#constantly overburdened by book weight

[nightmarist]

I made it a personal goal to try and collect one of every book in baldur’s gate in early access, but I hope w full release there’s some kind of achievement for reading/collecting all the volumes of the “a is for azuth”

[rayclubs]

Do you have any advice on how to improve writing characters and character interactions?

Yes! Oh my god, this ask got me so excited I’m actually typing out the response in a word document. Let’s fucking go. I’ll try to omit any well-known advice like “read other books” and “practice a lot”, y’all know that already, so I’ll get straight to practical tips. I’ll also be bringing up examples from my TF2 fics because it’s easier for me to make my points this way, and also because my fics are epic and you should totally read them.

Branch out from the widely recognized go-to emotion signifiers. Watch the people around you and notice how often they raise an eyebrow when confused, or tilt their head when inquisitive, or clench their fists when angry – it’s not entirely implausible that they do it, but chances are, they also do something else that’s way more unique, more interesting, more “them”.

It makes emotions personal, but it also makes gestures and non-verbal interactions personal. In the beginning of my fic “Kill the Red”, Soldier salutes Pyro in the way of encouragement because that is how Soldier acts when he’s trying to be reassuring and confident. At the end of the fic, this happens: “(Pyro) glanced up, found Soldier’s eyes, and gave him back that salute he owed.” It’s a very small bit, but it reinforces Soldier’s characterization as an assuring, commanding presence, as well as Pyro’s impressionable but proactive personality, and helps define their unique dynamic. I could have had Soldier give Pyro a pat on the back instead and be done with it, and the fic wouldn’t suffer too much, but what I went with in the end is way better.

Dialogue is my favorite part of the writing process, but it’s also the easiest to mess up. Here’s few important things to keep in mind when writing dialogue.

Get to the point. Skip the vocal fills, greetings and goodbyes, and all deceivingly human junk that is so easy to get caught up in. Have your characters say what they want to say, in the way that only they would say it, and be done with it. If there’s no consequence or weight to the way someone says “sorry”, write simply that the character apologized, but don’t dignify it with quotes and a dialogue tag. That’s for special occasions only.

Make dialogue tags into actions. There’s a bunch of examples for this in all my fics, here’s some from “Close Call”.

“Coming to a professional?” Spy smiled, eyes narrow like those of a mischievous cat.

“Where?” Soldier squinted and leaned forward but seemed to be looking in the wrong direction, just slightly too far to the left.

“I wouldn’t touch it with a ten-foot pole.” A cardboard folder was pressed into Sniper’s chest. Spy grinned proudly. “Take a look.”

He clutched the steering wheel. “It’s the only big enough clearing in these bloody woods.”

Like, it’s such a technical advice, but I read fanfiction and I know how many people struggle with this, and it just helps the flow of conversation so much? You can say “said” and “replied” and other such words, but it really does wonders to intersperse them with actions that do not imply speaking at all. This is also how I manage conversations among multiple people without constantly going “X asked” and “Y answered”. It establishes the presence of every character in the scene in a proactive manner but doesn’t overburden the text with needless clarifications.

Count your lines. That’s a simple one. Count your paragraphs to make it so the characters’ lines alternate. Even if nobody says anything, count that paragraph as a line too. It just makes text so much clearer.

Make characters say what they think. This is so basic but like. I saw the exact opposite advice once and it bugs me so much. No, you don’t obscure the characters’ intentions and feelings in fifty layers of unnecessary misunderstandings to create pointless drama, that’s the opposite of a good story! That’s how you get the one part of Shrek 1 that literally everyone criticized! Goddammit!

There’s a weird example of this with chapter three of my “Vignette Collection”, ironically titled “misunderstanding”. The gist of the fic is that Pyro communicates via gestures and social cues that Medic is too autistic to understand. It works – again, ironically – because both of them say exactly what they mean, even if they don’t understand each other and see the world differently. The resolution is fucking hilarious fitting because the conflict doesn’t exist strictly on the level of phrasing, there is an actual clash of interest in there. Does that make sense? I feel like it doesn’t make sense. Good god.

Make characters be wrong. It’s hard to explain but there’s a really good example in my “Acceptable Losses”. The context of the scene is that Medic is injured and Spy is worried about him, though, importantly, he doesn’t say it verbally. The story is from Medic’s POV, and at some point this happens: “Spy reached into his front pocket for the cigarette case, but reconsidered, for some reason.”

The “for some reason” bit is Medic’s thoughts. I know the reason. You – the reader – know the reason. The reason is that the man is concerned and doesn’t want to smoke up the kitchen when his friend needs clean air and a healthy meal. The only one who doesn’t get this is the point-of-view character. This characterizes him as someone who is accepting of other people’s occasionally strange disposition, but ultimately oblivious to social clues.

This bit alone doesn’t amount to much, but this trait reinforced like fifty times throughout the story works to built that character trait well.

Incorporate metaphors into characterization. I fucking love doing this so much. I have two fics that practically do nothing but this – “What’s it called, Engie?” and “Seasons”. I could write fucking essays about my thought process for both of them but this is already so long so let’s just briefly consider the former. On a side note, I hate that I named it that, I usually have nice names for my fics but that one fucking pisses me off. Anyway.

In “What’s it called, Engie?” Soldier and Engineer alternate POV’s as the story sees them build a close relationship over the course of several unconnected scenes. The core theme is that Soldier cannot express his emotions verbally in a manner that makes sense, so he works through associations instead, and Engie helps him navigate it, all while learning more about the way he sees the world in the process. Well, within this metaphor, Engie is a bee – a busy creature with a nurturing nature and an unexpected sting, while Soldier is an old tree – big and easy to stand out but purposeless and “dry”, as in emotionally. So here’s a few lines from the fic that practically state that directly:

Dell’s voice sounded like watching a bus leave seconds before you could reach it. Like waking up in the middle of the night finding no water at the bedside. Like winter striking too early and forcing the bees to hide.

Bees picked the nicest flowers with open petals, overflowing with nectar and so full of pollen it made people sneeze. Jane couldn’t imagine why such a hard-working genius bee would waste its time trying to nurture a dried-out old twig.

He stayed quiet. Like the silence of a flower to the buzz of a bee, sometimes no answer was an answer too.

And here are a few lines that are not about any of that at all:

“Here, how’s that feelin’?” – and up went the metal case, unfolding into a dispenser, adding its soft hum to the buzz of the workshop.

The clock ticked and tacked like a woodpecker fussing over a worm-eaten tree trunk.

There was a long pause before more words followed, shaky like tree branches in the wind.

“Can I still keep coming to your workshop though? I like how it buzzes.”

Here’s the kicker: THEY’RE ALL THE SAME IMAGERY. They’re the same fucking thing. Trees, bees, hums, buzzing, they’re the same metaphor. There’s one metaphor in that goddamn fic. This is so easy to write but can be so effective, it feels like it should be illegal.

(Another side note: I could write a dissertation about all the shit going on in that fic, like, there’s the naming of characters, the vibrant metaphors of Soldier’s POV contrasting with the practical view that Engie has of the world, the tiny little bits of blink-and-you-miss-it characterization, etc etc okay sorry to brag so much I’m just insane)

This is getting REALLY long so here’s just a few more points with very brief examples to wrap up, and let me know if you want to hear me ramble about writing some more because I love it to a ridiculous degree like. Okay.

You can use association to built unique metaphors. Try to imagine a feeling in your head, pick a few things that feel similar, and then tweak them so they fit the overall theme. My favorite theme is nature and weather metaphors, and my favorite example of this is this line from “Falter” – “Demo plowed through the ocean of their misfortunes with the ferocity of a steam engine, and Soldier clung to him like a flea to a fur coat.”

A character arc does not necessarily have to change your character in a big way. Sniper goes through a character arc in “Close Call”, but it manifests in really small ways, such as him resolving to call his parents, or him letting Spy have his coffee maker.

Also like. Basic but you need to have an idea of where the story is going and why, even if it’s a really small-scale story with very low stakes. That way you can introduce things in the beginning and then call back on them at the end. It’s called a circular plot structure, but on a smaller scale it does not have to be the whole plot, it can just be individual elements that aren’t plot-relevant, like the coffee maker described above.

Use nomenclature as a tool of characterization. Decide what words your characters use to refer to others and to themselves, and stick by that. Differentiate them this way. It’s fun.

Anything can be a bit of characterization. It never exists in a vacuum. You have to get into your character’s brain and just sit there all the time. Good luck.

Hope this was at least a little bit informative. Cheers!

[emmersreads]

These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong | 2.5/5

The best stories feel effortless, and overburdened narratives are the opposite of that. They make you keenly aware of just how much they’re not pulling it off.

It would be wrong to say that These Violent Delights is patient zero for this phenomenon, because its not like overburdened stories were invented in 2020, but it is a definitive case study. There is a good book in here somewhere, maybe even more than one, but they’re crushed in with so many bad ones that it makes the whole thing worse.

I’m going to pull out a bunch of specific details from this book and you may think that some (or even many) of them kinda slap, but don’t get it twisted, These Violent Delights is far less than the sum of its parts.

These Violent Delights is a very thinly veiled adaptation of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, starring the scions of two opposing gangs in 1920s Shanghai whose past romance draws them together even as the blood feud between their gangs pull them apart. In addition to the plot of Romeo and Juliet, there is a second main plot in which protagonists Roma and Juliette must put their allegiances aside and work together to avert a supernatural plague of madness ravaging the city of Shanghai. That’s already one plotline too many but the book has one more, growing off of the original play’s plot like some kind of horrible fungus. This one is a meta-mystery about why Roma and Juliette were broken up the first time and the events that led to the current tensions between their two gangs. It’s a meta-mystery because there is really no reason for the third person limited narration to hide it from us — the characters should realistically be thinking about it literally every time they interact — and it ends up as a super underwhelming reveal. That’s a lot of plots, and we haven’t even got to the side characters, who also have two side arcs that have nothing to do with the overall throughline. Each of these is enough for their own book, but as more and more get introduced they crowd each other out. The narrative is pulled in more and more directions.

There are two consequences to overburdened plots: first, basically none of them get the time they need, so at best they’re not as good as they could be and at worst they feel like demeaning token inclusions; second, while all of these plots are basically fine on their own, they don’t all play well together and end up robbing each other of thematic weight. As a result the book is a mismatched jumble of plots and characters that constantly undercuts its own continuity stakes, and thematic resonance.

Lets deal with the artificially crushed pacing first. The biggest victims of this are the side characters. There are way too many and they don’t have enough to do. Part of the premise of Romeo and Juliet as a play is that its really only about those two characters. They're not the most socially significant characters in their world, or the most self aware, but their relative insignificance in the grand scheme of things serves to highlight the meaninglessness of the violent grudge that leads to their deaths. The supporting cast is mostly there to flesh out that feud. They fight and die and that's about it.

In the grand tradition of YA fanfiction everywhere These Violent Delights desperately wants to expand these roles to give them their own hopes and fears and stories, and, in the grand tradition of YA zeitgeist, add some diversity to one of the English language’s most famous heterosexual romances. This book’s version of Benvolio and Mercutio, Benedict and Marshall (and we’ll get to the fucking names), are two bros in a bromoerotic friendship. It also adds Kathleen, a Capulet faction member, Rosalind’s sister, and a trans woman.

This will be an unpopular opinion — I’ve seen fans praise Gong’s novels for the diversity and confess disappointment in its absence in more recent novels — but I kinda hated it. Both of these are good ideas — representation is a noble goal, especially of a trans woman — but I can’t overemphasize just how little time these subplots get and just how irrelevant they are to the overall plot. Benedict and Marshall get a couple of cutaways that the audience can interpolate with their prior knowledge of m/m fanfiction. Kathleen gets a little meta-mystery around her backstory reveal conveyed over about two chapters. This backstory is interesting enough to be its own novel. A Shanghainese woman transes her gender while being educated in Paris and must impersonate her tragically dead sister in order to return home, in the 1920s? Don’t mind if I do! Why is it playing fourth or fifth fiddle to the heterosexual activities of literally Romeo and Juliet. None of this has anything to do with the actual plots, which are about teen melodrama and colonialism monsters. This means that even though they’re great ideas in isolation, they end up feeling like distractions. I was tempted to skip these chapters because they just weren’t important. Put uncharitably, representation in the form of side characters who exist to be diverse rather than to influence the plot in any way isn’t good representation at all. These Violent Delights would be a better story if these side plots were cut entirely, and these characters deserve a better book.

The side characters are the most egregious victims of the limited narrative space, but far from the only ones. Juliette and Roma get one internal character problem each — after four years in New York, Juliette feels like a foreigner in her own city, and Roma’s relationship to his violent father is on the precipice of total breakdown — which look like the beginning of a character arc, but vanish from the second half of the story. They are replaced by the feud meta-mystery stuff, which is much more predictable and much less interesting than the threads it replaced. The succession drama within the gangs is supposed to be important, but has so little relation to the actual plot that it only succeeds in establishing that Tyler (our Tybalt) sure is a character. Each gang has a loose affiliation with China’s two major political factions, the communists and the RoC nationalists, but this too is dismissed because there is not enough room for this book to be about both internal Chinese politics, the western foreigners slowly taking over the city, the animosity between the gangs, and a teen love story. Roma also has a sister! I guess!

The biggest space hogs are the Romeo and Juliet interpretation and the colonialism mystery, which are uneasy bedfellows. Romeo and Juliet is a play about the tragic deaths of two teens as a result of their uncompromisingly feuding families; part of the whole tragedy is how little external pressure is on the two groups. There’s no reason for them to hold this grudge and there’s no resources that they’re competing over. The fact that neither Capulet nor Montague really understand why they’re making such bad decisions is a major part of what makes the story so hopeless and tragic. There is no room in there for ‘also they unite to solve a supernatural mystery.’ Similarly, ‘a Shanghainese returnee discovers that the supernatural plague destroying her city is a hostile takeover by an English merchant’ is its own plot. ‘She also has this on-again off-again thing with a historical gang rival’ feels like a distraction. The high stakes of the supernatural plague and the systematic wrong of colonialism makes the comparatively lower stakes of teen melodrama seem meaningless and absurd. The two plots meet catastrophically in the climax. In one scene Juliette confronts Paul, the Englishman responsible for the disease and Roma is also there, standing awkwardly in the background. Paul sometimes makes a half-hearted cutting remark at Roma, but he might as well not be there, because Paul is Juliette’s antagonist, not Roma’s. Roma’s antagonist is his father, and that plotline never gets resolved. The two plots have so little to do with each other that at best all they do is take time away from each other. At worst, they deeply undermine each other, which brings us to the second problem with all these plots: they ruin each other’s thematic impact.

To put it succinctly: teenage romance and the violence of colonialism cannot be the same importance at the same time.

Romeo and Juliet is a very personal tragedy that is essentially a melodrama. It’s about the purity of young love. It’s about the overwhelming emotion of young love. It is fundamentally unimportant in the face of a systemic violence like colonialism.[[ It has become super trendy these days, especially in YA, to juxtapose a systemic injustice with an intimate emotional story, often but not always romantic. It is easy to see the motivation behind this: any particular experience of oppression is also extremely personal, and on the other hand an intimate emotional plot line may be used to add levity or hope to a situation that the protagonist is otherwise individually incapable of changing. However, a reasonable motivation doesn’t make this technique effective. At the end of the day systemic problems are structural by nature and are a fundamentally different scale from individual level conflicts.]] It is ludicrously naive to imagine colonialism defeated by the power of young love and in the face of the higher stakes of the slow takeover of Shanghai by westeners rich enough to buy it out from under the locals, the woes of two nineteen-year-olds who can’t be together are a distraction. The idea that there would be anything more important than either this relationship of the fuel ruins the context of the original play; the whole point of Romeo and Juliet is that there is no greater crisis going on and that the families have backed themselves into this corner. In These Violent Delights the plot is precipitated by events outside of the gangs’ control and with only one exception (Tyler’s attempt to kill Roma’s sister Alisa post-climax) all the major plot events happen because of someone outside of the gangs. I found myself often wondering, ‘why the heck is this a Romeo and Juliet adaptation at all?’

Unfortunately, the alternative isn’t necessarily better. The book’s version of Paris is Paul, son of an English merchant trying to set up drug deals with Juliette’s gang. As the story progresses, we discover that the plague of madness was brought to Shanghai in order to bend the city to his will. He has been intentionally it to his enemies and to the native Shanghainese this whole time. Also, the plague is spread via the vector of a shapeshifting fish-man who shoots infectious bugs out of his back as he swims through the river. It’s fine for the bad guy to have been colonialism the whole time, but saying that colonialism is a supernatural fish monster is, dare I say it, losing the thread of the metaphor a bit. Actually, I do dare say it. The subgenre of YA that deals with social justice plots like this one is at its best when it is at its most serious. These Violent Delights sucks because it is so fucking goofy. It is so reductive for colonialism to be a fish monster that I used it as a joke earlier in this paragraph. These two things are fine on their own but when they are thrown together they absolutely suck the soul out of each other.

The novel follows the details of Romeo and Juliet very closely despite having dropped the overall thematic message in favour of the colonialism thing, so there are a bunch of characters that have no reason to be there other than the fact that they appear in the play. Why is Rosalind here? Why would a 1920s Shanghai gang have an experimental physician on the payroll? Well, friar Lawrence needs to be here somehow and for whatever reason he can’t just be cooking drugs. It is too much like Romeo and Juliet to not be a straight up retelling and it is not a retelling.

As you may have noticed, all the characters have been named the kidzbop version of their names from the play. I can’t even begin to guess why. A lot of hay is made out of how many different places all the characters are from and how that affects their sense of belonging. Roma is Russian, technically a foreigner, but he has lived in Shanghai his whole life, unlike Juliette, whose western education makes her an outsider — but they’re all named like a Say Yes to the Dress wedding party. Marshall is unusual in that he’s the only central character who is both poor and Shanghainese. If any character ought to represent the people Roma and Juliette are ostensibly trying to protect, its this one, but you’d never know it because his name is fucking Marshall. Juliette directly addresses that she is ambivalent about using an English version of her name and feels like an outsider compared to her cousin, so why does he also have an English name? Names are a hugely meaningful place to express personal identity and narrative worldbuilding. As an example, in Babel protagonist Robin chooses that name when he is required by his English patron to choose a name befitting of his new country; we never learn his original Chinese name. Babel uses this to represent the colonization of the individual mind via language. It is a familiar topic for These Violent Delights, where the characters are the globe-trotting new generation of the 1920s, but that detail is fundamentally superfluous because the simplest opportunity to show rather than tell is dismissed in favour of naming them more like Romeo and Juliet.

There’s a lot more stuff in here that simply needs removing. Either a cause or a symptom of the overburdened narrative is that the book feels poorly edited. It badly needed a second pass. The turning point of the ending is that Juliette diffuses an encounter between White Flowers and Scarlets by pretending to betray Roma and faking Marshall’s death by shooting him with an empty handgun. It does not take a firearms expert to know that an empty gun clicks. It is extremely obvious that it is empty. It’s a whole trope! The foreboding click as the protagonist hasn’t counted their shots. Or perhaps the moment of tension diffuses as the villain realizes they’ve run out of firepower. Blanks are rounds that include gunpowder but no bullet, but that combustion is where the noise comes from. I’m complaining this much because this is a pivotal scene. The way the gun works is crucial to the relationship between all the major characters and the social premise of the sequel. This is not a small detail you can fudge for everyone except the true obsessives. It needed to be corrected. (Also, by the way, even a blank round can seriously injure a person at close range as the still combusting gunpowder exits the barrel). There’s a bunch more of these. A friend of mine who knows more (read: anything) about Chinese history pointed out that it is ahistorical for the qipaos to be described as ‘tight-fitting’ especially as tighter-fitting than a western flapper dress. In reality, both garments were much looser than our preconceived notions suggest. Why is Juliette the heir of the Scarlet gang when her male cousin really ought to be due to male-precedence primogeniture. It wouldn’t even change anything material about the plot for Juliette to be trying to seize the heir role from Tyler rather than to be defending it from him.

These Violent Delights is a poor love story, and a worse thriller, and a deeply unoriginal comment on colonialism. It is trying to do too many things to do any of them well. The most depressing part of this is that the book is so messy and its use of the play so diluted by all the other crap going on, that the use of Romeo and Juliet comes across as little more than a cynical feature of a popular play to get classics girlie dollars. A vicious end indeed.

[teacherintransition]

My Tree is Gone

The simple, comforting, everyday items in our lives are often easily taken for granted…

I lost my tree.

As the year draws to an end, we often look back at decisions, consequences of decisions, victories and losses and various “acts of god.” We win some, we lose some, but when looking back, some losses were a gut punch. I’m not referring to the obviously tragic loss of friends and family, but the loss of things that many consider mundane. Things like a front yard tree or a yard swing that was used under the aforementioned tree. Maybe you could easily get over the absence of such things my friend, but those of us with emotional states of mind and old souls, I reiterate the use of the term gut punch.

As we returned from four months living in Round Rock in early May of ‘23, it appeared that our return was going to be welcomed by a deluge of rain. Coincidentally, it would be the only significant rainfall the whole summer until our departure for Missouri. I digress …rain it did, a truly drenching rain storm. Early that Sunday, our first weekend home, the limbs of our front yard tree of thirty one years were overburdened with the weight of so much rain and promptly fell through our roof. It was a small hole, it was a huge mess that would require back breaking amount of cleanup, but none of that was holding my attention. I was focused on my shade tree and yard swing being destroyed. We can handle replacement of things in the house, but how does one replace the loss of a sanctuary?

My kids climbed the tree, made tree houses within the tree, it provided ample shade when doing yard work; but more than that, oh so much more, my tree was my place of solace. Sitting outside in the swing with my canine compadres, reading countless books, enjoying the occasional cigar, relaxing with libations be it coffee or whisky all provided me with a disconnect with an ever maddening world. Cowboy Jack wouldn’t surrender, he went out to where we’d spent countless hours enjoying each other’s company and simply sat …refusing to move. It was heartbreaking. One can’t help but wonder how these daily fixtures in our lives are interpreted by my dogs; but it was a special place to my puppies.

During the initial outbreak of Covid, Da and Ma (Kim and I ) were home all the time and were worried and sad a lot while sitting under the tree. The dogs definitely picked up on the vibe; they stayed very close and comforted us when we were down. I firmly believe that dogs are very aware of and responsive to the emotions of their humans and I hope we comforted them as much as they comforted us. I believe that trees have spirits. The sitting under our tree comforted us all. I don’t think we have thirty years to wait on it to regrow to its once princely stature; it is gone.

We travel almost constantly, but when we do return to home, I always knew that my tree would be there, calling to me, bidding me rest and peace. The gentle leaves dancing in the wind, providing a respite from 100° days, the limbs providing a playground for squirrels and birds to run; all a gift to the man sitting beneath it who was trying to work out the stresses of life. It couldn’t have been a more perfect place to work through the daily travails we face. As I mentioned earlier, I believe that trees have a spiritual component and my tree and the swing beneath it healed my broken soul many times and I shall treasure the time I spent under its embracing shade.

[raendown]

Pairing: HashiramaSakura Soulmate au: The one where you can see their soul and heal their emotional wounds as you get closer to each other

Follow the link or read it under the cut!

To be perfectly honest, Sakura sort of hated the catch-all excuse of ‘because we’re soulmates’. She didn’t like that so many people used it to explain away so many things just because they didn’t want to take the time to actually look in to the deeper reasons for why things happened, what decisions led to that event, or even what the resulting repercussions would be. More than that, Sakura didn’t like that even if someone did take the time to look in to all of that and drag it all out in to the light, it could still be summed up by simply saying ‘because we’re soulmates’.

This might have been why she spent so long denying her own soulmate when she finally found him. When she met the reanimated Senju Hashirama during the Fourth Great Shinobi War, she definitely had not expected to look in to him, down in to the very depths of who he was as a person to see his very soul shining brightly within. She also hadn’t expected her own soul to reach out to his and bring him back to life! She absolutely refused to accept that he had come back to life simply because his soul had bonded with her own. The ‘almighty power of soulmates’ was her least favorite trope in those stupid romcom movies Ino always tried to force her to watch and she was not going to take being a victim herself of such absurdity.

In her mind there had to be some sort of medical reason. Her theories mostly revolved around the regenerative properties of the Mokuton and quite possibly how it interacted with Edo Tensei. In the months after the war, Sakura subjected her newly alive-again soulmate to endless tests and experiments. She explored his DNA more thoroughly than anyone’s had ever been explored before, constantly frustrated to come up without answers.

For his part, Hashirama seemed less thrilled to have been given a second chance at life than one might expect – although she definitely understood why when he told her. He knew very little about this new world he had been reborn in to. The technologies of this new Konoha were foreign and slightly alarming to him. After having been levelled and rebuilt, none of the buildings or streets were the same. Not even the people were the same; all of the people Hashirama had known and loved had passed on years ago but for one remaining grandchild. As thrilled as he was to have finally discovered his soulmate, Hashirama was lonely in this new world. And Sakura could see it.

Day after day she forced herself to look away from the cracks that marred the light shining inside of him. They resembled the patterns of shattered glass, the golden brilliance of his soul shimmering through them as if to say ‘here I am, I am broken but still here, please look at me’. Much the same as the way Hashirama willing came to her again and again and again, allowing her to poke him with needles and takes samples of whatever she liked, all for the chance to smile hopefully at her and make a bit of conversation as she worked. She could see all the small damages his soul had taken and she very much wished she couldn’t. What could someone like her do for someone like him? Her, with her big forehead and her civilian heritage and her tendency to always get left behind. Sakura had long been used to being forgotten by the men and the boys in her life, surely it was only a matter of time before this man forgot her too.

Yet a man like Hashirama was hard to ignore, and for more reasons than just his overwhelming physical presence. He was tall and broad and stunningly gorgeous but those were not the traits which gave her pause and caused her to catch herself staring almost longingly time and time again.

Hashirama was bright in the same manner that Naruto was, though in a more mature way. He was a naturally upbeat person, always trying to make her smile or laugh or simply take a moment to appreciate some small moment in her day. He was also much smarter than the history books ever mentioned. His brother was the venerated genius, which usually caused his own rather impressive mind to be looked over. As humble as he was, though, he didn’t really care. He was kind and generous and an absolute terror to spar with, where he even showed a very satisfying respect for her own skills. He was everything she could have ever wanted in a partner.

And it took her three stupid years to appreciate him. Somewhere in between taking a blood sample and asking him to demonstrate his Mokuton when exposed to certain stresses, Hashirama had absently noted how tired she looked and offered to bring her lunch so she would be able to enjoy her break here in the privacy of her labs. When she accepted, somewhat surprised, she hadn’t expected him to bring a lunch of his own and stay. She didn’t expect him to regale her with stories of his younger years in the days before Konoha had even been built. She didn’t expect to enjoy his company so much she hesitantly asked him to stay for lunch the next day as well.

Before she knew it they were taking extended lunches in teahouses and cafes, meeting in the park on weekends to feeds the pond ducks, strolling arm in arm through the marketplace as she sought the perfect present for Ino’s birthday. Her research and her experiments fell slowly to the wayside, bit by bit, until one day she realized she hadn’t set foot in that lab for several days and had little interest in doing so.

What did she care for why he was here? Wouldn’t it be better to just accept that he was and enjoy their time together? His presence filled her life in a way no one else had before. He made her happy the way her father made her mother happy, the way Sai made Ino happy. After so long of closing her eyes and refusing to see what was in front of her, Sakura finally stopped to wonder why she couldn’t just let herself accept the happiness being offered to her so freely.

Three years after Hashirama was reborn, three years after she looked in to him and bound their souls together, Sakura looked again – really looked. She could hardly imagine that anyone else could ever have a soul more beautiful than Senju Hashirama’s: the rich golden color of it, the brilliant shine, and the way she could feel its warmth whenever she stood close. And now that she had finally allowed herself to look she saw something new. The thin cracks that had shadowed the light were closing, the edges melting together and leaving fewer and fewer each day.

In a moment of bravery, Sakura told him about the healing cracks. Instead of seeming surprised or even mildly interested, Hashirama only laughed like she had stated the obvious.

“But of course they’re healing,” he said to her. “That is the power of soulmates, is it not? To heal one another’s souls.”

“I suppose.” Sakura replied slowly. She had rather deliberately not thought too hard on what soulmates were supposed to do for each other while she’d been busy trying to disprove…she couldn’t exactly remember what she had been trying to prove or disprove.

“Besides, how could they not? After all, that is the very first thing that you and I discovered we had in common.”

“What do you mean?”

Hashirama reached out and stroked one finger down the line of her jaw, more bold then he had ever been before. The touch was almost intimate compared to the careful distance he usually maintained, ever conscious to respect her boundaries and allow her to always be the one to come closer. When he spoke his tone was soft yet firmly confident.

“You are a healer, Sakura. As am I. And I do not mean the jutsu that we use or the chakra we expend. We are the people that will stay when all others have turned away. We are the people that will listen when all others have closed their ears. We are the ones that hold firm when all others have given in. We are the healers, the ones who will offer comfort to a friend or help to an overburdened old women. We protect others. We help them. And we heal them. Under such kind light as that which shines every time I see your beautiful smile, what else could I do but heal?”

Tears filled her eyes and Sakura blinked rapidly to chase them away. The strangely archaic cadences of his speech only made his words more touching, in her opinion. The way he spoke always seemed to her to carry the weight of words well-thought out and these words in particular he seemed to have given quite a bit of thought to.

“That is also not to say that I am disparaging your abilities as a medical shinobi, and a prodigious one at that.” Hashirama’s eye twinkled. “Trained by my own kin and with such incredible natural talents, how could you not be?” Sakura gave a watery giggle.

“Stop, stop!” She cried softly. “I can only take so many compliments!”

“Ah, I could shower you with compliments from sunrise to sunset and never run out of things to say, my beautiful blossom.”

Sakura blushed fiercely, turning her head to hide her smile. Her expression dimmed quickly, however. “How can you say such nice things about me after the way I’ve treated you? You…are my soulmate.” It was the first time she had admitted it out loud and she was surprised by the wat the words tasted so sweet. “But I pushed you away and I treated you like some science experiment and – why are you laughing?”

“Forgive me, I pray, I don’t mean to laugh.” Despite his words, another chuckle escape before Hashirama calmed himself enough to smile and go on. “I received worse treatment from my own brother when the mood for his experiments took him. Always for the greater good, he insisted, and he did mean well. It isn’t evil to seek answers, Sakura. It isn’t bad to want an explanation before you trust in something.”

“I trust you,” Sakura blurted. Only once she had spoken did she realize she meant it wholeheartedly. Hashirama looked pleased.

“I wonder if you would allow me to say something rather bold,” he asked, such sweet hesitance in his face. Sakura tilted her head to one side, curious.

“Of course,” she told him. “You can tell me anything you like.”

She was startled to see the faintest hint of color rise to paint itself across his tanned cheeks. Hashirama reached out with both of his hands to grasp her own, sliding his fingers under hers ever so gently to hold them as though each were a delicate, precious jewel.

“I find myself quite in love with you, Sakura. Even if I could not see the bright beauty of your soul I would wish to have no other. If you would allow me, I would spend the rest of my days devoted only to your happiness.” She had always thought his face so open, yet right then she realized she had been missing out. His expression was more earnest than she had ever seen before, so warm and soft and kind. She could see the love he professed right there in his eyes, ready for the taking if she were so inclined.

“Oh Hashirama,” she breathed. “I don’t know what to say to that.” His fingers tightened around hers just the slightest bit.

“Say yes,” he suggested. It wasn’t a command, he would never command her emotions. He was such a good man.

“Yes,” she whispered, almost helpless to give him any answer but that one. “I don’t feel as if I’ll ever deserve you but yes!”

The look on his face when she fell against his chest was one of unadulterated awe. His smile was like sunlight blooming through a week’s worth of rainy day clouds and it warmed her right down to her very bones, filling her with such light feelings she thought she might have floated away if not for the strong arms that wrapped around her. With her hands now free, she gripped the front of his yukata to pull herself ever closer.

He smelled earthen, of growing things. His chest was like a solid wall of muscle and his arms softened steel bands. Sakura had been a self-sufficient woman since the day Tsunade taught her the trick to channeling her chakra through her arms; she could and had taken on the most dangerous people this broken world had to offer. She needed no one’s protection. That did not stop her from reveling in just how safe she felt inside her soulmate’s embrace. She knew instinctively that he would protect her, not just from physical hurts, but from emotional ones as well. Here she was safe. Here she would always be wanted, always be loved.

“My dear Sakura,” Hashirama whispered in her ear, “you deserve the world and all the good things in it.”

Flushing again with delighted pleasure, Sakura lifted her head to trace his handsome face with her eyes. Now that she had allowed herself to look she wondered how she had managed not to for so long. He was more than handsome, he was beautiful – inside and out. She could hardly believe that he belonged to her.

It seemed only natural for her to lean forwards and press a chaste kiss to his lips. Hashirama hummed, a delighted little noise, and held her tighter while tilting his head for a better angle with which to deepen the kiss. Sakura was lost immediately, lightheaded and dizzy with the rush of sensations flooding through her. She could hardly believe how right this felt. It was like puzzle pieces falling in to place, a riddle solved after three years of searching for an answer that had been right there in front of her all this time.

Hashirama kissed her until she happily conceded to the idea of never breathing properly again, so utterly filled with happiness that she rarely recognized herself. When they pulled apart she nearly squinted her eyes against the brilliance shining from deep within him and tears filled her eyes when he described to her what he saw of her own soul.

Cracked and bruised and broken it had been, riddled with the gaping chasms of personal hurts. But those breaks were healing just as his own were. Day by day the wounds upon both of their souls had been healing for quite some time already as each spent more and more happy time in each other’s presence. Hashirama and Sakura were healing each other, healing together. And as he had said, it was more than just because they were soulmates. Hashirama and Sakura were born healers; they could hardly do anything less than they were meant to.  

[squishy-bits]

this is going to sound click baity as hell but I’ve managed to start to pull myself out of a 6 year depressive episode and I feel like I have a lot of followers who would benefit from this so, here’s a really long explanation of how I pulled it off  

So, when the new semester started, I logged out of tumblr, gave my password to my boyfriend, and told him to change it. I deleted the app from my phone, removed it from the bookmarks in my browser, and started using other sites for references that I would normally go to tumblr for. Because of this, this blog (and my four others) have been completely silent recently. 

And it has been wonderful

so step 1) delete your tumblr. legit. lock it away from yourself. This website is no longer a place to vent and be with people with similar problems with you, it is a place to wallow and sink your time. Do you ever feel “stuck” in your bed or chair just endlessly scrolling through posts that you don’t read, jokes you don’t laugh at, and videos you watch without interpreting? You can just stop doing that, you know. It’s hard, I understand the draw, but putting it down will feel like a breath of fresh air. Not to mention, all the posts that mention, joke, and elaborate on depression and it’s symptoms mean that it was always on my mind, it felt like I couldn’t escape it, and whenever I didn’t want to do something I’d just lay down and say “oh well, it’s the depression” and like, yeah, it was, but that doesn’t mean I had to absolutely nothing about it, ya know? 

step 2) wake up. This one was even harder than deleting my tumblr, tbh. I set alarms, early as fuck, and actually got up for my classes. I made attendance mandatory for me. I intentionally scheduled my classes realistically early, and all over by morning. No afternoon classes. MWF only have one, TR only have two. They go from 9-noon. This way, when I wake up in the morning, I can promise myself a nap later in the day if I get up and go to class now. Sometimes I take it, sometimes I don’t. More and more often, I’ll find that I don’t want to sleep.  It’s been years since I’ve felt like being awake was better than magically fast forwarding time with sleep. Also, I’ve gone from waking up at 8-8:30 to waking up at 7 and using that extra hour to go to the gym in the mornings. I know this is unrealistic for some people, but if you have a gym on campus/membership and an easy way to access it in the mornings, I highly suggest it. This way, when I get to class, I’ve been awake for awhile and I feel like my day has already been going and it makes it easier? I dunno, it’s nice. I feel awake and productive. And that little after gym shower makes me smell nice. 

step 3) keep this schedule. literally. I just did these two things for a week and I was so. fucking. motivated. I woke up, I went to class, I’m awake and excited to do stuff, I get out of class, check the time, and it’s only lunchtime! I’m awake and excited and dressed and clean and outside and I still have daylight hours to do stuff! I used to sleep in so late so regularly that I had to do literally all of my shopping at walmart or riteaid because they were the only places that were open at the time when I was active.  ENjoy your first few afternoons off, use it for light studying, or working, or art practice, or whatever makes you feel happy. Your productive part of the day is over, you can do whatever you want now. 

step 4) slowly and steadily pick up a few more responsibilities/projects/interests. This will happen naturally, eventually you’ll get bored with all your free time and you’ll want to do something with it. I used my afternoons to pick up more shifts at work (more money! that feels awesome), I nominated myself (and got elected!) for the treasurer for my local chapter of the american chemical society, and I started doing undergraduate research with with my biochemistry professor. I’m developing my academic life and slowly starting to shape an idea of what I want to do with my degree after I graduate. I have goals, things to look forward to, and I’m actively working towards them. 

step 5) maintain. Don’t overburden yourself without a support system to catch you when you (inevitably) slip. You will fall back, it’s okay. I scheduled regular appointments with a therapist at my school. This works for me, but not everyone. If you can’t afford it, you can still practice the habits and behaviors they’ll recommend for you anyway. You can still talk to friends about what’s going on. Therapists aren’t magical, but they are efficient. Keep a journal of habits, (i use an app) to help keep yourself accountable, request friends keep you accountable as well, if they’re willing. I find recording my habits and progress is super useful, I’m motivated to get tasks done for the satisfaction of marking them off, and then when I miss a few or get in a depressed slump, I can look back at my progress and realize that it is possible, I’m already doing it, these things are being accomplished and will continue to be accomplished. 

Maintenance is the easiest part, to me. It feels unnatural and forced at first, but after awhile it becomes routine and you don’t even think about it.  This time last year I was failing all my classes, living with my parents (that I constantly fought with), never going to work, and sleeping almost 12 hours everyday.  Now, I try to go to the gym about 3 times a week, I eat better (because cooking is fun and good food makes me happy, it’s worth the work), my grades are good, I’m active in other activities on campus, I see a therapist, I moved out of my parents house about 7 months ago, and my boyfriend just moved in, and we are very happy together. Last year I was considering dropping out of school, and this semester I just booked a 2 night 3 day stay at a hotel in nashville because I can afford to miss a couple days, I’ve picked up enough extra shifts to save up for it, and I want to go on vacation with my boyfriend to celebrate that.  I know this is a joke, but my skin has cleared up, and my hair is thicker and healthier. Surprisingly enough, I’ve put on a little bit of weight, but it’s fine? It’s because I eat actual meals now, and not granola bars for literally everything.  I’m excited about the things I”m learning in school, actually engaged in lectures, revising my notes makes sense and I get information out of them. Drinking water everyday isn’t a struggle, but something I want to do.  I worry less. In general, all over. Even if money is tight, I don’t worry as long as I meet my bare minimums (rent, power, water, internet, and basic groceries). I’m steadily working on putting together my apartment, right now it’s a horribly tacky mess of mismatched furniture and electronics, but it’s cozy and my cat is very happy in her new home. 

Now that I’ve maintained this, and kept my health up, I’ve allowed myself little bits of tumblr at a time. I can tell when I get tired of it though, when I feel myself dissociating or getting sleepy, and have the self control to get off now.  Just. 

I credit all of it to getting off of tumblr.  i’m a better person because I cut myself out of this blue hell loop I’m saying you have to do this tonight, or ever, but that it’s something worth considering 

[cynthiamwashington]

Rest and Recovery: A Whole New Perspective (and A Giveaway)

If you’re a type-A, hard-driving peak performer, my hope is that this post will stop you in your tracks.

Today I want you to completely rethink your basic philosophy about how you manage both your fitness activities and the assorted stresses of hectic, modern life. This post was inspired by a great article from training expert Joel Jamieson of 8weeksout.com titled, “All Pain, No Gain: Why The High Intensity Training Obsession Has Failed Us All.” Joel’s message set off a firestorm of internal dialog among members of the Primal Blueprint team. (Catch Brad Kearns’ recent interview with him for the Primal Blueprint Podcast.) After much back and forth and additional research, I’m eager to get you reflecting and commenting on the genuine nature of recovery from an entirely new angle.

We only have a certain amount of energy we’re able to expend each day. No matter how hard you try to burn additional calories through crazy training, or express your type-A, workaholic tendencies to get more done across the board, you’re ultimately constrained by your own personal daily maximum caloric expenditure.

This assertion is supported by a well-publicized study of the Hadza, modern-day hunter-gatherers in Tanzania. The study revealed the shocking insight that we modern slackers burn a similar number of calories (pound for pound, of course) as our seemingly harder working, traditionally living counterparts. The authors of the study, which was published in the journal PLoS One, reported that, “The similarity in [total energy expenditure (TEE)] among Hadza hunter-gatherers and Westerners suggests that even dramatic differences in lifestyle may have a negligible effect on TEE.” I’d consider this mind-blowing.

The idea that we have an energy expenditure limit is known as the “constrained model of energy expenditure,” in contrast to the popular, but now seemingly disproven belief that we operate on an “additive model of energy expenditure.”

In the additive model embraced by conventional wisdom, your impressive morning workout adds to your total daily energy expenditure, seemingly promoting fitness gains, a faster metabolism, and a reduction in excess body fat. While logical at first glance, the additive model is being exposed as inaccurate.

In the constrained model, when we bump up against our max, the body compensates. The downward slope of the “other” section is you glued to the couch watching Netflix all afternoon, too worn out to even answer the doorbell on the heels of your 10k run that same morning.

Figure Source: “Constrained Total Energy Expenditure and Metabolic Adaptation to Physical Activity in Adult Humans”

This is an extreme example of compensating with slug time when you do something really strenuous; however, there are more subtle, nuanced ways we subconsciously adjust our behaviors when we bump up against our daily max.

I also speculate that we might best look at a bigger timeline than a single day. As longtime Primal enthusiast and Newport Coast, CA fitness legend Dave Kobrine observes, if he strings together a good week or two or three of impressive workouts and busy daily schedules, he often eventually experiences a need for some sincere downtime: less exercise, less work (overburdening his brothers in the family business in the process), more sleep, and more recovery. Keep this concept of “borrowed time” in mind when we discuss recovery debt shortly….

This commentary supports the compensation theory that I’ve discussed at length in Primal Blueprint books in relation to calorie balance and weight loss. The theory contends that calories burned during exercise lead to a corresponding increase in appetite and a decrease in general activity levels, as your body tries to preserve energy and recover. Particularly if you exercise in chronic patterns, the appetite stimulation can exceed the calories you burn, such that your overly-stressful workout patterns will actually compromise your weight loss goals.

As I like to quip to lecture audiences, “Your brain is saying, ‘I better stuff my face in case this clown tries to do this again tomorrow.’” In all seriousness,there are profound implications to this maxim, especially for avid exercisers who get frustrated when they can’t shed excess fat.

Besides the appetite and hormonal dysregulation from excess exercise that promotes sugar cravings and fat storage, the compensation theory suggests that you get lazier and eat more calories over the course of the day as a consequence of your workout. This happens consciously, such as when you enjoy a hot fudge sundae as a reward for your “big” workout.

It also happens subconsciously, where you might default to the couch for longer than planned; generally move more slowly and feel less motivated to do routine chores in the aftermath of one of those big workouts. Brad Kearns offers a great example of this from when he was training full-time on the pro triathlon circuit. He would drive the 0.6 miles to his mailbox—too tired from hours of training to bother walking or pedaling there). You might also zone out at work and take longer for routine tasks when you are stretched too thin by family, fitness, and fun; and/or snack more frequently with less discipline or awareness than usual.

These assorted compensatory reductions in metabolic activity on the heels of strenuous exercise and generally hectic living are typically outside of your awareness. On his Primal Blueprint podcast appearance, Joel Jamieson references research that athletic types paradoxically have a slower metabolic rate at rest than those who exercise less. Who knew!

The Recovery Deficit

Here is the other glaring omission from conventional thinking about stress and rest, the centerpiece of Joel’s argument for what he calls “recovery-based fitness”— recovery and restoration require energy in and of themselves!

Our flawed rat race, “no pain, no gain” perspective about peak performance in fitness— and in life—is that we should go, go, go until we collapse in a heap at the end of a productive day. We take rest and restoration for granted, instead of allocating a necessary slice of the daily energy expenditure pie for it.

Reflect carefully on Joel’s contention that our daily energy resources are allocated to three main functions:

1. Vital Biological Functions: We prioritize basic daily survival with assorted homeostatic mechanisms that require substantial energy—firing brain neurons, digesting food, breathing air.

2. Workouts and General Everyday Stress: Yes, these have to go in the same category. Realize that whatever energy you wish to allocate to fitness ambitions must compete with your commute, busy workday, jet travel, and shuttling around to the kids’ weekend soccer games. Exercise may be a great “stress release” from a hectic day at the office, but it’s also another form of stress to the body.

3. Recovery and Restoration: Surprise! Restocking depleted muscle glycogen, optimizing immune function, and replenishing the sodium-potassium pumps in your brain neurons and exercised muscles all require significant energy expenditure.

It follows that a type-A hard driver trying to dispense big energy to career, family, and fitness endeavors is playing with fire, constantly challenging the body’s maximum energy expenditure ceiling each day and consequently incurring what Jamieson calls “recovery debt.”

This is where your big expenditures on objectives #1 and #2 compromise what you have left for #3. Perhaps your immune system will break down and you’ll catch a cold. Maybe you’ll take nine hours to put together your audit report or quarterly marketing plan, instead of the six (with fewer mistakes!) it might take if you were firing on all cylinders during the work day. Maybe you’ll blow out a hamstring or strain your shoulder during a workout—not because the workout was beyond your abilities and not because of bad luck or an insufficient warmup, but because you weren’t fully repaired and prepared for your physical effort.

Relax, Records Are Made To Be Broken

One exciting element about this discussion is how it might foretell the future of athletic peak performance. They say records are made to be broken, and we have seen improved performance in team and individual sports in recent years due to increased economic incentives and refined training techniques. Tiger Woods single-handedly generated massive increases in money and attention to golf, and now we have droves more superfit, super competitive players from all over the world competing for unimaginable fame and fortunes. NBA and NFL players are bigger, stronger, faster, and more skilled than in decades past (sorry, Jerry West, it might be time to update the NBA logo!), thanks to the aforementioned economic forces.

However, we’re clearly approaching the ceiling of human potential in many prominent professional and Olympic sports. The exploits of LeBron James, Steph Curry, and Kevin Durant are not going to be trivialized in 50 years by 8-foot tall superhumans sinking 35-foot “four-pointers.” Nor will Usain Bolt’s world 100-meter record of 9.58 (that’s a human running at a top speed of 27.8 mph for the uninitiated) be considered pedestrian in 50 years.

Consider that the current high jump world record of 8 feet (yes, a human can clear his entire body over a bar that is the height of your ceiling!) has held now for 25 years. Forget the famed four-minute mile, the current record of 3:43 (c’mon, watch it on this video, it only takes a few minutes…) by Moroccan Hicham El Gerrouj has held for 18 years.

“El G,” who at 5’9” was estimated to have the cardiovascular system of a man 6’6”, the inseam of a man 6’2”, and the upper body of a man 5’2” (“a machine,” said commentator Craig Masbach, a former 3:52 miler himself) was also motivated by deepest of callings; he believed that it was his destiny in the eyes of Allah to become the greatest middle distance runner in history. After an upset loss in the Olympics he reported that, “I was unable to eat or sleep for a week.” He didn’t lose again for several years. Tough guy, and experts that predict that in 100 years, the mile record may only drop a couple seconds at most. But I digress…

Where are we headed from here? How will future athletes actualize the “records are made to be broken” maxim when we have already seen such superhuman feats? I speculate that future performance breakthroughs might be attained by athletes who train less than the current mindblowing standard of the world’s elite athletes.

Remember the legend of Jerry Rice, considered the all-time greatest NFL wide receiver? His off-season hill-sprint-till-you-puke regimen gained legendary status amongst fitness enthusiasts. “He worked harder in the off-season than anyone! No wonder he lasted in the league ’til he was 40!” the thinking went.

Today, in the aforementioned bigger, faster, stronger league (with consequently more severe impact trauma), we have exhibit B, Atlanta Falcons All-Pro wide receiver Julio Jones. An article about him caught my eye because of his trending toward Primal-style eating, but another statement from his interview was the real revelation: “I don’t have an offseason workout regimen. I don’t lift weights. I don’t run. I don’t do anything. I let my body rest. I just eat good. I actually eat great.”

Please don’t scoff and say “genetic freak.” I think Jones is giving us a glimpse into a future in which elite athletes (and enthusiastic everyday folks pursuing peak performance) will do more chilling, take longer off-seasons during which they log more beach time in Hawaii and steer clear of any fitness or lifestyle regimen that gives off a whiff of anything chronic.

Maybe we’ll even see pharmaceutical influences drive record breaking. The Tour de France guys love their drugs, right? What if they pedaled like crazy for 1,000 miles over 10 days, and then the team docs hooked them up to IV bags to enter medically induced comatose states for 72 hours of blissful recovery. Altered States II here we come!

Yes, the tide is turning. The Primal Endurance movement is being well-received by the endurance community that has long been mired in the overtraining, carb dependency paradigm. The Primal Endurane Mastery Course portal is filled with video interviews from leading training experts and champion athletes pounding the theme that there is such a thing as too much. In his Mastery Course videos, Olympic gold and silver medalist Simon Whitfield echoes the need for restraint when he says he is currently coached by his 80-year-old self!

Dr. Phil Maffetone—whose MAF method of aerobic-emphasis endurance training is finally getting its due after 30 years of stubborn resistance by tightly-wound endurance enthusiasts—promotes this theme beautifully in extensive interview commentary in the course. Here’s a sneak preview of his interview footage.

In Dr. Maffetone’s book, 1:59 Marathon, he argues that breaking this magic barrier will happen when an athlete actually does less mileage and less intensity than today’s elite, but improves running economy, optimizes rest and other lifestyle factors, and learns to race barefoot (because of reduced weight and improved explosive force per stride… once the feet become conditioned of course!). The current marathon world record is 2:02, a pace of 4:42 per mile! If you want to fully appreciate how amazing this is, go to a local track and try to complete one lap in 70.5 seconds. Good luck. Then imagine carrying on at this pace all the way from your house to downtown, or whatever other distant landmark you have in your town. FYI: you can’t approximate the marathon record pace on a treadmill because they max out at five minutes per mile pace!

The MMA world is also slowly but surely discarding the old school boxing mentality and ushering in an era of highly sophisticated training and recovery strategy. World champs are sparring much less, and spending more time in float tanks thanks in big part to the influence of the forward-thinking podcast king, MMA event host and standup comedian extraordinaire, Joe Rogan.

But let’s bring it back now. How about you? Are you willing to allocate a generous slice of your daily pie chart of energy allocation to recovery and restoration? What about taking down time on a park bench during your work day, taking an evening stroll with the dog instead of an elliptical session at the gym, turning around at mile 25 instead of mile 45 on your bike ride, and going to sleep instead of going to the email inbox? What if these choices might be paths to future breakthroughs in peak physical and cognitive performance? Yes, it requires some reprogramming away from conventional wisdom, but isn’t that what we all do here?

Now For the Giveaway…

Last week I unveiled two new course offerings:

The Keto Reset Mastery Course: We bring the New York Times bestselling book to life with over 100 videos, along with extensive audio and print programming—the most comprehensive online course on all aspects of ketogenic diet and lifestyle ever developed.

Paleo Cooking Bootcamp: A step-by-step meal preparation course that allows you to cook breakfast, lunch, and dinner options for an entire week in a single, highly focused two-hour power cooking session. Four sessions make for a month-long bootcamp.

Today I’m giving away a course (winner’s choice of the above two courses) to one lucky commenter. Just share a question or suggestion for what you’d like to see covered in future fitness related articles on MDA.

*Be sure to comment by midnight tonight (1/17/18 PST) to be eligible.

*If you’ve already purchased one or both courses and happen to be the randomly chosen winner today, we’ll simply refund you the cost of one course.

That’s it for me, everybody. Thanks for reading today, and I’ll look forward to hearing your questions and feedback on today’s post—and all things fitness and recovery based. Happy hump day.

Want to make fat loss easier? Try the Definitive Guide for Troubleshooting Weight Loss for free here.

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