DarthPenguin

Your understanding is correct i think - they are some of the things they changed! The istari were definitely 3rd age and the 3 elven rings were later and Sauron in his other guise was directly involved in making them. Didn't massively change the story though. The mithril origin changing is a bigger issue for me tbh but i'm just viewing it as a show that is loosely based on the books and trying to enjoy it for what it is

Excellent costumes though i won't deny i was more jealous of the arcade machines! Excellent collection!!

the contact part is a funny one sometimes. It does vary style by style, school by school i find. As an example i've been told at my shotokan class that i should be striking with power and would hit the opponent if not defended (obvious caveats of don't go in like a truck on a kid or a much older/smaller person) but for similar grades/ages students that if they don't block it it is then their fault if they get hit. I actually got told that at a grading if i am leading with the strike and the Uke doesn't defend it properly then failure to hit them would result in me being marked down (as my distance wasn't correct etc). Have trained in other styles thought where the expectation would be that if the student missed that it should be stopped and just touch them at most. Relative skill levels and recurrence are relevant i think. If you hit your opponent more than once because they can't defend it then you need to revise what you are doing / take a look at things. I do agree with bushido_man though!

they condensed several thousand years of in book history into a few years but i think they did it smoothly tbh. Also the 'stranger' that the harfoots meet is not included in the story for this time period at all (assuming it is the character most believe it to be). I did like the identity they chose for Sauron though. It was easy to spot quite early on but i thought it made the season more interesting personally

Baseball is an interesting game - i think i saw a stat that McCullers hadn't given up a home run from a breaking ball in 650 off speed pitches thrown this season! Then he gives up 5! It really is becoming a Velocity game now - the stuff that a lot of the top pitchers have is crazy now. I remember when it was a huge deal that Zumaya could hit 100; the big unit had a scary fastball because it was 97/98. Now it seems everyone decent sits at 97/98!

Tuesday 1st November Lifting Session All sets were supersets. first set of bench press was followed by first set of kb cleans, second set by first set of KB goblet squat. Triceps pushdowns were superset with KB towel curls. Got main part of workout finished faster than expected so added in some arm work - it is listed within the prescribed assistance work anyway and i don't do enough of it! Erred on the side of caution with the assistance work since i don't often do such a dense workout but pleasantly surprised as managing it all fine Bench Press 20kg x 8 30kg x 3 42.5kg x 5 50kg x 5 57.5kg x 5 42.5kg x 5 42.5kg x 5 42.5kg x 5 42.5kg x 5 42.5kg x 5 These felt easy as expected since the TM used to calculate was lower. Concentrated a lot on form, exploding the concentric up fast and tried to work on holding an arch for benching. I usually don't but i know it is ideal form so thought it was worth working on while i am using lower weights KB Clean (reps are per hand - did Left and Right) 16kg x 6 16kg x 6 16kg x 6 16kg x 6 16kg x 6 KB Goblet Squat 16kg x 10 16kg x 10 16kg x 10 16kg x 10 16kg x 10 Triceps Straight bar pushdown (superset with the KB towel curls) 20kg x 10 20kg x 10 20kg x 10 KB towel curls 20kg x 10 20kg x 10 20kg x 10 Captains of crush grippers S x 10 S x 10 S x 10 Total workout time : 38.5min Total poundage lifted : 5022.5kg density : 130.45 kg/min

My (hockey) St Louis Blues went 24 straight years of making the playoffs without even getting to the Stanley Cup Finals. It took them 51 years from their inception before they won their first Stanley Cup. I feel your pain. thats true though i will see your 24 years and raise you the Marv Levy Bills reaching 4 superbowls and not winning one! For that period of time there were three certainties in life : Death, Taxes and the Bills losing in the Superbowl! I was going to ask if you were a fan during those years. I remember those Super Bowls. I also remember the Bills beating my Chiefs in the AFC title game, losing Joe Montana to injury. Oh, Marty-Ball, I remember those days.... It is also odd to see how quickly people forget. I went to the Bills london game a few years ago in a bills Jersey with Thurman Thomas name and number and had a few people pointing and saying who was that, he doesn't play for the Bills!!! This was in our still crap days too so no excuse that it was new Josh Allen fans!

3 days per week works better but the issue is the other half flatly refuses to let me have that many evenings per week plus martial arts training due to us having 2 small kids (one is 2.5 one is almost 6). I was doing 3 days per week throughout the covid lockdowns and it worked best but 2 days is what i can generally get away with. That plus karate once or twice a week and ideally bjj once or twice a week seems to be as much as i can fit in and also allow for recovery etc. I try to get to bjj on lunchtime at work and take my son to the karate which means that on a usual week i can get in bjj mon, lifting tues, karate wed, bjj thurs and lifting Sat Thats why i thought the new programme might work best as it should let me get the lifts in but also get a relatively high workout density. A quick google about seemed to show it was a oft used 531 template for martial artists / mma guys and is actually the one that Wendler recommends. If you have a better idea to point me towards then happy to take a look! Age wise i will be 43 in December and i work in a professional job (i'm an actuary) so typical work days are 9 til 6/7 Mon-Fri with the odd time needed at weekends etc if that helps

Now that the show has been finished for a little bit, and people have had some time to reflect, whats the general verdict? Myself i enjoyed it. I think it picked up in the last few episodes quite a bit and am curious about the next season. A Few quibbles but on the whole i think they did a good job

i pretty much go Star Wars themed whenever possible so i have a vader with glowing red eyes that looks quite spooky. Xmas gets a Palpatine on top of the xmas tree; instead of an Elf on the shelf i have a Vader on the shelf etc.

quick update - took longer to recover than expected (hence the lack of updates to this thread!). Finally feeling better now though so going to try a gym session tonight. Have also decided to slightly adjust my programme. I have been following a 2dpw 531 programme pretty much continuously but i thought it was worth tweaking it a little now. Often when i go to lift i end up on a short timer (45min/50min) before i need to be back to help out with the kids, which means i often don't get to do quite the assistance work i was planning to do volume wise) so i think i am going to shift slightly to a 2dpw 531 krypteia variant. This involves supersetting in some of the assistance with the main lift and should allow me to get everything done faster. Programming based on the time now should allow me to plan everything in advance and get exactly what i wanted to do done in time. Structure goes : Set 1 of main lift Set 1 of assistance lift 1 set 2 of main lift set 1 of assistance lift 2 .... set 10 of main lift set 5 of assistance lift 2 for the main lift sets i will use the 531 percentages for the relevant weeks but the reps for the main lift will be 2 warm up sets, 3 'percentage sets' for 5 reps each, 5 sets at the weight of the first percentage set for 5 reps. Assistance rep ranges will be adjusted based on the lift but ideally 10 reps. Will start out lighter to start with to get used to the additional workout density Am also adjusting the TM downwards to start the programme. Took the weight i managed 5 reps for in prior routine and have taken 80% of that for the TM. Increases will be either applied at the end of every 'cycle' or the end of every 2nd cycle. i will see how it is going and adjust accordingly. Goals from the programme are to increase overall strength and get into better condition. This should then carryover well to the martial arts training

Must admit that i am curious about this. How do you guys go about conditioning your toes appropriately at the start? I can see that for an experienced practitioner it may simply be a case of gradually applying more force to the kick, since the toes can already handle it. Am more curious what you do for brand new students. Roundhouse kicks with the toes are definitely a devastating kick - i think that it is what the MMA fighter Giga Chikadze has been doing and he has managed several brutal ko;s from them. I was also thinking that it might be a useful thing to work on a little in case of a kick going wrong when kicking with the other parts of the foot. While it might be a minor risk that it would land in the same manner as a toe kick, it could happen, so might be worth training for a little.

It's a good sign that the other students already feel like they can come to you with issues. Is always a tough thing when someone goes from being a student / one of the masses to any position of authority (be it in martial arts or the workplace) and managing the personal relationships around the transition. Sounds like you are doing a good job! Also, while it is never good for someone to be hurt (goes without saying), if there had to be someone involved in a minor incident that necessitated the class being given a reminder it maybe worked out well that it was your son - it demonstrates clearly that you are fair and don't play favourites! Sounds like the instructing is going well - Excellent!

Personally i am hoping for the Astros to win for two reasons (one of which i will admit is a little odd). 1) I would like to see Verlander win another world series. He is a clear hall of fame pitcher and i think he has been a little underappreciated throughout his career (doesn't have enough CY Youngs i think etc) 2) I am slightly odd in that i prefer the clear best team to win rather than an underdog or someone "getting lucky / getting hot at the right time". I was hoping for a Dodgers vs Astros WS for that reason. I think most people could see over the entire season that the Astros were the best team out of them and the Phillies. Is kinda like the Giants teams that won 3 world series and were never really the best team in any year - they just got hot really I'd also like to see Verlander win a game regardless of the final income - for him to be 0-6 in WS games is slightly crazy!

My (hockey) St Louis Blues went 24 straight years of making the playoffs without even getting to the Stanley Cup Finals. It took them 51 years from their inception before they won their first Stanley Cup. I feel your pain. thats true though i will see your 24 years and raise you the Marv Levy Bills reaching 4 superbowls and not winning one! For that period of time there were three certainties in life : Death, Taxes and the Bills losing in the Superbowl!

How did i not see this thread!!! I am the rarity of a Scottish baseball fan. Personally i follow the Mariners (have done since the Big unit era). I follow the Bills and the Mariners and have been used to years of them being less than good - makes a change for them to both be decent now!

Thats an impressive total! What is more impressive is that they are pertinent and not just building a total as sometimes happens on some forums!

Out of curiosity have you ever tried front squatting? I used to find that quite a good option sometimes and it was really good for core strength. My wrist flexibility isn't that great anymore (legacy of some injuries) so i use lifting straps to make little 'handles' that allow for correct elbow positioning etc. Just thought it might be another option if you don't like the safety squat bar

Awesome, hopefully that's you found your solution!

Saturday 15th October Weights session I decided to try an ad-hoc lighter weights session to see how i was recovered. I thought i might as well do a lighter arms session as that would be a good test and then can get back to the 'proper' sessions next week if all is good Olympic Barbell curls 20kg x 10 25kg x 10 30kg x 8 Straight bar pushdowns 25kg x 10 25kg x 10 25kg x 10 KB hammer curls 16kg x 10 16kg x 10 16kg x 10 Single arm KB triceps extension 8kg x 12 8kg x 12 8kg x 12 wrist curls with E-Z Bar superset with below 10kg x 20 10kg x 20 10kg x 20 reverse E-Z bar wrist curls (second part of superset) 10kg x 20 10kg x 20 10kg x 20 reverse ones felt a lot harder as expected but got all reps in Hand gripper S x 10 S x 10 S x 10 I looked out my old 'captains of crush' grippers and thought it would be a good idea to start using these again. Started with the S for 3 sets of 10 Overall session felt fine

Wednesday 12th October Karate Session Was beginning to feel a little better so i thought it made sense to try a karate session and see if things were genuinely improving Warm ups Kihon Usual grade kihon Kumite drills We were doing some kumite drills which involves a leaning tsuki punch to the same side as the arm throwing it and then darting through into the same space following the punch. Not an oi-tsuki . Can't remember the exact phrase. Was an interesting exercise, but if i am being honest i can't see when i would ever actually use it! Kata Several rounds of Heian Yondan and the CI picked up some more bits for me to work on, which were good. Thankfully they were straightforward enough - more a case of "just do this rather than that" so seem straightforward to apply Then we did multiple rouns of kata, starting with Kihon kata and progressing up the katas one by one until you reached your grading kata and then keep performing that one until everyone had reached their grading kata. Was as useful exercise Session felt slightly more tiring than usual but nothing concerning so that is good!

Haven't published many updated in last fortnight as have been ill, managed a couple of sessions in last few days which i will log. Just an annoying virus i think - got sent for blood tests etc which were all clear (thankfully!) Was off work for fortnight too annoyingly so need to catch up now!

Hello and welcome!

Thanks for the suggestions! I plan to take it gradually, no need to push to fast and run the risk of injury - at the end of the day this isn't the day job so it makes sense to err on the side of caution. Isn't holding me back training wise either, it is just a preference.

Hopefully it's not this reason but it could well be! I'm hoping that the fact my 'straight ahead' flexibility for front kicks etc is still not too bad means it isn't that but if it is, then it is what it is!