Gymnastics: Exhausted

Zak, Brian, Damir and Randy were all coaches again. I was sluggish today, but also determined to not let it bother me. I lost. I forgot to take my vitamins and I was nearly finished by the dive rolls.

During warm-ups, lead by Brian this time. I stretched nicely. Missed the first part of course, but the stretching was there. The second half of warm-ups, Zak pulled me out and made me practice backward rolls. He was getting tired of seeing me fail all the time. He watched and instructed and adjusted. I missed the cartwheels segment because of this, but that is probably why I didn’t give up on class later.

The issue with my backward rolls is actually a little annoying. When I was in martial arts back around the turn of the century, I relearned my backward rolls so that I could roll with items in my hand or to just stand and defend or attack empty handed. When the class suddenly cut out from under me, the roll was one of the few moves I cold practice anywhere. I didn’t realise I had lost my original rolls until I joined this gymnastics class. Besides being drastically overweight and unable to keep my knees tucked in a roll because of extremely weak abs, I also have a tendency to roll the shoulder and I cannot keep my left arm and hand in a useful position. Zak spotted that I tuck my elbow into my side when I roll, apparently another hold over from martial arts. Whee. The wedge he had me rolling on allowed me to actually rolls quickly enough to keep from going to the shoulder for the most part, but now I have to practice keeping my elbow out.

• Work on abs to keep tucked.
• Practice keeping the elbow out.
• Push off faster to get more tumbling speed.

So now, working on getting the backward rolls down. This will help the rest of my gymnastics too. I know from experience that I will get there. If I was not as big as I am, I would not be using the little cheats and tricks I use for some things. I know this because when I started martial arts, I had lost all ab structure and it took about a year to get there. At that time, I was in fair physical shape. With the slow but steady work I am doing currently, I will definitely get there eventually.

Ah, another point to work on. My shoulders got weak again. Well, technically not true as stated. My shoulders are way stronger than they used to be. But the fact that I am having difficulty with supporting myself and being able to push up into a bridge is proof that I need to make more adjustments in shoulder strength. Couple that with the backward roll exercises and now I feel like a weakling again.

In the front tumbling segment, I did ok. I didn’t do the spectacular dive rolls I had been doing. We discovered the mat wasn’t helping because it caved in easily, switched the mat and it worked. However, the damage had already been done. The three rolls I attempted took a lot of my energy away. I got exhausted. It was strange. It also pointed out that I wasn’t doing as well as I thought I was. However on the handspring front, the barrel is wonderful help. We skipped the medium barrel. If you look back a couple posts you will see that Zak had a plan for me to use the medium for four weeks, then move the small. But thanks to a medium being absent, we moved to small on the first week. When I tried to use the medium this last time around, it was too high. We moved back to small and it seems to be working better. I apparently can’t land properly still. I end up in sitting squat, which Zak tells me is something normal for someone like me. Fine, I will take that. With the small barrel below me, apparently Zak was pushing the barrel so it rolled beneath me as I landed, which resulted in my sitting on the barrel a bit. Just enough to keep my from crashing. And I was able to stand. Not a full sit, just a minor support on the way to standing.

What I noticed is that I am gaining a little more power, but my knees can’t take the full pressure yet. I am fine with that. I also noticed I am not leaving my left arm behind anymore and it is actually going over my head. My hips don’t twist every time in mid-execution. They still twist, but I am working on it. After I landed six times in a row with the help of the barrel, Zak and Randy congratulated me, then Zak started pulling the barrel away. My legs still didn’t hold me, but this is when I realised my arms weren’t sticking on the mat. Very cool. I mean, still a bit miffed that I can’t land the handspring, but really happy all the same that Zak fixed my other issues.

By this point, I was exhausted and back tumbling was still to come.

Instead of working with Randy, Damir or Brian learning to do backflips, Zak set me up to work on getting my backrolls working. When it comes down to it, until I can do a successful backroll the way the gymnastics class needs it done, I won’t be able to work well with the other part of back tumbling.

It cannot be stressed enough. I need way more ab work.

Tags: gymnastics

Positive Press for e-books

This article about the “battle” between books and e-books is pretty interesting and I pretty much agree with the assessment.

E-books: Attractive to Some Readers All the Time

I love my ebooks and I was very happy to have found a way to read them on my PDA. It is very handy and the PDA is so small, I can carry 20 books or more in my coat pocket and most of the time you can’t even tell there is anything there.

I am also a fan of the hardcopy book. Paperbacks and hardcovers, fiction and nonfiction, reading and viewing copies… I have a boxes and boxes of these wonderful items, most of which I have read and don’t want to give away. A few of those books I even have in ebook format. When I finally get my first Kindle, I will be quite happy.

eBook Websites

FictionWise.com

A low cost ebook site with many deals, discounts and sales available. The site has been growing more and more recently.

Project Gutenberg

the first producer of free electronic books (ebooks). This project scans public domain titles and asks for volunteers to help make the corrections, but the integrity of the stories hold up well.

Scribd.com

A strange mix of downloadable and non-downloadable eDocuments. Seems to be free so far. I haven’t really had a chance to explore it much, but what I have seen is nice.

Tags: ebooks, LinkedIn

Gymnastics: Improvement?

Although the last couple classes I have been feeling great, I felt that I was just getting better slightly. However, today I noticed that I heard a LOT more encouraging words from Zack. I am beginning to be concerned. Is he learning to be less harsh? Or am I truly improving? I had the opportunity later to test the thought. I messed up something. Not just a slight mistake, but something that ended up looking like I hadn’t had all the training I’ve been having lately. And there was Zack with his notes and his frowns. Yup. I am getting better. {High Five!}

I missed half the warm-ups again, but this time I stretched a bit more on my own before joining. It worked. Well, it worked well enough. I still had problems later. But this time it didn’t incapacitate me and I was able to participate in much of the class.

Zack told me to do the medium barrel each week for the next few weeks, but when he went searching for one today, he couldn’t find one available. So we went to the small barrel. I have to say, it works better for me. I am not looking for it at my shoulders and I am actually doing well. I have to work on my arms and shoulders and probably the abs as well. I don’t get any push whatsoever from them. Zack told me I need to get a bit stronger and until then, my landings from the handspring will be in a crouch. I don’t mind that. I am actually quite happy. My legs are learning to stay extended, my body isn’t twisting as much and my landings may not be the best, but I am getting so very close. After a while the barrel ended up under my hips at the end so that while I was pretty much sitting on it, I was also that much closer to standing. I don’t know if Zack moved the barrel as I went over it, but it was encouraging when I finally did all I was supposed to do and ended standing(w/ the barrel’s help) I called it the end of that part of the session since my legs were starting to give way. I only had to wait 5 minutes or less.

Then we were off to the Backwards tumbling things. Unlike the last few classes, I didn’t exactly join the beginner’s class. It MAY have helped, but the motions they were doing was first step backwards. If they weren’t having people just layback on the Large barrel and let the teacher roll them, I prolly would’ve joined the class. However, the reality was, it was not something that could realistically be done. The teacher doesn’t have the strength to do that for me at the moment. Not until I lose more weight, but before that happens, the beginners class will be way below. Oh well. So I was in an intermediate place with another classmate — Alicia. She made sure she introduced herself

Anyhow, that is actually going a little better than I expected it would. Damir assisted me. He didn’t bother with the pushing back of the barrel. At this point, I am working on pushing the barrel back on my own. So, he had me practice jumping back onto the barrel a few times. I am really bad at it. I kept jumping to the side. Dangit. Well, on the bright side of all things. I can get up a bit, not enough to go over the barrel. I have a feeling that is a good thing. Later, Damir had to go to a different station, but Zack came over the help. After viewing my repeated failures to go over the top of the barrel, he set me a drill to practice jumping back up onto a mat. Not a full body jump back, just stand in front of a stacked mat, swing arms properly, but hop onto the mat from that position. Entertaining.

I am not sure what is in store for me, but I do know that I am looking forward all week to my gymnastics class again. I am thinking things over, wondering how I am doing. Thinking of things to try and why it will work or why it won’t. If I am not mistaken, these are the kinds of things that are supposed to happen. I really wish I could go back to the gym everyday. If I did that though, the classes would be impossible to keep paid up. Well, until next week.

Tags: gymnastics

Gymnastics: Zekojo!

Coaches: Zach, Bryan, Damir and Randy
Arrival: 12:15pm

The Class

Today I missed the first part of warm-ups again, but that didn’t really bother me at all. A new addition to the class, Bryan (Brian?) was warming everyone up in a new manner, which allowed me to pretty much catch up and warm up all the parts I needed.

I am a little leary of new additions… they usually signify another change coming along shortly. I don’t want to lose any of my teachers because I haven’t gotten all I could from them yet. It is a bit frustrating, but for now I will just accept that we have four teachers with varying talents.

I was ON today. Zekojo! (not sure if I am spelling it correctly) is Japanese for all cylinders firing, or top of the world or more simply, I am on! I had almost no problems at all. I did all the tumbling, still working on my backward roll, I can’t push with my hand yet and I still roll to my shoulder, but I am getting better at it. I did some decent round-offs and was stalling in handstands. I was amazed! There was one where we were supposed to move in our handstands and I was able to shift about! That was exciting!

My dive rolls were awesome today too. I stood up all but once. I need to learn to switch gear settings in my mind faster though. I had to let a few people pass me while I tried to convince my body I was switching to handsprings from dive rolls. My teacher got impatient for me and I tried before getting the settings correct…. and landed nearly flat on my back. Fun. However, after another attempt, I was a little better.

Zack has laid out a plan. Since I have a problem with twisting midair and not pulling my hands up behind me properly, we are taking a few steps. For the next four weeks, I am to do my handsprings over the medium barrel. Then for the four weeks following that, the small barrel. The point is to get me used to going over and properly standing at the end… for now. He says over this time, I will be getting used to it so when the barrels are completely removed, I will be doing it without thinking. I can hardly wait. I have wanted to do proper handsprings for a very long time.

To make matters better, I joined the beginners in backflip training. Usually I go off on my own and do something else because by the time the backward stuff comes around, I am usually stretching some kink or another out or my hips or knees are already sore. Not so this time.

For a perspective, let’s jump back to January 2007. I had just arrived in New York. I was way more overweight and undermuscled than I am now… though I didn’t realise how weak I was at the time. After years of trying to get back into shape, hurting myself, resting too much and never going back to things, I had learned how not to push myself beyond my limits. I had no power. I had no muscles, but my body remembered some things. Warmups and Tumbling were fine. Eventually, I adapted to handspring training…. but backflips were almost beyond me. We had the giant barrel only, the other barrels hadn’t arrived yet. Rene, well muscled and a great teacher, pretty much tried to wrestle me over this thing. Yeah, not good. I couldn’t even jump back onto it. When I DID get over, I couldn’t hold my own weight on the otherside and nearly hurt myself. Later that year, as I was getting into shape, I would sit strangely for for long period of time after a nice painful workout and do something to a nerve that cobbled my ability to jump back without being in pain. I would not be able to do anything involving jumping back until over a year passed.

Fast-forward to today. This time I participated wholly in the class. It was overpowering. I couldn’t believe I was doing what I was doing. I was jumping back and my knee wasn’t killing me. I was going over the large barrel and landing on my arms which held without my needing set my shoulders. By the end of the class, Randy was helping push the barrel less and less. It seems that all the various things Zach and Damir had had me doing all year were building exactly the muscles I would need when I joined the rest of the class. Cheers to Zach and Damir!

According to Randy, I will be joining the rest of the class in no time. He informed me I had good form and such. I am not going to be that optimistic, but this blog will definitely log the time I start doing backflips without a barrel. Two weeks ago, I would’ve though this was impossible. Things definitely can change at the drop of a hat.

Other Notes

I don’t know why, but today I felt really good. I didn’t stop to do stretches or balance on the beam. I suspect it is because I have been taking vitamins for the past couple days. I will be be sure to double check that next week. I need to find a multi-vitamin I can design myself. Everytime I find something with the levels I want, there is always an unwanted element.

Tags: gymnastics