THE BROWN SHOGUN - japanese language progress + social life update

[colgate]

Can you touch your toes?

if i do a series of hamstring stretches, eventually yes. but not without being warmed up.

In my experience yoga is probably the best way to get flexibility. Do a real class. Most yoga also leads into mediation & relaxation.

would be a thing to consider especially as some sort of group class type activity would also serve me for improving my social skills and improving my japanese. spent a while humming and hawing just now between yoga classes and directly getting into boxing/kickboxing classes (which is what i'd like to do in the long run). will get back to you on this

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

i had watched this video like almost a year ago


and i actually meditated for a few weeks when i lived in california. i would do 10 minute sessions everyday. i did some kind of "walking meditation" as well when i showed up to the mall to approach to stay present in the moment and that got me to approach.

unfortunately i only did it for a few weeks

to sum up, all i do is
1. set a timer (10 mins for a "session", 3 mins for a "digital addiction substitute")
2. close my eyes and breathe in and out slowly, thinking about "in" "out"
3. at some point my brain will wander into some thought pattern. i try to realize it as quickly as possible and get back to "in" "out". go to 2 until timer stops

it has helped me in the micro to realign and stay focused on a task, usually the effect lasts over "one task" (30mins-2h). it's like a "pump"

i haven't done it consistently enough to see the macro benefits ("gains") but everything i've read seems to point to reducing many of the overstimulation, anxiety, and distraction issues i have. so i just have to do it now.

[Adrizzle]

Thanks for the link

In 2018 I was very good at mediation. After most sessions I'd feel this overwhelming feeling of energy and peace. I've fallen out of it, just need to stop being lazy and do 10 minutes everyday.

Go to yoga class man. Social gains, flex gains, relaxation gains. I dont think it needs to be one or the other

[colgate]

trying to figure out the whole deal with sleep

been going to bed and shutting off the devices consistently at 10pm

meditation usually helps falling asleep within half an hour. and i end up reading manga for probably another hour before that. so even if i shut down at 10pm, the earliest I'm falling asleep is 11:30pm. and last night i did a bit of tossing and turning and i think it was much later.

on the other hand, waking up is also ANNOYING!!! like i've consistently seen a pattern where my actual "night sleep" is whatever (I'm fast asleep and even dream sometimes), but the sleep i decide to have when i somehow wake up in the early morning and then just fall back asleep is total bliss.

like this morning i actually beat my alarm and opened my eyes around 7:45. but then i fell back asleep, was rudely! awakened by the alarm for 8:00, and just fell asleep for another 3 hours.

and those 3 hours felt so good. even though i know i slept at least 6-7 hours already

what do i have to do to make my regular sleep feel that good so i can joyfully wake up in the morning when i want to????

after cursory internet research, i will now implement these habits:
- devices off at 9pm. push the buffer back even further
- last meal no later than 7:30pm. i have developed a habit of "oh well i won't be able to use devices past 10 so i'm just going to do whatever device related things have to be done and then eat afterwards". i don't know how true it is but "common wisdom" says to avoid having large meals <3 hours before you go to bed.

[OnTheComeUp]

@colgate You should buy a pair of blue light blocking glasses. It really helps me fall asleep at night. Andy recommends this in his "Cool Shit I Recommend" section.

[colgate]

lmao

Also based on my own observation and this guy's observation, looks DO matter. Not that I look bad or anything, but I definitely need to be more serious about getting jacked and looking more edgy, even for day/nightgame strats. I also need to be around more masculine energy in general and be more of a fighter, so I'm gonna sign up for boxing classes. While I go to the gym 3x a week and have never missed a day (I like going to the gym lol), I really slack with eating enough calories per day. I bought a portable smoothie blender so I can make protein shakes on the go and fill up 3000 calories a day. I've literally been stuck at 138 lbs since I joined this forum and it's my biggest weakness right now. My goal was to be 150 lbs, but the Nashville approach guy said 160. I just wanna hit 140 god

pinning this quote from me back in september 2021 (heyyyyy but i did hit my first kyil bulk goal....)

the Nashville approach guy said 160.

the guy whom we now know as troy

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

^quote from the recent post

[AskTheDom]

Don't forget that you might need an extra edge to compensate for the "IT Indian Nerd guy" archetype that you might fall in.

Honestly speaking, I can see you getting a bit of this MMA fighter look

[colgate]

from now on, i will only post and use kyil on sundays

[colgate]

i've been in the middle of fucking nowhere in northern japan (town population: ~25000) for the past few days visiting my japanese friend's family

"so colgate what did you do there?"

well i
- shoveled snow (the most fun)
- napped on the heated carpet
- learned how to drive a right-hand drive car
- taught everyone my new daily stretching routine
- had my first christmas and ate a fuckton of sushi including whale bacon (because i wasn't allowed to celebrate it when i was a kid. btw i had my first birthday party when i was 21)
- went to a bunch of random grocery stores and spent $40+ on snacks (mostly dried fish)
- did pushups and pretended to be a train carrying a 4 year old on my back (and generally used her as a "weight" for random exercises)
- had the same 4 year old explain to me what 閉じ込まれる meant
- random high school japanese girl from the extended family being like "wow he really is jacked" and taking pictures with me to show her friends

nowhere in this stretch of time did i have the urge to compulsively check/use my phone. i sent merry christmas wishes and passively messaged people, but it was actually me sharing genuinely fun parts of my life.

i have to go home to tokyo (lol) tomorrow. obviously i don't want to

but i'm posting this because this is how i want my relationship with technology to be. i purposely decided to just not impose any digital restrictions for this trip and see what would happen

and it made me realize that ultimately all of the times i'm glued to the computer or phone are times when i feel trapped. and i already did a bunch of the "whoopity doo let's figure out whatever blah blah internal issues and insecurities" inner work things related to that.

but ultimately, it won't change until i fill my life with real things to do again.

i really did hit the reset button coming here to japan.

so other than a couple of past acquaintances and a "hey i would like to change my flight ticket to the next plane because my friend is riding that plane too" level of japanese, i'm really faced with what "blank slate" really means

and i really don't have a "digital addiction" in the sense that i absolutely need to be on my phone all the time!. it's more like i use it to avoid doing hard things that i know i need to do (actively studying japanese and not just passively watching the cute weather news girls talk about 15 centimeters of...uh.....), and that I don't get any validation from irl in tokyo (on the other hand i got constant validation here in hokkaido)

and speaking of japanese ability, as i've said before probably, plenty of guys do fine without actually knowing the language well or only a little bit but for whatever reason i can't do it.

i'm literally saying this as my friend's sister's husband who is a white european is sleeping in the next house over, and his japanese is heavily accented and like a 4 year old's level and below mine, and has to randomly switch to his native language and talks to his wife in that language as a handicap (who happened to learn that language).

but on the other hand throw me in a situation where everyone is watching a japanese "owarai" (comedy) involving 11 layers of japanese society and nuances and i'm completely fucking lost. i hate it.

i'm in a similar position with western media too because i had little exposure to it in the first place as a kid and then i was never interested in it anyway. the only reason i can do any small talk easily in japanese is because i abuse the fuck out of the "i'm the guy from america" card. "wow! this is only in japan, i really feel like this is japan!" "lol! in america it's like this" etc.

i've even said to japanese people that i enjoy doing small talk and etc in japanese and i can't do it in english for this reason. (obviously on the other hand more complex topics are easier in english)

i think with this group of people, i'm the "jacked brown guy from america who's good at japanese" because they really did see me not only improve my japanese since i was a beginner but to their surprise i went from a skinny nerd (細いオタク in their own words) to jacked (even tho i still have a long way to go). and i'm able to get extremely rare experiences that i wouldn't be able to otherwise. so of course doing whatever bs small talk is easy and fun because:
1. i'm inherently interesting and also provide value
2. i'm solid in who i am in this group since i'm aware of it

i'm really coming face to face with directly the concept of "how my time in japan will be is directly a result of how much and what work i put in"

December up until this point honestly felt like some mindless blur in my timeline

i hate how much i fucking hole myself in when i'm in tokyo, but i do it anyway

it's blips and slices of life like this that i live for. and i want my life to be like this.

if i had to rate the months of this year it'd be:
1. july (duh, lost v-card and got 3 lays and regular dates, and was busting my balls in general across all areas, fitness, boxing, online dating)
2. february (super regular approaching+gym routine and had lots of new experiences)
3. january (phoenix blast approaching and the other time i actually had fun at night)
4. october (LITERALLY washing windows the whole month. finally i'm useful for something other than being a fucking geek)

the rest of the year (including most of my time in japan up until this point) has been almost a blur, and it's why i'm making a big deal about digital addiction.

and i bring those months up specifically because i was actually doing things and got into the flow of them instead of being too scared to start.

[natedawg]

and i bring those months up specifically because i was actually doing things and got into the flow of them instead of being too scared to start.

Hey brother, hope you're doing well in Japan.

Seems like you're going through a stifling period. Curious, what's the #1 thing you're working on currently?

I'm wondering if you're setting the goals up to be too big in your head (which makes you freeze up), instead of just starting with the little things, then build up from there.

[colgate]

and i bring those months up specifically because i was actually doing things and got into the flow of them instead of being too scared to start.

Hey brother, hope you're doing well in Japan.

Seems like you're going through a stifling period. Curious, what's the #1 thing you're working on currently?

I'm wondering if you're setting the goals up to be too big in your head (which makes you freeze up), instead of just starting with the little things, then build up from there.

honestly i think it's way simpler than that

it's literally simple things like trying to concentrate for even an hour on actually studying japanese.

i'm at the level where i finished all the fun parts and my effective level is a result of what i spent most of my time doing (chatting and making "language exchange" friends (but they're actually one-sided where we basically only speak japanese)).

i already know what to do for language learning and i have enlisted @MakingAComeback for accountability on it.

the other goal is just getting jacked, which was going great until i mildly injured my shoulder. but i think I'll be able to work out again normally starting this week. also the detour made me incorporate daily stretching in my life now and actually take "care" seriously

the reason i'm focusing on these two seemingly bizarre indirect areas is because i ultimately "don't like my current product" (from testing it if you've read my logs from a year ago!) and it needs to change.

i did one approach session here a month ago and went up to around 20 girls. but ultimately i felt like a fucking retard because i don't believe in my own value in this place. and i've decided ultimately i just have to increase my own value. i've done it before already and it works and there's no bizarre mental tricks around it

part of my japanese study is actually somewhat kyil/gll-equivalents in that it's about things you need to do but specific to japan. but I'm not just consuming the content like Kirby (unlike kyil stuff 1.5 years ago) because
- there's no magic anymore for me of OMG THIS GUY BANGED A GIRL HE JUST STARTED TALKING TO WTF??? because i've heard so many stories and I've been at this for over a year at this point so it's basically my life now
- it's japanese so i can't just mindlessly consume it, i have to sit down and replay spam parts i didn't understand and etc. I'm sure after doing this for a month or so consistently I'll have a breakthrough and genuinely enjoy it though, as i've experienced this kind of path in the past

so yeah, this period has been stifling but i'm also 100% certain that it's temporary and it's also mostly a shell-shock reaction of going from "boo all the girls are fat and masculine" to "ok i need to change x y z a b c about myself let's fucking go". there's so much i look forward to here in japan and so many inexplicable tiny nuances and things that i do like. i would say it's more of a "cleansing" and "rebuilding" period than a stifling one

[OnTheComeUp]

I feel the same when I get excited about looking forward to my goals. I talked with andy about setting a checklist about steps to take to move to los angeles. After writing that checklist and completing a few steps, my mentality changed being "Oh no, I could never move to LA, its across the country, I dont have enough money, blah blah,etc" to ok I need to do x y & z to move los angeles, lets go!" Also, I hope you will be able to get those jav baddies with big ass, big tits, and cute faces! Merry Christmas!

[colgate]

i think with this group of people, i'm the "jacked brown guy from america who's good at japanese" because they really did see me not only improve my japanese since i was a beginner but to their surprise i went from a skinny nerd (細いオタク in their own words) to jacked (even tho i still have a long way to go).

1672137795856.jpg

Screenshot_2022-12-27-20-13-57-01_94c3c0214f41e8559bec03caf75c21c7.jpg

these 2 pictures were taken by the same person

1: me in japan in 2019, zero gym in my life. ~125 lbs
2: me now ~150 lbs

soon i will post the 2023 vs 2024 comparison and it will be even more nuts

[colgate]

4 day trip in hokkaido = yet another fruit of me busting my balls studying japanese and nonstop talking to natives back in 2017
my current life in tokyo = result of me coping and seething 24/7 on the internet

[colgate]

TOMORROW I WILL BE A SUCCESS

I DON'T CARE IF ANYONE THINKS THIS LIST OF THINGS IS RETARDED SIMPLE

I WILL
() do dynamic stretches
() meditate 10 minutes
() eat breakfast

IF I CAN'T EVEN DO THIS, THEN THE NEXT DAY WILL BE EVEN SIMPLER
IF I CAN DO THIS, THEN I WILL MAKE THE NEXT DAY INCREMENTALLY MORE CHALLENGING

I WILL STARVE THE NEURAL PATHWAYS OF CONSTANT DIGITAL SELF-MEDICATION
I WILL CHOKE SLAM TECHNOLOGY INTO THE BED INSTEAD OF LETTING IT FUCK ME IN THE ASS
MY NEW NEURAL PATHWAY WILL BE literally doing what i set out to be doing in the first place omfg

TOMORROW I WILL BE A SUCCESS

[Thrice]

You are doing a good job, small steps, lists are really useful, today was my leg day, i literally destroyed my legs for 1.4 hour, all i had left is 10 min stretch after the shower and i didn't do it, kept thinking about it and didn't do it, if only i had a list too...

well even here we have the same problem, which is internet addiction, the way i cope is by stalking girls i would like to fuck with fake profiles, no models or singers, normal cute girls in my city... they still find out (woman's superpower) and give me a bad look when they see me, checking them on ig makes me like i missed out less... I still didn't find the balls to tackle this issue like you're doing, but what i promised myself to do is to approach this girls, this way i will have nothing to stalk hahahha