Urgan Shows Up, Does the Thing

[Mistr]

Ouch, that sucks that a black belt did not have enough control and connection to notice when your arm was in a bad spot.

 

Now is the time of year for pool noodles to go on clearance. Get them quick, because they disappear until next spring. However, pipe insulation foam does a passable imitation if you are desperate and not actually trying to float.

[Urgan]

18 minutes ago, Mistr said:

Ouch, that sucks that a black belt did not have enough control and connection to notice when your arm was in a bad spot.

 

All of me was in a bad spot, if I'm being honest. I think I'll be okay for another go 'round tomorrow night. He was muchly chastened and no real harm happened.

 

22 minutes ago, Mistr said:

Now is the time of year for pool noodles to go on clearance. Get them quick, because they disappear until next spring. However, pipe insulation foam does a passable imitation if you are desperate and not actually trying to float.

 

Wonder if I can get a haul...that'd be a hilarious prize for a dojo.

[Urgan]

11/12/2019

Just...Stop, Weather

 

Tasks

Clean kitchen counters

Search and Destroy Floor Stains

Evict Excess cardboard boxes

 

Take down clothes from closet

The Great Fall 2019 Try-On

Create Winter Work Wardrobe 

Donate What Doesn't Fit

 

Practice

Iaido - 1/4

Jo + Bokken - 1/4

Technique review - 3/8

 

DuoLingo - 9/28

LingoDeer Lessons - 1/4

LingoDeer Review - 1/4

 

Write or delete 17

Write 24

Write 25 + flashbacks

 

Nutrition

Monday: Clif protein bar, *

Tuesday: Teavana tea

Wednesday: 

Thursday: 

Friday: 

Saturday: 

Sunday: 

* I assume away all knowledge of what's in food I eat out, all macros for those meals are a guess

 

You know, this day could have been worse. I could have been literally on fire. Cold temps, no work to do in between meetings, more meetings with recently very ill people than should be legal (2), one of those being a progress meeting with boss that resulted in even more work being piled on that is gloriously self-directed. My favorite kind. The kind where you have to actively flog yourself and those around you repeatedly to get any traction. An amazing innovation. Again, cold as crap. Went by the store looking for pool noodles, feeling like an idiot, but even coming away empty-handed I was glad I did it because on Saturday I won't be going what if. Husband made a fire in the proper place for fires, scared the cats in the process. No sympathy for my arm to be had, as per norm--if it isn't dangling by a thread from my person, NBD. I have the tiniest hairline bruise on the back of my upper arm, tricep territory. What a weird thing. Did not practice weapons because excess arm rotation seems unnecessary just now. I'll make it up some other time.

[Mistr]

1 hour ago, Urgan said:

Went by the store looking for pool noodles, feeling like an idiot, but even coming away empty-handed I was glad I did it because on Saturday I won't be going what if.

Husband made a fire in the proper place for fires, scared the cats in the process. No sympathy for my arm to be had, as per norm--if it isn't dangling by a thread from my person, NBD. I have the tiniest hairline bruise on the back of my upper arm, tricep territory. What a weird thing. Did not practice weapons because excess arm rotation seems unnecessary just now. I'll make it up some other time.

 

Nods. I went looking for a pool noodle last fall. Not for cutting practice, but for an exercise called silk-reeling. The puzzled person at the big box store sent me to the off-season section in the back corner of the upper level. Where there were some sad inflatables but no pool noodles. This was the trip where I discovered that 1 inch pipe insulation does a good imitation of a short pool noodle.

 

Isn't it weird how things that really hurt don't leave bruises, and bruises show up that don't hurt? I found a scrap on my shin last weekend and had no memory of anything that might have caused it.

 

Smart to let your shoulder recover for a few days.

[Urgan]

1 hour ago, Mistr said:

Nods. I went looking for a pool noodle last fall. Not for cutting practice, but for an exercise called silk-reeling. The puzzled person at the big box store sent me to the off-season section in the back corner of the upper level. Where there were some sad inflatables but no pool noodles. This was the trip where I discovered that 1 inch pipe insulation does a good imitation of a short pool noodle.

 

I know, I felt really dumb asking in 31 degree temps for their finest pool noodles, but here we are.

 

1 hour ago, Mistr said:

Isn't it weird how things that really hurt don't leave bruises, and bruises show up that don't hurt? I found a scrap on my shin last weekend and had no memory of anything that might have caused it.

 

A thousand creative ways to self-harm. The possibilities are darn near endless.

[Urgan]

11/13/2019

Banzai?

 

Tasks

Clean kitchen counters

Search and Destroy Floor Stains

Evict Excess cardboard boxes

 

Take down clothes from closet

The Great Fall 2019 Try-On

Create Winter Work Wardrobe 

Donate What Doesn't Fit

 

Practice

Iaido - 1/4

Jo + Bokken - 2/4

Technique review - 4/8

 

DuoLingo - 10/28

LingoDeer Lessons - 2/4

LingoDeer Review - 1/4

 

Write or delete 17

Write 24

Write 25 + flashbacks

 

Nutrition

Monday: Clif protein bar, *

Tuesday: Teavana tea

Wednesday: Clif protein bar, *

Thursday: 

Friday: 

Saturday: 

Sunday: 

* I assume away all knowledge of what's in food I eat out, all macros for those meals are a guess

 

Gymmed a little, hit a 207.5lb squat single and RLH.

 

Y'all I ate some dried cranberries and did not die. I did not eat any ferments on Tuesday and while there was a little grumble in the gut it wasn't a big deal. Lunch was chili (beans), had some 'kraut in the afternoon, carried on and so far so okay. You'd think if anything would provoke a reaction that lineup would. 

 

In the dojo we reviewed all the techniques except hantachi waza and buki waza because we ran out of time. Partner kept saying she didn't remember stuff, but she remembered it. Typical negative self-talk. We're gonna kill it in December. It or us, one or the other. Reviewed the waza at home. Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

[Urgan]

11/14/2019

Listing

 

Tasks

Clean kitchen counters

Search and Destroy Floor Stains

Evict Excess cardboard boxes

 

Take down clothes from closet

The Great Fall 2019 Try-On

Create Winter Work Wardrobe 

Donate What Doesn't Fit

 

Practice

Iaido - 1/4

Jo + Bokken - 2/4

Technique review - 4/8

 

DuoLingo - 11/28

LingoDeer Lessons - 2/4

LingoDeer Review - 2/4

 

Write or delete 17

Write 24

Write 25 + flashbacks

 

Nutrition

Monday: Clif protein bar, *

Tuesday: Teavana tea

Wednesday: Clif protein bar, *

Thursday: Teavana tea 

Friday: 

Saturday: 

Sunday: 

* I assume away all knowledge of what's in food I eat out, all macros for those meals are a guess

 

This is a low point of the week, for sure. Too much to do, too little energy to go around. Barely puttered through the work day and made dinner, hit some Japanese practice, and that was It. Not sure how much is the weather or my lightly battered physical condition, because sleep needs are on the increase this week.

[Mistr]

I'd blame the weather. It makes a person want to crawl into a blanket fort and not come out until the holidays. I hope you can get some extra sleep and feel better.

[Urgan]

11/15/2019 - 11/17/2019

Me vs Me

 

Tasks

Clean kitchen counters

Search and Destroy Floor Stains

Evict Excess cardboard boxes

 

Take down clothes from closet

The Great Fall 2019 Try-On - 50%

Create Winter Work Wardrobe - ???

Donate What Doesn't Fit - 1/5th of clothes were bagged, pending final results of the Try-On

 

Practice

Iaido - 1/4

Jo + Bokken - 2/4

Technique review - 4/8

 

DuoLingo - 14/28

LingoDeer Lessons - 2/4

LingoDeer Review - 2/4

 

Write or delete 17

Write 24 

Write 25 + flashbacks

 

Nutrition

Monday: Clif protein bar, *

Tuesday: Teavana tea

Wednesday: Clif protein bar, *

Thursday: Teavana tea 

Friday: Clif protein bar, Buchi kombucha

Saturday: Clif protein bar, *, mochi

Sunday: Sprouts ketchup, *, mochi

* I assume away all knowledge of what's in food I eat out, all macros for those meals are a guess

 

This was a fairly eventful weekend as anomalies go. Let's see....

 

Friday I threw a grenade in the foundry that is my gut daring it to go off, and...it kinda didn't?? To whit: kombucha, protein bar, beansx2, cheese, and a banana were all consumed in a single day and it was not the worst possible reaction. Also gym time wasn't that bad, I managed two 83lb press singles. That was neat. Highly undesirable food was being served in the vicinity of where I normally hide out, soooooo guess who didn't get a lunch nap?

 

Saturday I squatted a highly disappointing 215lb single, deadlifted 225lbs (the first deadlifts in almost precisely a month), and cruised around in World Market buying all the nonessential things. I bought 3 small tea mugs, one of which I am dedicating to work in place of styrofoam. I have a thermos as a makeshift tea kettle, because why the heck not?? Also, I discovered mochi and it is amazing. Now, I knew mochi existed this whole time, but I'd never tried it because I ate red bean paste bread yeeeeeeears ago and it was meh (melon bread OTOH....magical). I had red bean mochi and litchi mochi and they were both phenomenal. They made me feel like those birds moments before dying from wedding ceremony rice (and for similar mechanical reasons.....), buuuut.....as a treat I'm going to work it around days I'm not drinking kombucha and see how that works for me. Drank some matcha/green tea combo tea and it was...a thing that happened to my taste buds. Not sure how I feel about it yet, going to give it another few tries. I have some taro mochi also, but haven't cracked it open yet. One thing at a time. Dang but I am pleased with my haul. After doing Japanese practice I dinked with some Greek and Latin because WHY NOT screw goal focus sideways. Latin feels like learning Japanese feels, I have a bit of a clue from past experience so I'm not totally lost. Learning Greek feels like.....Greek to me. * ba dum tsh * It's the least intuitive of the three by far. 

 

Sunday I ate a stupid amount of food between my usual diner brunch and litchi mochi, barely had room for dinner at 9:30 lol. Oops. On the plus side, I never really hurt (much) all day and I got some major inroads on writing 24, cut my Try-On clothes piles in half between shelving out of season clothes that probably still fit, stuff I'm keeping for sentiments' sake, and donation stuff. Did not do iaido, not too sad about it because something had to lose this weekend. 

[Urgan]

My plan to deal with so many artificial flavorings in my diet is to cut back protein bars to 2x/week and use up the Teavana brand tea, being more careful to read the label next time. That will take ritual consumption of Mystery Ingredients to 3x/week (unless I change my kombucha choice....debatable as it's the only flavor of kombucha I know of that's <16oz and easy-ish to consume in a day). Going forward I need to read labels as I buy things (Instacart makes this tricky, in that sometimes they supply the label info and sometimes.....not so much) to avoid even bringing home stuff with junk in it. What a concept.

[Urgan]

November 2019: Week 3

Trying New Things

 

Tasks

Clean kitchen counters

Search and Destroy Floor Stains

 

The Great Fall 2019 Try-On - 75%

Create Winter Work Wardrobe - ???

Donate What Doesn't Fit 

 

Practice

Iaido - 1/4

Jo + Bokken - 3/4

Technique review - 6/8

 

DuoLingo - 20/28

LingoDeer Lessons - 3/4

LingoDeer Review - 3/4

 

Write or delete 17

Write 24 

Write 25 + flashbacks

 

Nutrition

Monday: Clif protein bar, braised beef containing ketchup, mochi, *

Tuesday: NONE

Wednesday: *

Thursday: NONE

Friday: Buchi kombucha

Saturday: Clif protein bar, *

Sunday: Clif protein bar, *

* I assume away all knowledge of what's in food I eat out, all macros for those meals are a guess

 

Monday

I think I may be on the path to getting my body back to normal, if I can avoid aggravating it further. Big if. Not the best day for keeping "natural flavors" out of my life. I did enjoy some mochi at work and am working out the most efficient way to do tea things in the office. Work itself was a PITA and the most unnecessary sentence of the month was uttered by my boss's boss cutting down something that was on my Instagram feed (not me specifically) that he caught maybe 2 seconds of as he came in late to a meeting. Nobody asked him for his thoughts on strength training, but he gave them anyway. On the way home a car tried to merge into me when there were two perfectly good lanes to share and I ran over what was probably some construction piping for the next major intersection past my parents' subdivision. What a DAY. We reviewed hantachi and buki waza then juuuuust about switched over to left-handed versions of what we covered last week when time was called so the red belt impending-testing-for-black-in-a-month could have some randori time. I sat out because arm and shoulder are just barely on speaking terms now. Came home and reviewed the left-handed versions, will be very, very glad for the chance to do them on a live human because wow some of those become alien concepts when mirrored. Try doing left-handed hantachi sankyo by yourself for the first time and see how straightforward that ends up being lol. Finished enough work on item 24 that I can mark it off. On a weeknight. What.

 

Tuesday

I was very good about my food. Head felt meh. I got a decent nap at lunchtime that helped a good bit. Work was turkey crap trying to wrap up the sprint. Came home and made black bean soup THEN napped because husband has been passive-aggressively suggesting NOW dinner is happening too late. He was up and getting dinner at the same time as always despite it being readily available all evening. WELL OKAY THEN.

 

Wednesday

I've turned the lights off before midnight for two whole days in a row just based on being tired. I'm sure this has nothing to do with my being able to fall out of bed without feeling like a corpse. Now I'm not just bouncing out and carpe diem and whatnot, but at least I don't feel like death. It's a small win. 

 

I'd say gym was mediocre--not bad, not great. I got rather upset toward the end of the day because there's politics to move the department in one (undesirable from my POV) direction and then my boss who has a different philosophy and I feel caught in the middle. It's great. Mom made me pancakes from a gluten-free mix I left...she forgot about the milk thing and put regular stuff in there. So far only gas and the feeling that the next BM will be Interesting. Aikido class was weird this time, it was drills + yoga. Almost wish I'd skipped it, but I know the last day of class will be a week after the test, so that was a relief. 

 

Thursday

Ugh.

 

^Accurately describes the whole day. Nothing especially bad happened, it was just achy and meetings and driving in the dark and cooking dinner was the biggest chore of 2019 with that I've Been Freshly Beaten feel typical of Tuesday/Thursdays. FIL got his other knee replaced today. Dad is getting a valve replaced Friday. It's Surgery November, everybody. Yay? Nothing Aikido-related happened today, too ded RIP.

 

Friday

Ah the end of a week that felt like one long uphill battle. Not much to report about Friday, it was pretty standard for us (mom and dad had a right old time at the hospital that kept them there until nearly midnight, he didn't end up getting the replacement I don't think). Right up until it came time for grocery delivery, which turned into a nightmare. We have a Sprouts and a Publix delivery at night. The Sprouts shopper did the following shenanigans:

Showed up 30 minutes before the two hour window of 7 - 9PM

tried to swap 3lbs of chicken thighs for 1.26lbs (I had to catch her in the act of doing this while stopped in traffic, I noticed the alert in time to address it)

refunded my chocolate bars with no effort made to find a replacement for a plain dark chocolate

delivered a bag of opened rice

did not deliver our milk

 

The Publix shopper was just really stinking late, a half hour past the window at 9:30. So that was a magical experience. Our PS4 decided not to turn on (combination bad power cord and UPS battery ran down). Best Friday ever. I took my teapot that I've had since at least 2012 on a spin for probably the first time. Brewed with way too much tea in it the first time, oops.

 

Saturday 

Attempt 2 with the teapot was more successful. Squatted 196lbs for doubles, it was very difficult but did not kill me. I obtained Oolong and Rooibos + vanilla bean teas, discovered they were good. Did a lot of review, editing, and a bit of writing on my outline. I determined that the thing to do for the next week is not go to the gym for at least two days and see what good, if any, that does.

 

Sunday

Standard Sunday. Tried on a bunch of clothes, most were fine and coming in season, but I don't have anywhere convenient to put them yet so back on the table they went. I love the book I'm reading but it has this little problem in that it makes me want to write? Did a lot more interacting with my outline. No dojo or gym for at least most of next week makes for a really unmotivating end to a weekend.

 

Totally forgot about iaido. Dangit.

[Mistr]

Do you normally work on techniques one side at a time? We always do both right and left (except for boken techniques). The reference points are given relative to uke. "Move off the line to the outside of uke's arm"; "step forward with the foot closest to uke".

 

I try to avoid using "left' and "right" because it is hard for someone watching to figure out if I mean my right hand or the right side of the dojo as you face the shomen. Plus people are terrible at keeping right and left straight. They are pretty good at closer/farther away.

 

That said, every technique has a dreaded other side. The side might move around, but one is almost always easier than the other.

 

Good for you for sitting out randori practice with an anxious shodan candidate. I admire you reviewing techniques at home. We talk about that, but I rarely do it.

[Urgan]

11 minutes ago, Mistr said:

Do you normally work on techniques one side at a time? We always do both right and left (except for boken techniques). The reference points are given relative to uke. "Move off the line to the outside of uke's arm"; "step forward with the foot closest to uke".

 

Normally we try to get some exposure to both sides as we introduce technique and have some basic familiarity with one side. This belt has so many techniques and most of them are nuanced variations of kokyunage, it's been a right-side-a-thon for months. Now we're playing catch-up lol. Not recommended, but here we are.

 

13 minutes ago, Mistr said:

I try to avoid using "left' and "right" because it is hard for someone watching to figure out if I mean my right hand or the right side of the dojo as you face the shomen. Plus people are terrible at keeping right and left straight. They are pretty good at closer/farther away.

 

We communicate pretty well on this point and I don't think we have too many problems getting the theory of the thing across? If we say left or right we mean the body of the person being instructed (an implied your left hand, etc...) and "to the mirror" or "to the chairs," or "to the shomen" if we are speaking in relation to the room we're in. Oh good grief but we could write books about all the times when doing an unfamiliar technique there is a moment where we have to pause, look down, and reflect over which of our hands is left or right! 8:30PM classes be like that. 

 

17 minutes ago, Mistr said:

That said, every technique has a dreaded other side. The side might move around, but one is almost always easier than the other.

 

Spoiler: it's the left side. Even a lefty like me hates left side. Yeah, we have a few of them in class and it never ceases to amaze/amuse/horrify.

 

18 minutes ago, Mistr said:

Good for you for sitting out randori practice with an anxious shodan candidate. I admire you reviewing techniques at home. We talk about that, but I rarely do it.

 

Thanks. It's not a lot, it doesn't involve an uke, but just the mental exercise of "walking through" the technique seems to do a lot of good for retention.

[Urgan]

November 2019: Week 4

Thank You For Your Sacrifice

 

Tasks

Clean kitchen counters

Search and Destroy Floor Stains

 

The Great Fall 2019 Try-On - 75%

Create Winter Work Wardrobe - ???

Donate What Doesn't Fit 

 

Practice

Iaido - 1/4

Jo + Bokken - 4/4

Technique review - 7/8

 

DuoLingo - 27/28

LingoDeer Lessons - 4/4

LingoDeer Review - 4/4

 

Write or delete 17

Write 25 + flashbacks

 

Nutrition

Monday: NONE

Tuesday: NONE

Wednesday: Clif protein bar

Thursday: Giant. Shrug.

Friday: *x2

Saturday: Clif protein bar, mochi, *

Sunday: mochi, *x2

* I assume away all knowledge of what's in food I eat out, all macros for those meals are a guess

 

Monday

The Thanksgiving holiday week begins. It was Jekyll and Hyde at work, the morning was d-e-d and the afternoon was crammed full of things to do. Bare minimum accomplished. Edited outline, yanked out a big section of stupidity. 

 

Tuesday

Work was busy all day. Thanks to leftovers, I did not cook or eat Taco Bell this night, because prepping veggies for Thanksgiving was about the extent of my powers. Did all kinds of Japanese practice. Reviewed weapons techniques. I'm finding a lot of things that need adjustment in my outline, and believe you me it's not my first read-through. 

 

Wednesday 

Short work day, all work front-ended in the first two hours then drove my happy carcass to my parents' house for Thanksgiving. 

 

Thursday

I had the weirdest dream ever. It was the end of Monday class at the dojo and Sensei cheerfully announced test day was actually the next class. Cue panic-stricken cramming test prep off the mat. We discovered two gokyo techniques on the list we didn't know about so we started working on those, but they didn't behave anything like gokyo and it was really hard to concentrate with everyone around us trying to socialize and dodging the basketball players all around us trying to play. So basically it was just another day on a crowded mat lol. Oh and Thanksgiving happened. FIL had a knee replacement the prior week and wasn't up to coming over. The event was two hours shorter at least than normal, glory be. Came home and spent stupid amounts of money on BF and Christmas stuff. Ate chocolate for dinner. Dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria. 

 

Friday

All the upper body volume and all the money was spent. Started a trend over the weekend of really focusing on the outline in the strike zone of this challenge, even. I didn't hurt all that much, either. Kind of miraculous. I picked up some laundry slack to make the rest of the time off a bit less crazy.

 

Saturday

Did a bonus set of 180lb squat 5s (three sets total), looked in vain for red bean mochi, wrote a lot. A lot. Refrained from buying all the things.

 

Sunday

Pretty normal, except for the titanic breakthrough that forces a bit of reordering of sequence of events (started Saturday, really). It's not so much a shakeup as engaging the brain for the first time on this section, I mean really thinking logically. Yeah, I do that occasionally. Scares me, too. I am on track to do something that not only propels this story forward, but tells a bit of a story-within-a-story better than I'd planned to tell it as a stand-alone, since I am letting the character tell it himself through 3rd person limited and 1st in parts? the idea is some parts are vivid memories and some parts are glossed over (half of the glossing is because he's self-censoring, the other half to scoot toward the interesting bits)  We'll see if it survives the smell test after it's all written up. Worst case scenario, I have a better version of that story set up for later.

 

A dramatic reenactment of my body this week: Ooooh boy, it's 3s week, everybody get ready it's time for S H A R K W E E--oh wait, we're not lifting on Monday? Oh well then, nevermind. We'll wait then.

 

 

Alternatively, I was just run down enough that my body felt sorry for itself. You decide.

 

And now, time to pretend like I remember how to do my job!

[Kishi]

It's like that over here too, re: work and strangeness. I think the holiday has something to do with it, although I couldn't say what.

[Urgan]

22 hours ago, Kishi said:

It's like that over here too, re: work and strangeness. I think the holiday has something to do with it, although I couldn't say what.

 

Almost like it's not worth fooling with at this point.

[Urgan]

December 2019 Goals

Setting Myself Up For a Successful New Year?

 

It took two months, but there's a chance I am on the way out of neck strain purgatory. Too early to say for sure. I've exchanged writing with reading in priority, and I am okay with that. This is ironically the "fault" of The Blackdog, but the book is actually good! It's just that looking at the cover makes me crazy inspired? It really is crazy. I love this book. I love the story I am working on. It's a win-win. Weight has been around 120lbs, down from the 122-123lb range with no change in calories but a skewing toward carbs with the change of breakfast. To speak nothing of the reduction of emissions that is definitely confirmed and appreciated. We're gearing up for belt test time! Let's do this thing with more modest, focused goals. 

 

Tasks

Things to Do that Make Me Feel Less Like I'm Living In a Dump:

Clean kitchen counters

Clean kitchen table

Change bed sheets

Christmas decorating?

 

Practice

It's test time again, 3 months earlier than the last two belt tests. It's a bit of a risk, but it'd be cool to squeak in another rank up before 2020. It's Christmas time. Here's the adjusted practice goals with this in mind.

 

Iaido - 0/2

Jo + Bokken - 0/3

Technique review - 0/6

 

It's time to dare to dream that I can clean up most of the stubbed-out sections of the outline. I've got 1.5 weeks off with very little frenzy, so no reason not to try.

 

Flashback - 0/13

26.1

26.2

 

Nutrition

The postmortem on November's efforts is I definitely did stabilize my weight and reduce the incidences of bloating/gas. I did this by making the following changes:

- exchanged kombucha for regular teas

- reduced kombucha from daily to 1x/week

- dramatically reduced protein bar consumption from daily to 3x/week

- maintained regular sauerkraut consumption

- added carbs in the form of rice, rice ramen, bean chips, a tiny bit of fruit,  and on the dessert side mochi and Toll House Simply Delicious chocolate chips (THREE INGREDIENTS. THREE. Does not taste like garbage. What is this alchemy?)

- avoided "natural flavors" when making purchases which incidentally are absolutely everywhere, even in tea blends

 

Things I'm going to try to do for December:

No New Natural Flavors

Swap chocolate bars for chocolate chips

Test blackberries

 

As you can see, nothing that's particularly overwhelming going on for this month. Christmas decoration, belt test, vaguely aggressive writing, and some very modest dietary tweaking. I don't want to mess with my food too horribly much more, because my strength training is experiencing some issues and eating all the things is pretty much the name of the game in the interest of keeping ahead of energy demands.

 

Debriefs:

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

Week 4

[Urgan]

December 2019: Week 1

Let's Go

 

Tasks

Clean kitchen counters

Clean kitchen table

Change bed sheets

Christmas decorating?

 

Practice

Iaido - 0/2

Jo + Bokken - 1/2

Technique review - 3/6

Note: I adjusted down weapons review because I can't count.

 

Flashback - 4/14

26.1

26.2

 

Nutrition

No New Natural Flavors

Swap chocolate bars for chocolate chips

Test blackberries

 

Monday

I gymmed and did both bench and OHP. We will see if I perish. Motivation was nowhere in sight at work. Nothing says welcome back to the office after a holiday quite like an hour long meeting that's irrelevant to you bowling over the usual routine. At the dojo we reviewed all the things, trying for left side most of the time. It was a mind-bending experience. Started and ended class late, stayed late talking (we're going to do a double class on Wednesday for test prep), got home late, bah. So tired. I did turn off the light at a somewhat almost decent time, as my bedtimes go, as a precaution against passing out and letting my computer run all night long. Shark Week showed up right on cue.

 

Tuesday

Woke up to an idiot's criticism of my post in Instagram. Gooooooooood morning, er'body.

Record of me giving the idiot a hard time:

Him: You're arching your back too much!

Me: Whatever you do, Mr. Private Account, don't look up the Olympic press. I don't think you can handle it.

Him: Well, it's your health. Best of luck.

Me: Well, it's your presumptuousness. Best of luck.

 

Crickets after that. Game, set, match. I win. What I won was a really, really difficult-to-endure day at work, courtesy Shark Week. All the things to do, none of the will to do them. Taquitos were got for dinner. I did do some writing, though. Yay that.

 

Wednesday

Rack pull day--225lb triples were my absolute legal limit (for reasons you will soon see). Ran out the door, was 20 minutes late because a sedan decided it wanted to crawl up under an SUV in the middle of the busiest road in the met. Shut down two lanes of traffic and forced everything to the left-most lane when a major exit ramp was less than a quarter of a mile away. It was great. I felt like air traffic control at work, everything was just coming in at once and then there's this long, long term upgrade project that kinda makes me wanna end myself. Meanwhile the power has been flickering on and off at my parents' house and the power company struggled to do its job and make the power make the things turn on and stay on. This struggle seemed to involve hacking one of their bushes in half to get to the proper utility box, for some reason. I brought one of my emergency rice packets heated up with my cooler press-ganged into the opposite of its usual function.

 

Aaaanyway, by the time I got home everything was normal. So there's that. A double was pulled, and wow was that weird. It wasn't hard, it didn't really feel like more work had been done than normal other than that sensation you're camping the dojo. The strength in my posterior chain was g o n z o when I tried to do koshinage. It was sad. I literally failed a rep, more or less. I think I have the idea of it, enough to squeak by. We did manage to review all techniques, including weapons. I just need to remember two things:

 

- on hanmi hantachi waza, shihonage tenkan, I need to shiko back as far as humanly possible for my stubby legs to go and step to the right as far over as I can go in order to not get into an ankle slap fight with uke. 

 

- on ushiro katatori kokyunage pt 3 (turning opposite), I can't anticipate the grab, I have to let that happen first.

 

When home, did some review, finished Japanese practice, ate a bunch of stuff, drank some tea, went to bed at a not-stupid-for-me hour

 

Thursday

My forearms and shoulders are sore. The weirdest type of DOMS yet, this combination. It persisted all day, surprising me during such activities as shrugging, anything touching my shoulder, and putting on pants. Glorious. I had to pass a charisma check on the way home. You see, there is a route Waze will direct me to take to get home when traffic is bad, and then there's the route that it will take me when traffic is apocalyptically bad. It was the latter kind of day. I said no. Nav said turn left about four or five times on the route I chose. So I finally gave in and made the turn to take me through the windiest path you know. Or so all these side road paths end up being, this particular one was new to me. Which is why I wasn't expecting a security guard station in this particular subdivision. A real live man guarding this particular neighborhood at 5:30 on a Thursday. Alright. So he asks me where I'm going, and I explain I'm just passing through because the main road is gross today. He suggests it may be better to take that road because the speed limit is 30MPH and there are two neighborhoods between me and my destination. I said that's what I was going to do, but nav was quite insistent. He reiterates the warning that the speed limit is 30 and enforcement is strict a couple of times before deciding he's going to let me through when I promise to Obey teh Rules, because as I explained for one thing I've never been here before, so. That worked out. You bet I drove the speed limit, because it was pitch black and indeed this route was foreign. It was in fact slow as molasses, but that seemed to be my doom this particular evening. On the plus side, my mug arrived from Japan (I don't think it even took a full two weeks to arrive...wow), along with various shirts. 

 

Also, been working on my outline and that's going well considering the amount of energy I have to spare.

 

Friday

There is still soreness, but not enough to keep me out of the gym. 76lb OHP triples FTW. The rest of the day had nothing to recommend it. 

 

Saturday + Sunday

I wrote quite a bit. Hit a squat volume PR of 2 sets of 196lb triples. That's double how many times I've done triples at that weight lol. We got the tree on Sunday and I pressed it twice. It is a very dehydrated tree. Did some weapons and technique review. The test panic slowly setting in like a fog. 

 

 

 

I really, really, really miss my bed right now.

[Mistr]

Yay for successful elimination of the culprit in the weight gain and emissions. It's frustrating how much can hide under that "natural flavor" heading.

 

Which rank will you be testing for next?

[Urgan]

8 minutes ago, Mistr said:

Yay for successful elimination of the culprit in the weight gain and emissions. It's frustrating how much can hide under that "natural flavor" heading.

 

When "natural" actually means "the fakest fake you know".....

 

9 minutes ago, Mistr said:

Which rank will you be testing for next?

 

Brown, and I'm trying to work it where I test with another purple belt at the same time. Takes a lot of the panic attack out of it when you can sell yourself the idea that they're totally watching the other person just now, not you. 

[Mistr]

17 hours ago, Urgan said:

Brown, and I'm trying to work it where I test with another purple belt at the same time. Takes a lot of the panic attack out of it when you can sell yourself the idea that they're totally watching the other person just now, not you. 

 

We have kyu tests coming up this Saturday. Sensei has been doing a lot of explanation about what is expected on tests. She wants clear and precise demonstration of techniques. Nothing showy (at least not at the kyu levels). Speed and power are for the dan ranks. Omote distinct from ura, feet in the right place. Also a good attitude and not freaking out when one messes up, as will invariably happen. YMMV

 

I get it about having other people testing at the same time. I did my first test at summer camp thinking that no one I knew would be watching. Somehow it didn't occur to me that I would have made new friends training with people from other dojos for a week. Luckily there were four of us testing and I was better prepared than some of them.

 

Maybe it will help to keep in mind that everyone there wants to see you do well. They already know your strong and weak points. This is your opportunity to show your best side.

[Urgan]

23 hours ago, Mistr said:

We have kyu tests coming up this Saturday. Sensei has been doing a lot of explanation about what is expected on tests. She wants clear and precise demonstration of techniques. Nothing showy (at least not at the kyu levels). Speed and power are for the dan ranks. Omote distinct from ura, feet in the right place. Also a good attitude and not freaking out when one messes up, as will invariably happen. YMMV

 

On 12/3/2019 at 10:13 AM, Mistr said:

Maybe it will help to keep in mind that everyone there wants to see you do well. They already know your strong and weak points. This is your opportunity to show your best side.

 

Yeah, Sensei went so far as to say he'd just make us do koshinage on right side because it's enough of a technique challenge to get us to do hip throws for the first time (he is not at all an "if he dies, he dies" type of Sensei). I can load up both my partner and Sensei, so strength is not the issue (not that strength is the foremost concern when they should just roll off...baby steps, plzkthx). I actually got partner way too far forward and was holding her up on mid/upper back (and she is pear-shaped). Oops. Almost got it down, I am loading a lot more consistently now. We have been known to apologize from either position when we screw up on test night, but we've just about gotten past the freak-out reflex. Sometimes it's just outright funny. We opt for slow and correct, but sometimes fast and hard out of pure fear happens. It happens often on orange belt tests for some reason....

 

On 12/3/2019 at 10:13 AM, Mistr said:

I get it about having other people testing at the same time. I did my first test at summer camp thinking that no one I knew would be watching. Somehow it didn't occur to me that I would have made new friends training with people from other dojos for a week. Luckily there were four of us testing and I was better prepared than some of them.

 

The presence of multiple people on the mat makes it feel more like a performance and less like a trial, even though you are doing the exact same thing. We're working hard to make it happen this way just for this benefit.

[Kishi]

On ‎12‎/‎2‎/‎2019 at 11:26 AM, Urgan said:

Woke up to an idiot's criticism of my post in Instagram. Gooooooooood morning, er'body.

 

I have been hearing that IG is where fitness and health advice go to die. This appears to confirm.  Sorry you had to put up with that.

 

On ‎12‎/‎2‎/‎2019 at 5:44 PM, Urgan said:

Brown, and I'm trying to work it where I test with another purple belt at the same time. Takes a lot of the panic attack out of it when you can sell yourself the idea that they're totally watching the other person just now, not you. 

 

What the what? I didn't see you were testing again. Yay! Same advice as usual - they wouldn't have you up if they didn't know you could do it, so do it awesome!

[Urgan]

1 hour ago, Kishi said:

I have been hearing that IG is where fitness and health advice go to die. This appears to confirm.  Sorry you had to put up with that.

 

It is but one place where every bit of lie and garbage about Health and Fitness are mindlessly parroted as if anyone could possibly be hearing Don't Arch You'll Blow Out Your Back! for the first time. OTOH, I feel like I've ascended to another level in terms of social media presence. I had my first unsolicited dick pic a few months back and now I can add Don't Arch to my trophy sheet. Actually totally serious about this--you know what they say about people who take flak. It's all good.

 

1 hour ago, Kishi said:

What the what? I didn't see you were testing again. Yay! Same advice as usual - they wouldn't have you up if they didn't know you could do it, so do it awesome!

 

We're pulling a double tonight in the hopes of having enough time to go through allllll the techniques (10 of them, half of which have 3 or 4 parts, each of which have a left, right, irimi and tenkan! Arglebargle. And then there's the weapons work and the jiu waza, separate from that. It's the kokyunage test.) and feel confident we can do them from entering attack to pin. None of this hand-waving the takedown because we know it, gotta do the thing. It's always a joy to get to test night and have to force yourself to remember what that pin was, again.

[Mistr]

2 hours ago, Urgan said:

It is but one place where every bit of lie and garbage about Health and Fitness are mindlessly parroted as if anyone could possibly be hearing Don't Arch You'll Blow Out Your Back! for the first time. OTOH, I feel like I've ascended to another level in terms of social media presence. I had my first unsolicited dick pic a few months back and now I can add Don't Arch to my trophy sheet. Actually totally serious about this--you know what they say about people who take flak. It's all good.

 

Fascinating. I've been finding your videos inspiring. Also educational, especially for OHP. I haven't figured out a video set-up yet, but I hope my form looks like yours.

 

The jackass comments are why I do not have a public Insta.

 

2 hours ago, Urgan said:

We're pulling a double tonight in the hopes of having enough time to go through allllll the techniques (10 of them, half of which have 3 or 4 parts, each of which have a left, right, irimi and tenkan! Arglebargle. And then there's the weapons work and the jiu waza, separate from that. It's the kokyunage test.) and feel confident we can do them from entering attack to pin. None of this hand-waving the takedown because we know it, gotta do the thing. It's always a joy to get to test night and have to force yourself to remember what that pin was, again.

 

Yeah, we get that too. I make a point of teaching pins in my class because Sensei often skips them and the newer people screw them up on tests. I get that, I don't like doing them anymore because my left knee has serious objections to good pinning form. On the other hand, pins are great for stretching out your shoulders.