and once again, work schedule by armbar.

Son of a bitch.

So I'm finishing up chiro on my shoulder, which had okayish results (meaning I'm still a bit apprehensive about it)... Been back to lifting at the regular gym (which I still am not loving, but it'll come back around)... Summoning the balls to go back to crossfit as well. And I should be able to return to jiu jitsu in the coming days

WRONGOLA.

Getting kicked back to night shift again. I am enraged and sad.

I still have no idea what's gonna happen. While I've sent out multiple pleas for options to train, I've not really heard back from anyone with any sort of solid, reliable response. I could take 1-9pm shift and maybe get in an hour or so of morning class, but that would make it unlikely that I could swim or lift after work. 12-8pm at least gives me the flexibility to do those activities, but would knock morning class out of contention. That would leave me at the mercy of when/if I could get folks to come in earlier in the morning and on weekends.

Not really ideal solutions.

I'm also strongly considering switching departments at work. That would mean losing my weekends. I'd have to work saturday and/or sunday. Doing that, I'd lose one or both of the more flexible days, with regards to open mat training days. It'd also mean a different set of criteria to deal with in actual job performance.

Le sigh. I don't like any of these options.

But all of them are temporary. At least there's that.

another motivator

As I continue my path towards getting smaller, I've found a really cool motivator: eventually, some of my gis are going to be too big for me. I've decided to allow an old friend to inherit them as that happens. 

I'm not talking junk gis, these are nice Shoyorolls and likely an Origin, too.

But giving them to an old friend who has been so instrumental in my early development in bjj, who first exposed me to open guards, and who often serves as a listening board for my various grappling gripes, is a nice external motivator. 

Still making small changes to diet and habits there, too early for much results, but on the right path. Feeling better, sleeping better, and much more like myself (read: mischievous and giggling).

I'm on the "descending" path of treatment with chiro for my shoulder, so I'm hoping I'll be able to return to normal activities soon. I'm hoping to get some mat time in this weekend if it will cooperate. 

If not, well I'll just settle for some pool time and maybe a little barbell work. 

Oh, who am I kidding? I won't settle. 

I'm also acutely annoyed that I failed to acquire a GUMA membership from today's limited drive today from shoyoroll. But I'm also done with stressing over their releases, in general. If I get a gi, fine. If I miss out on their insane presales, so be it. It isn't worth the annoyance, and today's exercise only reminded me of it. I mean, really? Sold out in 3 minutes? Extra Virgin Pure Horseshit. 

(That said, I would probably justify knocking someone over the head with a tire iron to gank a Ring model gi in my size, or even in a nearby size)

And while I have NOT been enthused that I had to shell out maxibucks for a new tv this week (the not-really-old-but-out-of-warranty one died), I AM excited to watch the 2012 Pans on it this weekend. And that new arm triangle set. And if Emily's new nogi set shows up in the mail, that too. You know, with all of my raging free time.

Damn straight I just tracked that shipment again. 


 

information overload.

So it is my intention to lift some today. 

And I have no freaking idea where to start. Whatever the lift programming equivalent of writer's block is, that would be what I'm experiencing. 

The hilarity of this is that for years, decades even, I carefully researched and wrote up my own lifting schedules with relative ease. It was almost autoprogrammed. An afterthought.

But now, after having turned the reigns over to crossfit for almost 2 years (to admittedly shameful consistency), I find myself unable to program. I've gotten so used to just showing up and being told what to do that I apparently now need spoonfed. How embarrassing. 

While I've pretty much, at this point, just resolved to spend a few weeks doing the "Couture barbell series" just to get back into the swing of things, I just felt compelled to remark upon the vast wealth of resources out there... 

how to lift. how to eat. how to do jiu jitsu. how to sort your socks.

anything and everything is there. 

AND NONE OF IT FREAKING AGREES.

I guess it's pretty wishful thinking to assume any given process has one, and only one right way, but sheesh. It makes it hard for someone who likes to absolutely immerse in a topic before making a decision do just that - make a decision. 

The little scientist in me wants research and facts and theories proven. And yet what I'm finding is that much like the magical spreadsheet land of most places I have worked, the science can be skewed to support or unravel any given process. 

Dammit. 

So, I guess I'm just going to throw a few hypotheses of my own out there, and see which ones survive. I'm basing my decision to add supplemental lifting based on the fact that I felt and looked better back when I was putting in that extra lifting time. We'll see if I can still manage to hit up bjj and crossfit with regularity. Those take precedence. 

While I would prefer having a nice, plotted out list of exercises, the barbell circuit is as good as anything else to re-acquaint myself. And by hogging a barbell for that long, it invariably pisses off the "I'm here to do bicep curls" crowd, which just makes me smile typing it. Asshats. 

Anyhow, let's go to it, and let's get some swimming in, too. 

Shoulder is responding well to chiro thus far... let's see if it can hack this. 

AND ASIDE: holy flaming shitballs. There's a NOGI version of Emily Kwok's instructional coming out soon. Damn straight I preordered that noise the second I read about it. SQUEEEE!!!!! 

***later update: this was all apparently a not-so-great idea. Shoulder hosed up mid-evening. Meh.