Mike Brewer

Broke 5700 push ups and sit ups. I'm ahead of the game! My plan is to edge out a little bit of a surplus each day so I can have my wife's birthday and our anniversary off. I'm at 5740. Yippee.

DickHardman

i just lift tons of weights.

Hardball

Training and chores...........pretty routine weekend for me. What's on tap with you?

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The Way of the Warrior is Practice. Daily practice, accumulate practice minute by minute, hour by hour and day by day. {Book of 5 Rings} Mike Brewers 2008 Sit up challenge 29,000/100,000 running balance.(Crunches) Kicks 6,300/100,000

treelizard

hey jubaji, i ended up watching a wrestling tournament today. fun stuff.

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I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship. --Louisa May Alcott

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Mike Brewer

Believe it or not, an iaido class. Yup. I officially start tomorrow. Talk about fish out of water...

Hardball

Sword drawing, great. I gotta up the numbers on my crunches this weekend.

__________________
The Way of the Warrior is Practice. Daily practice, accumulate practice minute by minute, hour by hour and day by day. {Book of 5 Rings} Mike Brewers 2008 Sit up challenge 29,000/100,000 running balance.(Crunches) Kicks 6,300/100,000

Mike Brewer

I'm finally a full day ahead on mine. It's a killer, but I've been adding reps each week with a goal of getting an extra week of rest by the end of the year. I gotta tell you, I know it's early in the year, but this challenge is kicking my ass. I'm trying to stay positive and motivated, but it's been brutal. I didn't realize how many reps 300 a day really was. For a fat guy like me with a defective back, it's not been easy. Actually, the running has been the easiest, so I should count myself thankful. I figured that would be the toughest. The bitch of it all is not having a rest day built into the week. On my current schedule, though, I'll have enough reps in the first 6 days of the week to take Sundays off by around August. Damn, that seems a long way off...

On the plus side, getting it done in the pattern I've been working has decreased the time I spend on it. I'm getting everything - run included - done in about an hour a day now. I can live with that. My run time is nothing spectacular (3.5 miles in 30 minutes), but I'm cranking out the push ups and sit ups with relative ease. I can even take breaks in between sets that are long enough to recover! What a concept!

Hardball

I do a thousand crunches at a time and a thousand kicks in two hours but I'm gonna have to cram in the fall because my pace has been sporadic. Catch you young bucks tommorow, it's Miller time. LOL J/K.

__________________
The Way of the Warrior is Practice. Daily practice, accumulate practice minute by minute, hour by hour and day by day. {Book of 5 Rings} Mike Brewers 2008 Sit up challenge 29,000/100,000 running balance.(Crunches) Kicks 6,300/100,000

Garland

just so long as it's not a kiai class.

Should go for kendo...it seems like a bit more fun... If you want to chop down tatami mats...why not just chop some wood instead?

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homo homini lupus

Komm Susser Todd.

No, no...no no no...whatever you are drinking, you need much, much more...and then to sleep. - jubaji

Mike Brewer

Call it a spiritual pursuit. Something as tradtional and anal retentive as iaido gives me the greatest possible contrast between it and anything remotely practical for fighting. Since I'm using it as a meditation and not as a martial art, I figured I should go with something that has almost no conceivable practicality and is as heavily dependent on ritual and detail as possible. Iaido seemed to fit that bill. Completely impractical, absolutely unrelated to actual combat (at least in the present time), and as ritualized as it gets.

My reasons for choosing it were three-fold. First, as I mentioned above, I wanted a ritual - a meditation - not a martial art. Iaido fits that mold well. It's all ritual, no combat. Second, it's a very "zen" art, and I think one of the things I need more than anything else at this point in my life is focus. Oddly, I have a lot of creative energies pulling me in seven thousand different directions, and this is something I kind of hoped would give me the ability to focus on the immediate. Kinda get a handle on all of that energy and channel it into the things that are most important, you know? Third, I know it seems silly, but rituals and symbols have always been a big deal to me when it comes to getting my mind in order. Little mnemonics that allow me to tie important concepts ot a physical action or ideas to a certain behavior are useful to me, and there's something about the sword - drawing it and cutting things - that seemed an appropriate mnemonic for cutting away the inessential mental noise in my life. When I was competing in sports like boxing and kickboxing, I always had certain rituals that helped me get ready. I always wrapped my hands a certain way, for example, or listened to the same music before the fight. Those things helped me get centered and calm and ready for the task ahead. I don't have any of those rituals for mental noise in regular every day life, and wrapping my hands just didn't seem cool enough. Plus, my new job and some other factors have me studying massive amounts of new information, so my mind is more active than it has been in years. Again the symbol of a sword helps me mentally "cut the Gordian knot" so to speak, when it comes to the overwhelming or confusing volume of stuff, and the ritual parts of drawing (making the decision to cut away those things), cutting (taking a decisive action), and re-sheathing the sword (recognizing that the task is complete and getting on with things) makes for a useful ritual.

For a while, I thought firearms would do it for me, because the philosophical end of shooting has alwas been pretty powerful for me: Line up the sights and squeeze the trigger is a very committed act. There's no recall for a bullet once it's released, so the "ritual" of shooting allows me to develop decisiveness too, but it's still far too practical. I end up focusing on the real world aspects and not the esoteric.

I know, I know. Real world stuff and philosophy are inseperable, and they ought to fulfill the same need. I get that. But what can I say? They don't for me. When I train the martial arts I love, it's because I have this alpha male need to be a good fighter, and that's what it all gets tied to. Doing this sword stuff is so far removed from combat, my ego doesn't get in the way. That's a useful thing for me. Plus, no one in Iaido knows me from Adam, so I get the opportunity to just go in and be a regular old student. That's nice, too.

So in summary, yes I realize that there are people out there frothing at the mouth that Mike Brewer is taking up some kata-based traditional martial art. I understand I'll catch shit for it. I'm okay with that. If I can't manage to defend myself effectively after 27 years of reality-based study, ten or fifteen more aren't going to help. I figure I can fight as well as I'll ever need to, so at this point in my life, I just kinda want to try something different. Those people that have a problem with it can show up and try their level best to beat some sense into me if they want, and hope that all this traditional nonsense has affected my ability to fight more than I think it will. I sense, however, that most will remain content to blow me shit from the relative safety of their keyboards.

Consider this iaido stuff, in some manner of thinking, as my "12th area of Kali."

jubaji

Don't get defensive about it baby, or you're missing half the point!

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Mike Brewer

Well, I can promise you I'm missing far more than half the point. My ignorance truly knows no bounds. But I am not defensive about it, I promise. Like I said, a lot may be missing in terms of tone and meaning when it comes to reading an internet post.

Fact is, I've always believed that any reason for training is a valid one. I also realize that some people aren't ready to accept that, and it's okay. I don't expect them to, nor do I need them to for my benefit. I'm walking my own road when it comes to martial arts, and whether people understand it or not is pretty irrelevant. Given that fact, I figure it's the same for everyone else, too. They're entitled to their reasons, and I don't need to understand or accept them any more than I expect them to accept mine.

The only reason I post about it here in any great length is that I enjoy the discussions, the debates, and the arguments. They serve another worthwhile purpose for me in that they help me better identify when I'm full of shit (Oftener than I'd like at times ). From time to time, I've been told, they also help other readers clarify things for themselves, too.

I'd also wager that posts that set the stage for debate and argument have resulted in more discussions than the old jubaji standbys, too. But I guess it's all about goals...

Seriously, though, I have no trouble drawing the line between internet talk and real life. I'm just trying to give poeple something to talk about. it is after all a discussion forum.

treelizard

How you can do iaido in a city where there's Parkour is beyond me...

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I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship. --Louisa May Alcott

For a good time, visit http://www.dirttime.org

jubaji

?????????????

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Mike Brewer

Well, the how is easy. You just go to the school, talk to the instructor, and sign up for lessons...