Operation Pinnacle: Introduction and Week 1

Hey, folks! I haven't posted in quite a while, but I think I have reason to start up again. I never completed my ten thousand repetitions last year, but Chops' little project turned out to be a great kick-start to what had become a somewhat stagnant attempt to learn Arabic. Even though I haven't been counting repetitions, I've been making a pretty decent effort to keep last year's kick-start going.

I'm launching Operation Pinnacle, because I'm incapable of doing much of anything without a bit of dramatic flourish. I decided recently that I need to simplify my life and focus on two end states in order to enable the continuation of my career, and some personal goals that I've developed over the last couple of years. Those two end states are better physical fitness, and a much stronger grasp of the Arabic language. Here's the game plan.

Arabic
Of the two elements, Arabic is less defined as far as end state goals. At present, I'm focusing very hard on ArabicPod.net lessons. I took the leap a while ago and paid for a one month subscription so that I could download the transcripts to go with the podcasts. That ten bucks was well worth it, because the lessons are fantastic, and there's both good vocabulary and good grammar and syntax instruction to learn from them.

So, what I'm doing at the present, on a weekly basis, is something like this:

Monday: APOD lesson, BBC Xtra podcast, Arabic/English Quran reading
Tuesday: APOD lesson, BBC Xtra podcast, flash cards
Wednesday: APOD lesson, BBC Xtra podcast, AWS lesson
Thursday: APOD lesson, BBC Xtra podcast, flash cards
Friday: APOD lesson, BBC Xtra podcast
Saturday: translate two sentences
Sunday: translate two sentences

The problem that I've been running into is that I'm solid for the first three or four days of the week, then sort of slack off at the end of the week. For example, my Thursday lesson wasn't fantastic and I didn't do the flash cards, and I really didn't do any Arabic on Friday or Saturday, which leaves me playing catch-up today (Sunday). On the plus side, I'm pleased to have done both the Quran reading and the Ahlan wa Sahlan lesson. So, as far as I'm concerned, this week of Arabic will be solid as long as I do some translations and maybe a catch-up APOD lesson today. Eventually, I want to take all of this...

ArabicPod.net

Defense Language Institute language survival kits

Desert Sky Arabic vocabulary lists

Arabic and Islamic Themes in Frank Herbert's Dune

Wiki: Glossary of Islam

Wiki: Christian terms in Arabic

Wiki: Arabic star names

... and whatever else I can figure out, and put it in my head so that I can understand...

BBC Xtra

BBC Arabic live stream

Radio Sawa

... that, and all the rest of it. For now, the goal is slow but steady, trying to spend between thirty and sixty minutes per day studying Arabic. I'm doing alright at the moment, hopefully I can keep it up.

Physical Training
I was also pretty solid on my fitness goals for this week. Before the day is over, I'll do one last pool workout, and one last PT workout - sit-ups, push-ups, and stretching. It may seem like I'm starting off really simple, and that's true. My goal is nine weeks of swimming (three times a week minimum, four if I can fit it in), one yomp (hike in boots and pants with a pack), and push-ups and sit-ups (three times per week). The swimming is my best way of doing cardio (I don't run, particularly in the shape I'm in), the yomping is to increase my body's ability to walk a long distance with a pack, and the push-ups and sit-ups are push-ups and sit-ups.

My primary goals are to rebuild the stamina that I've lost from three years of sitting at a desk all day, and to rebuild my ability to walk long distances with a pack in order that I might someday resume backpacking in various locales, preferably Europe. I also want to lose weight so that I can start taking rock climbing classes, and eventually start jumping out of airplanes as a hobby. A lot of people tend to exercise for the sake of exercise, mainly focused on some sort of general "health" and/or appearance. For me, appearance is a great side note, but I've tried to design a specific program in order to meet specific goals. As far as motivation goes, not only do the goals I've mentioned help, but so does the fact that my ten year class reunion and my brother's wedding are both in early August, and I'd rather not show up to either of those as a fat boy - in the former case, I don't mind being heavier than I was in high school (I was 6'1" and 165 pounds when I graduated), but I'd rather drop a little bit of weight and be solid, rather than show up with a gut.

I'll be ending this week with three swim workouts, three PT/stretch workouts, one night of just stretching, and enough walking on Friday to basically count as a yomp - cheating, but that's okay. The big issue I ran into this week is that the first swim, coupled with that first set of push-ups, really did a number on my rotator cuffs in my shoulders. I had a one day break between swim workouts, and a two day break between push-ups, and even though I was sore doing the second set of push-ups, I think my arms have recovered. Hopefully that means I'll be in good shape from here on out.

The Bottom Line
I could easily fall off the wagon, on all of this, again, but I think I've got a solid framework established at this point. As far as blogging, I'll try to start doing one post per week as a sort of "week in review", as I've done here. The two major points of Operation Pinnacle are Arabic and physical training, but there are a couple of other elements that I may discuss at one point or another. Stay tuned.

Ahhh, Les Vacances

Today was my first class after a week in Sicily. The kids were at my mom's place for the week, so it was just Mrs Chops and I, visiting some friends. It was heaven, I tell you. Drank some wine, ate some pasta, saw some sights, etc.

I arrived a few minutes into warm ups, which kind of sucked. I *need* the warm ups, since I'm so out of shape. The instructor paired me up with the big shaved head guy, who got promoted to blue belt while I was on vacation. We then worked on spinning out with an arm bar. Basically, you attempt an armbar from guard (we'll assume you're going after the right arm here). The opponent tries to stack you, so you roll up on your right shoulder and reach your right arm back between the two of you and hook it on his right knee. Now you basically do a lateral shoulder roll while bring the opponent over you with your legs. You end up with him face down and you on your left side, facing towards his feet. This is definitely going to need a video to explain.

We then did a "what happens next" variation, for after you successfully spin out. Let's say your opponent tries to scramble over your head to twist his arm free. Before he steps around your head, you can grab his right ankle, and pull it sideways, keeping his knee on the ground. This will make him want to move. When he does, you roll onto your back, and he falls onto his, into classic armbar position. This is similar to the finish Stephan Kesting shows in the video above.

Last variation was if he tries to scramble the other way, toward your feet. This one was my favorite. Basically, you keep ahold of the arm (always, don't let that sucker go) and roll belly down (counter clockwise on your head-to-toe axis), then continue on to your back. During all this, you should manage to get your left foot hooked under his left armpit. It will kind of look like he's in your guard and in a decent position, but he's not. Put your right foot on the ground and push off, rolling him off of you with your left foot (still hooked under his armpit). He'll land on his back, again in perfect armbar position.

The last thing we did wasn't really variation of the above moves, but still working from an armbar from guard attempt. If he tries to stack you, you can move yourself out to the side. Still assuming that you're attacking the right arm, you basically stretch yourself out under him, which will slide you on your shoulder to your left. At this point, you can go belly down, but for our partner's safety, we went on our sides and finished the armbar from there.

After all that, it was time to roll. I got paired up with the shaved head guy again, and I thought I did pretty well. I managed to not get swept too much. When it came time to switch, I sat out since we had an odd number of guys. Then it was open mat, where I rolled with shaved head guy again. I focused on defense, and going slow while trying to think my way out of bad positions. As always, I spent a lot of time inside the guard. I don't think I ever successfully broke my way out of it. When he started playing open guard, though, I did pass to half guard a couple times. At one point, I even passed from half guard to mount, although I'm sure this is just a blue belt going easy on me to let me work, which I greatly appreciate. While I had mount, I went for a collar choke, which was terrible since I've never been taught that technique. After we were done rolling, he was kind enough to give me some pointers. I tried to sink the choke from way too low in mount, it turns out. I need to work on getting higher, on the rare occasions that I get there.

Once the rolling was done, we sat around and chatted a bit. Turns out he's got a wrestling background too. It also turns out that most blue belts can tell I used to wrestle without me having to say a word. He complimented my base and said I had a good top game. I think he meant "good top game for a guy who's been coming to class for two weeks". Like all the other students there, he gave me some pointers and some ideas of things to watch for. Everybody there has been very open and friendly with me, which I really like in a school.

And in non-BJJ related news, I've been getting the itch for some Kali lately. Tonight I worked with my training sword for about 30 minutes, and I'm trying to talk my karate sensei into doing some Kali with me on the weekend. I'll keep you posted on how that goes.

Meh, who needs technique?

Yesterday's class was a lot of fun. Instead of starting off with teaching techniques, our instructor had us do some positional drilling. First, we did the Human Backpack drill, which had one guy sitting on the mat, and then his training partner would sit behind him, put his hooks in and hold on to his shoulders. The goal for the guy on the back was to keep the back and get a submission if possible. The guy on bottom simply tried to get out from under the back mount. Next position we drilled was mount, which is just what it sounds like. You start off laying on your back, with a guy sitting on your chest. He tries to get a submission while you try to escape out from under mount. Last position was guard. By this point, a blue belt had joined the class, so me and another white belt took turns trying to pass his guard. Which is to say, we took turns getting swept and subbed. I think I actually managed to surprise the blue belt a little when his first sweep didn't work, but after that I was pretty much swept any time he felt like it.

After this, the Instructor showed us two techniques, both were sort of how to get to better position after somebody passes your guard. They were both a little over my head, to be honest, although I think I got a decent handle on the first one, in isolation. I just don't think I could actually pull it off during rolling. I guess that's to be expected, since I've been attending class for a whopping two weeks. After the technique portion of class, which was way shorter than usual, we got to rolling. I rolled with another new white belt, which was nice. It felt nice to not get schooled as badly as I did on Tuesday. Next round I rolled with one of the bigger white belts, who's been doing this for a while. Again, I concentrated on trying to relax and breathe. He choked me once or twice, and I seem to recall getting armbarred at one point, too. I felt pretty good about my performance, though. I just tried to work the stuff I know. I know one guard pass, so I keep trying to get it. If they decide to play open guard, I just pretend that I opened it and work that pass from there. The big guy got mount on me at one point, and I was able to bridge and roll out of it. It wasn't done exactly as we were taught, but I think I caught him off guard there as he was trying for a choke.

After that, I kind of hung out and caught my breath for a little while. Eventually, the older guy white belt asked me if I wanted to roll, and we rolled for what seemed like an hour. In reality, it was probably 10 or 15 minutes. I worked a lot on trying to keep my base under me in guard and not get swept, but when he started chaining sweeps, over I went. He did compliment me on my base, which he said is common in people with a wrestling background. He showed me a couple tips to make it even harder for me to get swept, which was cool. I tapped to a triangle at one point even though it wasn't locked in, just because I didn't know how to get out of it. He then showed me a couple options to try to get out.

Overall, it was a really fun class. I'm starting to feel very much at home there. The other students are awesome. They're always willing to help you out and show you where you're going wrong. The Instructor is very friendly and easy to approach with questions.

Somebody's got a case of the Ouchies

Double class day again yesterday. I seriously only ever intended to do bjj on mon/wed/fri, and karate on tue/thur, but I'm having a hard time getting to Monday class. Beefy couldn't make it yesterday, so I was on my own. I showed up a couple minutes before class, and I was the only person there. I warmed up a little by kicking the heavy bag, and eventually two other students showed up.

After warmups, we started with armbar from mount. First, put your hands on opponent's sternum, one arm between his, the other arm going around outside of the arm you want to break. We'll call it the right arm today, for example's sake. Your left arm will be circling around the outside of his right arm, with your left hand planted on top of your right hand, on top of his sternum. Now, turn to your right, getting off of your right knee and onto your right foot. Bring that foot right up to his ribcage. Bring your left knee right up to the right side of his head. Next, lean forward, putting your weight on your hands and right foot while swinging your left foot around and over his head. You should keep low, with your opponent feeling your weight so he doesn't wiggle free. When your left foot touches down on the left side of his head, sit down on the mat just behind his right shoulder. Hook one of your arms around his right forearm, catching it in the crook of your elbow. Keep that tight, very tight, to your body. Use your non-hooking hand to hold his forearm, keeping his thumb pointed straight up. Now sloooooowly, lean backwards. Think pulling with your back, not your arms. Keep his thumb pointed up, squeeze your knees together, don't cross your feet and he will tap.

Next was a defense after the armbar was sunk. Now we'll be the guy on bottom, with our opponent trying to break our right arm. Once he's spun around the arm and is sitting down, reach up through his legs with your left arm and grab his left lapel with your left hand, using a thumb-in grip. Pull that arm tight, so when he sits back, he has to pull your weight with him, which will also relieve some pressure on your right elbow. Once he's pulled you up off of the mat a little, switch your hips and come up to your knees. Pinch his right knee in between your left elbow and left knee, and keep pressure on his left knee with your head, pushing it down towards the mat. You should have enough leverage here to pull your right arm out, and you can spin to side control.

#TODO(chops): Post video here (this one might be hard to find)

After that, we rolled. Although it was only my third class, they let me roll. First I was matched up with the blue belt. I tried to stay relaxed and not spaz out. As far as that was my only goal for rolling yesterday, I feel like I was successful. I know I wasn't very relaxed, but I consciously made myself slow down and breath at several points. I mainly focused on trying to get posture while in guard. After the blue belt, I rolled once with each of the two other white belts who were there. I felt kind of bad because the last round was with the smallest guy there, and towards the end of kind of muscled him around a little. I was too tired to do much else, so I basically lifted him off of me, and put him down with me in side control. Once I was done (sadly, only three 5 minute rounds wiped me out), the blue belt pulled me aside and showed me a few things I was doing wrong, which I thought was really cool. He also talked to me a little bit about BJJ philosophy, and how to approach rolling with higher belts. All in all, it was a great class. I can't wait to go back.

(And I promise, I'll put some videos in here soon.)

Almost forgot

Went to class yesterday (actually, two classes) and didn't have time to write about them. Beefy and I went to BJJ and signed up. We're officially students there now. There was a bigger class this time, three blue belts and three white belts, besides the two of us. The warm up still feels like it's going to kill me, but I'm pleasantly not sore today. After the warm up, the instructor (I need to come up with a codename for him, I guess) told us that in the evenings, he'd been having some of the purples and senior blue belts teach their bread and butter moves to the class, to help them learn how to teach. He then shared with us a variation on a guard pass used by one of the smaller guys at the school. I'm going to try to describe this, but it will probably be gibberish to most people, and maybe even me.

You start in your opponent's closed guard. You move your left knee out to the left, to make space for your right knee, which you move to your opponent's tailbone. Now you can adjust a little further to the left, pulling your opponent a little on to his right side. Push down on his right knee/thigh with cupped hands, pushing it to the mat. This should open his guard. Put your right hand back on the inside of his left knee to monitor it, and bring your right knee up the middle. Move your right arm to underhook his left arm, and put your head and shoulders on his torso, while sliding your right knee over the top of his upper right thigh. Now, you can post out with your left hand. Push outward under his right calf with your left knee to make some space, then step over his right leg entirely with your left leg. Now, pivot on your right knee 90 degree clockwise. You should end up on top in side control. This video is sort of similar, but not quite what we did.

After doing that for an hour, the other guys rolled while Beefy and I finished our enrollment paperwork. They were out of gis in my size, so I've ordered a Lightweight from Padilla & Sons. I hope it gets here soon.

After an afternoon full of meetings and not getting any actual work done, I took off for Karate class. Tak split the class up, and I worked with the purple belts. We spent the whole class doing kata. We did Seisan, then Ananku, then Wanshu. Me and one of the purple belts didn't really know Wanshu, so we did that for the rest of the class. My Seisan felt better than it did last Thursday, but I think it still needs lots of work. My thighs were really tired by the end of class from holding low stances through Wanshu, but that's something that I really need to improve. I've decided to not post details from the Karate class. There's not a whole lot of information about our Karate online, and I'm probably not qualified to be the one that puts it out there. So you'll just have to be satisfied with the names of stuff we do.

And Another One

Last night after work was karate. Something I probably neglected to mention is that one of my best friends teaches Shorinji-Ryu Karate at the local YMCA. Starting around November-ish, we signed up for a YMCA membership and started taking my five year old to karate classes. A couple weeks later, I started joining him. Then in January-ish, Mrs Chops started attending classes too. We've tried bringing the three year old, but he's not quite into the whole "paying attention" thing yet. Since I'm blogging my BJJ classes, I should probably also blog my karate classes.

My friend was in "Old Skool" mode last night, so there were lots of push ups and crunches being handed out. Thankfully, we did them in sets of 10, so they all seemed manageable at the time. I'm sure feeling it this morning, though. That's kind of sad for a guy who could do 100 push ups a year ago.

Quick rundown of what we covered - Kihon (sprinkled with calisthenics), then the white belt line and colored belt line alternated doing Kenshuho (and calisthenics for the colored belts). Next was Ananku and Seisan kata. I think my Ananku is more or less fine (meaning I pretty much remember it all, but I think it could look cleaner), but I lost track of what I was doing in Seisan, *again*, towards the end. Ugh. Seriously, this frustrates me. I can learn two Sayoc transition drills and a template or two in a single day, but several weeks in and I can't remember all of the second kata. Ugh. Maybe I need to add a reps goal for Seisan this year. I doubt I'd get 10,000 reps of a kata in this year, but a couple hundred should be doable.

At the end of class, he went over test results (Tuesday was our test). Mrs Chops, Chops 2.0, and I all passed. This means that for the first time in my life, I have a ranking in a traditional martial art. It feels weird.

Lastly, it was mentioned to me that unless you have somebody to crank on, reading the notes from my BJJ class doesn't really make sense. A) Those notes are actually just meant for me. I find that the act of organizing my thoughts and writing them down helps me remember the details. B) Next time I'll try to find a YouTube video that represents what I'm talking about. Also, I might do more in-depth notes on the karate, too. Or maybe not. We'll see.

Look Who's Back

Well, it's been an interesting year so far, and I mean that in the most negative sense possible. Just before the holidays, work suddenly got crazy busy, and it didn't let up at all until well into February. During that time I got a cold, which turned into a sinus infection, which, despite antibiotics, turned into bronchitis. The bronchitis turned into pneumonia, then back into just bronchitis, and now, finally, I can breathe.

So, where were we? Oh yes, I did not hit my 10k reps goal last year. I'm torn between soldiering on now that I'm well, or just scuppering that one and starting a new goal. I'm actually leaning towards finishing my 10k reps on principle, but I still need to motivate myself to actually do the reps.

Early last December, a co-worker approached me and said he was interested in learning martial arts, but had no idea where to start. I looked into the options around our office, and explained to him what the different styles available were. He decided that Brazilian Jiu Jitsu sounded like something he wanted to try, so we went and watched a class. We tried to attend a free trial lesson, but showed up on Open Mat day. We planned to come back the following Monday, but that happened to be the day that the world exploded at work, metaphorically speaking. Today, at long last, order (and my health) had been restored enough for us to go. This is my long winded way of saying: I'm going to study Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and this will become my training blog. In conjunction with this, I'm probably not going to be so circumspect about my identity, in case you don't already know who I am.

Moving on, first class. Beefy and I showed up at 11, only to be told that class actually starts at 11:30. We hung out in the car for 30 minutes, then walked in and signed the waivers. We got changed and headed out on the mat. There were only two white belts and the black belt instructor in class today. Warm ups consisted of jogging around the mats, side to sides, cross stepping, jumping jacks, push ups, two kinds of crunches, mountain climbers, and another set of push ups. Really, it wasn't too bad, except I'm a lazy fat ass, so I was beet red and out of breath.

We moved on to technique, which was kimura from north/south position. Going against the bottom guy's left arm, you place the thumb side of your left forearm under his elbow, while cupping his left wrist with your right hand. Lift up on the elbow while pushing his wrist towards the floor and away from his center. Slide your left hand, palm down, under his elbow and grip your own right wrist, while monkey-gripping his left wrist with your right hand. Pull his elbow up to your navel, turning him to his right, while you slide your left foot behind his back. Your right knee should still be down on the mat next to his head, so he can't slide out. Put your left forearm on your left knee, his elbow should be bent at 90 degrees, with his upper arm pointing straight up, and his forearm parallel to the floor. Posture up so you're looking straight ahead. Now, slowly look towards your left, turning your whole upper body. You should be able to feel his shoulder tighten. We did this on left and right sides.

Next technique was the Americana. For example's sake. we'll be attacking the left arm again. Cup both of your hands, and place your left hand on the opponent's left wrist, your right on his left elbow. Put all of your weight on this arm and drive it into the mat. Place your left elbow on the mat next to the opponent's left ear while monkey-gripping his left wrist with your left hand. His elbow should be at a 90 degree angle, and your left forearm should be parallel to his left upper arm. Now, slide your right hand, palm down, under his elbow and monkey-grip your own left wrist. Slide his left wrist straight down towards his feet, as if you're painting the mat with it, then lift up under his left elbow with your right forearm.

Last thing we covered was escape from under mount. The instructor covered some general points about being under mount, such as not letting your opponent get high on your chest, keeping your elbows in tight, etc. He talked about the difference between covering from punches and defending chokes. Which led nicely into the mount escape. For the example, the opponent reaches his right hand into your left lapel to set up a choke. You cup your right hand and monkey grip on top of his right wrist, pinning it to your chest. You then take your left hand, palm towards you, and grab his right forearm at his elbow. Now, hook his right foot with your left foot and bridge straight up. As he posts his left arm out to keep his balance, turn and roll to your left, keeping the foot hooked and elbow/wrist control on his right arm. You should end up in his guard.

No Commercials, No Mercy

I fell off the wagon again. October was mostly a bust, because I thought I was going to be changing jobs and moving to another continent, only for it to fall apart in the eleventh hour. November was a total waste, between a week on vacation, a week trying to catch up on hours (that was interrupted by a massive storm that disrupted work for two days - so much for catching up on hours), another week top-loading hours, and then the week of Thanksgiving. With no immediate plans to leave the country, no upcoming holidays (other than Christmas, which doesn't count because I don't celebrate it), and a reasonable expectation that work-stopping weather is unlikely to strike twice in a season, I'm finally back on the wagon in a big way. I had originally decided that November through February were going to be my months to focus hard on Arabic and physical training. I've been forced to alter that, so now it's December through March. This should give me a good block of time to complete two nine week workout programs, and a lot of Arabic study. Also, I'm not sure about Chops, but I plan to reset my 10,000 Reps goal for 2010. The way I figure, if I'm largely spinning my wheels in my professional life, I may as well focus my personal life so that it pays dividends in both my personal and professional venues, and Arabic and physical training fit that bill. So, today is Wednesday. My plan is:

Monday: Quran Sura (reading and listening)
Tuesday: 25 minute swim, 45 push-ups, 60 sit-ups, stretch PT
Wednesday: 25 minute swim, stretch PT, Ahlan wa Sahlan lesson, flash cards
Thursday: yomp, 45 push-ups, 60 sit-ups, stretch PT, make 25 flash cards
Friday: 25 minute swim, stretch PT, Ahlan wa Sahlan lesson, flash cards
Saturday: 25 minute swim, 45 push-ups, 60 sit-ups, stretch PT, make 25 flash cards
Sunday: stretch PT, diagram/translate Bible verse

Tonight's swim got disrupted, which means that I'll have to push swimming into Sunday. I had hoped to give myself the majority of the weekend off, but between disruptions on Monday and today, I'll have to flex a bit. The eventual goal will be to stretch once or twice over the weekends, and just do a bit of light Arabic on the weekends, so that I don't burn out on either. At this rate, what I'll probably do is a full workout (swimming, push-ups, sit-ups, and stretching) on Saturday, and swimming and stretching on Sunday; then start off next week with push-ups, sit-ups, and stretching on Monday, and swimming Tuesday through Saturday (with a yomp instead of a swim on Thursday), which should leave Sunday open. So, thus far this week, due to disruptions (and the fact that I'm not going to swim late tonight because I already blew an hour on this afternoon's aborted swim and I'm borderline sick), here's what I've accomplished (or will accomplish by the end of tonight):

Monday: Quran Sura (reading and listening)
Tuesday: 25 minute swim, 45 push-ups, 60 sit-ups, stretch PT
Wednesday: stretch PT, Ahlan wa Sahlan lesson, flash cards

I'll try to post the plan for next week at some point this weekend, and give at least a weekly update. I've also acquired a couple of additional tools to use since my earlier posts, so I'll outline those as well. Alright, fifty flash cards, twenty minutes of stretching, and I'm nominally good for today. Here I go...

Settling in

FlowFit (RPT 7, RPE 9, RPD 4)

Okay, so last week we were both too sleepy to workout on Wednesday and Friday. The whole family is still settling in to a schedule at the new house. Tonight, though, I decided to go for 20 reps, no matter how long it took. Which worked out nice, since my 5 year old is sick, and he decided that he wanted to come out and talk to me around the 8 minute mark. So subtracting the time I spent with my son in the middle of the workout, it took me 25 minutes to do 20 reps. Not too shabby.

Ah, progress

FlowFit (RPT 7, RPE 9, RPD 3)

Okay, I haven't been blogging it, but I did work out a total of three times last week, Monday, Wednesday, Friday. I'm sticking at FlowFit level 3, for 20 minutes at a go. I didn't actually manage to finish all 20 minutes, though, until tonight. I got 15 reps in 20 minutes. The leg didn't bother me at all. On the one hand, it's painful to see how far I've slipped, but it's nice to be moving forward again.

We're all moved into the new house, so I'll be getting back on my knife reps soon. Promise.

What have we here?

FlowFit (RPT 7, RPE 9, RPD 4)

That's it, just some FlowFit. It's my first day back, so the wife and I decided to do Level 3 for 15 minutes. Ouch man. First of all, I apparently ate too much dinner earlier tonight. My stomach hurt and it was difficult to breathe. Second, my leg is better than I thought, but it's still definitely not 100%. I actually called it quits at 12 minutes, after 9 reps. I did manage to not hurt it, but I noticed it getting weaker, fast. That's how re-injuries happen, so I figured it was a good stopping point.

Anyway, it's good to be back. Let's see if I can rebuild some momentum now.

Update time

So yesterday was the two week mark from when I hurt myself, and my leg still hurts. It's much, much better, though. Most people can barely notice the limp when I walk, which is good. In fact, yesterday I was able to walk down to the cafeteria for lunch, for the first time in a week. Naturally, I tweaked my calf pretty bad on the walk back (and only 15 feet from my desk), which hurt really really bad for about half an hour.

I can't really go back to FlowFit yet. There's too much jumping down to the floor and back up. I have been thinking of trying some Clubbell work with the little mini-Clubbells I got with my IntuFlow package. The hard part now is getting back into working out at night, or waking myself up early enough in the morning. We'll just have to see what happens.

Man Down!

So I went into last week's first MMA class a little tired, but nothing out of the ordinary. We did our initial cardio stuff, then started working combos on the pads and the odd man out shadowboxed in the mirror. Then, in the last round, my left calf popped. I knew exactly what happened, because the exact same thing had happened to me a little over five years ago. I tore a freakin' muscle.

I hobbled across the hallway and got some ice to put on it. Then it took me about an hour to limp back to my desk. I sat there for a good 30 minutes, trying to get an appointment with our on-site doctor, with no luck. My entire body was humming with constant pain at this point, so I fired off a quick email to my team to let them know what was going on, and then I drove myself to the Urgent Care.

I had a long wait, but when the doc finally got to me and took a look at my leg, she said something along the lines of "Good news - it hurts worse than it really is". Turns out, it wasn't a tear so much as a separation of the Soleus and Gastrocnemius. She prescribed an anti-inflammatory and some Vicodin for the pain, and I drove my ass home. I spent the afternoon sitting in bed, working from home, hopped up on the vitamin V.

Yesterday, I finally got to the point where I can stand with both feet flat on the floor. Today, the full range of motion is almost there, if I take it slow and relaxed. I'm still limping horribly, but at least I'm off the crutches. The doc said no kickboxing for two weeks, which right now seems impossibly optimistic. I'm thinking I'll be able to walk somewhat normally at the 2 week mark, which really means that it'll be time to really start the rehab. I'll be taking the rehab more seriously this time instead of just assuming that it will get better eventually.

*sigh* I guess this means I need to get back on the knife draws, since that's about the closest thing to exercise I can do right now.

Square One

I skipped my workout two weeks ago today. Then, I was sick for, like, a week. Then, I was catching up on all of the crap I wasn't able to get done while I was sick. When all was said and done, I'd missed more than two weeks of workouts. Two weeks. Brutal. So, I'm starting over with week one. Again. I'm in the middle of my push-ups and sit-ups as I write this, and my wrists are giving me very unpleasant sensations. Three sets will be more than enough. My plan for the rest of the evening is to do two more sets of twenty sit-ups and fifteen push-ups, followed by Arabic flash cards and then, time permitting, a sura out of the Quran. Having basically lost the two last weeks, I'm eager to catch up on all fronts.

UPDATE: Screw it. I cranked out the fourth set, and they weren't fantastic, but they were pretty good. Who dares wins, right? On to the Arabic.

UPDATE: I did the first half of the next sura that was up, but skipped the flash cards. Today, I'll do flash cards and the other half of the sura.

Wipeout

Cue ominous surf music.

So, my goal for last week was to do the entirety of the Week Two workout program, plus a bunch of Arabic stuff. What did I accomplish? See below.

What actually happened was that I skipped on Monday, woke up with a light cold on Tuesday morning, and am just coughing up the last elements of it now. I'm doing much better, but on Tuesday and Wednesday, it was all I could do to get to work, work eight hours, and get back to the house. I was dead tired. The rest of the week, and yesterday, I've been trying to take it easy so that I can shake it as quickly as possible. I should be at ninety-five percent or better tomorrow (Monday), so I plan to resume in earnest. We'll see if I can do the week two program - the last time I skipped a whole week, it didn't go so well. At most, this will be a setback.

I also got very little Arabic done, and I'll be hitting that hard this week, too.

What's this?

Is this a near-complete lack of soreness? Weird. I kind of forgot what that was like. The only pain I have after a week of classes (okay, that's only two classes) is a little, tiny, barely noticeable bit of soreness in my right calf (you remember, the one that I tore all those years ago, and the reason for me screwing my ankle up). This means that it's time for me to restart my at-home workouts again.

Mrs. Chops and I have been slacking at home, big time. So we'll be getting back into FlowFit again, still at level 3. Tonight we'll start with a High Intensity day, since the Mrs has plans to go out with her friends tomorrow night. Then we'll be back on the 4x7 on Sunday, with a Low Intensity day. At least, this is the plan. We'll see how things actually turn out.

MMA class this week was all about some knees. We quickly covered the three kinds of Muay Thai knees - the straight knee (also called the spear knee or thrust knee), the up knee, and the curve knee (sometimes called the outside knee). These can all be delivered from the clinch, which we very briefly went over. Then we held pads and kneed the bejebus out of each other. Good times. Also some kicking, to review from last week. That's about it.

End of Week One - Again

As I write this, I have one set of pushups and situps left before I will have completed Week One. The only thing I won't have done is the yomp, and that's the least important part. Four solid swims, and three decent pushup/situp sets are pretty good in my book. Tomorrow, I'll transition into Week Two. Beyond the swimming, push-ups, and sit-ups, I hope to get the yomp and the stretching in this week, both of which should help. Here's what's on the coming week's agenda.

four 25 minute swim workouts

one 35 minute yomp with 25 pound rucksack

three days of four sets of twenty pushups and twenty situps

stretching - please, for the love of all things holy, stretching

Arabic wasn't top notch this past week. I'll try to do better in the coming week. I'm hoping to do a sura from the Quran, as well as at least one lesson from my textbook, in addition to flash cards.

Here I go...

Week One Redux

Here's this week's rundown so far.

Monday: Skipped entirely. I was feeling lousy when I left work.

Tuesday: 25 minute swim, 45 push-ups, 60 sit-ups

Wednesday: 25 minute swim (Finished my laps thirty seconds before they kicked us out for lightning - didn't get a cool down, but that was okay.)

Thursday: 25 minute swim, 45 push-ups, 60 sit-ups

The game plan for today is another swim, and hopefully some stretching. The intent is to stretch on the days that I'm not doing push-ups and sit-ups, but I haven't been doing it as regularly as I should - to include not at all this week. Tomorrow, I'll do the final of the three sets of push-ups and sit-ups, and I'm considering going for a yomp in a local park. Either way, assuming that I get one more swim, and the push-ups and sit-ups, I'll go into Week Two on Monday - the yomps are important, but of all the pieces of this workout, they're the part that I'm willing to slack on if need be.

I'll update either this weekend, or early next week with my final report for Week One. I think I'm starting to make progress, mainly from the swimming since the rest has been a bit inconsistent. Oh, and welcome back, Chops! I'm thrilled with what I'm doing, but Chops is making me look like a slacker.

What? That's impossible!

That's right, two posts this week. Crazy, eh?

So this workout was pretty much a repeat of Tuesday's workout. The main difference being that when it was your turn to rotate to the shadow boxing station, first you got to hit a big ass tire with a sledgehammer 20 times each side, then you were allowed to shadow box. It should be noted, I like sledgehammers.

Also, today during "warm ups" (really? 30 minutes of grueling calisthenics is a warm up?), the instructor said "There are two of you here that will be ready to fight in six months. I can get you some smokers matches if you're interested." Then, during the bicycle crunches, he stood next to me and said "When I said there were two, you're one of them. SO GET YOUR LEGS UP IN THE AIR!" So it looks like I might be fighting later this year, or early next year, if I stick with it. For those of you who aren't familiar with the concept of "smokers", it's like intramurals for fighters. Think friendly match between students, for the sake of learning and experience. Anyway, I guess all those years of Muay Thai didn't disappear on me, which makes me feel pretty good.

Week...uh...5?

I have totally lost count of what week I'm on for the MMA class. If I cared enough, I could probably dig through my email and find the start date, but it's not really that important to me. I do know that this week we started kicks. Yay! I love kicking, which probably goes back to starting soccer at age 4. We also changed our fitness routine. Now, we start with the jump ropes immediately at 8am. We do that for, say, five minutes? Not sure, wasn't looking at the clock. Then we did two sets of 8 count bodybuilders (the "minimum" is 15, which I didn't hit in either set), then some footwork/legwork kind of drills which I don't really know how to describe. This was followed by some core work consisting of bicycle crunches and two other sadistic sorts of crunches. All of that was one round. We did a total of two rounds (not too bad, it came out to about 35 minutes worth of calisthenics), then on to the kicking.

We worked round kicks to the thighs for power, both sides, then round kicks to the head for speed, both sides. Then we worked on foot jab with the left, foot jab with the right, then a 1-2, bob and weave under a hook, high right kick combination. There were five of us, so we had to keep rotating out to shadow box in the mirror. It was a good fun class, and my ankle held up well, even with all the kicking, which can put a lot of stress on the support ankle.

I even got there early enough to get most of the way through an Intuflow session before starting the jump rope.