Intuflow (RPT 7, RPE 3, RPD 2)
Be Breathed (RPT 7/5, RPE 5, RPD 3)
Trinity Squats 1x5 (RPT 6, RPE 3, RPD 1)
Screwing Arm Pressups 1x5 (RPT 8, RPE 3, RPD 0)
Low Intensity day. As has been the trend, I'm pretty happy with my Intuflow. I pushed the effort up a little on the 4CBD, for no real reason. I do feel a bit more solid with it. Mrs. Chops declined to participate in Intuflow today, but she did do some Core Rhythms for a light workout.
For Be Breathed, I decided to skip the basic crunch, and move straight on to the plain situp. I did 10 of these, very, very sloooowly. After this, I did 5 Trinity Squats, where I was able to keep my feet flat on the floor all the way to the bottom of the squat. Then I did 10 Butterflies, although my form started noticeable deteriorating towards the end (the RPT 7 is for the situps, the 5 is for the Butterflies). Finally, I finished off with five Screwing Arm Pressups.
And I found this demo of the 4CBD on YouTube. John Sifferman is a stud, for sure. In the video you'll note that he shows three difficulty levels for each position. I'm only doing the the first level.
2009-04-08
"Losamat" and Other Developments
I think I've earned my Arabic points for today.
So, earlier today, I was working on those flash card revisions that I mentioned last night. There's this Arabic word that's been repeating itself in my head every few days for the last few weeks: losamat. For the life of me, I couldn't remember where I'd heard it, what it meant, or if it was even Arabic. I tried looking it up online, with no success. Solution: call Hussein and ask.
Problem: Hussein didn't answer his phone. This resulted in calls to Dhiya and Nadia, neither of whom answered their phones, either. I finally got a hold of Majd - the only remaining Arabic speaker I know - and he didn't recognize the word. This was all happening on my lunch break, so I had no choice but to go back into work without having my curiosity satisfied. When I got out of work, I had a message waiting from Hussein that said to call him back and tell him what the word was; but he didn't recognize it, and couldn't talk. Then I called Dhiya again and, much to my surprise, he asked me the specific word - which meant that he was right next to Hussein. Dhiya didn't recognize it either, but he told me he'd think about it and get back to me.
A while later, I finally got a hold of Nadia. After pronouncing it to her over the phone, about eight or ten times, she finally figured out what word I meant, and told me that it meant "excuse me" - not surprising, giving the level of Arabic instruction that I've undergone thus far. I thanked her, and then she abruptly got off the phone, and I'm actually still waiting for her to call back, which may or may not happen today. So, as I was looking it up online (it's amazing how much more you can get when you have a second piece to the puzzle), who would call back but Dhiya, with a couple of guesses as to what the word meant. I explained to him that someone had told me what it meant, and told him that it meant "excuse me", but that didn't register with him. After discussing his ideas, and then giving him a few of the pieces of information I'd found, it hit him, and he was able to explain the word in its entirety, and give me a spelling, which I was then able to plug into Google Translate in order to get a reasonable translation.
So, it's on a card, and entered into the vocabulary vending system that is my wire mesh card file. Even so, I doubt I'll be forgetting that word any time soon after all of this effort.
As I was flipping through my cards yesterday, trying to find the ones with errors, I decided that another thing that I need to do is make two separate classifications for the cards that I have: words and short phrases, and long phrases/sentences. A few of the long phrases are good, like نحن جند لله جند الوطن ("We are the army of God and of our land" - the national motto of Sudan); but overall, I think that sentences and phrases are of more use to me if I'm translating them and pulling them apart to figure out grammar, and I'm not quite to the point of being ready to do that on a regular basis yet. I've never been that good at memorizing full sentences, which is part of the reason that I only know a few short verses of scripture - most of which are now on those very flash cards that need their own category. So as I'm going through the cards over the next day or two, I'll pull the ones that have sentences or long phrases, and reclassify their numbers as "P1" and so on to denote that it's a "Phrase Card", and leave the cards with one or two words, or three- or four- word phrases, just as they are.
Some of the interesting words on the cards that I fixed today included:
جبل طارق - Jabal Tariq, "Mountain of Tariq", also known as Gibraltar
على اللقاع - ila alliqa, "to the bed", essentially "goodnight" or "see you later" - I think I've been misusing this one for several years.
أشهد أن لا إله إلاَّ الله و أشهد أن محمد رسول الله - Ashahadu al la ilaha illa Allah, wa ashahadu ana Mohammed rasul Allah, "I testify that there is no god but the God, and I testify that Mohammed is the prophet of the God", otherwise known as the Shahada - this is one of ones that will move to the "phrases" category.
So, I may do a bit more of that before I rack out tonight, but with all of this "lo samaht" business, I think I've done my bit for the day. I can't wait to have these damned note card revisions finished, because I think that once I can get started on doing the actual lessons, it'll take a lot less effort and it will feel a lot less like I have a huge project hanging over my head.
So, earlier today, I was working on those flash card revisions that I mentioned last night. There's this Arabic word that's been repeating itself in my head every few days for the last few weeks: losamat. For the life of me, I couldn't remember where I'd heard it, what it meant, or if it was even Arabic. I tried looking it up online, with no success. Solution: call Hussein and ask.
Problem: Hussein didn't answer his phone. This resulted in calls to Dhiya and Nadia, neither of whom answered their phones, either. I finally got a hold of Majd - the only remaining Arabic speaker I know - and he didn't recognize the word. This was all happening on my lunch break, so I had no choice but to go back into work without having my curiosity satisfied. When I got out of work, I had a message waiting from Hussein that said to call him back and tell him what the word was; but he didn't recognize it, and couldn't talk. Then I called Dhiya again and, much to my surprise, he asked me the specific word - which meant that he was right next to Hussein. Dhiya didn't recognize it either, but he told me he'd think about it and get back to me.
A while later, I finally got a hold of Nadia. After pronouncing it to her over the phone, about eight or ten times, she finally figured out what word I meant, and told me that it meant "excuse me" - not surprising, giving the level of Arabic instruction that I've undergone thus far. I thanked her, and then she abruptly got off the phone, and I'm actually still waiting for her to call back, which may or may not happen today. So, as I was looking it up online (it's amazing how much more you can get when you have a second piece to the puzzle), who would call back but Dhiya, with a couple of guesses as to what the word meant. I explained to him that someone had told me what it meant, and told him that it meant "excuse me", but that didn't register with him. After discussing his ideas, and then giving him a few of the pieces of information I'd found, it hit him, and he was able to explain the word in its entirety, and give me a spelling, which I was then able to plug into Google Translate in order to get a reasonable translation.
Word: لو سمحت
Transliteration: law samaht, lau semaht, lo samaht
Translation: "if allowed", "if you please"
So, it's on a card, and entered into the vocabulary vending system that is my wire mesh card file. Even so, I doubt I'll be forgetting that word any time soon after all of this effort.
As I was flipping through my cards yesterday, trying to find the ones with errors, I decided that another thing that I need to do is make two separate classifications for the cards that I have: words and short phrases, and long phrases/sentences. A few of the long phrases are good, like نحن جند لله جند الوطن ("We are the army of God and of our land" - the national motto of Sudan); but overall, I think that sentences and phrases are of more use to me if I'm translating them and pulling them apart to figure out grammar, and I'm not quite to the point of being ready to do that on a regular basis yet. I've never been that good at memorizing full sentences, which is part of the reason that I only know a few short verses of scripture - most of which are now on those very flash cards that need their own category. So as I'm going through the cards over the next day or two, I'll pull the ones that have sentences or long phrases, and reclassify their numbers as "P1" and so on to denote that it's a "Phrase Card", and leave the cards with one or two words, or three- or four- word phrases, just as they are.
Some of the interesting words on the cards that I fixed today included:
So, I may do a bit more of that before I rack out tonight, but with all of this "lo samaht" business, I think I've done my bit for the day. I can't wait to have these damned note card revisions finished, because I think that once I can get started on doing the actual lessons, it'll take a lot less effort and it will feel a lot less like I have a huge project hanging over my head.
2009-04-07
In dire need of sleep
Knife draw x 60, Grand Total: 3060
Kanji Review
Intuflow (RPT 7, RPE 3, RPD 1)
No Intensity day today. I weighed myself before dinner, and with all my clothes on and stuff in my pockets, it looks like I've lost about 1.5 kg since last time I stepped on the scale, which is about a week ago. Mrs. Chops is amazed, since she works out every night, and is slowly gaining weight. Thus, I have a new disciple. She has agreed to give me one month. During that time, she will follow my workout routine and listen to my advice. I just have to make sure she actually loses the weight now. You can be sure that I'm not going to let her miss any Intuflow sessions.
Tonight's Intuflow went pretty well. I'm uncovering some areas for improvement, such as elbow stability during my wrist circles, and a few other minor things. It's quite possible that I'll be ready to move on to Intermediate level Intuflow by the end of the month, but I doubt I'll move on if Mrs. Chops is still on Beginner level.
Knife draws on the hourglass tonight. I alternated triangles and directions. That is all.
Kanji Review
Intuflow (RPT 7, RPE 3, RPD 1)
No Intensity day today. I weighed myself before dinner, and with all my clothes on and stuff in my pockets, it looks like I've lost about 1.5 kg since last time I stepped on the scale, which is about a week ago. Mrs. Chops is amazed, since she works out every night, and is slowly gaining weight. Thus, I have a new disciple. She has agreed to give me one month. During that time, she will follow my workout routine and listen to my advice. I just have to make sure she actually loses the weight now. You can be sure that I'm not going to let her miss any Intuflow sessions.
Tonight's Intuflow went pretty well. I'm uncovering some areas for improvement, such as elbow stability during my wrist circles, and a few other minor things. It's quite possible that I'll be ready to move on to Intermediate level Intuflow by the end of the month, but I doubt I'll move on if Mrs. Chops is still on Beginner level.
Knife draws on the hourglass tonight. I alternated triangles and directions. That is all.
Baby Steps
I'm trying not to burn out again, so I'm approaching my return to the Ten Thousand Reps challenge (or whatever we've bastardized it to for my special situation) as a sort of "baby steps" engagement to ease me back into the routine. It's helped by some productivity on Saturday - not relating to this, but I was really productive with some errands I'd needed to run for a while, so I'm trying to maintain the productivity in other areas, such as my Arabic studies. Special thanks go out to the man, Chops, for continually belittling me in order to get me moving again.
So, anyway, the last couple of days I've been pretty successful about listening to the Quran. I personally think that the Quran is remarkably difficult to follow because it tends to jump from topic to topic without any sort of transition or connection, but I'm fortunate to have found a source in which the Quran is recited by a qari in Arabic, and then by another qari in English. Even if the Quran is difficult, Chops has encouraged me to listen as frequently as possible to any Arabic audio that I can find, and I figure it can only help. I'm pretty good at picking up words I know as I listen, though I'm not sure how good I am at picking up words that I'm not yet familiar with. Once or twice a week, I listen to podcasts of BBC Xtra, the BBC's Arabic programming, against my better judgment. (As I just showed Chops, one of their current offerings is on "Arafat's poisoning" - it's good to know that the BBC is now endorsing asinine Palestinian conspiracy theories.) I also listen to Radio Sawa and the BBC Arabic service on occasion, but it's tough to listen to for a long time because I eventually just start to zone it out - and in the case of Radio Sawa (an Arabic language radio station that's broadcast throughout the Middle East and funded by the US federal government), about half of their programming is intolerable American R&B music.
Just to show that I have been learning something over the past few months, "qari/قارئ" is Arabic for "reciter", and is used to denote one who has memorized and recites the Quran/القرآن. Note the similarity of the words. That's because "Quran" actually means "recitation", and thus the word changes from "The Recitation" (al Quran) to "one who recites" (qari). Part of what makes Arabic so challenging (and simultaneously rewarding) are these similarities, which are of course similar to other languages that modify one word to change its meaning. The interesting thing about Arabic is that most words are based on a three letter root, with different accents or letters interspersed and combined with prefixes or suffixes to change the meaning. I was actually the first person to figure that whole thing out in my Arabic class in college, but figuring that out doesn't do much to help you when the bottom line is memorizing miniscule differences between one word and another that's nearly identical.
So, anyway, I think I posted about my flash cards yesterday morning. I wanted to do fifty yesterday morning, and instead I did thirty. I came back from work yesterday afternoon and did another seventy, for a total of one hundred yesterday. This evening I reviewed the remaining flash cards, about one hundred twenty of them, searching for repeated words, flash cards that I accidentally left incomplete in one way or another, and any other cards that just needed fixing or replacing. I found something on the order of a dozen, two or three of which were quick fixes (a dot or two here or there). I ripped three or four of them so that I can completely replace them, one of which had a repeat of the Shahada (الشهادة); there are another two or three that just need to have the translation or pronunciation added or fixed on the back.
I have two goals at this point, which I intend to do in sequence, rather than trying to start them simultaneously. My first goal is to complete my flash cards. So far, I have all of Wikipedia's List of Christian terms in Arabic on flash cards, and some of Wikipedia's Glossary of Islamic terms in Arabic on flash cards. I want to finish the Islamic terms (which is several more pages of stuff), and a few other words that I've picked up here or there. Then, I want to go through the first chapter of my textbook, Ahlen wa Sahlan, and put the relevant vocabulary from the first couple of chapters on flash cards. I'll omit things like the letters of the alphabet, or the little non-words that they use to help you put letters together, but there are a handful of words in those first few chapters that should be on my flash cards.
Once I'm caught up on making flash cards - which will be no small feat - I want to get myself into a regimen of about fifty flash cards per day, twice a day, and two or three lessons per week out of the book. There's a set of CDs that I bought with the book, and each CD (there are ten) has three or four lessons on it that follow along with the lessons in the book. I think that the book has a total of about twenty lessons, of which I did ten when I was in the class, but have only reviewed the first couple of lessons once or twice in the (almost) four intervening years. If I can spend the rest of 2009 doing a lesson or two per week, studying flash cards on a daily or near-daily basis, and adding new words and phrases as I go, I think I'll be in pretty good shape come 2010. Not fluent by any means, but in very good shape nonetheless.
But, as I said at the beginning of the post: baby steps. That's why all I did today was scan and scour through one hundred twenty flash cards as the second step in the process of fixing and updating them. This is actually a personal growth experience for me, too, because I usually prefer to work on a project all at once. Now that I'm an adult with real responsibilities and a highly structured schedule, I'm learning that I can't do most projects all at once, and have to work on them one step at a time. This is one of those projects, so it's a learning experience for me to have to do this bit by bit. So, that's my lengthy update, and I promise that the next one will be a little bit shorter.
So, anyway, the last couple of days I've been pretty successful about listening to the Quran. I personally think that the Quran is remarkably difficult to follow because it tends to jump from topic to topic without any sort of transition or connection, but I'm fortunate to have found a source in which the Quran is recited by a qari in Arabic, and then by another qari in English. Even if the Quran is difficult, Chops has encouraged me to listen as frequently as possible to any Arabic audio that I can find, and I figure it can only help. I'm pretty good at picking up words I know as I listen, though I'm not sure how good I am at picking up words that I'm not yet familiar with. Once or twice a week, I listen to podcasts of BBC Xtra, the BBC's Arabic programming, against my better judgment. (As I just showed Chops, one of their current offerings is on "Arafat's poisoning" - it's good to know that the BBC is now endorsing asinine Palestinian conspiracy theories.) I also listen to Radio Sawa and the BBC Arabic service on occasion, but it's tough to listen to for a long time because I eventually just start to zone it out - and in the case of Radio Sawa (an Arabic language radio station that's broadcast throughout the Middle East and funded by the US federal government), about half of their programming is intolerable American R&B music.
Just to show that I have been learning something over the past few months, "qari/قارئ" is Arabic for "reciter", and is used to denote one who has memorized and recites the Quran/القرآن. Note the similarity of the words. That's because "Quran" actually means "recitation", and thus the word changes from "The Recitation" (al Quran) to "one who recites" (qari). Part of what makes Arabic so challenging (and simultaneously rewarding) are these similarities, which are of course similar to other languages that modify one word to change its meaning. The interesting thing about Arabic is that most words are based on a three letter root, with different accents or letters interspersed and combined with prefixes or suffixes to change the meaning. I was actually the first person to figure that whole thing out in my Arabic class in college, but figuring that out doesn't do much to help you when the bottom line is memorizing miniscule differences between one word and another that's nearly identical.
So, anyway, I think I posted about my flash cards yesterday morning. I wanted to do fifty yesterday morning, and instead I did thirty. I came back from work yesterday afternoon and did another seventy, for a total of one hundred yesterday. This evening I reviewed the remaining flash cards, about one hundred twenty of them, searching for repeated words, flash cards that I accidentally left incomplete in one way or another, and any other cards that just needed fixing or replacing. I found something on the order of a dozen, two or three of which were quick fixes (a dot or two here or there). I ripped three or four of them so that I can completely replace them, one of which had a repeat of the Shahada (الشهادة); there are another two or three that just need to have the translation or pronunciation added or fixed on the back.
I have two goals at this point, which I intend to do in sequence, rather than trying to start them simultaneously. My first goal is to complete my flash cards. So far, I have all of Wikipedia's List of Christian terms in Arabic on flash cards, and some of Wikipedia's Glossary of Islamic terms in Arabic on flash cards. I want to finish the Islamic terms (which is several more pages of stuff), and a few other words that I've picked up here or there. Then, I want to go through the first chapter of my textbook, Ahlen wa Sahlan, and put the relevant vocabulary from the first couple of chapters on flash cards. I'll omit things like the letters of the alphabet, or the little non-words that they use to help you put letters together, but there are a handful of words in those first few chapters that should be on my flash cards.
Once I'm caught up on making flash cards - which will be no small feat - I want to get myself into a regimen of about fifty flash cards per day, twice a day, and two or three lessons per week out of the book. There's a set of CDs that I bought with the book, and each CD (there are ten) has three or four lessons on it that follow along with the lessons in the book. I think that the book has a total of about twenty lessons, of which I did ten when I was in the class, but have only reviewed the first couple of lessons once or twice in the (almost) four intervening years. If I can spend the rest of 2009 doing a lesson or two per week, studying flash cards on a daily or near-daily basis, and adding new words and phrases as I go, I think I'll be in pretty good shape come 2010. Not fluent by any means, but in very good shape nonetheless.
But, as I said at the beginning of the post: baby steps. That's why all I did today was scan and scour through one hundred twenty flash cards as the second step in the process of fixing and updating them. This is actually a personal growth experience for me, too, because I usually prefer to work on a project all at once. Now that I'm an adult with real responsibilities and a highly structured schedule, I'm learning that I can't do most projects all at once, and have to work on them one step at a time. This is one of those projects, so it's a learning experience for me to have to do this bit by bit. So, that's my lengthy update, and I promise that the next one will be a little bit shorter.
2009-04-06
Wound up and ready to go
Knife draw x 30, Grand Total: 3000
Swedish in the Car
Kanji Review
Intuflow (RPT 7, RPE 2, RPD 1)
FlowFit (RPT 6, RPE 9, RPD 2)
Be Breathed (RPT 7, RPE 5, RPD 2)
Some pullups (well, negatives)
Mrs Chops and I did the first half of Intuflow while the kids were up and running around. I did the last half after my workout. She had gone into non-exercise mode by then, so she didn't finish with me. Felt good, though. However, I think I'm going to start revising my RPT numbers down. The more I do it, the more (minor) problems I see with my form. Nothing horribly wrong, just lots of room for improvement.
I set the timer for 18 minutes today, and I managed 16 reps. It actually took me 17:20, but I felt like dying so I didn't try to squeeze in another rep. Also, it looks like my old timing source was messed up, so disregard all time/rep pairings prior to this. 16 reps in 18 minutes is the new official benchmark. Medium intensity days will continue to be 15 minutes.
I did 10 butterflies after FlowFit to get my breathing under control. As expected, this worked like magic. Someday I'd like to explore the RESET methods, but for now, Be Breathed is working just fine. I felt a little soreness in my lower back on the 10th rep, but other than that, it went really well.
Finished up with some pullups. I did four or five (wasn't counting) with my legs on a chair. Then I did two negatives. I figured that was plenty of work for tonight.
Swedish in the Car
Kanji Review
Intuflow (RPT 7, RPE 2, RPD 1)
FlowFit (RPT 6, RPE 9, RPD 2)
Be Breathed (RPT 7, RPE 5, RPD 2)
Some pullups (well, negatives)
Mrs Chops and I did the first half of Intuflow while the kids were up and running around. I did the last half after my workout. She had gone into non-exercise mode by then, so she didn't finish with me. Felt good, though. However, I think I'm going to start revising my RPT numbers down. The more I do it, the more (minor) problems I see with my form. Nothing horribly wrong, just lots of room for improvement.
I set the timer for 18 minutes today, and I managed 16 reps. It actually took me 17:20, but I felt like dying so I didn't try to squeeze in another rep. Also, it looks like my old timing source was messed up, so disregard all time/rep pairings prior to this. 16 reps in 18 minutes is the new official benchmark. Medium intensity days will continue to be 15 minutes.
I did 10 butterflies after FlowFit to get my breathing under control. As expected, this worked like magic. Someday I'd like to explore the RESET methods, but for now, Be Breathed is working just fine. I felt a little soreness in my lower back on the 10th rep, but other than that, it went really well.
Finished up with some pullups. I did four or five (wasn't counting) with my legs on a chair. Then I did two negatives. I figured that was plenty of work for tonight.
What's the Arabic word for "hangover"?
I haven't been drinking - this, ladies and gentlemen (probably mostly gentlemen) is an "I fell off the Arabic study wagon again" hangover. As I was going through the cards the last few times (the last few times being some time in February, I think) and decided that I not only needed to make a ton of new cards (which I've literally been meaning to do for months now), but I needed to fix the old ones, too. I had a few repeat words, a few that were incomplete, and they just needed to be either fixed or destroyed in favor of new ones that weren't erroneous. (I'm a bit anal retentive, in case none of you had figured that out yet.
So, due to lots of peer pressure from Chops, I elected to go through fifty note cards first thing this morning. I got through thirty, which is better than none. I'm going to try to spend some time fixing the ones that are wrong, and making a few more, tonight when I get back from work. That's in among about ten other things that I need to do, and ten other things that I want to do, but if I invest the time once or twice, I won't have to for a long time after that... Sort of. Anyway, thanks for peer pressure, Chops. Keep it up.
Bottom line: thirty flash cards this morning, and hopefully a bunch more tonight.
So, due to lots of peer pressure from Chops, I elected to go through fifty note cards first thing this morning. I got through thirty, which is better than none. I'm going to try to spend some time fixing the ones that are wrong, and making a few more, tonight when I get back from work. That's in among about ten other things that I need to do, and ten other things that I want to do, but if I invest the time once or twice, I won't have to for a long time after that... Sort of. Anyway, thanks for peer pressure, Chops. Keep it up.
Bottom line: thirty flash cards this morning, and hopefully a bunch more tonight.
2009-04-05
What a wonderful weekend
Intuflow (RPT 8, RPE 2, RPD 1)
FlowFit (RPT 6, RPE 8, RPD 3)
Be Breathed (RPT 7, RPE 4, RPD 3)
Screwing Arm Pressups 1x5 (RPT 8, RPE 3, RPD 0)
I got Mrs Chops to do Intuflow with me today, the whole routine. I'm not sure she *liked* it, but she didn't seem to mind it. I'll try to get her to do it again tomorrow. For me, I felt my form was really on today, even the 4CBD. My hips seemed a little looser today, but not miraculously so.
FlowFit was hard. I did 10 reps in 15 minutes. I took a few breaks to get my breath back, and to try and bring RPE down to 7 or less, which didn't quite work. Still, it felt a small bit easier than last Medium day. I also tried to pay strict attention to my form today, and was rewarded with much improved trinity squats and the pre-"springing tripod" (I don't know what the early stage of that is called, but I suck at it). I tried to roll right into the deck squat from the spinal rock a couple times, but it didn't work. For extra fun, I tried keeping both hands on the ground during the (pre) leg swoop. My main problem there is that I'm too close to the wall on my right side, thus I can't straighten my left leg out.
I managed 10 full butterflies today, after 10 basic crunches. My back hurt a little afterward, but not as much as last time, which is encouraging. Doing Be Breathed after a hard FlowFit session is awesome - after 10 reps my breathing is almost normal again. Screwing arm pressups also went well. I did a little extra mobility work afterwards, mostly because I wanted to try a couple of things that I read about in the forums.
Overall, good workout, although a little higher intensity than it should have been, but that's just because my cardio is piss poor.
FlowFit (RPT 6, RPE 8, RPD 3)
Be Breathed (RPT 7, RPE 4, RPD 3)
Screwing Arm Pressups 1x5 (RPT 8, RPE 3, RPD 0)
I got Mrs Chops to do Intuflow with me today, the whole routine. I'm not sure she *liked* it, but she didn't seem to mind it. I'll try to get her to do it again tomorrow. For me, I felt my form was really on today, even the 4CBD. My hips seemed a little looser today, but not miraculously so.
FlowFit was hard. I did 10 reps in 15 minutes. I took a few breaks to get my breath back, and to try and bring RPE down to 7 or less, which didn't quite work. Still, it felt a small bit easier than last Medium day. I also tried to pay strict attention to my form today, and was rewarded with much improved trinity squats and the pre-"springing tripod" (I don't know what the early stage of that is called, but I suck at it). I tried to roll right into the deck squat from the spinal rock a couple times, but it didn't work. For extra fun, I tried keeping both hands on the ground during the (pre) leg swoop. My main problem there is that I'm too close to the wall on my right side, thus I can't straighten my left leg out.
I managed 10 full butterflies today, after 10 basic crunches. My back hurt a little afterward, but not as much as last time, which is encouraging. Doing Be Breathed after a hard FlowFit session is awesome - after 10 reps my breathing is almost normal again. Screwing arm pressups also went well. I did a little extra mobility work afterwards, mostly because I wanted to try a couple of things that I read about in the forums.
Overall, good workout, although a little higher intensity than it should have been, but that's just because my cardio is piss poor.
2009-04-04
On a Saturday?
Intuflow (RPT8, RPE 2, RPD 2)
Be Breathed (RPT 5, RPE 5, RPD 4)
Screwing Arm Pressups 1x5 (RPT 8, RPE 3, RPD 0)
Yep, on a Saturday. It's Low Intensity day, so I started with my Be Breathed (I really need to start with Intuflow, I know). I did ten of the basic crunch exercise, then 10 Butterflies. I managed real Butterflies today, for the first time. They weren't pretty, but I did them. Form really broke down around rep 7. That's the point that I noticed some minor pain in my lower back. This has been happening a bit lately, and I've got a few theories as to why, but the main point is that I think I need to visit the doctor at work and get it looked at.
Intflow went really well. That's all I've got to say about that. Next came some screwing pressups. I could probably have done another set or two, but it's a low intensity day, and I also want to build these up slowly, since they put a little stress on my joints than regular pushups. Finally, I did maybe 10 trinity squats, since that's a very important part of FlowFit. Head Coach Hurst posted tips for practicing this on his website. I just wanted to some practice with the movement. I'm still not able to stay flatfooted all the way down, but I'm getting close.
Be Breathed (RPT 5, RPE 5, RPD 4)
Screwing Arm Pressups 1x5 (RPT 8, RPE 3, RPD 0)
Yep, on a Saturday. It's Low Intensity day, so I started with my Be Breathed (I really need to start with Intuflow, I know). I did ten of the basic crunch exercise, then 10 Butterflies. I managed real Butterflies today, for the first time. They weren't pretty, but I did them. Form really broke down around rep 7. That's the point that I noticed some minor pain in my lower back. This has been happening a bit lately, and I've got a few theories as to why, but the main point is that I think I need to visit the doctor at work and get it looked at.
Intflow went really well. That's all I've got to say about that. Next came some screwing pressups. I could probably have done another set or two, but it's a low intensity day, and I also want to build these up slowly, since they put a little stress on my joints than regular pushups. Finally, I did maybe 10 trinity squats, since that's a very important part of FlowFit. Head Coach Hurst posted tips for practicing this on his website. I just wanted to some practice with the movement. I'm still not able to stay flatfooted all the way down, but I'm getting close.
2009-04-03
TGIF
Intuflow (RPT 7, RPE 2, RPD 3)
Yep, that's it. Today is a No Intensity day, so that explains the lack of workout, but I also didn't do anything else. My finger still hurts, so I'm going to let it rest over the weekend. I didn't do any Kanji studying, and I just had the radio on in the car. Sleepy time.
P.S. Welcome back, Hephaestus.
Yep, that's it. Today is a No Intensity day, so that explains the lack of workout, but I also didn't do anything else. My finger still hurts, so I'm going to let it rest over the weekend. I didn't do any Kanji studying, and I just had the radio on in the car. Sleepy time.
P.S. Welcome back, Hephaestus.
Yeah so...
I've been bad about this, and I don't mean like "Oh nurse I've been bad, give me another enema" but like I've been a slack ass r tard that needs a whole different brand of punishment. I've settled (once again) on two skills to keep me occupied for the rest of the year. Read on if you really want to know, hell, read on if you don't because let's face it...that copy of Twilight that you secretly bought at Blockbuster last night can wait Rikalonius.
Chops talked me in to learning a foreign language and by way of helping me out with it has picked it up as a secondary skill. I've been doing okay with the Svenska, the last few weeks have been jam packed with drama so I've fallen a little behind. I know how to hold a basic conversation and how to ask "Where the Hos at?". I've been working with the Pimsler audio method and have mastered the second lesson. My nine year old daughter has been picking it up as well, minus the "Hos" thing...but they can't make you proud all the time.
Why Swedish? Because Vikings kick ass and if you don't agree I will burn your women and rape your village...see, I still have a lot to learn. Oh, also, my family is descended from there. While looking over some swedish podcasts I ran across a guy that looks exactly like me, which is very motivating. If I am going to kill him and steal his identity to bone the hot girl beside him then I should probably speak the language.
I'm also working on professional development and am currently learning Python. There is an larger goal there which I will reveal at the end of the year. At present the only people that know are myself, Chops, and an Indian shaman from the Jersey Shore named Ned.
That's about it for now. I have booze to drink and a phone to root.
2009-04-02
Why can't today be Friday?
Knife draw x 30, Grand Total: 2940
Swedish Podcasts
Intuflow (RPT 7, RPE 2, RPD 1)
FlowFit (RPT 5, RPE 9, RPD 3)
Started out with Intuflow today. Felt pretty good, but I stopped after the 4CBD, since I would be doing spinal rocks and quad hops as a part of FlowFit. I did do the breathing squats and such after FlowFit, to try and get my breath back. I also re-did shoulders, elbows, and wrists after FlowFit, as compensation.
Since today was a High Intensity day, I did 18 minutes of FlowFit, which came out to 14 reps (I had just finished the first movement of rep 15, the quad hop, when time ran out). I felt relatively good about my technique, for the second time doing the exercises, except for two movements. One's kind of hard to describe, so I won't try. The other is a spinal rock to deck squat, which means you squat down until your butt is as low as it will go, then you roll backwards along your spine until you're up on your shoulders. Roll back forward, and when your feet hit the ground, continue the roll by standing straight up. Today I actually felt like I was closer to pulling it off than I was yesterday, but I have a feeling that it will still be a while before I can do it.
After FlowFit, I did one set of five screwing pressups, which is the basic RMAX sophistication of the regular pushup. This didn't feel bad at all, and since I'm not really taxing my chest or arms much with the current FlowFit exercises, I'll probably work on these, aiming for five sets of five reps.
Finally, after screwing pressups, I did some pullups. Sort of. I did one set of three negatives, with my feet on a chair to assist in the initial pull up to the bar. Then I did another set of two. Somewhere in all that, I also did a little Be Breathed. In fact, I managed a full Butterfly twice, but my lower back feels a little tender after FlowFit, so I decided not to overdo the Be Breathed today.
Only 30 knife draws again. I'm hoping that if I take it easy, the damn finger will heal. Also, no kanji today. My brain can't take it. Swedish was limited to listening to various podcasts as background noise at work.
Swedish Podcasts
Intuflow (RPT 7, RPE 2, RPD 1)
FlowFit (RPT 5, RPE 9, RPD 3)
Started out with Intuflow today. Felt pretty good, but I stopped after the 4CBD, since I would be doing spinal rocks and quad hops as a part of FlowFit. I did do the breathing squats and such after FlowFit, to try and get my breath back. I also re-did shoulders, elbows, and wrists after FlowFit, as compensation.
Since today was a High Intensity day, I did 18 minutes of FlowFit, which came out to 14 reps (I had just finished the first movement of rep 15, the quad hop, when time ran out). I felt relatively good about my technique, for the second time doing the exercises, except for two movements. One's kind of hard to describe, so I won't try. The other is a spinal rock to deck squat, which means you squat down until your butt is as low as it will go, then you roll backwards along your spine until you're up on your shoulders. Roll back forward, and when your feet hit the ground, continue the roll by standing straight up. Today I actually felt like I was closer to pulling it off than I was yesterday, but I have a feeling that it will still be a while before I can do it.
After FlowFit, I did one set of five screwing pressups, which is the basic RMAX sophistication of the regular pushup. This didn't feel bad at all, and since I'm not really taxing my chest or arms much with the current FlowFit exercises, I'll probably work on these, aiming for five sets of five reps.
Finally, after screwing pressups, I did some pullups. Sort of. I did one set of three negatives, with my feet on a chair to assist in the initial pull up to the bar. Then I did another set of two. Somewhere in all that, I also did a little Be Breathed. In fact, I managed a full Butterfly twice, but my lower back feels a little tender after FlowFit, so I decided not to overdo the Be Breathed today.
Only 30 knife draws again. I'm hoping that if I take it easy, the damn finger will heal. Also, no kanji today. My brain can't take it. Swedish was limited to listening to various podcasts as background noise at work.
2009-04-01
New Beginning?
Knife draw x 30, Grand Total: 2910
Kanji Review
Swedish Podcasts in the Car
FlowFit (RPT 5, RPE 8, RPD 4)
Be Breathed
Intuflow (RPT 6, RPE 2, RPD 3)
Well, it was supposed to be a Moderate Intensity day, but I seem to have hit High Intensity levels of effort. Which is sad, considering that I did somewhere between 10-12 rounds of FlowFit in 15 minutes. I lost count after 5, and they didn't start going any faster. I tried doing a little Be Breathed work afterwards, just to groove the movements. After that, I started Intuflow. I got about halfway through, then decided that I really should sit down and catch my breath. I finished up after a 15 minute rest. Note to self: next time, do Intuflow *before* the workout.
I only did 30 knife reps today. My latest eczema outbreak has really done a number on the inside of my middle finger. Every time I gripped the knife, post draw, it felt like I was stabbing myself in the finger. On every spot that was in contact with the knife handle. So I only toughed it out to 30.
Kanji Review
Swedish Podcasts in the Car
FlowFit (RPT 5, RPE 8, RPD 4)
Be Breathed
Intuflow (RPT 6, RPE 2, RPD 3)
Well, it was supposed to be a Moderate Intensity day, but I seem to have hit High Intensity levels of effort. Which is sad, considering that I did somewhere between 10-12 rounds of FlowFit in 15 minutes. I lost count after 5, and they didn't start going any faster. I tried doing a little Be Breathed work afterwards, just to groove the movements. After that, I started Intuflow. I got about halfway through, then decided that I really should sit down and catch my breath. I finished up after a 15 minute rest. Note to self: next time, do Intuflow *before* the workout.
I only did 30 knife reps today. My latest eczema outbreak has really done a number on the inside of my middle finger. Every time I gripped the knife, post draw, it felt like I was stabbing myself in the finger. On every spot that was in contact with the knife handle. So I only toughed it out to 30.
2009-03-31
Last day of March
Knife draw x 60, Grand Total: 2880
Kanji Review
Intuflow (RPT 8, RPE 3, RPD 2)
Well, just as I thought would happen, by the time I get a chance to do my reps, I was exhausted. So I only did 60, and I won't get to make 3000 until later this week. It also occurs to me that in my OKRs, I didn't say anything about the knife stuff. So my concentration for Q2 knife work is drawing on the move. I'll start tomorrow with walking the hourglass and drawing. I should probably get out the sword and work my Atienza targeting chains too, because I'm sure they're rusty.
Intuflow went very well. I went deep into the movements. Even my 4CBD felt pretty good, although that's still the only place with significant discomfort. I'm sure I'll get these hip flexors un-knotted eventually. I got Mrs Chops to do all of the spinal movements, for the second day this week, which she needs. I keep trying to talk her into doing the rest of it, but the video is long (lots of excellent explanations), and she's trying to fit this in after the kids go to bed and her Billy's Boot Camp workout, and before her own bath. There's just not a lot of time for working out in the evenings. Still, I'll keep pestering her. Once you've seen the video and heard the explanations a few times, it only takes 15 minutes to run through the routine. Maybe I'll try getting her to add one new movement per day.
Kanji Review
Intuflow (RPT 8, RPE 3, RPD 2)
Well, just as I thought would happen, by the time I get a chance to do my reps, I was exhausted. So I only did 60, and I won't get to make 3000 until later this week. It also occurs to me that in my OKRs, I didn't say anything about the knife stuff. So my concentration for Q2 knife work is drawing on the move. I'll start tomorrow with walking the hourglass and drawing. I should probably get out the sword and work my Atienza targeting chains too, because I'm sure they're rusty.
Intuflow went very well. I went deep into the movements. Even my 4CBD felt pretty good, although that's still the only place with significant discomfort. I'm sure I'll get these hip flexors un-knotted eventually. I got Mrs Chops to do all of the spinal movements, for the second day this week, which she needs. I keep trying to talk her into doing the rest of it, but the video is long (lots of excellent explanations), and she's trying to fit this in after the kids go to bed and her Billy's Boot Camp workout, and before her own bath. There's just not a lot of time for working out in the evenings. Still, I'll keep pestering her. Once you've seen the video and heard the explanations a few times, it only takes 15 minutes to run through the routine. Maybe I'll try getting her to add one new movement per day.
Quick follow-up
For record keeping purposes, last night's Intuflow was RPT 6, RPE 3, RPD 1. As usual, I felt pretty good about RPT on most of the movements, with trouble on the 4CBD (although I kept the legs lower, as I have been doing, and it seems to be helping) . I also felt like my Shoulder-Elbow-Wrist arm waves were a little off, so I'll try to pay more attention to my form there tonight.
Since I'm just shy of 3000 reps for the month, I'm considering cranking out 180 knife reps tonight. Of course, that's easy to say right now. We'll see how I feel once the boys have gone to bed tonight.
You'll have to scroll down, but I also added the hundred pushups/two hundred situps badges to the sidebar. :)
Since I'm just shy of 3000 reps for the month, I'm considering cranking out 180 knife reps tonight. Of course, that's easy to say right now. We'll see how I feel once the boys have gone to bed tonight.
You'll have to scroll down, but I also added the hundred pushups/two hundred situps badges to the sidebar. :)
2009-03-30
Done and Done
Knife draw x 60, Grand Total: 2820
100 Pushups
Be Breathed
Kanji Review
Swedish in the car
Intuflow
Yep, I hit my 100 today. I had to stop for a breather at 75, and the form went to crap after that, but I hit 100, dammit. I suppose I'll add the neat little gif badges to the sidebar shortly.
For Be Breathed, I found a neat tutorial that gives you a progression to follow in order to get to Butterfly. I did 10 reps of 3 of the movements, then 10 reps of the basic crunch, and 10 more of the crunching situp. I think I might need to do more slower reps of the last two exercises, though. My big ole gut gets in the way of full lumbar spinal articulation, so I'm not getting the full movement. I think that if I take it slower and concentrate on the contraction, I can get better articulation. So, overall, RPE 6, RPT 5 (although a little higher on the initial exercises), and RPD 2. Not too shabby.
Added some new Kanji to the mix today. And I started lesson 5 again for Swedish. I like lesson 5. It makes me feel like I'm starting to get somewhere with the language, but this is probably mostly an illusion.
No RPE/RPT/RPD for Intuflow because I haven't done it yet. I wanted to crank this post out while I was thinking about it.
100 Pushups
Be Breathed
Kanji Review
Swedish in the car
Intuflow
Yep, I hit my 100 today. I had to stop for a breather at 75, and the form went to crap after that, but I hit 100, dammit. I suppose I'll add the neat little gif badges to the sidebar shortly.
For Be Breathed, I found a neat tutorial that gives you a progression to follow in order to get to Butterfly. I did 10 reps of 3 of the movements, then 10 reps of the basic crunch, and 10 more of the crunching situp. I think I might need to do more slower reps of the last two exercises, though. My big ole gut gets in the way of full lumbar spinal articulation, so I'm not getting the full movement. I think that if I take it slower and concentrate on the contraction, I can get better articulation. So, overall, RPE 6, RPT 5 (although a little higher on the initial exercises), and RPD 2. Not too shabby.
Added some new Kanji to the mix today. And I started lesson 5 again for Swedish. I like lesson 5. It makes me feel like I'm starting to get somewhere with the language, but this is probably mostly an illusion.
No RPE/RPT/RPD for Intuflow because I haven't done it yet. I wanted to crank this post out while I was thinking about it.
2009-03-27
Potential Failure on the Horizon
Kanji Review
Swedish in the car
This week has finally caught up with me. I tried to make myself do pushups, but the sad fact is that I'm burning out on them. I honestly don't even care if I make my 100 pushups goal on Monday. I'm glad that I've already figured out where I'm going to take my workouts, or this might have been enough to derail me for a while. So on the 1st of April, I'm moving on to my planned 4x7, regardless of my 100 pushups status. If I don't make it, maybe I'll revisit the goal sometime in the future, but I'll probably not be going back to the 100 pushups routine itself. Maybe that'll be the impetus to give RMAX more money, for their Forward Pressure program.
I do, however, feel pretty good about today's Swedish lessons. I was able to concentrate a little more than I have been this week. I also moved on to lesson 5, which seems to have more useful material, which is cool.
Another bright spot is that I've finally talked Mrs Chops into trying Intuflow. She's got a history of back problems, so this should help her quite a bit.
Swedish in the car
This week has finally caught up with me. I tried to make myself do pushups, but the sad fact is that I'm burning out on them. I honestly don't even care if I make my 100 pushups goal on Monday. I'm glad that I've already figured out where I'm going to take my workouts, or this might have been enough to derail me for a while. So on the 1st of April, I'm moving on to my planned 4x7, regardless of my 100 pushups status. If I don't make it, maybe I'll revisit the goal sometime in the future, but I'll probably not be going back to the 100 pushups routine itself. Maybe that'll be the impetus to give RMAX more money, for their Forward Pressure program.
I do, however, feel pretty good about today's Swedish lessons. I was able to concentrate a little more than I have been this week. I also moved on to lesson 5, which seems to have more useful material, which is cool.
Another bright spot is that I've finally talked Mrs Chops into trying Intuflow. She's got a history of back problems, so this should help her quite a bit.
2009-03-26
It's important to have a goal
Knife draw x 60, Grand Total: 2760
Kanji Review
Swedish in the Car
Feeling very sleepy today. Again. I came very close to skipping today's reps. The good news is that I listened to Swedish both to and from work. And I found two new Swedish podcasts to listen to when I don't want to listen to lessons. The bad news is that it's my third time through the same lesson, and it's just not sticking. I'm going to have to try to pay more attention next time through.
So it's almost the end of the quarter, so I figure it's time to reveal next quarter's goals. I've put them in the format we use at work, which I kind of like.
2009Q2 Fitness OKR's.
Objective: Improve pulling strength and compensate for last quarter's emphasis on pushing strength (P1)
* Key Result: Do 20 consecutive pullups
Objective: Improve level of General Physical Preparedness and cardio work capacity in order to participate in beginner level Parkour workouts (P0)
* Key Result: FlowFit level 2, 20 cycles in 20 minutes
* Run one mile in 7:30
* Achieve RPT 6, RPD < 3 for 4 Corner Balance Drill (Beginner level version)
Objective: Maintain gains made in Q1 (P2)
* Perform the first three movements of "Be Breathed" for 10 reps each
* Work up to five sets of five reps for the first two movements of "Beyond Pushups"
Hmmm...now that I look at it, it doesn't look like much. Maybe I should make it tougher. The original idea was just to hit the 20 pullups mark. Then, I remembered that a while back, I got interested in parkour, but I was too much of a lazy fatty to do anything with it. Well, now I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, which has a strong parkour community, and I'm actually getting in shape. The locals have introductory beginner's classes for free in various Bay Area locations a few times a month, so I'm aiming to be fit enough to participate in some of these at the end of this quarter.
Kanji Review
Swedish in the Car
Feeling very sleepy today. Again. I came very close to skipping today's reps. The good news is that I listened to Swedish both to and from work. And I found two new Swedish podcasts to listen to when I don't want to listen to lessons. The bad news is that it's my third time through the same lesson, and it's just not sticking. I'm going to have to try to pay more attention next time through.
So it's almost the end of the quarter, so I figure it's time to reveal next quarter's goals. I've put them in the format we use at work, which I kind of like.
2009Q2 Fitness OKR's.
Objective: Improve pulling strength and compensate for last quarter's emphasis on pushing strength (P1)
* Key Result: Do 20 consecutive pullups
Objective: Improve level of General Physical Preparedness and cardio work capacity in order to participate in beginner level Parkour workouts (P0)
* Key Result: FlowFit level 2, 20 cycles in 20 minutes
* Run one mile in 7:30
* Achieve RPT 6, RPD < 3 for 4 Corner Balance Drill (Beginner level version)
Objective: Maintain gains made in Q1 (P2)
* Perform the first three movements of "Be Breathed" for 10 reps each
* Work up to five sets of five reps for the first two movements of "Beyond Pushups"
Hmmm...now that I look at it, it doesn't look like much. Maybe I should make it tougher. The original idea was just to hit the 20 pullups mark. Then, I remembered that a while back, I got interested in parkour, but I was too much of a lazy fatty to do anything with it. Well, now I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, which has a strong parkour community, and I'm actually getting in shape. The locals have introductory beginner's classes for free in various Bay Area locations a few times a month, so I'm aiming to be fit enough to participate in some of these at the end of this quarter.
2009-03-25
Not quite ready for the final
Knife draw x 60, Grand Total: 2700
Pushups 6-2
Intuflow (RPT 6, RPE 3, RPD 3)
Be Breathed
Kanji Review
No Swedish again today. Just too tired to concentrate on it. And I'm writing "Kanji Review" in good faith, I'm hoping to do some after I finish writing this.
Today's Intuflow wasn't spectacular. I kept slipping out of mindfulness and into auto pilot. Consequently, I pushed a little too hard on the 4CBD. It wasn't too bad, though. For Be Breathed, I did 15 reps of the basic crunch (RPT 9, RPE 3, RPD 1), then 15 of the situp (7, 4, 1), then somewhere less than 10 of attempting to do the butterfly (2, 6, 2). I also did another 5-6 reps of half-assed butterfly attempts after Intuflow (2, 7, 2).
I did pretty good for the first seven sets of pushups, keeping strict with the 45 seconds of rest between sets. The last set had a min of 45, and I had to drop to my knees after 18 or 19. I hit failure a couple of times before I hit 45, but I also pressed on to get 56 before I had a double failure.
Pushups 6-2
Intuflow (RPT 6, RPE 3, RPD 3)
Be Breathed
Kanji Review
No Swedish again today. Just too tired to concentrate on it. And I'm writing "Kanji Review" in good faith, I'm hoping to do some after I finish writing this.
Today's Intuflow wasn't spectacular. I kept slipping out of mindfulness and into auto pilot. Consequently, I pushed a little too hard on the 4CBD. It wasn't too bad, though. For Be Breathed, I did 15 reps of the basic crunch (RPT 9, RPE 3, RPD 1), then 15 of the situp (7, 4, 1), then somewhere less than 10 of attempting to do the butterfly (2, 6, 2). I also did another 5-6 reps of half-assed butterfly attempts after Intuflow (2, 7, 2).
I did pretty good for the first seven sets of pushups, keeping strict with the 45 seconds of rest between sets. The last set had a min of 45, and I had to drop to my knees after 18 or 19. I hit failure a couple of times before I hit 45, but I also pressed on to get 56 before I had a double failure.
Almost forgot
Knife draw x 60, Grand Total: 2640
Intuflow (RPT 7, RPE 2, RPD 2)
Kanji Review
Swedish in the car
I only did Swedish on the way to work. I was too brain-fried on the way home for it. And I've got a huge backlog of Kanji review from skipping it for five days, so I didn't get all the way through it.
Intuflow went well. My form was really good on most parts, but not so great on others. I took it nice and slow, and for quite a few of the movements, I upped the reps to 5 instead of 3. The shoulder circles felt awesome. For the 4CBD, I kept the legs lower than usual to ease off the discomfort, which is what I should have been doing since the beginning. That seemed to help. Also, for some reason I was feeling very tight in the thoracic spine, and I couldn't seem to work it out.
Intuflow (RPT 7, RPE 2, RPD 2)
Kanji Review
Swedish in the car
I only did Swedish on the way to work. I was too brain-fried on the way home for it. And I've got a huge backlog of Kanji review from skipping it for five days, so I didn't get all the way through it.
Intuflow went well. My form was really good on most parts, but not so great on others. I took it nice and slow, and for quite a few of the movements, I upped the reps to 5 instead of 3. The shoulder circles felt awesome. For the 4CBD, I kept the legs lower than usual to ease off the discomfort, which is what I should have been doing since the beginning. That seemed to help. Also, for some reason I was feeling very tight in the thoracic spine, and I couldn't seem to work it out.
2009-03-23
Better living through chemistry
Knife draw x 60, Grand Total: 2580
Pushups 6-1
Be Breathed
Intuflow (RPT 9, RPE 2, RPD 2)
Wow, what a hellish weekend. Munchkin #2 was apparently still mad at Mrs. Chops and I for letting the doc take out pieces of this throat, so in retaliation, he didn't let us sleep. Personally, this morning I was still at single digit hours of sleep for the weekend. Mrs. Chops was even worse off. I pounded somewhere near a case of various caffeinated sodas at work today before taking M2 in for his post-op checkup. The good news is that everything is healing up as well as can be expected. The nurse practitioner said that if he's cranky, we can dope him up more. Yay for pharmaceuticals.
In light of all of this, I was sorely tempted to skip another workout (Friday was the first time I skipped reps in a month). But I walked into the living room after putting the kids to bed to find Mrs. Chops working out along with Billy Blanks. And I realized that even though she had less rest than me, she hadn't missed a single workout all weekend. So I sucked it up and did the work.
Day 6-1 of pushups was much easier than last week, even though I only got two days in last week. Still, I only got 23 on the max set (min is 40) before I had to drop to my knees and do "girl" pushups. I hit muscle failure at 30 and again at 38. I managed to get to 40 on the next try and stopped there. I did do another max set later in the evening, and only managed 13. I'm going to get my 100 pushups next week, I can feel it.
Instead of situps, I started on the RMAX Be Breathed workout. I've had this video for a long time, and have done it a little every now and again. I started with about 20 reps of the basic crunch type exercise, then did about 15 reps of a very half-assed "butterfly". It turns out that I'm too fat to lift my legs over my head without some momentum. Which is fine, since I can't really relax into the final butterfly position anyway with this big ole gut in the way. So I'm going to concentrate on this movement for the time being. If anybody is curious about it, I can give a more detailed description of the exercises involved in Be Breathed. Just ask.
Finally IntuFlow was awesome today. I don't know if it's the exhaustion or what, but I felt like I was able to really relax into the movements. My form felt like it was really on today. The only minor hiccup is the 4CBD, which I've mentioned before as being difficult for me. My legs are very big, so they're heavy to hold out in the air like that. And I've historically had tight hips, so when I stick my foot out to the side, I can feel my hip flexors knotting up. It's annoying, but it's pretty mild, and the only discomfort I had during the whole session.
And no, no Kanji or Swedish today. I needed Opeth to wake me up on my morning drive, and I had a hard enough time concentrating on the road without trying to repeat phrases. On the other hand, maybe it would have made for some nice subliminal programming.
Pushups 6-1
Be Breathed
Intuflow (RPT 9, RPE 2, RPD 2)
Wow, what a hellish weekend. Munchkin #2 was apparently still mad at Mrs. Chops and I for letting the doc take out pieces of this throat, so in retaliation, he didn't let us sleep. Personally, this morning I was still at single digit hours of sleep for the weekend. Mrs. Chops was even worse off. I pounded somewhere near a case of various caffeinated sodas at work today before taking M2 in for his post-op checkup. The good news is that everything is healing up as well as can be expected. The nurse practitioner said that if he's cranky, we can dope him up more. Yay for pharmaceuticals.
In light of all of this, I was sorely tempted to skip another workout (Friday was the first time I skipped reps in a month). But I walked into the living room after putting the kids to bed to find Mrs. Chops working out along with Billy Blanks. And I realized that even though she had less rest than me, she hadn't missed a single workout all weekend. So I sucked it up and did the work.
Day 6-1 of pushups was much easier than last week, even though I only got two days in last week. Still, I only got 23 on the max set (min is 40) before I had to drop to my knees and do "girl" pushups. I hit muscle failure at 30 and again at 38. I managed to get to 40 on the next try and stopped there. I did do another max set later in the evening, and only managed 13. I'm going to get my 100 pushups next week, I can feel it.
Instead of situps, I started on the RMAX Be Breathed workout. I've had this video for a long time, and have done it a little every now and again. I started with about 20 reps of the basic crunch type exercise, then did about 15 reps of a very half-assed "butterfly". It turns out that I'm too fat to lift my legs over my head without some momentum. Which is fine, since I can't really relax into the final butterfly position anyway with this big ole gut in the way. So I'm going to concentrate on this movement for the time being. If anybody is curious about it, I can give a more detailed description of the exercises involved in Be Breathed. Just ask.
Finally IntuFlow was awesome today. I don't know if it's the exhaustion or what, but I felt like I was able to really relax into the movements. My form felt like it was really on today. The only minor hiccup is the 4CBD, which I've mentioned before as being difficult for me. My legs are very big, so they're heavy to hold out in the air like that. And I've historically had tight hips, so when I stick my foot out to the side, I can feel my hip flexors knotting up. It's annoying, but it's pretty mild, and the only discomfort I had during the whole session.
And no, no Kanji or Swedish today. I needed Opeth to wake me up on my morning drive, and I had a hard enough time concentrating on the road without trying to repeat phrases. On the other hand, maybe it would have made for some nice subliminal programming.
2009-03-19
Motivation-ectomy
Knife draw x 60, Grand Total: 2520
Kanji Review
Today, I had to take my three year old to the hospital for a tonsillectomy, adenectomy, and bilateral myringotomy. In plain English, that's "Tonsils removed", "Adenoids partially removed", and "Tubes put in each ear". The high point of the day was watching him get high before they knocked him out. He was not too happy once he woke up though. He didn't stop being completely cranky until shortly before bed time. Hopefully tomorrow is better.
Thanks to spending most of the day at the hospital (Lucille Packard is an awesome children's hospital, by the way), I didn't really feel very motivated today. I did my 60 reps, but I'm just going to skip out on Intuflow today. I also didn't have a chance for any Swedish, since I normally listen to it on my commute to work. I'm going to maybe eat a plate of nachos and go to sleep. Yes, I know how healthy that isn't. Bite me.
Kanji Review
Today, I had to take my three year old to the hospital for a tonsillectomy, adenectomy, and bilateral myringotomy. In plain English, that's "Tonsils removed", "Adenoids partially removed", and "Tubes put in each ear". The high point of the day was watching him get high before they knocked him out. He was not too happy once he woke up though. He didn't stop being completely cranky until shortly before bed time. Hopefully tomorrow is better.
Thanks to spending most of the day at the hospital (Lucille Packard is an awesome children's hospital, by the way), I didn't really feel very motivated today. I did my 60 reps, but I'm just going to skip out on Intuflow today. I also didn't have a chance for any Swedish, since I normally listen to it on my commute to work. I'm going to maybe eat a plate of nachos and go to sleep. Yes, I know how healthy that isn't. Bite me.
2009-03-18
So, uh, it's not a big deal, but...
Knife draw x 60, Grand Total: 2460
Kanji Review
200 Situps
100 Pushups
Intuflow (RPT 7, RPE 4, RPD 2)
Swedish in the car
Yep, I was feeling a bit froggy today, so I did a warm up set of 33 situps, then the next set I just went for 200. And I got it. I had to stop and take a breath a couple of times, but none of those breaks were longer than five seconds. I'm going to do it again on Friday, hopefully with less breathing breaks, but my natural situp cadence makes it difficult to get a good inhale.
After that, I kind of felt I had to go for the 100 pushups as well. Those didn't go as smoothly. I had to stop for a breather three or four times, and on each of these I had to put my knees down. I think that means that I didn't actually do 100 consecutive pushups, so I'll damn sure be doing this again on Friday (and quite likely Monday next week as well). I did additional sets of pushups before and after my Intuflow session.
Speaking of Intuflow, I watched it today and made myself a list of the movements, so I'd have a cheat sheet. Turns out I missed more than I'd thought yesterday. I did the real whole thing today. RPT was pretty good, except for the Four Corner Balance Drill (hereafter referred to as 4CBD). I'm horrible at the 4CBD, always have been. My form was bad, and it knotted up my hip flexors. I guess I'm going to have to try to do the 4CBD everyday, so that it's not so sucky.
I think I'm done drafting up my Q2 fitness goals. I'll be unveiling them here in the next week or so, and scoring this quarter's goals. I've also decided to give myself some incentives this quarter. If I stick to the 4x7 for two cycles, then I'll buy myself the Bodyweight Revolution ebook by Coaches Murdock and Steer. I would require all three 4x7 cycles, but I want to read through the book before coming up with Q3's workout plans. Also, if I stick with my fitness plans through November, I'll buy myself the RMAX Tacfit program as a Christmas present. Looks like I've got a long year ahead of me. I hope I can count on your support to get me there.
Kanji Review
200 Situps
100 Pushups
Intuflow (RPT 7, RPE 4, RPD 2)
Swedish in the car
Yep, I was feeling a bit froggy today, so I did a warm up set of 33 situps, then the next set I just went for 200. And I got it. I had to stop and take a breath a couple of times, but none of those breaks were longer than five seconds. I'm going to do it again on Friday, hopefully with less breathing breaks, but my natural situp cadence makes it difficult to get a good inhale.
After that, I kind of felt I had to go for the 100 pushups as well. Those didn't go as smoothly. I had to stop for a breather three or four times, and on each of these I had to put my knees down. I think that means that I didn't actually do 100 consecutive pushups, so I'll damn sure be doing this again on Friday (and quite likely Monday next week as well). I did additional sets of pushups before and after my Intuflow session.
Speaking of Intuflow, I watched it today and made myself a list of the movements, so I'd have a cheat sheet. Turns out I missed more than I'd thought yesterday. I did the real whole thing today. RPT was pretty good, except for the Four Corner Balance Drill (hereafter referred to as 4CBD). I'm horrible at the 4CBD, always have been. My form was bad, and it knotted up my hip flexors. I guess I'm going to have to try to do the 4CBD everyday, so that it's not so sucky.
I think I'm done drafting up my Q2 fitness goals. I'll be unveiling them here in the next week or so, and scoring this quarter's goals. I've also decided to give myself some incentives this quarter. If I stick to the 4x7 for two cycles, then I'll buy myself the Bodyweight Revolution ebook by Coaches Murdock and Steer. I would require all three 4x7 cycles, but I want to read through the book before coming up with Q3's workout plans. Also, if I stick with my fitness plans through November, I'll buy myself the RMAX Tacfit program as a Christmas present. Looks like I've got a long year ahead of me. I hope I can count on your support to get me there.
2009-03-17
The lull
Knife draw x 60, Grand Total: 2400
Kanji Review
Swedish in the car
Intuflow beginner level, RPE 3, RPT 7, RPD 1
You might notice that there's no /WW after the Intuflow. I did a full, real Intuflow session, I think. I may have forgot one or two movements, but other than that, I did the whole thing.
Also, knife stuff done with my new training knife. It actually opens a bit smoother than my real knife, probably because it doesn't have 2400 draws on it. Makes me think that maybe it's time to clean and oil the bearing on my daily carry.
Tired. Going to bed.
Kanji Review
Swedish in the car
Intuflow beginner level, RPE 3, RPT 7, RPD 1
You might notice that there's no /WW after the Intuflow. I did a full, real Intuflow session, I think. I may have forgot one or two movements, but other than that, I did the whole thing.
Also, knife stuff done with my new training knife. It actually opens a bit smoother than my real knife, probably because it doesn't have 2400 draws on it. Makes me think that maybe it's time to clean and oil the bearing on my daily carry.
Tired. Going to bed.
2009-03-16
Almost test time
Knife draw x 60, Grand Total: 2340
Pushups 6-1
Situps 6-1
Kanji Review
Intuflow/WW
No Swedish today, I just wasn't in the mood. I hope to get back in the mood tomorrow, since I might be having lunch with a Swede at work sometime this week. He's agreed to help me out with some grammar.
For pushups, I skipped out on the last set, the max set. Today was back to five sets, and they were long. I had planned on doing extra failure sets after situps, like last week, but I think I'm just going to take it easy today. No need to push myself too hard. My body's telling me to ease up a little, so I am. Today.
The max set for situps was nuts. I did 160 situps. This is after doing a total of 252 in the first four sets. I don't think I'll have a problem hitting the goal next week for situps. Which is good. Doing a lot of high-rep sets for situps is actually getting boring.
Knife stuff is knife stuff. I haven't talked about it much lately, at least not since discovering Ray Floro. I've been practicing drawing up in his ready stance. Today I did that, and then some draw and jab, then some Southnarc style draw and jab as well.
Pushups 6-1
Situps 6-1
Kanji Review
Intuflow/WW
No Swedish today, I just wasn't in the mood. I hope to get back in the mood tomorrow, since I might be having lunch with a Swede at work sometime this week. He's agreed to help me out with some grammar.
For pushups, I skipped out on the last set, the max set. Today was back to five sets, and they were long. I had planned on doing extra failure sets after situps, like last week, but I think I'm just going to take it easy today. No need to push myself too hard. My body's telling me to ease up a little, so I am. Today.
The max set for situps was nuts. I did 160 situps. This is after doing a total of 252 in the first four sets. I don't think I'll have a problem hitting the goal next week for situps. Which is good. Doing a lot of high-rep sets for situps is actually getting boring.
Knife stuff is knife stuff. I haven't talked about it much lately, at least not since discovering Ray Floro. I've been practicing drawing up in his ready stance. Today I did that, and then some draw and jab, then some Southnarc style draw and jab as well.
2009-03-13
I need a weekend, badly
Knife draw x 60, Grand Total: 2280
Pushups 5-3
Situps 5-3
Intuflow/WW
Kanji Review
Swedish in the car
I actually did better on pushups today during the last few sets than I did on Wednesday, despite there being slightly more reps in each set, so I think my overkill extra failure sets helped. In that light, I did them again tonight. Sadly, I didn't get as many reps on them this time. I might do another before I go to bed. It's a good hurt, really. Of course, it was really difficult to do the knife work after this. Okay, bed time.
Pushups 5-3
Situps 5-3
Intuflow/WW
Kanji Review
Swedish in the car
I actually did better on pushups today during the last few sets than I did on Wednesday, despite there being slightly more reps in each set, so I think my overkill extra failure sets helped. In that light, I did them again tonight. Sadly, I didn't get as many reps on them this time. I might do another before I go to bed. It's a good hurt, really. Of course, it was really difficult to do the knife work after this. Okay, bed time.
2009-03-12
The Great Outdoors
Knife draw x 60, Grand Total: 2220
Kanji Review
Intuflow/WW
No Swedish today. I just wasn't in the mood. I did find a native Swedish speaker at work who's willing to have lunch with me and explain some grammar weirdness, so that's good.
For something different, today I did my knife reps outside. My four year old was out in the back yard playing, so I hung a tennis ball from a tree with some para cord and practiced draw and jab. My accuracy kind of sucks, actually. I also did some shadow boxing in between reps, hitting the ball with both fist and knife. That's the sort of thing I should really be using the trainer for, now that I have one. Maybe next time.
Most importantly, welcome back on the wagon, remad. Telling myself that I have to make a blog entry has been a big motivator on several occasions, so maybe more frequent posting would help. Hint hint.
Kanji Review
Intuflow/WW
No Swedish today. I just wasn't in the mood. I did find a native Swedish speaker at work who's willing to have lunch with me and explain some grammar weirdness, so that's good.
For something different, today I did my knife reps outside. My four year old was out in the back yard playing, so I hung a tennis ball from a tree with some para cord and practiced draw and jab. My accuracy kind of sucks, actually. I also did some shadow boxing in between reps, hitting the ball with both fist and knife. That's the sort of thing I should really be using the trainer for, now that I have one. Maybe next time.
Most importantly, welcome back on the wagon, remad. Telling myself that I have to make a blog entry has been a big motivator on several occasions, so maybe more frequent posting would help. Hint hint.
Just to break up the chops show
I did my 55 reps tonight. I'm still way behind schedule. I think I need to start doing them every night with no nights off for a few weeks to get back on schedule.
I'm still completely failing at my secondary goals. I'm going to restart the workout schedule tomorrow.
I'm still completely failing at my secondary goals. I'm going to restart the workout schedule tomorrow.
2009-03-11
Why aren't I in bed yet?
Knife draw x 60, Grand Total: 2160
Pushups 5-2
Situps 5-2
Intuflow/WW
Swedish in the car
Kanji Review
For the pushups and situps, today marked the shift from five set routines to eight set routines, with less rest in between sets. It started out pretty easy, since each set had much fewer reps in it, but it started to hurt quite a bit by the fifth set. For the last set of pushups, I only managed half of the minimum. So I did another max set after situps, where I managed to get 65 pushups. Then I did another set after Intuflow, which got me 30 pushups. Then I did knife draws. It's been 10 minutes since I finished those, and my arms are still shaking.
I hit my limit for Swedish in the car today and had to switch it back to Opeth for the ride home. I'm going to take the morning commute off tomorrow, then pick it back up on the way home tomorrow.
Pushups 5-2
Situps 5-2
Intuflow/WW
Swedish in the car
Kanji Review
For the pushups and situps, today marked the shift from five set routines to eight set routines, with less rest in between sets. It started out pretty easy, since each set had much fewer reps in it, but it started to hurt quite a bit by the fifth set. For the last set of pushups, I only managed half of the minimum. So I did another max set after situps, where I managed to get 65 pushups. Then I did another set after Intuflow, which got me 30 pushups. Then I did knife draws. It's been 10 minutes since I finished those, and my arms are still shaking.
I hit my limit for Swedish in the car today and had to switch it back to Opeth for the ride home. I'm going to take the morning commute off tomorrow, then pick it back up on the way home tomorrow.
2009-03-10
Progress, maybe
Knife draw x 60, Grand Total: 2100
Swedish in the car
Kanji Review
Somehow, someway, my body is starting to adapt to the workouts. Last night, after the situps, my abs were incredibly sore. So sore that I actually woke up in pain several times from trying to roll over or change sleeping position. Today, I'm fine. I can feel that they're tired if I try to sit up from laying down on the floor, but there's no pain.
Also, two new-ish developments in the knife training. One, I finally got my training knife, so I can get a bit more vigorous in my indoor training (but that really isn't in the schedule quite yet). Two, I borrowed "The Essential Ray Floro" from a friend and watched a few bits and pieces. For those that don't know who Ray Floro is, he's an Australian who teaches a form of Filipino Martial Arts known as "Floro Fighting System". And the knife syllabus is all pikal, which is just what I'm looking for. I'll probably start working on the basics he outlines later this week. I've only watched a couple segments from the first DVD (it's a two DVD set), and it looks like I'll be hanging on to this one until my friend comes over and physically repossesses it. At that point, I'm fairly certain I'll buy my own copy. It's that good.
I made a little progress in designing my first 4x7 cycle, and I also have an idea of what I'm going to focus on for the last 4x7 of next quarter, but I don't have specifics for it yet. I have an idea or two for the second 4x7, but I think I'll wait and see how the first one goes before I start planning it out in detail.
Swedish in the car
Kanji Review
Somehow, someway, my body is starting to adapt to the workouts. Last night, after the situps, my abs were incredibly sore. So sore that I actually woke up in pain several times from trying to roll over or change sleeping position. Today, I'm fine. I can feel that they're tired if I try to sit up from laying down on the floor, but there's no pain.
Also, two new-ish developments in the knife training. One, I finally got my training knife, so I can get a bit more vigorous in my indoor training (but that really isn't in the schedule quite yet). Two, I borrowed "The Essential Ray Floro" from a friend and watched a few bits and pieces. For those that don't know who Ray Floro is, he's an Australian who teaches a form of Filipino Martial Arts known as "Floro Fighting System". And the knife syllabus is all pikal, which is just what I'm looking for. I'll probably start working on the basics he outlines later this week. I've only watched a couple segments from the first DVD (it's a two DVD set), and it looks like I'll be hanging on to this one until my friend comes over and physically repossesses it. At that point, I'm fairly certain I'll buy my own copy. It's that good.
I made a little progress in designing my first 4x7 cycle, and I also have an idea of what I'm going to focus on for the last 4x7 of next quarter, but I don't have specifics for it yet. I have an idea or two for the second 4x7, but I think I'll wait and see how the first one goes before I start planning it out in detail.
2009-03-09
Breaking down
Knife draw x 60, Grand Total: 2040
Pushups 5-1
Situps 5-1
Intuflow/WW
Kanji Review
Swedish in the car
Today's situps went pretty well. I'm confident that I'll hit the 200 situp goal by the end of the month. Today I totalled 270 situps in five sets. Pushups, on the other hand, didn't go nearly as well. I had to stop during set three, but I managed to get all the way through set four without stopping (it was only 24 pushups, though). I decided to not go on for the max set right away, but instead finished up my Intuflow, then did my knife work, then finally I did my max set for pushups. The good news that I did 50 without stopping at that point. I'm not as confident that I'll be able to do 100 consecutive pushups by the end of the month.
One thing that's becoming clear to me is that since I'm in horrible shape to begin with, I'm not getting enough recovery time between high intensity workouts (the fact that 270 crunches and 180 pushups alone constitute a "high intensity" workout is sad in itself). I was still sore this morning from Friday's pushups. Thus, it's official. After I hit my goals for this workout cycle, I'm not going to be doing a traditional 3 workout/week routine anymore. I had wanted to tackle the 20 pullups program, but I think I'm going to have to make some compromises in order to keep my overall health where I want it.
The particulars aren't fully decided yet, but I'm going to be giving an RMAX style 4x7 workout a try for this quarter. I'll be able to fit three full 4x7 cycles into the quarter, and I've already got a pretty good idea of what I want to tackle for the first one. A 4x7 works by waving the intensity of your workouts. You start out with a Moderate intensity day, then a High intensity day, followed by a No intensity day, and finish up the series with a Low intensity day. This should give me more time for active recovery after the high intensity days. I plan on putting pullups on the High intensity days. I'm going to work FlowFit in there as well, to keep the gains I've made this quarter. We'll see what kind of progress I can make towards doing 20 pullups this way.
Pushups 5-1
Situps 5-1
Intuflow/WW
Kanji Review
Swedish in the car
Today's situps went pretty well. I'm confident that I'll hit the 200 situp goal by the end of the month. Today I totalled 270 situps in five sets. Pushups, on the other hand, didn't go nearly as well. I had to stop during set three, but I managed to get all the way through set four without stopping (it was only 24 pushups, though). I decided to not go on for the max set right away, but instead finished up my Intuflow, then did my knife work, then finally I did my max set for pushups. The good news that I did 50 without stopping at that point. I'm not as confident that I'll be able to do 100 consecutive pushups by the end of the month.
One thing that's becoming clear to me is that since I'm in horrible shape to begin with, I'm not getting enough recovery time between high intensity workouts (the fact that 270 crunches and 180 pushups alone constitute a "high intensity" workout is sad in itself). I was still sore this morning from Friday's pushups. Thus, it's official. After I hit my goals for this workout cycle, I'm not going to be doing a traditional 3 workout/week routine anymore. I had wanted to tackle the 20 pullups program, but I think I'm going to have to make some compromises in order to keep my overall health where I want it.
The particulars aren't fully decided yet, but I'm going to be giving an RMAX style 4x7 workout a try for this quarter. I'll be able to fit three full 4x7 cycles into the quarter, and I've already got a pretty good idea of what I want to tackle for the first one. A 4x7 works by waving the intensity of your workouts. You start out with a Moderate intensity day, then a High intensity day, followed by a No intensity day, and finish up the series with a Low intensity day. This should give me more time for active recovery after the high intensity days. I plan on putting pullups on the High intensity days. I'm going to work FlowFit in there as well, to keep the gains I've made this quarter. We'll see what kind of progress I can make towards doing 20 pullups this way.
2009-03-06
Tough Day
Knife draw x 60, Grand Total: 1980
Pushups 4-3
Situps 4-3
Swedish in the Car
Kanji review
Intuflow/Warrior Wellness
Yeah, busy day. I didn't get started until well after 10pm. It's been a long week, and it showed. I had no energy when doing pushups, and felt completely drained by the end of the first set. I had to stop and rest twice during the fourth set, and I have no idea how many times during the max set. For situps, well, I guess two slices of pizza is way too much for me. My stomach isn't feeling at all well, so I called it quits after my third set of situps. Like on Wednesday, I did a modified Intuflow/Warrior Wellness routine in between sets of pushups. I'm doing it without the 4 Corner Balance Drill, which is actually a really important drill. I should probably add that back in next quarter. Knife work was knife work. Draw and vertical elbow shield. Added some movement to the rear corners towards the end of the set.
Somehow (I'm still trying to figure this out) I have completely missed out on the magic that is Opeth. I was looking for some Swedish music to listen to, and I found them. It turns out, their lyrics are actually in English, but that doesn't matter. It is quite possibly the awesomest music I've ever listened to.
Pushups 4-3
Situps 4-3
Swedish in the Car
Kanji review
Intuflow/Warrior Wellness
Yeah, busy day. I didn't get started until well after 10pm. It's been a long week, and it showed. I had no energy when doing pushups, and felt completely drained by the end of the first set. I had to stop and rest twice during the fourth set, and I have no idea how many times during the max set. For situps, well, I guess two slices of pizza is way too much for me. My stomach isn't feeling at all well, so I called it quits after my third set of situps. Like on Wednesday, I did a modified Intuflow/Warrior Wellness routine in between sets of pushups. I'm doing it without the 4 Corner Balance Drill, which is actually a really important drill. I should probably add that back in next quarter. Knife work was knife work. Draw and vertical elbow shield. Added some movement to the rear corners towards the end of the set.
Somehow (I'm still trying to figure this out) I have completely missed out on the magic that is Opeth. I was looking for some Swedish music to listen to, and I found them. It turns out, their lyrics are actually in English, but that doesn't matter. It is quite possibly the awesomest music I've ever listened to.
2009-03-05
The Pen is Mightier?
Knife draw x 60, Grand Total: 1920
Swedish in the car
IntuFlow
Kanji review
It was a long day at work today, so I'm glad I'm not doing much in the way of working out. I listened to a Swedish podcast on the way home from work today, and I understood two words, so I'm pretty happy about that. Also, I did IntuFlow again (two days in a row, yay!) to help work out some soreness from yesterday's workout.
I'm also in the market for a new pen. Tomorrow's payday will have my annual bonus. While most of it will go to pay for the family trip back to Japan this summer, I'm going to use a little bit to buy myself a nice pen. The problem is, I like to clip my pens to my front pants pocket. This shouldn't be a problem, but over the years I have been completely unable to keep a clip on a pen when carrying it this way. I "solved" the problem by getting a small cheapo pen that I just keep in my pocket, but I'd really rather have it clipped to the edge instead of piling up at the bottom of my pocket with my keys and pocket knife. Ideally, I'd want a retractable pen with a solid clip on it. The only knives that have good, strong clips are the "tactical" pens, and almost all of them are the removable cap type. If I'm going the removable cap route, I'm going to need a screw on cap, otherwise I can almost guarantee I'll lose it. I think I've settled on the Tuff-Writer, since the guy who runs EDC Forums is getting a special run made for his web store.
Swedish in the car
IntuFlow
Kanji review
It was a long day at work today, so I'm glad I'm not doing much in the way of working out. I listened to a Swedish podcast on the way home from work today, and I understood two words, so I'm pretty happy about that. Also, I did IntuFlow again (two days in a row, yay!) to help work out some soreness from yesterday's workout.
I'm also in the market for a new pen. Tomorrow's payday will have my annual bonus. While most of it will go to pay for the family trip back to Japan this summer, I'm going to use a little bit to buy myself a nice pen. The problem is, I like to clip my pens to my front pants pocket. This shouldn't be a problem, but over the years I have been completely unable to keep a clip on a pen when carrying it this way. I "solved" the problem by getting a small cheapo pen that I just keep in my pocket, but I'd really rather have it clipped to the edge instead of piling up at the bottom of my pocket with my keys and pocket knife. Ideally, I'd want a retractable pen with a solid clip on it. The only knives that have good, strong clips are the "tactical" pens, and almost all of them are the removable cap type. If I'm going the removable cap route, I'm going to need a screw on cap, otherwise I can almost guarantee I'll lose it. I think I've settled on the Tuff-Writer, since the guy who runs EDC Forums is getting a special run made for his web store.
2009-03-04
Who shtole da till?
Knife draw x 60, Grand Total: 1860
Pushups 4-2
Situps 4-2
Swedish in the car
I'm getting impressed with amount of pushups and situps I'm doing now, compared to where I started. The last set of pushups huts me every time, which makes me think that maybe I should be doing the middle column program instead of the 3rd column program. Well, it's not killing me, so therefore it must be making me stronger, right? My situps are getting crazy. I started the program doing full situps, then I noticed that they actually specify crunches, with just your shoulder blades coming off the floor. Since then, I've been kicking ass. Today's min for the last set was 54, and I ended up doing 90. They weren't easy, and I had to stop and take a couple of mini-breaks after 50, but I didn't actually reach muscle failure until 90. I'll definitely be ready for the 200 situps by the end of the month. Pushups I'm still not too sure about.
No kanji today, I got started too late. I did, however, do Intuflow/Warrior Wellness in between sets of pushups. I hope to keep that up as well (I know, it's not like I've got enough stuff to do).
Pushups 4-2
Situps 4-2
Swedish in the car
I'm getting impressed with amount of pushups and situps I'm doing now, compared to where I started. The last set of pushups huts me every time, which makes me think that maybe I should be doing the middle column program instead of the 3rd column program. Well, it's not killing me, so therefore it must be making me stronger, right? My situps are getting crazy. I started the program doing full situps, then I noticed that they actually specify crunches, with just your shoulder blades coming off the floor. Since then, I've been kicking ass. Today's min for the last set was 54, and I ended up doing 90. They weren't easy, and I had to stop and take a couple of mini-breaks after 50, but I didn't actually reach muscle failure until 90. I'll definitely be ready for the 200 situps by the end of the month. Pushups I'm still not too sure about.
No kanji today, I got started too late. I did, however, do Intuflow/Warrior Wellness in between sets of pushups. I hope to keep that up as well (I know, it's not like I've got enough stuff to do).
2009-03-03
Ursäkta
Knife draw x 60, Grand Total: 1800
I'm going to review today's kanji in a couple of minutes here. I also listened to some Swedish in the car. I can now say "Excuse me" (the title of today's post), as well as "I don't understand Swedish". So that's progress.
I chatted very briefly with Rikalonius today, so I know he's still alive, which is good. Apparently I'm not the only one who hates moving. Hopefully Hephaestus will grace us with a blog entry (perhaps even revealing the unexpected revelation we had today via the Internet). And Remad commented on my last post, so he's accounted for. All that's left is the Fly, and I exchanged a couple of lines' worth of IM yesterday morning.
I'm going to review today's kanji in a couple of minutes here. I also listened to some Swedish in the car. I can now say "Excuse me" (the title of today's post), as well as "I don't understand Swedish". So that's progress.
I chatted very briefly with Rikalonius today, so I know he's still alive, which is good. Apparently I'm not the only one who hates moving. Hopefully Hephaestus will grace us with a blog entry (perhaps even revealing the unexpected revelation we had today via the Internet). And Remad commented on my last post, so he's accounted for. All that's left is the Fly, and I exchanged a couple of lines' worth of IM yesterday morning.
2009-03-02
Long Term Planning
Knife draw x 60, Grand Total: 1740
Pushups 4-1
Situps 4-1
Kanji Review
I also did some Swedish today. I listened to a Swedish podcast about science and technology at work, then I listened to some phrasebook type material on the drive home. I understood none of the podcast, of course, but I like to get my ear used to the new sounds.
I've been doing a bit of thinking lately about how my goals are organized (or rather, how they aren't organized at all) and I think I'm going to adopt the system we use at work to measure progress against our goals on a quarterly basis. The end of the quarter is the end of March, so I'll probably unveil some new, concrete goals around that time. If you're curious though, here's a rough idea I have.
The physical working out is actually becoming more important to me than the knife work, which I didn't foresee happening at all. It looks like after years of being dormant, my love of activity and exercise is finally starting to burn a little brighter again. So most of my plans for the year actually center around this. I've already got concrete goal for the knife work, 10000 reps. That's not hard to plan for. The rest is a little more nebulous.
The general plan is to focus on one or two areas of fitness at a time. I want to improve everything now, but that's just not reasonable at this point. So I'm going to shoot for finishing my 100 pushups/200 situps by the end of this quarter. It's technically doable, since it's only a six week program to begin with and I'm already on week 4, but realistically I think it'll be a tight fit. The next step will be to address my lack of cardio, and I also want to work the pullups, since I've always (and I mean always) sucked at those. The trick will be to do all this and maintain my pushups and situps. After that, I'm looking at moving on to a more fluid workout, like yoga, or more likely, something RMAX based. I love that stuff. Perhaps the Body weight 4x7 routines that they recently released, or the TacFit stuff, which looks awesome but is really expensive. The ultimate goal is to get back into regular martial arts practice (when the family schedule allows) and not be a total fat ass.
Anyway, this has already gone on too long. Not really a problem, I guess, since I don't know if people even read this anymore.
Pushups 4-1
Situps 4-1
Kanji Review
I also did some Swedish today. I listened to a Swedish podcast about science and technology at work, then I listened to some phrasebook type material on the drive home. I understood none of the podcast, of course, but I like to get my ear used to the new sounds.
I've been doing a bit of thinking lately about how my goals are organized (or rather, how they aren't organized at all) and I think I'm going to adopt the system we use at work to measure progress against our goals on a quarterly basis. The end of the quarter is the end of March, so I'll probably unveil some new, concrete goals around that time. If you're curious though, here's a rough idea I have.
The physical working out is actually becoming more important to me than the knife work, which I didn't foresee happening at all. It looks like after years of being dormant, my love of activity and exercise is finally starting to burn a little brighter again. So most of my plans for the year actually center around this. I've already got concrete goal for the knife work, 10000 reps. That's not hard to plan for. The rest is a little more nebulous.
The general plan is to focus on one or two areas of fitness at a time. I want to improve everything now, but that's just not reasonable at this point. So I'm going to shoot for finishing my 100 pushups/200 situps by the end of this quarter. It's technically doable, since it's only a six week program to begin with and I'm already on week 4, but realistically I think it'll be a tight fit. The next step will be to address my lack of cardio, and I also want to work the pullups, since I've always (and I mean always) sucked at those. The trick will be to do all this and maintain my pushups and situps. After that, I'm looking at moving on to a more fluid workout, like yoga, or more likely, something RMAX based. I love that stuff. Perhaps the Body weight 4x7 routines that they recently released, or the TacFit stuff, which looks awesome but is really expensive. The ultimate goal is to get back into regular martial arts practice (when the family schedule allows) and not be a total fat ass.
Anyway, this has already gone on too long. Not really a problem, I guess, since I don't know if people even read this anymore.
2009-03-01
Borka Borka Borka
Hephaestus has decided on Swedish for our joint language expedition. I like tall blondes, so no objections here. I had planned to make some flash cards last night, but I got too sleepy and went to bed instead. Hopefully I'll have some time to make cards tonight after the kids go to bed. I did manage to dig up some free Swedish learning courses online last night, though, and I'll be setting up a Google Sites page with this stuff in if for Heph and I. Anybody else who'd like access to it should send me a message.
2009-02-27
Week whatever, done
Knife draw x 60, Grand Total: 1680
Pushups 3-3
Situps 3-3
Kanji Review
I was sooooo tired today, and the kids didn't go to bed until much later than usual, but I somehow talked myself into doing my reps. Yet another case where I would have totally wimped out if I hadn't committed to this blog. I did, however, have to do my max set for pushups after doing my situps. After set number four of pushups, I was wiped out. Once I had the "rest" (if you can call 5 sets totalling 180 situps a rest), I cranked out a set of 37 pushups, which is amazing to me. Just a month ago I maxed out at 23, and I was sore for three days after. Today I did 92 pushups (over 4 sets) then came back after a 10 minute rest and did 37 straight.
I also did some Kanji review today. I've decided to try improving my Kanji knowledge the "Remembering the Kanji" way. It's kind of awesome, and I think that it will shore up one of my great weaknesses with Japanese - yeah, the Kanji. I only know somewhere around 200 of them, which is kind of embarrassing for someone who is married to a Japanese woman and was once stationed in Japan.
Also, since I'm without a secondary skill on Tues/Thurs, and since my current secondary skills (pushups and situps) are physical skills, I decided to give Hephaestus a little push. I told him that if he starts working on acquiring a new language, I would work on it with him. I was angling for Scottish Gaelic, but some other options include Armenian, Hindi, or Ethiopian (which one of his girlfriend's coworkers says is a "cross between Spanish and Alien"). Of this group, I'm leaning towards either Armenian (I used to work with a bunch of Armenians) or Hindi (hey, I live in Silicon Valley, so there's plenty of people to practice it with). The Spanish/Alien hybrid also sounds interesting, but I don't know how easy it will be to track down learning material for it.
Pushups 3-3
Situps 3-3
Kanji Review
I was sooooo tired today, and the kids didn't go to bed until much later than usual, but I somehow talked myself into doing my reps. Yet another case where I would have totally wimped out if I hadn't committed to this blog. I did, however, have to do my max set for pushups after doing my situps. After set number four of pushups, I was wiped out. Once I had the "rest" (if you can call 5 sets totalling 180 situps a rest), I cranked out a set of 37 pushups, which is amazing to me. Just a month ago I maxed out at 23, and I was sore for three days after. Today I did 92 pushups (over 4 sets) then came back after a 10 minute rest and did 37 straight.
I also did some Kanji review today. I've decided to try improving my Kanji knowledge the "Remembering the Kanji" way. It's kind of awesome, and I think that it will shore up one of my great weaknesses with Japanese - yeah, the Kanji. I only know somewhere around 200 of them, which is kind of embarrassing for someone who is married to a Japanese woman and was once stationed in Japan.
Also, since I'm without a secondary skill on Tues/Thurs, and since my current secondary skills (pushups and situps) are physical skills, I decided to give Hephaestus a little push. I told him that if he starts working on acquiring a new language, I would work on it with him. I was angling for Scottish Gaelic, but some other options include Armenian, Hindi, or Ethiopian (which one of his girlfriend's coworkers says is a "cross between Spanish and Alien"). Of this group, I'm leaning towards either Armenian (I used to work with a bunch of Armenians) or Hindi (hey, I live in Silicon Valley, so there's plenty of people to practice it with). The Spanish/Alien hybrid also sounds interesting, but I don't know how easy it will be to track down learning material for it.
2009-02-26
New Toy
Knife draw x 60, Grand Total: 1620
That's it. Nothing fancy. 1-40 were just stand and draw. 41-50 had me stepping forward with a vertical elbow shield while drawing, and the last 10 had me stepping back with a horizontal elbow shield while drawing. I think I'm going to stop training the horizontal shield. It's got the advantage of covering my neck and both sides of my jaw, but I lose a lot of visibility. Not only that, but there's the danger that my left hand gets trapped on the right side of my body, which makes stopping any incoming rights a little more difficult. There's one specific horizontal elbow technique that I'm not getting rid of, but that's more of a "Kali empty hands parlor trick" type technique anyway. I'm going to stick with a vertical shield or a Dog Catcher/Kali Fence type of movement for the left hand.
In other news, I bought a new pocket knife. This is a replacement for my current utility pocket knife (not my stabby-stabby knife - at this point the only thing I can think of that would make me get rid of my Delica would be a P'Kal), a Baladeo ECO031, which I seem to recall getting through the REI outlet for something like $8. A decent cheap knife is great to have around, but it's a little too bulky in my pocket. Thus, I bought a Boker Subcom, which set me back $18 on Ebay. I've heard nothing but rave reviews for the Subcom, so I can't wait until it gets here.
That's it. Nothing fancy. 1-40 were just stand and draw. 41-50 had me stepping forward with a vertical elbow shield while drawing, and the last 10 had me stepping back with a horizontal elbow shield while drawing. I think I'm going to stop training the horizontal shield. It's got the advantage of covering my neck and both sides of my jaw, but I lose a lot of visibility. Not only that, but there's the danger that my left hand gets trapped on the right side of my body, which makes stopping any incoming rights a little more difficult. There's one specific horizontal elbow technique that I'm not getting rid of, but that's more of a "Kali empty hands parlor trick" type technique anyway. I'm going to stick with a vertical shield or a Dog Catcher/Kali Fence type of movement for the left hand.
In other news, I bought a new pocket knife. This is a replacement for my current utility pocket knife (not my stabby-stabby knife - at this point the only thing I can think of that would make me get rid of my Delica would be a P'Kal), a Baladeo ECO031, which I seem to recall getting through the REI outlet for something like $8. A decent cheap knife is great to have around, but it's a little too bulky in my pocket. Thus, I bought a Boker Subcom, which set me back $18 on Ebay. I've heard nothing but rave reviews for the Subcom, so I can't wait until it gets here.
2009-02-25
Motivation is a funny thing
Knife draw x 60, Grand Total: 1560
Pushups 3-2
Situps 3-2
Feeling very motivated today, for some reason. After failing to hit the bare minimum on the final set of pushups, I did another set of 30 pushups after I finished my situps (where I had no problem hitting my min - I got 45, the min was 38). Then after knife draws, I did another 30 situps as well.
For knife work, I did the plain old draw, with left hand on my chest, for the first 30. The next 10, I did draw and high line jab with my left hand still on my chest. For some of them, I added a side step. 41-50 had me doing a vertical elbow shield with my left, and a horizontal elbow shield for 51-60. When using the horizontal elbow shield, I'm not comfortable with jabbing on the high line. Mid line jabs feel better, with upward arcing thrusts (say, under the sternum to the heart) feeling the most comfortable here. After my reps, I did right hand 3 of 9 a few times, then with some tapping in the air. Also I did some sort of shadow boxing with the knife jabs. Closed it out with the aforementioned bonus set of situps.
P.S. - I did my reps yesterday, but it was late and I was too tired to blog about it.
Pushups 3-2
Situps 3-2
Feeling very motivated today, for some reason. After failing to hit the bare minimum on the final set of pushups, I did another set of 30 pushups after I finished my situps (where I had no problem hitting my min - I got 45, the min was 38). Then after knife draws, I did another 30 situps as well.
For knife work, I did the plain old draw, with left hand on my chest, for the first 30. The next 10, I did draw and high line jab with my left hand still on my chest. For some of them, I added a side step. 41-50 had me doing a vertical elbow shield with my left, and a horizontal elbow shield for 51-60. When using the horizontal elbow shield, I'm not comfortable with jabbing on the high line. Mid line jabs feel better, with upward arcing thrusts (say, under the sternum to the heart) feeling the most comfortable here. After my reps, I did right hand 3 of 9 a few times, then with some tapping in the air. Also I did some sort of shadow boxing with the knife jabs. Closed it out with the aforementioned bonus set of situps.
P.S. - I did my reps yesterday, but it was late and I was too tired to blog about it.
2009-02-23
The Old Man and The Sea
Knife draw x 60, Grand Total: 1440
Pushups 3-2
Situps 3-1
Since I sort of did the pushups last week, I figured I'd keep it at day 2 while re-doing week 3. Turns out, maybe not a great idea. There's a sharp ramp between 3-1 and 3-2, and I had a very hard time. The first set went well, but it my form rapidly went downhill. So when I did situps, I went back to day 1 of week 3. This made the situps seem easy in comparison. I even managed to go over the minimum on the last set.
After pretty much taking last week off, I did the knife draws nice and slow. I just worked on bringing my left hand in to my chest and doing a smooth, controlled draw with my right.
Oh yes, in the meantime, I bought a rifle. I ended up finding a sweet deal on a Kel-Tec SU-16. It wasn't what I was initially looking for, but the reviews seem pretty positive overall, and the deal really was too good to pass up. Now I'm waiting out my 10 day cooling off period ("but I want to shoot somebody noooow...").
Pushups 3-2
Situps 3-1
Since I sort of did the pushups last week, I figured I'd keep it at day 2 while re-doing week 3. Turns out, maybe not a great idea. There's a sharp ramp between 3-1 and 3-2, and I had a very hard time. The first set went well, but it my form rapidly went downhill. So when I did situps, I went back to day 1 of week 3. This made the situps seem easy in comparison. I even managed to go over the minimum on the last set.
After pretty much taking last week off, I did the knife draws nice and slow. I just worked on bringing my left hand in to my chest and doing a smooth, controlled draw with my right.
Oh yes, in the meantime, I bought a rifle. I ended up finding a sweet deal on a Kel-Tec SU-16. It wasn't what I was initially looking for, but the reviews seem pretty positive overall, and the deal really was too good to pass up. Now I'm waiting out my 10 day cooling off period ("but I want to shoot somebody noooow...").
2009-02-22
way behind
So I did my 50 reps tonight. I should have done more. I'm way behind, I haven't done any since my last post a month or so ago. I'm going to try to do 50 every night until I get back on track. No more nights off for me.
2009-02-20
Pestilence
Some pushups
Some situps
Still not feeling 100%. I did most of day 3-3 for pushups, I just had to skip the last set. I did maybe half of the situps, as my stomach is bothering me. I don't feel particularly well, so I'm just going to call it good for the week.
At least the rugrats are now well enough to sleep all night again.
Some situps
Still not feeling 100%. I did most of day 3-3 for pushups, I just had to skip the last set. I did maybe half of the situps, as my stomach is bothering me. I don't feel particularly well, so I'm just going to call it good for the week.
At least the rugrats are now well enough to sleep all night again.
2009-02-19
Shuffling the Deck
I'm not sure if I've ever done this before without interruptions prior, but doing fifty cards a day, I've come to the end of my deck, which is about two hundred twenty cards or so. In going through the deck over the last few days, I've found a few duplicate words that don't need to be in there. Also, the end of the deck is a lot. of phrases. I think my plan for tonight is to spend some time working on the cards themselves. There are some that I botched when I was making them. A few of my common mistakes are:
forgot to appropriately dot or otherwise complete Arabic letters (they dot a lot of their letters, and whether the dot is on the top or the bottom alters the identity of the letter and thus the word)
forgot to completely write the answer on the back (missing either the pronunciation or the translation)
duplicate words - only a few, but they're annoying
The other thing that I've done is use phrases, like أمير المؤمنين (Amir al Muminin, "Commander of the Faithful," a title used by caliphs and wankers like Taliban leader Mullah Omar), or نحن جند لله جند الوطن (Nahnu jund Allah wa jund al lutan, "We are the army of God and the army of our land," the national motto of Sudan), and also verses out of the Bible. I think that one of my goals of switching up some of the cards is going to be to top load words, and slide some of the phrases (mainly the Bible verses, which are long and have a lot of words that I don't yet know at all) to the back of the deck. This whole process might actually take a couple of days, but that's okay because making and correcting the cards themselves is actually a pretty good form of studying.
One of my goals to accomplish this month is to get caught up on five or six pages worth of phrases and words that I've been meaning to get on note cards for nearly a year now, so I'll probably spend a couple of days doing that, too. Part of my problems is that I tend to like doing a project all at once, so if I can't do that, I tend to put it off. Part of this whole project of Chops' is spacing things out over an extended period of time so that it's actually useful progress, instead of just a one shot deal. Realizing that and trying to apply it is helpful, but it's still time-consuming. Also, my kitchen table is a mess, so that's discouraged me, but I ought to be able to fix that with a spare ten minutes or so.
So, I've done fifty flash cards every morning this week, and yesterday (and maybe the day before?) I did them both in the morning and in the evening, so I think I'm actually back on track from my vacation. This morning I did however many I had from #201 on. Tonight will be working on cards. There's your update from The Fly.
The other thing that I've done is use phrases, like أمير المؤمنين (Amir al Muminin, "Commander of the Faithful," a title used by caliphs and wankers like Taliban leader Mullah Omar), or نحن جند لله جند الوطن (Nahnu jund Allah wa jund al lutan, "We are the army of God and the army of our land," the national motto of Sudan), and also verses out of the Bible. I think that one of my goals of switching up some of the cards is going to be to top load words, and slide some of the phrases (mainly the Bible verses, which are long and have a lot of words that I don't yet know at all) to the back of the deck. This whole process might actually take a couple of days, but that's okay because making and correcting the cards themselves is actually a pretty good form of studying.
One of my goals to accomplish this month is to get caught up on five or six pages worth of phrases and words that I've been meaning to get on note cards for nearly a year now, so I'll probably spend a couple of days doing that, too. Part of my problems is that I tend to like doing a project all at once, so if I can't do that, I tend to put it off. Part of this whole project of Chops' is spacing things out over an extended period of time so that it's actually useful progress, instead of just a one shot deal. Realizing that and trying to apply it is helpful, but it's still time-consuming. Also, my kitchen table is a mess, so that's discouraged me, but I ought to be able to fix that with a spare ten minutes or so.
So, I've done fifty flash cards every morning this week, and yesterday (and maybe the day before?) I did them both in the morning and in the evening, so I think I'm actually back on track from my vacation. This morning I did however many I had from #201 on. Tonight will be working on cards. There's your update from The Fly.
2009-02-18
I'm back
Knife draw x 60, Grand Total: 1380
Pushups 3-2
Situps 3-2
I missed last Friday because I was tired. Then, over the long weekend, pestilence descended upon the Chops household. Mrs Chops is the only one who was spared. So she had to take care of the rest of us. I really was kind of planning on taking the rest of the week off, since I'm still kind of recovering, but then Mrs Chops decided to pop in the Core Rhythms DVD and start working out. That made me feel bad enough about slacking off that I did my workout while she was dancing.
I went ahead and picked up the pushups and situps where I would be if I hadn't been sick, and it hurts, a lot. I might have to redo this week next week anyway. I managed to get all my reps in the for the first four sets of pushups, but I came short by a mile for the last set (where you're expected to max out). Same thing with the situps. I barely managed to get all the reps in for the first four set and missed my min on my max set by a whole lot.
Knife stuff was knife stuff. It was all draw to pikal and jab, with the left hand going to various defensive positions, such as horizontal elbow shield, vertical elbow shield, flat on my chest, fist on my jaw and elbow covering my ribs, etc.
Pushups 3-2
Situps 3-2
I missed last Friday because I was tired. Then, over the long weekend, pestilence descended upon the Chops household. Mrs Chops is the only one who was spared. So she had to take care of the rest of us. I really was kind of planning on taking the rest of the week off, since I'm still kind of recovering, but then Mrs Chops decided to pop in the Core Rhythms DVD and start working out. That made me feel bad enough about slacking off that I did my workout while she was dancing.
I went ahead and picked up the pushups and situps where I would be if I hadn't been sick, and it hurts, a lot. I might have to redo this week next week anyway. I managed to get all my reps in the for the first four sets of pushups, but I came short by a mile for the last set (where you're expected to max out). Same thing with the situps. I barely managed to get all the reps in for the first four set and missed my min on my max set by a whole lot.
Knife stuff was knife stuff. It was all draw to pikal and jab, with the left hand going to various defensive positions, such as horizontal elbow shield, vertical elbow shield, flat on my chest, fist on my jaw and elbow covering my ribs, etc.
2009-02-16
Early in the Morning
The first thing I did this morning was fifty flash cards. I sucked. We'll see how I do with the same cards this evening, once I'm back from work. Chops mentioned some method (I'll have to look back through the comments for it), and I think I'll start that method next week, because I know most of the words and could stand to look at those cards less, but the ones that I don't know, I really suck at. Since I got back from my vacation, it's been enough of a challenge just to grab the cards for fifteen minutes in the first place, so the name of the game this week is consistency. I think I may also try, on Wednesday or Thursday, to start doing lessons out of the textbook, which will account for my study on that particular day. If I can put in some good quality time over the next couple of weeks, mainly making flash cards for some of the words I don't have accounted yet (and fixing some of the old ones), I should be in pretty solid shape to continue through March.
2009-02-12
Stoner was a Genius
Knife draw x 60, Grand Total: 1320
That's it. Just the knife. I'm liking this not doing much on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Same as yesterday, working from under the T-shirt. First 30, just draw, second 30, draw and jab. I worked on some double jabs and changing levels a little for some variety. I have my first training related "injury" today: I'm noticing a small blister on my thumb where I grab the knife. I guess it's a sign of a consistent grip on the knife in the pre-draw phase.
Today I was exposed to Magpul's awesome "Art of the Tactical Carbine" DVDs. Now really I want run out and buy an Evil Black Rifle. It turns out that Magpul is teaching a class in my neck of the woods in few months time, but it's the Tactical Carbine II class, and I neither have already attended their Tactical Carbine I, nor do I even own a carbine to be tactical with. Honestly, I really have no rifle skills to speak of, so it would probably do me a lot of good to get a plinking rifle and head out to an Appleseed event.
Hooray for Rikalonius, he logged his second day in a row today!
That's it. Just the knife. I'm liking this not doing much on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Same as yesterday, working from under the T-shirt. First 30, just draw, second 30, draw and jab. I worked on some double jabs and changing levels a little for some variety. I have my first training related "injury" today: I'm noticing a small blister on my thumb where I grab the knife. I guess it's a sign of a consistent grip on the knife in the pre-draw phase.
Today I was exposed to Magpul's awesome "Art of the Tactical Carbine" DVDs. Now really I want run out and buy an Evil Black Rifle. It turns out that Magpul is teaching a class in my neck of the woods in few months time, but it's the Tactical Carbine II class, and I neither have already attended their Tactical Carbine I, nor do I even own a carbine to be tactical with. Honestly, I really have no rifle skills to speak of, so it would probably do me a lot of good to get a plinking rifle and head out to an Appleseed event.
Hooray for Rikalonius, he logged his second day in a row today!
2009-02-11
Ear Doctor
Knife draw x 65, Grand Total: 1260
Pushups, 2-2
Situps, 2-2
I did five extra reps today, because I like round numbers. Pretty much the same as yesterday. I worked on drawing with the T-shirt hanging over my pocket with no assistance from the left hand. For reps 31-60, I did the same, only adding various knife jabs after the draw (including doubling up the jabs at for a few reps). The last 5 were draw and jab as fast as I could. Quite frankly, I found it a bit scary, since I haven't worked a full speed draw and jab with a trainer a few times, just to make sure I'm in the right places at the right times. Still, everything worked out well.
I sure love it when I see that someone else has updated the rep tracking spreadsheet we have. And I also love it when somebody else makes a blog post. Welcome back, Fly and Rikalonius.
Pushups, 2-2
Situps, 2-2
I did five extra reps today, because I like round numbers. Pretty much the same as yesterday. I worked on drawing with the T-shirt hanging over my pocket with no assistance from the left hand. For reps 31-60, I did the same, only adding various knife jabs after the draw (including doubling up the jabs at for a few reps). The last 5 were draw and jab as fast as I could. Quite frankly, I found it a bit scary, since I haven't worked a full speed draw and jab with a trainer a few times, just to make sure I'm in the right places at the right times. Still, everything worked out well.
I sure love it when I see that someone else has updated the rep tracking spreadsheet we have. And I also love it when somebody else makes a blog post. Welcome back, Fly and Rikalonius.
The Wagon
I'm finally back on the wagon. Fifty flash cards this morning before I left for work, and the same fifty right after I got back from work. I did well on the ones I'd missed this morning when I went through them this evening. Assuming that I'm able to keep this up for the next couple of days, I should be back in the habit, and be able to stay on the wagon. Next week, I hope to spend at least one evening working on some new flash cards to supplement the ones I already have, and another evening working through the first lesson in my textbook. More on that as it develops.
I've mentioned it before, and I'll probably have occasion to mention it again: I wouldn't be keeping up on this if it weren't for Chops and the blog to keep me honest. Thanks, Chops!
I've mentioned it before, and I'll probably have occasion to mention it again: I wouldn't be keeping up on this if it weren't for Chops and the blog to keep me honest. Thanks, Chops!
2009-02-10
Easy Day
Knife draw x 60, Grand Total: 1195
Since I did my pushups and situps yesterday, I didn't have anything but knife drawing to work on today. I did my first 30 nice and easy. I mostly concentrated on drawing without first clearing my T-shirt out of the way with my left hand. This requires the draw to travel further away from my body, which I don't like, but I'm not always going to have that left hand free. It's more likely that my left will be busy keeping me from getting knocked out or stabbed, so I should probably worry more about being able to draw from under the shirt than keeping the right hand close to my body throughout the draw. It's something that I've been thinking about lately, and when I saw Southnarc's P'Kal demo video on YouTube, it seemed like he was concentrating more on getting a good engagement with the wave than on keeping that arm in tight. It makes sense - keeping that arm in isn't going to do you much good if you can't get the knife open.
For the second 30 reps, I did a slow draw and finished each one with a knife jab. The mechanics of it felt pretty good.
Today I hassled Rikalonius and remad about getting their reps in. This makes me feel dirty, like a manager. On the plus side, Rikalonius promised me he'd do 40 reps tonight. I may have to resort to nightly nag mail for those guys.
Since I did my pushups and situps yesterday, I didn't have anything but knife drawing to work on today. I did my first 30 nice and easy. I mostly concentrated on drawing without first clearing my T-shirt out of the way with my left hand. This requires the draw to travel further away from my body, which I don't like, but I'm not always going to have that left hand free. It's more likely that my left will be busy keeping me from getting knocked out or stabbed, so I should probably worry more about being able to draw from under the shirt than keeping the right hand close to my body throughout the draw. It's something that I've been thinking about lately, and when I saw Southnarc's P'Kal demo video on YouTube, it seemed like he was concentrating more on getting a good engagement with the wave than on keeping that arm in tight. It makes sense - keeping that arm in isn't going to do you much good if you can't get the knife open.
For the second 30 reps, I did a slow draw and finished each one with a knife jab. The mechanics of it felt pretty good.
Today I hassled Rikalonius and remad about getting their reps in. This makes me feel dirty, like a manager. On the plus side, Rikalonius promised me he'd do 40 reps tonight. I may have to resort to nightly nag mail for those guys.
2009-02-09
Somebody's got a case of the Mondays
Knife draw x 65, Grand Total: 1135
Pushups, day 2-1
Situps, day 2-1
Saturday I failed to get my third day for situps again, for the second week in a row. So I've decided to go ahead and do pushups and situps in the same day. And I still managed to exceed the minimums for my max sets (wow that sounds confusing) - but only barely, and with much effort.
For knife draws, I was watching TV, so I didn't bother getting close to the wall like last week, but I tried to pay close attention to how far my knife hand was from my body. It seemed pretty close. I did the last 5 (bonus draws, yay!) with a slowish draw into a knife jab. I still haven't broke down and bought the Reverse Edge Methods DVDs, but I did watch a YouTube clip by Southnarc where he shows the basic knife jab (he's demoing how to use the Spyderco P'Kal, which I want, badly), so I have a better understanding of the mechanics involved. On Saturday, I did go ahead and order the drone version of my pocketknife, so I'll be able to eventually get a little more aggressive with my training movements.
Pushups, day 2-1
Situps, day 2-1
Saturday I failed to get my third day for situps again, for the second week in a row. So I've decided to go ahead and do pushups and situps in the same day. And I still managed to exceed the minimums for my max sets (wow that sounds confusing) - but only barely, and with much effort.
For knife draws, I was watching TV, so I didn't bother getting close to the wall like last week, but I tried to pay close attention to how far my knife hand was from my body. It seemed pretty close. I did the last 5 (bonus draws, yay!) with a slowish draw into a knife jab. I still haven't broke down and bought the Reverse Edge Methods DVDs, but I did watch a YouTube clip by Southnarc where he shows the basic knife jab (he's demoing how to use the Spyderco P'Kal, which I want, badly), so I have a better understanding of the mechanics involved. On Saturday, I did go ahead and order the drone version of my pocketknife, so I'll be able to eventually get a little more aggressive with my training movements.
2009-02-06
Another week done
Knife draw x 60, Grand Total: 1070
Pushups, day 1-3
Well, I've got situps tomorrow, but other than that, this week is over. I'm not as tired as last week, but I am pretty well beat.
Hephaestus, welcome to the G1 owners club.
Pushups, day 1-3
Well, I've got situps tomorrow, but other than that, this week is over. I'm not as tired as last week, but I am pretty well beat.
Hephaestus, welcome to the G1 owners club.
2009-02-05
10%
Knife draw x 60, Grand Total: 1010
Situps, day 1-2
Repeat performance of yesterday's knife work. I cozied up to a wall and did my draws into pikal. I broke the whole thing down into small pieces, so today actually took a little more time than yesterday.
It's kind of funny to me - I want to do more exciting stuff, like draw and jab at a tennis ball, or sprawl and draw, or draw during a punching combination, but I have to slow myself down. Spending a few days just breaking it down to basics and refining the movements seems too slow. I have to remind myself that I've got the rest of the year to work on the exciting stuff. Doing a couple hundred reps of very basic slow-mo draws is not wasted time.
The astute reader (if there are any readers at all) will note that today I passed the 1000 rep mark. That's 10% done. At this pace, it looks like I'll hit my 10k sometime in late September. I had only planned on doing 55 reps per day in January to make up for the first week and a half of the month, before I had this idea. But now I don't feel like slowing down to 40 per day. In fact, it makes sense to me to bump it up to 60/day. 60 is divisible by 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, so I can break the day's reps down into smaller chunks if I want. I can do a mini session several times over the course of the day, or I can do each set while incorporating a different movement with the draw. When I get to lengthier movement chains toward the end of the year, I may drop the reps down a little, and raising them now will give me the headroom to do that.
Situps, day 1-2
Repeat performance of yesterday's knife work. I cozied up to a wall and did my draws into pikal. I broke the whole thing down into small pieces, so today actually took a little more time than yesterday.
It's kind of funny to me - I want to do more exciting stuff, like draw and jab at a tennis ball, or sprawl and draw, or draw during a punching combination, but I have to slow myself down. Spending a few days just breaking it down to basics and refining the movements seems too slow. I have to remind myself that I've got the rest of the year to work on the exciting stuff. Doing a couple hundred reps of very basic slow-mo draws is not wasted time.
The astute reader (if there are any readers at all) will note that today I passed the 1000 rep mark. That's 10% done. At this pace, it looks like I'll hit my 10k sometime in late September. I had only planned on doing 55 reps per day in January to make up for the first week and a half of the month, before I had this idea. But now I don't feel like slowing down to 40 per day. In fact, it makes sense to me to bump it up to 60/day. 60 is divisible by 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, so I can break the day's reps down into smaller chunks if I want. I can do a mini session several times over the course of the day, or I can do each set while incorporating a different movement with the draw. When I get to lengthier movement chains toward the end of the year, I may drop the reps down a little, and raising them now will give me the headroom to do that.
2009-02-04
Lazy Ass
Knife draw x 55, Grand Total: 950
Pushups, day 1-2
For the knife work today, I decided to isolate the drawing motion. After watching the video I shot last night, I felt like the knife hand was moving too far away from my body. Not a lot, mind you, but now's the time to nip this in bud, not when I'm 9000 reps in. I tucked my shirt in so I wouldn't have to worry about clearing it with my left hand, and I stood next to the wall. This way, anytime my hand strayed too far, it hit the drywall. Which means that I stopped doing that pretty darn quick. I went really fast, just trying to groove the movement.
Pushups were, well, pushups. In case you haven't looked at the 100 pushups website, the program is mainly 5 sets of varying reps. Today's was 10-12-8-8-max. You're supposed to go to failure on the last set, but they have a minimum that you're supposed to hit. Today's was 12, and I hit 13. Not bad, but then I realized that I had beat Monday's minimum only by one pushup as well (min was 9, I got 10). I think I've hit on some sort of psychological laziness reflex. From now on, I'm going to tell myself that my min is actually 5 over the published min, in hopes I'll actually get it.
Is there anyone out there? Aside from a post from the Fly (and he's been on vacation), nobody else is posting anymore. I guess I'm not the only lazy one.
Pushups, day 1-2
For the knife work today, I decided to isolate the drawing motion. After watching the video I shot last night, I felt like the knife hand was moving too far away from my body. Not a lot, mind you, but now's the time to nip this in bud, not when I'm 9000 reps in. I tucked my shirt in so I wouldn't have to worry about clearing it with my left hand, and I stood next to the wall. This way, anytime my hand strayed too far, it hit the drywall. Which means that I stopped doing that pretty darn quick. I went really fast, just trying to groove the movement.
Pushups were, well, pushups. In case you haven't looked at the 100 pushups website, the program is mainly 5 sets of varying reps. Today's was 10-12-8-8-max. You're supposed to go to failure on the last set, but they have a minimum that you're supposed to hit. Today's was 12, and I hit 13. Not bad, but then I realized that I had beat Monday's minimum only by one pushup as well (min was 9, I got 10). I think I've hit on some sort of psychological laziness reflex. From now on, I'm going to tell myself that my min is actually 5 over the published min, in hopes I'll actually get it.
Is there anyone out there? Aside from a post from the Fly (and he's been on vacation), nobody else is posting anymore. I guess I'm not the only lazy one.
2009-02-03
Insert Witty Title Here
Knife draw x 65, Grand Total: 895
Situps, day 1-1
Today, after I did my 55 reps with the knife, I decided that I would break out the trusty Flip Video camera and shoot myself doing some drawing. I did 5 reps shot from profile, then 5 more shot from the front, so I could see the path my hand travels. I just gave them a quick watch to make sure that I was in-frame, and it didn't look too horrible. The first observation I had is that I am one tubby fat fuck. I don't know how those sausage fingers can manipulate the lock on the knife. The second observation is that my hand is initially pulling away from my body too much (which should be hard to do when your gut takes up as much space as mine). So now I'm going to work on keeping the draw close to my center.
I did all 65 today into pikal. Reps 15 - 55 included some sort of evasive movement, such as sidestepping, moving on the forward triangle, etc. My left arm did various things like vertical shield, horizontal shield, or passing an imaginary incoming knife.
All in all, good day.
Situps, day 1-1
Today, after I did my 55 reps with the knife, I decided that I would break out the trusty Flip Video camera and shoot myself doing some drawing. I did 5 reps shot from profile, then 5 more shot from the front, so I could see the path my hand travels. I just gave them a quick watch to make sure that I was in-frame, and it didn't look too horrible. The first observation I had is that I am one tubby fat fuck. I don't know how those sausage fingers can manipulate the lock on the knife. The second observation is that my hand is initially pulling away from my body too much (which should be hard to do when your gut takes up as much space as mine). So now I'm going to work on keeping the draw close to my center.
I did all 65 today into pikal. Reps 15 - 55 included some sort of evasive movement, such as sidestepping, moving on the forward triangle, etc. My left arm did various things like vertical shield, horizontal shield, or passing an imaginary incoming knife.
All in all, good day.
2009-02-02
Again? Seriously?
Knife draw x 55, Grand Total: 830
Pushups, 1-1
Yep, you read that right. I decided to go back and redo the 100 pushups workout from the beginning. I wasn't happy with how poor my form was last week, and the fact that I was barely finishing the last set didn't sit too well with me either. I'll start the situps over from the beginning tomorrow, too.
It turned out that I was getting sick, which is a partial reason for my tiredness last week. In fact, I've still got a sore throat and a bit of a cough. It was mighty tempting to let that be an excuse to not do my reps today, but I figure if I didn't get back on it today, then I never would.
Today's knife work consisted of 10 regular draws, followed by 10 draw and jab, then 25 draw into pikal, nice and slow. The last 10 were draw into pikal and jab. The mechanics of the pikal jab are a little different than a regular edge-forward reverse grip. I find that I end up hammering it slightly downward more than straight out. If I concentrate on straightening it out, I end up flaring my elbow away from my body. Food for thought. I suppose I need to get a hold of Southnarc's DVD's and see how the pros do it.
Welcome back Fly. I hope you had an enjoyable vacation.
Pushups, 1-1
Yep, you read that right. I decided to go back and redo the 100 pushups workout from the beginning. I wasn't happy with how poor my form was last week, and the fact that I was barely finishing the last set didn't sit too well with me either. I'll start the situps over from the beginning tomorrow, too.
It turned out that I was getting sick, which is a partial reason for my tiredness last week. In fact, I've still got a sore throat and a bit of a cough. It was mighty tempting to let that be an excuse to not do my reps today, but I figure if I didn't get back on it today, then I never would.
Today's knife work consisted of 10 regular draws, followed by 10 draw and jab, then 25 draw into pikal, nice and slow. The last 10 were draw into pikal and jab. The mechanics of the pikal jab are a little different than a regular edge-forward reverse grip. I find that I end up hammering it slightly downward more than straight out. If I concentrate on straightening it out, I end up flaring my elbow away from my body. Food for thought. I suppose I need to get a hold of Southnarc's DVD's and see how the pros do it.
Welcome back Fly. I hope you had an enjoyable vacation.
Back in the Saddle
So, I'm back from vacation, and I've touched my flash cards for a grand total of about ten minutes since I posted that mea culpa over a week ago. I have a bunch of things to do, and I'm tired as hell, but I'm going to hit the flash cards for at least a few minutes tonight, and maybe tomorrow morning if I can get my ass out of bed early. I obviously have some catching up to do, but the accountability will help.
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