Saturday, April 30, 2016

April Review

I've had a big overall epiphany this month—I'm doing a little better, by the way, sleeping more and crying less—that despite paring my life down to just (!) four (!) projects, that's still too much for me, and a related little epiphany that this is my repeating pattern, that when I find myself in the dumps, I can usually look up at the molehill that I've turned into a mountain and tumbled down. Probably having this epiphany is part of the pattern. And either I accept that this is my pattern, that I pile whatever fool shit up to make a mountain to climb, climb it, tumble down, cry, lay in the dirt listening to the loons, pick myself up and brush myself off, and then get interested in some new shit and start a new pile, and that's just how it goes, OR POSSIBLY I change. The fucking. Pattern and stop piling up shit for the love of god. Or at least pile it less high. Or you know some of this stuff underfoot I've been thinking is ground level, maybe actually I've been four feet up for some time and could stand to shovel some out. Like if I can't make the sky overhead higher, I can maybe give myself some headroom by making the ground under my feet lower.

Like, maybe this blog. Definitely maybe the other blog.

That's where I am right now, thinking about that.

April picks:

HOME: Cleaning and decorating

1. DO ONE THING for front room big clean >:|

YASSS. I've been stuck thinking that I should go through and trash a lot of my stuff before moving my furniture around, and then not feeling like going through my stuff, and finally I put the cart right in front of the horse and went ahead with moving my furniture around.

smol apartment now seats THREE plus two smol #domokun #domo

A photo posted by Pauline Pang (@allapoppy) on

Which displaced a lot of my stuff, which I now have to deal with—all of that is just off camera. But, it was absolutely the right thing to do. It has improved the flow of the front room SO MUCH, I feel like it might have energized me enough to deal with all this stuff. Which I have begun dealing with, a little bit.

BODY: Healing my body

2a. Continue bodywork, see dentist, see Biggie for hair, and also schedule doctor.

In progress, done, done, and done. Did you know, you can book a doctor's appointment online now, in bed, at like 11:00PM, after completely forgetting to call the doctor's office all day because you were so busy at work. It also eliminates that little roulette when the receptionist asks you when you would like your appointment and I'm not saying this is high suspense, but it's a little suspense before she says, Would you like to come in at 8:20? And you organize yourself to not say, "God no," and blandly ask, "Do you have something closer to noon?" On the internet, nobody knows that you're a dog. Well obviously, I post pretty regularly to the internet about being a dog. I'm just saying, online booking is faster. You can see all the choices. Wow.

2b. Draft a plan for doing taxes better.

Not done. This was overscheduled.

PLAY: Studying muscles

3. Start studying muscles.

Done! By which I mean, started! I did open the book of muscles and looked at a few of them, but I feel like I need some sort of study structure to feel really underway with this. Otherwise though I actually have done quite a bit in this area, even that which could be called studying—just more client-focused studying, questions that came up with my clients that I had to research further.

And also, I renewed my personal trainer certification.

Also also, I attended a yoga teacher training class that Box taught! I am not a yoga teacher of course, but I was proud to be able to hang with that class on the strength of my DIY yoga of the past nine months and grateful to take away a couple good seeds for thought. I feel like this might be an okay way for me to proceed: grow out a good amount of work on my own, and then pop into a class now and again for a little shave and a haircut.

PASTIME: Writing for my two blogs

4. HERE'S THE PLAN: April OFF, minimal writing only; May, return to Shark Week; June, start Nom :|

April OFF, done? All I did was post my plank workouts this month. Though each of those took a whole morning to video, upload, and write up, so like four mornings this month. I think that's about the level of engagement I want for this blog, so what to do with the rest of this to do list.

State of the Blog

Should I just cancel Nom? Ugh idk, it just needs one little push to be at a stopping point, then maybe I could just leave it at that? What is Nom anyway, well, it would be a more curated collection of recipes that I could cook from; I was hoping to use it as my personal cookbook. How much work actually is "one little push," Munt. ATTEMPT TO BE ACCURATE. I don't know! It's more work than I was doing for those plank workouts and that felt like more than enough to me. If I'm going to work on Nom to finish, I think I'm going to have to not work on alla Poppy until Nom is finished. Which means, death to Shark Week, but even more it means, death to "oh I'm just going to post this little video about planks." Is it not possible that you could ...do a little more? I am giving this serious thought, and I don't think so. Doing a little more is what always gets me into this mess. Doing a little more is my go to, and how's that working out for me.

Try. The Other. Thing.

You know what I want? I want Nom to be done, and then to leave it alone. And then I just want to post burning desires to alla Poppy, however often I have those. But in order for Nom to be done, nobody else is going to do it. I have to do it, and I don't really have a burning desire. So maybe I should just let it go, but I don't know about that either. I want it to be done! I believe that I can eventually make this decision, I did finally let go of the idea of being fluent in French. I am finally going through and organizing all the payroll taxes and insurance files at work, and it's much better now. Courage or serenity, courage or serenity, which of these...

Going out, seeing people

Pretty fun month: we went to the WCR vs BCB bout at the Armory, then to cheer on Box at her jiu-jitsu match...

photo by tweebs

She are the champion, my friends...

...and then Trouble's birthday/wine party, and also Nina organized a special Whole Animal Service supper club at Frontier and we ate a whole wild boar o.O

Staying in, Netflix and chill

Yes I know, that's not what Netflix and chill means. But language, ever evolving! You can't stop the signal, Mal.

Sleeping TV

I finally started to sleep okay around the second week of April, lost it for a couple nights, then the third week of April was GREAT, and then I lost it again for another couple nights, finishing out the month back on track. Throughout all this, it hasn't seemed to matter if I'm watching TV at bedtime or what I'm watching, but for the record it's been Midsomer Murders so back on the police procedural kick. But it seems like if I'm going to sleep, I sleep right through it; if I'm not going to sleep, I'm watching it all night. Or really what happens is, I do sleep but not deeply and wake up between episodes just enough to click to the next episode. I did find where I could turn off autoplay on Netflix; that seemed to help a bit, until it didn't.

Lately though I've been thinking that temperature has a lot more to do with whether I sleep through the night and have been removing blankets and putting an ice pack under my head; but the weather's been so changeable, I haven't been able to run a consistent enough experiment to draw conclusions from.

The self-soothing is working though: if not to get me back to sleep when I wake up in the middle of the night, at least to keep me from snowballing and taking out the whole next day.

Working TV

Weirdly, working TV has mostly gone away. If I'm watching Midsomer Murders during the day, I'm just out for the count and not even trying at all. If I am working though, I haven't been able to have TV in the background. That's good, I think?

Watching TV

We watched a few good movies this month: Legend, where Tom Hardy plays twins (truthfully, I fell dead asleep in the middle of that), Kung-Fu Panda 3, and Selfless, which has Ryan Reynolds, with DC Legends of Tomorrow and Lucifer filling in around them.

May picks:

1. DO ONE MORE THING for front room big clean!
2a. Continue bodywork, see doctor.
2b. Draft a plan for doing taxes better.
3. Continue studying muscles, either client-focused or set up a study structure.
4. Let's try May OFF too, see how that feels...

Tuesday, April 19, 2016

#45daysto45
 plank edition 4 playing around

Today is not plank day, but I do not have planks Saturday because—excite—I am taking a special sun salutations class with Box; and also, the group is back on planks today and I want to do them. And, I've been wanting to scratch an itch that I'm always trying to get my clients to itch, viz., to forget about your "workout" for a sec and figure out your movement. Or even, where the hell your body is in space to start with. Clients usually don't have this itch, clients are always itching to work out.

In the interest of one-stop shopping, here are the moves right here:

1. Straight Front Plank with Lateral Walk
2. Bent Side Plank with Hip Drop R
3. Bent Side Plank with Hip Drop L
4. Straight Front Plank with Circular Walk
5. Straight Back Plank
6. Straight Front Plank
7. Straight Side Plank R
8. Straight Side Plank L
9. Bent Front Plank with Mountain Climbers
10. Bent Front Plank with Hip Twists and Drops
11. Bent Front Plank with Spidey Climbers
12. Bent Back Plank
13. Bent Side Plank with Twist R
14. Bent Side Plank with Twist L
15. Flat Back Plank

And here is the video with my lovely assistant der schweetums:

And here are my notes:

I want to try instead of dropping my hips lower to get straighter, walking out my hands and/or feet to make my body longer. I need to write this up with pictures. TK, perhaps. No promises.

The upshot today is that I really have no business adding in this mobility to side planks (the hip drops and the twists) until I have good stability in a good position for side planks. When MJ puts me in a better position like three or four different times in this video, my lats LIGHT UP and that is what I want to be working. When I start dropping and twisting my lats are like hyeah too much, g'night. So going forward the project is WAKE UP LATS. So probably, back to static side planks.

Besides that, I think I can be more straight (i.e., longer) for all my front planks. Except the mountain climbers can be hinged, but that's still hinged a little up and can be more horizontal.


Saturday, April 16, 2016

#45daysto45
 plank edition 3

Hooray, I was only lightly sore after last week's plank workout. My top two DOMS theories are 1) your body freaks out the first time (or the first time in a long time) you use a muscle and floods it with histamines and then when nothing bad happens, the next time it's like oh right, that muscle, it's all good and 2) microscopic muscle tears that repair when properly rested, watered, and fed. So my response to both is rest, water, and feed until I feel okay again, then repeat the same workout at the same intensity (and repeat the rest, water, and feed), and in this manner I train myself in the repeated use of said muscles, which trains said muscles—spirit and flesh, boon companions! Ah, there's so much to be said about this. But, onward:

1. Straight Front Plank with Lateral Walk
2. Bent Side Plank with Hip Drop R
3. Bent Side Plank with Hip Drop L
4. Straight Front Plank with Circular Walk
5. Straight Back Plank
6. Straight Front Plank
7. Straight Side Plank R
8. Straight Side Plank L
9. Bent Front Plank with Mountain Climbers
10. Bent Front Plank with Hip Twists and Drops
11. Bent Front Plank with Spidey Climbers
12. Bent Back Plank
13. Bent Side Plank with Twist R
14. Bent Side Plank with Twist L
15. Flat Back Plank

This time I spotted myself seven seconds to set up between moves but I'm getting a little fussier about form, so I'm still a little short of 30 seconds on most of these moves. But, I didn't have to reset at all this time. This business of self-timing is a lot of work; sometimes I don't know why people would pay a trainer—viz., me, for basically having fun—but now I'm seeing why, in addition to having eyes on you. For which for now, I have this video:

I'll tell you what's much better this time around, I'm in a much straighter plank, not hinged, in those lateral walks. You see plenty of pictures of hinged planks out there, and I'm not saying that's wrong. I'm not a person that will say hardly any kind of movement is wrong—folding yourself in half backwards until your spine snaps, yeah, not so good, and a few other things like that—as a practitioner, I'm interested in the interesting positions a body can get itself into. Eh, I have a whole theory of planks that might be worth another post. Suffice to say for now that straight plank is more challenging than hinged plank; but there's nothing wrong with hinged plank if that's what you can do, especially when you add an added mobility challenge.

I'm doing a better job staying in plane for the side planks, including my head and neck. Though I think I'm getting the mobility for the hip drops more from hips hinging forward rather than torso laterally flexing. This might be because there's some basic geometry that I'm not getting about the side plank, I'll get back to you about that.

I'll tell you what I don't like, how my hips are swaying in the "circular" walk. Ideally I want my hips to stay level while my limbs, in this case just my arms, are moving underneath me.

Still not a fan of straight back plank, and I didn't do myself any favors trying to move my legs farther out. I would like my limbs to be vertical under me, so that leaves me to figure out what to do with my torso.

This is kind of bratty to say but since I'm hinging at the hip for those mountain climbers, that actually is a little rest break for me. The spideys are hard, though, at that point my shoulders are feeling the burn. Also I feel like I should be doing something else with those spideys, I'm going to play with that some more.

After that set of climbers/twist and drops/spideys, the bent back plank is bliss.

See you next week, same bat time, same bat channel, same bat program...

Saturday, April 9, 2016

#45daysto45
 plank edition 2

Holy DOMS Batman, I was nice and evenly sore all around after last week's plank workout. Nobody really knows the answer to DOMS, though not everybody knows that they don't know. I don't mind being sore, but I'm not chasing soreness; it was actually debilitating for a day longer than I wanted. The part that I liked, though, was feeling like I was wearing a corset, haha, a meat corset. So naturally I want to keep doing this, and I also want to improve some things I saw in the first video, and in all honesty still in the second video.

First, I warmed up with four sets of sun salutations. Then uh, cooled down futzing around with my camera and my timer.

Okay then, plank variations:

1. Straight Front Plank with Lateral Walk
2. Bent Side Plank with Hip Drop R
3. Bent Side Plank with Hip Drop L
4. Straight Front Plank with Circular Walk
5. Straight Back Plank
6. Straight Front Plank
7. Straight Side Plank R
8. Straight Side Plank L
9. Bent Front Plank with Mountain Climbers
10. Bent Front Plank with Hip Twists (these are twist and drops, really)
11. Bent Front Plank with Spidey Climbers
12. Bent Back Plank
13. Bent Side Plank with Twist R
14. Bent Side Plank with Twist L
15. Flat Back Plank

The video thing is a whole other learning curve, like I had to strip out the music for my first video and maybe will have to for this one too because of copyright. There's not a thing where you can upload without sound like Instagram?

A) Lol, my hair. B) I was keeping an eye on the timer in my transitions and it actually takes more like 7-10 seconds to set up between moves, so I'm not quite up to 30 seconds per move yet. But, I will probably shorten up those transitions as I get this memorized; right now my timer is set for 35-second intervals, and I only had to reset once this time. C) L and R are reversed from last week, because of where the camera is and I want to show the front first.

Also lol, when I freeze in the lateral walk because I can't figure out which limb I can pick up. This "circular" walk, though, it's really just another lateral walk as far as your shoulders are concerned. I might sub in a forward and backward walk, or a true circular walk where you also walk your feet. I'm going to need a bigger kitchen.

Mainly what I wanted to work on today was keeping my body in plane for all the side planks. I opened the hinge at the hip, but my shoulder is still dropping forward and twisting my torso. I fix that a little bit here and there, ideally it will look like I am trapped inside a windowpane that I don't break (unless I break it on purpose, like for the twists.)

I'm not a super fan of that straight back plank, that seems to be more about shoulder mobility than core strength. That might just be my shoulders, though, and I'm willing to accept that they could use some work in that area. Good old bridge (I decided that for back plank, "bent" refers to knees not elbows) and this new to me flat (and if we're talking about knees, this is straight) back plank is what works the back meat, though.

I'm also on the fence about a bent front plank with mountain climbers, it's just not enough room to fold up that much bone and meat. I mean, my femur is just longer than my humerus. So I have to hinge at the hip for it to fit at all, which, there's nothing wrong with that, in fact it's key for those eagles that I'm doing below. Hm maybe that's my reason for keeping on doing them like this, okay. For now. I'm going to think about this some more.

Finally, I ended with one set of what I'm calling power salutations, roughly this embedded into regular sun salutations, so like I put upward salutes and half standing forward bend back in where they go, and also I have super regressed most of the key moves like those spideys and twists out of three-legged downward dog, and those everlovin eagles. That said, as I thought, the spidey and twists in the plank variations are helping in the power salutations, and today I actually managed something like homunculus eagles. Eaglets.

Anyway now that I've done myself so many favors hunching up in front of my laptop on my cold living room floor to post all this, I'm getting into an epsom salt bath with a glass of tart cherry juice. I did at least drink water and eat some protein and vegetables immediately after.

But see that's the sneaky part about DOMS, I'm not sore now...

Saturday, April 2, 2016

#45daysto45
 plank edition

Another friend, another lifeboat! This time Busty is doing a 45-day challenge leading up to her 45th birthday. So far I love it, my friends do challenges right. Lots of challenges that you see like on Pinterest are just too much. Which apart from not being especially good for your body, they set you up for failure. Which is not good for your spirit! My friends' challenges are set up for success. Success good, challenges good, friends good.

Today's challenge is this plank workout video:

First of all, um lady, that's nine moves?

1. Side to Side Planks
2. Plank with Hip Drops
3. Around the World Plank
4. Bridge Plank
5. Straight Plank
6. Mountain Climbers
7. Straight Plank with Hip Drops
8. Spiderman Planks
9. Side Plank with Reach

I mean, right? Not judging, it's not like Nora hasn't PR'd at least once because adding up plates is hard. Just saying that I have 45 stuck in my brain and if you count L and R as their own sets, that's already 11 sets. So all I need is four more sets to make 15 sets x 30 sec = 450. Which is 45 with a 0 on the end, wee! So I added in a couple easier side planks and a couple more back planks to even things out:

1. Straight Front Plank with Lateral Walk
2. Bent Side Plank with Hip Drop L
3. Bent Side Plank with Hip Drop R
4. Straight Front Plank with Circular Walk
5. Straight Back Plank
6. Straight Front Plank
***7. Straight Side Plank L
***8. Straight Side Plank R
9. Bent Front Plank with Mountain Climbers
10. Bent Front Plank with Hip Drops
11. Bent Front Plank with Spidey Climbers
***12. Bent Back Plank
13. Bent Side Plank with Twist L
14. Bent Side Plank with Twist R
***15. Flat Back Plank

I renamed all of them, but they're all the same except the starred ones. And without further ado, my video:

Hey oh, actual YouTube video because TIL Flickr's video limit is 3 min.

Haha this is my brand: alla Poppy, making reassuring videos of me sucking at stuff since 2015! Honestly I think it's spiritually good to video your first try at everything. Not even for later so you can see how much you've improved, but for right now being okay with how you are right now.

But I might work with this some more, because obviously that's what I do and maybe I should provide more videos of the improvement side of things. Like, my sun salutations have really improved since this. Most of these are somewhat short of 30 seconds because I forgot to build in time for transitions, probably need 5 seconds for those. Maybe next time I will figure out what order to walk my arms and legs in, haha I'm so puzzled. Also, I need to sweep my kitchen floor. All my side planks could be straightened out, and I could keep my neck straighter—i.e., stop looking at the clock lol. Some of those dynamic bent arm planks might work better as straight arm planks, the better to preserve core stability with. I love how I played my NOPE card on that bent back plank, I don't know if that's even possible and in any case, a bridge, or half-bridge, is a nice little break at that point in the workout.

Friday, April 1, 2016

Greek Yogurt with Jam and Sliced Almonds, Banana, and Strawberries

greek yogurt with jam and sliced almonds, banana, and strawberries

I don't think strawberries are strictly in season in April, but I feel like that's when the Jewel starts having a lot of them and also when cuties are noticeably on the way out; so that's when I change it up.

a cup of greek yogurt
a teaspoon of jam
a handful of sliced almonds
a banana
half a dozen strawberries

Put the yogurt in a bowl, add a spoon of jam, and top with sliced almonds. Plate with a banana and a strawberries.