"Welcome to the program."

[Jason Bourne]

Greetings rebels! I just joined the Nerd Rebellion a few days ago and I'm excited to be here. If you couldn't tell, I'm obsessed with Jason Bourne, and my epic quest of awesome can basically be summed up as "Become an Asset." I'm learning French right now, and today is day five of Paleo for me! I'm going through the "Angry Birds Workout" right now, and trying to work up to a 5k. I've been doing Parkour for almost two years now, and I absolutely love the freedom and confidence that it gives me. I also love playing all kinds of music and serving people in the community through my church. My hope is that Nerd Fitness can help me to get to the next level physically and to make my dreams a reality.

So, as a newbie here, what's the layout and such? Where should I start?

[Thilde]

Welcome! Jason Bourne is the bomb. What a great motivator!

I am paleo/primal too (mostly primal these days). How is the paleo transition going for you? And props for already getting started with your strength training and endurance goals. 5k is my distance....I have no desire to run longer, and I find the 5k a nice distance to play around with speed, intensity, and terrain. I am SO JEALOUS of your parkour skillz! So awesome. How did you get started -- self-taught or did you find a teacher?

Probably first place to start is to decide if you want to participate in the 6wk challenges or not. We have a new one starting up in about a week and a half. If you want to participate, you need to join a guild/class (which is as easy as posting a thread in the regular guild forum saying "Hi! I'm joining!"), and then develop 4 goals for yourself (3 fitness/diet goals and 1 "life goal" which can be anything really). From there, you can decide if you want to participate in the RPG element of the challenges. If so, you pick a race to go with your class (your race is whatever you want it to be), then you set up your stats. If you browse some challenge threads, you'll see that most of us have stats in our signatures. You start out at level 1 on your first challenge and you get 15 attribute points to distribute among your stats (stamina, strength, dexterity, constitution, wisdom, and charisma)...most of us try to distribute these starting points in a way that truly reflects where we are right now. THEN, once you've done that, you take your 4 goals that you've developed and you attach earn-able attribute points to them for the challenge. These are what you will award yourself with if/when you meet your goals by challenge end. You have another 15 attribute points you can divide up like this. For example, a running goal such as "Complete a 5k distance" might be worth +3 Stamina and +1 Constitution. If you meet this goal by the end of the challenge, you award yourself these points and your stats increase. Typically each challenge is considered a level, so you can move up a level with each challenge you complete. There are very few actual rules with this because we each set up our own challenges....the goals, parameters for success, and distribution of attribute award points are entirely up to each individual Rebel. I'd say, browse around the forums, check out some challenge threads, and you'll start to get a set of how people write up their goals and set up their challenges. And feel free to ask for advice! Lots of helpful people here.

(Re: doing the next challenge, the Admins post up a big banner link to sign up for the challenge, usually a few days before it officially starts. If you're participating, make sure you sign up there. Before then, though, you can be working on deciding goals, guild, stats, etc. if you want.)

So glad to have you! Looking forward to seeing you around the forums.

[Jason Bourne]

Jason Bourne is the bomb.

Agreed! I haven't seen the Bourne Legacy yet because I'm scared that they're going to ruin my view of the trilogy.

The paleo transition has been going better than expected. I've had relapses, but they haven't been horrible. The thing I love about paleo is how you can adapt it to whatever your lifestyle and circumstances are.

I ran two miles today and ran the second one in 8 minutes! And I found a 4 mile run that will be going on in a few weeks, so I'm going to try to train for that now!

Parkour was something that I Youtubed like crazy initially, and then I spent hours in my room rolling into my bed and my desk trying to do the basic roll. I don't have a lot of opportunities to do it, but I always try to push myself when I get the chance. If you've never done it before, don't be afraid! Go check out http://americanparkour.com to get started and just go do it!

Thanks for giving me all the details about that! I don't really have any interest in doing the points system, (My time is in high demand and I'm not quite that nerdy) but I'd be very interested in doing some of the 6 week challenges. I'll go check it out!

I appreciate you getting me started! See you around!

[CyningaDena]

(1) Jason Bourne is hot chit.

(2) Sambie will never steer you wrong. She opens her mouth and rubies spill forth. She is M as played by Judy Dench. Except funnier.

(3) Thanks for the link! I've been freaked out by the idea of self-teaching parkour, so I'll have to troll around there some.

(4) Welcome! It's good to have you on board.

[Erick the Red]

Welcome. I'm pretty new as well. Do what SambieWlks says and no one gets hurt.

[tricky]

Welcome, fellow newb! As an aspiring assassin, I too am super-jealous of your parkour skills. Have you chosen a guild yet?

[Jason Bourne]

(2) Sambie will never steer you wrong. She opens her mouth and rubies spill forth. She is M as played by Judy Dench. Except funnier.

(3) Thanks for the link! I've been freaked out by the idea of self-teaching parkour, so I'll have to troll around there some.

(4) Welcome! It's good to have you on board.

Welcome. I'm pretty new as well. Do what SambieWlks says and no one gets hurt.

Welcome, fellow newb! As an aspiring assassin, I too am super-jealous of your parkour skills. Have you chosen a guild yet?

Thanks! I shall indeed listen carefully to the words of SambieWiks, seeing as she has been elevated to such a high status amongst her peers.

Fear about doing Parkour is perfectly normal, but you can't let it stop you! The key to overcoming fear is to train hard, and overcome small fears everyday. "Little by little, one goes far." - J.R.R. Tolkien

This lecture might help you get started on Parkour (see below). He does a great job of explaining somethings and laying a proper foundation.

Remember, the boundaries are physical, but the boundaries are primarily mental. I probably have the strength and skill to jump from two stories and survive, but I have a mental block that I'm working on that prevents me from doing that. The key is to balance your fear: it will never go away, but so it must be listened to, and then overcome with skill and diligent, persistent practice. Start small, dream big, and you'll go far in Parkour!

I have yet to choose a guild, mainly because I'm still trying to figure out what the whole thing is all about, but I'm leaning towards either the Monks or the Assassins.