thatgirljj Posted November 6, 2013 Report Share Posted November 6, 2013 Hello fellow assasins! This challenge it is back to epic quest time... when last we saw our heroine, she was trying to get stronger to build and perfect her aerial performance skills. Well... this quest it's SHOWTIME! Aside from the whole epic quest business (which is a long term real-world goal), it is indeed showtime. My circus school is staging it's biannual showcase in December. I had to sit out spring showcase for a variety of reasons (financial, and I got in a car accident the week after auditions), so I'm super excited to participate this time. While I'm not totally at the strength level to realize some of my long term performance vision, I'm definitely moving in that direction and getting into the groove of what I really love about aerial work. In addition to the showcase stuff, I turn 40 this Friday, just before the challenge begins. So I want this challenge to be fun, to celebrate what's great about being older and stronger and about what's great in my life right now. So without further ado... goals: 1. To perfect, rehearse & perform my showcase piece. I got lucky this time, I was paired with someone who normally does private lessons. Due to showcase discounts and the fact that I put aside some of the money from my accident, I can afford to work on two-person private lessons for several weeks. This is AWESOME for me. I feel like we're going to have a chance to put together something good and really polish it. However, as a "goal" this is a bit of a chaosassasin thing... I'm not going to put together a specific schedule or anything, it'll just be based on when we can work with our coach and what classes I can get in when he's out of town for Thanksgiving. Basically 2-4 classes a week in corde lisse or hammock, and plenty of stretching on my own. Possibly do some cardio (rolls eyes) to build up my endurance. 2. Handstands every damn day! Goal: go up into a handstand every day. No requirements for time or technique. Freestanding, belly to the wall, contortion handstands, it's all good. If I'm feeling sick or tired, just kick up against the wall at least once. 3. Hand, wrist & forearm recovery protocol. I'm reviving this from the August challenge (it'll take a bit for me to go back in time an find the protocol). Basically every day do 1-3 types of recovery tasks. I'm going to be adding a few to the list, including the GMB "active recovery" for rings and some inner elbow skin conditioning for elbow hangs on the corde lisse. I found this whole approach really helpful when I was building strength back from my car accident, so I'm going back to what works. 4. Bonus personal challenge: We moved house this summer. I have an office & training space! It is still a gawdawful mess of boxes. So my personal challenge is to devote some time to unpacking it, getting it organized and doing some decorating so I have a nice space to work and to do yoga. I'll post some "before" pictures it's pretty bad right now. Issues: OK, I do have to acknowledge some possible issues in this challenge. Last challenge I was diagnosed with a bone spur on my big toe joint, that makes push ups, planks and burpees problematic so I'm working out some possible alternatives for warm-ups and conditioning. Other issue, and this is a GREAT issue to have: my husband is training for his blackbelt test in roughly the same timeframe I'm training for showcase. I'm super excited for him and I want to support him as much as possible, but it's going to be a busy time for us. -jj NF: Treedwelling assasin. Druidish leanings. Gnome. IRL: Amateur circus geek. Mad cook. Mom. Mad Max junkie. Link to comment
KB Girl Posted November 6, 2013 Report Share Posted November 6, 2013 Showtime! Best of luck (to you ánd your husband) Main Quest: becoming a decent kettlebell lifter and a great coach Current challenge: KB Girl prepares to move my instagram - my gym's instagram Link to comment
lyranedara Posted November 6, 2013 Report Share Posted November 6, 2013 So much excitement for you and your husband! Link to comment
MaxCurtis Posted November 6, 2013 Report Share Posted November 6, 2013 Oo, this challenge looks awesome! And how fun to have a show to work toward! I'll be keeping an eye on this and cheering you on. Level 4 Tiefling AssassinSTR 9 // DEX 5 // STA 5 // CON 9 // WIS 4 // CHA 8I'll never love visible abs nearly as much as I love whiskey.Challenges: One Two Three Four Current Link to comment
Cavilie Posted November 6, 2013 Report Share Posted November 6, 2013 Awesome! Cheering for you. Cavilie - Level 4 AssassinChapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4Handstand PVP 7 WIS|2 STA|4.25 CHA|7.75 DEX|1 CON|3.75 STR "If you can’t take a little bloody nose, maybe you oughtta go back home and crawl under your bed. It’s not safe out here. It’s wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross; but it’s not for the timid." Q, Star Trek: The Next Generation ('Q Who?') Link to comment
Mad Hatter Posted November 6, 2013 Report Share Posted November 6, 2013 Awesome challenge! Handstands is the name of the game this challenge, you should join the handstand PvP Link to comment
Paradigm Posted November 7, 2013 Report Share Posted November 7, 2013 I love this challenge and also happy early 40th! For the bone spur, is there any form of treatment for it or will it be a permanent thing? Either way, you'll rock this jj! Lvl. 10 Half-Elf Assassin My Current Challenge My Daily Battle Log Link to comment
Harika Posted November 7, 2013 Report Share Posted November 7, 2013 Jumping jacks and knee push-ups? Species: Elven Vampire Class: Assassin Magic Numbers pvp Heroes vs Villains Link to comment
klaybae Posted November 8, 2013 Report Share Posted November 8, 2013 This is awesome! Subb'd fa sho to follow along with all the excitement! Crystal Gem Druid || Stat-free Level-free Goodness "I won't run away anymore... I won't go back on my word... that is my ninja way!" Uzumaki Naruto "You're pro or you're a noob. It's so easy, that's life." Athene, Best Paladin in the World "Do what the fuck you want to." Panic Station, Muse Link to comment
Aeryn Posted November 8, 2013 Report Share Posted November 8, 2013 Awesome goals - definitely following to see how it goes! Good luck! Level 13 Elven AssassinChallenges: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | CurrentWhatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. - Goethe Link to comment
thatgirljj Posted November 12, 2013 Author Report Share Posted November 12, 2013 Hello fellow assassins! This weekend was a blur of training and celebrating my birthday and lots of eating & drinking. Yay! Challenge day #1, I was up and training at 8:30 this morning. We're trying to get in whatever private lessons we can do get our choreography done before my partner skips town for an extended Thanksgiving break. So that means a lot of training at odd times this week. Today, it was first thing in the morning with my kindergardener in tow. Yeah, craziness. Anyway, my piece is going to end up being on hammock instead of corde lisse, just because it works better as a whole for me to switch apparatuses. I have a good deal of hammock experience, so that's actually a good thing for me, even though I'd eventually like to work on other stuff. Handstand for the day: Done. Planned forearm recovery: do the GMB protocol before stretching my splits (as soon as I finish this post) and then sleeping with my wrist braces on. I'm probably going to use the braces every night while my partner and I are training intensely... I feel like they make a world of difference in recovery. Thanks for all the support everyone. This is going to be a hectic time for my whole family, but I'm excited. And Mad Hatter, I would be down for the PVP, but I expressly DON'T want to put time limits on my handstand practice... it's more important for me to do it every day than to put time in. I also worry that putting in time may overly aggravate my forearms & wrists on days when I'm training a lot on aerial. I may be dropping in on that juggling PVP that's going around though. Yay circus! NF: Treedwelling assasin. Druidish leanings. Gnome. IRL: Amateur circus geek. Mad cook. Mom. Mad Max junkie. Link to comment
Mad Hatter Posted November 12, 2013 Report Share Posted November 12, 2013 Happy birthday!!!!!! The point of the PvP is not really the time as much as doing it consistently, so there's not a problem in joining. I'll see you in the juggling PvP either way. Yay circus indeed! Link to comment
thatgirljj Posted November 12, 2013 Author Report Share Posted November 12, 2013 OK... for reference sake: Repost (modified) of my forearm/wrist/hand prehab options... Wrist, forearm and hand: Prehab and cross training. My main idea here is to use different angles and approaches to letting my hands, wrists and forearms recover and strengthen in ways that aren't directly challenged by my aerial work. Essentially, hands and wrists aren't uni-taskers (to borrow a term from Alton Brown), and I think it would do them a load of good to be used often to do different things. And rested thoroughly. With that in mind: 1. Sleep with wrist braces on. I had DeQuervain's tendonitis a few years back after I had my son, and the best advice my hand therapist gave me was to sleep with the brace on, even after the pain was gone. Typically when we sleep we curl our wrists and hands up into weird positions and impair the circulation... not a problem, unless you're already dealing with inflammation in the wrist or hand. Sleeping with a brace keeps the wrist open and circulation flowing. I don't use my braces at all anymore, EXCEPT if anything is acting up in my hand or wrist I'll wear them for a couple nights and bingo, everything clears up. 2. 24 hours without using my iPhone for anything except phone calls, essential texts and food logging. No games. No Facebook. No looking up webpages on the least ergonomic device I use. And no games means NO PLANTS VS. ZOMBIES FOR REAL JJ, NO JOKING, NOT EVEN ONE GAME! Update: also no Where's My Water no matter how much your son begs, NO GAMES! 3. 10 minutes of juggling... toss, contact or club manipulation. Update: This will also count towards juggling PVP. 4. Iron Fist training. I now have the rice bucket, I just gotta get back to using it more than once a week. 5. Manicure. Really! The condition of my skin actually affects the endurance of my hands. Trim nails and all teeny hangnails. Take a pumice stone to my calluses. Moisturize calluses and cuticles. Nail polish optional. 6. Foam roller/rolling pin on forearms. Yeah, this should be self explanitory. And totally miserable. 7. Rolling out my fingers & palms on small rubber balls. This is like the whole "lacrosse ball" business, but for the teeny muscles in your hands. BONUS: Spend 10-20 minutes researching more about hand, wrist & forearm function and recovery. This is only available as an add-on if I've done one other prehab/crosstrain exercise that day... no cheating by spending the whole challenge reading about recovery instead of actually recovering! As I learn more, I may add to this list. Stay tuned. I was going to add in some elbow conditioning, but I think I'm not going to use the elbow hang in my act this time, so I can work on that as more of a long term goal rather than getting the skin & tendons in shape in such a short timeframe. NF: Treedwelling assasin. Druidish leanings. Gnome. IRL: Amateur circus geek. Mad cook. Mom. Mad Max junkie. Link to comment
KB Girl Posted November 12, 2013 Report Share Posted November 12, 2013 Belated happy birthday! And that repost is very welcome, you should repost it every challenge. Main Quest: becoming a decent kettlebell lifter and a great coach Current challenge: KB Girl prepares to move my instagram - my gym's instagram Link to comment
MaxCurtis Posted November 12, 2013 Report Share Posted November 12, 2013 I read that whole repost, very helpful stuff! I used to sleep with a brace on, perhaps I'll try it again, thanks for the reminder. Funny thing about the manicures! I wouldn't have thought that! Level 4 Tiefling AssassinSTR 9 // DEX 5 // STA 5 // CON 9 // WIS 4 // CHA 8I'll never love visible abs nearly as much as I love whiskey.Challenges: One Two Three Four Current Link to comment
thatgirljj Posted November 13, 2013 Author Report Share Posted November 13, 2013 Yay! I'm glad that people find my prehab protocol helpful. And yeah MaxCurtis, when you start training things that really thrash your hands (whether aerial or climbing, or heavy barbell training) it's helpful to really keep the rough edges polished off and your nails the right length... it sounds frivolous, but it totally helps. Today: Hammock training again today. I normally try not to train on consecutive days, but due to our schedule crunch I trained Fri-Sat, had Sunday off, then trained Mon & Tue, and yes, I'm training again tomorrow. (Then two days off until Saturday.) I gotta say, I had a hard time getting going this morning. Once we started, I was fine, but I was stiff and tired to start out and then by the time we finished I was so freaking hungry I could have eaten a horse... thankfully I found a half eaten lara bar (thanks picky son) instead. Things are coming along well though, I have a pretty good sequence of things, I'm adding a trick which I need to work on the transitions for, but I think we should have it roughed out by the end of tomorrow. Tonight I'm going to seriously be doing some recovery yoga for my upper back muscles and Thursday is a FULL STOP REST day! Handstands, done. Juggling PVP, not done (I think it's going to be my prehab for tonight). Will not be working on my office until this crazy training week is over and I have a little more time. -jj NF: Treedwelling assasin. Druidish leanings. Gnome. IRL: Amateur circus geek. Mad cook. Mom. Mad Max junkie. Link to comment
Nymeria Posted November 13, 2013 Report Share Posted November 13, 2013 Happy belated birthday! I'm glad there are other strong, but not-exactly-young women on here (I'm almost 38). At least we can all commiserate with each other on the extra mobility and prehab/rehab work for various joints. Your challenge seems so ambitious, and you have so much going on right now. I can't wait to see videos from your big performance! And congrats to your husband for testing for his blackbelt! Which martial art style does he practice? Black belt tests are both very stressful and very amazing. Level 30? who the hell knows anymore? Direwolf Assassin/Ranger - current challenge ACL rehab thread 2016 parkour My tutorials: handbalancing: crow, flying crow, side crow, crow->headstand->crow Bo staff: strikes 1 2 3, spins 1 2 Link to comment
thatgirljj Posted November 14, 2013 Author Report Share Posted November 14, 2013 Haa haaa... Yeah, I've got a posse of late 30s - late 40s active mom friends. (A small posse, but a posse.) One of them gave me athletic tape and tiger balm as a gag gift for my birthday... and the sad thing? I'm putting them to use sooner than all of the good liquor people gave me. I also have a bit of a trickier challenge though, some of my joints are hypermobile, other's like my toe are getting beaten up by the wear and tear of everything else being wobbly.. I need recovery, mobility AND stability. Today... day three of training. 5 out of the last 6 days. Things are really coming together, we need to work on some music stuff, but we have most of the material together. Now a 2 day break, for some recovery. Handstands are going well. I'm actually super glad that I've set no restrictions on that. It's easy to kick up just whenever I get the notion to do one. Now that I'm not training as intensively for a few days, I might get in an actual handstand training session. But that was kind of how I wanted it, a long consistent string of very low key handstands with a little bit of structured training thrown in where I can. 2 points of prehab last night, juggling and wearing my braces, which counts 1 point to the juggling PVP. Before pictures of my office coming tomorrow. NF: Treedwelling assasin. Druidish leanings. Gnome. IRL: Amateur circus geek. Mad cook. Mom. Mad Max junkie. Link to comment
thatgirljj Posted November 14, 2013 Author Report Share Posted November 14, 2013 And congrats to your husband for testing for his blackbelt! Which martial art style does he practice? Black belt tests are both very stressful and very amazing. He practices a style of kung fu filtered through a korean master... I think? I can never quite follow the history as he describes it. Right now, we're just hoping he can do the test, he just found out today that he may need to be on a business trip the week leading up to it. I think he'll probably be OK to take it and he's mentally in a place where he'd be OK if he didn't. But I totally hope he can do it. NF: Treedwelling assasin. Druidish leanings. Gnome. IRL: Amateur circus geek. Mad cook. Mom. Mad Max junkie. Link to comment
Mad Hatter Posted November 14, 2013 Report Share Posted November 14, 2013 It's easy to kick up just whenever I get the notion to do one. Supermarket, dentist, office (actually I've done the last one)... Link to comment
thatgirljj Posted November 16, 2013 Author Report Share Posted November 16, 2013 I've done it at the office too (shhhhh! don't tell my officemates, they were at lunch!) Update: Today was day 2 of no training. Yesterday I was going to try to make myself do some yoga and stretch my splits but I actually did absolutely NOTHING except work on handstands for like 5 minutes! It was good. Tonight though I actually need to stretch my splits and work on my backbending, since both will be required for my act. Handstands yesterday I got some work in with longer holds and belly-to-the wall. Plus yesterday I did a nice chunk of juggling for my hand cross-training. I think tomorrow I'm going to attempt a no-iphone-day. Office cleanup/decor: No work done. Except I acquired a new lego minifig for my bookshelf. But that's not all that decorative unless I start cleaning up the bookshelves, now is it? NF: Treedwelling assasin. Druidish leanings. Gnome. IRL: Amateur circus geek. Mad cook. Mom. Mad Max junkie. Link to comment
MaxCurtis Posted November 18, 2013 Report Share Posted November 18, 2013 Oo, lego minifig. I love knickknacks and I want to have them all. Good on you getting belly to the wall! Level 4 Tiefling AssassinSTR 9 // DEX 5 // STA 5 // CON 9 // WIS 4 // CHA 8I'll never love visible abs nearly as much as I love whiskey.Challenges: One Two Three Four Current Link to comment
thatgirljj Posted November 19, 2013 Author Report Share Posted November 19, 2013 OK... late with the updates... Saturday I had a great training session with my partner where we really hammered out a lot of the routine. I still have some transitions I need to clean up, and one trick I need to work out some arm/leg positioning, but it's getting there. After that class though I crashed HARDCORE and literally passed out on the couch for the rest of the night (Sure kiddo, you can watch a Mythbuster's marathon as long as I don't have to move!) Also, I've been doing a much better job of stretching my splits and backbend consistently. About that backbend, I haven't been doing the full press up backbend regularly since my car accident this spring because even though technically I was done with PT and had returned to aerial work, something didn't feel 100% right in my upper back when doing backbends. Finally last month it started to feel like it was OK to do them again, so I feel like I'm on track with getting them back where they were. If I don't have as much back flexibility as I want for the show, I gotta be realistic... 6 months ago I couldn't lift my arms above my head because of the whiplash. It's easy to forget that and beat myself up, but it could have been so much worse. Hand/wrist/forearm stuff going well. I missed a day on Sunday, but that's ok, since I've generally been on it. And today, I have a little bonus research link for y'all. Anyone who has trouble with sore wrists in plank or push-ups, check this link from Reembody out. I actually was doing this naturally, but it's really helpful to understand the anatomy of what's going on with the wrist. Handstands have been getting done every damn day, including 2 extended practice sessions. I like this approach... I may try a stronger GTG approach next challenge. This week: I've got 4 aerial classes lined up, 2 conditioning and 2 performance (just finished my straps class tonight and it was super fun and a solid ass kicking). Stretching, backbends and working on *costumes* (squeee!) with my partner over e-mail. Oh and helping out at the kiddo's class art thing... which totally isn't goal realated at all, but will keep me very busy. NF: Treedwelling assasin. Druidish leanings. Gnome. IRL: Amateur circus geek. Mad cook. Mom. Mad Max junkie. Link to comment
MaxCurtis Posted November 19, 2013 Report Share Posted November 19, 2013 Sounds like you're going to kill this performance, man! And hey, mythbusters makes a great babysitter. You are staying so busy! I hope you remember to get enough rest! Level 4 Tiefling AssassinSTR 9 // DEX 5 // STA 5 // CON 9 // WIS 4 // CHA 8I'll never love visible abs nearly as much as I love whiskey.Challenges: One Two Three Four Current Link to comment
Harika Posted November 19, 2013 Report Share Posted November 19, 2013 I think only Bill Nye and RL experiments would be better than Mythbusters. Species: Elven Vampire Class: Assassin Magic Numbers pvp Heroes vs Villains Link to comment
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