Walking in the footsteps of uncle Iroh

[Tash]

First of all: sorry that I'm late with making this challenge. I went through a hard time: my emotional scales are a bit wibbly wobbly (wimey timey... stuff) and I had to change workout plans since my back hurted a lot because I can't do anymore weightlifting (I have a form of Spina Bifida)

 

I decided to make a themed challenge and choose Avatar as inspiration. 

I was always mostly fascinated by uncle Iroh. Misunderstood and used by his family but always keeping his head up. It's that kind aof person who knows what he is about. He has been through hard times but still sees humour in a lot of things. And he also is such a bad ass!

 

 

One of the most inspirational quotes in the series is when he teaches Zuko to also learn from other elements and seek balance. 

P.S.: he also has these amazing mutton chops.

 

GOAL 1:

 

 

The first erlement is Air. I feel it's about finding flexibility and finding a way to move the body with the least resistance. My first goal is to get a more flexible body through yoga. I will move through my yoga poses and study them, one at a time. I will do this three times a week for the next three weeks. So I will start with 1 asana and end with 9 asanas in my last session. I try to do them for at least 3 minutes or longer.

 

GOAL 2:

 

 

Water is my second element and the element of change. Also it takes it power the moon.which pulls and pushes the tides. This reminded me about meditation and how the minds get pulled and pushed, more precisely how you try to focus and sometimes totally lose the focus. So I will try to do meditation once a day. I have a pranayama app that I will use as guidance.

 

 

GOAL 3: 

 

 

Moving on to earth. Earthbenders seem very tactical to me. Rather defensive untill the moment that they know they can do a step forward. They wait, aim and listen for the right moment. It's like playing a game of chess. You can attack blindlessly and probably lose all your peices. But you can also move them around untill there is an opening you can abuse to win the game. I think it's very good to use this philosphy in my art. I rush everything to fast. So that's why I will try to make more studies before making a painting. (at least five).

 

GOAL 4:

 

 

As I said workout changed because of my handicap. I recently started reading Convict Conditioning. I like it, and the way he lets you build op slowly to amazing, epic bodyweight movements (like one handed pull ups and push ups). I think bodyweight exercices also go very well with the element of fire. It's all about the action. (reminder to that moment that Iroh started working out in his cell to just blast the iron away with his build up power). I will go more in details on my workout scedule later, because it got it's own set of goals (not necessarily to be finished this month)

 

THE END

 

 

[Stronkey Kong]

Following

[Tash]

GOAL 4: The workout.

 

I am totally new with bodyweight training so I thought to follow the advice in Convict Conditioning and starting slow.  yesterday I tried all the exercices:

 

Wall Push Ups 1x10

Jackknife Squats 1x10

Vertical Pulls 1x10

Knee Tucks 1x10

 

Headstand and bridges are to hard for me. So I skip them, When I'm more flexible because of the yoga work I maybe can try to train the bridge as well. I don't know if I will eve rbe able to do headstand. We will see!

Suprisingly I'm sore the day after this workout. It was very easy but I feel the effect of the vertical pulls. My following workouts will look like this :

 

MON & THU:  VERTICAL PULLS &  JACKKNIFE SQUATS

TUE & FRI: WALL PUSH UPS & KNEE TUCKS

 

 

[Tash]

I will update follwing list everyday:

 

GOAL 1:

 

20/02

 

Yoga is for me more then just a workout or stretching technique, today I started with my morning cleaning routine after I didn't do it for a long time. This felt good and was good enough for me. I'll see where I'm going to be tommorow. Also adding 1 technigue to my sessions a day is to fast I think. I'll add 1 or 2/week.

 

21/02

 

The first movement I did is Padahastasana. "Pada" in sanskrit means "foot" and "hasta" means "hand" or "gesture". I don't know what I should write about it or not but simply said: it has a lot of good effects on the body.

 

 

23/02

 

It felt great. I feel the benefits for doing yoga on my off days.

 

GOAL 2:

 

20/02: 5 minutes, nothing much, but good enough to start with. 

 

21/02: 7 minutes, combined with my yoga practice. I still have to learn a lot and fidn a way to be more silent and focused.

 

23/02: 7 minutes again. It works well in my yoga practice, Helps me to get more focused and calm.

 

GOAL 3:

 

GOAL 4

 

20/02

 

Wall Push Ups 1x10

Jackknife Squats 1x10

Vertical Pulls 1x10

Knee Tucks 1x10

 

This was to easy so I tried something else

 

Pull Ups ended up in 2 minutes hanging at the bar. 

30 sec wall sit

8 dips (pfew, form was awfull though, I think)

8 squats

8 push ups

 

I couldn't do anything anymore after this. I might have to find the right beginner workout for me. As long as I am doing something!

 

22/02

 

modified bicycle crunch 1min

plank 30 sec

leg extension 1 min

modified bird dog 1 min

20 jumping jacks

5 incline push ups

 

I thought that this would be good enpugh for a warm up, didn't go for a run because it is raining the whole time. That's why I I kept it shorter. 

 

CIRCUIT x2

 

10 squats (I don't have anything to do step ups so I had to change a bit)

10 incline push ups

10 vertical pulls

10 knee tucks

 

24/02

 

WARM-UP: 2 rounds, 30 seconds each

 

Jumping Jack

Instep Stretch

Arm Circles

Trunk Rotation

 

WORKOuT: 2 rounds

5 Push Ups

5 Sit Ups

10 Squats

 

I really need to work on my condition. Couldn't do much more. Maybe I need to take more and longer rests.  I skipped most of the core work because it is still sore after previous core warm up. 

 

28/02

 

3x10 kneeling push ups

3x12 crunches

3x8 squats

[Lydiechan]

On 2/18/2017 at 7:43 PM, Tash said:

I have a pranayama app that I will use as guidance.

 

I see a lot of your body weight exercises, but not a lot about meditation.  How's that going?

 

There's also an app called Calm that is free and works really well for some light-weight meditation exercises.  They have 3, 5, 10, 15, and 30 minute options for the same meditations, and I find the guide's voice very soothing.