Osu

[Kishi]

Training yesterday was nice. I only swung with the 24 and got one TGU with the same. It was good. No pain, good practice.

 

Karate afterward was also good. We've lately been working a lot on longer combinations, and I was able to throw them in sparring. Admittedly, none of them landed. But that happened simply because he's been at this long enough to have a good read and be able to keep up with these things. He later told me that he was proud of my progress in the past eight months and that if I'd changed up elevation, I probably could have got him some. I was all

 

 

and then he did! It was great!

 

Anyway, without having the training to distract me, I was kind of forced to think about what I wanted and why I keep allowing the training creep to happen.

 

What do I want? Do I want to be a powerlifter? No. Do I want to be a gymnast? No. But I allowed myself to approach those things because I thought if I became enough those things, I would be able to be what I wanted. And what is it that I want? To be a martial artist, and to be useful to the people who need me.

 

S&S has proven to be enough to give me what I need to be useful to the people who need me. I can lift most anything anyone asks me to as long as I need to. And I can get up and fight for as long as I need to in just about any art that I've tried.

 

So... if this gave me what I wanted, why do more?

 

Because I'm just never convinced it's enough.

 

The trick, then, is to do just enough more. And that's not something that I've really figured out. I think that going back to Sisson's work has actually really shown me how little I know, or alternately shown me how much I have to learn.

 

I have most of what I want already. The only thing left is to do just enough to be able to really excel in what I want to do. After all, I do have some time. I want to use it well. And it can't all be martial arts because that's not what the facilities support. There's virtue in developing strength and power; I just need to figure out what would do that best.

 

I have some thoughts about that. I've been thinking over how I've applied deadlifts lately, and I'm thinking that there might be something in approaching strength and power work that way - heavy concentrated doses that don't take very long, cover a wide variety of things.

 

I'm thinking, then, about the following:

• Two upper body exercises, two lower body exercises. One each push and pull.
• Dips and pull ups for the upper body.
• Deadlifts and front squats for the lower body. Front squats in particular for ROM and for their ability to develop thoracic extension to counter sitting.
• Cluster sets of manageable weight never done to failure.
• One day dips and deadlifts, the other pull ups and squats.
• Done as far apart in the week as they can be from each other, and only if I have time.
• Further, I reserve the right to change these up month by month, since I've been rewarded w/ loyalty to the patterns above specific movements.

So, really, if I did this, the new schedule would look something like this:

 

Monday: Rest

Tuesday: S&S

Wednesday: Rest

Thursday: Pull Ups/Front Squats

Friday: S&S

Saturday: Homework (hitting the bag, banded uchikomi, playful stabbing of dudes who don't exist)

Sunday: D&D and sprinting.

 

This doesn't get into the martial arts I'm doing most of the days of the week, but those are random things anyway and you never really know how those are going to go. Besides, reducing what I'm doing on my own should make those things better just already as it is, and when I do do things, the doses should be good enough to get me what I'm looking for. These things will be so short that there won't be anything else to do but to rest, mobilize, and recover between them and the classes.

 

But coming up with a minimalist routine isn't the hard part. The hard part is having confidence in it and sticking to it. That's not something that can be fixed any other way except to do it and to get results that I want. If I get the results that I want, then I can keep doing this.

[Urgan]

56 minutes ago, Kishi said:

But coming up with a minimalist routine isn't the hard part. The hard part is having confidence in it and sticking to it. That's not something that can be fixed any other way except to do it and to get results that I want. If I get the results that I want, then I can keep doing this.

 

One question cuts to the heart of it all. Have you defined your expected results? 

[Kishi]

6 hours ago, Urgan said:

 

One question cuts to the heart of it all. Have you defined your expected results? 

 

Actually? Yes. To get the most strength and to give my life the most ease with the least amount of investment and effort. Everything I've been doing has been building toward this idea. My martial arts training, my run training, my GPP training, they all have this in common. The only thing that's left to figure out is strength.

[karinajean]

But coming up with a minimalist routine isn't the hard part. The hard part is having confidence in it and sticking to it. That's not something that can be fixed any other way except to do it and to get results that I want. If I get the results that I want, then I can keep doing this.

 
To get the most strength and to give my life the most ease with the least amount of investment and effort. Everything I've been doing has been building toward this idea. My martial arts training, my run training, my GPP training, they all have this in common. The only thing that's left to figure out is strength.

I'm just quoting these two things because they resonate with truth for me too. Mostly the minimalist routine! I know I need to do a thing every day. What that thing is, and making sure I'm doing it, is really tricky for me.

[Kishi]

2 hours ago, karinajean said:

 

 

I'm just quoting these two things because they resonate with truth for me too. Mostly the minimalist routine! I know I need to do a thing every day. What that thing is, and making sure I'm doing it, is really tricky for me.

 

 

 

Yeah. I feel the same way. I'm used to doing things, but making them effective... that's the trick.

 

*

 

So, have to admit, I was pretty tempted to go to the gym and do homework as well as do some handstands, because that particular practice doesn't tax one in the same way as the other things.

 

But it was also Veteran's Day yesterday, and I decided to mark the day by writing lots and lots of words. Ultimately I never did make it to the gym, but it was a restful day and had enough going on without making time for the gym.

 

Today, it is different. Everyone and their gramma is gonna ask me to eat lots of things, so I'm going to take D&D (see what I did? Harrrr) and sprints and see what happens. Maybe reduce the volume by going until I can't do 5s in cluster anymore. That'd be a pretty steep drop in volume, but also be in keeping with the whole "get rest, son" thing.

[Kishi]

So! I took the new routine out for a spin!

 

How did it go?

 

I liked it.

 

Dips were done on a machine with 40 lbs assistance, and deadlifts were done with a hexbar at 155 lbs. I couldn't manage enough sets of five to increase the difficulties on them yet, but that's okay. Deadlifts also were interesting in that this marked the first time I wasn't able to increase the volume, although I don't know if that was the dips getting in the way or what. I don't mind it, though. Not really. In fact, probably what I'll want to do going forward is make a point of deliberate rest in the programming, probably once every four weeks or so. Because, one of the big reasons I've been drawn to this is that I'm not managing my recovery so well. Getting enough sleep is proving to be a challenge, and it's not just NaNoWriMo talking; this is a systemic problem that I can't quite seem to get the hang of even with all the blocking apps and things like that.

 

But yeah, this was a short, sweet workout that was just enough bitter without taking forever to get there. It felt like I hit everything in about 20-30 minutes or so. I didn't do full-on sprints since the space was being used, but I managed to hit the Versaclimber pretty hard to make up for it, and discovered to my joy that my work capacity was up on that thing. That's a nice development.

 

Proceeded to eat all the things afterward, but not to the point of food hangover.

 

And... yeah. That's the situation right now. Today, I will be stretching and working on plans for the novel since it's moving in a new direction and the old plans don't hold up anymore. Fortunately, I'm way up on words, and when I hit the writing again tomorrow, I should be able to stay pretty far ahead. You know, just. Gotta be diligent.

 

Today feels like it's gonna be a good day.

[Kishi]

Yesterday did wind up being a good day!

 

Can't really point to anything specific that made it so, though. Just a nice quiet day. I spent lunch time stretching; I'll be going back to the writing today.

 

But yeah, not much to report. Chest is a little stiff from all the dips I did on Sunday, but other than that I feel pretty good. I still can't believe that tomorrow, the only thing I might wind up doing before judo is walking on a treadmill. And I'm okay with that.

 

I might have made this move just in time. Everyone in the office is falling sick. Wet, rattling coughs and off-tone voices. Phaw. Given that I can't seem to manage my recovery very well, leaving more in the tank is probably better than less right now.

[Urgan]

1 hour ago, Kishi said:

Yesterday did wind up being a good day!

 

Can't really point to anything specific that made it so, though. Just a nice quiet day. I spent lunch time stretching; I'll be going back to the writing today.

 

But yeah, not much to report. Chest is a little stiff from all the dips I did on Sunday, but other than that I feel pretty good. I still can't believe that tomorrow, the only thing I might wind up doing before judo is walking on a treadmill. And I'm okay with that.

 

I might have made this move just in time. Everyone in the office is falling sick. Wet, rattling coughs and off-tone voices. Phaw. Given that I can't seem to manage my recovery very well, leaving more in the tank is probably better than less right now.

 

The very definition of serendipity. If there was ever a time to dial back stress, swimming in illness is that time.

[Kishi]

20 minutes ago, Urgan said:

 

The very definition of serendipity. If there was ever a time to dial back stress, swimming in illness is that time.

 

Right? This whole listening to my body thing is weird and also cool. I wouldn't have figured us both for being on the same side of this thing. Go figure.

[Kishi]

Tuesday was just a dem fine day. Dem fine. I wrote over my lunch break, and found the new planning method really really awesome. I decided on a lark to apply it back to my original novel - Magical Fight Club - and it really matches it well.

 

Found my way to the gym but had to park really far away and was feeling kind of lazy about how many Farmer's Walks I wanted to do to get the bells from my car to the place where I do them at the gym. So, on a lark, I decided to carry both the 24 and 32 kg bells, and did my TGUs w/ the 24. This was a way bigger jump than I would have recommended for myself, but I thought that the doing more loaded carries would be extra stress on the ligaments and such that would just make things worse. So I told myself to take my time, listen to my body, and really dial in the technique.

 

And?

 

Well, I did it. It wasn't even hard. Left elbow twinged at me at one point, and it was kind of achey going to bed last night, but it feels good this morning.

 

But yeah. I've got my 24 back. That's exciting news to me, and it makes me very happy.  Although, I'm not planning to go any further for a while. I can't shake the feeling that this was probably pushing my luck a little bit, so I'd like to keep practicing at this level for a month or so to make sure that my technique is as good as I think it is and that I don't have a tendinopathy getting ready to blow up. Also, if I'd progressed at my originally intended pace, it would have taken me a month to get to 10 TGUs with the 24 anyway, so.

 

Karate afterward was good. K-sensei's talking about taking me up to NYC at some point to go to the original dojo and to throw me into another gauntlet. Which... oh boy. That might be the test coming up. That was how he tested me last time. I told him that all my training was based around the last test, the last gauntlet and how I'd gassed out at the final minute. And he was like, "WTF, Kishi? Do you remember? You did two hours of judo prior to that, which was stupid by the way, and you still did the gauntlet. And the only time you gassed out was the final minute." My response was, "And?" He was incredulous. He said most people would have quit, just kept their white belts. I told him I couldn't imagine doing that after everything I'd been through to get to that point. We walked away from each other laughing over how absurd I am. It was good.

 

In work news, the problematic co-worker was transferred to a work unit that's near my exit and she gets out about the same time I do. So now there's pretty much no avoiding her. Hah. Great.

 

Today is supposed to be judo. I think I could probably do the thing, but I haven't got a full night's sleep the past couple of days and that bugs me. I don't want to be foolish and fall for the trap of waiting for things to be perfect, and I don't know if I'd go to bed early even if I took the night off. So there's a part of me that wants to go... but there's a part that doesn't. But then that part doesn't feel any bigger than it usually does, so. I dunno. I'm probably going to go; shoot, it'll probably easier since I don't have anything on the docket going into it. But the lack of sleep is frustrating.

[Kishi]

So I wound up going to judo. Surprise surprise.

 

But it turned out to be a good thing that I went. I picked up a big key tip on my sasae, and I was able to say goodbye to a shodan who I didn't know we were losing, a gentleman who was part of my original gauntlet and had trained with me since... well, a long time ago. He's headed off to Dallas for a year or so, at which point he should hopefully be coming back; we'll see what happens.

 

Beyond that, though, it really wasn't a very strenuous night. It was more of a lecture night than anything else, which happens from time to time in judo. I do remember a time when I was impatient with this kind of thing, but I think I'm coming around to the value of it, and it's not just the fact that I was tired.

 

Also, J-sensei mentioned that he has fun teaching me. This is probably because I always pop up, volunteer, run to do things, and generally behave like a machine. It's nice to be noticed that way.

 

Barely managed a full night's sleep. Worked through why the job is getting on my nerves and realized I'd made the mistake of letting the numbers get into my head. I'm trying to control uncontrollables, and I think I'm struggling with that the same time that I'm seeing people in my feeds lately posting about getting their emotional needs met and me being like "HAH." I realized I'm being foolish, and I spent time telling myself last night and this morning that I need to let these things go.

 

I think it's working, although I'm going to have to keep telling myself this.

 

Another heavy day on the docket today, after 4 days rest. The stiffness in my chest has finally loosened, and I'm ready to go.

 

I've realized that next week is going to be T-Day in the States, and I have some thoughts on how to apply this minimalist training on a day when I can't go to the gym. It will be well. I think.

[Urgan]

38 minutes ago, Kishi said:

Beyond that, though, it really wasn't a very strenuous night. It was more of a lecture night than anything else, which happens from time to time in judo. I do remember a time when I was impatient with this kind of thing, but I think I'm coming around to the value of it, and it's not just the fact that I was tired.

 

Also, J-sensei mentioned that he has fun teaching me. This is probably because I always pop up, volunteer, run to do things, and generally behave like a machine. It's nice to be noticed that way.

 

It sounds like something about your training experience is improving, your view of it and/or how others are treating you. This is good to hear.

 

39 minutes ago, Kishi said:

Barely managed a full night's sleep. Worked through why the job is getting on my nerves and realized I'd made the mistake of letting the numbers get into my head. I'm trying to control uncontrollables, and I think I'm struggling with that the same time that I'm seeing people in my feeds lately posting about getting their emotional needs met and me being like "HAH." I realized I'm being foolish, and I spent time telling myself last night and this morning that I need to let these things go.

 

I think it's working, although I'm going to have to keep telling myself this.

 

There is a line between feeling left out in the cold and bitter that others aren't. Life isn't fair a whole heck of a lot of the time. There are days I would like to take back to the store and exchange on account of them being defective.

 

40 minutes ago, Kishi said:

Another heavy day on the docket today, after 4 days rest. The stiffness in my chest has finally loosened, and I'm ready to go.

 

I hope you go back to hitting it hard and feel energized for the break.

[Kishi]

36 minutes ago, Urgan said:

It sounds like something about your training experience is improving, your view of it and/or how others are treating you. This is good to hear.

 

Yeah, I think so. I don't know what exactly it is, but lately I've been divorcing myself from any sense of expectation when I go in. I dunno if I just allowed some ego that I didn't warrant or what, but. Not carrying that in with me seems to have made things better.

 

37 minutes ago, Urgan said:

There is a line between feeling left out in the cold and bitter that others aren't. Life isn't fair a whole heck of a lot of the time. There are days I would like to take back to the store and exchange on account of them being defective.

 

I know. I'm trying to get better at the cold, and most days I am. It's not just a literal thing; it's a figurative thing too. And the truth is, it's volitional. There's at least one woman who wants to actively de-single me, but I don't want to be with her because that won't make either of us happy in the long run.

 

But you're right. Life isn't fair. Most of the time I don't expect it to be, but every once in a while...

 

1 hour ago, Urgan said:

I hope you go back to hitting it hard and feel energized for the break.

 

Hopefully so! I feel good. I feel ready. I think there's probably value in waving the intensity of my training like this, regularly interspersing easy weeks into the regular. This is something that SFG talks about, but I'd never really found myself feeling a need for it like I did until just recently. This is probably something I'm going to want to continue doing as I keep training and keep getting older.

[Urgan]

3 minutes ago, Kishi said:

I know. I'm trying to get better at the cold, and most days I am. It's not just a literal thing; it's a figurative thing too. And the truth is, it's volitional. There's at least one woman who wants to actively de-single me, but I don't want to be with her because that won't make either of us happy in the long run.

 

But you're right. Life isn't fair. Most of the time I don't expect it to be, but every once in a while...

 

Not Settling is reeeeeeally hard sometimes, but it is the highest form of social wisdom. Better to be alone (a bit longer) than condemning at LEAST two people to a very special brand of unhappiness. 

 

We're all human, we can know all the stuff we want, but sometimes feelings have a turn in control. They tell lies about how filling the void of Having Someone will fix all of the problems you may have at a given time and make everything in life great, but truth to tell it can cause almost as many as it solves, especially if one settles in pursuit of a quick fix. How many people in your social circle have made this mistake and dressed it up on social media as the best decision of their life? Call me in 5 years and we'll see.

[Kishi]

3 hours ago, Urgan said:

Not Settling is reeeeeeally hard sometimes, but it is the highest form of social wisdom. Better to be alone (a bit longer) than condemning at LEAST two people to a very special brand of unhappiness. 

 

Yeah, definitely. And the one woman who wants to de-single me really needs to understand that. It's hard to watch her keep making the same mistakes. I'm not going to be one of them for her. As well as my lack of attraction for her.

 

3 hours ago, Urgan said:

We're all human, we can know all the stuff we want, but sometimes feelings have a turn in control. They tell lies about how filling the void of Having Someone will fix all of the problems you may have at a given time and make everything in life great, but truth to tell it can cause almost as many as it solves, especially if one settles in pursuit of a quick fix. How many people in your social circle have made this mistake and dressed it up on social media as the best decision of their life? Call me in 5 years and we'll see.

 

Hey, you're preaching to the choir on this one. The void can be a problem sometimes, but there's no sense in filling that emptiness with more problems. That's not a good solution to the problem.

[Urgan]

6 minutes ago, Kishi said:

Yeah, definitely. And the one woman who wants to de-single me really needs to understand that. It's hard to watch her keep making the same mistakes. I'm not going to be one of them for her. As well as my lack of attraction for her.

 

Tiny detail there, lol.

 

7 minutes ago, Kishi said:

Hey, you're preaching to the choir on this one. The void can be a problem sometimes, but there's no sense in filling that emptiness with more problems. That's not a good solution to the problem.

 

I know, just thought a pep talk would help. Acknowledge you are taking the high road in this thing.

[Kishi]

11 minutes ago, Urgan said:

Tiny detail there, lol.

 

Oh, you know, just a little thing.  I tried to tell myself for a long time that I was above that kind of thing and I'm not. I'm really, really not.

 

12 minutes ago, Urgan said:

I know, just thought a pep talk would help. Acknowledge you are taking the high road in this thing.

 

[Kishi]

Thursday down!

 

Went to the gym and got straight to work. Did Front Squats with just the bar to work on form. Managed five sets of five, and ~3300 lbs of volume over the course of the cluster set, so I'm more than cleared to go higher in weight, but it was good to restrain myself and work on that form. Feels very different from back squatting - you have to make big chest to keep the weight from falling out of your hands. But it feels like the right thing to have done - I'm way more conscious of my posture today, and I think/hope that that's going to translate into health in the long run, in addition to LGN benefits.

 

I tried to do inverted rows with the rings afterward, and while I think the rings are a good addition, this particular variation doesn't respond well to cluster work. It's not that the move itself was harder, but it was getting into position on the rings that was. Since I'm keeping low reps and such on these clusters, I think the next time I do this it'll just be pull ups with two feet assisting. That should make things better, I think.

 

I did one set of one ab exercise afterward and was pretty proud of myself for my restraint.  I even had enough time to foam roll and mash my forearms on the LAX ball.

 

Karate afterward was good, although I have to admit I was pretty tired after doing all the work in the gym. It wasn't a long session, and it wasn't like I couldn't do the work in front of me, but even after having eaten some sweet potato I was just tired. Though, then again, that could just be a mental thing too. K-sensei seems to have decided to focus on kicks again, and those classes are always tiring. And I didn't spar well, at least, I didn't spar in a way that I would look back on and say I did well. I did some things right, but it was one of those nights where K-sensei just played his game all over me and I couldn't fight my way out. As happens from time to time.

 

So, it's too soon to say how well these things play together. But to tell you the truth, even if it turns out that this makes for rougher classes... I'm kind of okay with that. If K-sensei's serious about putting me in another gauntlet, then I'm going to need to train that mental capacity to dig in and fight when I don't want to. I have it already, but at this point I wouldn't say I couldn't use more.

 

And today? Today should be easier - S&S and kali. Manong's lately taken to keeping Biggie and me separate from each other... which, I have to admit, I'm grateful for. I know there's value in working with different energies and such, but it doesn't feel safe given how I move right now to deal with that. Elbow's feeling good and I've got a good night's sleep under my belt. Let's do this.

[Treva]

Longtime lurker, returning poster.

 

I am so excited to read about your breakthrough!!!!  This is awesome!!

 

I really like your post from November 10th--thank you for sharing everything about how you've been thinking about your training and where you want to go with it.  I'm really excited for you that you took the time to look at what you really wanted from your program.  It's nice to see that even on a "daily battle log", you're constantly overhauling and trying to be better and better for yourself.  That's gosh darn awesome and it's so cool to see it.

 

It's even cooler that it's working out for you!!!  I have loved reading every day you're like "yeah, this worked out great and was so awesome."  I'm really really excited to hear all of that.  

On 11/10/2017 at 5:54 PM, Kishi said:

But coming up with a minimalist routine isn't the hard part. The hard part is having confidence in it and sticking to it. That's not something that can be fixed any other way except to do it and to get results that I want. If I get the results that I want, then I can keep doing this.

Good.  Yes.  This.  This is a hard hard thing.  It takes a f***ton of courage to say "I'm going to change, and I have no idea if this will help, but I'm going to be 10000% confident in it and go anyways."  Really BAMF dude.  Real BAMF.

 

On 11/16/2017 at 9:09 AM, Kishi said:

 

Barely managed a full night's sleep. Worked through why the job is getting on my nerves and realized I'd made the mistake of letting the numbers get into my head. I'm trying to control uncontrollables, and I think I'm struggling with that the same time that I'm seeing people in my feeds lately posting about getting their emotional needs met and me being like "HAH." I realized I'm being foolish, and I spent time telling myself last night and this morning that I need to let these things go.

 

I think it's working, although I'm going to have to keep telling myself this.

well, to break the trend, I sure as hell am not getting my emotional needs met!!  Like.  Ever.  Which means, I totally feel this dude.  It's very very hard to let things go, I suck at it, I have no advice, I am here to just wallow and share brownies and say me too dude.  I get onto social media and see people getting into relationships and posting lots of instagram-perfect pictures with their kids or their significant others and I'm like "hallo, I have none of these things, I am in a long haul degree program also have you heard of your lord and savior rituximab the anti-CD20 monoclonal antibody."  If you have a good way to help avoid these toxic feelings, I am all ears.  I know cutting down on social media can help, but I have the issue of needing to be on it for school and work.  

 

On 11/16/2017 at 11:00 AM, Kishi said:

I know. I'm trying to get better at the cold, and most days I am. It's not just a literal thing; it's a figurative thing too. And the truth is, it's volitional. There's at least one woman who wants to actively de-single me, but I don't want to be with her because that won't make either of us happy in the long run.

 

But you're right. Life isn't fair. Most of the time I don't expect it to be, but every once in a while...

Ugh.  Well good on you to not de-single for someone who isn't right for you.  That's healthy and mature and you're meeting *your* own emotional needs, even if no one else is.  I'm glad you're doing stuff that promotes your own self worth and dignity and such.  

 

On 11/16/2017 at 3:24 PM, Kishi said:

 

On 11/16/2017 at 11:19 AM, Urgan said:

We're all human, we can know all the stuff we want, but sometimes feelings have a turn in control. They tell lies about how filling the void of Having Someone will fix all of the problems you may have at a given time and make everything in life great, but truth to tell it can cause almost as many as it solves, especially if one settles in pursuit of a quick fix. How many people in your social circle have made this mistake and dressed it up on social media as the best decision of their life? Call me in 5 years and we'll see.

 

Hey, you're preaching to the choir on this one. The void can be a problem sometimes, but there's no sense in filling that emptiness with more problems. That's not a good solution to the problem.

PREACH.  The void is a problem, but sometimes it can be good to have tea and acknowledge the void rather than filling it with more problems, which you clearly already know is a terrible life decision since you're not de-singling for this other human.  Shoving more stuff into a void never helps anyone.  Unless that stuff is cake.  I am definitely into shoving cake into the emotional void.

 

I am so excited to keep reading about your progress.  I know the sleep thing isn't happening very well.  Literature suggests that chronic insomnia and sleep related disturbances can be associated with underlying unsolved mental health and psychological stuff.  Maybe there's more soul searching in your headspace that can help you feel more settled--it sounds like you're on the right track with identifying all that work stress and numbers keeping your brain busy.

 

continue kicking all the butt!!!

 

[Kishi]

On ‎11‎/‎18‎/‎2017 at 11:24 AM, Treva said:

Longtime lurker, returning poster.

 

I am so excited to read about your breakthrough!!!!  This is awesome!!

 

 

On ‎11‎/‎18‎/‎2017 at 11:24 AM, Treva said:

I really like your post from November 10th--thank you for sharing everything about how you've been thinking about your training and where you want to go with it.  I'm really excited for you that you took the time to look at what you really wanted from your program.  It's nice to see that even on a "daily battle log", you're constantly overhauling and trying to be better and better for yourself.  That's gosh darn awesome and it's so cool to see it.

 

It's even cooler that it's working out for you!!!  I have loved reading every day you're like "yeah, this worked out great and was so awesome."  I'm really really excited to hear all of that.

 

 

I mean. What else would I do? The whole point is to live a better life, right? And if what I'm doing isn't getting me there, don't I have to adjust and change?

 

On ‎11‎/‎18‎/‎2017 at 11:24 AM, Treva said:

Good.  Yes.  This.  This is a hard hard thing.  It takes a f***ton of courage to say "I'm going to change, and I have no idea if this will help, but I'm going to be 10000% confident in it and go anyways."  Really BAMF dude.  Real BAMF.

 

 

On ‎11‎/‎18‎/‎2017 at 11:24 AM, Treva said:

well, to break the trend, I sure as hell am not getting my emotional needs met!!  Like.  Ever.  Which means, I totally feel this dude.  It's very very hard to let things go, I suck at it, I have no advice, I am here to just wallow and share brownies and say me too dude.  I get onto social media and see people getting into relationships and posting lots of instagram-perfect pictures with their kids or their significant others and I'm like "hallo, I have none of these things, I am in a long haul degree program also have you heard of your lord and savior rituximab the anti-CD20 monoclonal antibody."  If you have a good way to help avoid these toxic feelings, I am all ears.  I know cutting down on social media can help, but I have the issue of needing to be on it for school and work.

 

All I know is that the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell.

 

But yeah, I hear that you're here with me. It's a tough place to be. I don't really have a good way to avoid the toxic feelings, but having had a long time to train my mind, I can tell you that feelings are... kind of a cyclical thing. They come, they go. They're like seasons. The best way I've figured to deal with them is to find an objective truth that would apply both in good times and bad, and to try to remember that. It's not about hiding from those feelings or even trying to suppress them. It's more about acknowledging that they're real, but that they're also temporary, and that you have a baseline you can return to rather than being defined by this emotion.

 

On ‎11‎/‎18‎/‎2017 at 11:24 AM, Treva said:

Ugh.  Well good on you to not de-single for someone who isn't right for you.  That's healthy and mature and you're meeting *your* own emotional needs, even if no one else is.  I'm glad you're doing stuff that promotes your own self worth and dignity and such.

 

Well, yeah, and I think that's been part of my trouble lately. The woman in particular who wants to de-single me has a cyclical nature in her feelings as well. The difference is, she doesn't have something objective to help her return to baseline. She just cycles through various states of Not Being Over Things, and right now she's back to not being over the fact that I'm attractive to her and not attracted to her. Which is annoying and embittering considering that I've had to get my feels managed for the sake of other relationships. Not getting that reciprocity... bugs me.

 

On ‎11‎/‎18‎/‎2017 at 11:24 AM, Treva said:

I am so excited to keep reading about your progress.  I know the sleep thing isn't happening very well.  Literature suggests that chronic insomnia and sleep related disturbances can be associated with underlying unsolved mental health and psychological stuff.  Maybe there's more soul searching in your headspace that can help you feel more settled--it sounds like you're on the right track with identifying all that work stress and numbers keeping your brain busy.

 

I mean. I sleep well when I'm down. If I have an alarm to be up for, I become a super-light sleeper - first hit of predawn light and I'm awake, and I have to tell myself to go back to sleep, which doesn't always work. I think it's just a matter of exposing myself to too much stimulation, and I probably need to take up blocking out social media and things like that once it gets late enough.

 

On ‎11‎/‎18‎/‎2017 at 11:24 AM, Treva said:

continue kicking all the butt!!!

 

 

 

*

 

And, the weekend was very a weekend.

 

Friday was S&S and Kali. I still have the 24 on my TGUs, which is nice. Really digging into my form to make sure I'm letting the technique do the work rather than trying to power through. The decision to take a month was a good one, so far. Kali afterward was good too - a lot of work on circling and redirecting things. Manong also wants to get into the grappling application of things; we'll see how that goes.

 

Saturday, I went to go hang with some friends at a Mongolian grill, which is always good food. Spent time talking politics and the nature of reality - you know, casual stuff - and also training, since I turned one of them on to kettlebells and such. After that, I went to go practice movement - handstand progression, hitting the bag, running. Just all the things. It was a good session overall, but it felt pretty disjointed, but then I don't really know if that was because I had other people working in on the bag and couldn't find a space to practice kata and all of that.

 

I weighed and measured myself again and I'm trending back up to 18% body fat. Not frustrating in itself, but it's kind of annoying that I can't pinpoint where the holdup is. But the bad is mine. I changed a lot of things all at once and I can't really verify what's happening due to what now. I think it's down to either a mismatch in my training and nutrition or due to stress - lack of sleep and problems at work. The work stuff is mostly resolved as of recently, so I'm leaning toward the nutrition being the cause. Just to verify, I'm going to back to my baseline (protein and fat to BMR, plus 50-100g CHO per day) and see what happens. If the trend continues, then we'll know it was/is stress; if it stops, then we'll know that it was more nutritional.

 

Of course, hard to say how much of which is which given that T-Day is this week. Oh well.

 

Sunday was a fun day. We celebrated my brother's birthday that day - big breakfast with lots of decadent food. Afterward, went to the gym. Hit dips and deadlifts and managed to hit clearance for progression on both. Although, it's curious - my dip volume is increasing, and my deadlift volume is decreasing. It's interesting to see the mix in signals like this, and I wonder if I'm just crossing some wires here on a neurological level. I don't mind if so, but it's just... interesting. Went and hit the versaclimber after that and managed another round of work, which is good. I'm at 4 rounds now, and my goal is 5, so next Sunday...?

 

Also, it was friggin nice to have done work that I knew would be good for me in the gym and also to be done in 40 minutes. I'd kind of forgot what that was like.

 

I'm in no pain today and I don't feel a particular need to rest, but that just means that the rest I get will be good.  Today and tomorrow should be relatively good days for training - mostly just taking things easy and letting my body recover. I need to get a gift for my brother's birthday (I'd actually planned to celebrate with him on his birthday this week, but that got coopted by everyone else's plans at the last second, so), so I'm probably going to take Wednesday off since, for one, that's a rest day anyway and for another, the one place I know where I could get things he'd be interested in is out in friggin' Durham, which isn't exactly a short trip at the time of day I'd be going. The things I do for love.

 

But... yeah. Feeling good. It's like I told my friends - I can do all kinds of good things. Now I just want to get to the point where I look good doing them.  I've even managed to fit in ab work almost every day - brief, intense plank sessions and even some twisting work. Feels like just the right amount, and it feels like it's making my lower back stronger as opposed to compromised.

 

Just... man. Training feels good now. I thought it felt good before, but it feels really good now.

[Urgan]

 

6 minutes ago, Kishi said:

Well, yeah, and I think that's been part of my trouble lately. The woman in particular who wants to de-single me has a cyclical nature in her feelings as well. The difference is, she doesn't have something objective to help her return to baseline. She just cycles through various states of Not Being Over Things, and right now she's back to not being over the fact that I'm attractive to her and not attracted to her. Which is annoying and embittering considering that I've had to get my feels managed for the sake of other relationships. Not getting that reciprocity... bugs me.

 

 

6 minutes ago, Kishi said:

Just... man. Training feels good now. I thought it felt good before, but it feels really good now.

 

So....we're good then?

[Kishi]

32 minutes ago, Urgan said:

 

 

 

33 minutes ago, Urgan said:

So....we're good then?

 

Crazy though it might be, I think we are. Now it's just a matter of resisting the temptation to switch things up.

[Urgan]

5 minutes ago, Kishi said:

Crazy though it might be, I think we are. Now it's just a matter of resisting the temptation to switch things up.

 

No break, no fix.

[Kishi]

18 hours ago, Urgan said:

 

No break, no fix.

 

Is good.

 

*

 

Welp, yesterday was a rest day, so rest is what I proceeded to do. It was good. I spent my lunch hour stretching out some of the stiffness from Sunday and spent the night gaming. My character (a warrior whose soul got transferred into a wooden golem) wound up living through interesting times, having to fight off two different kinds of possession and both times making it just by the skin of his teeth. I should have known what I was in for when I declared that I would communicate something to my party members via interpretive dance. It was that kind of night.

 

Today's docket should be S&S and Karate. I can't think of anything that should get in the way of that... although I get the sense that there should be? Weird. If it happens, it happens, but otherwise should just be another quiet day.

[Urgan]

2 minutes ago, Kishi said:

Today's docket should be S&S and Karate. I can't think of anything that should get in the way of that... although I get the sense that there should be? Weird. If it happens, it happens, but otherwise should just be another quiet day.

 

Sounds like the day after finals when you've had 2 projects, a paper, and 4 exams to prep for weeks and all of a sudden those aren't a thing anymore.