Tei was an asshole

[tei_]

 

So, yeah. Remember last month when I was all "this is the busiest month ever but maybe it's a good time to do nanowrimo and hey whatever I'm tough I can do anythinggggg!" 

 

Cue three weeks of exhaustion, fucking up everything, and them in the home stretch, ending up in the ER with hives all over my body (LIKE SERIOUSLY EVERYWHERE) and swelling lips/face! Then 5 more days of taking 3 different drugs and cancelling all of my remaining commitments to spend some quality time feeling dizzy and sleeping a lot. 

 

I had a blood test last week and have an allergist appointment next week but honestly I am not expecting either to find anything of consequence. I was an asshole to myself and myself was an asshole back. 

 

Moving on!

 

Silver linings:

 

1. I have wised the fuck up about my day job schedule, and  

a. cut down to two days/week of gymnastics coaching for next term, and

b. edited my Starbucks availability such that

   i. I have a "only one day job per day" rule, i.e. no Starbucks on days I coach, and

   ii. arranged my morning availability such that I will no longer encounter situations where I leave the gym at 10:30 PM and have to be at Starbucks for 5          AM the next day. 

 

2. During the period of time where I felt capable of doing basically nothing, I went to a yoga class, and discovered I might not hate yoga! I used to think I hated yoga, but it turns out that I might just have resented yoga, during the 10-year period in my life that I wasn't doing gymnastics, for failing to fill the hole in me left by gymnastics. Then, this week and last, I listened to basically every podcast-type thing that Kit Laughlin has done, and... holy shit, guys. This dude is the real deal, who knows the real shit. 

 

So, in light of all this, these are my goals for the remainder of this challenge. 

 

1. Continue with the stretching shit I've been doing as well as the Back Strength Month challenge from the reddit flexibility forum. It is good shit. For the first time in my life, I practice backbending, and my body feels BETTER after doing a bridge than before. Duuuuuude.

 

2. Go through all 14 of Kit Laughlin's lying meditations here. So that's basically one a day, with a few days available for forgetting

 

Hopefully other stuff will happen too (like a back walkover on beeeeaaam???) but them's the goals!

 

 

 

[tei_]

Did the first lying meditation last night and it was haaaaaaard. About halfway through I became so pent-up frustrated with trying to lie on the floor and not move that I randomly started flailing my legs in the air. 

 

Adult gym is over for the term at the gym I actually work at, but I might be able to go to a different gym tonight! If so I need to VAULT and also should probably start choreographing a floor routine soon! I can't decide between the music from the Bojack Horseman opening sequence (which I've already cut) or making a 1:30 version of this which would be my first choice except that I have tried a few times to make a version that includes the beginning and ending, includes the bit that goes 1:08-1:22 that is badass, and doesn't have terrible transitions in the cuts, and have not yet succeeded.  

[Darth Yoga]

On 12/13/2016 at 5:35 PM, tei_ said:

Cue three weeks of exhaustion, fucking up everything, and them in the home stretch, ending up in the ER with hives all over my body (LIKE SERIOUSLY EVERYWHERE) and swelling lips/face!

 

Yup. For me it was mono, which then dragged on for over two years. It has been a long process of learning to take care of myself. 

 

On 12/13/2016 at 5:35 PM, tei_ said:

ii. arranged my morning availability such that I will no longer encounter situations where I leave the gym at 10:30 PM and have to be at Starbucks for 5AM the next day. 

 

This is one that kicks my ass regularly if I am not careful with my schedule. I don't have one set "day job". I've got clients, and side gigs, and travel, and it is all over the place. Mostly I try to avoid booking anything for mornings, but in the past I've had to make a habit of blocking out on my calendar 8pm-12am on any evening prior to a morning gig. I often don't check the schedule for tomorrow until I'm done with work for the day, which might be past midnight already, so for me an early shift needs to show up on the previous day's schedule.

[Darth Yoga]

Also, thank you for the Kit Laughlin links. He isn't a teach I was familiar with. 

Now I just have to resist the urge to stay up until 3am reading his stuff!

[raptron]

Aw, sorry you and your body got into a feud. Glad you are back in action but not TOO much action! 

[tei_]

14 hours ago, Darth Yoga said:

This is one that kicks my ass regularly if I am not careful with my schedule. I don't have one set "day job". I've got clients, and side gigs, and travel, and it is all over the place. Mostly I try to avoid booking anything for mornings, but in the past I've had to make a habit of blocking out on my calendar 8pm-12am on any evening prior to a morning gig. I often don't check the schedule for tomorrow until I'm done with work for the day, which might be past midnight already, so for me an early shift needs to show up on the previous day's schedule.

 

Yeah... this is tough stuff... since September has also been my first time of really having the "main pursuit + day jobs" structure, so my excuse is that I'm still figuring out how that kind of a life works logistically. I'm starting to use a bullet journal-type thing, which works well if I actually look at it and keep up with it!

 

13 hours ago, Darth Yoga said:

Also, thank you for the Kit Laughlin links. He isn't a teach I was familiar with. 

Now I just have to resist the urge to stay up until 3am reading his stuff!

 

HE'S THE GREATEST. I highly recommend the coffeshop conversations, which also come in podcast form!

 

3 hours ago, raptron said:

Aw, sorry you and your body got into a feud. Glad you are back in action but not TOO much action! 

 

Thaaaaaanks! We are reconciling

[RogueLibrarian]

On 12/13/2016 at 5:35 PM, tei_ said:

 

I am a big Stumptuous/KSD fan.

[tei_]

Yesterday: Did not stretch (WHOOPS, first time in like two weeks! D:) but I did bundle the fuck up and walk to the climbing gym (3 km each way) and while I was there, I did a bunch of easier autobelay walls going both up and down (OMG MY FOREARMS), then squatted for the first time in um almost a month? for 3x5 @ 95#  and then gave another try to the 5.10+ that I had only gotten two handholds up the previous time, and got significantly farther! 

 

It has been snowing vigorously enough of late that highway driving is to be avoided if at all possible, so I am staying in a hotel for my gig this weekend instead of driving back and forth every day. The hotel apparently has a gym which is also a standalone fitness studio and actually looks really awesome! 

[tei_]

YOOOO MY SHOW THIS WEEKEND IS THE COOLEST it's a Christmas show? Which are usually really lame? But this year it's a Christmas show WITH CIRCUS and it is a million times better than a normal Christmas show!! The performers are a local school and vary in skill but that is somehow more inspiring, like, the contortion routine is excellent and controlled but also made up of stuff I am actively working towards and realistic for me to be doing in 2-3 years. Also, I now have a BURNING NEED to be able to do a stalder press, preferably on top of a basketball Off to the gym!

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[tei_]

Double post

 

[tei_]

Saturday: Did some strength stuff including trying ring skin-the-cats which are HARD OMG

 

Sunday: Hot yoga! Which I thought I would hate, and basically forced myself to go to because I have a near-phobia of oppressive heat after almost having a heat stroke a few years ago, but it was not bad. It was stretching in a somewhat warm room. Then the teacher gave us chocolate. A-.

 

Monday: Gymnastics! I turned over my ankle doing a punch front and I thought it was gonna be bad but then by supervisor did a magic trick where she pressed on it in various ways and it felt waaaaay better the next day than I thought it was going to. It was a bit sore the next day but felt fine the day after that.

 

Tuesday: Came to Toronto to stay with my family for a few days before we drive together to Boston to see even more family. The nice thing about Toronto is there are SO MANY COOL THINGS TO DO. So I went to an aerial hoop class at the pole studio, because I figured that would be easy on the ankle. Unfortunately, it was also really lame

 

Wednesday: I WENT TO AN AWESOME PLACE! The Monkey Vault is a place I would totally buy a membership to if I lived in Toronto. It's a parkour place that also just has... a little bit of everything? Like, they have all the normal parkour-type obstacles and bars, and then they have a decent sprung floor and a bunch of mats, some verrrrrry old hand-me-down vaulting horses (unfortunately they don't have any springboards, but I'm not all that sure I would have the balls to vault on those any more anyway...) and some other gymnastics equipment that looks like it's at least as old as the vaults (which were replaced in all competitive gyms circa 2001 with the vaulting table, sooo...) including some p-bars, a beam with no legs that just rests on the floor , and a pit with the grossest foam I've ever seen in my life but hey, foam pits were never for the germophobic anyway. Then there was a small bouldering wall and quite a well-appointed weight room with two squat racks, lots of bumper plates, some rings, and a boxing area with bags, mats and pads. It was $15 for a drop-in pass which is good all day between noon and 10 PM. Which is expensive on a drop-in basis, but for all that stuff? When most adult open gyms are $15/session or more for less than 2 hours? AMAZING. A++ will return. 

 

Tomorrow I am going to Boston w/family! I am going to try to make it to a November Project workout at some point, because @raptron has made it seem like the thing to do

 

I have not been doing my meditation :/ I will do another today I swear!

[tei_]

Christmas was had! it was in Boston and this morning, I went to Boston November Project! I was talking about it and convinced my uncle to come with me. Which was an uphill battle because my cousins (one of whom was a Division 1 NCAA cross country runner and the other whom has placed decently in the Boston Marathon) were all "IT'S A CULT" "THEY'RE GOING TO HUG YOU IT'S SO WEIRD" and "IT'S ALL THESE PEOPLE WHO ARE WEIRDLY ENTHUSIASTIC ABOUT EXERCISING, EW" which, accurate, and I made sure to get a picture of their dad being held in the air by a hug for them.

 

It was fun! Just kind of a cardio warm-up and then a circuit of basic bodyweight stuff. i would definitely go lots if there were one in my city. 

 

Afterwards, my uncle said that he wasn't sure he wanted to join quite that kind of cult but it was fun to do once... but then immediately called his girlfriend to tell her about it and started planning on trying to get my cousins to go to stadium with him 

 

They took a picture of me doing dips yay

 

 

[tei_]

So I didn't really have much of a "challenge," but my two main goals were to 1) keep up my stretching stuff, which I more or less did, and 2) do Kit Laughlin's lying meditations. What I discovered about these is that they are waaaay too long for me at present. I cannot lie on the floor trying to have awareness and shit for a whole half hour. So next Challenge will have some meditation, but something more accessible to a beginner... I'm looking into Headspace? 

[Manarelle]

How did I not find your challenge before now? Challenges around the holiday season are tough, with all the craziness going on; I think a simple challenge is a good way to keep the discipline without going nuts. So..

 

Grats on the "stretching stuff!" And,lest you discount awesomeness, grats on the Boston November Project and finding things to do in Toronto (the Monkey Vault sounds like a seriously neat place). Good on you for trying to lying meditations - I don't sit still well, so that sounds expert-level difficult. I've tried an app called Meditation Studio, which does cost a couple dollars, but has all different lengths and goal-types of meditation. Sadly, the only thing I've been able to stick with is walking meditation, which feels like cheating but to each their own. I've heard good things about Headspace, too, 10 minutes sounds much more manageable than 30. Anyhow, grats on the successful challenge, and see you next go 'round!

 

Happy New Year!

[Darth Yoga]

3 hours ago, tei_ said:

do Kit Laughlin's lying meditations. What I discovered about these is that they are waaaay too long for me at present. I cannot lie on the floor trying to have awareness and shit for a whole half hour. 

 

I really struggled with "Is your [body part] COMPLETELY comfortable ? Spend ten seconds making super slow tiny movements until it is COMPLETELY comfortable ." 

 

I kept thinking, "No, my left thigh is still not even remotely comfortable." It'd be great if a few seconds of mild contraction was all it took for me to get a body part completely comfortable and relaxed, but it just wasn't happening. 

[tei_]

5 hours ago, Manarelle said:

How did I not find your challenge before now? Challenges around the holiday season are tough, with all the craziness going on; I think a simple challenge is a good way to keep the discipline without going nuts. So..

 

Grats on the "stretching stuff!" And,lest you discount awesomeness, grats on the Boston November Project and finding things to do in Toronto (the Monkey Vault sounds like a seriously neat place). Good on you for trying to lying meditations - I don't sit still well, so that sounds expert-level difficult. I've tried an app called Meditation Studio, which does cost a couple dollars, but has all different lengths and goal-types of meditation. Sadly, the only thing I've been able to stick with is walking meditation, which feels like cheating but to each their own. I've heard good things about Headspace, too, 10 minutes sounds much more manageable than 30. Anyhow, grats on the successful challenge, and see you next go 'round!

 

Happy New Year!

 

Thanks! And I will look into Meditation Studio as well!

 

2 hours ago, Darth Yoga said:

 

I really struggled with "Is your [body part] COMPLETELY comfortable ? Spend ten seconds making super slow tiny movements until it is COMPLETELY comfortable ." 

 

I kept thinking, "No, my left thigh is still not even remotely comfortable." It'd be great if a few seconds of mild contraction was all it took for me to get a body part completely comfortable and relaxed, but it just wasn't happening. 

 

Ha, there's that too! Actually the "every movement you feel like making, do it half the speed you were going to" was one thing I really liked, and I might come back to them in the future but it was making me more agitated to know how much longer I was gonna have to lie there before I was allowed to move

[raptron]

An hour is a loooong time! I hope the other options make it easier to get into.