Tag: weights

My last day at RASP was bittersweet. I learned a lot, but I hated for the weekend to end. I think I took three pages of notes that day alone, and Nik took plenty too. Then we made the long drive back to Florida.

This morning I got up early to meet Tiny Nick and Emmers at the gym. Here’s my “set list.”

I’m trying to vary my workouts, so I’m working out with different people instead of sticking to Nik’s routine.

Tonight we returned to fencing. We showed our club new warm-ups and games. Then we debriefed about our weekend, and Nik showed them the format he wants to use for future classes. I’m excited to get started!

After slacking off for a month and a half, I’m back in the gym. Nik and I lifted light and did only 15 minutes of cardio. It was a good first day back.

I didn’t make any resolutions this year, but I have committed to CIC 2 in late May, and I’m going to a fencing pedagogy retreat this weekend. I’m psyched about learning more about how to teach.

I haven’t been excited about fighting for a little while now, but I’m starting to feel that fire rising up in my belly. I’ve booked tournaments and other events up to halfway through this year. I can’t wait (but I’m glad I have time to prepare).

I’m still around. I went to a couple tournaments but didn’t post about them. Basically I trained, I went, I fenced well enough but didn’t win… the usual. My mentor told me to lead less and focus on my fighting, so that’s what I’m doing now.

Right now I’m gearing up for a big tourney: the Southeast Renaissance Fencing Open. We’re about a week into our 30 days of fencing. I’m doing this on top of some pretty rigorous weight training.

Nik and I have been going to the gym pretty much every day since the summer. We do have rest days, and we miss when life gets in the way. When we go, we focus on arms or chest & shoulders (since fencing works the legs). In a month I gained a fair amount of weight but lost 3% body fat.

I’m still doing Krav but on a different schedule. Enrollment dropped enough that we cancelled that class. Now we’re doing seminars every couple of weeks. I took and passed my P4 test. We need to start studying P5, but I’m kind of focused on my tourney prep now. I don’t know if I will progress beyond P5. I have an opportunity to take CIC 2, but I’m apprehensive.

So for now it’s just a ton of fencing and weight lifting.

There hasn’t been much to report.

The attendance in my Krav class tanked to the point that it wasn’t worth it to have regular classes. I’m looking forward to some seminars last month, but that was kind of a downer.

The good news is that I can fence more now (remember that Friday Knight Fights were keeping me from the only day per week that I could practice). I’ve held a regional SCA practice, and I’ve participated in fencing and conditioning with the UWF group (there’s lots of overlap). Fencing at UWF is great, but my SCA classes are poorly attended. I can’t help but wonder if I’m doing something wrong since my classes keep drying up. I have to remind myself that life gets in the way. I’m not necessarily a bad teacher.

There’s an SCA event coming up this weekend. I haven’t competed since MCA.

I’ve been hitting the gym with Nik – weight lifting mostly. He wants to go to the gym daily, and I tag along when I can. I was having trouble fitting workouts in with these ten-hour days. However, my job situation is about to change, so I’ll be able to (at least temporarily) devote more time to fitness.

I still take lots of walks on the beach.

I’m not doing yoga (my old yogi kind of spoiled me), but I have been taking acro classes here and there. I took an acro chair class and learned some neat poses. I’d like to do that and Lyra again. I’ve caught wind of a hand stand conditioning class, and I may try that out too.

I hate to boil down months of working out to a few short paragraphs, but it would be tedious if I didn’t. I will, however, brag that I worked out enough to earn my free movie tickets through my workplace’s employee fitness incentive program. One month of working out for at least 30 minutes per day 3 times per week gets you a water bottle; three months gets you a bag (this time – last time it was a pedometer); and six months gets you two free movie tickets. Last time I got the first two prizes but not the movie tickets because I lost my incentive sheet and didn’t know where to pick it back up (also I think I lost a week when I was sick).

Anyway, I have some changes coming up in my life soon – change in employment, going back to school, etc. – so I have no idea where my journey will take me. Literally I’ll still be in Pensacola, but aside from that, I’m not sure. I think we’re going to try to get a Krav class going again, and I’m looking forward to a new school year and recruiting new fencing club members at UWF.

I’m sorry I haven’t been updating. Part of my problem is that I don’t like typing on my phone, and I’m usually away from the computer when I remember my blog exists. I’ve been home from CIC for about a month now. The spring semester has ended. The summer semester has begun, and I’ve picked up some odd jobs. I have a new routine:

Sunday: SCA fencing (weather permitting)
Monday: Krav
Tuesday: gym after work
Wednesday: Krav
Thursday: walk during my lunch break
Friday: Friday Knight Fights (I’ll explain below)
Saturday: long walk on the beach (weather permitting)

I’m trying to do something active each day, but I’m also varying my level of activity. I know I can’t go hard every single day. I also know that now that I’m teaching Krav instead of practicing, those days aren’t as demanding as they used to be.

The weather has been lousy (or there have been events or holidays), so I haven’t been able to fence much. I think I made it to one fencing practice after CIC, and I spent most of my time doing long sword drills, not sparring. I’ve barely touched my rapier, and I’m not happy about it.

I also got sick last week and couldn’t eat much, making me very weak for a few days. I think that this week is the first time I’ll really get into my routine (only to have it change abruptly for the holiday weekend). 

So now that I’ve gotten the complaining out of the way, let’s talk about the fun part: Friday Knight Fights. Nik and I have acquired a new entertainment job. We now do a “medieval show” that consists of us doing three full contact long sword bouts in armor (tournament style). It’s a lot of fun and very challenging. We still have some issues to work out with our armor (I can’t see out of my helm, for example), but I already love it!

At any rate, assume no news is good news, but I’m going to try to be more diligent in my updates.

I’ve been too busy to blog. Let’s look back on the past week and a half.

Last week was Spring Break. I spent Monday morning at the beach, where I resumed my walks to the pier and back. That night was Krav practice with Eddie. He couldn’t stay late to work with me, but it was good to have him there for practice since he sees nuances that I don’t.

On Tuesday I went to the gym with Nik. We lifted (arms) and did cardio.

Wednesday was another beach day (with a walk). Michael was back at practice that night, so after teaching, we had some time to work on P3 and higher skills.

Thursday was another gym day with Nik. We had chest and shoulder day and then did cardio (I think – I’m getting my days mixed up, but I know I went twice last week). That night I went to a fun and challenging Beach Body class with Eddie and Kita. That was definitely a full body workout!

On Friday I tagged along to the beach partially to enjoy my vacation and partially because I needed to fill out paperwork for my new job. I did a lot of walking that day.

Saturday was my first day at my new old job. I’m a pirate again, so I get to spend a couple hours on the weekend doing stage combat and playing games with kids. I have second shift, so I still get to hang out at the beach and go for my long walks in the mornings.

On Sunday I helped at a Krav seminar Eddie and Kita were running on my side of town. Then I picked up Nik and headed to the park, but we didnt fence. We planned to get some cardio in, but the gym was closed, so we took a Poke-walk instead.

This week I was back to the grind at work, so my routine is back to normal.
Monday: Krav
Tuesday: cardio
Wednesday: Krav

I’m gearing up to do the P3 test with Michael in a couple weeks. I’ve already passed, but I’ve been asked to do it again. I didn’t ask why. I’m happy to have the practice and confident that I know the material.

I’m getting a little overwhelmed at work. It’s been a struggle to work out when I’ve been unmotivated, but I know those are the days that I really need to get up and move.

I’ve been too busy to blog. Let’s look back on the past week and a half.

Last week was Spring Break. I spent Monday morning at the beach, where I resumed my walks to the pier and back. That night was Krav practice with Eddie. He couldn’t stay late to work with me, but it was good to have him there for practice since he sees nuances that I don’t.

On Tuesday I went to the gym with Nik. We lifted (arms) and did cardio.

Wednesday was another beach day (with a walk). Michael was back at practice that night. He downloaded a workout from Sound Cloud: a professional fighter called out combinations for us to do on the heavy bags. We did 3- minute sets for about half an hour.

Thursday was another gym day with Nik. We had chest and shoulder day, but I think I skipped cardio (I’m getting my days mixed up, but I don’t have any aerobic activity logged in my Fit Bit that day). That night I went to a fun and challenging Beach Body class with Eddie and Kita. That was definitely a full body workout! I have no idea why the Fit Bit wouldn’t log it.

On Friday I tagged along to the beach partially to enjoy my vacation and partially because I needed to fill out paperwork for my new job. I did a lot of walking that day.

Saturday was my first day at my new old job. I’m a pirate again, so I get to spend a couple hours on the weekend doing stage combat and playing games with kids. I have second shift, so I still get to hang out at the beach and go for my long walks in the mornings.

On Sunday I helped at a Krav seminar Eddie and Kita were running on my side of town. Then I picked up Nik and headed to the park, but we didnt fence. We planned to get some cardio in, but the gym was closed, so we took a Poke-walk instead.

This week I was back to the grind at work, so my routine is back to normal.
Monday: Krav
Tuesday: cardio
Wednesday: Krav

I’m gearing up to do the P3 test with Michael in a couple weeks. I’ve already passed, but I’ve been asked to do it again. I didn’t ask why. I’m happy to have the practice and confident that I know the material.

I’m getting a little overwhelmed at work. It’s been a struggle to work out when I’ve been unmotivated, but I know those are the days that I really need to get up and move.

#30daysofkrav isn’t going the way I planned. It doesn’t work like #fencingeverydamnday because I have such a small pool to draw from. I haven’t been fighting daily. However, I have been preparing. The new hashtag is #countdowntocic .

Wednesday: teaching, review with Michael
Thursday: light sparring with Nik
Friday: elliptical, fencing, watching videos
Saturday: lots of walking
Sunday: weight lifting, fencing

I hesitated about including fencing in the above list, but being in that headspace, in “fight mode,” benefits my Krav training. It gets me up and moving around, even when I want to stay home.

I’m looking for a freestanding punching bag so that I can practice by myself. I’ve gone for a walk today, and class will happen tonight. Eddie is subbing for Michael, so I’m hoping to go over some of the advanced skills with a different partner after class.

I lifted weights and used the elliptical on Tuesday – nothing to write home about there. It was my last night of non-Krav workout before CIC.

Last night my Krav activity primarily consisted of teaching. After that, Michael and I went over some ground work, and then he showed me how to use focus mitts to add to our activities. I was in kind of a rush because I wanted to take Nik out to dinner for his birthday, but Michael and I agreed to review a few skills and then either use the focus mitts or do some sparring (or slow fighting) each day after class.

Tonight I’m going to make Nik spar with me a little bit. I realized that I haven’t done any sparring since I got my eyes fixed. I’m a bit apprehensive since I noticed recently that I still act like my vision is impaired (trying to correct for depth perception problems that aren’t there, for instance). Because it’s been so long, I’m not used to hitting and being hit. That needs to change this month.

Last Wednesday I worked out at Krav along with the class and then put in some extra practice with Michael and the Three Bears afterwards to work on P4 skills to get us ready for CIC 1.

On Thursday I took a Lyra class. It was all bodyweight – no cardio – but a fun challenge for me. I was able to do the moves and felt super proud of myself!

Starting Friday after work, my students and I helped with the SCA demo at Pensacon… in addition to regularly scheduled practice. Tiny Nick! and I met at the Bay Center to do a very brief demo and then cut out to go to UWF practice. My kiddo came into town just in time to go with us, so that was pretty cool. We also had some newcomers that night.

On Saturday and Sunday, we fenced intermittently more or less all day. Demo fighting is fun because you can do weird and flashy stuff you’d never do in a tournament. I wore my “Merida dress” with chain maille under, and that seemed to be a big hit. It’s important to me that little girls see that you can be a pretty princess and still sword fight.

Monday was another Krav night. I let Michael take the lead on that once since I wasn’t really prepared after my busy weekend. We stayed after and worked on a few more P4 skills. We’re almost finished working our way through that level!

Yesterday morning I got some bad news and stayed home from work. I slept a lot in the morning hours, but in the late afternoon, I felt well enough to go to the gym with Nik. We fenced with Tiny Nick!, lifted some weights, did some cardio, and then met up with more students and fenced a little more. When I was working out, I wasn’t so sad. I really appreciate my friends and students – more than they know.

Tonight is a Krav night. I actually organized the lesson and feel pretty good about it. February seems to be moving as quickly as January did slowly (if that makes sense), so I want to get as much floor time in as possible before April!

I’m two weeks post-op from LASIK. I can get sweat and tap water in my eyes, I don’t wear the shield when I sleep, and I’m allowed to enjoy swimming pools and hot tubs. I still take eye drops more than usual, but other than that, it’s a dream come true.