I’ve always wanted to find a way to sing relaxed no matter what position I’m in, standing, sitting, playing the piano.
I figured it out finally.
It’s actually quite simple.
Relax everything, specifically the jaw, shoulders, and stomach.
Put all the tension right above the stomach (at the diaphragm).
This might fall into my Valorant challenge but it goes much deeper.
I started trying to find a way to multitask in Valorant, which led me to thinking about confidence. This led me down a whole path where I was trying to understand how to focus on the game and get into the game, and get into flow.
I finally arrived at a technique that looks something like this:
This works for drills, deathmatch anything. The point is that you visualize the outcome first, then take some action (aiming). You don’t immediately aim, you don’t shoot as soon as you visualize.
This does a couple of things:
On top of this, I can do anything to aim, I can use my movement to aim, I can center my screen, I can do literally anything, the important part is to visualize the headshot before it happens.
In a very interesting turn of events, I’ve actually found this super helpful in music too.
Oftentimes my singing is muddy and unclear. I’ve done something similiar:
This does something similar where I am more aware of each note and can sing it with more intention and emotion. I don’t skip ahead too fast, I focus on each word as it comes.
It seems that a combination of a focus on a small step, and visualization helps bring me into the present moment.
I’m sooo tired. This is completely the wrong energy in the morning for me.
It is disrupting my peace.
My thoughts:
This morning I had a very slow start. Seems to be the same for a lot of days.
I really really focused on the idea that everything could be turned into an advantage. And today, I realized that the reason why I have slow starts is because my stomach burns, aches, and has gnawing empty pain. It is so bad, it is hard to focus and feel motivated to work.
The opportunity this morning is to devise some techniques to help with my stomach and be able to test it with the worst possible conditions. In other words, if the techniques work now, they will work anytime.
I tried this video first, and it was pretty helpful.
Then I tried this video which was helpful, but too boring to finish:
Finally, I tried drinking hot tea, which seemed to help some as well.’
And then, even though my stomach starting feeling better, I ran into another problem with avengance.
This problem was simple. Absolutely no motivation to do anything, being that I still felt tired and overwhelmed. Instead, I wanted to play games and watch tv shows.
I’m going to take the same approach here: use this as an opportunity to test out some new ideas with productivity.
So I have many many techniques in this area already, but I want to innovate further today in a different direction instead of meditation, letting go, focus, etc.
I want to look at why, even in my overwhelmed state, do I want to play Valorant and Fallout Shelter, and how I can fundamentally apply the same things to the things I want to do.
Things I Want To Do
Before I forget, here are some additional mindsets I can add the useful pile:
Main Reasons Why I Want to Play Valorant
Main Reasons Why I Want to Play Fallout Shelter
Why It Is difficult to get the same feeling with work?
What skills am I excited want to work on in terms of work?
What do I want to level up in terms of rank?
Who do I draw inspiration from?
How might I work off my team more?
How might I feel more in control of my work?
Using all this information, I want to develop a unit of work, called a “game” or “match” to simulate what I do in Valorant. In Valorant you play a match with a clear objective, and you warm up before the game, and take breaks after the game.
Game Structure
Warmup: 15 minutes
Use to do list, practice one skill at a time:
Main game: 45 minutes
Fights:
Capture questions and answers.
Level up in:
Result Calculation:
I was in Taichi class the other day and my instructor said something very interesting.
She told us that if you are leaning forward, then you are “giving too much”. And if you lean back too much, you are “accepting too much” and when someone gives you a compliment, all you need to do is say a simple thank you.
It is an very interesting concept in taichi, this idea of always being in balance, always sitting on your heels even when pushing forwards.
I really want to experiment and see how much I can apply this to things like Valorant or productivity.
UNIT ONE: Sova Model Studies | Day 1 – Portrait
Since this unit was all about model studies, I went into a custom game and used the model as a reference for drawing sova portraits.
I started with this side view of Sova.
Then I did colors:
New rough sketch of Sova:
Followed by a more refined outline:
Then by a painting attempt:
Something wasn’t clicking. I still didn’t like the painting job. I decided to try again and learn from another tutorial on shading.
I tried to color again.
This time I felt something clicked with using large soft brushes and the lasso tool. I used the soft brushes to create nice gradients and the lasso tool for the clean edges. Looking closely at the painter I see that he also uses the smudge tool a lot.