THE BROWN SHOGUN - japanese language progress + social life update

[colgate]

- random shoulder pain when lowering lateral raises (???)

try this

funnily enough, that's literally the first video i watched when i came home, and i even drew my middle delt on myself with a marker jeff cavalier style and experimented with the levers. but i didn't have anything heavy+small enough in my room to induce the pain.

i actually already do lateral raises externally rotated too so not sure what the deal is. tried a couple alternate methods today in the gym with some light (5kg) dumbbells (light enough that i can experiment, but heavy enough to induce the pain), and sure enough i felt it again (chest in, chest out, standing up, bent over, external rotation, internal rotation, no rotation etc)

i decided rather than potentially have some forum volley where people send me random YouTube videos and research without actually seeing me in person, that i would book a quick personal training sesh at my gym so someone can directly look at it and give me some advice. also hooray because now i have to get training advice in japanese lol!!!! (at least side delt is literally "saido deruto" lolz!!!)

[colgate]

IMG20221210181747.jpg

IMG20221210181758.jpg

still having trouble actually falling asleep when i want to, and additionally i want to sleep when i don't want to (morning, afternoon)

but i'm just arrogantly turning off my phones at 10:00pm and reading books/manga instead.

i noticed i am really tired when i go out into shibuya or harajuku or otherwise some place where i have to walk 2-3km, eat a large meal, and then come home.

so maybe i need to make a routine to go out into the main city and walk home after dark so i come home wanting to sleep

[MakingAComeback]

KEEP WORKING KING

SHOW THEM YOUR GREATNESS

NONE OF THESE DUDES CAN MATCH YOU

SHOW THEM WHAT A TRUE LEGEND IS CAPABLE OF

AND WHEN YOU HAVE YOUR HAREM OF BEAUTIFUL JAPANESE WOMEN SURROUNDING YOU, I HOPE WE CAN RAISE A GLASS OF SAKE TOGETHER


KEEP HAMMERING,
MAC

[colgate]

IMG20221211122342.jpg

ok youtube shorts are a TRAP. i was like "oh these are in japanese so it's fine", but then of course a bunch of random pointless prank and trick videos were also thrown in and i blew off like 2-3 hours.

japanese listening
and i did my active listening afterwards. but i realized i'm doing nowhere near enough. it only takes me like 20-30 minutes to get through 1-2 minutes of the current content i'm watching, which is this channel:


channel is full of daygame and dating related content in japanese. i basically understand the gist and about 50%ish on the first watch/listen. there are also japanese subs though, so i have to put my phone face down or else i just read the subs!! THERE AIN'T NO SUBTITLES IN REAL LIFE. but they're helpful because it makes checking my work really quick, and i know enough Japanese to also tell in the 2% of situations where he says something slightly different from the subs.

the reason i'm being autistic about 100% comprehension is because japanese people are ruthless when it comes to you not hearing/misunderstanding something. on the other hand, when you do understand what's going on it's completely normal. but if you fuck up.......!! "ai sei zu yuu wanto bagu???" it's basically a completely accurate measuring stick for your japanese level.

and the reason i care about all this is because when i get engrished on i get pissed off and insecure.

i know some people do great in japan without japanese but that isn't me

just like how some guys do great without being jacked. guess what, that also isn't me


sleep
except for that magic one night a few days ago, i've consistently struggled to actually fall asleep within an hour or so. still adamantly keeping the devices off

last night it was maybe around midnight, i'm not sure but i'd read some manga and already gotten bored of reading the manga.

i was staring at the skylight looking at the moon. and then thinking some very dark thoughts, the worst possible (i don't feel like sharing those here tbh because it's just a byproduct of waste thinking)

"i gotta get outta here!!!!"

i walked outside for 2 hours, all the way from shibuya to shinjuku and back.

i came home around 3:30am and almost immediately crashed

[colgate]

i had a small personal training session yesterday regarding my shoulder

i got the gist of what i'm supposed to do but there was like 30% that i have no idea what he said!!! i remember certain points too so i might just go up and try to ask him again.

but in general he said my muscles are really really stiff. i was also tense from having someone else touch me, but he said even so i have very stiff muscles

my lifting protocol and eating are good, but i need to do muscle massage and icing

and i'm not allowed to do shoulder day for the rest of the month... which SUCKS!!! i hate this!!! but he reassured me that if i rest properly and do these "care" routines then I'll be able to advance again

this is the second time this year some random injury has fucked with my training. it's not enough to just show up to the gym and hurl around weights and gobble down food. i gotta implement full body stretching too!

at least i can do the other days I have (chest, back, legs), tho he said to chill with push movements. and he gave me another stretching type routine to do in place of my shoulder day

Screenshot_2022-12-12-12-13-31-34_6f8f7a6a69f2aa2976412416ecb84f7a.jpg

do at home:
1. 15 minute icing, 1 set
2. in bath, use body soap to massage, 15-20min

Thursday 2-3 sets
pics of stretches



i think i'm going to study anatomy and personal training in japan and become a personal trainer in the future......

[pancakemouse]

I don't know anything about your specific case, but injury (whether acute or chronic) happens when muscles are exerted beyond the force they are capable of withstanding. I will continue to insist that training slowly (more than 3 seconds positive and negative) is the best way to prevent injury, by preventing acceleration and force peaks.

[colgate]

ultra long vid but go to 22:55 to see a cameo of a japanese policeman asking me wtf i'm doing walking around with my phone at night

now i'm actually grateful for my shoulder injury because it probably accelerated a new realization

victim mindset
-> cue that i feel bad and it's not my fault
-> i need to self-medicate, and i'm justified in doing so
-> default is to digital binge
-> get angry at myself for the 26368324th time

other than being able to actually fall asleep at the time i want to, on paper this past week i was doing everything correct. going to the gym, eating calories, active japanese listening.

but whenever i wasn't doing those, i was going down long and wasteful thought patterns.

Screenshot_2022-12-13-05-03-01-32_6f8f7a6a69f2aa2976412416ecb84f7a.jpg

line i clipped from "think simply / 考えすぎない人の考え方"
考えすぎると時間もエネルギーも浪費するばかり。
thinking too much is just a WASTE of your time and energy
瞑想しよう。目的に集中しろ。
meditate, focus on your goals

these especially happened when i was walking to and from the gym, and even more so when i was left with "nothing to do" and i had to try to fall asleep

i had basically gone so far as to open up wounds that i thought i had healed years ago. the ones where i felt completely useless to the world and i'm scum at the bottom of the barrel. eventually leading into suicidal thoughts and thinking of ways to kill myself.

i hadn't thought things to that degree since i was 16-17 in high school. i had gotten over them though by... actually getting good at things. i indulged in music production, learned another language (japanese obviously), and proved to my dad i wasn't fucking retarded by getting a degree and landing a job where i could be self-sufficient. additionally i finally made friends from zero in college so those thoughts basically never came into my mind again

until now. i literally unplugged from everything i knew and bounced across the pacific to some alien bing bong world (that i wanted to come to) and now i have to handle my own issues.

the random panics where i get out of bed at 2am to slam a bunch of japanese reading or go on 6km walks. this is what they were.

and obviously it's waste thinking. it's cancer thinking if anything and needs to be handled. but i didn't know how and i didn't want to air out waste thinking grievances on this log. i knew that something was fucked up and i knew i would figure it out soon.

i had mild versions of these feelings when i was trying to get over approach anxiety in august of last year, but unlike now, i was DETERMINED to get what i wanted. i was totally green and blissfully unaware of "the sexual marketplace" and etc. so i was able to get over those feelings quickly.

the difference is now, i'm subconsciously using supposedly "low base stats" and comparative experiences with people who "didn't have to do as much and get way better results" as a grievance narrative

Screenshot_2022-12-13-05-33-19-29_3aea4af51f236e4932235fdada7d1643.jpg

at the end of the video, that policeman stopped to talk to me. after i cut the video he wanted to see where i was staying at and my passport. while we were walking he commented that "you've got some muscle there".

wait you can tell through this jacket???
yeah i see it in your chest. how much can you bench?
still only 95kg..... not quite 2 plates.......
wow that's pretty good tho, do you do martial arts too?
i did some boxing in america but i'm still a beginner...

anyway, the plan for handling these wasteful thinking patterns is to add daily meditation to my routine. apparently you don't see the gains until 2-3 months of consistent practice but that's literally like the gym too lol

[natedawg]

Love your perspectives brown shogun!

Remember the saying: "You don't become your highest standards, you become your lowest habits"? This is an example of processing one of your lowest habits. I think you made a great call w/ meditating. I'd also invite you to consider Shadow Work to process those limiting beliefs (gift from @Manly Cockfellow):

You got this brother. Keep pressing!

[colgate]

@MakingAComeback has independently but pretty much simultaneously come to the same conclusions i did and wrote them up in a more eloquent post

i'm fortunate that i had met troy so early in my journey

back in october 2021, he straight up sent me a (slightly more sugar coated) voice message telling me something along the lines of:

"no matter how good your marketing is, you'll never be able to sell a piece of shit. on the other hand, apple hardly needs any marketing to sell the iphone."

he was the one that told me i need to be 165lbs and jacked. 14 months ago

he told me i will need to be proficient at a combat sport

he told me i will need to go to lots of meetups and develop emotional mirroring and connection skills

i am grateful for being told so early on what my ideal product will look like. and somehow finding honest and no bullshit advice up front.

and like MAC, i've tested early iterations of my product through ~2000 approaches and 2-3 months of app grinding, only to be faced with results that don't allow me to go all-in and iterate quickly enough to improve

i've gained roughly 7-10 lbs of muscle since then. went from ~135lbs to ~150lbs. but that's not 165. and even the first time i hit 165, that's not enough because it'll have to be 165 lean

there's no victim if i haven't even met the requisites laid out to me so clearly on from the beginning

and even if i reach those requisites and they somehow change i'll have to catch up

yes, white skin and friendly features somehow override like 50% of the "self-improvement we're all supposed to be doing" and even more with east asians.

maybe i'd like to think if people were more honest about making that far more clear up front i'd have accepted it sooner and it wouldn't have hit me as hard. i'm also 5'5" and i don't feel these things about my height because i feel there's more honesty with "the heightpill" (advice like "put 6'2" in your bio and get height inserts" being common)

but it doesn't matter. now i'm aware. more than i should be maybe. it probably would be better if i "blissfully" slammed the weights at the gym, trained boxing, etc for years before getting into dating. my brother is also brown and he's completely unaware of this; he slammed the weights, got tattoos, and became an auto mechanic and he does great with girls.

but i digress

the product isn't defective, it just isn't finished

finish the damn product before putting it out to market

the most hilarious part is i'm still 26.

i'm only 26

that's insane. 3 years of directed effort and i'll be far closer to the elite levels i'm dreaming of. and i won't even be 30. the current version of me writing this will be entirely unrecognizable.

guys in their 30s now would kill to be in their 20s with what they know now

i know i would love to be 19-20 again

i have to become a machine

the product has to be finished

and the things not allowing the product to be finished must be eradicated

site is called KILL!!! your inner loser

[MakingAComeback]

YEP

This is where I really have tensions within me and anger

Clearly, what we were told about "just look above average" and "just talk to girls" didn't do it for us. We both know why and at least other men who've followed us and understood this will be able to understand the truth and we may be able to save other men from wasting their time in the future.

But there is no one to blame, btw. Everyone was trying to help and no one knew any better, sadly the bros didn't understand and that is unfortunate. There was no one to tell us, because they honestly thought if we did the basics, we'd succeed.

YOU'RE VERY LUCKY YOU MET TROY

I hope KYIL can process these lessons and genuinely learn, otherwise men like me and Colgate are going to have so much of our hard work and effort wasted.

Many other low SMV men will come to our space and they will be told "just look above average and talk to girls"

These men run the real risk of being totally psychologically shattered when they find out this does not work. When they wake up and realise one day all they've been able to do is get laid by totally gross undesirables, they may lose their fucking head.

That is an incredibly unfortunate thing and I wish there was something we could do about it.

Is what it is I guess............

Ravi

[MakingAComeback]

@MakingAComeback has independently but pretty much simultaneously come to the same conclusions i did and wrote them up in a more eloquent post

maybe i'd like to think if people were more honest about making that far more clear up front i'd have accepted it sooner and it wouldn't have hit me as hard. i'm also 5'5" and i don't feel these things about my height because i feel there's more honesty with "the heightpill" (advice like "put 6'2" in your bio and get height inserts" being common)

Just one thing about this post bothered me and I have to say something:

No one here has ever been dishonest with either of us.

They have tried their ass off to help us, and always act in good faith, truly wanting to see us rewarded for the ass busting work we put in.

That I can promise you.

What business has any man to tell another that he won't succeed?

No one can say that. Everyone has a chance. Me and you both have gotten laid with 1 attractive woman, and we both know it Your first was attractive, my 2nd was.

The rest were pretty grim, yeah, but given that we did get SOME success, how could anyone tell us, look guys this isn't going to work out for you unless you body maxxx.

Troy communicated the truth to you, and that was in the back of your mind. Eventually, you had to accept it, though if we're both transparent, we both actually thought just taking action and looking decent would cut it - we were both ignorant of that, as was everyone else.

That said:

-I am DAMN SURE with a fantastic body, great game and tattoos if needs be, the nightmare will end for both of us

Just wanted to clear up the part about people being honest - we need to encourage people to try, Bulldog, because if we don't have people try, they will definitely get nowhere.

If we are more "honest", we do run the risk of failing men. The general, blanket advice to take action IS POSITIVE and it is up to us as individual males to work out shit out in time.

If someone told me, look Ravi, for the first few years of you talking to women, asking them out, and so on, you're going to go on endless dates and they're just going to go nowhere, with absolutely 0 attraction felt towards you, and if you just gut up and go through it, study game and eventually get so frustrated you rip up the rule book and go ALL IN on building an elite physique, then in a few years of brutality, you may be able to go on dates with women who are at least average in looks and they will treat you like an actual human and may even feel something for you. MAYBE.

If I was told, look man, you will have your self image and mental health ground down to a fuckin knub, will have countless sleepless nights, and will have to face your demons head on and gut up to the fact that when it comes to women, the only thing you will have is a small semblance of luck - you are likely to be fighting against the fabric of reality until your drying days, trying to outsmart nature and keep something in the gene pool that nature does not want on this earth, it would have just been even harder than it already is.

At least we can relate to each other, Bulldog, and we can walk beside each other and do whatever it takes to help each other become a success.

I am willing to go to the absolute wall with you & will back you up 100%, until the bitter end.

We've done a lot of talking, we'll crack on with our work now man.

Ravi

[Thrice]

You are two legends guys!
what you achieved and will achieve will be used as positive example for future brown guys who will come here... Some naive advice was given but i think it's in good faith, it's a new community with a small percentage of ethinic minorities... Take me for example, I'm the only Mohamed i think, all they can do is advice me what worked for them, whether girl like Arabic features or not it's up to me to find out

Keep up the great work, this amazing community needs you guys

[colgate]

No one here has ever been dishonest with either of us.

i think "honest" was the wrong word

you're absolutely right that the people we've surrounded ourselves by have not been deliberately dishonest with us. they've put everything they can into making sure we get the best results for our work

there were a few people (whom i won't mention) that would downplay the importance of looks and both you and i know now that those people are flat out wrong

but other than that, i think we were just new data points in the grand scheme of dating. we now know that certain things that weren't made clear up front need to be made more clear. as thrice stated:

Some naive advice was given but i think it's in good faith, it's a new community with a small percentage of ethinic minorities...

and clearly i have way more to fix as i've repeatedly stated. getting hyper jacked, generally chilling out, pursuing more masculine endeavors etc. i think all of my tirades were seeing how certain people "supposedly don't have to do these things and get results anyway". but now i'm just pointlessly echoing things that i said 24.35729 times.

i'll end this post on that note because i don't want to discuss the theoreticals of "what if we made it more clear up front that being white is an advantage in dating just like we do with height".

no reddit-tier discussion on my log!

下手の考え休むに似たり！

[colgate]

IMG20221214094428.jpg

as i said previously i will start meditating everyday from now on.

additionally my shoulder injury is making me reconsider how i approach fitness and getting jacked.

thus, the two new habits i will form are:
- meditating
- stretching

i had been doing occasional front/side split progression stretching 3-4x a week after weight training sessions but it's clearly not enough.

as my former muay thai instructor in california told me a year ago "you are the least flexible person i've ever worked with"

lol great!!!! another thing i'm the worst at!!!!

but seeing as i keep getting random injuries and the gold's gym trainer telling me my muscles are super hard (not in a good way), and generally telling me i need to focus on what they call "care" here in japan in addition to training+diet, this was the wakeup call i needed

per a troy recommendation i had bought the hyperbolic stretching program some months ago but i was kind of half-assedly doing it after some workouts

but last night i rewatched all of the instructional videos and i'm going to do the whole program.

the end goal will be being able to do front and side splits.

there's also a dynamic stretching routine which can be done multiple times a day.

also in the gym, for the time being i will
- stop recording numbers. i get too caught up in "zomg guys i lifted blifty sneven zillograms" even though we all know the most important aspect of training is pushing muscles to failure. i'll go back to recording numbers again later in the future though
- find exercises i can do to make sure i get a full body workout over the course of the week, within my injury. right now i can't do lateral raises and as of yesterday rows. oof!

NOW, regarding digital addiction...

To aid in quitting vaping, I've decided to just chow down candy every time I get a craving.

i was able to quit vaping by replacing the reflex to take a hit of vape with eating candy. i personally don't find eating anything to become addictive, so after a few weeks of replacing the "i need to take a hit of vape" neural pathway with "eat a piece of candy", which gave me far less of a dopamine hit, i got tired of eating candy and i was free from the vaping addiction

i realized from a few sessions of meditating, it temporarily gets rid of my compulsion to randomly browse crap on my phone. but it's enough time to push me to think about what i should be doing in the moment and then go do that instead of blow away yet another 4 hours...

so i will do the the same type of substitution as earlier. any time i have the random compulsion to check YouTube (even if it's Japanese!) or otherwise "browse", i will just do a mini meditation for 3 minutes.

so far i've caught myself twice and these were the results
1. went from browsing random information on cars and highway tolls in japan on my phone to stretching, taking a shower, and eating dinner
2. went from wanting to share "interesting parts of this manga" with friends to just immersing myself in the manga and then actually falling asleep within half an hour!

additionally, before i go to bed i will write down what i will do when i wake up the next day

IMG20221214094435.jpg

[Adrizzle]

"you are the least flexible person i've ever worked with"

Can you touch your toes?

In my experience yoga is probably the best way to get flexibility. Do a real class. Most yoga also leads into mediation & relaxation.
It some point stretching and bodybuilding are going to "cancel" each others effects. Generally you are compression muscles, and stretching is the opposite.
If you can't touch your toes, maybe go full yoga until you can and then jump back into weights.

What meditation resources are using? I need to find some new stuff