Osu

[Mistr]

On 10/27/2017 at 9:03 AM, Kishi said:

But, yeah. Not a whole lot to report. Things are presently good.

 

Yay!  I always enjoy seeing you in the life you were dreaming of three years ago.

[Kishi]

19 hours ago, Mistr said:

 

Yay!  I always enjoy seeing you in the life you were dreaming of three years ago.

 

Yeah! It's not bad, this. I could stand to do a better job of it in some ways, but it's good to be in a position to learn.

 

*

 

Catching up again. What is it with me and not being here over the weekend?

 

Friday, went to Kali. Big dude was there again. He has decided to do me the charity of correcting me when my movements weren't right. If I didn't move far enough, he'd tap me in the leg with his leg. When I didn't get my block up in time, he elbowed me in the face. Which is not strange - same dude swings hard on everything, and if I don't move I'll get clocked. To give you an idea, we have a drill where a staff is swung at you and you have to use a pair of bolo knives to catch and control. The only time he's swung at me, he's come down so fast that I can hear the wind moving as I get out of the way.

 

I gotta admit, this whole dojo just makes me laugh. In karate, I can't hit; in judo, I can't throw; in kali, I can't cut. Hah! What the fuck am I even learning here!

 

Ha ha ha ha haaaaaah... that's not fair of me. The truth is, if I step back and think about it objectively, that I do take good in each situation, and it's actually all to do with movement. In Karate, if I spar with waifu, I'm severely restricted in what I can do, but K-sensei's acknowledged that my movement is the big thing holding me back right now and sparring with waifu is a good opportunity to develop steps and pivots and the use of tai sabaki to absorb things and the development of timing. In Judo, my bad habits in newaza are being corrected, and I'm learning how to fall well, and I'm picking up a lot of details and rebuilding some of my throws from the ground up. And in Kali, when I go with manong, I get to practice flow, and when I practice with Biggie I get to practice more movement.

 

And FWIW, in each situation, I'm generally not an angry dude. Somehow, whenever I'm in that space, I'm able to let go of my expectations. Even when I got elbowed in the face, I actually wasn't angry. It doesn't occur to me to be angry until after the fact, but even then, I question it. How do I know I'm not just being arrogant and egotistical? I mean, in a lot of these cases, I was a lone student for a while and things went at my speed for a time. Now that I'm in these other situations, how do I know I'm not being unreasonable when I'm the only one who seems to have the problem?

 

Part of the reason I'm so prone to questioning it at this point is that I've noticed in the past week a real tendency toward ego. Between insulting a dude on Monday for his politics and getting into scraps on social media... I think, lately, I've just been letting that part of me slip. It doesn't help any that work's been frustrating - one of the people who's integral to my case processing left for a couple weeks, meaning that I've got all this stuff up and ready to go that can't get processed and it's making my stats look bad. Not my fault, and the bosses know it's not my fault. They've told me it's not my fault. I blame myself anyway.

 

But that's arrogance in its own way. It's me assuming that I'm way more important than I actually am. I've run into this beast before. It usually does a better job of disguising itself as humility.

 

Pheeeeeew.

 

Saturday was good. Deadlift tonnage exceeded 13K pounds, and I was able to sprint. Finished all five sprints getting better each time. That's what I like to see. I managed to practice both long and short range striking on the heavy bag, and I'm getting some thoughts on how I want to practice that. I'm finding that I get more out of planned doses rather than just going and going. Life is starting to shift back toward me being kind of social again, and I need to figure out practice and proper dosage to make room for those things.

 

Sunday was good. GB stuff is proceeding apace. This decision to slow down the rep progression was a good one, although it makes work sets a little squirrelly to program sometimes. Whatever, it's working.

 

I haven't had the chance to go for a run in the cold, but we had a cold snap on Monday that I was able to walk around in. It wasn't bad! Even with the breeze, it really wasn't any trouble. I think I'm probably ready to go.

 

Ran measurements, and I've plateau'd. My last measurement down in the 17% range was skewed by a bad measurement; I figured if I hit something similar again that I'd have progressed and I wouldn't worry about it, but I bounced right back up to 18%. So. Now we get to find a way around this. After reading Sisson, I've concluded it might be time to start throwing more carbs in, although I'm not sure how I'll go about it. Sundays are generally a re-feed, given that I'm either with the folks eating comfort food or out with friends at D&D and doing whatever comfort food they chose to cook. I don't think I need to do extra carbs on Monday since that's a rest day; probably, I need the extra on days when I'm doing martial arts. Something I know about myself is that I'm kind of numb to how hard I work, and it's completely possible that I'm underrating how much glycogen I'm burning/earning some days.

 

Fortunately, we're entering into the holidays, so this really shouldn't be too much of a burden.

 

Anyway, rant over, at this point all that's left is to coast through to Saturday. I'm actually burning PTO for the next week to work on the novel, hang out with friends, and do my travels. Feels weird. In a good way.

[Mistr]

3 hours ago, Kishi said:

Friday, went to Kali. Big dude was there again. He has decided to do me the charity of correcting me when my movements weren't right. If I didn't move far enough, he'd tap me in the leg with his leg. When I didn't get my block up in time, he elbowed me in the face. Which is not strange - same dude swings hard on everything, and if I don't move I'll get clocked. To give you an idea, we have a drill where a staff is swung at you and you have to use a pair of bolo knives to catch and control. The only time he's swung at me, he's come down so fast that I can hear the wind moving as I get out of the way.

 

Hmmm, that sounds iffy. Is this dude higher ranked than you? How is his control when he swings?

 

I don't know about Kali, but with other weapons arts there is a strong emphasis on control. Sure, people want to swing so that the weapon whistles through the air. However, the wielder should be able to stop at any point if their target freezes like a deer in the headlights.

 

We have been having a lot of instruction at aikido seminars on what behavior is and is not helpful for your partner. As you might expect, it depends on the levels of the people involved. Assuming both people are intermediate or higher, they are encouraged to give each other feedback. It can be verbal or non-verbal. "I feel like you are moving me onto my front foot and making me more solid" is more helpful to nage than just standing there. If nage is leaving herself open, uke is allowed to tap her lightly on the exposed body part. This is where the elbow to the face might be a reasonable thing to do, depending on how it was intended.

 

Uke has a whole list of things to do and not do in standard training.

• Uke is not supposed to block nage's movement because that defeats the point of working on a set scenario. It is simple to block a technique when you know what is coming. Not so simple when you are in a freestyle situation.
• Uke is not allowed to do reversals unless we are specifically training them. Uke is supposed to keep track of all the places where a reversal would be possible.
• Uke is supposed to give a solid attack at a speed appropriate to the level of their partner.
• Uke should continue moving to be ready to deliver a second attack or block a counter. One strike and hold still is stupid.
• Uke needs to protect their own body integrity. That means moving to protect their joints and taking falls to escape dangerous situations.

All of the above are based on the principle that this is training - not combat. People have to start slow and simple to learn complex movements. The movements get faster and attacks more realistic as people move up in skill.

 

I am curious to hear how your Judo, Karate and Kali schools approach this.

 

[Urgan]

1 hour ago, Mistr said:

All of the above are based on the principle that this is training - not combat. People have to start slow and simple to learn complex movements. The movements get faster and attacks more realistic as people move up in skill.

 

All of this.

[Kishi]

On 10/31/2017 at 4:29 PM, Mistr said:

Hmmm, that sounds iffy. Is this dude higher ranked than you? How is his control when he swings?

 

I don't know about Kali, but with other weapons arts there is a strong emphasis on control. Sure, people want to swing so that the weapon whistles through the air. However, the wielder should be able to stop at any point if their target freezes like a deer in the headlights.

 

This particular system of Kali doesn't seem to be big on ranks. As for his control, he doesn't seem to have all that much. The way he swings, I feel like he wouldn't stop if I hadn't moved. It's not like with manong. He swings with pressure, sure - you have to catch it - but it's done deliberately and with control. The other guy's swings feel a lot looser - they whistle all the way through, even past the point where I would have been if I didn't get out of the way. If that makes sense.

 

On 10/31/2017 at 4:29 PM, Mistr said:

We have been having a lot of instruction at aikido seminars on what behavior is and is not helpful for your partner. As you might expect, it depends on the levels of the people involved. Assuming both people are intermediate or higher, they are encouraged to give each other feedback. It can be verbal or non-verbal. "I feel like you are moving me onto my front foot and making me more solid" is more helpful to nage than just standing there. If nage is leaving herself open, uke is allowed to tap her lightly on the exposed body part. This is where the elbow to the face might be a reasonable thing to do, depending on how it was intended.

 

I mean, dude wasn't malicious. When I get tapped down below, it's not malicious. But like I said, I don't think the dude has a lot of control. It's a risk sometimes in striking, but like. Sometimes, in Karate, I miss the pad, and I could hit the guy behind it. As soon as I see that, I stop. I don't blast through. When the other guy got me with his elbow, it wasn't a tap thing - I missed my block and he blasted me with it, right on my forehead, hard enough to knock my glasses off. We thought they might have broken is how hard he hit me.

 

On 10/31/2017 at 4:29 PM, Mistr said:

Uke has a whole list of things to do and not do in standard training.

• Uke is not supposed to block nage's movement because that defeats the point of working on a set scenario. It is simple to block a technique when you know what is coming. Not so simple when you are in a freestyle situation.
• Uke is not allowed to do reversals unless we are specifically training them. Uke is supposed to keep track of all the places where a reversal would be possible.
• Uke is supposed to give a solid attack at a speed appropriate to the level of their partner.
• Uke should continue moving to be ready to deliver a second attack or block a counter. One strike and hold still is stupid.
• Uke needs to protect their own body integrity. That means moving to protect their joints and taking falls to escape dangerous situations.

All of the above are based on the principle that this is training - not combat. People have to start slow and simple to learn complex movements. The movements get faster and attacks more realistic as people move up in skill.

 

I am curious to hear how your Judo, Karate and Kali schools approach this.

 

To tell you the truth, most of this stuff isn't really so codified as all that. The approach has generally been case by case. Some drills are like scenarios, and some have a freer nature to them, but it's been my experience that there's a clear line between each of them and that what's expected of you in each case is clear.

 

I've never had a problem in Karate. It's always been clear what was expected of me, how hard I was supposed to go, what I could expect back in response. Escalations do happen, but there's the expectation that you're going to catch it and slow back down.

 

I think in a lot of ways that's my frustration with the other two at this point. Like. For the longest time, I felt like I was in a similiar situation with judo. Newaza was newaza, uchikomi was uchikomi, randori was randori. You expected a certain amount of resistance and noncompliance, but you didn't expect that people would just suddenly change shit on you out of nowhere. Or if they did, it would be under close supervision - a blackbelt would be there watching and would start to critique and adjust. And there was consistency too. These days, I feel like if I go, then I'm hamstrung in terms of what I'm doing. If the other guy does something shitty to me like stiff-arming me out of grip or deciding that he's going to just start trying to out and out throw me as opposed to fitting something in, he doesn't get punished for it. I don't treat my partners like that, but I don't get any kind of consideration back.

 

Same in Kali. The way we treated it for the longest time, we'd go for speed, but we also shot for control too. If I missed a block or if his blade had a path to me, it was just a touch and be done because manong understands what he's doing. He wants to fight with all the sharp and pointy bits - not just a knife, but also elbows and knees and head and things like that. If I miss something, he stops. He flows. He controls. Because that's just common freaking sense. And I don't want to hurt Biggie. But I feel like I work hard to show courtesy and respect for his training that I don't really get back.

 

So, yeah. Basically, I feel like what I'm doing is really conducive to what everyone else is trying to do, but I'm not getting it back from most of the people that I'm practicing with.

 

...

 

I need to talk to the teachers about this. I can't keep carrying this like I am. I need to get it off my chest, because I doubt they even know I think it's a problem. But as frustrated as I am, it's childish to see this and not try to solve it. I need to take this responsibility for myself.

 

*

 

Tuesday was easy S&S and karate. Which was pleasant.

 

Afterward, I went to write in at midnight, because it was the right thing to do. I loved every second of it. It'd been so long. And I outpaced everyone in terms of how fast I could go. It was pretty great.

 

Today, I'm writing. I'll be headed off to the gym in a bit. I want to get another thousand words before the day's out. Cool. Here we go!

[Urgan]

4 hours ago, Kishi said:

I need to talk to the teachers about this. I can't keep carrying this like I am. I need to get it off my chest, because I doubt they even know I think it's a problem. But as frustrated as I am, it's childish to see this and not try to solve it. I need to take this responsibility for myself.

 

Do the thing, Kishi. You are your own best advocate.

[Mistr]

On 11/1/2017 at 5:57 PM, Kishi said:

I need to talk to the teachers about this. I can't keep carrying this like I am. I need to get it off my chest, because I doubt they even know I think it's a problem. But as frustrated as I am, it's childish to see this and not try to solve it. I need to take this responsibility for myself.

 

Yep. I agree with @Urgan. Talk to your teachers. There is no point in putting in the time if you are not getting the training you need, regardless of your prior relationship with the teachers.

 

On 11/1/2017 at 5:57 PM, Kishi said:

Afterward, I went to write in at midnight, because it was the right thing to do. I loved every second of it. It'd been so long. And I outpaced everyone in terms of how fast I could go. It was pretty great.

 

Today, I'm writing. I'll be headed off to the gym in a bit. I want to get another thousand words before the day's out. Cool. Here we go!

 

Yay for having fun with writing! 

[Kishi]

On 11/1/2017 at 11:39 PM, Urgan said:

 

Do the thing, Kishi. You are your own best advocate.

 

On 11/3/2017 at 3:42 PM, Mistr said:

Yep. I agree with @Urgan. Talk to your teachers. There is no point in putting in the time if you are not getting the training you need, regardless of your prior relationship with the teachers.

 

So. Did the thing. At least with manong. He said he'd noticed a lot of the same problems and that he'd work with Biggie on that. I didn't end up getting to see it since I traveled to Boss-Town that Friday, but manong's a good man for all the fact that he's kind of crazy. I trust him. And if I get lit up again, I'll just have to be a big boy and Use My Words.

 

On 11/3/2017 at 3:42 PM, Mistr said:

Yay for having fun with writing! 

 

GAWD I just missed it so much!

 

*

 

Hooookay, let's do the thing and catch this up again.

 

Friday wound up being a travel day rather than a writing day. As happens. Weighed and measured myself after a week of trying out the new protocols and bounced back down to 17.5%. We'll see if it continues.

 

Made it to Boston and proceeded to take some wrong turns on public transit. However, this was not a problem as, unlike Raleigh, Boston actually has working public transit. And it wound up being okay anyway because @RisenPhoenix needed to train and I got the chance to see more of the city. Seeing things is honestly one of the draws of travel for me since I'm otherwise just driven to go do things that I have to do - the idleness and the freeflow nature of things is part of what attracts me to leaving things behind for a while.

 

Got to the dojo and got to watch Aikido with eyes that have been exposed to Kali. I saw that they had some tantou blades at this dojo, and I kind of wanted to get out there and cut people, but instead elected to be polite and watch.

 

Went out to dinner afterward at a place that sounded and tasted authentically Japanese. I was impressed and delighted. Also, the weather wasn't bullshit-cold like it's been the past couple times I went up there - felt like the cold training left me entirely over-prepared. Nice feeling.

 

Spartan race was the following morning, and I think it should say something about how I felt going into it that I was able to sleep the entire night beforehand.

 

And how did it go? Meh. There were some parts I did well at, and there were some parts I did not so well at. As happens in OCRs. I was able to take the walls on my own, which I wasn't able to before; I kept pace with Phoenix, which I wasn't able to before; I got farther on the climbing wall obstacle than I did last time without cheating. I failed at the rope climb and the spear throw, and also at one of the new obstacles this year - they replaced the monkey bars with rings, and I just didn't comport myself well on those. Also, concluded with Phoenix that burpees are kind of bullshit, and the way I do them is really bad for my lower back - exacerbates the curve. I think I'd like to learn how to do them with a hollow body, because I like the idea of getting good at random things, but it's a nice to have rather than a need to have.

 

I finished with a slower time, but I felt like I had a better time doing it if that makes sense. Like it was more fun to approach this as a challenge and an assessment and a chance to hang out with a lot of really cool people that I don't normally get to rather than as some kind of epic test that determined so much about how my training is going and such.

 

@CourtnieMarie and her contingent showed up to run the afternoon sprint. Phoenix and I decided not to join them - one because they were policing this kind of thing, and two because we were just kind of out of fucks to give at that point. We wandered off to drink beer while they ran and talked over the race. I think we both concluded that while these endurance events are fun (for certain given definitions of fun), we're kind of over them as far as being the be-all end-all of fitness. Also, Spartan kind of did us dirty as far as allowing us to all race together - we weren't so impressed with them as we might have been years ago. I hope we find other reasons and excuses to go do things together, but with everybody and their gramma putting OCRs together, I'm sure we can find another way.

 

For my part, I came away from it with a renewed love of running and a desire to get good at gymnastic strength feats. But beyond that, I didn't come away with any real pain in my body, and I didn't suffer in the cold, both of which were the big epic things that I wanted to happen.

 

Anyway, the rest of the day passed in a blur of good food, good beer, and good people. Phoenix got me in a wrist lock at one point, I hip threw him into a sloppy kesa gatame, as you do. I got to see a @raptron and a Tin Man and basked in a vibe of good people who are smarter and fitter than me, something which I don't get near enough of these days.

 

Sunday, I traveled back home. That turned out to be kind of a shit-show - Logan International kicked off a comedy of human and pilot errors that ultimately led to me missing my connecting flight home and almost led to me being stranded in Newark. Fortunately, my patience, light travel, cheery disposition, and the fact that I can run really fast let me get a bunch of connecting flights that took me to a lot of interesting places and got me home a bit after midnight this morning.

 

Today, I'm sitting with coffee and writing and that post-Nerd sadness. I have many words to write today and a lot of time to write them in. I'll do my stretches at some point before going back to the gaming table tonight and back to the grind tomorrow.

 

I still need to talk to J-Sensei about his expectations of me, although things might be different on Wednesday now that the big shiai everyone was hype for is over. That'll be a problem for a couple days from now.

 

Onward, then.

[CourtnieMarie]

Glad you were able to make it this year despite Spartan's Shenanigans to foil us! It was fantastic weather and the day was filled with great conversation

[Kishi]

27 minutes ago, CourtnieMarie said:

Glad you were able to make it this year despite Spartan's Shenanigans to foil us! It was fantastic weather and the day was filled with great conversation

 

I always worry about how I comport myself at these things - I tend to get really quiet, just because I find everyone else and their lives so much more interesting than mine. But it was good to see you all! Can't wait to do it again!

[karinajean]

um, oh hi. how did I not know you are battle logging? 

 

* this is a question for me, not for you. *

 

[Kishi]

3 minutes ago, karinajean said:

um, oh hi. how did I not know you are battle logging? 

 

* this is a question for me, not for you. *

 

 

 

Yaaaaaay I have a @karinajean again!

 

But yeah, nah, this is just a thing I do now.  I couldn't really find another Challenge in me, so I decided to just start writing words in this thing again.

 

Anyway, knowing you, you were probably off being awesome and I didn't reach out very good. It sits on me, this.

 

But I'm happy to see you again and now you know where I am!

[Kishi]

Monday turned out relatively quiet. Managed to finally get further on the stretch routine... and beyond that, just wrote and gamed. A nice day off.

 

Today's been fun. Somehow managed to turn off the sound on my alarm, so I slept in an extra half-hour. So, got to work late and will have to stay late to make up for it.

 

I think I'm going to have to bow out of Karate tonight, since municipal elections are today and apparently my town's election is so niche that they don't have extra ballots out and about in the county. Between getting out of work late, fighting traffic all the way home, getting there to get that done... I just don't see getting back to the other side of town in time for that to be anything.

 

On the bright side, though, I'll be near to the gym with the heavy bag, so unless someone is wasting their time on it, I should be able to make good use and it should be a productive time. I still need to design the protocol for it, but that shouldn't necessarily be a problem.

 

So it goes.

[Mistr]

Getting to hang out with Nerds sounds like it was awesome. I'm glad you and RP decided to just enjoy the OCR and not try to kill yourselves. The airport sprinting carrying your luggage is a real-life test of your fitness, as well as your wits and people skills.  

 

Your plan for today is a great example of flexibility and finding ways to meet your goals. Nice!

[Kishi]

16 hours ago, Mistr said:

Getting to hang out with Nerds sounds like it was awesome. I'm glad you and RP decided to just enjoy the OCR and not try to kill yourselves. The airport sprinting carrying your luggage is a real-life test of your fitness, as well as your wits and people skills.  

 

I felt exactly the same way.

 

16 hours ago, Mistr said:

Your plan for today is a great example of flexibility and finding ways to meet your goals. Nice!

 

Thanks! The only unpleasant part about it is that I'd told K-sensei that I'd be back on the mats last night. I really wanted to be, and it felt like breaking my word to someone to be out. That doesn't make a happy Kishi, but that's how the story goes sometimes.

 

*

 

So! How did it go?

 

Not too shabby. Got there in time to vote, then went to the gym. Hit up S&S. Didn't want to use my own bells since it was rainy and nasty, but fortunately this location actually has some 24 kg bells on tap that I was able to use. I suppose, in hindsight, I could have done some heavy swings again, but I've lately found myself in a rhythm where I do one-arm swings one day and two-arm swings on the other. Since Tuesday was the one-arm day, it didn't really occur to me to swing with both bells, and I'd honestly forgot that there were even a pair of 24s to swing.

 

Also, the other thing I was concerned with was getting my TGUs back up. So, I did one TGU each side with a 24. Felt heavy, but the technique felt good. I'm going to keep this weight for next session, and just play it by ear.

 

Did push ups afterward, two sets at nine and two sets at six. I'm really digging this insight I made about gradually expanding and avoiding failure because doing this in combination with the kettlebells is hard. I get right to the point of failure but never quite fail, and it feels right to be here now. I am content with this.

 

Hit the bag for a couple of rounds, then went and practiced kata, flow, shadowboxing, and 'air-throwing' or the positions of various throws. Wanted to do banded uchikomi on top of that, but left my bands at home. Oh well.

 

Today, PBF and front lever progression and judo. It works. I'll be working on the novel on my lunch break because I realized that the only purpose for me to walk on my lunch break is to practice mobility. I do that every half hour anyway, so, it is not so necessary, and I need this time. Besides, I get up and walk outside for distance anyway, so no biggie.

 

Let's get it!

[Kishi]

Another day in the books!

 

Writing over lunch was a good idea. I wrote lots of words, liked them, and sent them off to myself since I'm blocked from Google docs and other forms of cloud computing. This feels good, and I think this is something I want to keep doing even after NaNoWriMo is up. One of the things that I've really struggled with is making time for creativity and art, and I don't really like the fact that I've had to settle for a long time for doing as little as I have.

 

Of course, not that there isn't a price attached to this. I've been using the lunch period for podcasts and audiobooks, and I don't know how I'm going to rebalance consumption, but I'm sure I'll figure it out. One thing that always stands out to me during this month is how important it is to create if you're a creative. I'll probably wind up listening to all this stuff on my commutes instead of the news, which I get the chance to read enough of as it is.

 

PBF went okay:

 

Kneeling Push Ups: 2x25, 29

One Leg Pull Ups: 2x4, 3

Squats: 2x42, 46

Kneeling Planks/Side Planks: 2x70s/35s

 

Rocking Hollow Tuck Holds: 5x36, 36, 36, 36, 24

 

Made judo afterward and it was good. Played punching bag some, but also threw some people and got to work on throws. The two rough-housers I've had trouble with weren't there, which was a surprise. Biggie was there, which was a further surprise, although it turns out he's sempai to me in terms of rank which may explain some things in terms of how he comports himself.

 

It was a good night. I'm glad I went.

 

Today I think is going to be a creative day training-wise. Weather's being bullshit again, and I'm close to one of the gyms that doesn't have good KBs. So, I may have to dig into burpees, and in addition to that I'm slated for ring training and left my rings at home. May have to try to play with their suspension rigs instead, which I think I can manage but definitely cuts into my flexibility.

 

Ah well. It's always something.

[Kishi]

So, I've been sitting and thinking for a while, and I think I'm coming to the conclusion that PBF doesn't really suit me. It's not a bad program, not by any stretch, but I feel like it's a bit much on top of kettlebells and gymnastic work. I understand that that sounds like a weaker kind of excuse, but the truth is, something's telling me that I can be more efficient and do more with less. I think I want to do that, if I can.

 

I'm also suspicious of how my joints are doing. Getting a little pain there and I'm not sure if it's muscle or joint doing the talking.

 

It seems logical, then, to take another day of S&S and keep the gymnastic training as it is - one or two things per day, building without going toward failure. The idea being that hopefully I have more energy to throw into martial arts as well as make more of the recovery time I get.

 

The trick being that I'm not sure how that's going to work with diet. But we'll see. So far the added carbs feel good and I definitely feel more motivated to train, but I'm not sure if I'm going to need to add more carbs or less following this. Or maybe the amount I have now will be good. After all, I'm still technically going to be doing 1-2 a days and even if I'm not particularly stressing the glycolytic systems, surely I'm having to burn something.

 

Bad scientist, me. But a happy one for all that.

[Urgan]

9 minutes ago, Kishi said:

So, I've been sitting and thinking for a while, and I think I'm coming to the conclusion that PBF doesn't really suit me. It's not a bad program, not by any stretch, but I feel like it's a bit much on top of kettlebells and gymnastic work. I understand that that sounds like a weaker kind of excuse, but the truth is, something's telling me that I can be more efficient and do more with less. I think I want to do that, if I can.

 

I think "less is more" is a GOOD theme and the more efficient you are with training, the less complicated/compromised your recovery.

 

10 minutes ago, Kishi said:

The trick being that I'm not sure how that's going to work with diet. But we'll see. So far the added carbs feel good and I definitely feel more motivated to train, but I'm not sure if I'm going to need to add more carbs or less following this. Or maybe the amount I have now will be good. After all, I'm still technically going to be doing 1-2 a days and even if I'm not particularly stressing the glycolytic systems, surely I'm having to burn something.

 

Wait and see?

[Mistr]

33 minutes ago, Kishi said:

So, I've been sitting and thinking for a while, and I think I'm coming to the conclusion that PBF doesn't really suit me. It's not a bad program, not by any stretch, but I feel like it's a bit much on top of kettlebells and gymnastic work. I understand that that sounds like a weaker kind of excuse, but the truth is, something's telling me that I can be more efficient and do more with less. I think I want to do that, if I can.

 

on top of kettlebells, gymnastic work and three different martial arts. Just how much attention and time do you have?

 

I know you enjoy trying new programs. At this point you have the expertise to tailor whatever you need to meet your goals. You are already keeping track of what you do and how you feel afterwards. What can a program give you that you can't do for yourself?

[Urgan]

14 minutes ago, Mistr said:

on top of kettlebells, gymnastic work and three different martial arts. Just how much attention and time do you have?

 

Not enough because you forgot mobility work and running. 

[Kishi]

1 hour ago, Urgan said:

I think "less is more" is a GOOD theme and the more efficient you are with training, the less complicated/compromised your recovery.

 

Yeah, I mean, I've been reading about minimized routines and I gotta admit, they're sounding way too good for that to be just their own merits. That's something in me telling me something, I think.

 

1 hour ago, Urgan said:

Wait and see?

 

Yup. I'm just hoping I don't overdo it in the direction of nutrition. But if I do, we'll figure it out, and it's not like the extra weight won't make me stronger.

 

47 minutes ago, Mistr said:

on top of kettlebells, gymnastic work and three different martial arts. Just how much attention and time do you have?

 

35 minutes ago, Urgan said:

Not enough because you forgot mobility work and running.

 

Actually, that's kind of what brought me back down, because I like having the extra time to work on mobility, and last night I didn't get it. I don't know if it was just Wednesday being Wednesday or what, but I'd really like to debug that in the program and make mobility something that I can pursue on a regular basis.

 

And FWIW, I'm not really interested in making a super runner of myself or whatever. I don't see doing more than a day's worth in any given week... just don't see a need for it.

 

49 minutes ago, Mistr said:

I know you enjoy trying new programs. At this point you have the expertise to tailor whatever you need to meet your goals. You are already keeping track of what you do and how you feel afterwards. What can a program give you that you can't do for yourself?

 

Not much, if I'm honest about it. I dunno, I guess I just felt like I was giving myself a good dose of an acute stressor versus all the practice type stuff. I was trying to earn the nutrition I was taking in. That may have been wrong, or at least unproductive. The fact that I'm actively craving less activity now is probably a sign that I'm headed for either injury or burn out, and most of what I do isn't about that. Even the running isn't about that, and the sprint/power work I do is too much fun; I'm actually looking forward to that. The place that feels like it could loosen up/relax the most is in calisthenics, and the only change I made was to throw a bunch of push ups, pull ups, squats, and planks on top of the stuff I was doing already to get good at that stuff.

 

I'm just less convinced that all that stuff is necessary now. I think a big part of reaching that was the taper last week, and being able to do quite a lot without having to kill myself to do it. I think there's a good insight in that, and I want to explore it further.

[Urgan]

25 minutes ago, Kishi said:

That may have been wrong, or at least unproductive. The fact that I'm actively craving less activity now is probably a sign that I'm headed for either injury or burn out, and most of what I do isn't about that.

 

This tells me you need a deload week bad. Lowered volume of work specifically.

[Kishi]

6 minutes ago, Urgan said:

 

This tells me you need a deload week bad. Lowered volume of work specifically.

 

I had a feeling. Which is why I'm dropping the PBF. Besides, it's a mixed feeling. Like, it doesn't apply across the board to everything. You know what I mean?

[Urgan]

5 minutes ago, Kishi said:

 

I had a feeling. Which is why I'm dropping the PBF. Besides, it's a mixed feeling. Like, it doesn't apply across the board to everything. You know what I mean?

 

If you give yourself a mandatory break on most stuff for a week and think about it afterward, you will probably find yourself more clear on what to do. Low motivation to do things is actually a sign that your stress is mounting to critical, NOT a character flaw.

[Kishi]

16 minutes ago, Urgan said:

 

If you give yourself a mandatory break on most stuff for a week and think about it afterward, you will probably find yourself more clear on what to do. Low motivation to do things is actually a sign that your stress is mounting to critical, NOT a character flaw.

 

I think you're right. I probably really need to step back and really think about what it is that I want.

 

In which case, I'll just go and be really, really light with myself today. And probably drop the gymnastic training for today too.