Little steps

In the past week or so I've had little successes. I should keep track of these for when my motivation wavers.

Burpees
I'm surprised at how bad at burpees I am. Well, how exhausting I find them. At the start I was exhausted after 7 or 8. Last week I was tired after 9. That's something, right?

Climbing
Last week I conquered two yellow bouldering climbs.

First of the month: Feb 2014

I thought I'd do a series of tests on the first of each month to see if that shows my progress. Being the beginning of things, though, and not having an obstacle course to run, it may not end up being that useful.

For the first test, on 1 February 2014, I set a spectacularly low bar.

New things (to develop core strength)

I was so busy laughing I forgot to get a photo.

On Sunday I tried slacklining for the first time. I don't think I've ever laughed so much while failing so completely at a physical task. I'd lose my balance to one side, put all my effort into holding myself there, then start laughing as I feel my weight shift beyond the point of recovery, and then go tumbling off. If you want an activity with a high concentration of laughing and swearing, give slacklining a go!

I did get the hang of it after a couple of hours, which is an awesome feeling. But when I went to bed that night it took me a good 10 minutes to get my brain to stop trying to shift my balance.

Climbing and goals

Because I'll probably never set foot on a Sasuke-like course before I get to some kind of official try-outs I won't know whether I'm able to, for example, beat the warped wall. So, I need to set myself some kind of goals to achieve instead.

We hear a lot about how Sasuke is about upper body strength. Certainly Stage 3 is a killer on the arms, and Stage 4 is at least 50% arms. And of course core strength is essential for just about everything, especially things like the body prop, cliffhanger, salmon ladder and any kind of spider walk.

Body prop: total core control

But watching Makoto Nagano on the earlier stages, how easily he keeps his balance and doesn't break his stride when climbing and jumping, I think it requires a lot of leg strength as well. (I had originally put it down to his sea legs and great balance gained from time on a rocking boat, but I think he's also just really really strong.)

Motivation, the freedom to fail, and disappointment

I talk big. My life motto, inspired by improv, is "give yourself the freedom to fail." It means that you can try things without worrying too much about what happens if it all goes wrong. Because failure is an option, if you do fail you haven't really lost anything.

When we started our weekly (originally fortnightly) open mic variety show Arthur B's Fringe Affair, the motto of the show was "you have complete freedom to fail", and our performers really seemed to appreciate and embrace it. Some people said it was a bit negative, so we updated it: "You have permission to be awesome, and complete freedom to fail."

Last year I wrote and performed a bunch of brand new things which had the potential to fail. Short stories, standup comedy, beat poetry, songs, and a whole bunch of improv sets. I also stopped blogging, running and doing pushups. Which brings me to motivation and when it stops.