Set Some Goals

Just another reason why I love climbing (in particular) and mastering a craft (in general). The article sounds sounds serious/geeky/boring/far-out, but it's so helpful to know.....

For non-climbers, it will be the first two paragraphs and  "Pitfalls on Goal-Setting" that will still be relate-able. :-)

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Goal-setting is the establishment of performance expectations and the planning of a process to attain them. It directs attention. The more specific the goal, the easier it is to focus on, and thus, achieve. The setting of goals is the method by which we motivate to train. It is extraordinarily difficult to go to the gym on a regular basis throughout the off-season without a picture in your head of the benefits to come. Most athletes set not only season goals, but they set goals daily. In fact, it happens on many different levels:

• Moment
• Event
• Day
• Short-term
• Long-term
• Lifetime

For example, you might have the short-term goal of leading a particular climb, but the goal for this climbing day is just to figure out which gear the climb takes and to learn the crux moves. The same short-term goal can lead to a greater, long-term goal, such as free climbing a big wall.

Setting goals is more than just thinking of some climbs you’d like to do. Studies show that goals that are written down are more than twice as likely to be achieved. A good place to start is to get a vision for the future – a lifetime set of goals. These will inevitably transform as time goes, but they will help shape your long-term goals.

After you have your vision for the future, follow just a few simple steps:

1. Set Long-Term Goals. Write down 2-3 climbs you’d like to do THIS SEASON. These need to be within the realm of achievability, but should also stretch your climbing slightly. These are going to be called performance goals. You can also set training goals and process goals. For maximum improvement, try to set goals that work your weaknesses. Training goals might involve improving the number of pull-ups you can do, increasing your total climbing volume, or another measurable factor of training. Process goals might include improving mental facets of your climbing, technical preparation, or a change in body composition. Again, make sure these things are measurable.
2. Set Short-Term Goals. Start with a goal you can likely achieve. Your whole season should not be built around doing just one project route. You should plan on ticking off 2-3 short-term goals per month on the way to completing your season goal. If your long term goals include climbing a 5.12c, increasing endurance by 15%, and losing 6 pounds, a short term goal for an early season month might look like this: (A) Climb minimum 20 pitches per week this month / (B) Redpoint 3 routes 5.11c or 5.11d / (C)  Drop bodyweight by 2 pounds
3. Create Goals for Each Workout or Day of Climbing. Performances improve with direction. Before you get to the crag, you should have a picture of what you are going to do, and it should be in line with your long-term goals. Each workout in the gym should follow the same rules. It’s nice to just hang out bouldering with your friends, but is it really helping you improve?
4. Check Your Progress. From time to time, you should review your progress toward your goals. Make adjustments as necessary: If you are very close to reaching your season goal halfway through the season, you might consider setting a more challenging goal. Likewise, if you are not completing your short-term goals, you need to assess why that is, and adjust your program.
5. Check the Goal off the List. When you have achieved a goal, move on to the next one using the same process. Make the goal more challenging, commit to working a little harder, and get down to business.

GOAL-SETTING GUIDELINES

• Multiple goals enhance performance. You should be working toward several goals concurrently. These should be prioritized.
• Make goals challenging, but realistic.
• Goals should be measurable and self-focused.
• Avoid setting goals that depend on factors out of your control.
• Goals must have time limits.
• Set positive rather than negative goals. Rather than “avoid failure” think “attain success”.
• Adjust goals, allowing for unknown variables and other facets of life.

SPECIFICS OF SETTING GOALS

Performance Goals

A. Events

• Specific climbs or competitions you are training for
• Write down the types of climbs you will be doing
• Challenges (i.e. 20 pitch day, onsighting day)

B. Performances

• Actual performance objectives, like onsighting 5 5.12s, redpointing a grade higher…
• Be realistic; keep within your possible performance parameters.
• Include short term goals

C. Physical Preparation

• List your physical strengths and weaknesses
• Prioritize the areas that need improvement
• For example, identify your top 3 weaknesses, and focus training on them

Process Goals

A. Psychological Preparation

• Strengths and weaknesses
• Work very hard on primary weakness, exploit your strengths. For example, work on controlling irrational fear, focus on positive attitude, and knowledge of talent.

b. Technical Preparation

• Ask for feedback from partners
• Pay attention to what causes failure in performance, It’s not always weak fingers!
• Pick specifics to work on: edging, keeping hips in, breathing, toeing in to pockets, finding rests…
• Plan to work on these things one at a time.

f. Tests and Standards

• Body weight
• Body composition

PITFALLS IN GOAL-SETTING

• Lack of goals. The very worst error in setting goals is not setting any at all. How can you perform if you have no parameters to test against?
• Long-term goals only. Many climbers set only one or a couple of long-term goals. These goals take so long to achieve that focus is most often lost along the way.
• Dreaming. Setting unachievable goals is completely uninspiring.
• Lack of commitment. If you aren’t committed to your goals, don’t waste your time setting them. A half-hearted effort is no effort at all.

http://climbstrong.wordpress.com/2009/12/24/set-some-goals/

ayon sa training program...

...we have, more or less:

• 36 weeks of training to go
• with 6 days of training per week
• 3 to 4 days of which are spent doing climbing-specific exercises such as hangs, system boards, and intervals
• at a duration of 2 to 3 training hours per day
• oh, and did i say this is for 36 weeks straight....or about NINE WHOLE MONTHS

if i may ask the universe: how the heck will i manage to do this?!?!?!?!?!?!? <insert bewildered emoticon here>

Why Get Stronger When You Can Get Better?

Being good at rock climbing is all about learning proper technique and then ingraining it so it becomes second nature. In the long run, technique will take you much further than a strong back and a vice grip. Yet most climbers are hyper-focused on trying to “get stronger” … oftentimes at the expense of learning good tecehnique.

Emily Harrington, who has climbed multiple 5.14’s in various stages of personal fitness, recognizes the superlative of proper technique. Emily has been climbing for 13 years, putting in well over the requisite “10,000 hours” one supposedly needs to master any craft. As a result, she believes that no matter what shape she’s in, she will always be able to climb at a baseline of 5.12a throughout life.

“If you know how to move your body, you should be able to climb 5.12a,” Emily says, “no matter how ‘strong’ you are.”

This may seem surprising to the climbers out there for whom 5.12a is a lifetime goal, yet the point is not that 5.12 is “easy,” but rather that proper technique honed over many hours of practice is more enduring than one’s momentary form (strength and fitness). The problem is, it’s easier to get stronger than it is to get better. Anyone can go to the gym and rip off a bunch of reps or climb a bunch of boulder problems and feel as though they have accomplished something. Training with the goal of improving technique is more cerebral, requiring a certain degree of consciousness about what you’re doing. This is because good technique is all about ingraining movements, coordinating the upper and lower body and maintaining awareness of how much effort you’re expending to the point that it becomes second nature. Great climbers aren’t thinking about what they need to do—they just do the exact right thing. This is the art of free climbing.

Improvements in one’s technique are much less tangible—harder to measure or gauge. Thus, it can be difficult to know how to approach the gym with the goal of becoming a better free climber. Here are a few tips that you may find useful:

First, be good: Many beginner and intermediate climbers have approached me wanting to know how to get strong, but I’ve never heard anyone ask how to get good. The two are undoubtedly related. But instead of jumping on the hardest route or boulder problem you think you can do, focus on making perfect ascents of easier routes and problems. Try to be good before you try to be strong. How perfectly can you climb something?

Bad feet: Problems in the gym typically get harder as the hand holds become worse and farther apart, while usually the foot jibs remain pretty good. But if you have the ability to help set some problems wherever you climb indoors, I recommend setting decent hand holds and the worst, most polished, difficult-to-stand-on footholds you can find. You want them to be bad, but not so bad that you just force a campus move. You want the focus to be on using your feet properly—the first and most lastingly important step in becoming good. As a double benefit, nothing will get you stronger than climbing problems with bad feet.

Stand Up: You’ve undoubtedly heard the advice, “Keep your arms straight!” But, of course, if your arms were straight the whole time, you wouldn’t be able to flex them to pull yourself upward. When you’re hanging on holds, indeed, it’s a good idea to keep your arms straight. But the second part of this advice that's left out is how to begin initiating your upward movement. Typically, beginners will initiate the move with their arms: pulling themselves up, locking off like on a pull-up bar, with their feet way low. Instead, try to always initiate your upward movement with your legs. Keep your arms straight and lever yourself upward by pressing with your feet. Eventually, you'll have to flex your arms, but try to do so only after you’ve initiated the upward movement with the legs--even if it's just a little bit. Teach yourself what this feels like by climbing easy (5.6) routes in the gym. Hang from straight arms and try to drive yourself upward as far as you can by high-stepping your feet and using only your leg muscles to stand up on every hold.

For the rest of the tips, you can visit the full Rock and Ice article here :-) 

Happy 'better' climbing!

oo nga naman

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from small business online community

about today

a day made complete by...

1. time spent with mom, dad, ate, kuya, trina, kala, kayin, and loula

2. pitching in for a few hours at the cafe

3. a few precious hours with miel, who was away for three days

4. and a relaxed time watching the first episode of glee season 2 and 'funny people' on hbo

#1 and #4 are rare, which make them a real treat.

having all four happen in one day makes it awesome.

wasn't even planning to watch tv tonight, and i'm so glad to have caught nice shows. though i don't know if 'funny people' left me happy....it kinda left me with mixed emotions and things to think about :-/

but still, there's much to smile for. good night!

flashback

i would go there around 4pm, after class. i would assist in opening the door, welcoming guests, giving them a smile while saying, "sandali lang po!" 

i would lead them to their seats, hand them menus, and help traffic more people who would come pouring in in big, then small, then big waves again.

when the halls would get a bit too crowded, i would station myself behind the cake counter, taking orders, either putting the slices on the small oval plate, or in a take-out box. as the coffee machine worked, i would carefully place one piece of spritsar cookie, a packet of sugar and cream, and a teaspoon over a saucer, before completing the order with its cup of freshly brewed coffee.

i had also memorized the menu by then, which enabled me to write corresponding prices in guests' order slips without using a cheat sheet. one thing that hasn't changed, though, is my poor arithmetic; i was heavily dependent on the calculator, which i clicked on with confidence and ease. (must have something to do with my piano-playing that rouses me with keypad-related activities, haha). even more with the heavier keys of the cash register. 

i loved the pace of those evenings. i probably didn't think of it this way back then, but i guess i already loved being useful and productive. 

fast forward to thirteen years later, and i'm re-acquainted with this particular joy of being in our cafe dining room. the rush of people who are ever-so-patient with the waitlist, the unbelievable amount of food that comes out of the kitchen, the seemingly-synchronized movement of the servers, and the constant, joyful buzz in the air...i swear, i almost forgot i had experienced it before.

but here i am again, and i'm happy to be reunited with these sensations. 

this time, i know i will never again forget.

learn, learn, and learn some more!

at the start of 2010, i told myself that one of the things i'll do this year is to attend at least one writing workshop. and after waiting patiently for an opportunity in the Filipinas Heritage Library website (one that will fit my schedule, specifically), i think the time has come.

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Professional Travel Writing

July 29, August 3 and 10, 2010

6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.

Share your love of travel with others and even get the chance to see your name in print! Join Kristine Fonacier, a writer and travel enthusiast, in this Travel Writing Workshop with a tour to the south of Luzon known as the Viaje del Sol.

The workshop is designed for professional and those with some experience in travel writing. If you want to be published or write a book or magazine about your trip, the Travel Writing workshop is for you.

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AND i felt more excited to see other workshops and seminars that the public can avail of. there's SO many out there, if only someone will compile it properly for all training/skills-seekers out there!

for example:

Fully Booked hosts various events through its venues (The Forum, TopShelf), from painting to language to storytelling to meditation, etc! Just visit their website and check out the "Upcoming Events" bar on the right. One cool one coming up is a FREE workshop by the Center for East Asian Languages which will feature basics in origami, furushiki, and other crafts for an introduction to Japanese culture!!!!

I'm a suki of the Filipinas Heritage Library for writing and photography workshop referrals. So aside from the cool Travel Writing one i mentioned above, they also regularly have sessions on Feature Writing, Basic Creative Writing, Digital Photography, among many others! Just visit their website too, it's regularly updated.

And did you know that even corporate giants offer cool, free seminars? Check out Nokia Pep Talks, which feature talks from premiere learning company Salt & Light Ventures (who organizes their own seminars and can charge at least P2,000 per session). Just some of the super relevant topics they offer are Reawakening Creativity for Effective Leadership, Personal Effectiveness and Stress Management, and Guerilla Brand Planning. And yes, it is really for free! You just have to sign up with Nokia :-)

i'm like a paid advertiser. (but i'm NOT, ok??) just sharing the love for learning! go, sali din kayo!