Progress Report For The First Week Of March

It feels really good to be back on a regular training schedule.  To get back to doing all those things I was doing daily for my physical and mental health.  Stretches? Check. Weights? Check.  Weapons training? Check.  Weights to build strength?  Check.

I have trained with my sword for the past six days straight.  Three of them in snowstorms.  Training dedication level? 110%!   Four of them I have also trained with my polearms staff.  Just handling exercises.   I have also been back lifting weights as of the past six days.  I have added a new set of exercises to my weight lifting.  I am practicing my blocks (and footwork) with the weights.  I can feel it in my ribcage and my thighs. What a better way to build strength for a solid block!

I have also been watching my diet again and have had only one soda pop in the past six days.  So I am drinking water, remembering my vitamins and herbal supplements.  I am doing my best to eat healthier, leaner and cleaner. I have added fruit back into my diet.  I am working hard to stay away from the sweets.  Hard for me to do....At this point the battle is in adjusting to the lack of sugar and the excess calories that go with it.  Yesterday the cravings were the worst and I felt horrid.

Apparently I have also caught another cold, a mild one, but still.  I can tell by the feel in my lungs. That umm, hot raggedy feel when it first hits your lungs.  Explains why I didn't want to do anything over the last weekend and why I felt so bad yesterday.  This is the bad thing about hot flashes.  I cannot tell if I am having hot flashes or fevers at times until more symptoms kick in.

Part of the motivation to get back to all these healthy habits is the realization that my work hours aren't going to get any better anytime soon and that, oh shit I have four months left to meet my goals of losing that last thirty pounds and getting buff at the same time.  So time to quit stalling, using work as an excuse and just do it!  Also I enjoyed a Korean TV series about a street fighter-"Tong: Memories" that for some reason inspired me.  I think it was the showing of the fact that even though he was very good he worked and trained hard to become even better.

All I can say is I did not realize how much missed my fitness routine and how much I enjoy it.

Back on the Wagon

Today I crawled back onto the proverbial wagon.  I stretched properly this morning.  I did weight training and I've watched what I have consumed.  I have this goal to be fit-strong toned, lean and "mean" by the end of June.  I have started regular training with my sword again.  I need to work in polearms training too.  By the way I love polearms too now.  I believe I have turned into a non-projectile weapons geek.

 As I am finally starting to adjust to being stuck in this graveyard lifestyle and being the boss of my department-whether I wish it or not-I have decided to find a way to do what I want and need to for me.   Now that I am a bit more settled I can start figuring out how and where I can add back in these thing I desire to do.  And that is getting fit, strong.  Becoming the person I wish to be.

I want to be that fun, amazingly cool "bad ass" person to be with.  Not looking for trouble or starting it.  But if you mess with me, or mine......

Missed The Five Year Anniversary

I was planning on commemorating the loss of my father five years ago on the anniversary of his death.  :(  Just like most things I'd like to commemorate or celebrate I was too busy with work and snow shoveling.  It blew everything else out of my mind and the occasion passed me by.   Like most everything of this kind.....


Dear Gods and Goddesses, Great Spirit, Lord and Lady, my Ancestors...I am tired....so tired of keeping it together, working too much, too long for too little.  I do not know how to ask for help and I don't expect it.  It makes me feel needy and guilty.  I find it hard to receive any-yet I am so very thankful for the help I do get.   I know that I am just having a weak moment.  And frankly even feeling (tired) this way in the slightest makes me feel so guilty and ungrateful for what I DO have.  This is the part about being a single, independant woman that I hate....the double work schedule, and the burden of making a living and taking care of things rests completely on my shoulders.

I do know that one of these years it will get better.  Today it just seems bleak.  For the moment I have lost the battle.  But I know I will not give up the war.

One Year Reflection

I thought I started studying Armizare in October when in reality it was September.  Thirteen months have passed since I started this journey into HEMA, which stands for Historical European Martial Arts.  It turns out it was mid September when I discovered our recently opened HEMA school, High Desert Armizare.  So I missed my one year anniversary.  Whoops.  (sheepish grin)  I am pleased that not only have I stuck with it I have become even more enchanted with it-ALL of it.

  I remember being not so thrilled about the idea of grappling.  But learning dagger sounded fun and cool too.  So if I had to learn grappling and dagger to learn how to wield a longsword I decided I would still do it.  I picked up sword work fairly easily.  Well compared to the other two anyway.  Out of the three I struggled the most with the dagger.  Grappling wasn't far behind.  For about the first nine months or so grappling and dagger work were my least favorite. Mainly because I found it to be difficult and awkward for me.  I believe part of it was exhaustion after working a graveyard shift with too little sleep.

   August and September it seems like we worked with swords completely.  Three weeks ago we started working with daggers again.  I am doing much better and am just as thrilled with it now as I am sword work.  A clearer, non-sleep deprived brain, more experience in Armizare and a greater understanding of how it is a holistic system has made quite a lot of difference.  I have a greater appreciation and knowledge of body mechanics and physics now.  I love how just a simple move properly performed can bring an opponent to their knees.


At about that time a member of our sister school, NW Armizare put out a free app on google play "Pocket Armizare".  A free phone app that combines all four of Fiore's manuscripts in one place and they are all cross referenced with one another.  So if a play is found in all four you can see them all do to the cross referencing.  To the gentleman who did this, "THANK YOU!"  I happily downloaded it and have been scrolling through it.  It is a handy reference to help remind me of what we did in the last class.  I am amazed at how much of it we have covered this past year.   With this app I can also make my own notes using what are me a key terms to remember the day's lesson.

Waiting For The Other Shoe To Drop

One of the things I've dealt with this past year is learning how to live without a horrible anxious feeling.  I knew nothing was wrong, bills were paid and I was doing things right.  After living in that anxious, stressed, worried state for so long it took a while to get used to being able to live without a feeling of dread and fear, waiting for that proverbial other shoe to drop.    Months later I would feel that dread.   Getting busy at work seems to have helped a lot too.  I didn't have time to notice the feeling.

I'm getting back into the swing of things again.  I am back to training with my sword daily, practicing blocks and dagger strikes.  I've picked up my weights and started with them again too.  

Now I just have to keep up with taking better care of myself.  As my perspectives change for the better I see things a bit differently,    When my inner child rebels and wants to play I ask myself, "is this self-care?  If not then are you honoring yourself? And the answer is generally no.  

A little short and sweet, but I wanted to get it out.  

Loyalty, Commitment and Myself

Just read a meme about the traits of loyalty and commitment.  Trying to write a comment that showed how true it was in my case without sounding like I am bashing or bitter.  Because I did  destroy myself with blinf loyalty and commitment to an addict. As I was trying to think of how to say in a short and simple manner how being destroyed has re-made me into what I am.  I was thinking along the lines of  I have learned....and was searching.  I was going to say I have learned that I must first be loyal and commited to myself.  

But how loyal and committed have I truly been to myself?   Not to good I think.   I need to be loyal to loving myself, respecting myself and trusting myself.   I did good today however.  I bit my tongue, told myself not to let it get to me and managed to shake it off.  When my new boss is stressed, well you know they old saying, shit rolls downhill.  I hate people jumping all over me out of the blue about nothing and I hate how the rules change from one day to the next.  Also less time to do more and then they make it more difficult.

A Light At Last

The past six weeks have pretty much been utter chaos.  I have had a lot of ten, twelve and thirteen hour days.  And that doesn't count working at my own business.  I have pretty much spent the prime of this summer working,  grabbing some food and sleeping.  I have made my HEMA meetings and kept up with my meditation.  Everything else has fallen by the wayside.  Including my free weight lifting routine and my regular sword practise.  :(

Due to the extra work I have actually gained upper arm and body strength.  I believe it is the extra tag prep and hanging.  Because I have been so behind at work I have started jogging and loping from spot to spot to hurry up.  Needless to say my lungs are now in better shape along with the rest of me.  Once things settle down at work and the days are cooler I want to take up jogging/loping with my dogs.  Now that I am used to it I like it.  (So admits the gal who hated running/jogging.)  I have started losing weight again due to the long hours and frantic pace.  This also leaves me to tired to have much of an appetite.

I have spent the past six weeks working on overcoming my childhood PTSD triggers, reactions and coping skills.  Whether I wanted to or not.  My new store manager brings all my issues and bad coping skills to the front.  I am slowly learning how to cope with my reactions to her, my own issues and how to interact with her.  

 All the overtime has given me extra income and I have been able to get  couple of things that I have been wanting for awhile.  I now have a sweet acoustic guitar I love and my steel practise/blunt longsword has been ordered.   Now I have some things that are positive to offset all the hell I have went through.  I have music to soothe the savage beast and if that doesn't work I have a sword to defend myself against it.  LOL

I feel like I have leveled up a bit in my HEMA skills.  I now have enough experience that I was allowed to play or should I say spar with others for the first time.  The first bout I had trouble looking outside of the mask. I think it was because I was focusing on my opponent's sword-not my opponent himself.   My second bout I made myself  watch my opponent's face first, the rest secondarily and/or peripherally.  I love it and find it exhilirating, but I have a long ways to go to learn how to think fast enough to do more than just make one swing at my opponent or block his swing.  I have to learn to think on my feet better.  I managed to defend myself for the most part.  But I never managed to think past the moment and to think how to counter, counter-attack etc.  I also need to become comfortable about attacking.  I found that I like to wait for the other to make a move first.  That results in a lot of circling....