Saturday, July 20, 2013
Second Degree Purple Belt Test (for Seth)
It's been SO long since I've posted, and I intend to remedy that.
This last year has been a major shift away from the classic pole dancing training I used to do. Over the past 1.5-2 years I've been in San Jose, I've been training at Tribull, which I'm sure you've read about from Seth. It's a kajukenbo school, which focuses on a lot of MMA fight team training, and Gracie/10th Planet style brazilian Ju Jitsu.
I've been supplimenting on and off with lots of Hot Yoga with the Buchheit / Kennison family, mideavil swordfighting with Sterling, (mainly rapier and side sword), Ballet with Shannon, Poi (firedancing) and contact juggling with Matt, and running on my own (sometimes with Eddy). Occassionally if I'm on vacation I'll go to a gym and just do traditional weights.
Each one of those things has helped to grow and inform the other. I've been through so many different shifts in the fighting spectrum. At first you enter a new hobby, and you get a lot of verbal confirmation that you're doing well. After awhile that just fades off and you become quietly watched and accepted. This is the first time I've ever stuck to a hobby long enough to get to that third stage, where you end up being a big sister/ teacher to younger people. It's been pretty touching and amazing.
Last night was a belt testing.. I've been traveling so much I didn't feel comfortable in taking part... it just felt disrespectful. I did hit the bags a bit at the beginning, however. Been working on my hooks lately... 400 a day.
Punching the Bag
In the intermediate ranks of kajukenbo, we have a thing called bull ring. It's simultaneously a way of practicing handling multiple attackers, and I suspect a way for the sifu's to judge our skill in a timely manner. Here's Seth doing his weapons bull ring.
Weapon Bull-Ring
And I really like this video too- mainly because Seth reminds me of Kung Fu Panda everytime he does his flippy spinny things :)
Kung Fu Panda
As wonderful as it was to be able to watch and film my friends, it was really uncomfortable being an observer, instead of a participant. I think my heart broke a little as I watched them all yell "tribull" without me being part of it. I hope to never have a repeat, which means no more ditching class!
This last year has been a major shift away from the classic pole dancing training I used to do. Over the past 1.5-2 years I've been in San Jose, I've been training at Tribull, which I'm sure you've read about from Seth. It's a kajukenbo school, which focuses on a lot of MMA fight team training, and Gracie/10th Planet style brazilian Ju Jitsu.
I've been supplimenting on and off with lots of Hot Yoga with the Buchheit / Kennison family, mideavil swordfighting with Sterling, (mainly rapier and side sword), Ballet with Shannon, Poi (firedancing) and contact juggling with Matt, and running on my own (sometimes with Eddy). Occassionally if I'm on vacation I'll go to a gym and just do traditional weights.
Each one of those things has helped to grow and inform the other. I've been through so many different shifts in the fighting spectrum. At first you enter a new hobby, and you get a lot of verbal confirmation that you're doing well. After awhile that just fades off and you become quietly watched and accepted. This is the first time I've ever stuck to a hobby long enough to get to that third stage, where you end up being a big sister/ teacher to younger people. It's been pretty touching and amazing.
Last night was a belt testing.. I've been traveling so much I didn't feel comfortable in taking part... it just felt disrespectful. I did hit the bags a bit at the beginning, however. Been working on my hooks lately... 400 a day.
Punching the Bag
In the intermediate ranks of kajukenbo, we have a thing called bull ring. It's simultaneously a way of practicing handling multiple attackers, and I suspect a way for the sifu's to judge our skill in a timely manner. Here's Seth doing his weapons bull ring.
Weapon Bull-Ring
And I really like this video too- mainly because Seth reminds me of Kung Fu Panda everytime he does his flippy spinny things :)
Kung Fu Panda
As wonderful as it was to be able to watch and film my friends, it was really uncomfortable being an observer, instead of a participant. I think my heart broke a little as I watched them all yell "tribull" without me being part of it. I hope to never have a repeat, which means no more ditching class!
Monday, May 13, 2013
Pre-Training, Week 4 Recap, On To Week 5
DISCLAIMER: I'm probably going to talk ALOT about food in this blog...
When You Can Clean The Sushi From The Boat, Weedhopper...
Yep, the machine says time for a refeed...
Herein we see the folly of not keeping some concrete progress tracking or otherwise, I really have no way to quantify how well I am or am not doing other than the fact that my clothes continue to fit better. I can tell I'm approaching that "need state" we keep hearing about just due to my energy levels, performance, and overall attitude towards food/eating. Towards the end of week 4, I started eating a bit more, keeping to appropriate macros of course, but definitely eating dinner a few days.
I had planned to wait till week 6 for another refeed, but judging by my performance (skipped training tuesday and thursday, made it through only one class wednesday, numbers in the gym saturday and sunday were significantly down, etc), I decided to trust the science and try a refeed a bit ahead of schedule. I didn't put away massive amounts of food like you hear people talk about on some diets, but man, definitely not a bad decision. I think from here on out, it's going to be refeeds every Sunday followed by a fast Monday. I do really well with sushi, so if nothing else, it's an excuse to try a new sushi place every Sunday now. Laaaame, I know, I know.
I had planned to wait till week 6 for another refeed, but judging by my performance (skipped training tuesday and thursday, made it through only one class wednesday, numbers in the gym saturday and sunday were significantly down, etc), I decided to trust the science and try a refeed a bit ahead of schedule. I didn't put away massive amounts of food like you hear people talk about on some diets, but man, definitely not a bad decision. I think from here on out, it's going to be refeeds every Sunday followed by a fast Monday. I do really well with sushi, so if nothing else, it's an excuse to try a new sushi place every Sunday now. Laaaame, I know, I know.
When You Can Clean The Sushi From The Boat, Weedhopper...
In retrospect, I have some really interesting experiences to look back on when it comes dieting down. I actually hit supercompensation once, as defined the good Coach Abel, at least I think given the evidence: I was (fairly) lean, I'd been eating around BMR for a few months, and I pretty much "ate the ass end out of a rhino". It wasn't necessarily a rhino, but it was a ridiculous amount of meat, and the wierd part was it was like I was eating on autopilot. At the time I didn't realize what was going on, but in retrospect...Eh, i'm probably just making things up, but we'll see what happens. I do like the fact that I have so much weight to lose that I'll be able to visually assess, so I guess I don't feel terrible about not actually tracking. Call it an experiment in processing and interpreting biofeedback, I suppose?
Yep, the machine says time for a refeed...
I think i've finally hit a flow with all this stuff, weird work schedules not withstanding, now it's all about laying back, continuing to adjust, and marching on to 190-ish. No hard goal dates in mind, but definitely keeping my eye on the seminar dates coming up...Gotta live for something, yeah?
Sunday, April 28, 2013
Pre-Training, Week 3 Recap: up the mountain
I have to admit, I'd gotten to the point where I was honestly just too wiped at the end of the day to blog something. Isn't that crazy? It's a really weird feeling to not actually be able to muster up the creative energy to write a few words, or even to just post a training recap. Some days I didn't really even feel like logging my workout on fitocracy, but what can I say, I love games. Even the little incentive of fito-points is enough to get me motivated. I am truly a product of current society. Ah well, arent' we all?
Haven't been tracking my weight recently, I need to lose so much that I can pretty much go off of visible results and things like clothes. When I started Kaju about 16 months ago, I was wearing size 5 gi pants. Somewhere over the course of the year, I think it was about when I was prepping for what would have been test 2 around august-sept, I found myself in a pair of 6s. A little tragic because I'd been doing really well. It's a shitty excuse, but you know, life. On the upside, it's all handled and I've got some real goals that I actually care about (which is important, you know).
Life, it's not an excuse, it's reality. Deal With It.
Anyway, whining aside, I did the whole Kaju seminar in a new pair of size 5 gi pants, and they were actually COMFORTABLE, which means somethings happening. It' s good incentive, just have to remember that the gut fat is going to be the last to go and I have ALOT of it. Let's see where we are in 3 more weeks. I feel like this is the stride now, I'm sleeping ok, I'm training regularly, and I've got my intake schedule dialed.
I've started thinking about carb-loading totally differently too now, just noticing that I feel way better on protein of varying levels and medium to high carbs than I ever did on protein and some degree of fat with low carbs. I mean it makes sense, I know all the exercise and nutrition science behind it and all that, I've just never really given it a serious try. The fact that I've been able to keep up some degree of fairly high energy dependent training while "eating" homemade fruit juice and vegetables is an interesting testament. All said, I'm only taking in about 200g of carbs too (well, not counting the vegetables), so it's been a cool experiment. Now I must think about how to use this power for good when I transition off. I have some ideas, I do like experimenting with training and nutrition, the whole "hacking" your training and diet.
So on to stage 2, in which I add in some clean protein (gonna try Sun Warrior finally) and moderate the carbs a little bit. I'd like to keep lifting for a few different reasons, metabolic effect and "pre-loading" my muscles being the two main ones. And with that...off to the gym.
Monday, April 22, 2013
Pre-Training Day 9: cheat day
Training for 2013年04月21日
Squat: (185x3)x3/225x6/245x6/235x6/225x6/(155x10)x2
Bent Raise: (25x8)x4
Lat Raise: (30x8)x4
EZ Curl: (70x12)x4
Rope Extension: (65x10)x4
Hammer Curl: (40x8)x4
One-arm Reverse Extension: (25x10)x4
Cable Curl: (35x15)x4
V-bar Pushdown: (57.5x15)x4
Food Log (cheat day!)
Edamame
Kaiso Salad (Seaweed)
Cucumber Sunomono
Vegetable Puree (Spinach, Kale, Cucumber, Broccoli, Cherry Tomato, Beef Bouillon, Greek Yogurt)
Fruit Shake
Food Log (cheat day!)
Man, i had some really long string of cool thoughts about training and excelling and my constant weird dream of saving enough money to quit working and train all the time, be it powerlifting or fighting or whatever but then it sorta all went away...
Good checkpoint today, took a bit of time to get through the lifts today, even on the lighter stuff had to bump up my rest periods to as much as 90 seconds. Seems about right for this far into it. Things are evening out just in time for the test this weekend, I think I'll do alright. Might have to adjust the diet protocol a tiny bit, but let's see what happens. I'm thinking this is going to be a smaller test, so I may live...
Saturday, April 20, 2013
Pre-Training Days 7 and 8: alignment
Training for 2013年04月19日
Kajukenbo: Self defense curriculum test review
Food Log
Beef broth
Veg broth
White bean soup broth
Fruit and veggie shake
Kajukenbo: Self defense curriculum test review
Food Log
Beef broth
Veg broth
White bean soup broth
Fruit and veggie shake
Training for 2013年04月20日
MMA Training: Punch and kick footwork
MMA Training: Basic boxing footwork
Food Log Peach Smoothie
Green Tea
Water
Spinach, Kale, Cucumber, Broccoli Soup
Fruit shake
MMA Training: Punch and kick footwork
MMA Training: Basic boxing footwork
Food Log Peach Smoothie
Green Tea
Water
Spinach, Kale, Cucumber, Broccoli Soup
Fruit shake
I don't mean alignment in some weird self-realizing sense, nor do I mean in some stodgy business-y sense, I literally mean physical alignment, that is, two or more things clicking into place. I was thinking about the fact that I feel like whatever part of me governs sleep has finally caught up to the rest of me and now that everything's clicked into place, I'll be able to get back to sleeping like a regular person. I was actually visualizing UIs like that one scene in the fifth element right at the beginning when the glowing circles line up to indicate that the shadow planet has arrived or whatever it's supposed to mean, or all those sequences in the various star wars when some ship gets locked into someone's crosshairs and lasered to death mere seconds later.
Almooost therrre...no that's not true, i'm still a ways out
Yeah, It's getting to that point in the head, so I imagine my writings might get a little more disjointed and lovecraftian (I just mean in the batshit insane sense, not so much speaking of sleeping elder gods and all that) as time goes by. I need the sleep bad, just because it's amazing what a difference effect the cutting has when you're actually training. I was beginning to think it was manageable yesterday, then I go to MMA Training this morning and I'm not sure if it was the coffee, but yeah, jump roping is hard and awesome. Days I (feel like too big of a wuss to/otherwise don't) train I need to start the time honored tradition of steady state cardio, or as I like to call it, going out for a lunchtime stroll.
Almost two weeks in and starting to notice less gut when I do certain movements, but not fast enough. Need to figure out how to get the nutrition for lifting sessions in, and I think I'm going to have to just bite the bullet and switch proteins. I know i'm being a baby, but man, I seriously can't stomach that Strawberries/Cream Isopure. The peptobismol pink is the first turnoff, but the taste is totally just pukeworthy. Gotta figure out how to get the powders down too, haven't been able to find anything that makes them usable, but I think that's less to do with their chemical-flavored goodness and more that it's amplified by the nauseating flavor of the orange C4.
Great results, but man, this stuff tastes like human debris
My right leg needs the calories and materials to recover though, I'm not sure my massive fat stores alone are up to the task...Doing the footwork drills today really highlighted how much I need to get that stuff down, so no gimp legs. Making time for foam rolling and mobility, no more questions, no more f'ing around. Def a testament to the intensity of things like strongman and fighting, all that time i was just lifting in the gym I got by without too much foam rolling, though I did do a ridiculous amount of mobility work...This isn't some excuse i'm trying to make to eat more food, I'm on my schedule and what's happening is happening.
Gotta say the Amazon Prime is paying off for sure since netflix keeps removing all the food porn shows, but you know, i feel like I'm doing cuts wrong. Every time I've done a monster cut like this, having access to food porn keeps me sane, altho everything i read says don't think about food. Of course, knowing how weird i run, I imagine I'm spiking my insulin just by looking at food too, so I'm sure I'm just wrong on all kinds of counts. It's weird, i'm actually looking at all the stuff I take in during the day and starting to remix things, case in point, spinach, kale, and broccoli soup tonight instead of putting those in my shake. When you start thinking about it that way, it's probably a sign of some sort of neurosis, or as i call them, food issues. Thankfully, I'm not too tired or far gone to start TMIing about all that, but let's all be glad I'm not video-blogging (yet). I'm also trying my damndest not to draw parallels to the Cabbage Soup diet, but really, all I have to do is tell myself that I'm making up excuses to start eating again and it's cool. I take to self-deprecation way better than I should (for a non-Catholic)...
Loser's lunch, Wannabe Fighter Style
Thursday, April 18, 2013
Pre-Training Day 6: enter sandman
It was sleep. I mean, i figured it was, but yeah, took off from work a tiny bit early and had a bit of a nap. I often wonder how productive I'd be if I split my day into a couple 3 or 4 hour blocks instead of one 6-10 hour block. I wonder if ever a company will be forward thinking enough to give this sort of thing a shot...well, an American company anyway. Are there government subsidies or tax incentives to keep employees working>40 hrs a week with only a few weeks of vacation? Or is it just companies doing the minimum they feel like they have to given most people's expectations of job perks? Even more incentive for me to get my own studio/design group/whatever off the ground. I really think it'd go over pretty well. Naps are good. I may actually try my own experiment-ish wherein I go to work super early, like say 6, bail out at like 11, take a nap till...2, then work again till I go to class. Might work at least on days I'm not morning training...you know, when I get back to morning training. For now, I think i'm just going to admit I bottomed out and stick to 4.5 days training with time off in between weekdays. Now is the time for a level-headed approach. There will be time and need for extremes soon.
No on tells bears they can't have a siesta every now and then...
You know, this sorta thing makes me think back a great blog post called Your Lifestyle Has Already Been Designed, which you've probably already at least seen mentioned. Going through another cut makes me think that beyond the great points outlined in the blog post, it's even more sinister. The 80 (err, 40, sorry) hour workweek is just another construct to keep the population docile and otherwise non-threatening. Subsidize fake, nutritionally void food and work a schedule that only enables enough physical activity to barely offset that fake, nutritionally void food you had for lunch (and breakfast and last night's dinner). Oddly enough, I find myself thinking about all this more right now because I'm drafting up milestone schedules for my project, and I really hope I'm not setting our team up for this sort of schedule. I'm trying not to, I don't think I am, and I'll redirect if I need to. But now, going to try and sleep again. Really looking forward to getting this all right. This is also the last time I'm ever doing a major fat loss cut...Seriously.
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
Pre-Training Day 5: Trenched
Ok, time to be honest with myself, I am not fight training anymore. I'm struggling through class and hitting like...something that hits really weak, like i dunno, some weird creature with spaghetti noodles for arms. Skipped class yesterday, skipped two classes today, yeah, doin' great. Well, on the upside, at least I burned my two off days so now I HAVE to train from here till Sunday. See, the problem here is rather than looking at a refeed as a trade for training, I should just look at it as a regular part of the cutting process. Yeah...i have some food issues. Had to break the juice fast today too, but at least it was somewhat Renegade Diet-ish. Light broth, vegetables, and thai seafood combo. It's not the calories that are killing me, it's the lack of sleep. Maybe that's what I'll do this weekend, just hang out till I fall asleep and doze for 10-20 hours.
Yeah, today didn't go according to plan at all...
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