Where Am I?

My 2nd Personal Black Belt requirement is to do with Home training. From Dec. 1 2008 to September 1, 2009, I have committed to doing the following;

1. 41,000 pushups (150/day)
2. 27,400 round house kicks (100/day)
3. 27,400 situps (100/day)
4. 4100 squat thrusts (15/day)

The surprising thing about this requirement was that I was the most confident about this one when I wrote it down back in November. I had been doing all of this except the crunches, and also doing a bunch of other stuff, since Sherri Donohue started the 100 day challenge back in September. And I had been doing the pushups since last March. It had all become a fairly successful newly-formed habit. There were a few hiccups along the way, but I was always able to bounce back on track. However, December arrived, and New Years. It turns out that routine is vital to my success in habits relating to exercise.

Now that the holidays are over, I have my routine back, but not all of the habits. It is hard work getting back on track, and I've grasped at every tool that presents itself to me in order to re-establish the good habits. Planning for the Chinese New Year 1000 push ups and sit ups has really helped because I realized that I couldn't possibly expect to succeed on this if I had not been doing daily pushups and crunches for at least a week prior. Speaking out about my struggles has also helped because alot of people have responded by giving me a kick in the pants. Increasing accountability has also helped; and that also relates to refusing to ignore the facts. Here are the facts.

As of January 21, I re-established the daily pushups and situps. Before that date, my routine was sporadic.

My daily squat thrusts and round house kicks are still sporadic.

As of today, I have to make up 4605 pushups, 2750 sit ups, 2650 round house kicks, and 670 squat thrusts.

I plan to make up 850 pushups, and 850 sit ups tommorrow.

For the rest of the year, I will have to do 17 extra pushups, 9 extra sit ups, 12 extra round house kicks, and 8 extra squat thrusts daily.

At this point, doing the extra is not all that hard. The hard part is re-establishing the habit; its where my energy needs to be focused.

Regrouping

I've taken a good look at the personal black belt requirements I wrote out back in November. There are 9 of them. Its interesting that I've made the most progress on the first 5 of my requirements. When I listed my requirements for handing in to Master Brinker I seem to have ordered them in the order of importance to me. The community project was listed first; daily hometraining in physical conditioning and forms were listed 2nd and third; healthy nutrition and weight was fourth; journalling was fifth. I'm a bit embarrassed that 'acts of kindness', sparring, public testing performance and daily meditation are at the bottom of the list and I have the most work to do on these requirements.

I think it will be a good exersize to summarize my progress with respect to only one requirement each week. So I will start at the top this week.

1. The Community Project: Help promote lifelong physical activity at Onoway High School.

I have already posted the details of the Community Project previously. In a nutshell, I plan to help promote lifelong physical activity at Onoway High School by facilitating some opportuntities for students to participate in some track and badminton. To date:

Becoming part of a community coalition that works to make the Onoway a vibrant and healthy one for years to come:
Nothing has progressed with respect to the formation of this interagency coalition, but I am preparing myself. I have learned through experience about how to start an athletic club, because I just started a volleyball club in Saint Albert for Under 15 girls. (In previous postings I mentioned how this club came about, and why it has contributed to much needed opportunities for girls who so desperately want to play volleyball.) This exercise has allowed me to become comfortable with the concept of doing something like this in Onoway. Along the way I also increased my knowledge and confidence in runnning physical conditioning warm ups for youth as well as providing them with education and mental challenges. I'm quite pleased about my personal progress, but am dubious about whether my efforts will end up benefiting Onoway youth in particular. We plan to move out of the community in the next 6 months to 3 years. We shall see what happens.

Increasing the duration of the practice season for badminton at Onoway High School.
Gym time is the issue here. Jill and I have talked with Mrs. F, who runs the badminton club in St. Albert about having a fun tournament one thursday night for the Onoway junior and senior high students. Its a go on her end, so my next step is to chat with the princial and coaches at onoway about a date and also secure a bus. Furthermore, there is room for a skills and drills night and the principal at onoway high school would like Jill to run that. I'll set it up. In that respect, I also recently chatted with the Badminton Alberta president about my project and he offered to look into providing a coaching seminar for badminton coaches in the school division and possibly have Onoway High School host it. All this stuff should occur in February and March.
3. Help to promote a longer school practice and conditoning season for the track and field team. I have approached Mr. Joines (the track and field coach at Onoway) and 'warned' him that I would like to help with track season. That's not until April and May.

I've lost track of how many weeks until black belt grading.

I've been way off track with respect to my weekly home training, journalling and nutrition. Christmas happened and I'm still struggling to get back the habits that will progress me towards my black belt requirements. Two people have helped me this week.

Person number one was the lady at weightwatchers who made me get with the program. I knew that due to some indulgences over christmas, which were turning into daily habits, my weight was beginning to creep up. I needed to nip this one in the bud and get back to healthy eating habits to maintain my goal weight. I decided to go to the weight watchers meetings weekly but adapt the program so that I didn't really have to face the music (the scales). I planned to go to the meeting and get some motivation, but only weigh in when I was confident that I was back on track and at goal weight. Quite accidentally, this lady, who works there, found out what I was doing, and she told me that I had to do the whole program or she couldn't allow me to sit in on the meeting - those were the rules and the rules are made for a reason - blah blah. From the look of determination on her kind, grandmotherly face, I knew that I would not be able to slip past her without causing a scene. The police would have to be called, and I would be ejected from the meetings for life. I paid up, got on the scales, took 10 minutes to reflect on my position, and then listened to Norma, the inspirational meeting leader. When the meeting ended, I realized that because I had weighed in, the meeting was more real for me; the accountability factor is a large part of whats needed. I went back to the lady who had stopped me and thanked her for standing her ground.

Person number two was Master Brinker. In class on Friday he had allowed for the fact that some of our personal black belt goals may change 2 months after we set them down. When I mentioned my struggles with training and journalling goals, he commisserated, mentioning his struggles with push ups after the New Year 1000 push up challenge. And then, in no uncertain terms, he said that we have to get back to the good habits we had before the Christmas. I could tell by his tone that he wasn't going to let me adapt my physical training goals.

I'm feeling that I am two 'kick in the pants' closer to getting back on track.

So tonight, right after getting home, I journalled. In one or two days I will journal again after reviewing the progress I have made towards my Personal Black Belt Requirements and setting out a plan for moving forward from here.