"My friend assures me, 'It's all or nothing.'
I am not worried, I am not overly concerned."

As I look down inside I very rarely see my face looking back. On days it's good, it's really good. Its a beautiful woman, and she's holding out her arm calling to me. She dances with me in every movement I make. I can smell her hair, and she's young and innocent. She says "See, I told you...it always gets better. I never went anywhere." I look back at her and I think back to her and float in infinity. She's never changed, she's always stayed the same. Always young, always innocent, always beautiful...and it was love at first sight.

"But I'm sure there's something in a shade of grey, or something in between,
And I can always change my name if that's what you mean."

This is one of those days where I fucking hate it. It's not that beautiful female today. It's male, it's my worst enemy. It's ugly, it's harsh, it's death, it's anger. He's laughing at me and he's hurting me as he laughs. He wants my blood and I want his. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it. And I know the harder I fight, the more I lose myself to him.

"It seems like I should say, 'As long as this is love...' But it's not all that easy, so maybe I should
Snap her up in a butterfly net and pin her down on a photograph album.
I am not worried cuz I've done this sort of thing before."

Right now I miss her...I wish she was here. And even though she has always returned, I'm afraid of how long till I see her again.Till then I'll fight...always wondering if she's ultimately out of my league, maybe I have underestimated my enemy. Either way, so long as I don't quit, in the end I'll get to die in her arms. Maybe that'll inspire someone stronger than me to rise up, to continue the war.

"And every time she sneezes I believe it's love...."


*Quoted lyrics from Anna Begins by Counting Crows

Haven't really looked forward to eating for a while...mostly due to the fact that I'm tired of stuffing myself trying to maintain weight. I'm looking forward to the next few weeks though dropping about 5 pounds because I get to eat less for a change, and this also affords me to eat a lot cleaner if you will. Having said that, here's what the past few months of eating have looked like:

Morning - Coffee with a ton of cream and sugar(love my pumkin spice latte), maybe a slice of toast.
After first practice - A huge protein fruit smoothie with about 1000 calories in it, comprised mostly of blueberries, bananas, a couple tablespoons of peanut butter, protein powder, ginger, cinnamon, and honey.
Dinner(after second practice) - Pizza, Chipotle, Chinese food, or Subway.
Dessert - 1 pint of Ben & Jerry's Candy Bar Pie(American Dream is good too)
Misc - Snacking on gummi candy throughout the day(1-2 packs a day), and pita chips with hummus occasionally with dinner.

I'll add here that I'm vegetarian. I'll basically drop weight by pulling the ice cream occasionally or exchanging the pizza and Chinese food for more Subway, maybe cut the midday shake in half a bit every once and a while. Losing weight has never been a hard thing for me, it's not very complicated; you just eat a little less and or move more till the scale starts to go in your favor. I'll do this for about 3-4 weeks most likely(maybe lose a little more depending on how consistent training is going) and then start building the food back up as practice intensity increases over the coming months. You have to eat if you're gonna train hard. I could write volumes on this. Everybody can train hard once in a blue moon, but very few can do this day in day out, month in month out for years... and even fewer can recover from it. You have to fuel yourself properly so that you have adequate energy to train at your hardest, and also so that you have the proper building blocks for recovery. Throw in ten hours of sleep a day and over the years that all adds up to a whole lot of progress.

A lot of people spin their wheels with their discipline doing all this work to get better at something, only to take time off and lose the tip of the iceberg they worked so hard to capture. And then they come back thinking they're suppose to still be at their best but they're not. Two things usually happen at this point: 1) they push to far to soon and get injured, or 2) they get frustrated and die in stagnation. Either way they'll usually come up with a lot of bullshit excuses as to why they're not getting better, or god forbid why they're WORSE, never admitting they suck because they got lazy. They took their abilities for granted. The body works on a use it or lose it mentality. If it doesn't have a reason to keep something around, then you best believe its going to let that ability atrophy. You want a good example, look at the average child vs adult. Kids are highly mobile, they're also moving all over the place. Mobility/Ability dwindles from lack of use. You let yourself slow down. This blog post isn't for the person happy with where they're at, its for the person who wants to keep moving forward. Its for the person who wants to truly see where their potential lies; the person who's only direction is up and forward. While I'm at it, on a side note I'd say 90% of obesity has to do with the fact as you grew up, you let food become more exciting to you than play. Remember when you were a kid and your mom had to remind you to come home to eat?....Get back to that; That's your weightloss secret.

Minimums. Minimums keep you on the road, they keep you hopeful. They keep you from regressing. Always coming in hopeful that today will be the day you get better, but if not, at least staying the course and not getting worse. Let's face it, some days its just not happening; Go in, hit your minimums, and get out. Other days you'll come in, you'll know you have to lift at least this much, hold a pose at least this long, run a routine x amount of times but coming close to the end you realize you have a lot more in you!....THIS is where you buckle yourself in, lay down on that accelerator, rip that stick shift and hold on for dear life. This is where you grow. All the other days you're just putting in the time, hitting those minimums, letting the body know you haven't gone anywhere. Meanwhile you're that cat in the wilderness...hiding in the brush, waiting for your moment to pounce. Whether you're a gymnast, a weightlifter, a dancer, a musician, or what not...create daily and weekly minimums. Create work that must be hit regardless. Don't be crazy ambitious with it, but make it something that you can still always walk away knowing you put in an honorable amount of work. And as you do get stronger behind the scenes, these minimums will eventually go up. Be cautious when you set the new minimums knowing that once they're set, its written in blood. They MUST BE MADE. As you go along you'll also notice that what once was a good day for you, its now just a new minimum. This is good progression. Aim for the moon each day, but if you miss...make sure you shoot the day's necessary stars. 

Oh the shades of winter. The night is darkest just before the dawn. Yesterday's morning practice was hell, and then just like that, you come in for the afternoon practice and have one of the best practices of your life. The gods will occasionally reward you for your blood spilled on the battlefield. I've enjoyed the past week of lowered volume...but just like the seasons changing, it's time to move on again. Volume is slowly going up with a little more focus on general strength for the immediate time being. Lots of press work as always, and one workout specifically for nothing but conditioning. Core, core, gimme some more. Afternoon practice was so-so today; nothing bad, nothing particularly good. After hitting yesterday's 5-minute max hold with some change to spare, decided to just hit the minimums this morning and focus more so on technique, save going for the jugular during the evening's practice. Until the necessary strength is built up, you need technique because you're weak. Once a good foundation of strength is built, you don't have to rely on technique so much because you're strong enough to fight yourself out of a less than advantageous position should the problem arise. Always refining technique obviously but always pushing the strength envelope as well. They both play a fairly equal part into the equation. Either way, take your licks. Showing up and putting forth an honorable effort in your practice is really 90% of it. All the rest is sheer aggression, genetics, and a healthy dose of luck.

Workout A

Max Hold Handstand
Standing Press Handstand 3xAMRAP
Press Negatives 3x1
Seated Press 3xAMRAP
OAHS 5/4/5/4*

Workout B

Max Hold Handstand
Standing Press Handstand 3xAMRAP
Press Negatives 3x1
Seated Press 3xAMRAP
OAHS 5/4/5/4*
Mexican Handstand/Lower to croc

Workout C

Wall-Supported Planche Presses 2-3xAMRAP
Decline Leg Raises 2x15-25
Seated Press 3xAMRAP
Hyperextensions 2x15-25
Handstand Walking 1 lap
Dishrocks 2x1:00

*One-arms can get some extra lovin' so long as time permits.

Monday - A,B,C
Tuesday - A,B
Wednesday - A,B,C
Thursday - A,B,C
Friday - A,B,C
Saturday - A,B
Sunday - A,B

There's no such thing as the end of practice. You get in there and you work. Don't even THINK about looking forward to the end, because there is none. It's time to work. MOVE, BOY! You say you want more, then prove it. Stop wishing it were easier. While you're taking the easy way out, your competition is taking the hard road...the road less traveled. The harder worker always wins. Two options: Light a fire under your ass or burn out. How can you work harder?! Pick up your sad excuse for a human existence, stop feeling like the lamb, and become the lion. Taste blood on your tongue once again. Foam at the mouth. Get hungry...get hungrier! This is life. And yeh I know you wanna cry. CRY, BOY!...but then you get your ass up and get right back on it. You're tired of being a piece of shit. You're tired of being weak. You're tired of falling, PICK YOURSELF UP! Pick yourself up or get the fuck out of here. Make more room for the soldier that IS willing to fight. Repetition is the mother of skill. Move, boy.

This is one of those dark days where I can't even fake it; I am FUCKING MISERABLE. It'll pass as it always does. But right now it's just all anger, frustration, and wanting to punch another hole through a wall. I think my cat Crixus secretly likes these days because he knows he's gonna get a lot more petting from me. That's an ego defense mechanism for all my psychology scholars out there. It's called Displacement. This misery is another part of the blessing though...the blessing of chasing a dream. Realize you're gonna have these bad days...the further you go in your sport or art, if you're really going for it, the more bad days you're gonna have. The magic will happen less and less often, farther and farther apart. Stay optimistic though, 'cause that magic WILL HAPPEN AGAIN...that same magic that initially started your journey; that childlike awe. But until then...MOVE, BOY.

Back on the grind. I've been training handstand 5-6 hour days for the past two months and the body is finally recovering pretty decently in between sessions right now. It was pretty bad for a while there but that goes with the territory. Press strength is at an all time high, but motivation is definitely at an all time low. I'm find most trainings I'm just fighting through, hitting the numbers, counting the minutes. The beastmode is pretty much gone. I'm not complaining as I'm getting stronger, but behind-the-scenes I kinda definitely know it's time to slightly deload for a week and then start ramping back up. We're now dropping to 4 hour days, and then each week adding back a 5 hour day over the coming weeks until we're back at 7 days a week at 5 hours a day. At this point, the 5 hour days won't really mess with recovery at all assuming sleep is there and there isn't a consistent substantial caloric deficit. Small deloads like this are good every once and a while, especially if the athlete has really kept himself in the dark matter for a while. He'll end up coming back stronger, a lot more motivated, and it's also good that he gets out occasionally to experience the rest of the world; call his mom, take his woman for a nice walk, go see a game...things that most people call living(that's a joke there).

Right now the day's trainings look something like this, this is seven days a week:

Twice a day

0:00-0:30 Prehab, warmups, stretching, max holds, dynamic work.
0:30-1:00 AMRAP press work for sets from standing and from the sit, handstand pushups.
1:00-1:30 OAHS variations and transitioning

Once a day

0:00-1:00 General conditioning and other elements: Mexican, crocodile, planche work, pirouettes, handstand walking, and a shit-ton of core work(hollowbody rocking, decline leg raises, hyperextensions).

We'll call this day one of a new beginning. You have milestones as you progress and grow in your practice. The past month has been a big one for me. A little older, a little wiser, but still a lot to prove. I'm hoping to make this training blog fairly consistent at once a week, but well...we'll see how that goes. Much love out to you and yours. Keep doin' your work, whatever it is. It's your life...fall into it. All else is the void.