Yam Uncle's Thoughts

I've been watching a lot of Oly lifting lately.  But it's interesting because I've watched enough to the point where I have favorite moments.  And most of these moments surprisingly come from older competitions. I was watching some of the newer championships as well.  And while the competition is high and there are a lot of great stories across all weight classes (at least the ones I watch), I couldn't help but notice that something about weightlifting today felt kind of boring.  So that was when I became curious as to why I felt the older videos felt cooler to me, and I realized a few things about how the competition was being shot that actually made a big difference. Cameras Zooming So to dive into those differences, the first thing I realized was how different the camera-work was for shooting the lifts.  If you look at the 2008 or 2012 Olympics (links are for the 105kg class competition), it's almost like I'm watching a Bollywood movie, with the came...

Just finished watching the BBC show "Normal People".  Hm.  Wow.  I don't usually watch shows, but this one caught my eye.  Probably because there was like, a lot of advertising for it.  I found this show mentioned twice on Facebook, the first time being, I'm pretty sure it was like a month ago.  I just looked it up and it came out this April, April 26th to be specific.  So yeah I guess it was out a lot more recently than I thought it was.  So I was watching this show, and I was up until the 8th episode and already I had a whole lot of stuff I wanted to say about the show.  But I was like, I have to watch the whole thing before I try and say anything.  At least then I won't be talking about anything partially.  So I watched 4 episodes today lol.  Anyways, let's dive into it.  Don't really know how it'll be structured, I haven't even thought about that, so I think I'll just kind of dive in the same way I do with a lot of...

I feel like I haven't posted about personal training stuff in a while, or maybe I have.  But since my gym's reopened and it's been two weeks since then, and I'm just about to complete the first week of my new mesocycle with the Bridge program, as always, I thought I'd write about something I'm trying to do differently this time around.  And specifically it'll be about front squats.  So the Bridge program doesn't call for any front squats, and that's pretty understandable since it is a powerlifting training program, and there aren't any front squats in the competition.  However, I decided to add it into my program, specifically replacing the 3-0-3 tempo squat, for two big reasons: It was more specific to what I wanted to do in the future, which was oly lifting, and I felt like it could address my current weaknesses/ needs better.   So to dive more deeply into the second point, since the first point doesn't really need much explanation...

Paperbird uploaded another video, and through it I was introduced to this new YouTuber called The Book Club, aka Quentin Scobie, is I think his real name.  Hilarious stuff.  Everything's very thick in satire, but sometimes brings up some points that seem genuine, but definitely otherworldly (something about us all being immortal, and as soon as we realize that we can just go out and enjoy life, something like that).  I think I wanted to write about him, mostly because two points have been stuck to my mind since I've been watching him.  One is that, damn, I wish I could do satirical/absurdist comedy as well as he does it, along with Paperbird.  I remember doing exercises from The Artist's Way book by Julia Cameron, and one of them was asking me which five people I would meet with, dead or alive, to have lunch with or something, if I could.  And then the next question was, no joke, ok now which five people would you really take?  The idea being the fi...

There's been a whole lot going on these past few weeks.  This past week even.  The Corona scare is starting to die down, at least where I'm living, but there's still the George Floyd incident.  I learned about the suicide of Hana Kimura from the show Terrace House, she was only 22.  Also learned about Claire Wineland's story while surfing YouTube.  Made me think about a lot of things, all these incidents made me sad, angry, somber, self-reflective.  I tried writing a post about it, and it helped me organize my thoughts, but didn't make me feel good about posting it so I didn't.  Maybe I'll feel more comfortable later on, more solid about my perspective.  But on the brighter side of things, my gym reopened this week.  They were obviously very very cautious about the virus and had rules and plans created accordingly.  And they're not the most comfortable to follow but I'm just glad I have my gym now.  So since it's opened this Mon...