Last night I went to fencing. In and of itself, that was a great way to spend an evening, other than the now-undeniable fact that I need to wash my gear. Febreze will only take you so far, kiddies. There comes a point when everything is so sweat-drenched and revolting when you actually need to wash yo bidness. My gear is at that point.
Anyway, I fenced some (literally!) world-class fencers and lost to them, which was ok because I'm not that good. Yet. I was able to go down with a fight, at any rate. But I was talking with my coach after, just trying to think how I can fix my game so I don't make all the same mistakes next time. He said a couple interesting things, some good, some to think about.
The thinking first. It wasn't out-and-out criticism, and I definitely wasn't smacking my head into the steering wheel the whole way home going, "IIIIIIdiot!!" He said I wasn't creative enough with my actions on the strip. Now... that was the body, mind, and soul of my game when I started out with epee at NYU. I learned how to parry, I did point control, and then they let me loose on a strip and said, "Hit the other girl. Beat her. Feel free to make her cry." Check, check, and check. The good bits about that (lack of) strategy:
- I was a total wildcard. No one knew what the hell to do with me.
- My timing and footwork were brilliant because I couldn't do anything else. My counter-time stop hits were like lightening. I learned how to flinch and simultaneously extend my arm and usually score. At the very least, a double touch. Super-aware of where every part of my body was.
- When I got angry, I LET myself get that way, then I just beat the shit out of whoever got on the strip in front of me. I was unstoppable. And kind of crazy. But I won a lot of bouts pissed off.
The bad aspects of my old game:
- To be unstoppable, I had to get furious. This is hard to just do unless I'm having a really bad month PMS-wise. I had to lose to really bad people and feel like shit about myself before I could get angry enough. This is neither a healthy nor a sound reliable strategy.
- If someone could read my bullshit, I didn't have anything underneath it.
I decided I was going to revamp my game from the bottom up, which I've been doing. For instance, I was going to stop frenetically bouncing around because ultimately it's a waste of energy, and I'd also stop leaning forward. So, I tried keeping my back heel down a little more and sitting more upright in my en guarde. Leaning/frenetic bouncing = gone. I did find a middle ground, because if you sit too upright and don't bounce at all, you lose a lot of mobility. Paired with lots of rope jumping, it's becoming very effective in keeping me grounded - literally - but mobile.
Generally, I think it's going well, because the good bit of the convo was about how I don't have any compulsive tendencies on the strip in a bout situation, save for relaxing a little too much when I retreat. Some people have a tendency start with their blade high and then cut over and finish low. So you nail them over their shoulder. Others compulsively take a given parry when offered the blade. So you know they're going to do it; you disengage and score. Another great thing about last night was I angled my blade the tiniest bit, and all of a sudden, I was landing wrist touches again. Wrist touches over the blade, under it, on the side... it was awesome.
But that thing about needing to be more creative on the strip. I was talking to Danny, and the truth of it is that at the end of the day (and even the end of weeks) I just feel so drained and beaten down mentally, that summoning the effort to be in any way creative is so Herculean, I just can't. To try to think anymore than absolutely necessary, to try to be more than just a functioning body is nearly impossible. Day in day out, I'm working on the same problem in lab. I've been running these wretched experiments for going on 4 years now. It's very hard to describe the incredible lack of desire to do anything at all. The most incredible boredom and laziness combined with feeling like the world owes me huge for the trouble I'm going to. I'm not saying these feelings have anything to do with fairness or logic, they're just there, and it sucks when I want to do well at fencing because they're quite a hindrance. It's one thing to not like what you're doing and feel beaten down at work, but why does it have to bleed over into my general well-being and infect the things that I really love?
Oh well. Try harder, I guess... because that's about all I can do.
Showing posts with label fencing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fencing. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Friday, May 29, 2009
summer un-vacation
This is the end of summer vacations for me. I thought that when I was working for Pepsi THAT would be the end of summer vacations. But with top-notch BBQs (really, they were very awesome) every other Thursday and half-day Fridays, it wasn't half as draggy as grad school. In grad school, everything's closed. The co-op, where I can get my bean burritos and dried fruit and nuts to snack on should I get hungry, is closed. It's so sad. However, despite the lack of students and good hippy vegetarian non-mall-foodcourt food, there are still rarely enough treadmills in the gym. I got stuck to the stinky guy who smelled like sweated-out garlic and curry and wayyy too much aftershave. At least the smell kept me concentrating on not losing my lunch instead of how boring running is.
Maybe I should just be thankful that I wasn't behind someone who had the running farts. (You know, with every step, thhbthtbh, thhbthtbh, thhbthtbh... don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about because you do. And if you don't, you're lying.)
Anyway, I'm strongly resisting any kind of routine (which suits me). That being said, I need to fit in a good sports bra shopping escapade. Last weekend, when the gym was all but deserted Saturday morning, I sloped into the weight room with my jumprope. In between sets, I jumped rope for 1 minute, and there's nothing quite like jumping rope in front of a full-length mirror to make you realize some pretty idiotic things.
(1) I look COMPLETELY RETARDED jumping rope.
(2) I need better sports bras because if I put this off for much longer and continue jumping rope, my chest will be in my pockets by age 40 and in my shoes by age 60.
(3) I have some pretty tight calf muscles with some nice definition.
(4) The same cannot be said for my thighs.
However, I'm used to looking completely retarded and the rope jumping is a pretty brilliant and difficult workout so I won't stop. Instead I'll keep jamming in gym time between experiments in lab, trying to fence, and generally hoping for the best. We shall see...
Oh, and I got my blades today! They're all shiny and pretty and new, and I'm gonna hook them up and mess around with them! I'm so excited. :)
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Craziness.
In light of extreme social business, mucking around in lab like it's my job (oh wait... it is my job), trying not to sleep through class, and having to clean up my piles (piles are my way of life; if I had to describe my overarching philosophy on how to live in one word, "piles" would be it), I have sucked it hardcore at blogging.
I have been maintaining my fitness though. I went on vacation in NH, and I snowboarded and x-country skied my way to only gaining like 2 pounds despite eating and drinking like wo'. Kind of exciting. But then, if you x-country ski 8 miles in a day, you have to devote pretty much the remainder of your waking hours to gorging yourself if you want to gain weight, which leaves no time for the hot tub. And you always want time for the hot tub, especially if you've been x-country skiing. You know, every time I go to Waterville Valley, I have a snowboarding revelation. Last time, I took a lesson and the instructor pointed out this little thing I wasn't doing, and I suddenly stopped catching my edge and falling on my face! Very exciting, especially because my face doesn't have the padding my butt has.
This time, I ambled over to their on-mountain board shop, and the snowboard guru Steve said, "Wow, you are riding with a tiny stance for someone of your height. Let me fix that for you." I said, "Ok!" He widened my stance by what might have been inches, and suddenly standing on my snowboard felt as natural as getting en guarde for fencing! The strain on my calves, ankles, and all muscles in that general region disappeared, and I could use my muscley (read: huge) butt and thighs for balance and steering. It was so great to suddenly not suck any more!
(For any interested parties, there will not be any half-pipes or ramps in my future. I will persist in riding like an old lady.)
But anyway, after taking a lot of time off of the gym and fencing, it turned out to not matter at all because I was sliding, riding, and skating over vacation. And I started jumping rope more, which is hard as balls, people. Hard as balls. It is awesome for bounciness for fencing. Oh, and according to this month's Vogue, another of their "shape" issues, this one model Doutzen Krouse jumps rope like a mofo. The author of that article was musing about why, despite NOT being super madd crazy skinny, Ms. Krouse is so popular. Um, maybe because she looks like she won't pass out halfway down the runway? Perhaps because she looks like she could kick ass, but in a beautiful ladylike manner? How about because she looks incredibly healthy?
Duh.
Anyway, the above is a picture of me kicking ass in a not very ladylike manner. I am in the foreground to the right, blurrily charging down the nice lady on the left. Check out my ass. It is huge. It is powerful. It sticks out. J. Lo better watch it, cuz I don't need no implants. I have fencing.
Monday, February 2, 2009
I really like the gym.
If someone told me I could spend the rest of my life going to the gym, eating, and sleeping, I would be in seventh heaven. Knowing this has made me doubt my academic/professional choices more than once, but eh. I've started, things are going in a good direction, and the odds are I'll be happy I've done what I'm doing in the long term.
So, I changed my Monday lifting routine. I started out doing bicep curls, tricep extensions, chest presses, shoulder presses, and one other shoulder exercise (where you're standing and your arms hang by your sides and you lift them up and out to the sides keeping them straight), but I don't really need to directly develop biceps and triceps. Now I'm doing those lifts I just described, pairing them with the same thing, just to the front instead of to the side. I kept the shoulder presses, pairing them with this thing where you bend over, feet shoulder width apart, knees flexed, back arched, and let your arms hang straight down to the ground. Then you raise the weights to the side, keeping arms straight (kind of like an airplane?). They are a bitch. The last set I'm doing involves chest presses, and then this move where you put one knee and one hand on the weight bench, stand on your other leg, and pull your hand hold the weight to your chest, keeping your elbow high. The last part of the set is just tricep dips off the weight bench. Then I do abs and back.
I don't feel particularly tired after, which is good seeing as Monday night is footwork night. I just get ravenously hungry. The rice and beans, banana, and protein bar I packed needed to be supplemented with a spinachy thing from the food coop here. Spinach, whole wheat fillo dough, some olive oil, and spices. Not too bad. I plan on resting Tuesday, repeating Monday's lifting on Wednesday coupled with a fencing lesson at night, resting Thursday, lifting from the abs down on Friday (haven't exactly decided what's going into that workout), and going to a light practice/help coach on Saturday. Sunday is when I laze around and resist the routine urge to get dressed.
I need to remember to talk to Janusz (fencing club owner) about ordering blades tonight... someday in the hopefully not-too-distant future I want to start competing again. Don't tell anyone. :-P
So, I changed my Monday lifting routine. I started out doing bicep curls, tricep extensions, chest presses, shoulder presses, and one other shoulder exercise (where you're standing and your arms hang by your sides and you lift them up and out to the sides keeping them straight), but I don't really need to directly develop biceps and triceps. Now I'm doing those lifts I just described, pairing them with the same thing, just to the front instead of to the side. I kept the shoulder presses, pairing them with this thing where you bend over, feet shoulder width apart, knees flexed, back arched, and let your arms hang straight down to the ground. Then you raise the weights to the side, keeping arms straight (kind of like an airplane?). They are a bitch. The last set I'm doing involves chest presses, and then this move where you put one knee and one hand on the weight bench, stand on your other leg, and pull your hand hold the weight to your chest, keeping your elbow high. The last part of the set is just tricep dips off the weight bench. Then I do abs and back.
I don't feel particularly tired after, which is good seeing as Monday night is footwork night. I just get ravenously hungry. The rice and beans, banana, and protein bar I packed needed to be supplemented with a spinachy thing from the food coop here. Spinach, whole wheat fillo dough, some olive oil, and spices. Not too bad. I plan on resting Tuesday, repeating Monday's lifting on Wednesday coupled with a fencing lesson at night, resting Thursday, lifting from the abs down on Friday (haven't exactly decided what's going into that workout), and going to a light practice/help coach on Saturday. Sunday is when I laze around and resist the routine urge to get dressed.
I need to remember to talk to Janusz (fencing club owner) about ordering blades tonight... someday in the hopefully not-too-distant future I want to start competing again. Don't tell anyone. :-P
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Back to school, back to school...
Vacation was over this Monday. I am writing a paper so I can get published and be all cool like that. And by cool, I mean totally the opposite. Actually, I got back to lab, and after the niceties of "How was your holiday?" were exchanged between my PI (principle investigator, academic science equivalent of "boss") and I, he asked how I did in the class I took.
I took this class taught by one of my committee members (my second favorite committee member besides my actual boss) who is as bizarre as they come but slightly less bizarre and downright nasty when compared to my other committee members. Towards the end, I got caught up in the insane quantities of grading of the class I TA'd for said boss, and I ended up turning in 6 out of the 10 HW assignments I had to do 1-2 days before the final. Somehow - I don't know how - I managed to hold 'abject terror and anxiety' at bay, only briefly succumbing at times to 'low-grade panic.' That's roughly the difference between a red terror alert (where we're supposed to carry at all times pitchforks and torches, or gasmasks and baseball bats, or garlic and crosses, I forget exactly what) and a green terror alert (which involves subtley eyeballing anyone on the subway carrying a bag of any kind or wearing a coat who isn't an obvious shade of white).
Anyway, my PI asked me about how I did. I told him the truth. "I.... didn't look. ... Yet! I didn't look yet." He starts chuckling. "I was on vacation! I didn't think about it! I was relaxing!" I get a full out laugh, then he suggests I check sometime soon. Turns out I got an A. Haven't told him yet, but yeah. An A!
Seriously, I think he keeps me on as his student for the entertainment value. The way I see it, if I don't get a piece of paper from the university telling me I'm either on academic probation or my career as a grad student is over, that's fine with me, and I don't give a shit. Biochemistry is particularly draconian. If you get below a B in any class, you're on academic probation. There is no averaging your GPA, and if you slip up again, you're out of the program.
So, everything is back to normal. I managed to get myself a parking space for this upcoming semester that's closer than a 10-minute walk to my building, which will hopefully make the 8 AM class I need to take a tiny bit easier. At least there's less of a bleary-eyed stagger between my car and the classroom, which means there's less of a chance of me spilling precious drops of the inevitable mug of coffee. Happily, though, my 8 AM class does not interfere with 50% off bottles of wine night at one of my favorite bars. Hellz to the yeah, people.
Oh! And my insurance goes down by $200 because I've turned 25 this upcoming pay period! Huzzah! And there are Saturday morning fencing practices at the club, followed by lunch and drinking, so really, everything is quite nice.
I took this class taught by one of my committee members (my second favorite committee member besides my actual boss) who is as bizarre as they come but slightly less bizarre and downright nasty when compared to my other committee members. Towards the end, I got caught up in the insane quantities of grading of the class I TA'd for said boss, and I ended up turning in 6 out of the 10 HW assignments I had to do 1-2 days before the final. Somehow - I don't know how - I managed to hold 'abject terror and anxiety' at bay, only briefly succumbing at times to 'low-grade panic.' That's roughly the difference between a red terror alert (where we're supposed to carry at all times pitchforks and torches, or gasmasks and baseball bats, or garlic and crosses, I forget exactly what) and a green terror alert (which involves subtley eyeballing anyone on the subway carrying a bag of any kind or wearing a coat who isn't an obvious shade of white).
Anyway, my PI asked me about how I did. I told him the truth. "I.... didn't look. ... Yet! I didn't look yet." He starts chuckling. "I was on vacation! I didn't think about it! I was relaxing!" I get a full out laugh, then he suggests I check sometime soon. Turns out I got an A. Haven't told him yet, but yeah. An A!
Seriously, I think he keeps me on as his student for the entertainment value. The way I see it, if I don't get a piece of paper from the university telling me I'm either on academic probation or my career as a grad student is over, that's fine with me, and I don't give a shit. Biochemistry is particularly draconian. If you get below a B in any class, you're on academic probation. There is no averaging your GPA, and if you slip up again, you're out of the program.
So, everything is back to normal. I managed to get myself a parking space for this upcoming semester that's closer than a 10-minute walk to my building, which will hopefully make the 8 AM class I need to take a tiny bit easier. At least there's less of a bleary-eyed stagger between my car and the classroom, which means there's less of a chance of me spilling precious drops of the inevitable mug of coffee. Happily, though, my 8 AM class does not interfere with 50% off bottles of wine night at one of my favorite bars. Hellz to the yeah, people.
Oh! And my insurance goes down by $200 because I've turned 25 this upcoming pay period! Huzzah! And there are Saturday morning fencing practices at the club, followed by lunch and drinking, so really, everything is quite nice.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Who wants to leap buildings in a single bound?
Oooh! Me! I do!
So, I'm going to start doing some of these exercises I found on my friend's blog. (I also take fencing lessons from him.) Because I would love to leap buildings in a single bound, it stands to reason that I want legs like a US Olympic fencer. Tim Morehouse is featured here.
Check it, yo.
There are two things that may happen when I try this. I will either bust the crap out of my quads and hamstrings, or I will grow massive giant leg muscles. Because, like, dude! Olympic-level personal training! In the public domain! That I can manipulate to fit my strength!
Is it ridiculous that I get really happy when I see things like this?
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
The cold harsh reality...
The cold harsh reality of the Population Council phone call wasn't as cold and harsh as I anticipated. It wasn't as rosy and wonderful as I hoped, either. Instead, it was Reality, which tends to exist somewhere in the middle. I was informed that my idea is indeed interesting, and if contraceptive biology is a field I'm really interested in, I should keep in touch and call them when I'm ready to graduate!
Which is certainly positive! The guy I spoke to was very impressed with my blind emailing at the very least. Being a persistent-borderline-annoying individual pays off, people!
Then I went to Macy's and got a really long nice sweater for $20.00. Speaking of Macy's, I tried on some DKNY.... who is able to wear DKNY? Does anyone who reads this wear that? Because I want to know what kind of body you have. Donna Karan always looks great on the hanger and then when I try it on, I'm left thinking "w....t.....f....." I'm sure it looks fabulous on someone, and I want to know who, exactly.
After that, I went to fencing, and I thoroughly enjoyed my lesson. A good unproductively productive day. :)
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