[Wk35] Improving in Fitness, Gaming & Music

About this blog/diary:+ Show Spoiler +

I'm a professional musician and (very) amateur gamer.
Blogging about improving and sticking to a program is very effective for my overall progress!
Having been inspired by Haulvern, I hope this humble blog can motivate another someone in need of positive change.
Thanks for checking this out and feel free to leave any comments or suggestions!

Week preview: I'm trimming down this blog while also announcing the smarter long-term goals I've previously kept to myself.

Goals for the Week

Beat them with patience. --Doc Rotella

Fitness Goals: + Show Spoiler [Long Term Goals] +

Join the Big 3 1000lb club. + Show Spoiler [Progress] +

830lb. Currently up to 970 on the Big 4. Wilk's Score:253.79

Hit 5x10 Pull-ups and graduate to weighted pull-ups. + Show Spoiler [Progress] +

Currently at 7 a set.

4 Weight-lifting sessions (program)(rep log): [image loading]

2 Rowing HIIT or LISS sessions (log): [image loading]

(opt) Running/Hills/Weighted walk sessions (log): [image loading]

Weight Loss (slow 2k/cal cut): (food log)(chart) + Show Spoiler [Up-to-date Progress] +

                  Log daily food intake: (log)
                  Weigh-in daily: (log)

            Music Goals: + Show Spoiler [Long Term Goals] +

Win a major symphony orchestra audition. + Show Spoiler [Progress/How to?] +

I've made finals at major symphony auditions in recent months. I'm going to play well and compete in both Fort Worth or San Francisco by committing to daily mental prep, running mock auditions with fellow musicians, and seeking out lessons with top teachers.

Be comfortable and confident playing each orchestral position. + Show Spoiler [How to?] +

Seek out and play duets with my co-workers whenever possible. Request to play as many different positions in local orchestras as possible.

Daily Self-Hypnosis or Affirmation sessions: ( [image loading]

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Daily Meditation sessions: ( [image loading]

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Quality challenge-seeking practice session: (

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Gaming Goals:
Log write-ups of my team's OCC Blood Bowl games (Current Standings): [image loading]

Log write-ups and session prep for my DND 5E Campaign (wiki):

Previous Weeks: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34.

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Monday 3/30: [image loading]

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Damn was this a busy busy day. The morning was spent in interminable tedium of another recording session. I rushed home to do a quick practice session before a late lunch date playing Innovation with my wife and a coworker. The game plays well as a three-player option! In typical Innovation fashion, the games play quickly and seemingly very different each time. Our guest won both games! He was quite pleased with himself. After the games, I got to test drive his Mazda for a while. My wife is not-so-subtly suggesting that my beautiful Saturn is not exactly comfortable, nor fit for our yearly cross-country drives. I've been holding out for a while, but I fear the time may come in the coming months.

After the drive, I hopped into my cold weather gym gear and had a nice row while watching some Fringe. This quirky JJ Abrams gem is quickly growing on me! I think I'm going to limit my watching of the show to exclusively when I row.

I caught a quick dinner and readied myself for the Blood Bowl game of the week! Turn 1... I lose my most valuable player to a lucky rush from the opposition... It was all downhill from there. Honestly, I was quite outplayed by the crafty Dark Elf coach. He was a seasoned expert in crowd-pushing people and ended up vacating at least 3 of my players from the pitch. While it hurt, it was beautiful to watch. My AV rolls continued to fail and he was up 4 players at halftime, and 7 by turn 11. My boys decided to wear cardboard armor it would seem.

Tuesday 3/31: [image loading]

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Just a quick update for today. Most of the time allotted to write this blog for the day was spent re-formatting and adding the long-term goals I've been nurturing. I've decided to remove a couple of the daily icons because I don't fail to weigh-in or log my food anymore

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Suffice to say I kicked ass today! Nailed all the mental prep and quality practice for the day before noon. Today begins de-load week, so the Press Day felt lighter, but pull-ups were a challenge. Greasing the groove is working nicely upping my numbers!

Tomorrow morning I measure myself and take the monthly progress pics!

Wednesday 4/1: [image loading]

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Whew... a killer of a day. Work was extra long because we were playing for a memorial service, and the tenor of the day was tempered by that knowledge. I brought a Innovation to play over our long lunch hour and it was a moderately successful hit with my gaming crew. The novelty of the mechanics helped sell the game, but two of the newcomers were frustrated by poor card draw (and I completely understood their frustrations). At any rate, I forsook some responsibilities getting caught up in the gaming, and ended up rushing around right before the sound check and knocking someone's instrument. This is literally the first time I have ever damaged someone else's instrument in my life and it was a jarring experience. Thankfully, the damage was only cosmetic (and to a bass trombone to boot... so no real loss :D) and the band will cover all instrument damage costs.

Just knocked out a slightly abridged Deadlift de-load day and my daily nuts & bolts for the horn, and I am beat... I'll be doing affirmations during the dishes, and will knock out a short meditation session before sleeping, but I'll update those tomorrow just for honesty's sake.

A little aside: the last several days I've seen an uptick in my weight despite keeping the calories level. It's been eating at the back of my mind, but I'm going to stick with the program until the end of the week and see if the weight is still sitting higher than expected. I was so excited to potentially have a downswing to <180 potentially coincide with today's picture session that I got a little ahead of myself. The upswing will even itself out eventually... keep to the program and keep my focus on the long-term goals!

Thursday 4/2: [image loading]

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Just a quick update for today. This day off was busy one! I accelerated my de-load week again this cycle and forewent the rest day in between Deads and Bench day. The workout was quite nice and supplemented with a trip to the park. My wife wanted to do some Couch to 5k running so I joined her for bit and also practiced my woeful tennis forehand. The puppy loved getting the sun and actually attempted to run around the tennis court with us.

The list for Fort Worth is out! Finally! tomorrow the book will be made. I'm very much looking forward to it.

My Blood Bowl match today was early! I was quite afraid of the matchup as I was facing an Orc team with superior STR and removal. My Minotaur, the beast upon which my lower level Chaos team hinges, had to miss this game nursing last week's injury. Oh well. The block dice were very much in my favor however. I had a significantly greater percentage of excellent attack dice. That coupled with some pretty grievous errors on the other coach's part sealed the deal. I was able to score twice and get a level up on a crucial character! Heading into the next match, I will finally have a Mighty Blow beast! Hurray! It's about damn time since the previous two killer-specced players were annihilated. Took a season and a half, but finally!

Friday 4/3: [image loading]

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A quick and rather rushed day... Unhappy with my practice effort, but it wasn't terrible considering my day was consumed with tax and money issues that popped up unexpectedly. It's a weakness of mine that I'm terrible at thinking about money in a positive way. I inherited this fear from my mother (not an excuse mind you), and it was compounded by my first job where I lived well below the poverty line. At any rate, I'm irrationally apprehensive about money issues and often procrastinate when they loom on the horizon. With the help of a co-worker, the wife and I sat down and had a heart-to-heart about our long term plans, how amazingly good our current living situation is considering, and developed a plan for the future. While I'm happy we accomplished it, it was very mentally and emotionally draining for me.

Saturday 4/4: [image loading]

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Today was a stellar practice day! I accomplished all the goals I set in the morning. Right now I'm quite pleased with myself and have only meditation to accomplish before hitting the sack. Using Fringe as an impetus to get me rowing has worked as well! That exercise gets my heartrate up so easily it's crazy... so much better than the elliptical.

It looks like I might not be able to make the Fort Worth audition, which bums me greatly. But we'll see... word has to come down from above. Oh well. There was something else I wanted to mention but it's escaping me now... Oh well, I'll try to blog about it tomorrow when I begin the new 5/3/1 cycle! Wooohooo!

Sunday 4/5: [image loading]

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A lovely day today! The wife and I have a new plan for our near future finances about which I'm quite excited! I won't bore you by delving too much into it, but if you're at all interested, check out Mr. Money Mustache for some good cleaning thrifty fun. I've always leaned towards the more frugal side, while my wife has always been very detailed in her approach and tracking of money, so basically we're going to be coming together to accomplish our medium- and long-term goals.

Speaking of goals, I failed to hit the 5th rep on today's Press Day. Got it on videotape for future form perusal, but other than that I was pretty happy. My DB row and curl weights/numbers are steadily rising!

Nailed all my other goals for the day! Did good mental prep, score study, and solid practice on the upcoming challenging music. Looking forward to tomorrow's weigh-in as well because I finally dipped down from 183 today. Hopefully the week-long sojourn at 183 is over

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+ Show Spoiler [Housekeeping..] +

Sunday 4/5: [image loading]

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[Wk35] Improving in Fitness, Gaming & Music

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