Self Improvement

[DJ FC]

This is the year of self-improvement for Mr DJ FC. Getting into shape is always on the list and something I never seem to accomplish. It's something I have every intention of doing soon, but something I consider separate from my recent realization that I had spent too much time not aquiring new skills.

Maybe it's the "quarter life crisis," but about a year ago it hit me that since leaving college I'm not learning new things any more. This troubled me quite a bit as there is a list a mile long of things I want to learn to do well before I die. The first three on my list:

Drive a manual transmission
Speak a foreign language
Play golf

Pretty much everybody I know can do all 3 of these but I had none of them. Knocked out the first one pretty easily while getting my British driving license. As for the next two, I'm currently taking a 2 hour French class once a week and weekly golf lessons as well. I can now ask how you're doing in French while swinging a 7 iron. I will be golfing much before I will be speaking French fluently. I feel I should be competent on the golf course by the end of summer whereas French may take me a few years.

What's next on the list:

Scuba Diving
Sailing

Both of these can be done in London and I've found weekend classes for both.

Tell me, friends, of the skill sets you want to aquire and inspire me to aquire more.

[Saint DH]

Golfing is a really great outdoor activity, and it's very rewarding if you get good at it. It's terribly frustrating if you're bad at it. I'd like to get better. I'm not terrible, but I could be a lot better. Consistency is key.

I'm learning the art of kettlebell lifting. This will probably take years for me to master. I'm currently reading a book on it and practicing just about every day.

I'm also working on strength. Make no mistake, strength is a skill. I'm reading a book about this as well. The things I've learned in this book have helped me increase my bench press by 50 lbs.

Finally, I'll be taking professional certification and licensing exams over the course of the next year.

[thekremlin]

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to DJ FC again.

[SittinOnDubsWGW]

Originally Posted by DJ FC

What's next on the list:

Scuba Diving
Sailing

Tell me, friends, of the skill sets you want to aquire and inspire me to aquire more.

These are two things I'd love to learn to do. Being that I'm currently in the desert, it's difficult.

I'm gonna try to learn how to surf while I'm in San Diego next week.

Improving on my golf game/pistol shooting/workouts are main focuses right now.

[Mr. Blonde]

I recently came up with the idea of trying to learn something new every single day. I haven't had a lot of time for it right now, as my life is lately and currently a special type of private hell, designed for me and solely me, but when I get some free time and don't feel like committing suicide 5+ times a day, I really want to focus on this. I'm trying to learn more practical things. I really want to learn how to start a fire from twigs, and try to memorize 5 new Spanish words a day. Stuff like that.

[DDTempest]

I'm learning gardening. I have like 12 grapes ... it only took me three seasons to get grapes.

[thekremlin]

BJJ BJJ BJJ.

[angry pancake]

wanted to learn indoor gardening. Got the hang of it pretty good so far. still been less than a year.

Been tinkering with guitar cabinets for a while. Can wire them in series and parallel and all, but really all you need to do that is to look at how one is already done and copy to learn that. But have thought about learning to build tube amplifiers in the last month or so. I have doubts that will ever come to fruition as I don't know the first thing about electronics and would have to start from scratch. rebuilding a speaker cabinet is one thing, but transformers and capacitors are another. The other issue is I have no idea where I'll get the time to do this right now. And the older I get the more frustrated I become when things don't come to me immediately. The thought that not having any idea what I'm doing, but using electricity, has also been a slight deterrent.

[Ironic Mustache]

Originally Posted by Dirty Harry

Golfing is a really great outdoor activity, and it's very rewarding if you get good at it. It's terribly frustrating if you're bad at it. I'd like to get better. I'm not terrible, but I could be a lot better. Consistency is key.

Golf works in the opposite way for me. Golf IS fantastic, but the better I got at it, the less rewarding it seemed to be. When you're bad at it, you don't really expect much so hitting a few good shots per round makes the whole day better. When you're good, hitting a few bad shots can ruin your day. I've never been amazing at golf, but I did play in high school and then worked at a course for about a year. During that time I got down to an official (registered) eleven handicap which is pretty god damned good (especially considering that when you primarily play with the pros who work at the course, you play from the pro tees, mulligans don't exist, and you can't ever fluff your lie). The course I worked at also leans toward the difficult side for the area. I played every day and took my game VERY seriously. When you start getting that competitive, even when you shoot under your handicap you start wondering about the shots that could have been better.

I stopped playing more than once or twice a year for about 5 years, and lost a lot of the precision and distance I once had. Now I'm about an eighteen handicap, and play around 8-10 times per year. Even though I'm now significantly worse, I have much more fun than I used to.

[vaga1220 *]

That beer golf in the Argayde sure pisses me off.

[Beebs]

Originally Posted by DJ FC

This is the year of self-improvement for Mr DJ FC. Getting into shape is always on the list and something I never seem to accomplish. It's something I have every intention of doing soon, but something I consider separate from my recent realization that I had spent too much time not aquiring new skills.

Maybe it's the "quarter life crisis," but about a year ago it hit me that since leaving college I'm not learning new things any more. This troubled me quite a bit as there is a list a mile long of things I want to learn to do well before I die. The first three on my list:

Drive a manual transmission
Speak a foreign language
Play golf

Pretty much everybody I know can do all 3 of these but I had none of them. Knocked out the first one pretty easily while getting my British driving license. As for the next two, I'm currently taking a 2 hour French class once a week and weekly golf lessons as well. I can now ask how you're doing in French while swinging a 7 iron. I will be golfing much before I will be speaking French fluently. I feel I should be competent on the golf course by the end of summer whereas French may take me a few years.

What's next on the list:

Scuba Diving
Sailing

Both of these can be done in London and I've found weekend classes for both.

Tell me, friends, of the skill sets you want to aquire and inspire me to aquire more.

You drove my car sometime in highschool, which is a stick, you just did it really, really poorly.

[Beebs]

Originally Posted by thekremlin

BJJ BJJ BJJ.

This; and continue not doing bad habits.

[vaga1220 *]

Did you guys see Fabricio Werdum's last fight? I think it's time to give BJJ a rest. Submission wrestling is the future.

[Saint DH]

I've already mastered the Scorpion Death Lock (or the Sharpshooter if you're a Hitman fan).

[THEINCREDIBLEdork]

I've been working on a personal goal for the last 3 or 4 months. I'm trying to stretch my asshole out really really far. I started off small (carrots) and progress has been really slow. But I'm starting to notice a difference. I can fit an entire orange up my ass right now pretty easily. I'm hoping to reach my first goal by the end of the summer (horse cocks).

[Beebs]

Originally Posted by vaga1220

Did you guys see Fabricio Werdum's last fight? I think it's time to give BJJ a rest. Submission wrestling is the future.

Well I'll just go down to the local submission wrestling school then...

Or I could just train takedowns with the college wrestlers that are in pretty much every class in the midwest. It is silly that so many BJJ schools never work takedowns, or stick to "jump headfirst into clinch, outside trip" and move on.

Your point is a decent one; Werdum's takedowns were absolutely shambolic; hell he couldn't even pull guard successfully. I really don't understand why he would immediately go to butterfly guard after trying to pull, it is probably the easiest guard to just stand up out of. Hell he was actually doing pretty good striking, should have just stuck with that after it was clear he was not going to get a takedown.

Aoki is slightly different, since he is a badass at judo with a lot of ability in terms of takedowns, but when he pulls guard you almost never see the guy just stand up out of it.

[angry pancake]

^^^This. I have no idea why almost all BJJ schools around here ignore take downs. We used to drill this at Mohler's school, well it was more of a "king of the takedown" type of thing. The guys who previously trained in jap jitsu would dominate. We were asked at one point not to do that because most never learned how to fall properly from being thrown.

I'm also thinking that BJJ has become so fucking watered down. There's too many guys out there teaching who aren't very good. You see the name of a very well known instructor on the door, but the classes are taught by a purple belt. I'm also afraid that too many people get promoted for simply putting in mat time. I'm one of them. There seem to have been a cash in on bjj.

I'm at the point where it's becoming difficult to watch UFC. Too many times it looks likes very shitty amateur boxing that goes the distance. Too many of their top guys have don't finish fights. It's as if they get ahead on points and then go conservative.

[thekremlin]

One reason I prefer not to train standup as often as matwork is the injury factor. I think you're as much as 5x as likely to get injured training TDs and throws as sweeps and subs. And that's IF you're partner knows what he's doing, which like you say, often isn't the case. This past year, I've pulled a hammy, banged my knee hard enough to miss a few days training, cracked a rib, and scratched a cornea, ALL in standup, with no mat injuries (knock on wood.)

Unfortunately I've become the go-to guy for all things no-gi and standup at my school, i.e. whenever someone has a competition coming up they come with me to spar/drill. I wouldn't mind except people can't get it through their head that you have to drill much lighter on the feet. I really think 0% resistance is the best way to train standup.

Re: Beebs, I think if you train Gi BJJ, you don't need to dedicate a lot of time to sub wrestling. If you can do Gi, you can do No-Gi, way moreso than the other way around. I do no-gi about 1x a week, maybe 2x if someone has a tourney coming up.

[Beebs]

I was more joking about the fact that are like maybe 2 "submission wrestling" schools rather than bjj schools that do nogi in the country and that it isn't really an option for most people.

[angry pancake]

The only times I ever got injured at bjj was usually when some gigantic and strong newb would spaz out. I hated getting paired up with them. I agree that you shouldn't go out 100% in stand up at first. But after a while, yes you do. I'd imagine almost all stand up styles do this at some point. Judo and other forms of jap-jitsu certainly does.

I should've been clear about takedowns and throws. It should probably be taught as part of the curriculum. It could easily be incorporated into first day white belt stuff. I think Travis Lutter's school in fort worth does this or did this. Or hell may they just offered Judo there. I don't remember.

[Dent]

What car did you end up buying?

I'm growing the supposed worlds hottest Chili (dorset naga bhut jolokia)


also doing squats n oats

[THEINCREDIBLEdork]

Originally Posted by Dent

What car did you end up buying?

silverado

what are you going to do with that pepper? It looks sad.

[Mr. Blonde]

Do you still have your motorcycle, Misty?

[THEINCREDIBLEdork]

yepper

[DJ FC]

2 good developments this week:

On Wednesday I played my first round of golf. I'm very poor at it. I'm not consistent off the tee, I have no feel for how hard I'm going to hit the ball while chipping, and my putting is pretty bad. But to be honest I feel good about where I am considering I'm a 100% beginer. I know the things I need to fix and I'm pretty certain I can do that.

This weekend I took an intensive sailing course. It was 8 hours on Saturday followed by 8 more hours on Sunday. Lots of sailing for a complete N00b. I'm now level 1 certified by the Royal Yachting Association (which sounds way more impressive than it is). In the begining of September I will be taking another 2 day course for level 2 certification afterwhich I will be able to sail a dinghy 100% by myself competently. I'm 80% of the way there already. All that's left is some more precise movement plus man overboard and extreme situation type stuff. The cool thing about sailboats is that they scale quite well: once you learn how to sail a dinghy by yourself you pretty much know everything you need to sail a much bigger sailboat or yacht. As the boats get bigger there are naturally boat-specific things you need to learn (and I have yet to use a Spinnaker), but 95% of what you need to know is from sailing a dinghy. Cool shit.