THE BROWN SHOGUN - japanese language progress + social life update

[Bman]

what am i supposed to study to actually be able to accurately tell what hurts and how i can diagnose it? is it anatomy? physical therapy?

The Trigger Point Therapy Workbook: Your Self-Treatment Guide for Pain Relief:

This book will show you every muscle, where your pain is occurring, where it radiates to other parts of your body, why you have pain there, and most importantly, how to fix it your god damn self.

I've used this book dozens of times for pain from weightlifting, sleeping wrong, poor posture or whatever and usually get rid of the pain in a few days, sometimes a couple weeks depending on the trigger point causing the pain.

One of the best $15 I've ever spent on a book.

[colgate]

@Bman

thanks for the book! i found a copy online and found the relevant sections for my problem

i ended up taking a nap first and then i checked it out. the pain wasn't as bad after my nap

684525.jpg

this is the exact spot where the pain is, and it specifically hurts when i turn my neck left (i flipped the image so this is accurate)

according to the book, this is the "levator scapulae"

スクリーンショット 2023-01-06 13.11.59.png

i wrote out the procedures for these trigger points in this note so it's easier to read
https://bulldog-pen.notion.site/neck-ro ... 335fef620f


i had this lying around for uhhh...reasons and figured this would be a good thing to use a "hook-tool" (sans power!)

684559.jpg

i also watched a bunch of videos like this one because i had no idea if i was even doing this correctly


i still don't really know if i did anything tbh. as i kept randomly pressing points and moving my neck around randomly to test, pain would wane in and out. but it certainly wasn't as bad as this morning.

i think i was just tired so my ability to handle pain might have been less? it was like a 4-5/10 in the morning. after the morning nap maybe a 3. and now it's more like a 1-2.

the book says




on that note, these are the things i ended up doing today
woke up at 6:30
meditated 10 min
ate breakfast
go outside!!!!

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i'm in fucking japan!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


i basically went to the station near my house, got on the train, and then got off at a random stop.

walked around and then got high from the 山椒 peppers from some sichuan food.

guys i have ended racism, an indian guy from america goes to japan to eat chinese food





i'll update with tomorrow's plan later, i'm waiting for my friend to confirm if he's free to meet tomorrow so i can decide what i need to do for the day

[colgate]

TOMORROW I WILL BE A SUCCESS
() meditate RIGHT NOW and then turn on asmr sleeping vid
() wake up 6:30am
() meditate 10 mins
() eat breakfast
() dynamic stretching
() () () trigger points massage 3x
() hyperbolic stretching - side splits
() read one article or watch (actually fully comprehend) one video from http://cknanpa.com/
() 150g protein

today was slightly derailed by my random pain, but i think it should be ok? just going to do the trigger points massage and rest tomorrow again.

i'm going to meet a friend tomorrow night, another one on sunday, and another one on monday. so i'll be getting my fill of "going out" for the next 3 days.

[klondike]

That’s a very common area to get tightness and pain.

On YouTube look up “lacrosse ball neck massage” videos—you have to get something solid and really jam it in there since the knots in that area can be deep in the tissue.

[Zug]

I went through this exactly for a year, and the issue was never in the muscle. It was spinal injury, and caused the disc protruding into the nerve. Unless you're really familiar with nerve pain, it is very difficult to feel the difference. I never realized it and kept pushing it in the gym, eventually I did something stupid and ruptured the disc entirely. No one can diagnose you over the internet, myself included. That said, everything you're describing sounds like a nerve issue to me. One method that can help make it more clear is to take a large dose of ibuprofen, like 1200mg or so. If the pain barely goes down, it is more likely to be spine/nerves.

[NightRoller]

@natedawg, @Squilliam

Meditation also makes sex better, especially breathing slowly and with your belly while focusing simply on your breath going in and out like @colgate said.

I've been with my partners for five years, and a few weeks ago when I tried breathing like this and meditating during sex for the first time it was an amazing experience and I felt super in control and comfortable maintaining intense eye contact and like I could have fucked her for as long as I wanted.

Afterwards she told me it was extra good for her as well and that I had a very confident look in my eyes that really drove her wild.

Give it a try and see for yourself!

Saw your link to @colgate 's awesome meditation post and this is the straw that broke the camel's back, I'm going to practice meditating.

By the way Colgate, it's pretty awesome you came across this--it's very similar in most respects to a guy I followed very closely last year (Mark Queppet, for porn addiction crushing)'s method for breathing exercises. Perhaps one of the more distinct differences is the idea of trying to slow down your breathing to the point where it's "just barely enough", so your body is simultaneously asking for more air as you're giving it air and it supposedly gives you a bit of pleasure by fulfilling that need (similar to breathing after holding your breath for a whole minute, but this is slower and less explosive). Another is MQ's focus on trying to relax your body as much as possible (not lay down fall asleep, but relax in your chair or standing etc.) and trying to maintain that relaxed state while focusing on breathing at the same time.

It was good to read your post on meditation.

[colgate]

One method that can help make it more clear is to take a large dose of ibuprofen, like 1200mg or so. If the pain barely goes down, it is more likely to be spine/nerves.

I will try this tomorrow, I have the most pain when I wake up, probably because i sleep stomach down and turn my head to the side. so i'll see what taking 1200mg ibuprofen does throughout the day instead of the trigger points massage

i just did the trigger points massage again and the pain went from like a 3-4 to a 2.

as in, "there is pain if i 'push the limits' of rotating my neck", but otherwise i can do whatever activities fine

that being said, this is what the trigger point book has to say regarding stopping "too early"

スクリーンショット 2023-01-07 7.06.04.png

i'm still not even sure if i'm doing this right. or if the pain is just going away from me moving my neck around regardless of me pressing the "trigger points". and idk if this is actually a muscle or nerve problem. so we'll have to see

[Zug]

The problem with nerve injuries, especially if you haven't had them before, is that they're very difficult to distinguish from muscle issues. The pain will be in the neck or an extremity, but there is literally nothing wrong in that part of the body. The issue is happening at the nerve as it branches out from the spinal column. I suffered some horrible nerve injuries when I ruptured multiple discs in my neck. I lost partial use of my right arm and feeling, feeling in two of my fingers. In general, the pattern is a recurrent pain that gets mildly worse over time (disc pushing into the nerve), then if you keep training hard through it and not preventing the movement aggravating it you can get a full rupture of the disc popping out.

Some general tips for identifying the difference, especially in the neck:
Ibuprofen does little for nerve pain, but quite a bit for muscle pain
In general, anyone pressing on the affected area doesn't cause much increase in the pain
Pressing on the correct part of the spine causes an increase in the pain
The issue is causing loss in your range of motion
Any "pins and needles" type feeling in the area
Aggravated by sleeping, at it's absolute worst in the morning
Aggravated by sitting, feels better when standing and moving

For me, the issue is caused from overhead pressing, chins, or bench pressing (if you drive your head into the bench). You can buy an at home traction kit to help decompress and relieve some of the pain. Pay close attention to what days the pain feels worse and try to backtrack to what exercises you did the day before. The pain typically takes some time to onset and is rarely instantaneous. In my experience, you can still train when the pain is present if you do so intelligently and it's mild. If you've lost ROM in your neck, you're in the 'danger zone' and the disc is protruding. Training at that point can be done, but it is dicey, any further mistake is risking a rupture.

[colgate]

overhead pressing

ok i did some above bodyweight overhead presses a few times so maybe that needs to stop lol

In general, anyone pressing on the affected area doesn't cause much increase in the pain

actually got a mild increase in pain here. went from like a 1 to a 1.5-2 lol

Pressing on the correct part of the spine causes an increase in the pain

pressed all up and down my spine and no change

Any "pins and needles" type feeling in the area

have had none of this actually, it's just "normal pain"

Aggravated by sitting, feels better when standing and moving

also this doesn't happen, only when sleeping



i can describe the scenario in which this happened

first time - july 2019
maybe 3.5 years ago, i was heavy squatting 5x5. i came out of the last rep and habitually turned my neck left so i could see where the bar was going to rerack it.

it felt like i literally "pulled the muscle" (not sure if that's actually what happened). i think the bar was resting in a certain spot and turning left basically stretched it out??? i have no idea but that's what it felt like happened.

regardless, i immediately stopped and drove home. the moment i arrived at home i could not move my neck at all. it was like my body shot enough adrenaline in the moment so i could safely drive home and then once i was actually home i was in absolute agony.

i had to wear a neck brace for a few days and i didn't go to the gym for a few weeks


second time - september 2022
basically the same thing happened again, except i was doing smith machine squats.

it didn't feel that bad at first so i thought i could continue my workout for the day, and i did. but i didn't realize how bad it was

and it wasn't debilitating to the point of putting me in a neck brace, but regardless i couldn't workout for a while. light movements of all exercises were painful.


third time - now
there was no specific incident that made this pain happen, other than i did a shoulder day for the first time in a few weeks.

that shoulder day was monday jan 2. i also did a leg day the next day, but on one of the sets i accidentally loaded one side of the barbell with the wrong weight (had 20+10kg on one side and 20+15kg on the other), so when i unracked it i was like whoa WTF. i was able to rerack it and fix the weight.

i also did a light back/bicep day on thursday (pullups, lat pulldowns, dumbbell rows, and bicep curls)

this pain came out of nowhere yesterday when i was supposed to do chest day (i didn't go to the gym because of it).

also thursday night i woke up like 3 or 4 times because of it, and i think i woke up this morning really early (like at 3am) as well. though today has not been as bad as yesterday morning was



maybe this timeline will help, not sure. will answer any other questions ofc


lol now that i write this, maybe i gotta quit back squatting

ANOTHER EDIT: ok i think this might be nerve pain after all. i have noticed my right pinkie also has pain and randomly i just noticed the type of "shooting" pain that nerve pain should feel like. will do more research later tonight

[colgate]

meditate RIGHT NOW and then turn on asmr sleeping vid
wake up 6:30am
meditate 10 mins
eat breakfast
dynamic stretching
trigger points massage 3x
hyperbolic stretching - side splits
read one article or watch (actually fully comprehend) one video from http://cknanpa.com/
150g protein

i didn't do the final trigger points massage because i thiiiink this might be nerve pain??? maybe it's time to consult the personal trainer again ahahah

i almost feel like i was just imagining that the random pain i also somehow have in my pinkie is related to the neck pain. i wish there was a way to somehow trigger the pain to test if it's actually connected to my pinkie because i honestly feel like i was just imagining things. i'm in a weird spot now because it totally does not affect my day now but i don't know if it's a good idea to push myself hard in the gym now with this.

that being said i'm going to meet a friend tomorrow and show him how to workout lol. but i'll do a light workout.

i was half heartedly reading this article on the train on my way to meet a friend today but i only read like half of it and i didn't really take it in. all i remember is it was an approach session report.
http://cknanpa.com/blog-entry-63.html



usually i do my entire todo list and then i do random bullshit for the rest of the day. but i stopped after doing hyperbolic stretching. i always have to meditate before stretching because otherwise i can't focus and zone in on stretches, since i personally find them boring (but i need to do them).

i should have meditated again after the stretches.

also i said this earlier but i need to meditate when i get home instead of immediately going on the computer. from now on im gonna make it a habit to turn off my computer when i go out or go to bed. it's too easy to get distracted when i have 6 tabs open and a bunch of random windows of dopamine conveniently there, while i have to go and hunt for the thing i'm actually looking for

[colgate]

TOMORROW I WILL BE A SUCCESS

() meditate + asmr video to sleep
() wake up at 6:30am
() eat breakfast
() meditate 10 min
() dynamic stretching
() hyperbolic stretching - front splits
() start laundry
() take shower immediately after
() 150g protein

i'm going to hang out with a friend tomorrow so this is pretty much just my morning routine

also tomorrow i'm going to experiement with doing no trigger points massage and no ibuprofen. need a control day to see how the pain progresses

[colgate]

meditate + asmr video to sleep
wake up at 6:30am (the one night i forgot to check if my alarm was set last night, it wasn't and i woke up at 7:10am. not the worst delay but i cant slip up like this)
eat breakfast
meditate 10 min
dynamic stretching
hyperbolic stretching - front splits
start laundry
take shower immediately after
150g protein

first of all, completely forgot about my neck pain and as i write this it's literally a zero. although my right pinkie is still at like a 1 so idk. still no idea if that's related or not.

i met my friend in yokohama today and i taught him the basic principles of lifting with a program i made up that u can do at home. then we ate a LOT!!!! of shabu-shabu

so i'm going to just give myself slack today because it was a reasonably productive day anyway

i think in general if i plan on meeting up with a friend for most of the day, i'll give myself more slack because
- i'm not on the fucking computer all day
- i'm outside
- i'm doing something social
- i'm speaking japanese (i speak basically 100% japanese to pretty much every person i meet here, with few exceptions)
- i get thrown in more daily life situations in japan where i have to avoid being "the retard foreigner" as much as possible

doing introductory convo with japanese people is basically brainlessly easy for me and of course i get plenty of "wow ur japanese is so good" within 2 words (which you will get if you literally know "konnichiwa" and "arigatou") and even the occasional "you actually kind of sound like a japanese person"

but the moment i actually have to explain concepts or "express thoughts" my ability goes to babbling 6 year old level. explaining various lifting principles to my japanese friend straight up felt like an elementary school kid explaining to his teacher how to do something

also when i'm alone i pay attention more to uhhhh.... "facility procedures", employee instructions, form filling and the like but if i'm with a japanese person, my brain usually just shuts off and i just tell my friend to explain to me what the deal is (i usually understand what my friends say, but employees tend to use more complex words and are harder to understand). this will be a point i will need to specifically work on in the future so i can get out of "bumbling foreigner" territory

that being said obviously these kinds of interactions are actually beneficial for my japanese

also i found out i'm better at more complex japanese thoughts when i do a rough outline in english. i wrote up notes for my friend based on what i (tried) to explain to him today while we were working out.

スクリーンショット 2023-01-08 22.05.07.png

スクリーンショット 2023-01-08 22.05.15.png

スクリーンショット 2023-01-08 22.05.21.png

you can see from the message lengths that i basically wrote bullet points in english and then the japanese is in more detail than the english.

obviously a crutch but over time i won't need the crutch anymore. with these explanations my japanese gets upgraded from a 6 year old's to maybe a 12 year old's

also next time i have to explain working out or talking about it to people, i have all these new words i learned from skimming various japanese articles and trying to write my own thoughts using the language used in said articles.

the value from this experience is now i know a way to learn new vocab and get more comfortable in certain daily life situations and japanese interactions. i just need to think of as many novel daily life situations as i can, throw myself into them to get intel on what it's like in japan, and then when i get home i can backtrack and "study" it in the comfort of my room.

(for example, i learned today that i need to go and read a bunch of these types of "complex health forms". it would be straight up useful to just find more like this and read them all at home so i'm not sitting there like a fucking retard who's either 1) taking 15 minutes to read 10 questions 2) half-assedly skimming the questions and using intuition+luck to answer them 3) just telling the employee to explain it to me in dumbass japanese which ends up resulting in them telling me what to circle for a quarter of the questions and then "don't worry about the rest of this, it's fine")

kenkouform.jpg

will do wonders for when i start going on dates again and i have more to talk about than "omg japan is so different, this is what it's like in america!!!!!!" (although that is a good topic to get things going)

so overall, productive day even if i didn't do all the fucking to-do list items

[colgate]

TOMORROW I WILL BE A SUCCESS

() meditate + asmr video to sleep
() wake up at 6:30am
() eat breakfast
() meditate 10 min
() dynamic stretching
() hyperbolic stretching - front splits
() take shower immediately after
() 150g protein

tomorrow i'm meeting a different friend. we're going to go to a japanese temple in harajuku near my place and then she's going to have me check out a bicycle at her place that she might give me if i like it. getting a bike will be really good for getting me to go outside more and explore, and i can check out tokyo above ground instead of being the rat in the sewer traveling through the subway trains. so morning routine only tomorrow

[colgate]

last night i ended up staying up all night on my phone



a couple things kind of happened over the past few days

- at first when i was making the to-do lists, i was straight up knocking out all the items before even opening up my computer. maybe i'd use my phone during breakfast but i'd even minimize that usage and get to doing my routine straight away

- i hit the first "make or break" point where motivation has run out and all you're left with is habit. i had started waking up and immediately sitting on the computer instead of doing my routine. i'd do the routine after a "little bit" but that "little bit" went from maybe an hour, to a few hours later, to eventually not doing it at all

- these effects were compounded by the fact that i had yet to find an effective method for falling asleep consistently. so even if i shut everything off at 21:30, i ended up not being able to fall asleep until close to midnight. and then eventually i started just using my phone again and etc. so i had been averaging 5-6 hours of sleep a night, making it so that most days i'd end up napping for 2-4 hours, and then my "most mentally active period" was like freaking 19:00-20:00, right when i should be winding down

i hit many of the same erratic thought patterns i had been bursting out about weeks ago last night. but as i wrote in my log previously about "todo lists" and discipline and etc, i know i can recreate it again.

the big recent insight is that the next day starts the night before. having a plan for the next day and being well-rested has been the biggest determinant of how my next day goes. and fucking that up compounds the drab of the next day.



so with that preface, i'm going to start over with SIMPLE, but from a different point.

i will switch my focus on nailing down my night routine. the goal of the night routine will be to get me to consistently fall asleep "on command"

(btw i've seen all the various random tricks and procedures for "FALL ASLEEP IN 2 MINUTES: MILITARY METHOD!!!!" the lack of information isn't a problem for me, it's actually doing them and finding something that works personally for me)

once that's nailed down i'll combine the night routine with the morning one again.

pretty sure im going to crash at some point today, so today will just be trying to manage making sure my sleep schedule doesn't go haywire and i'm back to waking up at 6:30am normally with enough sleep



so with that being said...

TONIGHT I WILL BE A SUCCESS
() computer OFF at 21:00
() meditate 10 mins
() listen to falling asleep asmr video

i've noticed it takes me at least 30mins to wind down and actually fall asleep, and i feel like going to bed 9 hours before cuts too close, so pushing this back even further.

i'll link said asmr video once i've gotten it to consistently work. but out of the 2 times i tried it so far, it has gotten me into the "almost asleep" state (which is good because then i basically end up actually quickly falling asleep). once i think i have the process nailed down solid, i'll post it + my extra tips

[colgate]

also want to note a general life lesson about making mistakes real quick

let's say i have to be accountable for my actions. such as me posting my todo lists and reports here.

of course i enjoy reporting when TODAY IS A SUCCESS



but the flipside of accountability is also reporting fuckups.

if i fuck up, i tend to get immobilized and stew even more in the fuckup because i know i have to write up and be accountable for my fuckups.

obviously i hate writing about those. it's embarrassing. and i don't want to look like a fucking loser.



thoughts of how can i coyly "reword" the fuckup and excuse myself come up.

can i twist my own words into a loophole and exploit it? (e.g. lol technically i was awake at 6:30 because i stayed up all night!)

the thought of even straight up lying comes to mind.



last night was particularly egregious. as each half hour passed, my mental justifications kept changing

"oh well you really actually only need 7-8 hours of sleep. it's still 9:30 you can chill" ("chill" but actually just watching youtube videos on my phone in bed)

"oh well usually you only get 6 hours of sleep anyway so it'll be fine don't worry"

"3 hours of sleep is actually better because now you'll definitely (not!) go to bed early tomorrow from exhaustion. also you can just wake up at 6:30, run to the store real quick to post proof that you woke up and then immediately sleep again"

eventually it was like 4:30 and "getting less than 2 hours of sleep to lie that i actually woke up and started my day" clearly was following the letter instead of the spirit.



what got me to finally write about it here was literally doing like less than a minute of introspection to trace back the causes of why this happened in the first place, and what i can learn from this.

that even if there's a fuckup, it's more productive to think about what lessons can be learned from it instead of self-victimizing and assaulting yourself



of course succeeding is the best

but failure is the second best