Mushishi's Wandering Journal

[Mushishi]

Well, been a few days now and I am enjoying the journey.  Just getting my start on the forums so let's see where this goes.

 

To start off, this is my attempt at cultivating a Mushishi training regimen.  I have a range of interests, that tend to focus into four areas: First is a love of Mushishi and by extention the quiet and meditative imagining I have to the Japanese mountain hermit.  It is the idealized representation that makes up the druid/monk I am to become that I am striving toward.  The second is a close relationship to the mythology of the Icelandic Sagas and the wisdom of the Eddas.  This combined with masonic studies guides my communion with spirit.  The third is my love of the German long sword.  Years of historical reenactment, study and practice of the techniques left to us in historical manuscripts, have made the sword an extension of my life.  It is hard to explain.  The last is the endless study and application of Management/Team Building/Executive Leadership training that has made up the lion's share of my career over the last 7 years.  Of all the areas, the one that I could afford to focus less on is the last.

 

So here I start this journal.  It will be a bit rambly for a bit.  I want to get down all my thoughts, but this is new so there are a lot and they don't always connect just yet.  So, I guess I will start with the current state of being

 

Diet

I have a long history with Atkins, and have a lot of experience with the transition into this in a cold-turkey way.  I generally do this every January in order to recover from the feasting (the primary way I celebrate winter holidays) and to prep for the Renaissance Festival season.  Steel armor does not stretch, so I have to adjust to it if I want to wear it.  The up side is that Level 7 (my healthy target for new living) is actually less strict than my old Atkins regimen, so this is really nice!  I don't feel as though I am suffering at all, and adopting the phrase "I don't do that very often" as I walk by the doughnuts in the office on Wednesdays has actually turned it into a choice rather than a restriction.  Honestly that one trick alone has made this experiment worth while.

 

I love to cook for others, and though I like to cook for myself, I do hate cleanup.  I am looking at the cleanup as part of a discipline regimen that will go with my meditation.  We will see if that helps.  My stress level is best when everything is very clean at my apartment.  So, I have been cooking almost all my meals for two weeks.  I cooked a lot of the meals before that too, but this is more of a concious effort.  I am dialing in what ingredients I need to prep on Sunday in order to make cooking easier during the week.  I am also dialing in the basic menu based on enjoyment, flavor, nutrition, fullness and ease of cooking/cleanup.  If I can do everything in my wok (the single greatest multi-purpose frying pan in my arsenal), then I am very happy.

 

This Saturday will make 2 weeks of actively tracking my meals, which I do through Instagram (if anyone is interested let me know), and once that is done, then I can look and check the various levels to see what level I am at.  I expect once I settle into a routine that Level 8 will be my norm.  It is essentially Atkins + Rice which is truly lovely!

 

So with this being my regular diet anyway, any food quests will be around optimizing the menu for ease of use.  My big kitchen at home on the weekends is not available to me during the week.  I work about 4 hours from my home so I have two places: one for during the week (it's my monastic space) and one for the weekend with family (it's the great hall).  Perhaps the Mushishi diet is a good idea to make into a quest.

 

Physical Training

I have learned something important recently. I'm 43, and injuries take a while before they go away again, if ever.  Hurt my knee a month ago and it still gives me problems.  I also have some wear and tear left over from my time in the Army, and that needs to be watched out for.  Add this to being a few years out of shape, and not flexible at all, and I am a bit concerned about the wrong kind of pain.  I am pretty familiar with the right kind, and have never enjoyed it, but I understand the benefit.  But this age thing is a new consideration.  I have a shoulder I need to watch out for because of a martial arts injury and my knee.  

 

So, the question is how do I move my physical training forward.  Well, first off: Slow down to go fast.  This is a concept I learned in Agile management, that careful and complete leads to more efficient results in the long term.  I am easing my way into things.  I am playing a bit.  I hate "exercise" but I like using my body.  So this is what I am doing so far.

 

I walk to work from the appartment to the office.  This is about a mile.  This morning I extended it to 1.5 miles at a brisk pace (14:50).  I have happy high pace music I listen to on the way that elevates my mood and pushes my pace along.  I like it.  I will eventually build this up to greater distances.  My hope is to get up to a 5K regular daily walk to work, but time constraints are getting in the way.

 

I do what random quests I can trying to add a little XP every day from one or more categories in my character.  This keeps pushing me but I am not in any way undergoing a regular regimen.  I am supposed to start selecting my warm-up this week.  I am finding myself very resistant to it emotionally, so while I work through that, I am continuing to push myself in the walking.  That way I am increasing something that little bit every day.

 

The sword thing has come up again.  I have offered to help a certain paladin with using the sword as a way to encourage and support her character growth and leveling, and last night, a friend from years ago called me out of the blue asking if I still had my class and if I still taught.  We are getting together Wednesday to see if that is something we want to take on.  It will be my standard demo class so that shouldn't be too great an issue.  So I am starting to consider ... if I start doing classes again, maybe just starting at once a week, I have a warm up routine that we always do there to get things started.  It has more stretching than the demos shown here on NF, but it might work out.  This could sidestep my resistance to "exercising" and shift it to "Combat training prep" which for some reason is entirely different in my mind.  I will experiment on Wednesday and see how it goes.  I do love me some sword drills, and with low stance, they just about kill the thighs.

 

Mental

I have to admit, meditation caught me off guard.  I am enjoying that.  They tie in very will with the Mushishi idea and it is coming along very well.  I am tracking my progress there in my sig and on my Character Sheet, and have been very happy with it so far.  This will be growing well.  I expect that this will be the active focus for my personal work.

 

Wrap-up

So there it is, the first initial introduction post.  We will see how it goes from here.  Not sure how much time I have to spend on maintaining a journal.  It is a bit of a luxury and I am unfortunately a guy with a fairly tight schedule, and if it comes between maintaining a journal and getting another mile in, then the journal is going to lose.

 

If you made it this far, I am impressed and thank you for the time.  This is mostly for me to focus my thoughts and I do that really well in forums.  Talk to you later.  Again, thank you everyone at NF for your hospitality and for setting all this up.  It is amazing and I appreciate all the time and energy you put in.

 

[Mushishi]

Today's workout activities

 

20 minute beginner Yoga routine

21 Minute Meditation

1.5 mile walk at 14:50 pace

25 box jumps (jumped up staircase skipping every other step)

60 second plank

 

That's enough for today.

[Mushishi]

(this was a double post, but I have edited it to be the post for Jan 13)

 

Well, today has started out challenging.

 

Went to bed last night at 8:30.  Woke up at 10:00, 10:30, 11:00, and the final time I woke up, almost pained to look at the clock and see 12:00, it was actually 5:16.  My alarm wasn't set.  So here I am, already 16 minutes late.  Course correction for the morning:no shave.  I have early morning meetings with India at 7 so I have a tight timeline.  I take a shower, then set for meditation.

 

Today's meditation is set for 22 minutes, building toward my 30 minute target.  It was the longest feeling one so far, and no wonder.  I am feeling all terrible about having to stop because of the mental fatigue and loss of focus, and when, defeated and soul crushed, I open my eyes in surrender, it turns out I never started the timer.  I had been going for almost half an hour.  I'm not exactly sure how long, because the moment I started I just didn't know.  But I am calling it a success, regardless.  It was longer than my target.  

 

I have two early meetings today, and a one hour training session I need to run for a team in SF this afternoon, then it's headed north to go and run a sword class at 6, and back in the office for another India meeting at 9.  Going to be a long one.  Need to figure out how to slip dinner in there somewhere.  It's bacon spaghetti squash (a favorite of mine) and I would hate to have to rush it.

 

No other exercise today.  I may do a handstand for 60, plank for 60 and two flights of stair box jumps.  We will see.  I think stair box jumps might actually be motivating for me to do.  I will update here if I do these.  In the mean time, coffee and a smile for the next meeting.

[Mushishi]

Today saw a much better return to mindset, even though I didn't get to bed until midnight.

 

The Sword class went very well.  It wasn't physically demanding, as it was an intro and terminology class, explaining how I conduct the class and what to expect.  Next time we will get sweaty.  Need to work out a good warm-up regimen for the class, or at least remember my old one.  

 

In any event, this morning:

1 amazing shave

20 min yoga

23 min Meditation (which I cleared easily)

:60 plank

10 Incline pushups

1 mile walk at 15:03 pace (got stopped at a light) to work

1.65 mile walk at 14:55 pace back home

Box Jumped to third floor on stairs skipping a step.  Resulted in 14+12 box jumps

 

Bacon/onion scramble with red and yellow pepper and a cup of coffee for breakfast.

Peppers wrapped in Prosciutto for lunch

Bacon and pepper spaghetti squash for dinner.

 

 

I am thinking that a plank, squat, box jump and handstand workout would be good for the sword training.  Working shoulders, thighs and butt.  Lunges probably good too.  Shoulder and arm stamina, and training for maintaining a low stance has been very helpful for the style in the past.  Getting the box jump in play would be good too.  I would like to be able to go all the way to the fourth floor skipping 2 steps every time eventually.  For now though, need to build up both endurance and explosiveness.

 

Note to self: Need to dust off and clean up the gear this weekend.

[Mushishi]

Trying something new with sleep habits.  8 hours seems to leave me tired throughout the day for the rest of my day.  I want to try dialing it in some.  I have had insomnia for most of my life, and I have found that 3 hour multiples are usually best.  I am suspecting that for a 5:00 AM wakeup I probably need to go to bed around 10:30.  THis allows :30 for settling in and then a good 6 hour rest.  I am a little concerned about this considering the commentary here on NF about getting enough rest.  Sleep issues suck.  

 

I have an Epic Quest item to keep a sleep log.  I expect I will begin that soon, once the current quests are finished.  Speaking of which, 2 more days and I am at the 10 day on meditation.  And at the rate I am going, 6 more days and I will be at :30 for my meditation as well.  I had originally intended to take that further in time, but really, I don't have more time to offer.  unfortunately most of my time in my life, even optimized is accounted for.  So, I expect I will cap the meditation at :30 minutes for now, and then let the meditation process evolve.

 

And it is evolving.  The last couple of days have seen changes using techniques I have gathered over the years and applying them to being aware of the present.  It is turning out very well.  I was able to move my conciousness from behind my eyes to behind my lungs at the spine, which activated my ability to hear subtle sounds in my body.  I am rather excited.  It makes it okay that I don't really have time to take it further.  There is a lot I can do in the time I have, and practicing that limited timetable is probably a good next step.

 

So, in moving along my quests, I am starting to come to my physical limit in General, Assasin and Druid quests.  Starting up my own school next week for the sword work will begin my monk quests, but we will see how that goes.  As instructor I don't always get the workout others do, so I may have to be extra diligent in my private workouts.  As a side, last night I created the warm-up focusing on warming up and extending flexibility in the legs and shoulders.  Here is the warm-up routine:

 

30 seconds high knees

25 walking jacks in low stance (to emphasize the wide stepping motion needed in footwork)

10 body weight squats

30 second arm rotation

10 second hit rotation

10 second knee and ankle rotation

10 hip circles with toe touch

10 body weight lunges

10 leg swings

10 spiderman steps

5 fence steps

 

Next is to work on the cool down, then see if I can do the warm-up and cool down as an exercise set.

 

And for today, here is my activity log:

1 epic shave

20 minutes yoga

24 minute meditation

5 assisted pistol squats each leg (needs work on right leg to mind the knee)

5 inverted rows (found limit for general exercises.  Time to add something to the epic quest)

27:37 mi

 

Breakfast: Yam hash and eggs with coffee  

[Mushishi]

Weekend is over, and we are back on track for another fine week of getting things going.  Saturday I had a morning activity that had me out the door early, and then I spent most of the rest of the day on the road.  Not a great day, but I was able to meditate when I got home, so I didn't miss my target.  That also completed 10 for 10 on my meditation quests, so that is awesome!

 

Sunday I spent the morning in meditation and then got a massage and a haircut.  I have gotten the prep for my week of eating down to about 90 minutes so that is good.  Food plan for the week:

Mon: B - Bacon scramble. L - Fried Zuchini rice bowl.  D - 

Tue: B - Yam hash and egg. L - Pepper and perchutto rolls. D - Dinner out (on the way to class)

Wed: B - yogurt and berries. L - yam and butter. D - Bacon spaghetti squash

Thu: B - Yam hash and egg. L - Leftover bacon Spaghetti. D- Itallian Broccoli bowl

Fri: B - yogurt and berries. L - chicken rice bowl. D - Dinner out with Patrick (Before headed north)

 

I notice that I don't really snack any more.  I think it's because I am distracted with the other things I am doing.

 

This morning's workout:

 

Standard Warmup (all the way through first time today.  Damn)

20 minute yoga

27 minute meditation

 

Looking forward to seeing what I can do tomorrow.  I am starting to have a challenge on my timing.  I may have to start getting up at 4:30 to support my activities.  I am not really happy about this.  I expect that I may need to rethink a few things in my life in order to get the time I want to do the things I would like.  Things are getting complicated, and I am finding that I don't really have time for others as much as I use to.  I hope the results are worth it, but it is something to be mindful of.  Time is very valuable to me, as I have very little of it with my commitments and what not.  I need to streemline some things I think.  At least I still have Sundays to catch up with, if my boss doesn't need me that is.  I will have to be careful with giving up Saturdays.  This weekend was emotionally expensive.  Faire is going to be hard to do this year.

[Mushishi]

So I am finding myself struggling with my schedule.  I know this is a question of priorities but still, it is a struggle.  Let's take a look at what I am working with here, and see if I can figure out what is going on.  Stream of consciousness writing.

 

Monday (Home) -

0500 wake up, shave, shower

0545 yoga

0610 meditation

0650 dress and make breakfast

0730 talk with wife to stay in contact

0800 start work

1130 break for lunch

1230 back to work

1630 start masonic memory work

1730 make dinner

1815 get dressed for Masons

1830 Masons

2030 Go home and pack up car

2100 Head south

2359 Arrive, unpack and go to bed

 

Mon (Work)

0500 wake up, shave, shower

0525 yoga

0550 meditation

0630 dress and make breakfast

0720 Walk to work

0800 Start work

1130 go to lunch/tea

1230 back to work

1700 walk home

1745 make dinner

1830 ???

2030 prep for morning

2100 bed

 

Tuesday (when Mon was home)

0630 wake up, shower

0650 Mediation

0730 walk to work

(when Mon was down south)

0500 wake up, shave, shower

0525 yoga

0550 meditation

0630 dress and make breakfast

0720 Walk to work

0800 start work

1130 go to lunch/tea

1230 back to work

1700 walk home

1745 make dinner

1815 Head north for sword class

1930 arrive and have class

2030 socialize

2100 head south

2140 prep for Wednesday and bed

2200 bed

 

Wednesday

0500 wake up, shave, shower

0525 mediation

0550 dress and make breakfast

0630 Walk to work

0720 At work (early India Meetings)

1130 go to lunch/tea

1230 back to work

1630 walk home

1700 make dinner

1730 ???

2030 prep for morning and bed

2100 bed

 

Thursday

0500 wake up, shave, shower

0525 yoga

0550 meditation

0630 dress and make breakfast

0720 Walk to work

0800 start work

1130 go to lunch/tea

1230 back to work

1700 walk home

1745 make dinner

1830 ???

2030 prep for morning and bed

2100 bed

 

Friday

0500 wake up, shave, shower

0525 yoga

0550 meditation

0630 dress and make breakfast

0720 Prep for return North

0750 Drive to work

0800 start work

1130 go to lunch/tea

1230 back to work

1700 Drive north

2130 Arrive home

2200 Socialize and then to bed

 

Saturdays and Sundays are open, so I try not to schedule too many things.

 

But the concern is for the weekdays.  Now, where to fit in a one hour workout without taking away my hour to myself in the evenings.  I value those.

[Mushishi]

Found this on meditation. Only had time to read half but interesting things to consider and match a lot of what I saw in Indian Guru culture when I was there

http://www.lorinroche.com/dangers/homeless.html

[Mushishi]

So I took the weekend and did a batcave redo in my bedroom.  It was an office, and now is a great meditative space

 

 

Did some thinking about my time this weekend, and I am not sure what to do about it, honestly.  My mornings are variable as I may have calls with india that will make my morning short.  Additionally, my evenings are full Mon, Tue, Thurs, and Fri. So a Mon, wed, Fri workout is a challenge.  Maybe I need to do them at lunch.  We will see.  That would interfere with tea, but I may be able to work something out with the office to take an extended break at 3 if I stay a little later.  That should be doable.  That leaves the sword class last.  Travel to the class is a hardship due to traffic.  It's 19 miles away but on the 405 at rush hour, that is a 2 hour drive.  We will see how it goes, and I will talk to the students and see what they think.  It's 5 students this week supposedly.  We will see how many show up.

 

I have made an investment (of $11) to myself in a workout system focusing on kettle bells.  I dislike working out and gyms, but I do like the energy and concept of the Kettle Bell.  It is a lovely piece of equipment and it's simplicity and the utility of it, that giant hunk of iron, makes working with it entertaining and satisfying, unlike any other equipment I have tried to use.  Not sure why.  In any event, it is a 12 week course for beginner kettle bell, so I look at it as three 4 week levels.  That is how the course is broken up at any rate, so I think I will follow that.  As a reward for success I expect I will buy the Advanced 12 week workout, but I need to earn that first.  Also, I will probably want to look at getting a new kettle bell as well at that point.  In any event it sounds fun to me, is progressive, little by little, so it supports my goal for new habit building.

 

So epic quest focus areas:

Spirit - Mushi Meditation (>2.5 hrs/week)

Mind - Mushi Medicine - tea lessons (5/2 weeks)

Body - Ring the Temple (Kettle) Bell (3/week)

Heart - Man and Sword are One (1-2/week)

 

Now just to update everything.

 

Exercise for today:

Full Warmup

Double Handed swing: 30 sec (25lb)

Half Turkish Getup: X3 (25lb)

Rest: 60 sec

Double Handed swing: 30 sec (25lb)

Half Turkish Getup: X3 (25lb)

Rest: 60 sec

Double Handed swing: 30 sec (25lb)

Half Turkish Getup: X3 (25lb)

Stacie's cool down