Osu

[Kishi]

4 minutes ago, Teirin said:

Huh, what are you rolling these in?  You have a table for characteristics?  Just curious!  It sounds like fun.

 

Yeah, so, in Harnmaster, you have a pair of tables: one for physical characteristics and another for psychological. Our DM has a homebrew rule where you get additional stat boosts for each quirk that you roll, up to a max of three rolls for physical, two for mental, and one for sexual orientation. Male and female characters have different odds for physical stuff, but the mental stuff is equal opportunity; sexual orientation is very hard to get anything other than heterosexual in.

 

It's also possible to roll for these categories and not get anything too; I've had characters do that.

 

So, like, in addition to rolling fear of crossing bridges and sex mania, she also rolled as a heterosexual and has an allergy to horse hair (which I did because it's funny as she comes from a tribe of horsemen), parasites (which can be cured), and an addiction to alcohol (which will be harder to control).

[Urgan]

27 minutes ago, Kishi said:

So, like, in addition to rolling fear of crossing bridges and sex mania, she also rolled as a heterosexual and has an allergy to horse hair (which I did because it's funny as she comes from a tribe of horsemen), parasites (which can be cured), and an addiction to alcohol (which will be harder to control).

 

There are days when I swear this is how actual humans are made.

[Treva]

On 6/4/2018 at 4:02 PM, Teirin said:

  AggRetsuko on Netflix is remarkably hilarious. 

I binged the thing over a several day span and let me tell you, it made me feel so much better about everything.  Also, it depicts EXACTLY how yoga friendships work.  Anywho, it almost made me cry in the best way possible and I recommend it.

 

I'm sorry to hear about your mom's cat.  She has my condolences.  I'm also sorry not as many people reached out as could have.  It's bad when you're having a rough time, it's worse when you feel like no one cares.  I'm glad she's surrounded anyways, and I'm sure your efforts were appreciated, if she was aware of them.  People who don't have pets underestimate the sadness that comes with losing a furry companion.  

 

I am clearly going to have to do some back reading on this blog, because you keep talking about getting stabbed and frand, frand u r doin me a concerrrrrn.  

Anywho.  Glad to see training is okay and you are doing the tweaks that work for you!  And I'm VERY VERY excited to see you're doing some writing!!! I know that has been on your docket for a while and it looks like you're making regular progress with it!

[WhiteGhost]

おす

 

Hi, found you

 

[Kishi]

On ‎6‎/‎5‎/‎2018 at 10:11 AM, Urgan said:

 

There are days when I swear this is how actual humans are made.

 

Yup!  This DM is really big on working in what he considers to be a realistic way. Most fantasy RPGs are populated by NPCs and wandering murder hobos with the setting as dressing. In Harn, it's less a setting and more an analog to medieval Earth, and the setting can easily easily kill you if you aren't careful about it. He makes the mundane awesome, and magic that does something as simple as tell you whether water is safe to drink is super friggin' handy.

 

13 hours ago, Treva said:

I binged the thing over a several day span and let me tell you, it made me feel so much better about everything.  Also, it depicts EXACTLY how yoga friendships work.  Anywho, it almost made me cry in the best way possible and I recommend it.

 

I've heard it's really good! I'm kind of surprised it was done by the same folks who did Hello Kitty, but it's nice to see the media grow up with the fans. Sort of.

 

13 hours ago, Treva said:

I'm sorry to hear about your mom's cat.  She has my condolences.  I'm also sorry not as many people reached out as could have.  It's bad when you're having a rough time, it's worse when you feel like no one cares.  I'm glad she's surrounded anyways, and I'm sure your efforts were appreciated, if she was aware of them.  People who don't have pets underestimate the sadness that comes with losing a furry companion.

 

Thank you. Yeah, Mom didn't expect anything from us. I texted her that night, and she said she'd had a lot of support "and even one of your friends messaged me." So even that one was more than she'd expected, and she seemed to be pleasantly surprised.

 

It's like I said, though. At the end of the day, I can either blame my friends for not being there for me (which is a pretty persistent pattern, as beyond a couple incidents some years ago I really haven't had a lot of support from anyone), or I can blame myself for underestimating the difficulty of the task for them. I really didn't think that sending a FB message was that hard, especially since so many of my friends are pet-owners. "Hey, you don't know me, but your son told me you were suffering and I wanted to send my condolences." Man. People are weak.

 

(and mind, I have both Millennial and non-millennial friends, and frankly neither camp did/does a good job looking out for me, so).

 

Or perhaps this was that sociological phenomenon where the more people you have with the opportunity to help, the less actually do, because they all thing that someone else will do it. It's actually a thing, but I forget the name of it?

 

But in the end, I'm to blame. If I'd understood what I was asking for and understood the difficulty of it, I could have altered the terms and set it differently. And everyone I've talked to seems to be treating it like it was my loss, when the reality was I considered it someone else's. Which I don't understand - I was pretty clear with everyone that I didn't need their sympathy, but. People see what they want to see, I guess.

 

Anyway. I can be angry, but that anger is only useful if it drives me to do a better job next time. Better to focus on what I've learned and apply it, no?

 

13 hours ago, Treva said:

I am clearly going to have to do some back reading on this blog, because you keep talking about getting stabbed and frand, frand u r doin me a concerrrrrn.  

 

LOOK, GIRL. I DO WHAT I WANT.

 

13 hours ago, Treva said:

Anywho.  Glad to see training is okay and you are doing the tweaks that work for you!  And I'm VERY VERY excited to see you're doing some writing!!! I know that has been on your docket for a while and it looks like you're making regular progress with it!

 

Yeah, it's pretty great! I'm focusing on character studies and just moving my fingers. Need to give them different voices, I think.

 

10 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

おす

 

Hi, found you

 

Osu!

 

*

 

Tuesday was a good training day.

 

I didn't really have time to take it as easy as I would have wanted on the Swings and Get Ups. I played with the 24, but ultimately wound up just doing 100 swings in a row and then just doing the Get Ups. Felt like I missed out a little bit, but, easy work is better than no work.

 

Karate, OTOH, went amazing. K-sensei's been forcing me to work w/ gyaku zuki, or reverse punch, which is a cross in kickboxing. He's had me to do rounds of sparring where I have to lead in with a cross rather than a jab. It's been an eye-opening experience for me, because I always thought I needed a jab in order to get in, but nope. I can shoot in on our shift from way outside and even if I don't land the hit, it gets a reaction and gets the opponent moving; I can do other things off of that, and eventually find my way back to landing that cross.

 

So, when he gave me license to use jab again, I barely used it, except as a means to find range. Once I found it, I'd just charge in. And everything seemed to work, or rather, everything worked better. Even the gimmicky shit I tend to do like bouncing a backfist off the lead hand or my patented Iceberg combination worked better, and I think I understand why - gyaku zuki sets a pattern, and it's effective; when you break that pattern out of nowhere, the breaks are even more so.

 

I doubt K-sensei will make it easy for me to do this again, but it's something I need to strive after.

 

Anyway, follow up with the doc today to see about whether that experiment did anything for my blood numbers. I'm braced for poor results, but hopeful. Judo and push ups on the docket tonight.

[Urgan]

Good luck with the doc appointment~

[Kishi]

On ‎3‎/‎23‎/‎2018 at 1:21 PM, Kishi said:

Well, in fairness to the doctor, though, my readings were really high. Total lipids were at 273, with LDL at 198. That's like being over 9000; that's practically double the high end of what my LDL is supposed to be, clinically speaking.

 

So, I'm quoting myself here because I just got the results back and it's easier to look at the numbers here as opposed to digging through my paperwork. Total lipids as of a week ago: 189; LDL is down to 115. HDL was maintained in the low 50s.

 

While it's true that the RYR was a part of the tx, I think it's safe to say that the overall experiment was a success.

[Urgan]

2 hours ago, Kishi said:

 

So, I'm quoting myself here because I just got the results back and it's easier to look at the numbers here as opposed to digging through my paperwork. Total lipids as of a week ago: 189; LDL is down to 115. HDL was maintained in the low 50s.

 

While it's true that the RYR was a part of the tx, I think it's safe to say that the overall experiment was a success.

 

Well done. You have proved that the numbers can be moved.

[Kishi]

15 minutes ago, Urgan said:

 

Well done. You have proved that the numbers can be moved.

 

Yup! And it turns out that some of my suspicions were correct - there was less dense LDL than there was blobby LDL, and my HDL outnumbers the bad LDL enough that it's mitigating it as a factor. Score one for Sisson, I guess.

[Kishi]

So, yeah, Wednesday was a good day.

 

Stayed late at work to catch up on cases, then went off to judo. Spent the whole class working on Newaza as one of J-sensei's star pupils (training for the 2020 Paralympics at the CO training camp) returned for some mentoring time. I was outplayed pretty hard by everyone. Been a while since that happened to me, but it's something I have to work on and buff the rust off of if I want to keep getting better. It was good hard training anyway, in the meantime.

 

Afterward marked my first deload experience w/ GB/GST protocols. And it felt pretty great, not gonna lie. I suspect this is something I've been needing for a while - I finished my straddle planche work feeling refreshed as opposed to deep fried. I decided to go for a push up max test again and managed to beat last time's post-judo total as well. Not bad, considering I had to miss out on push up training last week.

 

Today, more gymnastic strength work, some sprinting, and some Karate. I seriously doubt K-sensei will let me have it so well as I did last time, but I've got to push on and capitalize on what I've learned.

[Kishi]

Thursday down! Deload continues.

 

Assisted Squats: 1x21

Integrated Mobility: DONE

 

Half Squats: 1x15

Integrated Mobility: DONE

 

Full Squats: 1x9

Integrated Mobility: DONE

 

Elevated Deck Squats: 5x5

Integrated Mobility: DONE

• Gym was like a sauna yesterday on account of the A/C being out in a Carolina summer. But even if it was working, I would have been soaked in sweat. Deck squats are not easy, especially after 45 squats prior.
• Noticed that with the integrated mobility, I have some pain on the front of my shin. That's not supposed to be there. May need to adjust how I do this.
• One other thing is that I was really able to dig into the technique on this one. There are some very specific points of balance that one needs to feel to execute this move properly. I've noticed that my problem seems to be that I try to pop out of the squat too soon, when I don't have my balance back, so I pop up and stumble backwards. Slowing down has turned out to be an actual legit strategy to deal with this.

High Rows: 5x4

Integrated Mobility: DONE

• Good and controlled. I think I might just make it a point of doing these smooth and controlled all the time as opposed to pulling with gusto and exploding off the rings.

Hollow Body Tuck Hold: 1x9s

Integrated Mobility: DONE

 

Hollow Body Tuck Rocks: 5x6

Integrated Mobility: DONE

• These went better today than normal. It's occurred to me that these are actually a very small motion, and the smaller I can make them, the better I will do.

Ran some sprints after, then off to Karate I went. We have a new gentleman who's going to be heading up a mixed kid's class type thing composed of all classes, so he will be taking as many different things as he can to get a sense of what's done where. He seems like a nice kid, friendly enough. Has some TKD and Chun (ugh) in his background.

 

And the karate? Well, K-sensei opened up by saying, "Well, I've been thinking about it, and I've decided: you're banned from jab for the next 6 months." Like I said, I knew something was coming. We worked on guard transitions for a while and then we sparred. First round went fine - he jabbed, I crossed. Next was Waifu, where I was forbidden to punch and was told to practice guards instead, which I did. Then Sensei again, this time with him kicking and me being stuck on cross. Last round was ugly, because he has the range and I'm shit when it comes to feints.

 

But as frustrating as it was, it was educational. Shotokan is a game of inches, and I really need to learn how to recognize and commit to openings. And if I can't find them, I need to learn how to make them. I finally managed to pull off a couple of good feints, though, at the end, when it was pointed out that I could do them with a moving start. Feels like training wheels in hindsight, but whatever. Gotta start somewhere.

 

Weight and body fat are trending down again despite the uptick in calories. Handstand and side lever work tonight; no other plans that I know of.

[Kishi]

Phew! Some days have gone by. Okay.

 

Friday wound up being a quiet night. Forearm headstand and twist side planks. Good times. I watched @Loren Wade's 100th stream on Twitch, but it was my first time watching him, and since I'm not really part of the community there I didn't speak up much. I mostly just hid in the foreground and enjoyed his success.

 

Saturday's training has opened up with lots of options. There's apparently an MMA class that's meeting at 0800; I believe there are classes at 1000 and 1200, but it's not clear right now if those are consistent or not as the teachers are sometimes going out to promote the school and this past Saturday was one such. As for me, well, I stayed up late due to watching the stream and training and eating dinner, so I slept in, did S&S light, and got to Kali pretty friggin' late. The New Guy was there, so I was put in charge of teaching him stuff, so I tried to impart what I'd learned about keeping a 'guide' on the opponent as well as moving with the hips as opposed to pushing with the arms or legs.

 

After, I was put to work drilling with one of the Krav guys who's been visiting our school and even though I had only seen what he was doing once, I was able to not only duplicate it, but I was able to point out the flaws in what he was doing to make it better. Crazy, man. Not what I expected with this training.

 

Sunday, I dug into the programming of GB even further and realized I'd made an error. Essentially, each movement is programmed in such a way as to be attacked over 12 weeks - three weeks on, one week deload, done regularly over the course of 3 months. I've not been attacking the cycles this way at all, and I think if I'd done it this way I would have saved myself much grief. So, I've decided to regress to progress and cycle through these steps according to the program. It's not a huge step back for most of this stuff, and I think it's going to help me get better in the long run.

 

I ran sprints until my body said stop, and I'm feeling it a little in my left foot today; I think this is a function of the integrated mobility problems I've been having and I'll be going over my technique there to make absolutely certain that I'm doing this right. I do not have time to be hurt. Not sure what else to do as a finisher that would help my karate/judo/kali, as sprinting's pretty great for that, but it might not be bad to shadowbox for a bit and see.

 

Anyway. Fasting today for heart health, but otherwise it's a programmatically quiet day today. My finances borked and I won't be able to get the car repairs done like I need to, and that's on top of living poor to save the money up. So. That's fun. Even if I manage to keep the money I set aside saved, it'll mean at least another 3 weeks of playing the odds, followed by the repairs, followed by another month while I save up to pay for the inspection and the registration fees and all that. And that's best case.

 

...

 

Welp. It's not going to get better. Just gonna have to keep grinding.

[Kishi]

Monday done. A quiet day. We had a full table for the first time in a while, so we resumed the main game. Essentially, Harn is being invaded by the Cybermen in danger of being overrun by a mad Dwarven technomancer who is obsessed with the Singularity. Our party sat down to parlay, and unfortunately they put me on point. My character's not a terribly deceitful soul, and pretty much nobody trusted me to handle this on my own, so the talks very quickly broke down. Eventually, though, after the mad mage attempted to play mind games with us, we managed to get some useful information. Unfortunately, at that point he decided he wanted brain tissue, and we decided NOPE.

 

So we're on the run out of a cave system now, although we have no idea where we're going or how we're going to get there, and the impression so far is that our enemies are strong enough to the point that we can't fight them directly. Fun times.

 

Today, Karate and S&S. Typically, the way this goes, I do S&S when I get home, then Karate, then fire up the IP when I get home. I think this time what I want to do is S&S, then fire up the IP and set it to keep food warm after it's done cooking, and then Karate. That way, I have dinner waiting for me when I get home as opposed to not starting until 2130 or so.

 

That being said, IP users: if I set it to pressure cook and it finishes, will it keep food warm for the few hours between when it's done and when I'm actually able to eat?

[sarakingdom]

25 minutes ago, Kishi said:

That being said, IP users: if I set it to pressure cook and it finishes, will it keep food warm for the few hours between when it's done and when I'm actually able to eat?

 

Sure, provided you come back for it in less than ten hours.

[Kishi]

4 minutes ago, sarakingdom said:

 

Sure, provided you come back for it in less than ten hours.

 

No joke, I think I want to marry this IP.

[RisenPhoenix]

On 6/8/2018 at 12:21 PM, Kishi said:

Weight and body fat are trending down again despite the uptick in calories

 

Bodies are weird, right?

 

1 hour ago, Kishi said:

That being said, IP users: if I set it to pressure cook and it finishes, will it keep food warm for the few hours between when it's done and when I'm actually able to eat?

1 hour ago, sarakingdom said:

Sure, provided you come back for it in less than ten hours.

 

Things I learned: The IP will only use the warm function for 10 hours.

 

But yes.  It's a magical, magical thing.  Also on my list of things I want regular use of: Air fryer.

[sarakingdom]

22 minutes ago, RisenPhoenix said:

Things I learned: The IP will only use the warm function for 10 hours.

 

To be honest, it's pretty well insulated; it stays pretty darned hot for a few hours even after it shuts off.

[RisenPhoenix]

7 minutes ago, sarakingdom said:

 

To be honest, it's pretty well insulated; it stays pretty darned hot for a few hours even after it shuts off.

 

I have scalded my thumb a few times thinking the thing is cool, for sure...

[Teirin]

Your games sound like fun :-) 

 

I have got to get an instant pot.

[Treva]

On 6/11/2018 at 3:16 PM, Kishi said:

Anyway. Fasting today for heart health, but otherwise it's a programmatically quiet day today. My finances borked and I won't be able to get the car repairs done like I need to, and that's on top of living poor to save the money up. So. That's fun. Even if I manage to keep the money I set aside saved, it'll mean at least another 3 weeks of playing the odds, followed by the repairs, followed by another month while I save up to pay for the inspection and the registration fees and all that. And that's best case.

 

...

 

Welp. It's not going to get better. Just gonna have to keep grinding.

I am so sorry, my brain is  screaming.  Between the finances and the car, that sounds...really really unpleasant.  What is 3 weeks of playing the odds, dare I ask?

 

On 6/11/2018 at 3:16 PM, Kishi said:

I ran sprints until my body said stop, and I'm feeling it a little in my left foot today; I think this is a function of the integrated mobility problems I've been having and I'll be going over my technique there to make absolutely certain that I'm doing this right. I do not have time to be hurt. Not sure what else to do as a finisher that would help my karate/judo/kali, as sprinting's pretty great for that, but it might not be bad to shadowbox for a bit and see.

*thoughtful finger tapping* pray tell, precisely where in the left foot is there the pain?  You do not have to go into detail if you do not wish to, I am just intellectually curious.

 

On 6/11/2018 at 3:16 PM, Kishi said:

After, I was put to work drilling with one of the Krav guys who's been visiting our school and even though I had only seen what he was doing once, I was able to not only duplicate it, but I was able to point out the flaws in what he was doing to make it better. Crazy, man. Not what I expected with this training.

That sounds AWESOME!!! Go you!! know the physiology!  Understand the movements!  

 

 

On 6/6/2018 at 1:52 PM, Kishi said:

 

So, I'm quoting myself here because I just got the results back and it's easier to look at the numbers here as opposed to digging through my paperwork. Total lipids as of a week ago: 189; LDL is down to 115. HDL was maintained in the low 50s.

 

While it's true that the RYR was a part of the tx, I think it's safe to say that the overall experiment was a success.

*crawls out of the cave* Holy hand grenades batman, that's amazing!!!!!  I looked at your post to see your decrease and that's awesome!!!  I cannot stress how amazing that progress is; I need to look back and see what adjustments you made to like...do the reading etc etc.  

Like dude.  That was diet and exercise?  That's Flipping Fantastic.  I can't remember the last time I saw someone do that with their numbers, with diet and exercise.  That's so great.  

 

You go you rockstar you.

[WhiteGhost]

I got an IP for Christmas last year and I love that thing.

[Kishi]

18 hours ago, RisenPhoenix said:

Bodies are weird, right?

 

Right. Totally not what I expected.

 

18 hours ago, RisenPhoenix said:

 

But yes.  It's a magical, magical thing.  Also on my list of things I want regular use of: Air fryer.

 

So is it okay if I admit that when someone says "Air Fryer," I hear the opening chorus of R. Kelly's "I Believe I Can Fly," only it's "I believe I can fry?" Because I feel like I'm desecrating a classic, but R. Kelly's also a legitimately terrible human being, so I don't feel that bad?

 

13 hours ago, Teirin said:

Your games sound like fun :-) 

 

I have got to get an instant pot.

 

It's good stuff. I kind of miss having the flexibility to cook different meals, but these days I'm kind of isolated and I don't really have anyone to cook for except myself. So, something that lets me just insert ingredients and get back food is really good for me right now.

 

13 hours ago, Treva said:

I am so sorry, my brain is  screaming.  Between the finances and the car, that sounds...really really unpleasant.  What is 3 weeks of playing the odds, dare I ask?

 

3 weeks of playing the odds is basically just keeping my car travel to a minimum, sticking to right hand lanes, avoiding two-way roads, blending into traffic, and basically just playing car-ninja for a while. It's playing the odds because I can do all kinds of stuff to minimize my contact and I can still lose. And you'd think it wouldn't be that big a deal; most of the people I talk to don't seem to think it is, but I doubt most of those people have had their tags stripped before. If that happens to me, then forget having enough money to make the repairs; it'll all get blown on rideshares to get me to work.

 

Although there appears to be a silver-lining. I have an inside line at work that OT is getting ready to open up, and I more than qualify now. Now it's just a matter of getting my boss to put me in for it. /planning, plotting, scheming.

 

13 hours ago, Treva said:

*thoughtful finger tapping* pray tell, precisely where in the left foot is there the pain?  You do not have to go into detail if you do not wish to, I am just intellectually curious.

 

Well, if my knowledge of anatomy is right (which I don't trust anymore since I misdiagnosed my strained hamstring in front of a PAC), I'm feeling it in the extensor tendon of my left great toe. It's not persistent, feels better with rest, and I've noticed further that I didn't do some things right with the mobility. I was doing what's referred to as a "skier's squat," where you squat down with hips going off to the side and knees staying straight. I misinterpreted the cues and basically pushed my knees in the direction opposite of my hips. The way it is apparently supposed to work is, feet flat, knees above feet, and only the hips go off to the side.

 

When I do it proper, there is no pain, and this makes me happy.  However, when I do sprints, I do feel it a bit, up into the interior anterior tibial portion of my leg, so just above the left ankle. So, I'll have to find some other things I can do that'll transfer to martial arts that won't involve impact. More KB swings!

 

13 hours ago, Treva said:

That sounds AWESOME!!! Go you!! know the physiology!  Understand the movements!  

 

 

Slicing dudes like it's my job.

 

13 hours ago, Treva said:

*crawls out of the cave* Holy hand grenades batman, that's amazing!!!!!  I looked at your post to see your decrease and that's awesome!!!  I cannot stress how amazing that progress is; I need to look back and see what adjustments you made to like...do the reading etc etc.  

Like dude.  That was diet and exercise?  That's Flipping Fantastic.  I can't remember the last time I saw someone do that with their numbers, with diet and exercise.  That's so great.  

 

You go you rockstar you.

 

Aw, shucks.

 

 

Anyway, lemme take that and make it a little easier. Essentially, I read the paper you gave me and made some adjustments:

• Took up a restricted eating window.
• Made sure to get enough protein (sidebar: seriously, these heart health guidelines do not have enough protein for gymrats. Just saying).
• Prior to this, I had been limiting myself to 100g of CHO with the rest of my calories coming from fats. After the news, I shifted so that I was drawing evenly off of both sources of energy. This worked out to something like 200+g CHO and 130+g fat. Ultimately, I allowed some flexibility, and mainly just focused on meeting what I'd decided were my energy requirements.
• I dropped a lot of saturated fat from my diet. Prior to this, I'd been eating fattier grinds of high-quality meat and eggs. I dropped eggs from my diet and focused on getting leaner grinds, usually 90+% lean. On that note...
• I stopped cooking with saturated fats. I used to love to use grass fed butter and coconut oil; these were dropped in favor of avocado oil, macadamia nut oil, and olive oil.
• I couldn't find a way to part with full fat greek yogurt. I tried, but it didn't stick.
• Toward the end, I began to eat chia seeds and cacao nibs for fiber and additional healthy fats.
• Took fish oil.
• Trained like my life depended on it.

Anyway, having got the results of the Boston back, I essentially have a tendency to store cholesterol rather than make my own and burn it like normal people do. So, with that being the case, the full fat dairy is gone (sigh) in favor of mixing olive oil into non-fat greek yogurt. Cacao nibs are out, chia seeds are staying for ALA (which I'd de-emphasized in favor of DHA and EPA for bioavailability but turns out I could still use more of). I'll also have to get to keeping a stash of walnuts on hand for ALA as well.

 

I've taken up breakfast again as well for weight management, but I still take one longer fast in the week, typically 24-36 hours with a very small, 300 calorie meal to aid with supplementation that day. This lets me take a cheat/make room for life indulgences/not feel deprived overall, and also lets me avoid certain obsessive compulsive eating behaviors which I tend to track toward.

 

I hope this helps, as far as putting it all in one place!

 

Anyway, my next big riddle to crack is my testosterone. I apparently am trending on the very lowest end of a normal range. That needs to be fixed, so I get to dig into that next.

 

10 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

I got an IP for Christmas last year and I love that thing.

 

Dude it is super great.

 

*

 

Tuesday done!

 

S&S went well. The time off was good, and everything felt fresh and cleanly executed.

 

Karate afterward went awesome. New Kid was out on the mats, so I got to teach some more and ultimately class was just physically easier. This meant more energy for sparring, which was constructive. Lots of positional games last night, mostly related to making openings with feints and maintaining space. New Kid fought like a Chunner - lots of controlling center line, lots of rabbit punching. K-sensei restricted me to counters for that one, so there was only so much I could do to make him respect that hand, and to his credit he didn't back down. He walked off in high spirits, which is about as much as we can ask for on something like that; for my part, I'm just happy to get another set of problems to work with.

 

I'll have y'all know that the IP performed like a champ last night. I still got to bed late, but not as late as I could have and I managed to get enough sleep to the point of dreaming, which I've missed. Apparently my subconscious is a big fan of crossing over the Mongol Hordes, Star Wars, and DC comics. Also, there was a girl who desired my company, and that was how I knew I was dreaming. Newest fanfic idea, yes.

 

Today's docket will be judo and push ups, probably in that order. I won't get to cook early, but class lets out earlier, and I can do my practice stuff at home while it all cooks, so it winds up being a wash.

[Urgan]

17 minutes ago, Kishi said:

So is it okay if I admit that when someone says "Air Fryer," I hear the opening chorus of R. Kelly's "I Believe I Can Fly," only it's "I believe I can fry?" Because I feel like I'm desecrating a classic, but R. Kelly's also a legitimately terrible human being, so I don't feel that bad?

It is okay. See https://www.ibelieveicanfry.com/

 

18 minutes ago, Kishi said:

Slicing dudes like it's my job.

 

This thread constantly makes me think of...

 

[Kishi]

23 hours ago, Urgan said:

This thread constantly makes me think of...

 

 

YES. I will bring a pillow and a feather next time and it'll be great!

 

*

 

Wednesday down.

 

Went to Judo and the brown belt who likes me was like, "Hey have you tested yet?" and I was like "No?" so he went over to J-Sensei, muttered a conversation, came back and said, "Congratulations, you're testing today!"

 

What is it with these people and surprise tests?

 

Anyway, did my throws, did my pins, counted to 10 in Japanese, and that was it. I've been told I passed, but I won't be receiving a belt or the official paperwork until next week. That's when I'll post about it on FB, and that's how we'll know it was real.  I'll even have a card verifying my rank.

 

Push ups were done later and I managed to bump my reps up. Slowly but steadily.

 

Anyway, I'm taking tomorrow off to go fishing with my Dad. Since it's Father's Day this weekend, I'll be needing to get some stuff for him, so I'm taking tonight off of the mats.

 

I'm trying to research ways to help testosterone that don't involve replacement therapy or high fat diets. Beyond long cold showers and getting lots of sleep, though, there doesn't appear to be much. Hmmm.

[Kishi]

Whew, boy. Past couple days have been big deals. In good ways, I promise.

 

So, y'all might have read about my inside line on OT. It paid off! My manager emailed us on time to let us know about it and when I asked her to run my closure averages, I'd maintained a high enough average to be eligible. So, starting 06/30, I'll be spending extra time in the office. Which sounds shitty when I put it that way, but it's time and a half, and the extra money will make a difference. Rent will be easier, car repairs will be easier, having a life will be easier, etc. And what's cool about it is that thanks to some of the regulations regarding work and lunch breaks and such, I can actually balance it so that I get to work on Saturday morning and work just long enough to get done and go do Kali after. Which I think is a good compromise.

 

Thursday night I did my GST. The deload week did me some good. The only major thing that I need to let you know is that I've decided to skip a step in my single-leg work and switch up to Cossack Squatting. Reason being that I need to start working on getting down to bed earlier, and part of that means leveraging the strengths of the IP. The only way for me to do that is to get home and get my groceries in and cooking, and the only way for me to do that and actually get my training done is to train at home. And home doesn't really have a way for me to constructively approach Deck Squatting. I can do elevated work just fine, and I still think that transitioning to lower and lower support was an excellent idea, but I really don't have a way to duplicate that effect right now without going out and just buying lots and lots of mats, which isn't going to happen. Deck Squatting has shown me that my limitations are related to balance and mobility, but I can work on those just as well with Cossack Squatting, and also build the strength I need to actually get a freaking Pistol. Also, GB's Cossack Squat really emphasizes mobility in the area I'm having problems with, so it's not like I'm just losing the practice.

 

I didn't go to Karate because I decided to take Friday off to go fishing with my Dad as a way to celebrate Father's Day. Dad wanted to hit the lake early, meaning he wanted me at the house at 0630 and I thought that getting back late would be a bad idea, so I took the night off. I got down early enough for what I wanted, and still woke up at 0330, then basically catnapped my way to my alarm. Made it out on time, though, and went fishing, where I got lots of strikes but couldn't set the hook proper. But it was good to spend that time with him and just catch up on things.

 

Afterward, we went to go get the title transferred on my car. This is something I haven't mentioned here, but when we first got the car, it was done as a dual title with both me and my Dad on it, because my credit score was not great at that time. Eventually, the car got paid off, and Dad wanted to transfer the title to me as the sole owner. So, okay. So we go to the DMV and we do that.

 

Funny thing I didn't know about NC law though is that when you transfer a title, you automatically update your registration, meaning that your tags and such get brought up to date. And, that's basically what happened. We went to the DMV, transferred my title to me, and I walked out with a new registration, with updated tags to be mailed out in a few weeks.

 

You Guys. YOU GUYS. I can't tell you how much of a relief it is for me to not have this on me anymore.

 

To be clear, it's not the end of all my problems. I still have to get the repairs done before the end of 09/2018, and that means more poor living for a while. But the fact that I'm not on the hook anymore... it is, to say the least, a relief.

 

The other big thing is researching how to increase my T. I finally found a resource that I believe could work with my present dietary restrictions. But, it also comes with some pretty significant training guidelines - specifically, a need to re-emphasize recovery over everything else. Meaning that I'm being challenged to cut my training back to, at most, 3-4 days/week.

 

Y'all, I really don't know how to manage this. I can't do anything about martial arts - they're kind of downregulating themselves at this point; the extra body in Karate, in particular, really drives down the intensity of that class, because I spend more time holding pads and such - but getting GST on point... this is going to be something else. I think I can recombine this stuff pretty easy, and I think I can get those workouts done within the time limits that are imposed, but, even so.

 

My thoughts at this point:

• I can recombine these movements into their original workouts. Sunday and Thursday can be Upper Body and Core days; I can throw the pistol work in on Thursday and it not negatively affect anything.
• I'll probably have to drop some of the warm up work in favor doing warm up sets of these movements instead, but given the integration of mobility in all this stuff, I don't think it'll be a problem.
• S&S. Whew. Buddy. I'm thinking Tuesdays and Saturdays still; I'll let myself autoregulate up or down depending on how I'm doing that day. Today, for instance, I'll probably go fast and heavy.
• Friday will still be handstand day, but TBH I don't think this will be a problem as handstands are generally done as an easy practice rather than something super stressful.

The other thing I need to focus down on is my diet. I'm digging into my blood numbers and I've realized that just by cutting down how much fat I was getting on average, I was able to get like 90% of what my doc wanted done, and this was even after I'd failed to mitigate my saturated fat intake. If I set an even lower average, that might just do everything I need it to do in terms of getting my blood work to improve while also getting my T where I'd like it to be (in other words, drawing from SFA sources in addition to MUFA sources).

 

I'm sure it sounds kind of silly to worry about this, but I am experiencing a lot of symptoms of it. I'm noticing it particularly in my mindset - I'm a lot more depressed these days than I normally am, and haven't been recovering from training particularly well. These aches and pains... these are not supposed to be normal.

 

I've been thinking about the trip to NYC, and how I lost so much weight. It was a lot of low intensity movement and such... but there was a huge amount of recovery between my intense bouts of training, and it was a really low stress environment. I can't help but wonder now, having dug even further into the research, if maybe the reason things went so well there in terms of getting lean and losing weight had to do with some hormonal shifts rather than just lots of walking. Also, diet: high fat, high carb, low protein; the research seems to suggest that this was a good environment for T production. Contrast that with my higher carb, lower fat, higher protein diet.

 

So I've had a lot to think about the past couple days and even though not that much has happened, I've had enough on my mind to make it feel like it's been a lot.

 

Anyway, time to drink some coffee, swing some bells, and then slice some dudes.