usual, nothing special.

 

/* Challenge Log */
     last P2 cycle |Deload 
P2:            3/3 | 1/1
Press2HS       3/3 | 1/2
HS:            3/3 | 0/1
 
Stretching:    2/2 | 2/2
Cirque-Physio:18/18| 9/12
Legs:          2/2 | 2/2
Ball-flex:     4/4 | 2/4
Pull:          5   | 2
 
Job-prep:     10/10| 15/10
Drawing:       1   | 1.5

 

[PaulG]

@mu, you are hardcore. Following!

 

I always thought it would be cool to learn a good straight-arm press to handstand. I’ve never been nearly strong enough, though... and my handstand has always sucked.  Big fan of your progress though!

[KB Girl]

I was going to say that the end result is pretty darn awesome, but then.. 

14 hours ago, @mu said:

Or group psychotherapy. E. just asked: "is it me, the octopus?" And that actually had crossed my mind in a weird way. And then we got into a very interesting conversation

this is very very interesting  want to elaborate?

[@mu]

7 minutes ago, KB Girl said:

I was going to say that the end result is pretty darn awesome, but then.. 

this is very very interesting  want to elaborate?

 

well maybe not too much in all the details, but let's say one aspect is that he is a bit stressed/scared and torn between 2 worlds. He fears rejection here because he is not white, he is bearded and Muslim, and on top of it Shiite, so he also fears going to a Sunni mosque for instance (France's Muslims are mainly Sunni). He hasn't actually experienced any bad thing (may it last that way), he is projecting a lot from the news / social media. He also has his immigration appointment coming soon where he should get a medical + advice/info and sign a "Republican Contract". That's a bit stressful too.

At the same time, he likes it here and he will have a lot more opportunities too. It's not like living in Iran was a piece of cake. But the unknown can be a bit scary (for both of us actually).

 

14 hours ago, PaulG said:

@mu, you are hardcore. Following!

 

I always thought it would be cool to learn a good straight-arm press to handstand. I’ve never been nearly strong enough, though... and my handstand has always sucked.  Big fan of your progress though!

 

Hiya & thanks!

 

My HS on the floor is not very good, generally speaking most of the skills I can manage on parallettes are not very good on the floor either

They are great little tools for progression though, I used to try floor work and I'd get stuck quickly and drop it after a while... I started on knee-high parallettes and somehow that has made me stick!

 

Today

 

Practice: Ball drill + Hanging raises & straddle-ups + PressToHS + silks alignment

And I sent my first video submission with my comments. Let's see what she says

[KB Girl]

Yes, of course it's scary.. I hope he continues to have good or simply neutral experiences.

Does he have to do any sort of immigration or language course?

[WhiteGhost]

19 hours ago, @mu said:

I'm afraid the other octopus has been obliterated into elephants parts and eyeballs, and maybe some other stuff, I need to think about it. The main octopus is now looking scared/ecstatic. I added a bird, a clownish figure, a ship in a storm and a horse. I'm not sure I can make something coherent out of this

I love it!  And hey, it's art - it doesn't have to be coherent  

[Mad Hatter]

The octopus is adorable! 

 

Your videos and progress are awesome and super inspiring as always  

[@mu]

On 4/27/2019 at 3:58 PM, KB Girl said:

Yes, of course it's scary.. I hope he continues to have good or simply neutral experiences.

Does he have to do any sort of immigration or language course?

 

I don't think they will require him to take any course because he is fluent enough in French (I'm biased but really ). In any case, outside of immigration requirements, the plan was for him to study for a while and get a uni degree.

 

On 4/27/2019 at 4:27 PM, WhiteGhost said:

I love it!  And hey, it's art - it doesn't have to be coherent  

 

Exactly, and it's nice to let the hand run free and do whatever.

 

On 4/27/2019 at 8:45 PM, Mad Hatter said:

The octopus is adorable! 

 

Your videos and progress are awesome and super inspiring as always  

 

Hey you're back!!

 

 

Drawing/cardboard: I started applying guesso to the carboard furniture. It will take a while.

Job-prep: a bit of coding but a bit less over the week-end

 

Practice: Cirque Physio + ball drill + HS deload:

• straight HS to straddle with posterior tilt

• jump to straddle HS with tilt

• a bit of endurance with a max at 36s, I kept falling over

+ a meathook drill, I lost a bit of good form, not having done any for a few months now.

 

And I got feedback from Kirsty

 

Basically nothing is preventing me from starting to work on the press, more pancake would help but it would still be doable. (That sounds like donkey is going to be my friend.... and I have to ask her why her programme is not giving me hips flexibility work then.)

 

Re my line it's good overall and my piking story should be fixed by working on pulling my ribs down! So first elevate to create space for the ribs and then pull them in. And I think indeed yesterday I kept falling over because I pushed up more, but without taking care of the ribs.

This is great for me because I have been trying to fix this very heuristically not being quite sure of the exact origin of it (elevation? abs? cubitus valgus thingy?) and now I have something very specific to chew on and I will just stick to that.

 

I also have to send her a short video from my back so that she can check external rotation (I can feel it when upright but inverted, it's very fuzzy).

 

Ah and about cubitus valgus, she says it's very common indeed and the only impediment is that it puts more strain on the elbows so I should be careful and slow down if I have any pain especially if I start training one arm stuff. But my 2-arms hold look like my elbows are strong enough for what I'm currently working on.

 

~ Weekly review ~

 

/* Challenge Log */
     last P2 cycle |Deload 
P2:            3/3 | 1/1
Press2HS       3/3 | 2/2
HS:            3/3 | 1/1
 
Stretching:    2/2 | 2/2
Cirque-Physio:18/18| 12/12
Legs:          2/2 | 2/2
Ball-flex:     4/4 | 4/4
Pull:          5   | 4
 
Job-prep:     10/10| 16/10
Drawing:       1   | 2

 

Doing very well on the job prep, updating myself on the local framework + some tech I haven't had time to follow up on in Iran. The plan is to get a full stack demo and put it on Github as sample code. The usual stuff but with a different toolset.

 

Drawing & cardboard: some stuff happening, enough for this challenge

 

Practice: good deload week, I feel rested and I'm very happy with Kirsty's programme and what I'm getting from it already.

 

[Mad Hatter]

4 hours ago, @mu said:

I don't think they will require him to take any course because he is fluent enough in French (I'm biased but really ). In any case, outside of immigration requirements, the plan was for him to study for a while and get a uni degree.

What topic?

 

Nice feedback, great that you got some good advice for the piking thing. It can be so tricky to pinpoint the source of an issue when everything is connected together. Of course that's why coaches exist.  

[@mu]

On 4/29/2019 at 2:02 PM, Mad Hatter said:

What topic?

 

Well, French at first, because while he has fluency, it's not good enough yet for academic production. Then theology / biblical studies.

 

On 4/29/2019 at 2:02 PM, Mad Hatter said:

Nice feedback, great that you got some good advice for the piking thing. It can be so tricky to pinpoint the source of an issue when everything is connected together. Of course that's why coaches exist.  

 

Exactly! It's nice to be able to just trust and not second-guess myself every 5 minutes.

 

Practice:

 

Yesterday: legs x2, Cirque Physio x3, ball drill x1, hips stretching, include bits from PressToHS . Got the hip bonus by reducing my assessment score it's actually the same as the hip assessment workout and I have already added it to my hips routine. On the other hand, I increased my spine score to 8 as she suggested, and I no longer have the spine bonus. Which is fine, I do enough on backbend days.

 

Today: Cirque Physio x3, ball drill x1, hanging raises & straddle-ups, PressToHS (press foundation: straddle HS), HS consistency, silks alignment

 

Press to HS was mostly about straddle HS and working on straightening my legs while jumping and balancing. The bottom press exercise in conditioning is pretty hard too. It feels like pressing the earth. You know you are not going anywhere anytime soon but you still have to puuuuuush...

 

HS consistency went a big step down => 12/25 BAM! 2 main reasons for that:

 

(1) I tried to fix my ribs. The more I tried to pull them in, the more I piked, until my babel fish translated: “you can pull as much as you like we don't have space to get pulled into, you idiot”. Then I pushed some MOAR before pulling, and then I started feeling I could pull them in and get straighter, but it's a big push and indeed very inconsistent.

 

(2) I'm trying to change my kick. I don't know if you noticed, but I usually jump twice before kicking. I do not know why. Maybe a remnant of rabbit. But as I started to practice jumps to straddle HS, I realized it was very hard to double-jump while in straddle... I thought mhm I should definitely fix my double-jump habit then. I mean you never see hand-balancers going 1-2- wait-for-it and hop 3 And the change is not easy. A lot of the fails were bad kicks, not powerful enough or very donkey-ish. And the others were rib-related or a mix of the 2.

 

So be it. I need to start getting a line on a more consistent basis too. A bit annoying for sure but no hard feelings.

 

And job-prep => a fair amount of coding yesterday and today but also had some errands to run and admin to do, so just 2 points every day so far. No time for cardboard/drawing.

 

/* Challenge Log */
     last P2 cycle |Deload| #1
P2:            3/3 | 1/1  | 0/1
Press2HS       3/3 | 2/2  | 1/2
HS:            3/3 | 1/1  | 1/3
 
Stretching:    2/2 | 2/2  | 1/2
Cirque-Physio:18/18| 12/12| 6/18
Legs:          2/2 | 2/2  | 2/2
Ball-flex:     4/4 | 4/4  | 2/4
Pull:          5   | 4    | 1
 
Job-prep:     10/10| 16/10| 4/10
Drawing:       1   | 2    | 0

 

[raptron]

Ohhh, yeah, big changes will always take a lot of time to settle in. Glad you got such nice feedback from Kristi.  

 

 

[KB Girl]

Ah so helpful to just be able to trust someone else!  It can be ridiculously hard to find someone like that, so very glad that you did. 

It's funny/interesting the little habits we get into. Good luck with kicking the double kick habit x) 

[Mike Wazowski]

Ah that's awesome that you're getting useful feedback from a coach! And sounds like you're killing it on the job prep front, I'm sure you'll have offers knocking down your door soon enough!

[Mad Hatter]

On 4/30/2019 at 7:16 PM, @mu said:

 So be it. I need to start getting a line on a more consistent basis too. A bit annoying for sure but no hard feelings.

But just think about how much better your handstands will be once you fix those little things!

[PaulG]

Sounds like you’re doing really focused work on the handstand form, that’s awesome. As someone who’s having trouble even keeping a basic line,  I’m curious to see how things shape up over the next couple weeks!

 

Basil looks awesome too. I’m jealous of your gardening skills.

[Mad Hatter]

23 hours ago, PaulG said:

Basil looks awesome too. I’m jealous of your gardening skills.

Good thing you didn't see the previous gardening attempts.  

Sorry @@mu had to.