Sheesh...

  Yeah... I know it's been a little bit. Busy is only a kind of excuse, but it is an honest part. The other is that I operate by phone almost exclusively so having access to a computer to type can be difficult. But the absence has been glaring at me; worry not about that my non-existent readership.

  That is why I am trying to take advantage of it now.

  Anyway, the 30 for 30 fell by the wayside pretty quickly in the lead up to 12th night. I at least did get some sword work in that weekend because I got authorized to do rapier combat in the SCA. So now I can participate without qualms. Now to get marshelled so I can hold practices out here.

  Which we can do that now too because we have a few rapiers to practice with. But I still plan to go to Eugene on Sundays to do their practice since they have more people than us. So there are details to work out.

Speaking of which, I am doing this post, post-workout. (;P) Nothing to complex, I am severely out of shape so anything at this point will help my body. But I squeezed out 3x10 of push ups, squats, dumbbell rows, and leg raises. I broke a sweat and am fatigued so I am happy. I should be sufficiently sore the next few days, do it again Thursday to keep up an approximate 2x a week strength training, which --  if I can keep the intensity up like tonight -- will be sufficient to get stronger, which is the goal. My 6'1" frame holds my flabby 215lb body well enough that i still look skinny in an unhealthy way, put on a few pounds of muscle and I'll be a happy camper. perhaps if I can get some grappling mixed in with my fencing and regain the strength to use the muscle memory I have from my judo days and I will be in heaven. :)

  Work has been going well that I have learned to flush set stone with relative ease that my boos has no problem letting me do orders with only a day and a half practice which has me super stoked. Learning new skills from time to time has me thinking that I either have a real knack for this or that it's just easier than I thought. Either way, It is encouraging me to take more risks in trying new things, which I plan to do for a few brooches I will be making for Egils this year.

  Another thing keeping me busy, designing some brooches for Egils. A couple penannular brooches and a couple wire fibula as prizes for tourneys there this year. I wanna try to make them special. I am only gonna get paid for materials but I will have a maker mark and info for the word to be spread. The time is come to start making money for my skill, though it be still budding.

  Anyway, that's all for now, I wanna take a shower, and chill for the rest of the night.

Peace out, Girl Scouts

30 for 30

  So today Started a 30 day challenge.

  For almost a decade i have known and been interested in HEMA. But a majority of these years have been spent in crippling depression and just lack of opportunity to pursue it. I actually joined the SCA because there was no HEMA group for 120mi around me. They have a martial practice fairly new and similar to hema known as Cut & Thrust.

  Well... I found out the local group had no steel fighters whatsoever. A year and a half later I remain the only authorized fighter in central Oregon. Luckily though, circumstances have changed...

For one, I've managed to overcome the depression; it was mostly induced by my undiagnosed diabetes which i have subsequently turned around. Second, I have the ability to travel that 120mi distance on the weekend to participate with my fellow SCAdians. But also, Bend now has its first HEMA club, it's italian, but still... we got HEMA.

  I've also taken it upon me to just start practicing on my own which i personally find difficult because I lack discipline to be curt about it. Hence this 30 for 30

Within the HEMAA FB group  someone created a group to help create accountability. For 30 min a day for 30 Days I've committed to practicing to 1) not only get in the habit, but 2) Finally start to really take this shit seriously.

  Today wasn't much of a practice but I did get 30min in. First half I drilled on some cuts and footwork, and then read my copy of Meyer's Kunst des Fechtens. I have learned that I will definitely need to dedicate more than 30min a day, physically i need to work on cardio so I can do the drills and increase my skill. so I think my 30min will be dedicated to that alone, and perhaps keep swordwork and read separate. Exercise has always been my  biggest down fall, if i can make that habitual then the sword work and reading which I want to do will be a piece of cake. And with this group I think it'll give me the accountability I need.

A statement of intent

  With this New Year about nine hours old and my previous post coming the day before with what was a brief history of myself, there seems to be an undertone of New Year's resolution to all this. And you're right.

  Journaling is something I am familiar with and have done in the past, but I've had trouble with consistency in keeping up with it. Kinda makes me think that whole '21 days" or whatever of doing something to make it habitual is a bit bullshit. But I'm really hoping this will stick for a few reasons.

1. Jounaling in the past has been theraputic and beneficial to me for the multiple reasons I've done it.
2. This format allows me to flesh out more my thoughts, allows more detail and nuance to explore thoughts and ideas and perhaps explain myself better.
3. Social media is fucking bonkers and this is the only real alternative i really know of and hope to do away with it all, but I can settle with killing Facebook, the worst offender to humanity.

  But keeping a journal again and using social media less are only two things I want to change about myself this coming year.

• TV is a big one, Love to ditch it for the most part. finish whatever shows I've already started and like, don't start new ones.
• Dedicate more time to my actual interests like:
• Historical European Martial Arts (HEMA)
• My metalsmithing, to get better and become self employed
• SCA, the living history group I'm with

  Regaining Control of my diabetes is another big one. this last year i tried  an insulin pump and found i didn't like the experience. It made me too permissive with my diet and my a1c suffered for it. This will be my most urgent goal. November my a1c went down from 7.3 to 7.0. I want to get it under 6.0 again and keep it there.

  So I hope to expect this to be a somewhat busy blog in trying to keep up with all this. In addition I want to do long rambly posts on topics of interest to me that aren't covered in this post already. Like magic as i explore animism more. And politics, as an anarchist I have shit to say about it all. And maybe private life stuff too, may just keep a physical journal for that though.

  But mostly a journal to keep track of shit and (hopefully) keep me accountable. which is what I really need.