forgotten_aria

I passed my test. They said I got a 92, but I can't quite figure out how that happened.

I was lucky with knowledge and they asked me things I mostly knew. I was a bit long winded when explaining some things. I will say I was shakier on my speech than I expected too, so I was clearly nervous. I think my writing test went well (I think I over heard him say 100%)

The foot definitely gave me trouble. In my basic motion I made a lot of mistakes with my hand open or not. Not something I've ever done before and had nothing to do with my injury. The foot REALLY hurt when I tried to catch myself for front falling. I made a noise and collapsed from plank (the technique requires you stay on your toes, in kind of a wide legged plank.) There were a few other times when there was a lot of pain, but mostly it was just aching. It restricted my movement and power some, but not enough that I couldn't get through it.

My 4 direction kick went better than I would have guessed, but I wobbled a few times. Taekbaek was ok, though again I lost my balance when supporting myself on the bad foot. Kumgang went WAY better than I feared it would, since it's all balance. Koryo went fairly well, with a few strained facial expressions.

My creative gumbup (sword) was not impacted by the foot. It went ok, but I forgot to slide my foot when sheathing the sword.

Sparring was very difficult, because I was moving slowly and deliberately, it was hard to react. Sadly my partner slightly hurt her ankle. I hope it's ok.

The creative poomsae were really good this year. One student did a Wednesday Addams routine, complete with playing the cello. People liked my "magic" appearing sword. I missed the timing a little on my creative poomsae, but given I had not practiced it with full kicks because of the foot, not bad.

We had choice for our demo breaking. I hope I picked hard enough ones. I wanted a really high tuning round house, but I didn't adjust the board up far enough and ended up breaking it with my shin (not that it hurt, just bad distance.)

Power breaking I felt like I had done well enough on the rest of the test to risk trying for 7 boards as a personal challenge. (5 is required, you get a bonus point per extra board, but if you don't break them, you are scored with 5-the number you didn't break. So if you claim 7, and break only 2, that's 0 points.) I went through them very cleanly and impressed a few of the students.

I really started to relax as the test went on, even with the foot.

I really hope the foot heals soon. I'm very tired of being limited by it, but the big worry is over. I was able to pass. I will try to be kind to it at CrossFit. The dojang is closed for the week, so I don't even have to think about if I should attend or not.

But hey, did it before 50!

My cricut certainly isn't the most economical way to make things, but I have used it a fair amount and it is super fun. My most recent was this shirt, which also caused me to finally at least dabble with artscape. I really don't want to spend $100 on a heat press for my shirts, but it is proving to be very hard to get good results with an iron, though I'm getting by.

( shirt )

I got to be an examiner for the black belt test again. Everyone, including me, was much less prepared, but I was also much more relaxed, since I had done it before. My suit pants were a little tight for what I had to do during the test, so I went to K&G and lucked out and got two pantsuits from the clearance rack, one for $22, one for $30. Both jackets aren't quite right for the context, but the $22 looks so awesome on me and both pairs of pants are roomy enough to allow me to squat, so now I at least have a choice for May if I'm a tester then. Plus they are both machine washable suits! I need to price out getting the old pants dry cleaned or decided if I'm hand washing them. Last year I bought boys dress shoes just in case I ever wanted to wear the suit as a Loki suit and they came in handy, since my fancy dress boots were both peeling AND didn't quite fit anymore (might have fit with stocking socks instead of sock socks.)

It was very reassuring that K&G had suits that were WAY too big for me. I was worried I had maxed out their size selection (since the pants I owned were the biggest they had in that style when I bought them,) but apparently only in the brand of my existing suit (which I'm not sure they even carry that brand any more. Being able to shop in a store, especially for formal wear, is a privilege.

After some unbecoming whining about running, I started my training for my black belt physical in October and immediately my tendon is itching (a warning sign before it becomes inflamed.) I'm going to try different shoes next time. Give it lots of massage and hot soaks. It does not bode well for my training however. I will have to figure it all out, somehow.

On another note, I made notable progress with frogstand, for the first time holding it, rather than pushing up and falling back down. I'm still not past more than 2s, but it's progress.

I still can't figure out why it's so hard for me to kick up into handstand. I don't know if it's just the weight of my hips, lack of flexibility or just doing something wrong. I stopped really practicing in the door frame after I took a spill (because I missed the other side of the frame with my foot) and gave myself some bruises.

( bruises )

I haven't been dealing great with now, which is weird, since my life hasn't changed that much. I think it's because 2020 was supposed to be a year of hope, a year where we looked to removing the cheato. But even that, with Biden, is kind of soured. I am very tired of the current state of politics and press. I am tired that the cheato did so many things wrong, but his propaganda machines in the conservative media always find a way to blame someone else.

But I think the "unknown" is wearing on me and how this seems to continue to spotlight the worst humans. People who let their stupidity become violence. People who let their love of money make them do horrible thing and the "Haves" going out of their way to take from the "have nots."

Crossfit workouts have become all small dumbbell (because I don't own anything bigger) and body weight stuff, so I'm not getting my feeling of power from moving weight around. They did lend me a bar and some plates, so I gratefully have a barbell to play with, but since I can only go up to 125, it means I'm forced to work on those movements I don't do well (snatch, clean, overhead squat.) And I do need to work on them, desperately, but that doesn't generate accomplishment brain-chemistry.

Taekwondo has taken to teaching on line, and I'm finding it fun, but also very stressful. It's so hard to teach people when they might crash into a piece of furniture at any moment and when you're not really sure how left and right works, because your camera is mirrored, but you're supposed to be doing mirrored (which I haven't practiced that much, so I'm not confident I'm doing it right.) Then add in any technical difficulties. (I had zoom tell me it was the wrong password until I reinstalled zoom, my tablet's screen is failing again. Thank goodness I have so many computers.)

The best part of all this is I've gotten to play some really amazing board games online with good people. I've really enjoyed Tzolk'in, Hanabi, and Ghost Stories and we just started Gloomhaven. We struggled a bit both with the online game interface (it turned a card into a double backed card inexplicably) and getting our bearings, but I really really like it and look forward to its campaign nature.

The mixed part is I've gotten a chance to work on some movements that I hadn't been making time for . I did get back up into a handstand for the first time since my back got inflamed, which made me happy, but it takes me ~25 tries, and it's a bit of fear thing and I'm frustrated that I don't seem to be getting better. I've been trying to work on my overhead squat depth, but I have this gap. 20lbs, no problem, nice and deep. 35lbs, I can't even get parallel. (keep in mind, I can front squat a lot more.) I can't figured out how to get those in between weights. I can't really work on a snatch until I have the OH squat. There's also a gap in the weights right about where I need to work on my clean. I can clean 95lbs, no problem. I struggle with 115lbs. The plate math means there's no in between. I've been working on my pull up too, but the progress there is sloth-like, except I'm pretty sure a sloth can do pull ups better than me. I should also try working on my box jumps and my double unders, but I've not had the cycles. I am having fun posting things to my Instagram inspiration account, but even the plan for that is a reminder of what's going on.

Which is the main problem. I've been feeling tired and drained this whole time and I don't really know why. I have very little will to do things that aren't video games.

I hope people are doing well.

I've been trying to get up to 4 hours of crossfit in a week, but with 4-6 hours of taekwondo and lyra, my body hasn't had the energy to make it the week. I've only have my one hoop class and I'm signed up for 3 more, but I'm thinking I can't quite do it all and I might give up hoop for now, but I will reevaluate after the 3 classes are done.

I'm still super happy to know there is a hoop/silks place where I can feel comfortable, even if I can't take advantage of it for now.

I'm thinking of starting a Instagram account focused on the things I've been doing with my body that I was told as a kid wasn't possible at my size in hopes that more people will just go out and find their happy exercise.

I tried again to do nine boards, but only got 7/9. I was very pleased with my form, however. I just needed a little more focus on where to start my power.

( video )

I also tried to do 4 with no spacers. My form on this wasn't as good, as I hit with my pinky side of the hand. It's also interesting to see how much the rig bounces, so if I ever try this again (or 3 for that matter) I should use the cinder blocks.

( video )

Today I had a huge break through on my back hook kick, but I'm really posting because I did my first legit (though I'm sure ugly) cartwheel. This is not only a physical victory for me, but this is a huge physiological one. Cartwheels were something that as a kid I basically wrote off as not something a obese kid could do, so I did seek someone to teach me.

First, for those of you who won't read the whole post, I want to say that the ReStore in Lawrence is like goodwill for home depot/lowe's stuff. Check it out, especially if you need something that's not made any more.

As part of my Black Belt test, I had to volunteer somewhere. I do lots of volunteer work for ONE, including reheading the drums, but I've also wanted to find somewhere I could volunteer that I didn't have a stake in. I finally found a place that didn't have a month commitment required, which is the Habitat for Humanity ReStore.

It was kind of fun. they gave me odd jobs. I was exhausted by the end because of the social interactions of them not quite giving me enough guidance and knowing the line between bothering them with a question and not making things worse.

The store itself was an amazing collection of things. I plan to go back there to shop at some point.

I hope I also go back to volunteer, but right now I don't have the social energy to even think about it too hard.

I jogged 20 minutes without stopping today. It was a wicked slow pace, but the point was to do it. I still don't like running, but it's getting easier to get my self out the door. On hot days, I'm preferring the slower pace, longer run. I'm hoping as things cool down and can work more towards speed.

There are now 8 weeks left before testing. I'm still not sure I'll pass. To complicate things I'm having trouble with shuttle runs too. The turns wear me out, especially because I can only "hockey stop" about 6 before my knees start complaining at me. I have to do 15 in 2 minutes. I can do about 14 now. I get really tired at 6. It doesn't seem to matter what pace I go because it's the acceleration and deceleration that tire me.

The good news is that the application (and application fee) due date is AFTER the physical, so I can delay until after I know if I've passed to hand over my money. I will be very disappointed if I have to wait another year, but in the end, I don't NEED a black belt. This was never about the carrot, but I've been programmed to want the carrot for too long to not have it affect me.

In other news, I had a bad interaction with one of the students and let the master know about it. Not only was his reaction perfect, but did a great job of caring not only for the other student, but for my personal reaction as well. I am SO GLAD I searched and finally found this place.

Been a little busy with the trip to Pittsburgh to help my mom buy a car and then Black Ships.

Taekwondo is doing well. This weekend I test for "high brown" which means just "deputy black" before black. In a lot of ways I'm really glad the master convinced me to not try to black this year. I means I can be more mellow and I'm forced to come to terms with the "maintenance" part of TKD, which is to say, after high brown, the amount you learn per year goes way down and you are expected to learn things with more accuracy and precision. I am such a passion driven person, though, sometimes I have to remind myself that TKD just makes me feel better and it's completely worth doing just for that reason and the other carrots are just crutches. I'm doing something that improves my quality of life and that's enough.

I put myself on a waiting list for a therapist again. They called back today and I have introductory appointment this Friday. I know it's going to be completely different this time, because I'm in a very different place. My depression, while still existent, is much better than it was. I want to work more on my anxiety and paranoia, which I feel I can get advice on and maybe some more tools in my tool kit, which feels more like something that someone else can help with. But we'll see. There are a lot of horrible therapists out there and the ones that take new patients are more likely to be the ones with high turn over.

Taiko is... odd. I definitely have the "you can't go back there" problem. I really don't feel like I belong any more to the group or to the community, but I'm still quite active and doing many of the income producing jobs. I can't say I want to be doing them, but I still can enjoy them when I have to do them. We're struggling to find students, however, and that's stressing me out. I'm currently teaching pro bono just because I was tired of canceling classes and I like my students.

I made another Overwatch themed music video. I've been slow about posting music videos lately, partly because I've been busy enough and partly because since it's not yet an income source, I want to keep it relaxed and fun. My first overwatch video has done much better than anything else I've posted, which is cool, but still just in the noise as far as income goes. I'm also not that happy with this one. The song didn't quite come out the way I was hoping, but the idea is that I need practice making music and videos. ( Video. ) I've also been playing a lot of overwatch.

No new instruments. I am getting another USB controller for Ableton tomorrow.

I haven't been able to hit school of honk much lately and I'm having ear inflamation that I think is caused by earplugs, so I might have to skip again. I got some new ear plugs that are cheap self moulded ear plugs and I hope they'll help some, but we'll see.

Been enjoying the AC comfort of the new house. Reminding myself one of the reasons I moved out of 133.