Author: hsoi

2011-10-07 workout

/ hsoi

“Week 4” deload

  • Deload – Deadlift (working max: 275#)
    • 2x5x110
    • 2x5x140
    • 2x5x165
  • Asst. #1 – Hyperextensions
    • 5 x 10 x BW
  • Asst. #2 – Hanging leg curl raises whatever I call them
    • 5 x 7 x WT
  • Metcon – jump rope
    • 1 Tabata set – all single hop

Again, it’s deload week, so there’s nothing much to write home about.

On the next cycle I’m going to switch from hyperextensions to Good Mornings. Start slow and almost no weight, ensuring back and legs are straight and as “right angle” as possible. See where it goes.

The leg curl/raises I’m getting better at, almost no swing, more curl up of the knees up to the shoulders, and noticing a lot more full-body activity in bringing my legs up (e.g. my back and arms are getting into it some). This is all good, as it’s not an isolation exercise. I’m feeling alright doing 5×7 across, so I’m going to bump to 5×8 and see how that goes, and just keep building from there.

As an aside… my right knee has been odd for a number of years. Just the way things felt, how it would grind (as older knees do), general motion and stability and so on. Plus I noticed that if I knelt down, resting on my kneecap, I could move just the right way and pop my knee(cap). Well, I can’t pop it any more. In fact, my knee is feeling much different. For a couple of months it was feeling bad… even had thoughts that I’d blow it out. I may still. But recently I’ve been feeling more like the knee is improving, getting stronger, more stable. All stands to reason given the deadlifting and squatting. Sure, I do feel like in all the improvements to my body that I also feel some wear and tear on it, but all in all the body feels stronger… we’ll see how the knee feels in another 6 months.

Free Speech – I do not think it means what you think it means

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

Four Democrat State Senators in New York think we have too much free speech:

Proponents of a more refined First Amendment argue that this freedom should be treated not as a right but as a privilege — a special entitlement granted by the state on a conditional basis that can be revoked if it is ever abused or maltreated.

Uh…..

I thought Democrats were all about The First Amendment (by GAWD!).

Ah but I see… this is “thinking of the children”, so that makes it all ok. Big Nanny is acceptable in that case, right?

Or perhaps we should just use your own logic against you and revoke your own “privilege” to speak so freely, because you’ve certainly maltreated this privilege by the behavior you’ve exhibited here.

Freedom. You fail at understanding it.

 

Why do you think it’s morally right to reward someone who’s done nothing right?

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

He said, “Do you think it’s morally right to punish someone who’s done nothing wrong?”

And I said, “No.”

He said , “Then why do you think it’s morally right to reward someone who’s done nothing right?”

— Penn Jilette

Full video:

Should you be allowed to carry a gun to church?

/ hsoi

Should you be allowed to carry a gun to church?

Yes.

What about the person sitting next to you?

Yes.

The question before a three-judge panel for the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta Thursday is whether Georgia’s prohibition on firearms in places of worship conflicts with the promise of religious freedom in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

GeorgiaCarry.org, which brought the initial lawsuit, believes religious institutions, not Georgia law, should dictate if firearms are allowed inside, and they point to accounts of shootings in churches as examples of why guns are needed even while worshiping.

Full Story. (h/t Fark)

An interesting legal approach by GeorgiaCarry.org, and we’ll see if it pans out. As expected, the opposition doesn’t get it.

But lawyers for the state say the ban makes it possible for “worshipers to focus on spiritual activities” instead of “protective vigilance.”

So perhaps we should ban smartphones as well, because I can tell you for sure they don’t do much to help worshipers focus on spiritual activities, especially when someone forgets to turn off their ringer. If this is about ensuring focus, there’s much else that we should ban to remain consistent. But of course, it’s not about that.

But Jonathan Lowy, director of the Legal Action Project at the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, a gun control group that is not a participant in the lawsuit, said there is no constitutional right to carry loaded guns in public.

“If you chose to have a loaded gun in your home to protect yourself, that’s your right. It’s a whole different issue when you bring that gun where me and my children and other families are just going about … business.

Let’s play a little bit with the phrasing here:

If you choose to speak freely in your own home to protect yourself, that’s your right. It’s a whole different issue when you start practicing free speech where me and my children and other families are just going about … business.

Is that acceptable?

Why isn’t it a different issue when police bring their gun where you and your children and other families are just going about business?

And it would be even more dangerous, he said, if well-meaning, armed civilians, faced with a dangerous situation, begin shooting in an effort “to save the day.”

“Injecting more guns into more public places and being held by more people causes death and injury much more than it’s saved lives,” Lowy said.

Mr. Lowy, can you please present the data and evidence to back this up? Because we have data and evidence, and it does not support your conclusion; in fact, quite the opposite.

I posted about this just a few days ago. There is much violence in church. You’d like to think if there was anywhere there wouldn’t be it would be in a church, but alas, such is not the case. If we want to talk about the ability for folks to focus on worship well… I’d say allowing someone to go on a violent rampage kinda makes worship a wee bit difficult. If there are ways good people can deter and stop such events, I’d say that helps the ability to focus on worship.

Consider what the Catechism of the Catholic Church has to say about self-defense.

2265 Legitimate defense can be not only a right but a grave duty for one who is responsible for the lives of others. The defense of the common good requires that an unjust aggressor be rendered unable to cause harm. For this reason, those who legitimately hold authority also have the right to use arms to repel aggressors against the civil community entrusted to their responsibility.

Emily gets her gun… well… tries to

/ hsoi

Emily Miller lives in Washington D.C.. She wants a gun to protect herself.

It’s proving to be most difficult to do so, and she’s writing a series about it at the Washington Times.

All you that believe in a woman’s right to choose? That “no means no”? That participate in “slutwalks”? Why are those of this same group so hell-bent on denying her the ability to protect herself in her chosen way? The inconsistency bothers me.

Goodbye, Steve

/ hsoi

Steve Jobs passed away today.

If not for him, Apple wouldn’t be what it is… either then with things like the //e, later the Mac, Mac OS X, and of course the massive revolution that is the iPod and iPhone.

I know my life and career wouldn’t be the same, given how much Apple’s been a part of my life.

We’ll miss you Steve, but thank you for caring about “the rest of us”. We’ll keep on thinking differently.

Austin Police Department Burglary Unit – on Facebook

/ hsoi

The Austin Police Department’s Burglary Unit has set up a Facebook page. Why? To enlist the public’s help in locating victims of theft or burglary.

Starting Tuesday October 4th, 2011 the APD Burglary Unit will begin posting updates with recovered stolen property, surveillance videos, success stories of victims reunited with property, top property offenders, and crime alerts.

I think that’s pretty cool. If you’re on Facebook and in the Austin area, go Like the page.

Another Saturday at the range

/ hsoi

Spent this past Saturday at KR Training helping with the Basic Pistol 1 and Beyond the Basics: Handgun classes.

Just realized I forgot to write up some things about the classes. 🙂

Basic Pistol 1

60% of the class was women. More and more women are interested in personal defense, and that’s A Good Thing™.

If you were in that class, I would like to suggest you come back for Basic Pistol 2. While BP1’s intent is to introduce firearms (safety, basic shooting technique, try lots of guns to see what they’re like) so you can make more informed choices at the gun store or at the rental range, it really isn’t able to teach enough of the fundamentals of shooting. That’s really where BP2 comes in, and just based on a few things we saw consistently in the class, BP2 would be useful for many of the students in that class.

Beyond The Basics: Handgun

This is not a high-speed-low-drag course. It’s not a defensive skills course. It’s a class designed to improve marksmanship, to improve fundamentals of sights and trigger, but especially “what you see”. Most people shoot in a manner where they always strive for that perfect sight picture on every shot, but you must realize that sort of sight picture isn’t always necessary. When targets are large and/or close, you can get away with seeing a lot less and having a less and ideal sight picture. When targets are small and/or far away, you generally need a closer-to-ideal sight picture. You can shoot those larger/closer targets faster, you need to shoot the smaller/further targets slower, to still get acceptable hits. And so, this class works on those skills, which are useful no matter what your shooting arena (defensive, action sports, etc.).

I’d like to refer students to a few things:

100 Round Practice. Print that up, take it to the range with you. You’ll get far more out of doing this than if you just go and throw 100 rounds downrange.

Wall Drill.  This is a great dry-fire exercise to help you work on trigger control.

Group shooting. Shooting groups isn’t always fun, but it is challenging and will help you with your trigger control, sights, and follow through. The 100 Round Practice starts and ends with group shooting, and there’s good reason for that setup. Start shooting groups at 3 yards (no timer). Try 5 yards, 7 yards, 10, 15, 25. Don’t push yourself too hard too fast else you’ll just wind up frustrated and won’t progress. Just take whatever your comfort level is and go a step beyond that. If you’re shooting really tight groups at 3 yards, try moving to 7 yards. Or perhaps try shooting 3 yard groups but slightly faster yet striving to keep the group size the same (or smaller!).

Ball and Dummy. While you do your group shooting, mix a dummy round in there, to keep you honest. 🙂

F.A.S.T. test. You don’t have to shoot this drill as-is, merely use the target. Or, just use something like an index card and a large paper plate. The intent is to have multiple targets of different size. Shoot the circle then the rectangle. Shoot the rectangle then the circle. Shoot 1 and 1. Shoot 2 then 1. Shoot 3 then 2.  It’s about transitioning, not just your eyes and gun from one target to another, but learning to manage your sight picture, how much (or little) you need to see, and the speed/cadence of your shooting. You can do this in dry practice too; won’t be quite the same as live fire since recoil management does enter into the equation, but you can still work it dry and gain some benefit.

Whatever you choose, don’t just go to the range and throw lead without any point. Sure, sometimes just going and shooting because it’s fun is the whole point and that’s fine. But if you wish to progress, you’ll need a plan to get there.

2011-10-05 workout

/ hsoi

“Week 4” deload

  • Deload – Press (working max: 120#)
    • 2x5x45 (warmup)
    • 2x5x50
    • 2x5x60
    • 2x5x75
  • Asst. #1 – Press
    • 5 x 10 x 60
  • Asst. #2 – Supinated grip pulldowns
    • 5 x 10 x 110
  • Metcon – jump rope
    • 1 Tabata set – all single hop

Ah, deload week. My least favorite. 😉 But it’s good to let the body heal and recover. Not really much to say… it’s deloading, nothing exciting.

One thing I can comment on is a curiousity about supplementation. Since I’ve been looking at life insurance and of course that’s going to require a blood test and pee test, I need to ensure things look good. I don’t ingest anything questionable or illegal, but because of supplementation like creatine, that could make things look bad because insurance adjustors don’t really look at context, just actuary tables. I’m already going to be questionable because I lift weights, have more muscle than the average Joe, and thus on things like Body-Mass-Index tables I’m going to appear obese but I’m not, and obviously I exercise which you’d think is a good thing, but popular conception of “good exercise” is “long slow distance” and looking emaciated. Nevertheless, the insurance broker has been down this road and he suggested I just stop the supps for a bit to bring levels down because otherwise high levels of creatine could raise flags for things like kidney issues.

I’m not convinced my struggles in the assistance pressing today were due to lowered levels of creatine or the fact I’m not taking the Jack3d (mostly because it too contains creatine). But come 3rd set those last some reps were hard, and by the 5th set the last 5 reps were a struggle. It wasn’t this way last Press session, and I was the heavy session, and I even set a PR there. I will say, I didn’t rest the usual 2 minutes between sets during my “work” sets today because the weight was so minimal, so it could simply be that I truly had exhausted things. But it’s just a curiosity. I’m not sold on Jack3d, but I won’t be taking it at all during this deload. Once I finish this tub, I do have one more tub to go through. I’ll assess after that, but so far I’m not totally convinced… I would like to see more real science and not more “bro-science” behind the other ingredients (creatine is accepted, curious about beta-alanine, studies I’ve read are mixed).

I have a “Defense Dog”

/ hsoi / 7 Comments

We have a “defense dog”.

Or at least, I think that can be a good term to describe her.

She’s not an “attack dog”, both by breed nature and by well… this morning’s example.

Every few years, Austin Energy comes around to trim trees away from the power lines. This morning was our day, and they’d need to get into the backyard to have access to some trees. I knew the guys were out front, but they were still finishing breakfast (as far as I knew). Sasha had been wanting to go out and I figured one last pee break would be a good thing. I went into the backyard to check, saw no one, went back to the door to let Sasha out… she zoomed out the door, and by the time I turned around she was barking and going nuts.

It seems, by sheer coincidence of timing, that the moment I let her out was the same moment the tree workers decided to open the fence gate and come into the backyard! ¡Ay dios mio!

Sasha barked big and hard, but she didn’t rush the workmen. She barked, made aggressive “go away!” posturing, but was constantly fading back as if to assess the situation and buy herself time while things unfolded and she could determine where things were going (Kuvasz are smart dogs, they think). I know the workmen had the daylights scared out of them so there was certainly no posturing on their part, certainly retreat and signs of not just submission but “OH SHIT!” 🙂  Within seconds I was between them, ordered the workmen to leave the backyard, and was able to snap the leash onto Sasha with little trouble and get her back inside.

Once inside, I went to explain things to the workmen, and of course they had questions, like if she’d bite. And this is where I came up with “defense dog”.

You see, if we have the time to explain things to people, we can explain that she’s a Kuvasz, that the breed is a livestock guardian dog, that their demeanor is not to attack but rather to control the intruder, keep them away from the flock, pose and posture looking as big and scary as possible, all in an effort to scare the intruder away. They don’t want to attack, they don’t want to chase (because then they’d leave the flock, undefended, unprotected), but if attack is the only remaining option then so be it because protecting the flock is their job, what they are programmed to do.

But you see, that’s a mouthful. We’ve been searching for ways to describe and explain Sasha to others in a manner that’s brief, concise, yet accurate. That would explain what she’s like, and why we got her (in particular). To say “defense dog” I think can work, because that’s what she is. She is NOT an attack dog, she was not gotten to hurt anyone, to be aggressive to anyone. Kuvasz are there to defend the flock, and that’s why we got her… kinda rolls with the whole personal defense Lt. Col Grossman “sheepdog” paradigm.

So we’ll see how the term goes. My hope is that it’s enough to explain it, but that people will be likely unfamiliar with the term (and I expect they’ll be familiar with the “attack dog” term and will probably make a quick mental connection there that should make them go “huh?”) and then perhaps they’ll ask for more detail. Hopefully it’ll work. 🙂