Gaming

• I played Mortal Coil last week. It sucked, but I wrote up an Actual Play report at the Forge and those folks helped me diagnose and understand what I need to do better next time. I’m looking forward to another attempt.
• My TSOY Swashbucklers game is going well. We started about three months ago and I expect to get another three months or so out of it, then finish strong and pick up with something new and different in 2007. The holidays always break up an ongoing game anyway.
• I spent a long afternoon on the phone with an old friend in Memphis who’s getting interested in indie rpgs. He’s stoked about TSOY, so I answered all his questions as best I could and gave him as much advice on how to run it as he could stand. Hopefully I’ll get up there soon to play some games. Either Thanksgiving or Christmas, almost certainly.
• I’ve been playing boardgames a lot lately. I’ve found a few I like, but most just don’t do too much for me. I like the stuff that’s fast and light, “filler” games. Anything that takes a long time to play, involves lots of bits, or lots of long strategy just doesn’t interest me. That’s three hours I could’ve spent on an roleplaying game, and I wouldn’t have lost at the end. The exception is cooperative games. Arkham Horror and Shadows Over Camelot (without the traitor) were lots of fun.

Martial Arts

• This session (four-month period) I’m working on the long pole, a few throws, an advanced empty hand principle, and jumping spinning kicks.
• I twisted my ankle the second time we worked on the kicks and I’m almost completely recovered. I still feel a little pain when I turn my ankle inward too hard. Aside from that, I’m fine. I can jump and spin and spar perfectly well.
• I seem to be backwards. The jumping spinning axe kick, outside crescent kick, and butterfly kick all come really easy to me. Those are supposed to be the harder ones for most people. Jumping spinning side kicks, back kicks, wheel and hook kicks are all much harder, and I feel like I’m going to hurt myself on those if I make the tiniest mistake.
• I’ve been practicing in the park with several guys from class on Saturday mornings once or twice a month. We work on some level material stuff if anybody has something they feel like they need help with, then do fun stuff like improvising forms applications, trading stuff from prior studies we’ve done (of which I have none) and work on variations of techniques we’ve covered in class. I especially like working on chin na stuff. I picked up a book by Yang Jwing-Ming with some really excellent techniques. Many of them are different examples of the principles we’ve covered in class already, so we’ve worked on those and the things that build off them. Very cool.
• Last Saturday I got to work out with a couple of the black belt students and a couple of the more experienced colored-ranked students at our kwoon. We worked on a lot of stuff directly related to sparring, including some drills for reacting to open targets and forcing targets to open. Also one of the other guys who trained with us, though he’s new to our style, has a lot of prior experience in a couple of other arts. Best of all, he’s a gymnastics instructor and he’s perfectly content to teach us how to flip out. I got to work on round-offs, hand-springs, forward rolls, backward rolls, dive rolls, front tucks, and back tucks. Yes, I did a back-flip. A bunch, actually. Sure, he had to spot me, but you have to start somewhere. I am thrilled.
• My health lately has been a little worrisome. My right elbow has been giving me some trouble for about a month now. It’s always sore and tight, usually worse in the mornings. It gets looser and less painful if I work it out, especially with a weight or my staff. I’m concerned, though. My left knee has been tight for about a week. I put some undue stress on it working gymastics stuff.
• Even less pleasant, I’ve been really super sore lately. Far more sore than should be warranted by my level of exertion. I’ve also had a fairly constant pain in my right lower back, just about where I think (with my near-complete anatomical ignorance) my kidney is. I have no idea if these things might be related. I’ve cut out all the dietary supplements I’ve been taking (multivitamin, glucosamine (which apparently will do no good for somebody like me anyway), etc) to see if one of those might be causing a problem.
• The soreness rapidly drops away when I start working out, though, so I’m not especially worried about seriously injuring myself. I’m looking to increase the frequency of my endurance training to prepare for my upcoming test and to allow me to concentrate on training technique rather than endurance after I move from Red II to Red I, also known as Black Belt Candidate Level.
• That test will probably be on November 9, and then if all goes according to plan, my Black Belt test will probably cover three days in March with the last third of it on the 22nd. I plan to pass it, so you can go ahead and mark your calendars if you want to see me get my Black on March 29th, 2007.
• With that goal in mind, I’m also cutting sweets out of my diet, dropping portion sizes, to shed some pounds. I’ve been eating pretty much whatever, whenever since January and as a result I’m back up above 200 now. I’m not terribly uncomfortable with that, but I move much more easily around 185 or so. Absolute fightin’ trim for me would probably be around 175 unless I really managed to pack on some muscle. I just don’t have the body type for that, though. Not without some steroids. All I want is to drop some weight to make it easier to prepare for the test.
• I picked up a cheapo heart monitor watch/chest-strap from Woot to help me keep closer tabs on exactly how hard I’m working and how much harder I need to be working to improve. I did some research and did some math, but my results suggest that the amount and intensity of exercise I’m already doing right now is pretty much exactly what I should be doing if I want to increase my endurance and drop weight. Since my routine hasn’t changed significantly (despite my earlier resolutions) in nearly a year, I think my math may be wrong. Or my research is faulty. Maybe I should have calculated myself at the “athlete” level rather than “fit enthusiast.” I hesitate to call myself an athlete, though. In any case, the monitor gives me instant feedback on how hard I’m pushing myself and really helps to keep me in exactly the zone I want.
• With an improved diet, more regular exercise, and more precise regulation allowing me to exercise more efficiently, I expect some decent results.