It’s been an odd week. Half the household has been abroad and with the resulting extra chores, life stuff and apathy most of my projects have been severely neglected as a result.

Writer

Writing 23 (out of 66) scenes complete – structural/continuity revision

Discussed in more detail in yesterday’s post. I’ve done very little editing this week.

Reading “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Verbal Self-defense” by Lillian Glass

This has turned out to be a huge disappointment and doesn’t live up to the promise of the blurb or the opening chapters at all.

The writing style often becomes hectoring and assumes that you are completely incompetent in every conversational scenario, not just coming across a couple of difficult people you need help to manage. There are some good tips, but you have to wade through an awful lot of fluff to find them.

The advice given in the majority of sections is vague enough to unhelpful at best and downright dangerous at worst, particularly in the scenarios where you could put yourself physically at risk – many of the tips here are contrary to the advice I’ve seen elsewhere and may make the situation much worse.

Fighter

Kettlebell: 8kg

I am continuing to focus on the beginner routines. They must be doing something, because I’ve felt really stiff this week, particularly in neck, shoulders, knees and ankles. Still taking extreme care and keeping reps low.

Geek

Current obsession: old episodes of Grey’s Anatomy.

Also have been sharing funny YouTube clips with my ten-year-old. His current favourite:

My current favourite:

I hope you had a great week!

I read a great post over at Chiron yesterday, which looked at the physical and psychological differences between men and women in martial arts and how that affects their training.

I’ve quoted an excerpt below, but you should really check out the entire post for context:

Women are attacked differently and for different reasons than men. They are even intimidated differently. The average women can be knocked flat with a single blow from a fairly athletic men. Women know this. Athletic men teaching self-defense tend, it seems, to forget. When a guy gets knocked down, we don’t like it, but it has happened before– playing football or rough-housing as kids.

When a woman gets knocked down it is often new, a blatant expression of power she can’t match and with an emotional element men rarely grasp. You knock me down, I’m a guy. This is now a contest. The message is, “This is what I’ve got. What have you got?”

You knock down a woman, it is a stark affirmation of something she knows: men are powerful. The message received is not about a contest. It is about worth and power and inconsequence.

Are the messages true? Doesn’t matter, because they are often received, true or not.

This verbalises for me something that I’ve been struggling with for a while.

On the one hand, I find it frustrating when a training partner is treating me too gently, just because I’m a woman. It does me no favours and leads to a false sense of security. Ditto when I play it safe by selecting training partners of a similar size/build. Odds are, in a real self-defense situation I’m going to be facing someone bigger and stronger than me and neither will they be cutting me any slack.

On the other hand, I have been in situations where training partners haven’t been careful enough. Regular training bruises I don’t object to. Hell as far as I’m concerned, they’re a badge of honour. But I have been in a situation in the past when I couldn’t train for a few days until the swelling in my arm had gone down after basic footwork drills. I’m not prepared to take that kind of injuries in my training. It’s made me over cautious and very wary of any partner that appears out of control or not considerate of my safety.

So I oscillate between taking risks of over-confidence or succumbing to a sense of futility that nothing I can ever physically do is going to make a difference in the real world. Sometimes several times in one session!

I would love to hear how other MA women deal with this.

It’s been a much better week. I’m feeling much more well-rested and interested in projects again, which is a great sign.

Writer

Writing 23 (out of 66) scenes complete – structural/continuity revision

It’s been a difficult writing week. I’m struggling with the current scene – it was originally part of the previous scene and needed heavy structural reshaping. Then my characters wouldn’t play ball and each little part I fixed seemed to break something. However, in the last couple of days I seem to have made a breakthrough and it’s all coming together now.

Reading “Accelerando” by Charles Stross

Still reading this! The underlying story is good, but I find him a very dense writer and I have to pay lots of attention to follow the plot. Not always good for bedtime reading when feeling a little sleepy!

“The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Verbal Self-defense” by Lillian Glass

I’ve chosen a non-fiction book to alternate with “Accelerando” and this was a great choice. It takes a look at speech patterns/situational awareness/body language to give you cues on when you’re ‘under attack’ and how to most effectively defend yourself in those situations. It blends quite nicely with the situational awareness I’m learning for Krav – being able to use verbal early warning signs is an essential skill and good to have in the self-defense tool-kit.

Fighter

Kettlebell: 8kg

I’ve been looking at the final move in my arsenal of basic kettlebell exercises, the military press:

I’m now focusing on three different beginner routines with different emphases: cardio fitness, body shaping and power/strength. I’m keeping the reps small (only half the recommended, this week) to make sure my form is correct while I’m learning the routine and not going to do myself any damage.

Geek

I’m feeling decidedly (and shockingly) ungeeky recently. Probably because I’m between games and I’ve been too tired/busy to find anything else that holds my interest.

So what are you playing? Anything you’d recommend?

I have posted recently about my general lack of energy and poor mood, and how I’ve tried to give myself a bit of a mind/body MOT to fix them (Sleep is the Key). The first thing I tackled was my apparent allergy to an early bedtime and have been moderately successful this week. I am now much less sleep-deprived.

Unfortunately, I don’t seem to have tapped into a boundless well of energy as a result. So I am attempting further life-hacks in the hope of tracking down the mojo-sucking culprit.

Next on the interrogation list: exercise. Ironically, this is something I’d felt I’d already sussed. I have a decent fitness program in place which includes kettlebell workouts, a Wii-based cardio program and Krav training. Certainly, well over the 30 minutes of moderate exercise, five days a week that the NHS recommend.

Taking a closer look, though, I realised two things. Firstly, pretty much everything I did was indoors. Secondly, I’d really drifted away from being active for fun. All my exercise was geared around various training goals rather than enjoyment. I was well overdue picking an activity just for the hell of it.

As it wasn’t actually raining this morning (a miraculous event in itself) I thought “sod this”, ditched my normal routine and dug my bike out from the back of the shed. Time for some fresh air and a vitamin D top up. I didn’t go for anything particularly challenging – just a fun half-hour route around local woodland.

It was fabulous – a great way to blow away the cobwebs and relax. I found myself sailing up hills that had previously had me out of breath and reaching for lower gears. Wow, I had made some improvements to my fitness over the last year after all! My quick mood and energy boost had turned into a morale boost along the way.

Did bunking off my normal exercise routine and getting outside make a huge difference to my energy levels? Probably not. But I’m definitely going to make more room for active play in future.

I’ve been finding my fighting inspiration this week by discovering some amazing interviews with top level martial artists.

I have particularly enjoyed this interview/montage with Jamaican karate master, Al Hewitt, who manages to blend toughness with an effortless grace and wisdom.

Also worth listening to are the Martial Secrets archives which have a wonderful collection of interviews from a variety of backgrounds and disciplines.

Each of the martial arts masters I’ve listened to have such a different perspective and it’s been a joy to listen to their methods of training, mental conditioning and the pivotal moments in their martial arts journey.

Who inspires you the most?

These weekly posts are always so much easier to write when the week has gone well. Unlike this one. I’m still battling low energy and apathy, although I’ve felt a bit brighter in the last couple of days.

Writer

Writing 23 (out of 66) scenes complete – structural/continuity revision

Managed to put in some good effort on the latest scene, but annoyingly found that it needed to be split into two separate ones – the goalposts have moved back a little further.

Reading “Accelerando” by Charles Stross

Have neglected reading along with everything else.

Fighter

Kettlebell: 8kg
Deadlifts: 10
Two-arm swings: 15
Left-arm swings: 15
Right-arm swings: 15
Alternating swings: 10
Turkish Get Up: 1
Squats: 10
Clean: 10

Same place as I was last week. Maintaining rather than progressing.

Geek

The high point in the week was meeting up with the Worcester Flickr Group at menickstephensorg‘s garage studio. I’m very rusty with my camera (I’ve got into point/shoot/fix later bad habits) but it was great to experiment with different lighting and have fun in the process.

I have not been in a good head-space over the last week or so. No real reason for it. Minor life stresses, sinus and allergy problems, tiredness, dreary weather, other trivial frictions – nothing that I could really point to and say, “There – that’s the problem. Fix that and everything else will fall into place”.

The last few days it’s started to affect the way I exercise and train. I usually exercise last thing in the afternoon before picking the kids up from school, so it’s easy to drop it or only do halfheartedly if I’m not feeling 100% or am just running behind. I skipped training this week, primarily because of the rumblings of a sinus headache that threatened but never really kicked off. Allergies do seem to be worse recently and are getting me down, but if I’m honest with myself I could have worked through it if I didn’t feel so exhausted and without spark.

So, for the next few weeks I’m going to be putting energy (or lack thereof) as my priority. There’s other things I need to work through too, but if I’m too tired or disinterested to care then it’s not going to happen. Sleep patterns, diet and the way I exercise will all be coming under the microscope – sort of a mind/body MOT.

Sleep is the most obvious starting point. After the chain of bank holidays, bad habits have crept in with later bedtimes and lighter mornings have meant that the kids are waking us up earlier. Over time, the amount of sleep we’ve been getting has been squeezed into a smaller and smaller time slot – not by much, but accumulatively I have become seriously sleep deprived.

Last night, I forced myself to switch off the lights at 11pm, but just could not get to sleep. My brain (that had helpfully been too tired to function all day) was suddenly wide awake and unable to switch off. I had a restless night followed by painfully bright and bouncy children this morning. I think I feel more shit today than I have done for the whole of last week.

This may be a long term project.

A quick follow up to my post a few days ago, regarding the fallacy that women shouldn’t lift anything too heavy in case they bulk up.

I found this great post over on stumptuous.com – Lies in the Gym. It discusses and debunks eight myths that women are commonly told when they start working out. It also has a jaw-dropping list of ignorant remarks verging on misogyny aimed at women who dared to lift something heavier than a small, pink hand-weight.

Mostly, though, I’ve found the article (and the people who took the time to comment on it) inspirational. It’s very encouraging to discover that it’s perfectly possible for me to be able to seriously improve my strength if I put the time and work in, despite my build and my gender.

It’s been a busy week, not helped by server outages, power cuts, 10-year-old birthday parties, and my own lack of willpower.

Writer

Writing 22 (out of 65) scenes complete – structural/continuity revision

Now over a third of the way through the first round of edits. Depressingly, it was a year ago today that I finished the first draft and it feels like I should be further along by now. I’m also suffering a crisis of confidence that I don’t really have the skill to pull this story off. Meh.

It hasn’t helped that I’ve been very bad at getting started this week, to the extent I’m now actively looking for ways of banning myself from the more addictive areas of the internet during working hours.

Reading “Accelerando” by Charles Stross

I’m sure I’m missing half the references in this book – and I thought I was quite technologically aware and geeky. Still, the world building and description is fabulous.

Fighter

Kettlebell: 8kg
Deadlifts: 10
Two-arm swings: 15
Left-arm swings: 15
Right-arm swings: 15
Alternating swings: 10
Turkish Get Up: 1
Squats: 10
Clean: 10

Ticking over. Again, procrastination has badly hit the amount of training I’ve done this week. Hopefully, I’ll get back on track next week.

Geek

LeechBlock – a handy little Firefox plugin that blocks websites you specify either by specific time period, time spent per hour, or both. There are also multiple ways you can ban yourself from accessing the plugin to avoid cheating, too. Guess what I’ll be using next week.

I know it’s not been long since we’ve moved house, but am rather won-over by the first zombie-proof house. Do you think they’d accept part-exchange?