Tag: exercise log

Wednesday July 15, 2020

I have been lax in writing in this blog, but not with exercises. I did rest on Sunday, but since Monday, I have managed to get in my usual 60 push-ups, 100 sit-ups and 100 squats in, as well as the additional 40 push-ups on my knees. Tuesday night, I was the Zoom monitor for karate class, so I did not participate in the actual class. Instead, I gave feedback to students practicing karate, or changed the Zoom spotlight as needed. Today, during our 3:30pm session, I also substituted for my son S while he finished up a Zoom D&D game.

Today and Monday, I went back to the jump rope intervals for cardio. Also on Monday, I reviewed Saifa kata, Tsuki No kata and Bo Sono Ichi. For Saifa, I found a great video:

This video was put up by a Kyokushin dojo in Cape Town, from the look of the poster. This gentleman is great because you can really observe his hand motions. For the life of me, I could not remember how this kata began. It has been over six months, possibly longer, since I practiced it. I felt I needed to re-learn it.

Still reading “Zen Flesh, Zen Bones,” though the stories are a bit odd. I understand there’s a moral, in a way, but the past couple do not necessarily deal with enlightenment, but rather its opposite: a nun has a golden Buddha; she’s so jealous of other statues receiving her incense that she devises a funnel to send her burning incense directly to her statue, and it turns the Buddha’s nose black. In another, a tea master is very particular about the hanging of a basket, and his astute observational skills are tested by a craftsman.

Monday June 15th, 2020

I have not updated this site for a few days. I did do push-ups, sit-ups and squats last Thursday and Friday. Friday evening, we had karate, as well as Saturday morning. Sensei had hoped to have a beach work-out, with appropriate social distancing, but the beaches are not yet open for group activities. He had to cancel it and hold class over Zoom.

The kids, husband and I did go to the beach Saturday afternoon. We tried Will Rogers State Park Beach, but the lot was full and we were unable to stop. We drove on to Point Dume. The kids swam. D and I were cold. A strong, chill breeze kept our ears sore. I wore a towel over my head and pinched the towel closed under my chin to protect my ears.

Once the kids finished swimming, we hiked along the trail. On the way back, we saw seals! Not many, but we could see a cluster on the rocks, close to the shore, from one of the look-out areas.

On Sunday, we had our dojo community planning meeting and managed to agree on a letter to send out. We need to run the letter by Sensei for edits.

I have been keeping the paper journal every day, though finding time to update this site is sometimes challenging. So since this should be the Monday entry, I’ll jump to Monday.

I did push-ups, sit-ups and squats this morning. Sensei posted a black belt training work-out for those of us testing on his Facebook site. He’s suggesting one hundred push-ups, sit-ups and squats. This week, I am still doing ninety. I’ll be at one hundred pretty soon. I do these exercises twice daily, on week days, and presumably, Sensei’s workout is for a day. Hopefully I’m good. This morning I could only do about seventy push-ups on my toes. That’s fifty “tricep-style” on the ground, and twenty “chest” ones on the mat, before I have to go to my knees. I know I’m allowed to do them on my knees, but it makes me feel “less than,” if I cannot do the requirement on my toes.

Senpai H, who tested last year, told me that we only have to do sixty for the black belt test if we do them on our knuckles. I do do them on my knuckles. Sensei likes to mix it up, however. The last time I discussed exercises with him, he’d suggested reaching the point where I could do sixty on my knuckles on the ground. Given we may not be able to do a ten man kumite round, however, or if I end up simply fighting my two children for ten rounds, he will have to make other parts of the Shodan test more difficult, in order to make up for the lack in that area.

He also recommended jump rope intervals for cardio this week, so I did that today instead of jogging. Also included: drilling Sanchin back to back with Tensho, so I practiced those as well. I was rusty on Tensho, but watching a video of Bobby Lowe helped bring it back.

I wrote outside this morning, and, while writing, the squirrels were all over the place. They are in the lemon tree now. I’d never seen them there before. Normally they like the loquat tree.

Tuesday June 9th, 2020

My paper journal and this blog have diverged as of late. Part of me wants to write in order to inspire others, rather than simply recording my personal ups and downs. That part of me, on some level, I’m sure, wants to put my “best” self forward. Granted, that doesn’t always make for good writing. So I’ll have to wrestle with that demon. However, I have no idea who, if anyone, is reading this. I have not emailed many friends and family about this site, or taken advantage of any of the tracking plug-ins provided with WordPress or Bluehost.

I did not have a lot of time for writing this morning. In addition to my usual kitchen cleaning and sanitizing, I watered the kids’ bonsai and cleaned the glass door leading out to the back yard. After cleaning the glass, it was really nice to be able to see out. But in any case, I started writing when I had eleven minutes remaining before needing to log into work.

And speaking of home projects: I have a major one in mind: dismantling the trampoline. S likes jumping on it with company, but he won’t go on it by himself. F doesn’t really get on it very much. S will jump if I or one of his school buddies comes over. I don’t know when that will happen, since we’re still in this pandemic. If we took it down, however, we’d have the whole back yard as space for karate practice. If F and I are going to test in August, we will need space for kata practice.

B, our sixteen year old adult Shodan, lead the karate class over Zoom. She has a free account, so class was only forty minutes. She is also still in school this week, so none of us can blame her for keeping the class short. I did exercises after class, and watered a kumquat tree at the same time. It’s pleasant to do exercises outside, though the concrete on the knuckles does give me sore knuckles.

Sensei announced a beach workout for this Saturday. We are all looking forward to it. We’ll have to bring masks, but I’m guessing no one will wear masks in the ocean. I am really hoping we will have many more beach workouts together as a dojo community with Sensei. The karate beach workouts are some of our fondest memories as a family.

Tuesday May 19th, 2020

I’m writing during my lunch break from work. Why? My son S will receive an award from his school this evening, so I clocked in early. We don’t know what award he will receive yet. I’ll clock out at six so I will have half an hour to do exercises and get ready for his ceremony.

I did push-ups, sit-ups and squats. When I do my leg stretches, my right side hurts quite a bit under my knee and in my thigh area. It hurts enough that I can’t reach for my toes without considerable pain. I stopped trying today on that side. My left side is more flexible and pain-free. I have no trouble grabbing my toes on that side.

Kitchen cleaning and sanitizing did not receive as much of my attention this morning as normal. Besides, I’m not sure I need to do it every day: none of us have had COVID-19 symptoms, so the risk of infection is coming from outside our home, and not within it. Previously, when I started cleaning religiously, I feared that I or another family member had it.

Because this week is the kids’ last week of school, they have a lot of work right now. Next week will be more mellow. D plans to have them take two days to “detox” from all the computer time. If they are invited to very many “start of summer” parties over Zoom, we may make an exception for social events.

Yesterday and today I texted Jessica. I set an alarm on my phone to remind me. I hope it helps. She appreciates it a lot and has let me know. It is such a small thing to compose a text message and send it.

This makes me wonder how other friends are faring. I think of several friends that we’re only occasionally in touch with because we all have such busy lives. At work, we planned to include the three persons furloughed in our weekly department Zoom meetings. I hope that will help them feel more in the loop. Obviously, if they are busy or don’t want to participate, they won’t.

We will miss karate class tonight in order to watch his award live, but I let Sensei know.

Monday May 18th, 2020

I did push-ups, sit-ups and squats. This is the beginning of my third week on eighties.

Apex, the grey cat, just climbed into my lap. It’s raining; I let the support chair under the trampoline down, hoping it will allow the water to drain. The rain isn’t heavy. I’m not sure that helped.

One of the bags containing Sabrina’s clothes is wet, though it was in a mostly covered area. Later today I will take out her clothes and let them hang dry, just to be on the safe side. Her large sunhat is on top, and that may have actually protected the clothing.

Today I should run, text Jessica and send email to work that I need to shift my hours tomorrow. B will be in a school awards ceremony. It will be interesting to see what format they use: Zoom, YouTube, Google. We plan to watch as a family in the grandparents’ study. They have a large television.

Mondays are more difficult, regarding exercises. Once I get through push-ups, the rest feel more do-able. Starting–that moment of hesitation that I need to get past–feels challenging. Now I try to just start and trust I’ll get through push-ups. For squats, today, I “recognized” each of the next two numbers corresponding to the two next sets while counting the current set. So while I’m counting my “ich” set, I think “Ni -punches, San – regular” as I count. Then while squatting and punching for the “Ni” set, I think “San – regular,” “Shi – punches.” I lost concentration during my last set of punching squats, and executed some sloppy punches, but then pulled it back together.

I am still doing stretches on the book case. My right side is quite sore and far less flexible than my left side. I worry that I may have injured it. It gives me a lot of pain during that stretch now.

I’m running late for work and need to wrap up.

Friday May 15th, 2020

I may have work for at least another two weeks. Our head visual effects supervisor, who also leads our business unit, said everyone will have two weeks’ notice.

Yesterday morning, I thought I would have a lot of data entry to do during my lunch break. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. Only about eight parents responded to the email I sent out requesting contact information to hold Religious School over Zoom. I will have to scour my emails and meeting notes for contact information. That will take a while and is a much bigger job than transferring data from email to a spreadsheet.

This morning, I woke up thinking about solutions for this problem. I came up with a few different ideas for how to approach the problem. Later today, I’ll call the Rabbi.

We could email all the classroom Zoom meetings to all the parents for whom I only have email addresses. Or we could setup a “triage” Zoom session for any one not already contacted by their child’s teacher. Based on their child’s age or grade, I’d direct them to the proper Zoom class session.

Another option would be to send out the teachers’ email addresses to the parents, and tell them they have to contact their child’s teacher directly in order to participate.

One thing I know for sure: I am the worst secretary ever: not organized unless I’m forced to be, resentful of tedious tasks and bad with names. If I were not a volunteer, I would be so fired!

Maybe for the fall, I’ll write a PySide widget as a standalone and have people do actual “computer” registration, rather than our usual paper-based registration. The widget could send email to a Temple email address. I’d write a second widget to receive the emails, collate them into a list and generate a spreadsheet. It could also generate a tab-delineated text version that could be imported into any spreadsheet program. But basically, have it all digital up front. I could setup a little database system that is super-simple and compatible with whatever other programs they have, but it could operate all on its own. I can make a table widget, that’s editable, that could display the data, too. And the Temple would own the code itself.

Oh, and I forgot the purpose of this blog: I did do push-ups, sit-ups and squats both yesterday after work, and this morning. I am a responsible karateka; if only I could convince everyone at the Temple to substitute push-ups for, say, challah or sit-ups for all those cookies the Sisterhood provides, or squats instead of watered down grape juice. We could count in Hebrew as we exercise! Then Japanese! Then, because we do live in Southern California, Spanish! We’d be fit, trilingual and versed in Judaism!

Thursday May 14th, 2020

It’s Virtual Friday, since we are on four day weeks at work. Starting this Monday, the company will furlough half our team in character effects. Only our lead, and two of us who write a lot of tools, will be kept for now. Without work, however, we are unsure how long the company can keep any of us.

Yesterday I ran for twenty minutes while listening to the Two Dope Queens podcast. After work, on the balcony, I got in my evening exercises. Push-ups, even outdoors, were still difficult. I did notice that our lemon tree, which has been less productive lately, did have two lemons.

During lunch today, I will need to do list collating for the Temple. Well, that will make relaxing this evening all the more fun. I do need to think about the fact that this will be an extra hour of sitting at the computer. Sitting on an exercise ball instead of in a chair should help me stay a bit more fit and comfortable.

I will miss taking a walk and calling a friend or relative. I usually do that during my free lunch periods. Between my new lunchtime run, and kids borrowing my cell for school assignments, and chores, I have walked around our neighborhood less in the past couple weeks. Funny, I cannot remember any longer what I did during my lunch break on Tuesday.

Well, this is turning into a giant dump of all the little things on my “to-do” list. Sensei said what needs to be done, will be done. He’s right.

Last night, I put up a back log day from April. On that day, I wrote about my sister not having health insurance, but still being asked by her employer to come into the office. That’s not a small worry. That’s a big worry. I should talk to her again about health insurance.

Wednesday May 13th, 2020

We had karate class over Zoom last night. Sensei had P lead class, and he gave us a good workout. At the end, Sensei left us with these words of wisdom: it’s not the big victories in life that matter, but the small ones. When you get the big ones: a promotion, a degree, a belt, etc., of course you are happy. But all of the little victories, the small accomplishments, lead to the big ones. They are the foundation.

During class, I snuck in most of my push-ups while the class planked. After class, I did sit-ups and squats. I also did exercises this morning. I found I could get the Japanese count right if I recognized the next “ten” count to come during the previous one. For sit-ups, I “visualize” each set of exercises, regular sit-ups, diagonal abs, toe-touches, or bicycles, before starting and “link” these to their number. Sit-ups are more difficult lately, anyway.

I sent out a call to our Temple’s religious school families during my lunch break yesterday for their contact information, so I can collate it for the Rabbi. I’d been trying to avoid a bunch of data entry. Hopefully, I can structure the email responses into a document that I can then import into a spreadsheet. I’ll send the spreadsheet to the Rabbi and other teachers. He sent me email last night, eager for the information.

I also need to check in with Sensei again regarding this website and joining his Facebook group. Of course, the site of an adorable baby video greeted me immediately upon logging into D’s second Facebook account. Watching that baby video, I can understand how easy it could be to get addicted to Facebook.

Tuesday, May 12th, 2020

I’m doing this write in five minute increments while cooking eggs and Madras lentils for B. It is our last packet of Madras lentils from Trader Joe’s, since we started sheltering in place, and also B’s favorite. Unfortunately we stopped going to Trader Joe’s, which we love, because they do not deliver. I just found out, however, after Googling to make sure my spelling was correct, that Amazon may deliver Trader Joe products. That’s new. We have not tried it.

I did my exercises last night and this morning. Yesterday, I also ran for twenty minutes. I’m finding that evening exercises are more smooth for me when I do them outdoors. We have a balcony off of our bedroom, and I do them there now.

Normally I do my evening exercises right after work; I avoid walking through the house before exercises, so folks will just assume I’m still working. Which I am: I’m working towards a fitness goal. In addition, exercising helps alleviate stress and may possibly keep me tethered to this world a bit longer. Avoiding walking through the house is my strategy to stay focused until I finish what I need to do. That’s not to say my family is my only distraction: it might be unfolded laundry or dishes or mail that catches my eye.

It’s much easier to just tackle the exercises as soon as I log off from work. Exercising also helps get me out of my “work” head so I can actually be present with my family when I’m off work. Nothing takes your mind off office politics, buggy code or annoying artistic notes like striving towards a push-up goal. Even when I cannot complete all the exercises or I’m sloppy, I’m still happy to know I pushed myself. Pushing your muscles to failure on occasion does, in fact, help to build more muscle, so you can achieve more repetitions and/or better form later. It is one of those few areas in which your failures will eventually carry you to success. You have to trust the process.

I really should put my back log of entries up on this site. Back in November, the idea of sixty push-ups was intimidating. I remember being proud when I was able to do twenty, and now I’m at sixty! But that’s what it takes to reach sixty: trying to do twenty, and failing, until you succeed, then trying for thirty….

Monday May 11th, 2020

I did push-ups, sit-ups and squats. It was both difficult and nice to get back into the weekday exercise schedule. On Saturday, instead of running for twenty minutes, I walked on the treadmill for sixty minutes with a steeper than usual incline. Leilani and I talked on the phone for most of my walk. It was fun. That hour felt much shorter than my usual twenty minute run.

Speaking of which, I need to run today!

Sensei sent me an article on the most common ways that COVID-19 can spread, written by Erin Bromage, who recently taught a course on infectious diseases to undergraduates, and offers practical advice on staying safe during this pandemic. Here’s the link:

https://www.erinbromage.com/post/the-risks-know-them-avoid-them

It’s sobering. I sent it to D, my husband, who sent it to other family members. Dr. Bromage expresses some concerns over loosening restrictions for economic recovery without any treatments available for the disease.

At the beginning of California’s lockdown, D started reading Albert Camus’s “the Plague.” D really found it intense and a particularly good read during this pandemic.

I have to admit that, after reading and fining “the Stranger” very disturbing, I have avoided reading any more Camus. Yes, I know it’s supposed to be disturbing. I’ve experienced plenty of disturbing outside of literature, however. Yes, I do agree that good art will often depict what is disturbing in human nature; simple observation will, too.

In order to keep your own will in tact and discover both joy and beauty on this frightening Earth, you have to pace yourself. To do that, you need to know and be honest with yourself. In short, when you are feeling dizzy, don’t look over the edge of the cliff. Wait until your stomach, mind and feet feel steady and grounded, then seek the view with caution, respecting your own strength and minding both your footing and the weather conditions when you peer over the edge.

Kyokushin is loosely translated as “absolute truth.” In Sensei’s dojo, we interpret it more as “the search for absolute truth or reality,” since none of us, ultimately, actually have or can grasp that absolute reality. If we are disciplined, open to change, and we keep searching, we come much closer to grasping it.