Charlie_Quinn Sharpens Her Skills

[Charlie_Quinn]

"A jack-of-all-trades but master of none"

This is written in the description of the Ranger Guild and I've never liked it. I was thinking about this recently, and I realised why I don't like it. It's because, for me, it's true and I don't like that it's true. I have a pattern where I set out to learn a skill, do well for a few weeks and then drop it. Or I learn the basics of something but never do anything to sharpen the skill I've acquired. In this guild, we joke about this trait and call it Ranger Brain. That desire to always be looking for the next challenge, the next adventure, the next skill can be a wonderful thing and my 'what next' personality has led me to amazing experiences and to do things I never thought I could do. But it can also leave me feeling unfulfilled, looking for the next big high instead of buckling down to do the hard work to make myself good at something instead of just adequate. 

 

Unfortunately, there is no escape from the Ranger Brain. So instead of doing the sensible thing and picking one skill to focus on this challenge, I'm going to pick a few! They are going to be things that I've started to learn or have learned, but I need to keep working on to be proficient in them. But they are also things that can be done in short sessions to make them fit easily into my week.

 

Fitness Skills: 

Double Unders
Practice time: twice a week
I learned how to double under at the end of last year, practiced for a few weeks and stopped and moved onto learning toes-to-bar! So when double unders came up in a wod last week, I struggled to string even two together. This was the catalyst for wanting to work on these skills during this challenge.  I'm naturally quite good at skipping, so this skill should only need 10-15 minutes work, twice a week. 

 

Chin Ups / pull ups

Practice time: twice a week

It's embarrassing to admit that  but I've been working on this skill since my first challenge with the Ranger guild back in 2014! My first goal on my first challenge was to do 1 chin up. I can do a chin up and on a good day - when my upper body hasn't been destroyed by an evil WOD - I can get three in a row. But I still can't do an overhand grip pull up. I know what I need to do to get better at these and to finally do a damn strict pull up (negatives, negatives and more negatives) I just need to stop making excuses and put the damn work in!

 

Life Skills:

Learn SQL
Practice Time: 2 hours a week
I started learning to code a while back and then - surprise, surprise - dropped it when life got too busy and never returned to it. SQL is something I have a very limited access to in my work, but I'd like to understand it a little better. I've found a free online course so I'm going to start with that and then move on from there. 

Drawing
Practice time: 1 hour a week (TBC) 

So this one is more for fun. I remembered that I mentioned on @Jarric's previous challenge that I used to love to draw but haven't done so in many years. So I'm going to pick up some pencils and get back into sketching again.  One thing I never learned to do properly was draw people, particularly faces, so my focus will be on this. But I may also sketch my cat, if he allows me to!
 

SIDE QUEST: STRETCH / MOBILITY WORK DAILY

Do some form of stretching, mobility or pre-hab work or use the massage gun. Minimum 15 minutes daily

[Salinger]

Hey CQ, excited about the Life Skill ... following along to watch you crush it all xx

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

Following!

[Cheetah]

Following!

 

Happy Challenge!

[Mr_Willes]

#1 CrossFit

#2 OCR

# all the rest: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multisport_race

 

15 hours ago, Charlie_Quinn said:

the next skill can be a wonderful thing and my 'what next' personality has led me to amazing experiences and to do things I never thought I could do.

 

Why not just embrace it, and ride it for as long as you feel like? It's your life there is no guide set out for you how to live it!

 

I started out with running (like years ago, when some of you still had to develop pubic hairs) after that i joined a fitness club, onto weight lifting on my own, joined crossfit, went back to weight lifting, and now i'm pretty emerged in running again. And you know what, i feel great. I want to go back to lifting one day, but not right now, i think during springtime somewhere. For now i love running and will continue it. Seeing you talk about CF feels like that's your jam of the moment. So go get it, and don't feel like you have to do anything but enjoy yourself!

 

So i'm gonna just stake out here to keep an eye on things...

[Charlie_Quinn]

17 hours ago, Salinger said:

Hey CQ, excited about the Life Skill ... following along to watch you crush it all xx

 

Hey Sal, good to see you.

 

15 hours ago, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

Following!

 

6 hours ago, Cheetah said:

Following!

 

Happy Challenge!

 

Hello followers! 

 

3 hours ago, Mr_Willes said:

#1 CrossFit

#2 OCR

# all the rest: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multisport_race

 

 

Why not just embrace it, and ride it for as long as you feel like? It's your life there is no guide set out for you how to live it!

 

I started out with running (like years ago, when some of you still had to develop pubic hairs) after that i joined a fitness club, onto weight lifting on my own, joined crossfit, went back to weight lifting, and now i'm pretty emerged in running again. And you know what, i feel great. I want to go back to lifting one day, but not right now, i think during springtime somewhere. For now i love running and will continue it. Seeing you talk about CF feels like that's your jam of the moment. So go get it, and don't feel like you have to do anything but enjoy yourself!

 

So i'm gonna just stake out here to keep an eye on things...

 

I absolutely do embrace it. It's what drives me to learn new things and want to better myself and I love that part of me. What I'm trying to do is not move on to a new skill so quickly. I need to spend more time honing my skills. Like with the double unders; if I'd kept up the regular practice before class, I wouldn't have been in a position last week where I wanted to quit the WOD because my double unders were non-existent. It doesn't mean that I'm not going to work on any new skills in the meantime either. I'm absolutely going to start looking at trying to get a kipping HSPU, but I need to make sure I keep working on the other skills so I don't backslide. 

[aramis]

18 hours ago, Charlie_Quinn said:

Chin Ups / pull ups

Practice time: twice a week

It's embarrassing to admit that  but I've been working on this skill since my first challenge with the Ranger guild back in 2014! My first goal on my first challenge was to do 1 chin up. I can do a chin up and on a good day - when my upper body hasn't been destroyed by an evil WOD - I can get three in a row. But I still can't do an overhand grip pull up. I know what I need to do to get better at these and to finally do a damn strict pull up (negatives, negatives and more negatives) I just need to stop making excuses and put the damn work in!

Hello!

Just wanted to chime in about great progression to chin-ups @Hazard created. You may check if some moves can help you with pull-ups. Or you can use exercise band to do assisted pull-ups (that was the way I learned).

[Charlie_Quinn]

Week Zero - Monday

I edited my initial post to include a side quest of stretching / doing mobility work daily. I forgot that I said I was going to carry that over from last challenge.

 

Pull up skill 1/2
I did a session of negative pull ups and supersetted them with banded lat pull downs.

Mobility / Shoulder Pre-hab DONE
I followed the pull up work with some banded face pulls and seated single arm z press to help with my shoulder stability and strength. 

[Charlie_Quinn]

37 minutes ago, aramis said:

Hello!

Just wanted to chime in about great progression to chin-ups @Hazard created. You may check if some moves can help you with pull-ups. Or you can use exercise band to do assisted pull-ups (that was the way I learned).

 

Thanks aramis. I'm going to be doing a lot of the things listed on that progressions. I'm weakest in the bottom of the pull, so I'm going to be working on that quite a bit in the coming weeks. I really can't get on with banded pull ups. Although it's partly a strength thing, there is also a mental block for me with them and I think bands are too much of a 'safety net', if that makes sense? I got so reliant on the band, that I convinced myself that I could never do it without the band! 

[Charlie_Quinn]

LIFE SKILLS ADDED
 

23 hours ago, Charlie_Quinn said:

Life Skills:

Learn SQL
Practice Time: 2 hours a week
I started learning to code a while back and then - surprise, surprise - dropped it when life got too busy and never returned to it. SQL is something I have a very limited access to in my work, but I'd like to understand it a little better. I've found a free online course so I'm going to start with that and then move on from there. 

Drawing
Practice time: 1 hour a week (TBC) 

So this one is more for fun. I remembered that I mentioned on @Jarric's previous challenge that I used to love to draw but haven't done so in many years. So I'm going to pick up some pencils and get back into sketching again.  One thing I never learned to do properly was draw people, particularly faces, so my focus will be on this. But I may also sketch my cat, if he allows me to!

 

[Jarric]

Love this challenge, building your skills in things you enjoy is a really great idea.

 

I look forward to seeing your progress, hope we get some art pictures too when you're happy with them.

[Salinger]

Excellent, hope we can see some drawings too xx

[Hazard]

10 hours ago, aramis said:

Hello!

Just wanted to chime in about great progression to chin-ups @Hazard created. You may check if some moves can help you with pull-ups.

 

Thanks for the tag, aramis.

 

Yeah @Charlie_Quinn, if you have any questions for me with chinup or pullup progression just poke me and let me know.  I'll be happy to help.

 

 

[Charlie_Quinn]

14 hours ago, Jarric said:

I look forward to seeing your progress, hope we get some art pictures too when you're happy with them.

 

If they don't end up looking like total trash, I'll share them! I'm going to stop off at Flying Tiger on the way home to get some art supplies

 

14 hours ago, Salinger said:

Excellent, hope we can see some drawings too xx

 

Depends how awful they look!

 

11 hours ago, Hazard said:

 

Thanks for the tag, aramis.

 

Yeah @Charlie_Quinn, if you have any questions for me with chinup or pullup progression just poke me and let me know.  I'll be happy to help.

 

 

 

Thanks so much Hazard. I pretty sure my main problem is just lack of consistency. I need to be doing pull up progressions twice a week, no excuses. If I hit a sticking point, I'll let you know. Thanks again.

[Charlie_Quinn]

Week Zero - Tuesday
 

Fitness Skills: 

Double Unders 1/2 sessions done
I went to Crossfit early and did my double under practice. I managed to get strings of double, single, double, single but couldn't seem to string doubles together. My calves are feeling quite tight right now though, so I don't think that helped much. 
 

STRETCH / MOBILITY WORK DAILY - DONE-ish

I did a little, but probably should have done more than I did. I felt really tired yesterday and couldn't really be bothered.

 

A guy at Crossfit that I occasionally chat to came up to me during the warm up and told me I was looking really slim. The polite part of my brain said thanks, but I actually felt a little disappointed. I don't want to be slim, I want to be ripped! But I know it's a thing that guys think girls want to hear as a compliment, so I'll let him off. 

 

Anyway, strength was bench-press and we had 15 mins to work up to a heavy 1 rep. I got a rep at 45kg but failed at 47.5kg. This training cycle has probably been the first time I've benched in about 4 months and I probably won't do it again until the next time it shows up in a training cycle. It's not really a lift that I'm that bothered about.
Then we had a really interesting WOD:
5 Rounds for Time:
100 ft farmers carry
12 double dumbbell squat

10 devils press

 

Devil's presses live up to their name. Especially when you don't pay enough attention to the white board and think you're supposed to be doing 12 of them each round! Thank god I figured out I was screwing up at the start of round 3, so I only did 4 extra unnecessary reps. The time cap in this was 20 minutes and I finished in 14:45, but with 2x9kg dumbbells. I wanted to do 2x12kg but all the 12s were gone by the time I got there and there was no way I was going to try the Rx weight of 15kg! Only one of the women in the class did Rx. She is an absolute beast and she just barely got in under the cap. 

[Jarric]

2 hours ago, Charlie_Quinn said:

I don't want to be slim, I want to be ripped!

 

Well, part of being ripped is low body fat, so slim isn't a bad place to be. The other part is building muscle, and you've done an impressive amount of that since you started Crossfit.

 

That WOD's interesting, the devil press sounds awful! Were the farmers carries at the same weight as everything else?

[Charlie_Quinn]

44 minutes ago, Jarric said:

Well, part of being ripped is low body fat, so slim isn't a bad place to be. The other part is building muscle, and you've done an impressive amount of that since you started Crossfit.

 

True. I'm not too concerned about my weight as such, but I guess if I want visible muscle there needs to be a little bit of fat loss. It's not my main priority though, just a nice side effect! And thanks! 

 

47 minutes ago, Jarric said:

That WOD's interesting, the devil press sounds awful! Were the farmers carries at the same weight as everything else?

 

And there was me thinking they couldn't make a burpee any worse, and someone goes and invents the devil press! Yep, everything at the same weight. I did try and use 12kg kettlebells for the walks to start with, but the devils press was seriously frying my arms so switching at the end of each round got too difficult. Sticking with the same weight also meant that I could get up from my last DP and go straight into the farmers walk, which helped speed things up.

[Cheetah]

Benchpresses are fun!  But I get that not everyone thinks so.  🙂

 

Keep up the good work!

[Rurik Harrgath]

On 2/10/2020 at 10:23 AM, Charlie_Quinn said:

"A jack-of-all-trades but master of none"

This is written in the description of the Ranger Guild and I've never liked it. I was thinking about this recently, and I realised why I don't like it. It's because, for me, it's true and I don't like that it's true.

 

Tank and I actually tried to have that changed once upon a time.  There are plenty of Rangers who have mastered their niches!  But I'm loving your Rangerbrain™ focus for the anniversary challenge!

[Charlie_Quinn]

7 hours ago, Cheetah said:

Benchpresses are fun!  But I get that not everyone thinks so.  🙂

 

Keep up the good work!

 

I don't dislike benchpress, I'd say I'm more indifferent to it. It's fine, but there are definitely more fun and badass lifts that I'd rather do. 

 

6 hours ago, Rurik Harrgath said:

 

Tank and I actually tried to have that changed once upon a time.  There are plenty of Rangers who have mastered their niches!  But I'm loving your Rangerbrain™ focus for the anniversary challenge!

 

What did you ask it to be changed to? I was thinking about this and I don't actually know what an accurate alternative would be. I'm curious to know what others consider a Ranger to be too.

Your profile pic reminded me that I've yet to watch John Wick 3! I must do that this weekend!

[Charlie_Quinn]

Week Zero - Wednesday

 

Yesterday was a bit of a quiet day on the challenge front. We had someone round to view our flat in the evening and then grocery shopping needed to be done, so by the time that was all done there wasn't time for much else.

 

Drawing - 45 mins
One thing I did manage to do was follow along with a tutorial on how to draw a face from the front view. My sketch wasn't quite symmetrical and I definitely need to look at the videos on how to draw noses and mouths as these looked pretty awful! But it wasn't bad for a first attempt. 

 

STRETCH / MOBILITY WORK DAILY - fail

I completely forgot to do this yesterday. 

[Salinger]

Hey CQ! How was the viewing? did they like the place?

 

Regarding drawing people... i was told in art school to draw faces upside down!! Something to do with that fact that we draw how we THINK features look, when in reality, its always different to how we think. But if we turn the image upside down and draw it that way, then we can train ourselves to draw what we SEE, not what we THINK we see.... does that make any sense? haha

 

xx

[Rurik Harrgath]

7 hours ago, Charlie_Quinn said:

What did you ask it to be changed to? I was thinking about this and I don't actually know what an accurate alternative would be. I'm curious to know what others consider a Ranger to be too.

 

Well that was part of the problem, we didn't really have a solid replacement; there's just something inherently negative about that phrase which I am not a fan of.  At least the next line of the original text is "though oftentimes is better than a master of one."

 

Why can't you be a master of non-specificity?  I say you can.  You're being the very best version of YOU. 

 

7 hours ago, Charlie_Quinn said:

Your profile pic reminded me that I've yet to watch John Wick 3! I must do that this weekend!

 

Get on that!  So good.

[Elastigirl]

14 minutes ago, Rurik Harrgath said:

Well that was part of the problem, we didn't really have a solid replacement; there's just something inherently negative about that phrase which I am not a fan of.  At least the next line of the original text is "though oftentimes is better than a master of one."

 

Why can't you be a master of non-specificity?  I say you can.  You're being the very best version of YOU. 

 

Pat Flynn https://www.chroniclesofstrength.com/ refers to it as  being a generalist and a minimalist.  Ranger brain can help you get  good at a broad range of things,  I think Rangers do master a  lot of stuff, we just don't usually  focus on one thing long enough to  become a specialist in that one thing. 

[Kestrel Grey]

6 hours ago, Rurik Harrgath said:

 

Well that was part of the problem, we didn't really have a solid replacement; there's just something inherently negative about that phrase which I am not a fan of.  At least the next line of the original text is "though oftentimes is better than a master of one."

 

Why can't you be a master of non-specificity?  I say you can.  You're being the very best version of YOU. 

Why not simply remove that part of the phrase?  I have always been irritated/offended by it too.

 

Cross Training and General Fitness Guild: Rangers are a hybrid of Warriors and Scouts, built for strength AND endurance. A jack-of-all-trades but master of none, Rangers are well-equipped for any situation