Similar Posts
The Health Challenge
Byjack
I’ve been feeling pretty lost as of late. I am thinking about my youtube channel, about my job, about coaching, about my health and about my challenges with youtube and fitness. I’ve been stressed out about all these different things and I don’t really know how to tackle all of them at the same time. I don’t know what to focus on, which ones makes sense to put energy into, and how I will go about focusing on any of these things.
I’ve been feeling depressed, overwhelmed and depleted, constantly self medicating with youtube videos and games.
Recently, I’ve been inspired by this video:
Health is everything. If you want to be a successful entrepreneur, you don’t have to choose between that and health. You will be a better entrepreneur with better health.
I want to drop all of my other challenges and focus on this for a while.
I want to focus on my health.
I thought about what this meant for quite a while because health is such a nebulous topic. I feel that Brian Johnson in project Blueprint is taking a very scientific approach to health, but I want to take a more personal approach.
Here are the areas that I care about:
- Mood: How positive and happy I feel overall
- Passion for life: How motivated I feel about life, relationships and projects
- Energy: How energetic and strong I feel
- Flow: how in the moment and attuned to my body’s sensations I feel
- Attractiveness: how healthy I look
Some ideas of times that I can measure these things:
- When I wake up: great for seeing how well I slept
- Around 10 AM: good for checking up on my morning routine
- Around 3 PM: good for checking on my afternoon routine
- Before I go to bed: good to seeing the cumulative effect of the day and how fulfilled I feel
I’ve tried these type of challenges before, but I feel that I sort of neglected the mental part of health, feeling healthier physically but mentally trapped and unhappy. I want to really commit to doing video journaling this entire time in order to make sure that I can express myself and work through mental challenges.
What would mean success to me is not just feeling much more happy, passionate, energetic, in flow and attractive, but also to create a lifestyle, mindset and routine that will maintain and grow that over time.
Jiujitsu Challenge? Knee Challenge
Byjack
Ok, so I no longer have an ongoing jiujitsu challenge, and I don’t really know if I have a knee challenge or not.
However, I really want to start that now. I feel really good about my progression.
It all started with 10 round Tuesday.
I went 3 rounds (2 days ago on the 21st). I absolutely died. I didn’t recover from feeling dizzy and like I was going to throw up for an hour after that.
I ate food when I got home, and slept like a baby after.
Ever since, I went to jiujitsu everyday.
On wednesday I was feeling super undermotivated, but I found an old training buddy and it was actually a good time.
Today I had even more fun.
My stamina seems to be increasing fast. I’m sore everyday and I still feel fine.
My knee feels good. It doesn’t hurt every day.
It feels strong. I feel like I can push myself more now.
My knee therapy and techniques around walking backwards, shifting my knee to be more balanced, stretching the hips and pointing the knee in the direction of the knee. AND IT’S BEEN WORKING.
I learned a lot from live rolls:
- Don’t let someone get a completely dominant position, interrupt their attacks, move to the side
- Don’t let your arms separate too much, too easy to armbar
- Don’t let both arms get trapped above your head, too easy to armbar
I’m learning some basic attacks, armbars, leg locks, chokes.
Very cool stuff.
Health | Physical Health | Poetry | Writing
Knee Challenge: Looking Ahead
Byjack
I completed my knee challenge in terms of going hiking in Zion national park. I felt like I succeeded in a big way but still have a long way to go in terms of getting where I need to go.
What is next for me? I know in the long term, I want to be very physically active. I want to be able to practice martial arts, do a little parkour and gymnastics. I know it will take a lot of effort and time to get there and it feels quite overwhelming for me.
I’m going to set a few large goals and then look at some of the very short term goals getting there.
2 year goal – the ability to practice martial arts, parkour gymnastics and skiing. My goal isn’t to go too hard in any of these areas, just to be able to do them safely.
1 year goal – to get back to preinjury levels
1 month goal – be able to sleep, walk, stand and light exercise with zero discomfort. I will call this goal little freedom.
I don’t really know what the next step in my process is. It feels too soon to set a schedule yet.
I just want to slowly rest and explore for now.
My feelings are that challenge videos make for really good productivity but I need to slow down sometimes and feel the feelings.
Maybe I will write a poem:
Creaky Knees
When I bend my knee
It feels like I’m grinding
Hinges made of old stone
Like the kind in movies
That open secret magical passages
And grate against themselves
I say that I want to be able to do martial arts again
But the truth is
I don’t know what I want
I am afraid to dream again
Of a world where I can be active
I’m so used to being scared
Of clutching my knee close
So as not to hurt it
I feel like I’m too old to have these dreams anymore
Of flying
Like I did when I wanted to learn parkour
Everything scares me
I feel that
I need to understand this part of myself first
Listen to what it wants to say
“Everything is a danger”
It tells me
The protector of my knee
Of my body
It feels safe to not move at all
Workspace 22: Relax
Byjack
I had a slower start to the day. I started the day on my phone, waking up a bit early because my new retainer is bothering me when I sleep.
I watched some Valorant, talked to my girlfriend, and now I have a flight in about 3 hours. I want to leave in about 2 hours. I still have to take out the trash, eat up some more food and load the dishwasher.
I did a bit of a workout and I found out a couple of things that help with regaining energy, and gathering chi:
- Butt-clenched breathing: sounds a bit weird but it works. Lie down, clench the sphincter muscle (what you use to hold in poop) breath in. Then relax and breathe out. Repeat.
- Tummy circles: put the left hand over your stomach, then your right hand over that. Make circles over your stomach in the clockwise direction. Do it lightly. Then put your hands in the same area in your back and repeat.
- Extremity exercises: this can be any exercise that works your extremities. For example, doing a dead hang and focusing on clenching really hard with your hands but leaving everything else relaxed, or doing heel raises with the tips of your toes super engaged with everything else relaxed.
- Meditation: lie down close your eyes and walk down a staircase while counting to 10. Imagine the smell of wet stone, always puts me in a meditative state really quick for some reason.
Anyway goals for today. Just relax! I want to get all the chores sorted out and just spend the rest of my time relaxing.
Knee Strength 3: Recovery and Mobility Exercises
Byjack
Today is all about recovery.
Strength seems to be half pressure/work and half recovery and growth. And today is a recovery day.
I’m quite pleased that I have a recovery day because I really need to comfort and soothe my knee a lot and I like exploring ways to do that.
It’s also interesting that my exercises are completely different from the knees over toes guy. Maybe at some point, they will converge when my knees get stronger.
Recovery Exercises:
- Gentle knee spacer
- One leg is straight and extended
- The other leg is lifted up gently to the side and slowly relaxed so there is space created in the joint
- Foot scrape
- One leg straight, the other leg lifted up
- Relax and let the lifted leg gently fall and scrape on the ground
- Repeat with both legs in all directions
- Bonus lying down comfort
- Crossing legs
- Bending legs
Knee Strength 11: More Knee Exercises
Byjack
New video that produced big results. Thinking about signing up for his course.
The Health Challenge
Byjack
I’ve been feeling pretty lost as of late. I am thinking about my youtube channel, about my job, about coaching, about my health and about my challenges with youtube and fitness. I’ve been stressed out about all these different things and I don’t really know how to tackle all of them at the same time. I don’t know what to focus on, which ones makes sense to put energy into, and how I will go about focusing on any of these things.
I’ve been feeling depressed, overwhelmed and depleted, constantly self medicating with youtube videos and games.
Recently, I’ve been inspired by this video:
Health is everything. If you want to be a successful entrepreneur, you don’t have to choose between that and health. You will be a better entrepreneur with better health.
I want to drop all of my other challenges and focus on this for a while.
I want to focus on my health.
I thought about what this meant for quite a while because health is such a nebulous topic. I feel that Brian Johnson in project Blueprint is taking a very scientific approach to health, but I want to take a more personal approach.
Here are the areas that I care about:
- Mood: How positive and happy I feel overall
- Passion for life: How motivated I feel about life, relationships and projects
- Energy: How energetic and strong I feel
- Flow: how in the moment and attuned to my body’s sensations I feel
- Attractiveness: how healthy I look
Some ideas of times that I can measure these things:
- When I wake up: great for seeing how well I slept
- Around 10 AM: good for checking up on my morning routine
- Around 3 PM: good for checking on my afternoon routine
- Before I go to bed: good to seeing the cumulative effect of the day and how fulfilled I feel
I’ve tried these type of challenges before, but I feel that I sort of neglected the mental part of health, feeling healthier physically but mentally trapped and unhappy. I want to really commit to doing video journaling this entire time in order to make sure that I can express myself and work through mental challenges.
What would mean success to me is not just feeling much more happy, passionate, energetic, in flow and attractive, but also to create a lifestyle, mindset and routine that will maintain and grow that over time.
Jiujitsu Challenge? Knee Challenge
Byjack
Ok, so I no longer have an ongoing jiujitsu challenge, and I don’t really know if I have a knee challenge or not.
However, I really want to start that now. I feel really good about my progression.
It all started with 10 round Tuesday.
I went 3 rounds (2 days ago on the 21st). I absolutely died. I didn’t recover from feeling dizzy and like I was going to throw up for an hour after that.
I ate food when I got home, and slept like a baby after.
Ever since, I went to jiujitsu everyday.
On wednesday I was feeling super undermotivated, but I found an old training buddy and it was actually a good time.
Today I had even more fun.
My stamina seems to be increasing fast. I’m sore everyday and I still feel fine.
My knee feels good. It doesn’t hurt every day.
It feels strong. I feel like I can push myself more now.
My knee therapy and techniques around walking backwards, shifting my knee to be more balanced, stretching the hips and pointing the knee in the direction of the knee. AND IT’S BEEN WORKING.
I learned a lot from live rolls:
- Don’t let someone get a completely dominant position, interrupt their attacks, move to the side
- Don’t let your arms separate too much, too easy to armbar
- Don’t let both arms get trapped above your head, too easy to armbar
I’m learning some basic attacks, armbars, leg locks, chokes.
Very cool stuff.
Health | Physical Health | Poetry | Writing
Knee Challenge: Looking Ahead
Byjack
I completed my knee challenge in terms of going hiking in Zion national park. I felt like I succeeded in a big way but still have a long way to go in terms of getting where I need to go.
What is next for me? I know in the long term, I want to be very physically active. I want to be able to practice martial arts, do a little parkour and gymnastics. I know it will take a lot of effort and time to get there and it feels quite overwhelming for me.
I’m going to set a few large goals and then look at some of the very short term goals getting there.
2 year goal – the ability to practice martial arts, parkour gymnastics and skiing. My goal isn’t to go too hard in any of these areas, just to be able to do them safely.
1 year goal – to get back to preinjury levels
1 month goal – be able to sleep, walk, stand and light exercise with zero discomfort. I will call this goal little freedom.
I don’t really know what the next step in my process is. It feels too soon to set a schedule yet.
I just want to slowly rest and explore for now.
My feelings are that challenge videos make for really good productivity but I need to slow down sometimes and feel the feelings.
Maybe I will write a poem:
Creaky Knees
When I bend my knee
It feels like I’m grinding
Hinges made of old stone
Like the kind in movies
That open secret magical passages
And grate against themselves
I say that I want to be able to do martial arts again
But the truth is
I don’t know what I want
I am afraid to dream again
Of a world where I can be active
I’m so used to being scared
Of clutching my knee close
So as not to hurt it
I feel like I’m too old to have these dreams anymore
Of flying
Like I did when I wanted to learn parkour
Everything scares me
I feel that
I need to understand this part of myself first
Listen to what it wants to say
“Everything is a danger”
It tells me
The protector of my knee
Of my body
It feels safe to not move at all
Workspace 22: Relax
Byjack
I had a slower start to the day. I started the day on my phone, waking up a bit early because my new retainer is bothering me when I sleep.
I watched some Valorant, talked to my girlfriend, and now I have a flight in about 3 hours. I want to leave in about 2 hours. I still have to take out the trash, eat up some more food and load the dishwasher.
I did a bit of a workout and I found out a couple of things that help with regaining energy, and gathering chi:
- Butt-clenched breathing: sounds a bit weird but it works. Lie down, clench the sphincter muscle (what you use to hold in poop) breath in. Then relax and breathe out. Repeat.
- Tummy circles: put the left hand over your stomach, then your right hand over that. Make circles over your stomach in the clockwise direction. Do it lightly. Then put your hands in the same area in your back and repeat.
- Extremity exercises: this can be any exercise that works your extremities. For example, doing a dead hang and focusing on clenching really hard with your hands but leaving everything else relaxed, or doing heel raises with the tips of your toes super engaged with everything else relaxed.
- Meditation: lie down close your eyes and walk down a staircase while counting to 10. Imagine the smell of wet stone, always puts me in a meditative state really quick for some reason.
Anyway goals for today. Just relax! I want to get all the chores sorted out and just spend the rest of my time relaxing.
Knee Strength 3: Recovery and Mobility Exercises
Byjack
Today is all about recovery.
Strength seems to be half pressure/work and half recovery and growth. And today is a recovery day.
I’m quite pleased that I have a recovery day because I really need to comfort and soothe my knee a lot and I like exploring ways to do that.
It’s also interesting that my exercises are completely different from the knees over toes guy. Maybe at some point, they will converge when my knees get stronger.
Recovery Exercises:
- Gentle knee spacer
- One leg is straight and extended
- The other leg is lifted up gently to the side and slowly relaxed so there is space created in the joint
- Foot scrape
- One leg straight, the other leg lifted up
- Relax and let the lifted leg gently fall and scrape on the ground
- Repeat with both legs in all directions
- Bonus lying down comfort
- Crossing legs
- Bending legs
Knee Strength 11: More Knee Exercises
Byjack
New video that produced big results. Thinking about signing up for his course.
The Health Challenge
Byjack
I’ve been feeling pretty lost as of late. I am thinking about my youtube channel, about my job, about coaching, about my health and about my challenges with youtube and fitness. I’ve been stressed out about all these different things and I don’t really know how to tackle all of them at the same time. I don’t know what to focus on, which ones makes sense to put energy into, and how I will go about focusing on any of these things.
I’ve been feeling depressed, overwhelmed and depleted, constantly self medicating with youtube videos and games.
Recently, I’ve been inspired by this video:
Health is everything. If you want to be a successful entrepreneur, you don’t have to choose between that and health. You will be a better entrepreneur with better health.
I want to drop all of my other challenges and focus on this for a while.
I want to focus on my health.
I thought about what this meant for quite a while because health is such a nebulous topic. I feel that Brian Johnson in project Blueprint is taking a very scientific approach to health, but I want to take a more personal approach.
Here are the areas that I care about:
- Mood: How positive and happy I feel overall
- Passion for life: How motivated I feel about life, relationships and projects
- Energy: How energetic and strong I feel
- Flow: how in the moment and attuned to my body’s sensations I feel
- Attractiveness: how healthy I look
Some ideas of times that I can measure these things:
- When I wake up: great for seeing how well I slept
- Around 10 AM: good for checking up on my morning routine
- Around 3 PM: good for checking on my afternoon routine
- Before I go to bed: good to seeing the cumulative effect of the day and how fulfilled I feel
I’ve tried these type of challenges before, but I feel that I sort of neglected the mental part of health, feeling healthier physically but mentally trapped and unhappy. I want to really commit to doing video journaling this entire time in order to make sure that I can express myself and work through mental challenges.
What would mean success to me is not just feeling much more happy, passionate, energetic, in flow and attractive, but also to create a lifestyle, mindset and routine that will maintain and grow that over time.
Jiujitsu Challenge? Knee Challenge
Byjack
Ok, so I no longer have an ongoing jiujitsu challenge, and I don’t really know if I have a knee challenge or not.
However, I really want to start that now. I feel really good about my progression.
It all started with 10 round Tuesday.
I went 3 rounds (2 days ago on the 21st). I absolutely died. I didn’t recover from feeling dizzy and like I was going to throw up for an hour after that.
I ate food when I got home, and slept like a baby after.
Ever since, I went to jiujitsu everyday.
On wednesday I was feeling super undermotivated, but I found an old training buddy and it was actually a good time.
Today I had even more fun.
My stamina seems to be increasing fast. I’m sore everyday and I still feel fine.
My knee feels good. It doesn’t hurt every day.
It feels strong. I feel like I can push myself more now.
My knee therapy and techniques around walking backwards, shifting my knee to be more balanced, stretching the hips and pointing the knee in the direction of the knee. AND IT’S BEEN WORKING.
I learned a lot from live rolls:
- Don’t let someone get a completely dominant position, interrupt their attacks, move to the side
- Don’t let your arms separate too much, too easy to armbar
- Don’t let both arms get trapped above your head, too easy to armbar
I’m learning some basic attacks, armbars, leg locks, chokes.
Very cool stuff.
Health | Physical Health | Poetry | Writing
Knee Challenge: Looking Ahead
Byjack
I completed my knee challenge in terms of going hiking in Zion national park. I felt like I succeeded in a big way but still have a long way to go in terms of getting where I need to go.
What is next for me? I know in the long term, I want to be very physically active. I want to be able to practice martial arts, do a little parkour and gymnastics. I know it will take a lot of effort and time to get there and it feels quite overwhelming for me.
I’m going to set a few large goals and then look at some of the very short term goals getting there.
2 year goal – the ability to practice martial arts, parkour gymnastics and skiing. My goal isn’t to go too hard in any of these areas, just to be able to do them safely.
1 year goal – to get back to preinjury levels
1 month goal – be able to sleep, walk, stand and light exercise with zero discomfort. I will call this goal little freedom.
I don’t really know what the next step in my process is. It feels too soon to set a schedule yet.
I just want to slowly rest and explore for now.
My feelings are that challenge videos make for really good productivity but I need to slow down sometimes and feel the feelings.
Maybe I will write a poem:
Creaky Knees
When I bend my knee
It feels like I’m grinding
Hinges made of old stone
Like the kind in movies
That open secret magical passages
And grate against themselves
I say that I want to be able to do martial arts again
But the truth is
I don’t know what I want
I am afraid to dream again
Of a world where I can be active
I’m so used to being scared
Of clutching my knee close
So as not to hurt it
I feel like I’m too old to have these dreams anymore
Of flying
Like I did when I wanted to learn parkour
Everything scares me
I feel that
I need to understand this part of myself first
Listen to what it wants to say
“Everything is a danger”
It tells me
The protector of my knee
Of my body
It feels safe to not move at all
Workspace 22: Relax
Byjack
I had a slower start to the day. I started the day on my phone, waking up a bit early because my new retainer is bothering me when I sleep.
I watched some Valorant, talked to my girlfriend, and now I have a flight in about 3 hours. I want to leave in about 2 hours. I still have to take out the trash, eat up some more food and load the dishwasher.
I did a bit of a workout and I found out a couple of things that help with regaining energy, and gathering chi:
- Butt-clenched breathing: sounds a bit weird but it works. Lie down, clench the sphincter muscle (what you use to hold in poop) breath in. Then relax and breathe out. Repeat.
- Tummy circles: put the left hand over your stomach, then your right hand over that. Make circles over your stomach in the clockwise direction. Do it lightly. Then put your hands in the same area in your back and repeat.
- Extremity exercises: this can be any exercise that works your extremities. For example, doing a dead hang and focusing on clenching really hard with your hands but leaving everything else relaxed, or doing heel raises with the tips of your toes super engaged with everything else relaxed.
- Meditation: lie down close your eyes and walk down a staircase while counting to 10. Imagine the smell of wet stone, always puts me in a meditative state really quick for some reason.
Anyway goals for today. Just relax! I want to get all the chores sorted out and just spend the rest of my time relaxing.
Knee Strength 3: Recovery and Mobility Exercises
Byjack
Today is all about recovery.
Strength seems to be half pressure/work and half recovery and growth. And today is a recovery day.
I’m quite pleased that I have a recovery day because I really need to comfort and soothe my knee a lot and I like exploring ways to do that.
It’s also interesting that my exercises are completely different from the knees over toes guy. Maybe at some point, they will converge when my knees get stronger.
Recovery Exercises:
- Gentle knee spacer
- One leg is straight and extended
- The other leg is lifted up gently to the side and slowly relaxed so there is space created in the joint
- Foot scrape
- One leg straight, the other leg lifted up
- Relax and let the lifted leg gently fall and scrape on the ground
- Repeat with both legs in all directions
- Bonus lying down comfort
- Crossing legs
- Bending legs
Knee Strength 11: More Knee Exercises
Byjack
New video that produced big results. Thinking about signing up for his course.