|

Valorant 39: Mind Training (PreGame)

Today we are going back to the Valorant Challenge but from a different perspective.

I strongly felt that the one time when I didn’t feel stressed at all, but instead felt the timings of the enemy and where they could be, and how I could systematically take them apart, I was playing Valorant at a significantly higher level.

Some thoughts for today:

  • Closing eyes to mental reset
  • Playing music to hype up
  • Breathing and letting the energy carry the action

Most of all, I will endeavor to feel out the enemy’s position and figure out how I can take the map piece by piece with util, teamwork and aim diff.

I will create another post after the game to review how that went.

|

Developing My Own LLM Challenge

I want to learn how to build my own large language model leveraging ChatGPT and my own proprietary data. There seems to be a couple of things that I need to learn before I do that:

  1. How ChatGPT fine tuned models work
  2. What a vector database is
  3. What is Langchain

Some helpful videos on each:

ChatGPT

Vector Database

Langchain

Hands on Coding

|

Fitness Challenge 3: Sleep and Pills

So I’ve fallen off the weight challenge a little bit due to losing my phone and having some serious trouble with routines.

But here are some updates.

In terms of appetite, I realized that stuffing yourself with food simply doesn’t work with me. I tend to feel stressed and bloated, and end up somehow losing weight as my digestion falls apart. A major tip for me that seems to work is eating enzymes. They always seems to help me a lot when breaking down food and I definitely seem to gain weight after that.

In terms of routine, I started implementing daily walks morning walks with a cup of tea and that has been working great. What hasn’t been working great is getting enough sleep and going to bed on time.

The main blocked appears to be Valorant. Today I thought about how I always focus on the problem itself as the issue but I was wondering whether or not the issue actually manifests earlier.

For example, I know in Valorant, I always blame my aim for losing gun fights, but I never think about what led up to the gunfight and how that might have put me in a unwinnable situation, or at least, a very difficult to win situation.

In terms of going to bed on time, I always blame gaming late at night. But thinking about it more deeply, I theorized that the issue actually occurs much earlier in the day, specifically during noon and afternoon. This is when I start to feel discomfort and turn to Valorant to start numbing out the pain.

Fix noon and I fix bedtime.

Today I tried taking a nap at noon and it seems to work. It’s 11 PM and while I feel pretty shitty from playing Valorant, I actually feel like it was easier for me to stop, and I may go to bed around midnight instead of 2 or 3 AM.

Today is actually the end of unit one (Baseline health: strong enough to exercise bulk and be normal health). The next unit starts tomorrow (Bulking and buildup: Gain 3 pounds of muscle).

I’m excited to see how I can start to use the rhythms I’m starting to build up, with the energy exercises and increasing diet to greater effects.

|

Fitness Challenge 2: Increasing Appetite

So I’m most of the way through my second part of my challenge – Week 2: Big appetite (increase hunger throughout day) and I’m having a huge amount of issues.

I try to eat a lot but I don’t seem to be able to find a way to digest the food.

Several things seem to be standing in my way:

  • Extreme chronic stress
  • Lack of exercises and energy
  • Poor sleep

I’m going to do what I always did in these situations of great stress. I’m going to simplify and try to find something very small to focus on. And that thing will be breathing.

Whether or not I feel full, hungry stressed, tired or anxious, I am going to strive to do only one thing. To breathe. I find that breathing has tremendous effects for all the of things I listed above as obstacles standing in my way.

|

Fitness Challenge 1: Initial Thoughts

Today I had a couple observations after feeling very depleted and inflamed with allergies:

  • Breathing fully and deeply while feeling the sensations helped move the chi
  • Clockwise massage on my stomach really helped the chi flow a lot
  • Same direction with palms facing back on the lower spine to tailbone also very helpful
  • Clockwise rubbing of the solar plexus also really helpful
  • Hanging was a nice resting position
  • Eating slow wasn’t the best method
  • Prefer to eat moderate speed for a small amount at a time, chewing in a bigger motion and smelling and tasting the food with small breaks in between bites and some stomach massage

I want to continue to push myself and work on finding good resting positions and strategies to recover.

I also need to work on setting a baseline and measurements to track progress.

  • Get a scale to weigh myself
  • Get a heart rate monitor, smartwatch or fitness band to monitor vitals
  • Need to come up with a standard lighting to take a photo

UNIT ONE, Week 1: Regen from tiring out (no matter how tired, wired or drained) lasts 7 days

Today is day 1, end of Week 1 is May 18th.

|

Fitness Challenge

In this challenge, I want fill out my body and get a lot more energy and health before my girlfriend visits me on July 15th.

This means that I have approximately 2 months in the challenge.

UNIT ONE: Baseline health: strong enough to exercise bulk and be normal health (21 days)

  • Week 1: Regen from tiring out (no matter how tired, wired or drained)
  • Week 2: Big appetite (increase hunger throughout day)
  • Week 3: Enjoyable rhythms (finding pleasing routines that further my goals in health, wealth and relationships)

UNIT TWO: Bulking and buildup: Gain 3 pounds of muscle (21 days)

  • Week 1: Try everything (bulking trial and errors)
  • Week 2: TBD
  • Week 3: TBD

UNIT THREE: Pushing myself, weight, strength, energy (21 days)

  • Week 1: Decrease resting heart rate
  • Week 2: Double strength
  • Week 3: TBD
|

Valorant 37: Back on the Grind

Thoughts:

  • Make the transitions smoother, add in more wide swings
  • Focus on micro adjusting more before shooting
  • Overall very strong stuff, great positioning
  • Not having much luck with the micro adjust
  • Try to shoot twice and crouch
  • Use the difference between head and crosshair as new micro adjust method
  • I hate DM
  • I don’t really know what to do
  • Maybe need to watch some pro vods

I really want to work on my mindset when I get upset, miss my shots or get frustrated with my teammates.

Some ideas:

  • Pumping myself up
    • Judging based on “clipable” moments rather than kills
    • Use music to pump up
  • Self-talk strategies
    • I believe in myself
    • I’ve done it before, I can do it again
    • This is a small part of my long journey to being the best
  • When feeling physically/mentally unwell and need a reset
    • Exercise
    • Watch videos of my vlogs and reflections
    • Tumeric tea
    • Playing music

|

Valorant 36: Washed Again

Today I am officially getting back into the grind right, using the same technique as before where I try to emulate the pros.

Some thoughts:

  • Does a lot of wide swinging in big smooth arcs.
  • A bit of movement based aim
  • Ficks very fast to new angles
  • Two taps, using movement strafing, then crouch
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOe664CVI1o&ab_channel=Pimbz-VALORANTCLIPS

Some thoughts:

  • Aspas aim is much more similar to mine, less smooth, but distinctly clears and preaims angles
  • Barely counterstrafes, taps a lot and them spray
  • Does a lot of widepeeks as well
  • Like to hold angles a lot more
  • Good attempt to wide swing, need to hold angles more until the swing
  • Wide swing needs good crosshair placement
  • Make sure you are ready for them to be visible at the edge of your swing
  • Good practice holding angles
  • Good overall but prefire is a bit messy, might be from pain and uncomfortable elbow position
  • Crosshair can also get a bit unstead, not using movement to aim

My games today were frustrating. I felt I was moving too fast when it was dangerous (I have a feeling enemies are nearby). I tend to rush my aim and my peek. What helped a lot with that is the preparing your crosshair in the intuitively most comfortable way to take a fight. It’s engaging and helps me slow down and be more intentional. I won every game after using that technique.

| |

The Sleep Deprivation Challenge

Life is pretty challenging:

  • I am severely sleep deprived to feeling pins and needles, dry eyes and nausea
  • I have a big work project due by next week that I pulled all niters for but still am not close to being finished
  • I have taxes looming over me
  • I still have a messy apartment and other goals like exercise of my knee to work on

The challenge is simple: survive, adapt and thrive