The Assassin's Path

[@mu]

23 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

Have you considered finding a teacher online or a private? It could be a good idea even if just for a consultation. Then again you're doing great on your own for the time that you're able to put in, your other training is keeping you quite busy!  

 

Maybe at some point. First I would like to have a class with a teacher who is a bit specialized, not the generic flexi time at the end of classes. Videos might not be enough.Or maybe a live video consultation? I follow Catie Brier, she seems to do that but I think she has like a 1-year waiting list for new students and you have to go through her programmes first. Which might be a good idea actually. But I have enough programmes in the queue right now I have to check other people to see what they offer.

 

Thursday => HSPU training (logged in challenge) + Emmet's split training. Pissing dog is difficult, you have to be careful about so many things (hip level, overuse of obliques...). No balancing after that, shoulders need rest.

[Mad Hatter]

Yeah I was thinking something like a live video consultation. Catie does seem absolutely swamped, and for good reason! Maybe look up Bendy Kate. She's a bendy physio pole dancer and big on the coaching. I'm not sure how good she is, but maybe she could help. Or the contortionist that CirquePhysio has started to work with (sorry forgot their name), I know they started doing something online coaching related.

But it depends what you'd want to get out of it, if you want mostly a form check and program tweaking it'd be worth finding someone, but if you really want to take it further it's probably not a good time. Considering your queue and all.  

What's in your queue btw? Besides HSPUs.  

[@mu]

17 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

Yeah I was thinking something like a live video consultation. Catie does seem absolutely swamped, and for good reason! Maybe look up Bendy Kate. She's a bendy physio pole dancer and big on the coaching. I'm not sure how good she is, but maybe she could help. Or the contortionist that CirquePhysio has started to work with (sorry forgot their name), I know they started doing something online coaching related.

But it depends what you'd want to get out of it, if you want mostly a form check and program tweaking it'd be worth finding someone, but if you really want to take it further it's probably not a good time. Considering your queue and all.  

What's in your queue btw? Besides HSPUs.  

 

I'll check them out at some point. My brain is a bit too busy right now but it would be so helpful to get specific pointers / training directions.

 

In the queue there is also Handstand Factory, which I'm not doing in full because I already have too much on my plate. But I'm still doing the head-in block. And Emmet's split training programme, which is part of HS Factory but it's a fairly independent block.  And I feel that I'm still in the HS press programme as I work this puppy foot out of my way following the last coaching bit from Kirsty. 

 

Friday => REST

Damn, I have been feeling like on Friday since Tuesday, and at last the day has come

Work is really busy right now, we have had a pre-audit at the beginning of the month and will get the real one in July. The team is getting super tired.

Some colleagues have started going back to the office but I'm still 100% remote because E. is at risk. It's on the voluntary basis anyway and quite a few of us are still 100% remote.

 

Spoiler

On the not so good side... my father has been diagnosed with cancer (my uncle who passed away from cancer recently was his older brother). HOWEVER, it's not the meanest cancer at all and prognostic is very good (prostate cancer discovered in the very early stage). So well, keeping up with good optimism... but I'd appreciate it if life could stop sending shitty news for a while, really.

 

 

[Mad Hatter]

Oh man I'm sorry to hear that. But the diagnosis is very good indeed, considering! Fingers crossed for a speedy recovery and smooth treatment.

[WhiteGhost]

I'm glad to hear the prognosis is good, but yes, a break from all the terrible news for a bit would be nice

[@mu]

On 6/19/2020 at 8:54 AM, Mad Hatter said:

Oh man I'm sorry to hear that. But the diagnosis is very good indeed, considering! Fingers crossed for a speedy recovery and smooth treatment.

 

On 6/19/2020 at 11:41 AM, WhiteGhost said:

I'm glad to hear the prognosis is good, but yes, a break from all the terrible news for a bit would be nice

 

yes... Thanks ❤️

 

Saturday => Press to HS

 

Straight head in was so so, I kept piking at the end of the transition. I ended up going back to the wall to get that bracing feeling from the shoulders and I could hold fine. I think in free standing I'm a bit shy with going that far over the shoulders. It's a brain thing. It's not that far and I can do it near a wall, but da brain...

Press was good! I nailed 7cm without puppy cheat, and 3 times yo!  Leaning is still very limited. Although I swear every single rep, I went: LEAN!!! Sometimes I get a bit more lean if I look up a bit more, I will explore that.

I did negs, and some crane work. A little improvement, still < 10s. Mostly hard on joints and... upper abs.

 

 

[Mad Hatter]

Smooth! It's so funny how most people struggle with leaning too much while you're forcing yourself to do it. 😄Maybe with pike press work it will come more naturally as you won't be able to compensate.

[@mu]

2 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

Smooth! It's so funny how most people struggle with leaning too much while you're forcing yourself to do it. 😄Maybe with pike press work it will come more naturally as you won't be able to compensate.

 

Good point! I haven't tried yet, maybe I should give it a go from higher up to see how it feels.

 

I found the hydrating cream I was looking for, the shop was open today.

https://uk.lush.com/products/face/skin-drink

It's awesome. I love it. It's fat but not overly, and it's really SOOTHING (I have a pretty dry and irritated skin these days, not as bad as in Tehran but still). Price is a little high but given how little I spend on skin care, it's within budget. I like they recycling policy, you bring back 5 empty containers and you get a gift. E. got stuff for his beard as well.

[Mad Hatter]

I use the ultra bland cleanser which seems to be the equivalent to that moisturiser and it absolutely saved my skin from Scandi winters. My skin’s also dry and sensitive and used to get wrecked in the dry cold and wind. Sometimes I even put on a thin layer as a protective barrier before leaving the house. With this I don’t even need to use a moisturiser afterwards, which is neat, because I’m cheap and lazy. 😛 But I do wonder if they make cleansers purposefully dry out your skin so that you need to use a moisturiser afterwards...

[@mu]

4 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

because I’m cheap and lazy.

 

I'm the same, I'm so low key on all that stuff...

 

4 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

But I do wonder if they make cleansers purposefully dry out your skin so that you need to use a moisturiser afterwards...

 

It could be! Although I think that cleansing cleans, well, dirt, but it also possibly removes whatever is naturally produced by the skin for self-care. Maybe dry skins don't produce enough of that already so cleansers are harsher for those?

 

Sunday => HSPU training, Emmet's split training, some HS puppets hops

 

[Mad Hatter]

6 hours ago, @mu said:

It could be! Although I think that cleansing cleans, well, dirt, but it also possibly removes whatever is naturally produced by the skin for self-care. Maybe dry skins don't produce enough of that already so cleansers are harsher for those?

For sure, I just suspect many producers do it on purpose. Maybe I'm wrong, I did say I'm lazy and cheap haha, but does one really need 15 different skin care products?

[@mu]

12 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

Maybe I'm wrong, I did say I'm lazy and cheap haha, but does one really need 15 different skin care products?

 

ha ha I don't get it either!

 

Quick update before I run under the shower

 

Monday => Flexi session + HS

Hips, pancake, a bit of straddle up too (good to get warm)

HS puppet (logged in challenge)

Sasha classic: managed a first draft but not in full pike, and head closer to neutral than full head in

Hip flexors, shoulders & back, but a bit less than usual, running out of time (and shoulders were starting to tell me off anyway)

 

 

[@mu]

Tuesday => press to HS with some head-in work (Sasha classic, managing to seven head-in and moving one leg).

I tried pike press from my bench and I couldn't keep my legs straight at all and indeed I had to lean further, although it was still limited (and maybe why I couldn't straighten legs). So I ended up working mostly on tuck press. It was interesting to feel the difference! I will now work on it every other week or so, nice to have a bit of change while still working that press.

Crane -> 10s, but could not reproduce, joints have definitely lost the habit.

 

Here is the tuck press, it looks like mostly a small leg lift at that height but I definitely felt the push on the shoulders. I think my body is also a bit confused between getting into seven head-in from above and pressing up with straight legs. I can sense that the back activation needed is actually different but my body is going for the familiar. I will try with the chair next time to get closer to the mix up point.

 

 

[@mu]

Tuesday evening => Circus class: some low press prep, floor HS, floor rolls, cartwheels, roundoff and pbarz for me at the end

 

My right big toe is hurting again (before class, it has been a couple of days). Not sure if it's broken or not but it's annoying. It gets funny like that every so often and I'm wondering whether I did break / twist it a few years back when I hit it against a pbar in a negative. I hit both my toes against pbarz... several times... and both my nails are in various stages of coming out.... but the right one keeps getting twisted. There is nothing I can do about it really... except avoiding doing stuff like in the class above erm...

 

It was the same teacher as last week and towards the end he said I could do pbarz if I wanted to. I had my Pisa tower on again, I really have to watch out for that one but maybe it was also due to fatigue and not paying enough attention to my hand placement.  I also need to get my butt a bit further in my kickups, that's something I've felt a bit more these past weeks (from head-in training I think) and I know where the place is, I just don't get there all the time. It was good to get external feedback on both, it validates that I know roughly what I'm doing and can identify my own issues fairly accurately (unlike say in flexibility training, where I feel limits but I'm not sure where it comes from / what to do exactly).

 

Anyway, I was too tired to do anything beyond a few leg moves and a lot of energy went into failed kickups. Which was a little bit frustrating because I would really have liked to get some feedback on more than straight HS.

 

We didn't do any back bending this time.

 

Lots of HS today and when I came home I was honestly dead, more dead than my usual dead.

 

The +:

• I'm getting used to side bailing it seems
• Floor HS is improving

The -:

• The mosquitoes... (it's a big top with the sides all open). Nothing like being in a HS and feeling a mosquitoe landing on your arm and sucking your blood.
• That Pisa tower / right twist in HS is annoying me
• I don't enjoy much all the dynamic stuff, partly because of the toe, partly because I have been getting so used to training static HS and micro-controlling parts of my body that going all out with speed and momentum like that feels totally weird. And I'm not particularly attracted to it (I like watching though).

 

Wednesday => REST

 

I'm glad tomorrow is deload HSPU.

 

[Mad Hatter]

4 hours ago, @mu said:

It was the same teacher as last week and towards the end he said I could do pbarz if I wanted to.

How generous. 🙄

 

4 hours ago, @mu said:

• The mosquitoes... (it's a big top with the sides all open). Nothing like being in a HS and feeling a mosquitoe landing on your arm and sucking your blood.

GROSS! Next level challenge - being able to slap them away with one of your hands without falling over. 😄

[@mu]

18 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

How generous. 🙄

 

ISN'T IT

 

18 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

GROSS! Next level challenge - being able to slap them away with one of your hands without falling over. 😄

 

I was already hearing that mosquitoe taking the piss really, you can't slap me za za zaaaa

 

Thursday => HSPU training deload + Emmet's split training + HS puppet

 

 

[@mu]

Saturday => press to HS with some head-in before, and HS puppets after

 

I bought Catie Brier's Contortion Strong programmes... totally impulsive buy...

 

I'm testing the shoulder one before press HS (3 drills one day, 3 drills the other day). They are GOOD! I've replaced some of the shoulder stuff from Cirque Physio with those because my body struggles a bit with the novelty and some go a little bit deeper too. I'm paying more attention.

 

I haven't tried the other ones yet. But I think the post-backbend one is not super useful for me and I could have saved the money. It's meant for people feeling sore in their back the next day (I don't, it's mostly my butt that gets hit). It's lot of abs and presses. 12 drills, 4 of them are push-up variations. I feel, a bit self-righteously maybe, that I get enough abs and press work these days. And I don't have back soreness at the level I'm training at. So mhm.

 

Legs and toe point look interesting but I'm not sure how to organise myself, unless I have an extra session.... But if I do that, it has to be a session exclusively focused on hips and legs because shoulders absolutely need time off.

 

I'll update my challenge tomorrow because I'm not enjoying screen time these days (tired eyes).

[KB Girl]

Complete forgot to check your battle log and when I catch up on reading like this then I have too many things to comment on x)

 

But ehm, hope your dad is doing well and that you get a bit of a break. Also from blood sucking critters.

[@mu]

On 6/28/2020 at 11:03 PM, KB Girl said:

Complete forgot to check your battle log and when I catch up on reading like this then I have too many things to comment on x)

 

But ehm, hope your dad is doing well and that you get a bit of a break. Also from blood sucking critters.

 

Thanks  ❤️

 

Monday => flexibility + a little bit of HS (head-in pike).

 

I did Contortion Strong [CS] pre-backbend programme and it took a while (form check etc). Then shoulders + hip flexors + backbends. But by the time I got to pushing a bit deeper, I was just too tired! HS puppets the day before might be partly responsible.

 

The whole session still took 1h30 when on Mondays I'm really aiming for a 45-60mn max workout. On top of that I kept hips and legs for Friday...so it was not even a full body flex session. I'm not sure how this is going to work really. I know I'll get a bit faster as I get a better handle on drills (it's supposed to take 10-15mn for the CS bit), I'll give it a try but I might have to cherry pick CS pre-backbend drills like I did with Cirque Physio.

 

I also went back to work assuming this was the week of return but apparently I got it wrong, it's still 2-days of presence a week on a voluntary basis. It still meant biking back and forth and that was a bit hard... Football table was fun though I had really missed it (we heavily used gel on our hands). The day was otherwise pretty long because I had a bunch of merge requests to process + a lot of releasing to do.

 

This morning I woke up pretty sore all over, brain included So no press to HS, shoulders are feeling too grumpy and I still have Circus class this evening (last one before summer break).

 

Kirsty also got back to me about HSPUs and I have some videos to make so that she can see what's up really. That's very nice of her (the HSPU programme doesn't have video feedbacks included like the press to HS one does).

 

And yesterday we watched a documentary on a women community in a village near Kerman, it's a participative video, so mostly filmed by the women themselves (and not some outsider's point of view). And it was produced by friends and some support from the organisation I was working for in Iran. It is a very powerful documentary. The change in women is very tangible, and I could personally, as a woman, totally identify with them although I don't come from the same background nor live in the same conditions at all. I'm super happy they managed to get it released on Arte. It's subtitled in French and German.

 

I will be on holiday mid-July, I'm really looking forward to it!

 

[@mu]

Tuesday => I was so tired I took a complete rest day, I even skipped Circus class because I was so sore all over. Maybe it was a combo of lots of HS + new moves with Contortion Strong + biking + general fatigue. I don't know, but there was no way I could train anything.

 

Wednesday => usual rest day

 

Thursday => And at last today I'm feeling a bit recovered. Still tired though. I need holidays soon!

So HSPU and a bit of HS puppets (recorded in challenge).

 

The plan for tomorrow is to have a new legs and hips flexibility day (while Monday is more backbends and shoulders).

 

[Mad Hatter]

On 6/27/2020 at 1:42 PM, @mu said:

I bought Catie Brier's Contortion Strong programmes... totally impulsive buy...

LOL I got it too when she was doing the fundraiser. 😂Good cause and all, might as well. Maybe I'll even look at it soon. 😛

 

The documentary sounds super interesting, alas, my language skills fail me... May I ask what kind of changes in yourself you're talking about?

[@mu]

Friday => CS leg flex + hip flexors+ 3 Cirque Physio drills (hips) + Kirsty's pancake drills + Emmet's split training, I started dying about there and skipped CS toe point training.

It was nice though, up to Emmet's stuff that really killed me. It doesn't feel as hard after HSPU training.

 

10 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

The documentary sounds super interesting, alas, my language skills fail me... May I ask what kind of changes in yourself you're talking about?

 

It's a change in my level of self-esteem / self-confidence that shifted about when I was in Scotland. A change of perception about beliefs that I had never really contested or that I actually strongly believed in. For instance, that I could never run a business (according to my father), that I was a self-taught developer and therefore would never compare to an engineer (sexism was also a bit more violent in those times, so being a woman did not help either).

It's about at that time that I started powerlifting and it did change a lot about my self-perception somehow. I was also in intensive therapy for a few years (several times a week). And I still remember a book's title in my therapist's office, I haven't looked it up, so I don't know who wrote it, I'm not sure I want to check it out, I might be disappointed by what it is really about   But the title was "do I dare disturb the universe?". And it's a bit like that group of women. From the outside, it may look like small acts. They get together, create handicrafts and sell them. They film their progress (and that was very important because it kept a trace of the various barriers they encountered including from themselves not just from the men of the village). At the end they manage to buy a water pump with their profits which is a big improvement for a desert village and something men had never managed to do. I strongly felt that victory with them, for all the patronizing shit I have taken as a woman... But such acts do need to lead to some huge accomplishment either imo. And it's mostly my own universe that I dared to disturb. And you see it in the movie, the biggest change is in the women themselves, how they move, how they talk, they really found a new drive in themselves.  It's not narcissistic uber pride or anything, it's just being happy about what you have done (doesn't need to be perfect either but that's another topic) and knowing that you are standing strong on your ground. It doesn't mean I don't have lows or doubts every so often either. But I definitely feel a bit more grounded.

 

 

[@mu]

Saturday => press to HS with some head in (although did 3 drills of CS shoulders + physio + some straddle ups).

Head in was so so but I manage to press without puppy cheat from 6cm, yo! IT still wants to come up, so I'll stay there a while.

Crane also improved a wee bit (2 reps 10+s). The joint pain is easing.

I also managed a couple of back rolls with my ball! I do chest rolls / arms rolls as a shoulder warmup, it works well. The back roll (arm-neck-arm) has been pretty elusive until the past couple of weeks when I started getting the path. It makes me feel like a camel. The ball goes along the arm and then it has to go over that neck cervical that pops out a little bit and then it finds its way to the other arm. If the path is too high, it gets stuck in my head, if it's too loo, it will roll down the back on the other side. High precision roll! I like the idea of making progress with my warm-up moves

 

As of next week, I have to go back to the office every day. Biking will be tough. CEO has also be nagging a bit to get back to our sport coaching sessions but really I'm too tired. Maybe after the holidays. I also registered at Circus school for next year. Sadly the creative class is gone because I wanted to take it. So I will just do 1 aerial class on Tuesdays. I suppose it will be the same teacher. But that's all there is. I won't do the interdisciplinary class again. It was good to, interesting, lots of new stuff and variety. But I kinda know what I like by now

[@mu]

Monday => flexibility shoulders & back + HS head-in Sasha

 

Tuesday => HS head-in Sasha + press to HS including negatives + crane

 

Wednesday => REST

 

Thursday => HSPU training + HS puppets

 

Back on the bike and feeling it!

I have otherwise been drawing & painting these past few days. Which is odd, usually when I'm tired and mentally busy, I don't but I found it super relaxing. Although for 2 drawings, I used coloured pens that are quite low quality and dry, I had to forcefully push pigment on the paper and my fingers really hurt. And otherwise I went back to acrylics which is really nice and forgiving (fucked up a layer? no problem just paint over it).

 

I also discovered this artist and I really like what he does, in particular his monsters series:

https://www.youtube.com/user/Krizbaig/videos

He has an insta account as well.

[Mad Hatter]

Ooh I do hope you’ll share, your cats you did some time ago were great! 
 

I like the monsters.