Inchoate

Round-up

Phew.. not much in the journal of late.. Plenty happening for sure however. Friday before last five of us gathered at my place for a kettlebell / gymnastics / strength training session. It was really good fun. Everyone totally caned. Ken wrote about it.

Last week saw a particularly geeky dorkbot london, lots of interesting human connections at wirelesslondon, and the highlight, a huge posse of us going to see Chemical Brothers play at Brixton Academy followed by a police-nearly-called afterparty at Stuart's. Finishing that night of SSRI and then JD abuse at Stu's I got into a particularly bizarre mood managing to improv about 10mins of literally no-pause gay schoolboy comic erotica while walking along the South Bank plus dirty talk using a second-hand car sale as a sexual metaphor... There's a surprising amount possible there! I nearly threw myself into the Thames just for the experience too. It was that close, I swear. (Ultimately mitigated by sudden realisation of having to walk 500m, in March, in England, before being indoors again...)

Jack Daniels seems linked to happenings like this, the insanity of Santacon, scampering around a Texas apartment complex wet&almost-naked chasing a big-boobed girl a fellow bodybuilder and I particularly liked (it was mutual; we both liked her), and several other borderline-sociopathic-but-invariably-entertaining experiences.

I may be forced to "schedule" JD along with Tequila, itself a scheduled (i.e. self-banned) liquor and facilitator of, er, rich personal experience for me for some years now...

First Kettlebell meet-up

I've rustled up a Kettlebell meet-up this coming Friday 11th March, 13:00 onwards. There'll be a bunch of cool people there goofing about. We'll do some KB demos, have lunch, compare toys & notes, and maybe even run a few challenges... Details at this Events mailing list post

New kettlebells

I've been jonesing pretty badly the last couple of months for new kettlebells. I've had a 16kg ("pood") KB since August after attending Lee Hadden's seminar. While it's incredible what can be done and for how long with a single piece like that, I've been ready for more. Enter the realms of double-handed work and some heavier weights...

Rings first time

Watched the rings training DVD with Jordan Jovtchev and, suitably inspired, went out to plunder one of the car parking spaces that handily has wooden beams:

All set, ready for pushups, here we go...

I did some rows and held myself just straight up as though about to do some dips. Even this position with the arms into my side was fairly tough. I can barely imagine the strength required for an Iron Cross. One day...

Power Rings arrived

Over a month after I ordered them and over three weeks after my CC was billed my Power Rings have shown up:

I've been having a lot of fun with beginner gymnastics and have been eagerly awaiting these. My biggest strength achievement today was leaving them (mostly) alone and writing some software for a client instead of messing about with these new toys...

For what it's worth, these rings, the DVD, and shipping came to $159.40 which at the exchange rate at the time worked out to £88.35. Compare this identical product on sale in the UK at a ridiculously overpriced £99.95 for just the rings. That's even more pounds than the dollar cost! Their kettlebell prices are even more obscene costing over twice their competitors. As I've said before, greedy UK importers seriously need to go stuff themselves.

In case of hot burny thing

Seen on the 200 bus through Wimbledon coupla days ago,

Gymnastics dabbling

I've been goofing about with acrobatics and then gymnastics. Been great fun so far - being such a beginner my "workouts" consist of sets of a static hold held for a total of 60s (e.g. 15s four times).

Adding to my repertoire of now--woohoo!--three static holds, the L-Sit,

Held it for about seven sets of 10s. You know you're not a gymnast when your legs start shaking even before the 10s camera timer goes off... Heh.

PS I'm keeping a training log at Londonkettlebells.com)

A Midsummer Night's Heel

Tonight I had the honour of teaching a Shakespearian actor, of the Royal Shakespeare Company no less, to move around the stage. Unbelievable? I was helping the chap playing Puck the fairy to roll on the stage using Heelys, the shoes with the wheel in the heel. There's a scene where Puck floats across the stage and then turns around and walks to the middle. The great thing about Heelys is their, I think unique, capacity to enable nearly seamless transitions between walking and heeling. Even when you know what's going on it looks slick, when you don't it's mind-poppingly odd. I would be surprised if a single person in the audience has any idea how the RSC pull off this fabulous little move...

Anyway, thanks to Andreas at Citiskate whom RSC originally contacted I stepped in, hopped along to the RSC audition rooms, and rolled around with Jonathan/Puck. I'll be back end of next week to see how he's getting on and troubleshoot. Great fun, and satisfying seeing an improvement.

Does this make me the first professional UK Heelys instructor?!