Big Goals

I've been wanting to post for a few days now, but I haven't felt like I had anything worth posting about. I even wrote a couple of posts that didn't make it up. There was the day I turned for an hour just to remind myself that I could (it had been a while since I even cleared the 40-minute mark), there were thousands of strikes here or there, there were days of getting up early, or failing to get up early, of standing triumph, and of diminished training ability due to work and family obligations. There was even a fairly long post that I killed after typing it, retyping it, fixing it, and giving up on it discussing the nature of my bagua relationship with my brother and how sometimes I wish life put us in a place where we could train more seriously together again (and how I think it would do him good). After I finished turning today, though, I got an idea worth posting about.

The YSB workshop I'm attending this fall is literally days away. Due to my brother coming into town, my work requirements ramping up heavily, and an assortment of other minor duties to have to attend to, my training did the opposite except in the applications department. There was some turning, some standing, some of everything there is supposed to be, but not a lot of any of it. I felt guilty for slacking off, and it took a solid forty-five-plus on the circle today to give me my idea. It starts with the close of the seminar and subsequent return to "normalcy."

I realized that I respond well to big goals and poorly to small ones and even more poorly to a general absence of them at all -- meaning vaguely defined "wishes" instead of clearly delineated goals. When I say "big goals," I don't mean ones that are unreasonable or unattainable but rather ones with a rather long time requirement. One year, for instance, I committed myself to doing 50,000 pushups and twice as many crunches. I hated pushups by the end of the year, but I did them all as well as 30,000 the next year, which is pretty good considering the hatred I developed for them (sadly, this isn't the most extreme pushup goal that I've done... that was 10,000+ in 10 days, which went well enough (sucked but was met) but caused some problems -- this was not in either year mentioned above!). Anyway, I've decided to set forth some fairly large goals of that nature, though, for my Yin Style training unless information that comes out at the seminar this year directly contradicts my plan.

The time frame to accomplish these goals is "from the end of this seminar to the beginning of the (first) one I attend in Fall 2009 or roughly the same date if for some unforeseen reason that becomes an impossible stopping time."

1. Turning for ~7200 minutes (120 hours, just under 20 minutes per day, on average).
2. Standing for ~7200 minutes in strengthening postures.

You might have expected more. The list looks kind of bare now that I see it in print. Really, I just wanted to put something down for the turning and standing, which I intend to take even more seriously over the next year (as I have been really for the last few months as well). I figure 20 minutes a day on average is reasonable and attainable, particularly since the admonishment from Beijing is "an hour a day." Physically, I think that's possible (but VERY hard unless some interesting physiological/energetic change occurs after some number of days of grinding through it), but with *Life* in the way, I'm convinced it's unlikely to occur. A third of that is a nice enough understatement so that I hopefully can overshoot that by a fair percentage (I'd really like to see 10,000 minutes or more total for the year, with 12-15 being even more exciting -- doubting anything above that is very realistic). The same, essentially, goes for standing. More is awesome, but I'd rather undershoot and attain than overshoot and fail (having experience with these kinds of things, I know all too well how discouraging it can be to get a few months in and realize the near impossibility of satisfying the remaining requirements).

I'm avoiding discussing other aspects of training because if I start attaching numbers to strikes or forms, I end up focusing more on the numbers than on the training. If that starts to happen with standing and turning (which are of a different nature, so I don't think that will occur), these goals will be bailed upon forthwith!

There is a small host of other things I'd like to see happen as well, for instance

• Turn for more than an hour (continuously) per day for at least 10 days or two weeks or some such.
• Turn for at least 3 hours continuously at least once, maintaining the requirements.
• Get and close the 300 lb. gripper (several times?).
• Fix my recurrent back issue (see next point).
• Get way more flexible and nimble (i.e. do some freaking yoga like I tell other people they should do because it's really beneficial and balancing against the two main facets of my life -- sitting in chairs and training hard physically).
• Seriously train the "plank" position (maybe aim for something like 500-1000 minutes in the position over the course of the year).
• Do way more seated meditation (20-30 minutes a day seems like a good baseline).
• Finish my G.D. Ph.D. and then never do math again (just kidding about the never part... I'll just need a vacation, I think, perhaps to China).
  

I may end up with something to do with basic saber exercises too, since it looks like I might get on that path before too long (Yikes! More pillars!). Luckily (or unluckily?) I might not have to worry much about that right off because I neither have a saber nor know how to get one, making saber drills hard to do.

I suppose I'll see how it goes. I don't want these not-directly-bagua goals to mess up my bagua training, though, so they will definitely take the backseat. I'll keep you posted. HA! Posted! I kill me.