Jake1989 A Slight Change in Direction - Level 3

[Jake1989]

QUEST - ONLY THE FEARLESS WILL PREVAIL
My main quest has been better defined now that some time has passed. I am still focused on pursing overall fitness. I'm okay with not being the strongest, and not being the fastest swimmer, but would love to be "pretty good" at most things. It's not measurable yet, but this is the general direction. I'm also still focused on solidifying meaningful, lasting relationships with those that are around me. Added to this main quest, is the pursuit of knowledge, both within my field of work and outside interests. This main quest seeks to balance out these three aspects. I still don't know how to measure this, but I think I'll know when I'm there. (And I've already made some great progress in Levels 1, 2, and 2.5 (the extended period of time spent venturing between 2 and 3).
 
 
LEVEL 3 - A SLIGHT CHANGE IN DIRECTION (Assassin's Guild)
There's been a long time off between Level 2 and Level 3. Most notably, I started a new job. (All the work from Side Quest 2 has launched into a new aspect of my main quest.) I'm not just as focused on honing my skills needed for my new job, while also balancing the fitness aspects of being an master assassin/ranger. Therefore, this challenge will focus heavily on WIS and CHA, two of the skills that are newly needed.
 
Quest Mission 1.06 - Assassin Guild Membership (repeat)

Objective: 10 second handstand; bar muscle-up; 20 strict pull-ups

This is a repeat mission from Level 2 that was failed. I already have the bar muscle-up, so the focus is on the handstand and 20 strict pull-ups. Each of the three exercixes will be worth the same. The handstand and pull-ups will be graded on a scale, and achieving a bar muscle up is a pass/fail. 

Reward: +2 DEX, +1 STR
 
 
Quest Mission 1.07 - Apprentice's Working Beginnings

Objective: read 2 scripts each week while at the office

Multi-tasking is a huge skill to have, and getting a chunk of my reading done while at work is necessary, although at times difficult. This is graded on a weekly basis, either 0%, 50%, or 100%. The grades are accumulated at the end of the challenge to determine success.

Reward: +2 WIS
 
 
Quest Mission 1.08 - Apprentice's Charisma Beginnings

Objective: positive image portrayal in the office

This task is a bit more qualitative, but the idea is to be sure that I'm putting forth a friendly, empathetic, helpful tone in the office. I tend to get very focused and can come across as dismissive at times, so I need to work on this. This is graded as a percentage of total days (30 days at work total). I can pretty easily gauge how I'm doing based on others' responses toward me throughout the day.

Reward: +5 CHA
 
 
Side Quest 3 - The Fiscal Merchant

Objective: limit unnecessary spending to $180

I need to be better at saving money, so I'm limiting the amount of "unnecessary spending" to $180 for these six weeks ($30/wk). Unnecessary spending includes clothing, eating out and coffee, movie tickets not needed for work, alcohol, groceries outside of normal diet etc. Necessary spending includes regular bills, groceries (including one guilt item each week), "drinks" for networking, gas, etc. 100% success is spending $180 or less. Every $5 over the limit deducts .2 from the final score.

Reward: +2 WIS
 
 
Side Quest 4 - Linguistics Latin I

Objective: study Latin for 15-minutes 4x per week, study Latin for 4-hours 1x per week

I've been studying Latin, but I'm very early on. Diligence is key here. I'm great about studying on the weekends for hours, but I miss during the week. This is graded on a curve. The four 15-minute session is equal to the one 4-hour session.

Reward: +3 WIS

[Jake1989]

Day 4

 

A little bit of a rough start to this challenge, but it's still early. Where I'm at:

 

QM 1.06

I tested my max pull-ups at home the other day and got 9, but I know I'm capable of about 12. (My home bar is a removable pull-up bar in a door frame, so it's not as secure to go full out.) I was planning on testing at the gym yesterday but I saw that the WOD called for 5 sets of 10 strict pull-ups and didn't want to wipe myself out before it.

 

QM 1.07

I've read one script early in the week at work, and am hoping to knock one out tomorrow as well.

 

QM 1.08

This is harder than I thought it'd be. I have a terrible case of RBF... haha. I'm at 1/4 right now.

 

SQ 3

I didn't define my goals until Tuesday, but I had eaten out on Monday, so this is a little skewed. I'm at $34.08, $4.08 over the weekly average. The hard part will be not spending money over the weekend. This is also going to be one of the harder ones, but I feel pretty determined.

 

SQ 4

I haven't even started this yet, but if I knock out sessions Fri-Sun, I won't be too far behind.

 

 

Level 3 Update

          QM 1.06 | QM 1.07 | QM 1.08 | SQ 3 | SQ 4  

D1 4/13      -         1         no      11.75    -

D2 4/14      -         -         no       0.00    -

D3 4/15      9         -         yes     22.93    -

D4 4/16      -         -         no       0.00    -

[Jake1989]

Day 5

 

One work week done in this challenge so far. Things started out rocky, but have improved. I even set a new PR in my front squat this morning, jumping from 215 to 225. When I'm getting this heavy though,. I'm just hitting parallel. I need to work on negatives so I can get this heavy weight down to my ankles.

 

And, side note, loving this extended Assassin's Creed music I found on YouTube. Seems fitting to share it here.

 

 

Level 3 Update

          QM 1.06 | QM 1.07 | QM 1.08 | SQ 3 | SQ 4  

D1 4/13      -         1         no      11.75    -

D2 4/14      -         -         no       0.00    -

D3 4/15      9         -         yes     22.93    -

D4 4/16      -         -         no       0.00    -

D5 4/17      -         1         yes      0.00   0:20

[Jake1989]

Day 6

 

Other than the Red Wings getting totally slaughtered today by Tampa, It'd say it was a good day. In the spirit of a good karma during Game 3, I'm just going to leave this amazing shorthanded spin-o-rama from Game 1 here...

 

 

Maybe Tampa should have seen this coming:

 

I just re-tested my pullups, and got 12, but it was again on my home bar, which isn't great. I'm also still pretty sore from a workout I did on Thursday. (10 strict pullups and 10 strict ring dips, 5 rounds for time.) Tomorrow, I plan on knocking out my four-hour Latin study session at the library. And to put myself into a good atmosphere, I'm going to the Beverly Hills library... much nicer than the one closest to my home. I have work to do (reading) for my regular job, so I probably won't have time for an actual workout, but I'm going to try to spend 30 minutes at the park working on hand balancing... just really gotta try and find that sweet spot.

 

Speaking of, any suggestions from my fellow Assassins on free handstand progressions and exercises would be great. I've definitely got the strength, it's more about getting up into the free handstand and holding it. I can do a yoga headstand, salamba sirsasana (below), for about 7 seconds, but it's awfully shaky.

 

 

 

Level 3 Update

 

          QM 1.06 | QM 1.07 | QM 1.08 | SQ 3 | SQ 4  

D1 4/13      -         1         no      11.75    -

D2 4/14      -         -         no       0.00    -

D3 4/15      9         -         yes     22.93    -

D4 4/16      -         -         no       0.00    -

D5 4/17      -         1         yes      0.00   0:20

D6 4/18      12        -          -       1.50   0:20

[Hazard]

Go poke your nose into SymphonicDan's assassin challenge and ask him how to advance your handstands.

-

[Jake1989]

Go poke your nose into SymphonicDan's assassin challenge and ask him how to advance your handstands.

-

 

Just took a look! So good stuff. I'm realizing that this free-standing handstand business is going to be much more of a progression than I originally thought. Thanks for the tip!

[Jake1989]

Day 7

 

One week down! I was super productive today, and pretty proud of it. I'm mostly pumped about the fact that I feel like I made a huge leap in my Latin studies. (For anyone who's familiar, it's highly inflected and the word order is very different than English.) I realized that Latin speakers, essentially, spoke like Yoda. Understanding this was like a light bulb moment. I feel like like I'm decoding and more like I'm reading a natural flowing language now.

 

Bummer news is that my left hand has been bothering me. It's been like this for about a month, but even more so the past week. Whenever there's weight in palm from a bar, it hurts pretty terribly where my thumb meets the palm. So push presses, jerks, and the like are wildly uncomfortable. I have a big olympic lifting seminar I paid a pretty penny for coming up this Sunday, and I'm praying for better usage. I have it wrapped right now - one of the coaches thinks I have strained or sprained a tendon.

 

Level 3 Update

          QM 1.06 | QM 1.07 | QM 1.08 | SQ 3 | SQ 4  

D1 4/13      -         1         no     $11.15    -

D2 4/14      -         -         no       0.00    -

D3 4/15      9         -         yes     22.93    -

D4 4/16      -         -         no       0.00    -

D5 4/17      -         1         yes      0.00   0:20

D6 4/18      12        -          -       1.50   0:20

D7 4/19      -         -          -       1.41   4:00  

WK1 TOTAL   12/20     2/2        2/5    $36.99    6/8

[Jake1989]

Day 9

 

I took today off of the gym to rest my hand, and am seriously contemplating taking the rest of the week off. I paid a pretty hefty price for a big olympic lifting workshop on Sunday and I want to be as injury and sore-free as possible for that.

 

Today I signed up for a hand-balancing class here in Los Angeles at the LA Cirque School for $35. I'm hoping that this will be a great step inreally figuring out freestanding handstands. I debated whether or not this is a "necessary" or "unnecessary" expense (which has to do with one of my goals this Challenge.) For now, I've decided to mark it as necessary since it's not frivolous and it's in accordance to the Challenge. I may change my mind later.

 

During this rest time I should be stretching more though- something I haven't been doing. I have pretty terrible flexibility and it's eventually going to be a big part of a future challenge for me, so I may as well work on it now while I have some down time. (I could also pump out a bunch of air squats for The Hunt in the name of House Stark, but, again, I want to be sure I'm totally rested for this weekend.)

 

Level 3 Update

          QM 1.06 | QM 1.07 | QM 1.08 | SQ 3 | SQ 4  

D1 4/13      -         1         no     $11.15    -

D2 4/14      -         -         no       0.00    -

D3 4/15      9         -         yes     22.93    -

D4 4/16      -         -         no       0.00    -

D5 4/17      -         1         yes      0.00   0:20

D6 4/18      12        -          -       1.50   0:20

D7 4/19      -         -          -       1.41   4:00  

WK1 TOTAL   12/20     2/2        2/5    $36.99    6/8

D8 4/20      -         1         yes      0.00    -

D9 4/21      -         -         no       0.00   0:25

[Jake1989]

Day 16

 

I've been terribly sick for the last 5 or 6 days, so a lot of my goals have been on hold for the time being. I'm at about 85% recovery, but still a day or two away before being fully functional. I'm negating some days of the challenge to reflect this.

 

Level 3 Update

          QM 1.06 | QM 1.07 | QM 1.08 | SQ 3 | SQ 4  

D01 4/13      -         1        no      $11.15    -

D02 4/14      -         -        no        0.00    -

D03 4/15      9         -        yes      22.93    -

D04 4/16      -         -        no        0.00    -

D05 4/17      -         1        yes       0.00   0:20

D06 4/18      12        -         -        1.50   0:20

D07 4/19      -         -         -        1.41   4:00  

WK1 TOTAL   12/20      2/2       2/5     $36.99    6/8  

D08 4/20      -         1        yes       0.00    -

D09 4/21      -         -        no        0.00   0:25

D10 4/22      -         -        yes      13.06    -       DISEASED

D11 4/23      -         -         -       10.87    -       DISEASED

D12 4/24      -         -         -        5.81    -       DISEASED

D13 4/25      -         -         -       23.55    -       DISEASED

D14 4/26      -         -         -        0.00    -       DISEASED

WK2 TOTAL   12/20      1/2       2/3     $53.29    1/2  

D15 4/27      -         -         -        0.00    -       DISEASED

D16 4/28      -         -        yes       0.00    -       DISEASED

 

WK1-2 TOTAL 12/20      3/4       4/8     $90.28    7/10