My "bits" collection has expanded. Here's what I didn't get to read though.
Basic Ground-fighting Techniques (http://www.armystudyguide.com/content/army_combatives/basic_groundfighting_combative_techniques/index.shtml)
Alastair Humphreys' blog (http://www.alastairhumphreys.com/category/blog/lists/)
Mindfulness
Never act under compulsion, without forethought, out of selfishness, with misgivings
No surplus words, actions, or thoughts
Control your thoughts
Forget everything but the present
Reputation will soon be forgotten
Choose not to be harmed and you won't be harmed. Don't feel harmed and you haven't been.
Every event is the right one if it is happening
Love discipline
Nothing that goes on in anyone else's mind can harm you
It's fortunate that this happened and you weren't hurt worse by it.
You can lead a good life anywhere.
When jarred return quickly to yourself
I can control my thoughts and what happens outside my mind has no hold on me.
Look at the past – empire succeeding empire – and from that, extrapolate the future: the same thing. No escape from the rhythm or events. Which is why observing life for forty years is as good as a thousand. Would you really see anything new?
Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now take what’s left and live it properly.
Either pain affects the body (which is the body’s problem) or it affects the soul. But the soul can choose not to be affected, preserving its own serenity, its own tranquility. All our decisions, urges, desires, aversions lie within. No evil can touch them.
To privilege pleasure over pain – life over death, fame over anonymity – is clearly blasphemous.
To do harm is to do yourself harm. To do an injustice is to do yourself an injustice – it degrades you.
When you run up against someone else’s shamelessness, ask yourself this: Is a world without shamelessness possible? No. Then don’t ask the impossible. There have to be shameless people in the world. This is one of them. The same for someone vicious or untrustworthy, or with any other defect. Remembering that the whole world class has to exist will make you more tolerant of its members.
If you don’t have a consistent goal in life, you can’t live it in a consistent way.
It never ceases to amaze me: we all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinion than our own.
Squat Jumps 3
Bodyweight Squats 12
Box Jumps 3
2B. Single-Leg Bodyweight Romanian Deadlift -12 reps per leg
2C. Box Single-Leg Lateral Crossover Step – 12 reps per leg
Sitting ankle rotations 10/10
Lying leg extension 5/5
Hands on thighs, roll back and forth, looking through 3/3
Then roll with leg extension 3/3
Then roll into butterfly 3/3
Cat/Camel extensions of spine up/down
Sitting arm reach behind back one up/one down
Same reach laying on stomach
Sun salutation
Neck rolls
(really move from toes up, moving each piece)
Tone Up on the Treadmill "Save time at the gym with this 10-minute cardio/sculpt session: Hop on a treadmill holding a three- to five-pound dumbbell in each hand, and set the speed to a brisk walk. Do a one-minute set each of shoulder presses, biceps curls, triceps extensions, side laterals, front laterals and standing triceps kickbacks one after another as you walk. I's an amazing upper-body challenge that also gets your heart pumping. Do this series two or three times each week. As you improve, work up to doing four-minute sets." --Michael George, trainer and owner of Integrated Motivational Fitness in Los Angeles
Give Yourself a Break "You don't have to be a fitness saint to get results. Follow the 80/20 plan: Eighty percent of the year, you'll exercise regularly and eat well. Know that you'll slip 20 percent of the time due to holidays and work deadlines. When you accept that fitness isn't an all-or-nothing proposition, you're more likely to stick with it for life." --Maureen Wilson, owner/personal trainer/instructor, Sweat Co. Studios, Vancouver, B.C.
Maximize Your Crunches "Don't relax your abs as you lower your chest away from your knees during a crunch -- you get only half the ab-toning benefit! To get the firmest abs possible, you need to sustain the contraction on the way down." --Steve Ilg, founder of Wholistic Fitness Personal Training and author of Total Body Transformation (Hyperion, 2004)
Make Over Your Running Routine "Unless you're training for a marathon, skip long, slow, distance running -- sprinting builds more muscle. Add a few 10- to 60-second sprints to your run, slowing down just long enough to catch your breath between them." --Stephen Holt, 2003 ACE Personal Trainer of the Year
Practice Depth Jumps A depth jump is performed by stepping off a box and then exploding upward immediately upon landing on the ground. This teaches reaction time and will help your lower body muscles activate when you need to catch air. Start by standing on a box that is 6 to 8 inches off the ground. Step off. As soon as you touch the ground jump as high as you can, reaching your arms overhead. Land softly in an athletic position. Take a second to recover, then step back onto the box, set yourself, and repeat. Try doing 3 sets of 3 reps on Week 1, 4 sets of 3 reps on Week 2, and 5 sets of 3 reps on Week 3.
1-ARM SQUAT to CURL to PRESS > JG Photography Print Combining the two moves into one makes it much more challenging and will burn more fat, and the one-sided aspect challenges the core.
DIRECTIONS: Hold a dumbbell at your side. Squat down with a straight back, then stand back up. Without pausing, curl the dumbbell, then press it overhead. Slowly lower the dumbbell back to your shoulder, then to your side.
High intensity interval training
When working one muscle, remember to relax the opposing muscle.
New stimuli stretches out time more than old stimuli repeated over and over so by having new stimuli constantly, we experience a "longer" life.
“There” is no better a place than “here.” When your “there” has become a “here”, you will simply obtain another “there” that will again look better than “here.” (?)
Other people are merely mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects to you something you love or hate about yourself.
How are you affected by standardized time, designed solely to synchronize your movements with those of millions of other people?
Who or what controls your minutes and hours that add up to your life? What are you saving up your time for?
What can you get later that will make up for this day of your life? Hunter
Your objective is to become aware of your own breathing… without consciously controlling it.
SAH - Slowly Add Habits
COH - Constantly Observe Habits
TAH - Take Away Habits
"Where are you from?" - Conversation starter
- Inspire by example
- Have high expectations for those around you
- Listen to what people say
- Volunteer to help others
- Don't be afraid to take risks
Take brain breaks
Organize brain bookshelf
Become an expert in things
"If only you could comprehend the nature of your own Mind and put an end to discriminatory thought, there would naturally be no room for even a grain of error to arise. As it is, so long as your mind is subject to the slightest movement of thought, you will remain engulfed in the error of taking 'ignorant' and 'Enlightened' for separate states." -Zen Master Huang Po
"Pure and passionless knowledge [Enlightenment.] implies putting an end to the ceaseless flow of thoughts and images." Huang Po
"The only real demon is conceptual thought." -Dudjom Lingpa
"Just stop thinking and see it directly." -Linji.
"Zen is just getting rid of the discriminating mind." Tsunemoto, The Hagakure
"Cast away all things, becoming without thought and without mind." -Hakuin-Zenji
"This abstaining from all thought whatever is called real thought". -Dazhu Huihai
Be Methodical
Just 'trying to be more observant' is one of those challenges that doesn't have much of a goal. Instead then think of a methodical way to examine any particular room or environment. For instance try working from the top left of your visual field to the bottom right and noting anything that you see of interest as you do the swoop. Alternatively it may make more sense to start in the center of your visual field and then to do widening loops – this is true as the things of most importance are often those that are right in the middle of your visual field. They present the most pressing concern simply because they are right in front of you.
Engage With What You See
Engage with what you see as well. For instance don't just 'look' at the mark on the wall, rather try to think where it might have come from, what made it etc. As Sherlock Holmes points out, there is a big difference between seeing and observing. Everything you see that is out of place, ask yourself why it is there and how it got there, and what it tells you about the bigger picture.
Where's Waldo?
But here is the real thing to learn from this: yes, we all have these inner demons--but what do we do with them?
Do you keep them locked up inside, and shy away whenever they rear their ugly heads? If so, they will rule and control your life until the day you die. They will hold you back, and prevent you from growing into many valued areas of your life.
Or do you, like Jung, draw them out into the open, reveal them, and heal them? Not defeat them, but HEAL them--by realizing they are simply a part of you that you pushed away!
8 KEY IDEAS FROM STOICISM:
1) It’s not events that cause us suffering, but our opinion about events.
2) Our opinions are often unconscious, but we can bring them to consciousness by asking ourselves questions.
6) Fieldwork is vital.
Another thing the Stoics got, which modern philosophy often misses, is the idea of fieldwork. One of my favorite quotes from Epictetus is: “We might be fluent in the classroom but drag us out into practice and we’re miserably shipwrecked.” If you’re trying to improve your temper, practice not losing it. If you’re trying to rely less on comfort eating, practice eating less junk food. Seneca said: “The Stoic sees all adversity as training.” Imagine if philosophy also gave us street homework, tailor-made for the habits we’re trying to weaken or strengthen, like practicing asking a girl out, or practicing not gossiping about friends, or practicing being kind to someone every day. Imagine if people didn’t think philosophy was “just talking.”
Are my symptoms psychological trauma and the result of child abuse?!
Recognise that you have been through a distressing experience and give yourself permission to experience some reaction to it. Don't be angry with yourself for being upset.
Express your feelings as they arise. Whether you discuss them with someone else or write them down in a diary, expressing feelings in some way often helps the healing process.
“Face that which you fear. Condition your heart to trump your ego. Move boldly in the direction of your life purpose.” – Dr Sean Stephenson
The Clear Mind Procedure:
Write down everything that’s on your mind on one piece of paper (use more than one piece of paper if you need to).
Create three columns on a second piece of paper, and label them:“to be done," “maybe later," and “delete." Sort all the items on the first piece of paper into the three columns on the second piece of paper.
Take each item on the “delete” list, send it off into space, and tell it never to return (with a corny little ceremony if that helps).
Take the items from the “maybe later” column and put them on your “maybe later” list. (If you don’t keep a “maybe later” list, start one).
Take the items from the “to be done” column and put them into your planning system. (If you don’t have a planning system, then get one).
unfinished tasks
trips you want to take
people with whom you should touch base
skills you want to develop
subjects you want to learn
areas of your life in which you feel inadequate (such as your physical appearance, your knowledge, or your skills)
regrets about past choices
daydreams about what you would do differently if you could re-wind the clock and start over again
ways you feel trapped in your life
interpersonal conflict issues
home repair issues
home renovation ideas
things you’re dissatisfied with and want to change
goals other people want you to pursue
worries about the economy
worries about loved ones
habits you want to establish or break (but have had little success with to this point)
and pretty much anything else that has come to mind at some point over the last few days
Flow
Tapping into flow
- Set the stage
- Intrinsic Motivation (mindfulness)
- Create a physical trigger (ritual) to initiate flow
- No Destination
- Right Amount of Challenge
- Time Out
Struggle - Relaxation - Flow - Consolidation
- Get Centered
- Get Clear
- Remember Why
- Use Your Imagination
- Starting is Success
Environmental Triggers
- High Consequences
- Rich Environment
- Physical Awareness
Psychological Triggers
- Clear Goals
- Immediate Feedback
- Challenge/Skill Ratio
Social Triggers
Serious concentration, clear/shared goals, good communication, familiarity, blending egos, sense of control, close listening, always say yes
