Mike Wazowski: Keepin' Things Rollin'

[Mike Wazowski]

On 8/4/2020 at 6:48 PM, Vidd said:

Haha that's awesome! Well one of the things I learned(the hard way) was less is more with muscle up training. But it's so rewarding to finally get it. Best of luck!

Oh yes, I'm sure that's true - I'll probably be spending a big chunk of my time working on the skill / movement pattern before really trying to explode into it (in addition to strength building, of course).

 

On 8/4/2020 at 6:48 PM, Vidd said:

I like all the variety you've got in this challenge, you're hitting all your bases: fitness, diet, mental health, knowledge, and spirituality.

Thanks! That variety has been my undoing in the past (see gentle ribbing from miss marissa above) but I don't know how to completely ignore any one aspect of stuff, at least not for very long.

 

On 8/5/2020 at 10:44 AM, raptron said:

Yummm.

Yuuuup. I dunno why it took me this long to hop aboard the homemade breakfast taco train, they're f*cking amazing.

 

On 8/5/2020 at 10:44 AM, raptron said:

Awwww, yeah. I love it.  

On 8/6/2020 at 1:52 PM, KB Girl said:

Yes! Fun and interesting! 

On 8/7/2020 at 1:53 AM, Mad Hatter said:

Ooooh that is shiny!

Yuuup! 

 

On 8/7/2020 at 12:13 PM, Luxia said:

Oooo..what kind of dancing do you do? Getting into the studio is one thing I'm missing the most during this pandemic time.

Ballroom and latin here - I'm really lucky that we have a personal key code to the studio and it was never a super heavily trafficked space (coach's business model is built on sloooooowly getting new students and just having really high retention on his core group). So my partner and I felt comfortable keeping up our usual training schedule, especially since the studio saw an even smaller number of in-person visitors (I'd peg it at between 20-30 unique people visiting over a given week, never more than ~6 at a given time).

 

On 8/11/2020 at 12:08 PM, dancezwithkittehz said:

Oh heyyyyyyyy. Following as always ❤️ 

Hey hey, welcome aboard!

 

19 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

It's almost the weekend, hopefully you'll be able to recuperate from the life stressors then!  

Yessss it'll be good to get a big ole pile of sleep and leave the work computer hidden away for 64+ hours.

 

19 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

Neat MU accident!

I know! I was super excited to stumble upon it!

 

Alright, slightly more proper challenge update. The past couple weeks (really, the past month plus) at work have been a beatdown, and I've been trying to get myself out of it by making pushes above normal to get a little more work done (often by letting one or more healthy habits fall by the wayside for "just one day"), especially the past couple weeks. It's taken a toll, the mental stress piled up, and I started leaning on emotional eating to cope with it, a lot. On top of that, I've been dealing with just not feeling fully physically healthy - periods of lightheadedness / fatigue plus constantly feeling like I couldn't quite breathe fully thanks to a sort of chronic sinus infection. I'd been feeling really crummy and was at a real, real low point by the start of this week.

 

BUT, I was lucky, as this week had me connecting with my all-star lineup of health professionals:

• On Tuesday, I had my once a quarter PrEP checkup and was able to talk through my lightheadedness with my doctor who happened to have a full blood and urine workup sitting in front of her - and she pointed to the mostly likely cause being low blood sugar, based on my blood glucose levels at the time of the test and especially since my lightheadedness was happening the most during dance practices (which are intense bouts of physical activity); even if I've still got some experimenting to do to limit the symptoms, it's nice to have a working hypothesis
• Therapist talk on Wednesday, where we had a good debrief and I talked myself into a good place of realizing that I'm simply in a higher stressor environment at work for some unknown amount of time; there's nothing I can do to change that (well, aside from quitting my job, but the tradeoffs haven't come to favor that option yet) BUT I can choose how much I give a crap about the things outside my control - at the end of the day, this work situation has to do with a lot of tech systems behaving abnormally, causing reporting I built that assumed they would behave normally to be faulty, and now we're all just muddling through and trying to understand the mess. Still got some pondering to do on it, and I might have to draw myself a flow chart on how to handle things that pop up and try to stress me out in the future - couldn't hurt to have it out on my desk during the work day!
• Met with my allergy /asthma specialist on Thursday, and she was really attentive in talking to me about my nose symptoms and we landed on a plan - I'm trying out this new way of delivering a mild steroid to my nasal passages to treat some chronic inflammation that's deep in there, and if that doesn't seem to be helping enough after a few weeks, I'll set up a consult with a sinus surgeon to see about a very basic, routine surgery (but she's had multiple patients find this new delivery system for the drug suuuuper effective, so I'm hoping I'll be in a similar boat)

I also had a really fantastic dance practice yesterday, where I really started to embrace confidence / performance and just playing and being in the moment. I still have a long way to go on that front, but it was hopeful and encouraging, especially since my partner commented on the difference almost immediately.

 

I've got a lot to mull over and process, and I think I owe myself some quality time with sunshine and a journal this weekend to take it all in. I'm basically treating last week and this week as a hiatus from challenge goals, and I'll pick up my self improvement train next Monday. For now, gotta survive a work day and then rest and dance all weekend (with a long overdue coffee date snuck in Saturday morning - I think we made plans in early July, then he got swamped with work, I got sick, I was still sick, I got swamped with work, and now we're finally meeting). Hope y'all have a great weekend!

[KB Girl]

I'm glad that everything conspired to pull you out of the funk! 

 

22 hours ago, Mike Wazowski said:

I also had a really fantastic dance practice yesterday, where I really started to embrace confidence / performance and just playing and being in the moment. I still have a long way to go on that front, but it was hopeful and encouraging, especially since my partner commented on the difference almost immediately.

 

That's awesome  especially that it was significant enough for your partner to immediately notice. 

[PaulG]

On 8/13/2020 at 6:58 AM, Mike Wazowski said:

Proper update coming...at some point - work's been rough, I've been feeling some type of sick or something, and honestly most good habits I was trying to form went out the window. But, one bright spot - while playing around after a set, I accidentally did a negative muscle up on my rings! It was choppy, but I might be ready to start adding that skill practice sooner than I thought (while still working diligently on the strength-building I need / want to do).

 

Sickness = not cool, MU negative = extremely cool. What kind of skill work are you thinking of doing? Just eccentric practice or something else?

[WhiteGhost]

Glad to see you are finally starting to feel a bit better

[raptron]

Hope the sunshine and mulling helped.

[Mike Wazowski]

On 8/15/2020 at 9:15 AM, KB Girl said:

I'm glad that everything conspired to pull you out of the funk! 

You and me both!! God bless serendipity.

 

Quote

That's awesome  especially that it was significant enough for your partner to immediately notice. 

indeed - I was really proud of that, especially because it was reborn as a focus out of a debrief conversation with my partner where he pointed out it was a consistent theme that coaches really pushed me on.

 

On 8/15/2020 at 12:35 PM, PaulG said:

Sickness = not cool, MU negative = extremely cool. What kind of skill work are you thinking of doing? Just eccentric practice or something else?

So eccentric practice for sure, aiming for control to build the strength. But also, some form of leg supported work to give me a chance to practice the hand, arm and shoulder positioning changes needed for the transition at slow speed (stole this idea from "Becoming a Supple Leopard," shamelessly). Realistically, I might not even do too much skill work the next couple weeks, I think I want to just focus on building consistency in giving myself a bit of strength stimulus (and fueling myself to not have wild energy peaks and crashes like I've been getting lately).

 

On 8/16/2020 at 1:18 AM, WhiteGhost said:

Glad to see you are finally starting to feel a bit better

 

On 8/17/2020 at 10:57 AM, raptron said:

Hope the sunshine and mulling helped.

Most definitely!! Now I'm back to my normal levels of existential dread and not the elevated ones!

 

Week 3, Day 1 Update:

• LONG and productive dance practice in the evening; I've been uber focused on maintaining good posture and mobilizing my hips pretty thoroughly before we start practice and both seem to be helping reduce any low back yuckiness (along with being hyper focused on getting proper, efficient mechanics in my movement and not having excessive energy)
• Work day was spent mostly getting my metaphorical sh*t together on my current project - I'm thinking of it a little bit like a journalist or an investigator, where I've got lots of potential leads I could pursue to build my little data story on how we make sense of the duct taping together of data we're going to have to do (whatever keeps us sane, right?)
• Also called and made a couple necessary follow-up doctor appointments, which helped ease quite a bit of mental burden (annual physical is finally scheduled so I can get my company's $900 HSA contribution for getting it done)
• Meals for the day
  • Encore performance of breakfast tacos, using up the last of my tortillas and spinach for a bit
  • Double chocolate protein muffins with a smear of raspberry preserves, greek yogurt with blueberry reduction and granola
  • Pre-dance snack of crackers and peanut butter
  • Toasted ciabatta with cream cheese and smoked salmon, protein smoothie with spinach, avocado, banana, raspberry, and strawberry

In terms of goals, I think where I'm at is that I'll want to pare down slightly - drop the reading and hunger cues goals entirely for now to focus on fewer things: getting outside and meditating daily, eating 3-4 meals in a day (and making sure all of them have a good balance of protein, fats, and slower digesting carbs - given the tendency towards hypoglycemia I'm appearing to have, I gotta be smart about how I fuel to avoid bonking), no screens in the evening after 9 (later on weekends IFF I don't have to get up early or if I'm having an especially good convo), and doing some mobility work every day. Nailed most of those yesterday (and got some solo dance practice in), but I'm currently in a bad habit with screens (specifically, using my TV as a digital pacifier / lullaby) and will consciously break that today.

[Mad Hatter]

3 minutes ago, Mike Wazowski said:

Most definitely!! Now I'm back to my normal levels of existential dread and not the elevated ones!

Excellent!  

 

On 8/14/2020 at 6:23 PM, Mike Wazowski said:

I also had a really fantastic dance practice yesterday, where I really started to embrace confidence / performance and just playing and being in the moment. I still have a long way to go on that front, but it was hopeful and encouraging, especially since my partner commented on the difference almost immediately.

Nice! This got me curious, do you or did you ever find it difficult to put on the performance face in training without an audience? Do you have separate run throughs where you practice this aspect specifically? Do you practice it even on worse training days and how does that affect it?

[Mike Wazowski]

25 minutes ago, Mad Hatter said:

Nice! This got me curious, do you or did you ever find it difficult to put on the performance face in training without an audience? Do you have separate run throughs where you practice this aspect specifically? Do you practice it even on worse training days and how does that affect it?

Oh yes - it's always been hard for me without an audience or without a sympathetic audience - when it's obvious there are audience members to perform to, I have no problems turning it on, sometimes to the detriment of my actual dancing quality.

 

When I coach beginners, it's absolutely a separate topic in reps and when they're focusing on it, I expect all sorts of things to go awry (and I'm sympathetic that on days where everything feels off, it's gonna be hard to fake). But with where I'm at, it's often a non-negotiable on most types of reps that I maintain a competitive presentation (aka performance face) while ALSO making sure that I hit whatever other detail(s) is/are being asked of me at that moment. What I'm working on might affect the specifics of how my presentation looks (because ideally the face is reflective of what the dancer is doing with the rest of their body) but it can't look dead or focused or annoyed that something's not going right.

 

For example, my partner and I currently rep our jive making sure that:

• our legs and feet do not make a single black and white technique error,
• our kicks, links, and ball changes have the specific details a visiting coach specified for us,
• we never bobble on our balance beyond the point of selling it,
• we hit every alignment of the bodies that's been explicitly specified with a small margin of error,
• our arms go exactly where a visiting coach told us to put them,
• our arms maintain a fluid motion at all times,
• our heads are looking exactly where they're supposed to at all times, 
• our upper torsos are using action to fill up the music in between foot placements, 
• we're completely in sync with each other,
• we're in time with the music with a very narrow margin of error,  
• AND our faces are selling the performance of what we're doing

If a single one of those things drops, we restart the rep from the beginning - it's intense, but it's intensely productive as well. We've been working the same info since March, and we're expecting we'll need to keep these exact foci in jive through this coming February for all the info to really stick; we did a deep dive with a very, very good visiting coach in February and she teed up all these topics as the things that would be most beneficial for us to tackle next in our development in this dance, so we're doing exactly what the expert who's trained multiple world champions said.

[Mad Hatter]

Thanks for sharing that! I always find it super interesting to read about how high level people are learning and practicing. It really goes to show how many tiny details are needed to achieve those levels, and those you listed are only a fraction of all the ones you've already nailed down. It's very impressive. 

 

You say that you restart each rep from the beginning - but do you always notice straight away when any of those things drop? Or do you also rely on your partner to notice (and vice versa). I'm guessing you're also filming a bunch.

[Mike Wazowski]

Thank you, you're too kind! Sometimes when I review my basics, I walk away with the feeling that I haven't nailed down any of the details (which, intellectually, I know isn't true - I just now have higher awareness and a smaller margin of error on those details than I once had).

 

We mostly rely on our own proprioception, and a little bit on each other - we actually don't film reps much at all - we're both quite detail oriented, so there's a high probability of video being a slightly less helpful tool for us because it could cause us to keep bouncing around to things that pop out to us but that wouldn't be identified as the most important by a trained external eye. In terms of proprioception, with some practice, I've actually found it not too terrible - arm fluidity is the one that I have a harder time sensing, but arm placement, foot and leg details, body action, and face is only four body areas to be aware of, and the spatial and music components become almost second nature because they're constants (we also started with an abridged list and our main coach piled a few more on). So I guess it's something that takes a lot of practice, and probably the type of thing where I first started out focused on just one thing per rep, then two, then I slowly built the skill to hold myself accountable to more details in a training rep (similar to any exercise movement, I think - a newbie might only focus on one or two cues for a squat, while a veteran lifter should have a whole plethora of things they're sensing and adjusting for to ensure their movement is mechanically sound; I have zero experience with handstands or climbing, but I imagine it's very similar!).

[Mad Hatter]

9 minutes ago, Mike Wazowski said:

We mostly rely on our own proprioception

I must say I find that hugely impressive. I like the comparison between a noob and veteran lifter. But even if you have the ability to handle multiple cues at once it doesn't automatically mean that your body is doing the thing you think you're doing! I think that only comes at a very high level. It's interesting though, climbers typically don't film themselves when training. But they also don't do much in terms of drills.* Pole dancers on the other hand are constantly filming themselves. I'm sure that a significant part of filming is to have content for the gram, but a big part is also to make sure that all the angles are facing the audience correctly and stuff like that. I wonder if it makes a difference if you're constantly developing new routines/tricks or if you stick with variations of the same routines for a long time?

 

*Keeping in mind that climbing as a modern sport is still very, very new and coaching techniques are constantly being developed.

[Mike Wazowski]

1 minute ago, Mad Hatter said:

I must say I find that hugely impressive. I like the comparison between a noob and veteran lifter. But even if you have the ability to handle multiple cues at once it doesn't automatically mean that your body is doing the thing you think you're doing! I think that only comes at a very high level. It's interesting though, climbers typically don't film themselves when training. But they also don't do much in terms of drills.*

 

*Keeping in mind that climbing as a modern sport is still very, very new and coaching techniques are constantly being developed.

Oh yes, there are definitely many times where we think we're doing the thing and we're in fact not - but with weekly coaching, we end up relying on our coach to keep our proprioception honest and help us refine (many dancers, especially newbies, use the mirror to speed up the development of proprioception as well - I did it myself except to an extreme that I was using it as a substitute for proprioception).

 

1 minute ago, Mad Hatter said:

Pole dancers on the other hand are constantly filming themselves. I'm sure that a significant part of filming is to have content for the gram, but a big part is also to make sure that all the angles are facing the audience correctly and stuff like that. I wonder if it makes a difference if you're constantly developing new routines/tricks or if you stick with variations of the same routines for a long time?

Interesting! I imagine part of it might be the difference in amount of time spent refining vs developing content, and part of it might be the volatility of the pole versus a partnered dance? Having never touched a pole but hearing some descriptions, it seems like it's relatively easy to get quite a bit of spinny momentum on it that makes the facings of a trick a lot harder (also, infinitely more time spent upside down and a lot more time spent horizontal, which I have ZERO data but a giant theory that it's harder to sense where you are in space  when you're attached to a pole and possible inverted or horizontal or at the very least tilted vs. standing up, on solid ground, with suede against hardwood). It also might be just that the partnered component makes it easier, because although my follow may have moments of disorientation because their part takes them through lots of direction changes, I as a lead am rarely if ever changing direction rapidly and can help to set clear directions for us as a unit.

 

FWIW, we rely on coaches to check angles and stuff for us, and that's pretty much the norm in the competitive ballroom world - even world-class pros don't do their choreo by themselves, they'll always collaborate with a choreographer (we still end up morphing things from the original choreography or finding our particular version of the choreographed program, but the overarching structure and content is set for us). I don't know if that's different from pole - I was reading what you wrote as implying that most performers develop their content solo, but that might be inaccurate.

[Mike Wazowski]

Also, managed to take 2 ~15 minute breaks to fit this workout into a busy workout day today:

• Push ups: 3 x 12
• Chin ups (chest to bar): 3 x 6
• Ab wheel kneeling: 3 x 8
• Feet elevated pike push-up: 3 x 6
• Ring rows: 3 x 8
• Jackknife: 3 x 13

Felt good to fit in some strength work - think I'll try to do this more often on non-dance days to get back in the habit of strength training regularly. Tentative goal is 2-3 upper body / abs workouts and 0-1 lower body / abs workouts per week (if my legs are feeling beat up from dance practices, I will NOT force myself to struggle through a hard lower body strength workout - putting it out into the world now to save me from stupid ego-driven decisions later).

[Mad Hatter]

54 minutes ago, Mike Wazowski said:

Interesting! I imagine part of it might be the difference in amount of time spent refining vs developing content, and part of it might be the volatility of the pole versus a partnered dance? Having never touched a pole but hearing some descriptions, it seems like it's relatively easy to get quite a bit of spinny momentum on it that makes the facings of a trick a lot harder (also, infinitely more time spent upside down and a lot more time spent horizontal, which I have ZERO data but a giant theory that it's harder to sense where you are in space  when you're attached to a pole and possible inverted or horizontal or at the very least tilted vs. standing up, on solid ground, with suede against hardwood). It also might be just that the partnered component makes it easier, because although my follow may have moments of disorientation because their part takes them through lots of direction changes, I as a lead am rarely if ever changing direction rapidly and can help to set clear directions for us as a unit.

Being upside down makes it way, way more challenging to know what's going on - that's a really good point. As for spinny momentum, it really depends on what kind of moves you do and on what kind of pole (spinny or static). 

In a way the pole becomes your partner. So even if you get disorientated you can still use the pole as some sort of guide for where you are in space. Though if you're all pretzeled up and upside down it might not help all that much.  In that case you probably really do need to to film yourself. Even cues from a coach can become very difficult to interpret when you're upside down. Cues involving words like left, right, back, front, up and down stop making sense and constantly get confused. 

I actually did a workshop on pole partnering recently which was super interesting. The teacher went through some ideas from different partner dances like for example the difference in movement quality between being more upright and rigid like in a ballroom dance, vs having a more springy grip like in a swing dance, vs quick cha cha like footwork and hand expressions. Very fun!

 

54 minutes ago, Mike Wazowski said:

I don't know if that's different from pole - I was reading what you wrote as implying that most performers develop their content solo, but that might be inaccurate.

AFAIK that's accurate and pretty much everyone does their own choreography. Unless perhaps it's a group act for a big show. I'm sure there are exceptions, but I believe the creative challenge of coming up with new choreography is a big part of the fun for people who compete.

[dancezwithkittehz]

Ooooooooh dancey discussions. ❤️

 

But yes...the more you do things the better you are at knowing when you don't have it quite right, but in non-ballroom as well you really do need someone to look at the choreo over all and clean up the things that aren't quite right technically or if your hands the wrong angle and stuff. I mean, you can video but I feel like there is no one that catches the tiny little differences that need to be cleaned (fixed) like a good director/choreographer (I have known choreographers who are total shit at this and choreographers who are great at this and likewise with directors for dance shows. I think every dance show really needs to have SOMEONE working on it that is good at cleaning choreo is the actual piece choreographers and directors are not good in that area and when that isn't the case it SHOWS.)  I don't do competitive so we aren't ever looking at things from a does this meet the standards we need to meet in a competition or anything but yeah.

 

Also for hanging upside down stuff I come from the aerial side vs pole, but YESS "air awareness" is a thing! and it is HARD and when you are first learning something that is always the hardest thing for me figuring out what is supposed to be going where and how. Also any fabric type apparatus adds the extra fun that sometimes it just does NOT do what you expected to do at a given moment because is is flexy and does whatever it wants sometimes.

 

Also, my favorite director I ever worked with always explained it as you want to be as perfect as possible during your rehearsals and drill it like crazy because you are always going to lose some of your technique when you perform because of adrenaline and nerves from performing for a crowd....I guess maybe if you were running a show for years maybe there is some point when that doesn't happen maybe! That real performance high and being on your toes to fix weird shit if/when it happens is part of what I love about live performance though!!

 

It also never occurred to me that with something like ballroom since there is just the two of you you don't have a built in audience when you are practicing and how weird that would be! I am always trying to perform my ass off to the other dancers I am dancing with but you can't really do that when you are like, attached to eachother! I mean, realistically the other dancers are focusing on their own shit and probably not noticing, BUT the imagining that they might be noticing when you are super nailing it really helps keep me motivated and on point. Also uh, I've never thought of myself as very competitive but from reading this maybe I am hahaha. I do like to try and be the most awesomest while I am performing so everyone will be watching MEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. 😂 (But not literally in the blocking people and trying to pull attention way. That's bad! In the I will be so fucking on this you WILL watch me kind of way.)

 

Also, this whole convo has me missing performing sooo bad!

[Mike Wazowski]

Ok, drive by update - I'll talk more on dancing and performing stuff later, but here's how the last couple days have shaken out:

 

Wednesday:

• Got in a lower body workout during the work day
• Troubleshot some tech stuff for virtual classes with the college students starting next week
• Had D&D - we're currently in a murder investigation start of the next adventure cycle, trying to figure out who's killing a buncha people in our little provincial town, ended on the start of our first combat encounter in a few sessions (the monk who just got a velociraptor animal companion - me - is very happy about getting to start with some combat)
• I *think* I did work stuff during the workday, but honestly those are kinda blurring together at this point

 

Thursday:

• Got in an upper body workout - I was very, very run down feeling from crummy sleep and overconsuming coffee, but I pushed through to do *something* and felt better after having done so
• Ordered pizza from my local addiction spot - it was still good, but not quite as good as when I was ravenous post dance practice
• Getting close to the finish line on the bane of my existence project from the past month-plus
• Vegged after work and got to bed real, real early - it was a good night of nothing

 

Goals (Modified):

• Get outside: 4/4 - I'm gonna start having a goal to walk 1+ mile every morning as part of this, since I was counting even just being out in the sunshine for errands towards this goal this week, and on those days I just don't feel quite as settled
• Eat 3-4 full, balanced-ish meals: 3/4 - didn't do such a good job on Wednesday, I think I let hunger build too much after lunch and was bonking real hard
• Workouts: Upper Body 2/2+, Lower Body: 1/0+ - might sneak a quickie upper body / abs workout in tomorrow, but it's already looking like a packed day, so maybe not
• Prehab work: 3/4 - tried to push it til too late on Tuesday, should've just carved out 15 minutes during the work day
• Get good sleep: 1/4 - finally getting my act together, starting last night, and I feel less like a zombie and more like a human this morning
• Meditate: 0/4 - honestly, not sure why, but I've let this goal drop for now - I'll pick it back up when I feel drawn to it, my heart's not in it right now

So, sleep's throwing up a red flag that I'm starting to address, but otherwise things are going pretty good on this challenge to get my blood sugar spikes under control, get my sleep hygiene back, and get back in a good workout and prehab habit.

 

Tentative plan the rest of the week:

Friday: tire rotation, dance practice, tech rehearsal for teaching next week with my dance partner

Saturday: do some home projects (mainly setting up upgraded wifi and wired network stuff), some lesson planning for the semester, dance practice, maaaaybe pool evening with friends

Sunday: dance most of the day, call parents in the evening

Ok, writing that out, it's looking less likely I'll be able to sneak any upper body work in tomorrow, lol.

 

Oh, random life update: my dance partner is officially joining me as a co-coach for the collegiate team, barring any surprise vote against it from the student leadership. AND my DIY haircuts are good enough now that multiple people have commented they couldn't tell I did it myself, so life skills have gotten a nice upgrade from this pandemic.

[Scaly Freak]

1 hour ago, Mike Wazowski said:

AND my DIY haircuts are good enough now that multiple people have commented they couldn't tell I did it myself, so life skills have gotten a nice upgrade from this pandemic.

 

Nice! Are you planning to keep that habit when the pandemic eventually ends, or do you plan to go back to paying someone to cut your hair for you?

[Mike Wazowski]

5 minutes ago, Scaly Freak said:

Nice! Are you planning to keep that habit when the pandemic eventually ends, or do you plan to go back to paying someone to cut your hair for you?

Definitely keeping it up - I'm at the point where I can finish it in ~20-30 minutes, don't have to drive to a salon or make an appointment and pay for it, it's really an upgrade especially as I continue to improve my skills.

[dancezwithkittehz]

7 hours ago, Mike Wazowski said:

Definitely keeping it up - I'm at the point where I can finish it in ~20-30 minutes, don't have to drive to a salon or make an appointment and pay for it, it's really an upgrade especially as I continue to improve my skills.

 

JEALOUS!  I can trim my bangs to keep them from stabbing me in the eyes but the rest I would definitely mess up. Big yay for self-sufficiency!

[Scaly Freak]

4 minutes ago, dancezwithkittehz said:

 

JEALOUS!  I can trim my bangs to keep them from stabbing me in the eyes but the rest I would definitely mess up. Big yay for self-sufficiency!

 

In hindsight I am happy that I war my hair long. I haven't had a haircut since January, and it's impossible to tell.  

[WhiteGhost]

On 8/21/2020 at 11:26 PM, Mike Wazowski said:

life skills have gotten a nice upgrade from this pandemic.

Sweet!  Congratulaltions  

[Mike Wazowski]

17 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

Sweet!  Congratulaltions  

On 8/21/2020 at 7:29 PM, dancezwithkittehz said:

JEALOUS!  I can trim my bangs to keep them from stabbing me in the eyes but the rest I would definitely mess up. Big yay for self-sufficiency!

 

Haha thanks y'all! Turns out the practice at fussy skills like icing cakes when I was a kid set me up for success in a whole host of useful life skills (I don't have the free time to bake these days, but I know I COULD make a pretty sweet cake if I had the time).

 

Weekend was all-around solid - lots of dance practice time, a pool party with friends Saturday evening (private backyard pool that we rented for a few hours), and a facetime with the folks. Did some cooking as well, I think, and that was about it other than mobility work to undo the soreness from 3 days of hard practice in a row (and a fourth today!). Screen time in the evenings continues to be a little hit or miss, but at least I did a proper wind down with fading out lights and no screens last night (despite a promising CUTE GUY who really wanted to chat me up - he was amiable to putting off any real conversation til today, and we're tentatively grabbing dinner and/or drinks on Saturday).

[juliebarkley]

20 minutes ago, Mike Wazowski said:

Turns out the practice at fussy skills like icing cakes when I was a kid set me up for success in a whole host of useful life skills

This is why when my son brings me phone repair tasks he lacks the fine motor skills for, I tell him he should learn embroidery.

 

21 minutes ago, Mike Wazowski said:

despite a promising CUTE GUY who really wanted to chat me up - he was amiable to putting off any real conversation til today, and we're tentatively grabbing dinner and/or drinks on Saturday

That does sound promising!

[Scaly Freak]

30 minutes ago, juliebarkley said:

This is why when my son brings me phone repair tasks he lacks the fine motor skills for, I tell him he should learn embroidery.

 

Makeup application techniques can have similar benefits, if embroidery is not to his liking  

[raptron]

On 8/24/2020 at 4:00 PM, Mike Wazowski said:

Weekend was all-around solid - lots of dance practice time, a pool party with friends Saturday evening (private backyard pool that we rented for a few hours), and a facetime with the folks. Did some cooking as well, I think, and that was about it other than mobility work to undo the soreness from 3 days of hard practice in a row (and a fourth today!). Screen time in the evenings continues to be a little hit or miss, but at least I did a proper wind down with fading out lights and no screens last night

POOL TIME! Loveee.

 

And goodness, so much dance practice. Love it! With the way things are going, are you guys going to get some blinged out masks for future comps? ✨

 

Quote

(despite a promising CUTE GUY who really wanted to chat me up - he was amiable to putting off any real conversation til today, and we're tentatively grabbing dinner and/or drinks on Saturday).

😏