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Valorant 13: Advice From My Brother

Byjack

Today I had a strategy session with my brother who is almost at the rank I want to be (Plat) about major mindset shifts I need to do to get out of Bronze and Silver.

Here are the main areas we came up with:

  1. Learn to play off of contact better: 
    • Swing when you see teammates swinging
    • If you see someone holding, pre-aim and get ready to trade
  2. Crosshair placement and preaiming
    • Holding for wide swing vs close
  3. Methodical clearing
  4. Ability usage
    • Have gameplan for ability usage for the beginning of every attack and defending round
  5. Map awareness
    1. Look at minimap more

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Valorant – Inner Game

Byjack

The most interesting part of these videos is the last part of the second video, where they talk about inner game.

What I find interesting about inner game is the idea that mentally telling yourself to do something won’t work, but noticing will make your mind automatically make the change. This is the essence of connection theory and it is so interesting that psychologists have studied it.

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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:

  1. Gentle knee spacer
    1. One leg is straight and extended
    2. The other leg is lifted up gently to the side and slowly relaxed so there is space created in the joint
  2. Foot scrape
    1. One leg straight, the other leg lifted up
    2. Relax and let the lifted leg gently fall and scrape on the ground
    3. Repeat with both legs in all directions
  3. Bonus lying down comfort
    1. Crossing legs
    2. Bending legs
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Valorant: Slow Down During Danger

Byjack

Something that I noticed when playing Valorant today, is that I tend to speed up and rush when I feel under pressure or stressed, when in actuality, I need to slow down.

Last game I trusted my instincts, and really slowed down when I felt danger and I felt it was much better.

I realized that when I feel safe, I can move fast. When I feel in danger, it is time to exercise extreme caution like in real life.

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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

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Sova Fanart 10: Final Stretch Unit Two

Byjack

UNIT TWO: Create a unique drawing

There is one drawing that I’ve always wanted to create, and luckily, I already have a photo reference for it!

I am eager to use my skills on this new pose as well, but the intricacies of Sova’s outfit is definitely making me nervous.

Here is my mini syllabus:

UNIT ONE: Create a manikin structure drawing from life

UNIT TWO: Go into the game and use the character model to get the all the sova details and map them in.

UNIT THREE: Create a more refined drawing in preparation for final inks.

I’m too tired to talk much about what actually happened. I spent at least 12 hours on this process.

I did not have the chance to color to perfection, I also sadly left Professor Sova on the draftroom floor.

Professor Sova sketch

Things I learned:

  • It takes a much longer time than I thought to create a pleasing lineart sketch, if it doesn’t look good you probably didn’t spend enough time
  • For lineart, focus on creating forms, not just outlines. Seek to understand every little detail
  • Colors is a whole another beast that I didn’t get much time to practice or focus on. If things were different, I would have spent more time working on my color process.
  • Shadows is still a mystery to me. Need to find a process that works for me.

Knee Mobility Challenge: Unit 1 Day 1

Byjack

Unit 1: Mobility | Day 1 – Surface Tissues

Because I was traveling and these exercises relaxed me immensely, I fell asleep very quickly after this. I ended up doing more of these exercises in the morning after. Myofascial release seems to target ligaments, muscles, and fascial which kinda makes sense, but today (13th). Today I will switch over to increasing mobility in the tendons and ligaments, so I wonder what will happen today that will be different.