[SymphonicDan] and the world of possibilities

[SymphonicDan]

After 18 consecutive challenges here, I've made lots of progress but the challenge format is no longer motivating me, so I've decided to make a shiny battle log to track the projects and habits that I'm working on

 

As an introduction, I'm a 25-year-old software engineer from Cambridge, UK and I like to do:

• gymnastics & handstands
• trapeze, gymnastics rings & slacklining
• weightlifting & bodyweight
• bouldering
• football
• healthy eating & living
• spanish
• salsa dancing
• piano composition
• travelling
• competing for Britain at mental calculation

The colours are used to distinguish topics so my posts are easy to read.

 

So my format for this battle log is to have a few projects going on at any time, which I'll start/stop whenever needed, and set specific goals/challenges when I want. When I need accountability, or have something cool to share or something to ask, it will go here  There's also potentially a new cool thing that I'll mention later on if I think about it more seriously...

 

~~~ Current projects (updated May 12th) ~~~

 

Climbing / bouldering: I'm going on a mountain-climbing trip in Italy in June, so I want to get my skill back to make the trip as enjoyable as possible. There's going to be via ferrata, a glacier, and probably rock climbing involved so I want to be prepared!

 

Healthy eating: although I like eating healthy foods, in practice I have too much unnecessary foods - that make me over-full, have energy spikes or bad skin quality. When I ate super well in 2013 these things were never a problem.

• not impulse-eat desserts
• eat bigger portions of healthy food if needed
• find a greater variety of foods to eat at home (otherwise I default to 4 bowls of cereal, which cant be good).

 

Training outside regularly: in 2014-2015 I was training regularly at the various things in green and red above - and the zenith of my training was probably last Summer when I made the compilation video (in my signature). Since then I moved place and we had a long cold season and I'm out of the habit. I want to be doing handstands/rings several times per week, and getting stronger again!

[tei_]

A mountain climbing trip in Italy? That sounds awesome.

[Lara]

Wish you the best in this new stage of your adventures!

Let us know when you've got the place for the competition!

 

6 hours ago, SymphonicDan said:

otherwise I default to 4 bowls of cereal

This made me laugh so much. I guess everybody has been there, but it sounds so funny when anybody says it out loud

 

6 hours ago, SymphonicDan said:

we had a long cold season

I'm so fed up with this. This time of the year I should be wearing t-shirts, not my winter jacket.

 

[elsfaire]

I think it is cool that there is a mental calculation World Cup. A skill like that deserves recognition!

I like your other current projects, too- might just be a little jealous of mountain climbing in Italy.... [emoji6]

Using awesome technology to communicate from anywhere.

[lucky fire dragon]

That's a great format, Dan, I think it will work well for you for now! So much fun stuff, yayyyyyyyyy

 

Hope you'll have great weather in Italy, that will be a blast!

Very curious about the potential new thing now

 

[Talvi]

On 12/05/2016 at 2:35 AM, SymphonicDan said:

I default to 4 bowls of cereal, which cant be good

Been there!   I was so bad with eating cereal for random meals that I had to stop buying it (or eventually only buy boring unappetizing yet functional breakfast - blurgh).

 

On 12/05/2016 at 2:35 AM, SymphonicDan said:

There's also potentially a new cool thing that I'll mention later on if I think about it more seriously...

I love shiny cool new things, do tell!!!

 

Are you going to get a bit of Italian down before the holiday?

[SymphonicDan]

You know when you're not actually ill, but your body is clearly tired because it's recovering from something like an illness? Well I've had that Monday-Thursday, so no interesting sporty things happened until Friday, when I had a good football game.

 

Some exciting things that did happen:

• started driving lessons again because my test is in one month's time, and it went pretty well, yay
• a friend (with a PhD in Mathematics) witnessed me doing some mental calculation so I can apply for the Germany competition. I got 38 calendar dates in a minute (beating the British record so I'm pleased with that), 285 points on square roots (moderately low for me but it's fine) and 5 divisions (good for me) so overall quite a strong result, and definitely worth having trained over the Winter! Now I just have to airmail the organization and hopefully be accepted
• watched Eurovision haha, which is an entirely ridiculous event but I enjoy it anyway  I wasn't that enthused by many of the songs this year though... usually there are quite a few strong ones.
• Went shopping for extra-healthy food yesterday (including grapefruit, frozen raspberries, ground almonds and some vegetarian sausages that actually taste like real meat). And then today went to a birthday party and ate too much salty/fatty food hmm.

Next week: should be getting back to exciting sports (I have a trapeze class if nothing else).

[Lara]

Sorry to see you've been a bit low on energy these days, but yay for your calculation results!

[SymphonicDan]

On 5/12/2016 at 1:53 AM, tei_ said:

A mountain climbing trip in Italy? That sounds awesome.

 

Should be! First time to Italy (I'm British and been to Spain 5 times so it's about time I went to Italy) and first time doing outdoor climbing things....

 

 

On 5/12/2016 at 8:30 AM, zenLara said:

I'm so fed up with this. This time of the year I should be wearing t-shirts, not my winter jacket.

 

And if you're complaining about the weather in central Spain in May, there must be something wrong  Maybe Summer will start by my birthday in August.

 

 

On 5/12/2016 at 0:01 PM, elsfaire said:

I think it is cool that there is a mental calculation World Cup. A skill like that deserves recognition!

I like your other current projects, too- might just be a little jealous of mountain climbing in Italy....

 

The problem with mental calculation as a competitive event is that it's not so good for spectators  It's like if they televised school exams... Having said that, the Memoriad competition in Las Vegas is going to be much bigger this year, and mind sports are becoming more and more of a thing, so will be interesting to see where this leads!

 

 

7 hours ago, lucky fire dragon said:

Very curious about the potential new thing now

4 hours ago, Talvi said:

I love shiny cool new things, do tell!!!

 

 I'm going to continue being mysterious and wait until my idea is more specific and I'm confident I want to do it before I tell the secret... Feel free to wildly guess though, you might give me more ideas haha

 

 

4 hours ago, Talvi said:

Are you going to get a bit of Italian down before the holiday?

 

I'd like to! I learned some before when I needed to write some software that understands Italian, but never practised speaking... Realistically though I'm not going to get conversational within the next month but I should refresh the basic words/grammar and some useful phrases ("do you speak English?", "where is the bathroom?")

[Lara]

7 hours ago, SymphonicDan said:

And if you're complaining about the weather in central Spain in May, there must be something wrong  Maybe Summer will start by my birthday in August.

 

 

 I'm going to continue being mysterious and wait until my idea is more specific and I'm confident I want to do it before I tell the secret... Feel free to wildly guess though, you might give me more ideas haha

 

Yesterday didn't rain and today swifts are singing as if there was no tomorrow, so brace yourself, maybe good weather is coming.

 

You don't leave much room to guess, you already do all the things. Let's see, lately, aside from your gymnastics practice (which includes rings and slackline) and football, and mental calculation, you've done ceilidh dance, salsa, and trapeze, and you'll soon retake climbing... And I'm sure I'm forgetting things. Besides that, you've traveled to the desert, finished several compositions and a cover, and moved to a new appartment... What's left? I don't know... are you going to the siberian steppes to chase the Yeti?

[SymphonicDan]

On 5/16/2016 at 8:17 AM, zenLara said:

What's left? I don't know... are you going to the siberian steppes to chase the Yeti?

 

Haha nope, I'll leave the poor Yeti alone for now

 

Mental calculation: I've now applied for everything, so now I just have to wait and see what I get accepted for! I'm removing this now from my "current projects".

 

Trapeze: good lesson again. We start with a yoga-esque warm-up which is actually pretty intense... loosens me up even more than the gymnastics ones. I tried a couple of handstands at the end of the session and arched my back too much on one, and really felt the back injury from a couple of weeks ago  because it was caused by a similar movement/position... I was hoping it would be healed by now so I could go out and practise handstands, but looks like that will have to wait a bit longer...

 

Climbing: we have a plan to go to one of the big walls in London this weekend, yay

[Lara]

7 hours ago, SymphonicDan said:

I'll leave the poor Yeti alone for now

 

Then I don't know anymore.

[SymphonicDan]

Today I went to the Castle, a large climbing centre in London, and did 3-and-a-half hours of bouldering and roped climbing. It's a cool place, and quite hippie - they grow fruit and vegetables in the garden and serve it in the vegetarian restaurant, and advertise yoga and massages, and 80% of the guys are either bearded or east Asian.

 

They use the Hueco system, with which I'm not familiar but seems that V2 is my ideal training grade (looking at the mapping now it makes sense, as in my local gym with the Font system my level is around 5+, which is equivalent).

 

Roped climbing is fun but I rarely actually do it (because logistics, and bouldering is more fun). They seems to be using Font (or Brazilian?) grading (4, 4+, 5, 5+, 6a, 6b, etc.) and again I found the 5+ ones hard and the 6a ones would've been fine if I hadn't already been climbing for 3 hours

 

Overall, entertaining and good practice for the Italy trip next month

 

I'm also doing much better on the healthy eating goal - eating slightly less, having more good fats and less junk desserts, and my skin quality has improved considerably, yay. Just need to continue with this...

[Mad Hatter]

Ohh a climbing trip to Italy! That's exciting!

 

Can't you at least give a hint for the new potential shiny thing?  I'm curious!

[Talvi]

Oh man, I have heard of the Castle before!!  I had been thinking of visiting it before/after the comic con last year but it was a bit far out of the way.  Was it worth a visit?   How much of it is boulder vs roped?   I've heard that roped climbing requires greater endurance than bouldering - do you think you'll need to focus on endurance before Italy?

 

Good work on eating better - have you just been making better decisions or have you put systems into place?

[SymphonicDan]

15 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

Ohh a climbing trip to Italy! That's exciting!

 

Can't you at least give a hint for the new potential shiny thing?  I'm curious!

 

Good to see you here again, Mad Hatter  I see you don't have an active thread at the moment (which is fine, of course!) but are you working on anything at the moment? Will we hear more for you later?

 

Haha, okay a hint for the potential shiny thing is that it would start in September/October this year, and I was already thinking about it when I started this thread... I'm working out more details now, and maybe share ideas soon

 

 

3 hours ago, Talvi said:

Oh man, I have heard of the Castle before!!  I had been thinking of visiting it before/after the comic con last year but it was a bit far out of the way.  Was it worth a visit?   How much of it is boulder vs roped?   I've heard that roped climbing requires greater endurance than bouldering - do you think you'll need to focus on endurance before Italy?

 

Good work on eating better - have you just been making better decisions or have you put systems into place?

 

The Castle's definitely worth a visit - I've been twice now  It's close to the centre of London by public transport (Finsbury Park tube) but you'd probably want to do it a different day to Comic Con so you're not rushing it.

There's enough bouldering, roped climbing and lead climbing (where you bring your own rope and secure yourself on the hooks as you ascend) for a whole day even if you only do one (!) The roped climbing is more prominent because it takes up more space. Have you belayed / done roped climbing before?

 

For the healthy eating, I think I've just re-associated unhealthy food with feeling like a loser. Energy swings, full stomach, bad skin etc. A few other things like activity and weather might be factors, but it's hard to tell. I haven't put any specific systems in place but I am thinking more consciously about food choices

[Lara]

9 hours ago, SymphonicDan said:

it would start in September/October this year

 

So maybe some type of lessons or organized learning... like in the beginning of the scholar year

[SymphonicDan]

On 5/23/2016 at 10:51 AM, zenLara said:

So maybe some type of lessons or organized learning... like in the beginning of the scholar year

 

Good thinking, but I can neither confirm nor deny...

 

Trapeze: had the last lesson today - it was just two students and the teacher so felt more physical than when we were 5. Most people wear long leggings or similar for trapeze but I was just in standard sports shorts, and today we did lots of things that involve friction burns if you're not super super careful. I have interesting red lines on my legs now  There are a couple of things I'll need to improve, and then I'll be allowed to practise unsupervised:

• beating in hox
• knowing where my legs are in half angel
• transitioning into and out of star on the bar

Handstands: managed to practise these a little today for the first time since injuring my back. My back is still injured, and I have to make sure not to bend my back in handstands. It makes walking difficult but does teach good form for the static straight handstand.

 

Pull-ups: did 11+3+3+3 at the playground. Pleased that I can do 11 (high) ones in a set even after a trapeze class, without practising for a month, and with my grip still recovering from the weekend's climbing trip

[Lara]

7 hours ago, SymphonicDan said:

Good thinking, but I can neither confirm nor deny.

 

Then it is impossible for us to guess, if you can't answer even yes or no to our ideas. You're messing up the guessing game rules

[SymphonicDan]

On 5/25/2016 at 9:13 AM, zenLara said:

Then it is impossible for us to guess, if you can't answer even yes or no to our ideas. You're messing up the guessing game rules

 

I never said there were any rules to this game  But okay, it's not something to do with the new scholar year.

 

Speaking of school, I'm off this weekend to see some schoolfriends whom I haven't seen for over a year, yay

[Lara]

6 hours ago, SymphonicDan said:

But okay, it's not something to do with the new scholar year.

 

Pressure worked, mwhahaha

[Talvi]

5 minutes ago, zenLara said:

 

Pressure worked, mwhahaha

 

Good work Zen!   We'll get to the bottom of this - would the project take place in the UK?  Geographical hints please and thank you.

[raptron]

Oh, you are here in logland! o/

[SymphonicDan]

On 5/28/2016 at 7:56 PM, zenLara said:

Pressure worked, mwhahaha

On 5/28/2016 at 8:03 PM, Talvi said:

Good work Zen!   We'll get to the bottom of this - would the project take place in the UK?  Geographical hints please and thank you.

 

Haha okay, so the project won't take place in the UK - in fact the title of this battle log thread vaguely refers to the project

 

5 hours ago, raptron said:

Oh, you are here in logland! o/

 

Yep  For various reasons I felt I couldn't keep up with a challenge at the moment (especially not following other people) but I'll see how that goes. Glad to see you here!

[SymphonicDan]

Played football on Monday and twisted my ankle  So no gymnastics on Tuesday or Wednesday (I think my back is now better but not 100% sure) and even though the ankle's about 80% healed, probably no football tomorrow, although if not then I'll do salsa instead since that shouldn't involve much risk of aggravating the ankle.

 

Read some of a Spanish book on psychology ("El arte de no amargarse la vida") when visiting my hometown on the weekend, and practised speaking Spanish with Talvi this week too, which was much more fluid than usual yay

 

Also found a cool obstacle course I'd like to do in July, with a predictable name of Urban Ninja - it involves minimal running and no mud, but apparently lots of super cool obstacles. Hopefully I'm getting a big group of friends to go to that.

 

I should also be finding out in the next few days whether I'm qualified for the Mental Calculation World Cup in Germany in September (likely, but not certain).

 

One thing that's missing from my updates at the moment is strength work. I haven't done any for ages except for trapeze and bouldering (lazy). Hopefully this weekend I'll use the rings again, as we're forecast some nice weather finally! Plus maybe some more bouldering.