Osu

[Kishi]

15 hours ago, Jupiter said:

 

Maybe ask him about it? Like @sarakingdom said, he may not even be aware of it. 

 

That's true. I reckon we'll find our way to having that conversation at some point, probably when I offer to him not to come.

 

*

 

So, chicanery happened, but not the kind I was looking for. I had a bunch of work stuff left to do and wound up having to stay late as a result. I'm cleared for OT, so it's not like I'm not getting paid for the extra time but it is damned annoying to miss out on mat time for work.

 

On the flip side, however, it does make things easier in the office, so. A trade is a trade.

 

Did manage to strength train at home, and there's all kinds of good news there. To start with, my shoulders are feeling loads better. I've been rehabbing with some stuff from Ido Portal as well as doing some shoulder-intensive bridging at the start of my training sessions. I stretch out afterward, eat root turmeric with black pepper, and take naproxen before going to bed. My right shoulder's almost completely better and my left is feeling loads better. (the added rest is probably not hurting anything).

 

I also found a way to make planks harder by taking my arms and putting them out in front of me. So I'm actually able to take the movement and make it harder, meaning that I can extract more value from a given movement.

 

Thirdly, I found a way to make farmer's carries harder in my limited space. Per Dan John, all I gotta do is march in place, and high knee it. It worked. Good lawd, but it worked, even with relatively light weight.

 

So, all in all, it was a very productive night.

 

Weighed myself today and my weight's up about 7 lbs from where I'd like it to be. I calculated maintenance at 13cal per lb vs the 14 I'd been using and came out with a higher number, which amused, but that's how the math works out right now. Kind of torn between doing daily weigh-ins to get a trend - and thus having to get up earlier - or settling for a weekly. Dunno what I'mma do just yet.

 

But in the meantime, sci fi tonight.

[Kishi]

Sci fi was watched! Decided to catch up on Picard before it got too far ahead. It's really good, y'all. I absolutely recommend it, although I don't necessarily recommend the streaming service as even at premium payment you still have to put up with ads.

 

Not that I'm telling you what to do with that information.

 

Woke up this morning to news from my Maine Friend that she's about to be my California Friend. Looks like her next contract is gonna be in San Jose, and I'm already invited out to visit. Holy smokes! (and hopefully not literally so with the fires and all). And that means I gotta work as much OT as I can; I'll have to talk with my friend that I'm meeting on Saturday and let her know what's up.

 

The plan Thursday night was chicanery and Q&D, and again, chicanery happened but not in the way I wanted. We had some wicked storms come through and everybody closed up shop - both the MMA place and the BJJ place shut down for the night, although I think this was probably because the schools let out early around here and the teachers were worried about the kids. Totally understandable but definitely not what was planned.

 

Q&D in the meantime wound up being the bodyweight edition, so vertical leaps and assisted push ups it was.

 

Tonight we should finally - finally! - be back on the mats, although it looks again like one of those situations where it's a double-booked set of open mats, with Karate folk one place and BJJ folk at the other place. Good problem, but still one that has to be navigated.

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

2 hours ago, Kishi said:

Sci fi was watched! Decided to catch up on Picard before it got too far ahead. It's really good, y'all. I absolutely recommend it, although I don't necessarily recommend the streaming service as even at premium payment you still have to put up with ads.

 

What Ads? I have the streaming service and have yet to see a commercial. I'm watching it through a Roku so there isn't any adblocking either.

[Kishi]

39 minutes ago, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

What Ads? I have the streaming service and have yet to see a commercial. I'm watching it through a Roku so there isn't any adblocking either.

 

At present, we're watching via CBS's streaming service as presented through Xbox. (I think).

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

Might be the xbox. I have all access too. 

[Kishi]

20 hours ago, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

Might be the xbox. I have all access too. 

 

That is truly weird. Huh.

 

*

 

So, the Open Mats happened! Kind of.

 

I went to the karate open mat and they were basically running all kinds of different things because of the tournament in March. It's not just a fight tournament; it's also about kata and such too. Again, really kid-heavy, so no real opportunity to go hard with people. I wound up playing punching bag for this one spazzy little kid whom it kind of felt like he was trying to prove something by beating me to the punch? Which is a little annoying but okay. Sparring with kids is like that - generally, their movement vocabulary is really limited and especially in a style that prioritizes guts over technique. So they tend to get on you and stay on you, and if you're big and strong and heavy like me, you can't really do a lot of the stuff that you do in Shotokan to force distance because that hurts people.

 

I personally think it's good practice for staying moving and for dealing with people in close, especially as you're dealing with opponents who don't move in expected ways. Because they're so much smaller, their guards in particular are so much tighter, and getting stuff past them involves a lot of sneaky timing and having to come from weird angles which I don't normally get to play with. So I think I get something from it; it's just not necessarily what I want.

 

The reason I think this is so is that when I finally got to play with an adult, his guard seemed so much easier to get past for all that it was super tight. It explains a couple things if true; I suspect that I'll have more opportunities to play with this as the open mats continue.

 

Anyway, went to BJJ open mat afterward. Coach was in, so naturally more students were there. I think Coach came to this thing drunk, or status post some drinking as I could smell it on him, but that didn't bother me. It's not the first time I've played with drunk teachers.  And it says something about his quality that he was as good as he was in teaching and in rolling afterward. We're shifting our emphasis this month to mount escapes, so getting out of full mount and side mount. We wound up running a class as opposed to an open mat, which was fine. One thing he really emphasized and that I want to take to heart is the idea of doing techniques with an eye toward driving the fight a certain way. He says this is the distinction between a white belt and a blue belt. So this is what I have to learn.

 

Randori afterward was good. I took a chance to execute what we practiced on the coach and while it didn't work, the fact that I saw it and tried in the first place was satisfactory. The other guy I rolled with didn't let me get to my favored position, so I tapped him with his favored position instead. Serves him right.

 

Today, the plan is work at the office -> go home and train -> go visit my co-DM. So far, so good.

[Urgan]

On 2/8/2020 at 2:06 PM, Kishi said:

Anyway, went to BJJ open mat afterward. Coach was in, so naturally more students were there. I think Coach came to this thing drunk, or status post some drinking as I could smell it on him, but that didn't bother me. It's not the first time I've played with drunk teachers.  And it says something about his quality that he was as good as he was in teaching and in rolling afterward.

 

Alcohol and Senseis go well together. So well that one time one of our instructors came in after having had a few and it seemed he forgot he was doing an Aikido atemi because I nearly got jabbed right in the face while he was demoing technique to my partner had I not been guarding. Solid gold. Quite it it wasn't the first or will be the last time this happens lol. Glad your Sensei's version of drunk/buzzed BJJ worked out a bit better. 

[Kishi]

9 minutes ago, Urgan said:

 

Alcohol and Senseis go well together. So well that one time one of our instructors came in after having had a few and it seemed he forgot he was doing an Aikido atemi because I nearly got jabbed right in the face while he was demoing technique to my partner had I not been guarding. Solid gold. Quite it it wasn't the first or will be the last time this happens lol. Glad your Sensei's version of drunk/buzzed BJJ worked out a bit better. 

 

Yeah, we might have been doing DJJ as opposed to BJJ. It worked, though. There's apparently a stoner subculture in BJJ as well in which you'll get high before rolling, and apparently the "flow" jacks way up. I'd be lying if I said I weren't curious about it.

 

*

 

Saturday's plan carried off without a hitch, relatively speaking. All the things I set out to do were done. I worked for a few hours on some cases, went home and trained, and got out to my co-DM's place where we drank lots of good drink and talked about the setting and how we could update things for 5e. We mostly got it done; I still have to read the DMG and get up to date. I'm not clear on when we're starting this thing and while it probably would have been better for me to get my ish together yesterday I didn't.

 

Sunday wasn't anything special. I didn't get together with folks to write as my friend as I got up late as a result of shenanigans at the co-DM's place, and my friend was down with a sickness and wanted to take yesterday to nap and chill and recover. I couldn't hold that against them.

 

BJJ was good. One of our classmates didn't have a gi, so I got to roll no-gi for the first or second time depending on how you look at it. (first was arguably at a Kyokushin open mat, and the reason it might be no-gi is that I rolled in a gi against someone who wasn't wearing one, but like it wasn't a grappling gi so it wasn't used for handholds or anything like that? I dunno. It's a weird taxonomy in my brain, and either way I got smashed the first time so I don't really worry much about making the distinction).

 

Regardless, the rolls were all good. I rolled really well against the teaching blue belt, not that it mattered.  He and I mutually complimented each other afterward; he said that my defense had gotten harder and that he couldn't allow himself the luxury of mistakes now with me, and I answered back that I could tell because I'd rolled better than before and it made no difference. We laughed together over that. The no-gi guy had a more experience without and it showed, but he couldn't tap me and I was able to play with different positions and roll around him. (sidebar: think I'mma start calling that one Sparkles, because he rolls with his earring in and also has very pretty jiujutsu). And as for Spider Monkey he was as troublesome as he always is, but apparently I troubled him too, so it's a wash.

 

Today will just be Q&D, or maybe not depending on who's there and what we're doing. Two of our DM figures have a hard 21:00 cut off which is conducive to training; the other one takes after the spirit of our dead DM in that stop time is whenever they feel like it is and not really a minute sooner. I suppose I should start asserting myself a bit if I want training to happen; maybe I don't want it enough? Heh. Oh well. I guess I'm not a Q&D champion.

[Urgan]

3 minutes ago, Kishi said:

Yeah, we might have been doing DJJ as opposed to BJJ. It worked, though. 

 

Not gonna lie, that actually sounds like some kind of fusion of music mixing and martial arts.

 

4 minutes ago, Kishi said:

Sunday wasn't anything special. I didn't get together with folks to write as my friend as I got up late as a result of shenanigans at the co-DM's place, and my friend was down with a sickness and wanted to take yesterday to nap and chill and recover. I couldn't hold that against them.

 

Was it strep/throat-related by chance? I'm getting the feeling that throat/chest-related infections are the current trend. Boss and parents got knocked out with it the latter part of last week into the weekend.

[Kishi]

1 hour ago, Urgan said:

Not gonna lie, that actually sounds like some kind of fusion of music mixing and martial arts.

 

It kind of does, right? And given how much emphasis there is on playing music during the rolls, you might not be that far off.

 

1 hour ago, Urgan said:

Was it strep/throat-related by chance? I'm getting the feeling that throat/chest-related infections are the current trend. Boss and parents got knocked out with it the latter part of last week into the weekend.

 

Sorry to hear your folks got sick!  It doesn't seem to be strep. They've just had a cold going for a while and they got stuck under it by the sound of things.

[Urgan]

2 hours ago, Kishi said:

It kind of does, right? And given how much emphasis there is on playing music during the rolls, you might not be that far off.

 

Giant. Mat-sized. DDR. Pad.

 

2 hours ago, Kishi said:

Sorry to hear your folks got sick!  It doesn't seem to be strep. They've just had a cold going for a while and they got stuck under it by the sound of things.

 

Yuck. Colds have been known to do that. 

[Mistr]

4 hours ago, Kishi said:

Saturday's plan carried off without a hitch, relatively speaking. All the things I set out to do were done.

 

That is the definition of a WIN.

 

Sounds like your training is all going well.

 

My sensei has opinions about training drunk or in other altered states. She is a big fan of training fatigued. The idea is that in a real situation you are likely to be tired, so you have to be able to move well with as little brain power and effort as possible.

 

I've also heard that you should train in the same state you plan to use your skills. So if you think you might get in bar fights, practicing with a couple drinks in you makes sense.  

[Kishi]

1 hour ago, Urgan said:

Giant. Mat-sized. DDR. Pad.

 

 

50 minutes ago, Mistr said:

My sensei has opinions about training drunk or in other altered states. She is a big fan of training fatigued. The idea is that in a real situation you are likely to be tired, so you have to be able to move well with as little brain power and effort as possible.

 

K-sensei used to tell me the same thing. He was a big believer in the idea that if you were fatigued, you couldn't outmuscle the technique; if anything, you'd have to rely on the technique to throw anything at all.

 

51 minutes ago, Mistr said:

I've also heard that you should train in the same state you plan to use your skills. So if you think you might get in bar fights, practicing with a couple drinks in you makes sense.  

 

Oooh, you joke, but lemme tell you something. There is apparently a subculture of BJJ that focuses on rolling stoned. Coach has told me there are gyms you can go to out in CA where you walk in and get a contact high. They say the rolls are way more fluid and relaxed (go figure) but also it's harder to get subs on people because they're apparently high to the point that their pain receptors aren't working?

 

So. Maybe there's something to it.

[sarakingdom]

1 hour ago, Mistr said:

I've also heard that you should train in the same state you plan to use your skills. So if you think you might get in bar fights, practicing with a couple drinks in you makes sense.  

 

Just, IMO, not on the junior belts. Drunk training seems like a consensual activity between senior belts.

 

IMO, if a senior belt is on the mat with chemically impaired judgment and reaction times, that's something that needs to be declared and considered opt-in for partners. There are techniques where the thing keeping more junior students from getting hurt is the judgment and reflexes of the senior people. I've seen one really serious injury on the mats, of the "exposed bone" variety, and it didn't involve alcohol (to the best of my knowledge), but it did involve senior belts who were just horsing around a little while training, which makes me really question the wisdom of getting hammered before training. In mixed level training, the safety of people with lower ranks is sort of "you had one job..." for me, particularly when it comes to the sensei.

 

So sensei showing up drunk to an open mat training, and training without telling anyone... hard no from me. Not because he's drunk (though I do judge people who don't wait to get shitfaced till after they train), but because it's a dick move to not let other people make informed safety decisions.

[Kishi]

6 minutes ago, sarakingdom said:

So sensei showing up drunk to an open mat training, and training without telling anyone... hard no from me. Not because he's drunk (though I do judge people who don't wait to get shitfaced till after they train), but because it's a dick move to not let other people make informed safety decisions.

 

I mean, that's a sound judgment. FWIW he didn't slur his speech or stumble or give any other indication of being anything except hungover, and for all I know he might have come straight from the airport out to the mats. The reason it sticks out to me, beyond the fact that I could smell it on him, was that he mentioned wanting to get into hard training when his travels were done as a way to clean himself up again as he apparently doesn't take good care of himself when he's on the road. It seemed like a contextual thing.

 

The last time I absolutely know for sure I did anything with a drunken teacher was with K-Sensei, and he was exactly like you advised - he was like, "Okay, so I've been drinking, and shit might get weird. You gonna be good with that?" And of course I was, because it was my habit to "be good" with things.

[sarakingdom]

17 minutes ago, Kishi said:

 

I mean, that's a sound judgment. FWIW he didn't slur his speech or stumble or give any other indication of being anything except hungover, and for all I know he might have come straight from the airport out to the mats. The reason it sticks out to me, beyond the fact that I could smell it on him, was that he mentioned wanting to get into hard training when his travels were done as a way to clean himself up again as he apparently doesn't take good care of himself when he's on the road. It seemed like a contextual thing.

 

The last time I absolutely know for sure I did anything with a drunken teacher was with K-Sensei, and he was exactly like you advised - he was like, "Okay, so I've been drinking, and shit might get weird. You gonna be good with that?" And of course I was, because it was my habit to "be good" with things.

 

Thumbs up for the way K-sensei handled that. Sometimes it happens. People show up unexpectedly, drinks are had, etc. But you tell folks and let them know you may not be on your game, like any physical impairment. Then they can watch out for themselves and you.

 

The other dude, though... you're just opening up more questions in my mind about the problematicity of his alcohol use, man. Ain't your dojo's job to "clean you up" after you spent a trip drinking too much, and if you couldn't even dry out and lose the hangover from a whole trip of overdoing it before showing up to train, you probably have more alcohol issues than you let on, and you're definitely asking too much of your dojo.

[Kishi]

3 hours ago, sarakingdom said:

 

Thumbs up for the way K-sensei handled that. Sometimes it happens. People show up unexpectedly, drinks are had, etc. But you tell folks and let them know you may not be on your game, like any physical impairment. Then they can watch out for themselves and you.

 

The other dude, though... you're just opening up more questions in my mind about the problematicity of his alcohol use, man. Ain't your dojo's job to "clean you up" after you spent a trip drinking too much, and if you couldn't even dry out and lose the hangover from a whole trip of overdoing it before showing up to train, you probably have more alcohol issues than you let on, and you're definitely asking too much of your dojo.

 

And again, that's all fair given what I've told you. I dunno, girl. I just didn't feel like there was anything to worry about. Like, I felt like I was way more of a roll risk as a sober white belt than he was as a hungover brown, if that's even what he was. I mean, I'm not the most reliable narrator for all that I try to be. It could be that I've completely misrepresented his conduct and painted the wrong picture.

 

Like, for instance I just remembered typing this that he didn't come from the airport because he was in town Thursday night and was the one to message us that class was cancelled on account of the weather. I mixed my memories up because he was gone again for business either Saturday or Sunday. For all I know, the dude had a couple beers and wanted to spend Friday night with his wife and his kids instead of coming out to a small open mat for a program that we can't seem to get off the ground. That could go a ways toward explaining low energy and a lack of usual enthusiasm. Hell, I love martial arts, and I'm still having to fake it sometimes when I go out to do this on Friday nights as opposed to doing anything else. His comments about clean living were more in the context of being at home and being able to control what he eats and drinks and how and when he sleeps, which is all typical NF stuff and as an isolated incident certainly doesn't seem reasonable to extrapolate a pattern of problematic alcohol use from.

 

But maybe that's just me, though. It could also be that I'm seeing a red flag through rose-colored glasses. This is something I've done before. Don't think I don't know it.

[Kishi]

So, Monday! Monday was fascinating.

 

Why was it fascinating? Well, we wound up building characters for the 5e game I'll be co-DMing. My co-DM wound up finding this app called "5e Companion App," which essentially takes the lion's share of a lot of the things I was worried about having to run in terms of encounters and things like that. I'll still have to worry about setting DCs for things, and I'm also going to have to learn how to construct dungeons and make monsters as the consensus among the other DMs who have experience at the table is that the pre-gens found in the DMG are kind of OP, especially given the guidelines as prescribed to potential DMs.

 

But yeah, a lot of the night was spent with me fiddling with the app and all the things it can do. The co-DM did more and found more, and basically, I think this is gonna be siiiiick. You know, in a good way.  I've made an appointment with one of the other DMs on Saturday to get together and go over how to build things; in order to do that and work OT that day, I'm really gonna have no choice but to be a responsible adult. Get up early in the morning, meaning going to bed relatively early. Not cool, but necessary.

 

Anyway. Got home, rolled up a bodyweight version of Q&D and went to work. Rolled a short session this time, which was a blessing.

 

Tonight will be chicanery and strength work. We'll see how it shakes out.

[Kishi]

So some things shook out the way I wanted to and others didn't.

 

Strength training actually went really well; I felt light and strong, which is unusual for me these days. Must have hit the right mix of foods and drinks after martial arts. I also added a little more Ido Portal to my warm up and my shoulders were super thankful for that.

 

And martial arts went really well for what I was able to be there for. I wanted to be there for BJJ but missed again due to traffic and work timing issues. The striking stuff I was there for, however, was awesome. We worked on "pause combos," ie throwing a combination and then pausing to get a read as opposed to just wailing on the opponent. Something feels right about this, like a next step, although if the sparring is anything to go on, it's a step I'm still working on taking. ;;

 

Beyond that, there's really not much to report.

 

Sci Fi tonight. Only one episode of Picard; we might end up splitting our energy between that and Expanse, and I could honestly live with that.

[Kishi]

Sci Fi happened! Picard and The Expanse, just as I figured.

 

And as you might expect, not a whole lot else to report, not really.

 

It's the MMA place for sure tonight, as we're finally moving out of our space at the BJJ gym and the mats are out! We're moving into some new real estate at a local mall a few minutes away. I'm torn - part of me is excited because I think this is a chance for us to really shine and get more people, and part of me remembers that nobody who's in charge of these decisions for us does anything unless it's cheap, and if the real estate value's down that low there's no telling what that'll translate to in terms of actual circulation of people.

 

So, show up and roll. It's all I can do. I wonder if we'll have open mat tomorrow.

 

But MMA and Q&D tonight.

[Kishi]

Whew, tired today. Sleepy more than anything.

 

Oh, and Happy Valentine's Day to all for whom it applies.

 

Thursday wound up changing a touch as it was brought to my attention that Early Voting had just opened up and I knew if I got out on the mats I'd be distracted. So I went and took care of it and that was that.

 

Striking afterward was more focus on 'pause' timing. The sparring afterward was super-productive, really just a ton of fun. I went with a headhunter who I got to practice guard with and she wasn't able to get a single headshot on me all match. Next got to go with this big guy who was able to Superman Punch so hard that he flew, which I've only ever seen in Youtube videos. That was awesome. Then got to go close with someone and work on being in close; he's a TKD blackbelt on top of having a bunch of MT (at least that; I think he's got some boxing too based on his handwork) and I finally felt like I was on an even footing with him.

 

So, just a really productive night. I'm really glad I made the time for it. The coach afterward showed me a new gi he got from Half Sumo and it sounds pricy and it's not from a local business and also I want one. Or more. They're apparently working on a series based on the Book of 5 Rings (sidebar: need to read the Book of 5 Rings) which I'd love to have stuff from; apparently, it's one for each of the 5 rings. That'd keep me in gi for a long time.

 

Q&D wound up being bodyweight again, which is remarkable on the basis that I don't usually roll two of those in the same week.

 

Anyway, I'm kind of on the fence about open mats tonight. I'm definitely going to grapple - I missed a couple shots at that this week and I wanna make that up if I can - but given that the striking open mat is going to be emphasizing the artistic stuff over the fighting stuff this week I'm not too keen to go. Not to mention, I have a feeling we're gonna have to work out some logistics about the grappling open mat as it is; I don't have a key to the new place for instance, and also I don't even know if the mats are in over there yet or what all's going on.

 

Oh well. As my Marine friends like to say, semper Gumby.

[Kishi]

So... about last night. Nothing happened.

 

Striking open mat was apparently cancelled so that Ky-sensei could take his wife out on a date, which makes perfect sense. As for the grappling open mat, well, the mats aren't down like we were told they'd be and the doors were locked to boot. I didn't see anybody trying to get in or anything like that, so we're probably not in trouble. Still would have liked to roll, tho.

 

Looking at our situation in terms of space, it seems that my initial guess was correct. We got the space on the cheap in a plaza section of stores right across from the mall proper, and most of that space there is empty. I get the feeling that it's being flipped, though? There's a Walmart nearby and a bunch of apartment housing going up in the mall complex, and wandering the mall afterward, it seemed like it was doing pretty well for itself for being a Friday night on the outskirts of the city proper.

 

So, as crazy as it might sound, I'm actually kind of hopeful. It almost feels like we're vanguarding a renewal project as opposed to just taking cheap space in a dead part of town. Time will tell if my read is right on this or if my feelings in the matter are well-founded, but right now there's no reason not to hope. I can kind of see us running a grappling school as all these other shops and restaurants come up around us, and if that's the case, well. Wouldn't that be something.

 

Anyway. Took last night to start reading the Book of 5 Rings because I said I would. I love how Musashi refers to martial artists as "strategists" and draws a distinction between them and "adepts" who just want to learn to fight. "Learn to see the Way and you will see it broadly in all things." Hell yeah. This'll be way more fun than the 5 chapters of Capital I've completed.

 

Which I, uh, need to get back to at some point.

 

Today's meeting with the other DM is cancelled on account of his work, so I reckon I'll just work in the office 'til it closes and go home to do strength work.

[Kishi]

So, hey everyone,

 

basically, I'm taking a break from the Battle Log for the next bit to focus on some challenge stuff. It's the 10th Anniversary Challenge Special!

 

I'll be sticking around the Monastery for a hot minute or five, so if you want to keep up with what's going on, that's where you can find me.

[WhiteGhost]

Are you still hiding out in the Monastery?  haven't seen you for a bit