#you need a baseline of stability to make a career out of it

[bandofchimeras]

hey poor kids, unsolicted advice btw: if don't know wtf to do with your life, if you can, go to trade school or technical college. rather than uni. or get an apprenticeship or work in something cool for bit. like a ship. or HVAC. a mechanic shop. you will feel so much better about yourself with a practical skill under your belt, and a career track to make enough money to address your loans. you will also have REAL SKILLS if shit goes down. and more likely access to a union! later, if you wanna go to uni for something more intellectual or specialized, you have a more solid financial foundation, community support, and confidence. universities have incredible opportunities & scholarships but often prey on young undecided teens and/or their parents and willingness to take out gov loans. this ESPECIALLY applies to queer kids & girls - if you think you can't do a trades bc its male dominated, GET SUPPORT & GO FOR IT! you may be being economically stunted by gendered narratives.

[masteryminutes]

Chapter 1: Assess Your Current Situation : 30 Days to a Better You

Before diving into the journey of self-improvement, it’s crucial to understand where you currently stand. Just like a GPS needs your starting point to guide you to your destination, you need to assess your present situation to map out your path to a better you. Understanding Your Baseline Begin by taking a holistic look at your life. This isn't about nitpicking every flaw but gaining an honest and comprehensive understanding of your current state. Consider the following areas: - Physical Health: How do you feel physically? Are you generally energetic or often fatigued? Do you have any chronic health issues or areas where you’d like to improve, such as fitness levels or dietary habits? - Mental and Emotional Well-being: How are you feeling mentally and emotionally? Are you generally happy, or do you experience frequent stress or anxiety? Reflect on your mental health and emotional balance. - Personal Relationships: Evaluate the quality of your relationships with family, friends, and colleagues. Are they supportive and fulfilling, or do you feel isolated or dissatisfied? - Career and Finances: Assess your job satisfaction and financial stability. Are you content with your career path, or do you feel stuck? Are your finances in order, or do you need to make improvements? - Personal Growth: Consider your personal development and learning. Are you continuously growing and challenging yourself, or do you feel stagnant? Self-Reflection Exercise To get a clearer picture, set aside some quiet time to engage in a self-reflection exercise. Grab your journal and write down your thoughts on the following prompts: - What are your current strengths and achievements? - What areas of your life do you feel most confident about? - Where do you see room for improvement? - What are your biggest challenges or obstacles? - How do you feel about your daily routines and habits? The Importance of Self-Awareness Self-awareness is the foundation of self-improvement. By understanding your strengths and acknowledging your weaknesses, you can set realistic goals and create a plan to achieve them. This honest assessment is not about criticizing yourself but about recognizing where you are and where you want to be. Setting the Stage for Change Once you have a clear understanding of your current situation, you can start setting the stage for change. This involves identifying the key areas you want to focus on during this 30-day challenge. Think about what’s most important to you and where you can make the most impactful changes. For example, if you’ve identified that your physical health needs improvement, you might prioritize tasks related to exercise and nutrition. If your mental well-being is a concern, you might focus more on mindfulness and stress-reduction techniques. Creating a Vision for Your Future Now that you’ve assessed your current situation, it’s time to create a vision for your future. This vision will serve as your guiding light throughout the challenge. Imagine your ideal self—how you feel, what you do, and how you interact with the world. Write down your vision in your journal. Be as detailed as possible, including how you want to look, feel, and live your life. This vision isn’t just a dream; it’s a goal you’re working towards over the next 30 days and beyond. Action Steps - Conduct a self-assessment in the key areas of your life (physical health, mental and emotional well-being, personal relationships, career and finances, personal growth). - Engage in a self-reflection exercise using the provided prompts. - Identify your strengths and areas for improvement. - Create a vision for your future, writing down detailed descriptions of your ideal self. - Set priorities for the areas you want to focus on during the 30-day challenge. By taking these steps, you’re setting a solid foundation for your self-improvement journey. Remember, the goal is to understand where you are now so you can effectively plan where you want to go. With this clear understanding, you’re ready to embark on the next steps of this transformative challenge. Read the full article

[whetstonefires]

I DON'T WANT TO BE TYPICAL so hmmm. han?

How I feel about this character

I...love Han, slightly against my will but also, like. He's a fun guy.

I think he got new backstory in his own movie that no one cares about except Donald Glover played Lando??? But I'm always going to be here for the Han who burned his Imperial pilot career (that can't have been super easy to achieve as an orphan) to save a seven-foot-tall minority dude who was getting abused by the government.

The fact that Chewie stuck with him afterward--like, there's the formal debt thing? But I've always felt like there was very much also the part where Chewbacca looked at this baby pilot who'd just thrown away the entire edifice of his own survival in a hostile galaxy for his sake, and felt that on a personal level there was no way he could let the natural consequences of that decision catch up. That he could not live with himself if he did that any more than Han could have lived with not saving him.

I have so many feelings about that! That Han is both the kind of person who is actually worth caring about and believing in even though he doesn't think so, and someone who when we meet him has been living most of his adult life with the heavy constant consequence of what it cost him to make the heroic choice just once.

All the people I ship romantically with this character

Uh...just Leia, really? If I don't have a problem with a canon ship I don't tend to mess with it. He can have history with Lando, that's sometimes charming, but I think I like it a little better if he doesn't so I probably can't say I ship that.

My non-romantic OTP for this character

Uh......based on my rant above, gotta be Chewie actually. I like his friendships with Luke and Lando a lot but the one with Chewie has been pivotal to his whole life so constantly for so long and it is incredibly neglected, both officially and on the fan side. Has it been seriously explored anywhere outside the hated Christmas special.

...to what extent is Chewie's general neglect a result of Christmas Special Radiation rather than the fact that the character doesn't speak English or look human? Not a lot I think, but maybe a bit.

My unpopular opinion about this character

I have no sense of what the popular opinions about Han are. Han takes are so all over the map.

I think Han can probably cook. Like it's not fancy and it's not even pretty, but it's safe and as wholesome as you get when fresh veggies aren't cheap, and it tastes decent. He probably experiments in the kitchen a lot but in the same unscientific way he mods his ship.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

Uh well you see I'm kind of detached from What Happened In Canon after the OT at this point but I think a cool direction to go with Han is he keeps trying things.

Because, see, Han doesn't know how to be chill. Han has been in survival mode almost his whole life, but for much of it he's been pretty good at being constantly one step ahead of the reaper, you know? He's always in danger but he's rarely helpless and his whole thing is the hustle to maintain that margin, he's got to move move move.

But Han is not going to be useful or happy in a political context. He can't contribute meaningfully to most of Leia's Republic-constructing work post-trilogy, and he's not under any direct personal survival crunch anymore. So like, I feel like he'd go through phases--he'd involve himself in the military/security end of things because hey he has rank and he's not bad at it, and it works well with his stimulus-seeking high baseline arousal and it's important.

But as things stabilized, which I insist they would in my canon, security work would get more boring and routine and the interesting bits would get less compatible with spending time with Leia, and he'd increasingly be choosing between 'desk work' and 'being told what to do,' so he'd pull out of that.

And this would put him into a cycle of not finding personal fulfillment in whatever he was focusing on, because he's used to having a sense that even his objectively stupid and banal activities are Very Important because his life was routinely on the line and in comparison a more normal routine feels Pointless.

Eventually I think he'd be a pretty heavily involved parent, but before that and after the kids were old enough not to need full-time attention, Han would go through these intense phases trying balance access to the domesticity he does actually want and his needs to not 'be bored' or 'feel useless.'

Honestly there are similarities to what Anakin would go through if he'd left the Order to be Padme's husband after the war, because they do have some significant points of commonality, but Han is a very different, much more stable person with a lot better-developed sense of agency so there would be a lot of 'storming off at a high point of personal frustration to take random cargo jobs in the Falcon for three months and then having to call Leia about the huge drug-smuggling operation that he stumbled ass-first into' but probably no actual breakdowns.

[trying-write-fanfics]

Shouji Mezo X Reader part 19 Remember

The girls early that morning went straight to the school asking if Y/n was allowed to bring her to the mall for the camping trip. Before the school could say anything they promised most of the class was going to be there and that they wouldn’t take their eyes off the girl. They were talking about her like a dog. The school agreed, and reminded that Y/n does not have a phone, but does have a tracker implanted in her. The school was being lenient because not only did Y/n show she was on good behavior, but if something happened the students would learn a good lesson on capturing someone. Aizawa had already told the school that he was sure most of his students would be able to outsmart her in this area. 

 The next step was to actually let Y/n know. It’s not like she had a phone they could just text, it was like the 1800s, no phones squat! They knocked on her door. She silently opened it, she was in her robe, her hair was up and her eyes tired. She shut the door and reopened it to reveal she was all ready for the day. She was in an outfit that stood out, had her hair flawlessly in place,  shoes to complete the drip and make up done.

“How did you do that?” Jirou yelled.

“I don’t even think you let go of the door.” Tsu said.

“What is up girlies?” she asked.

“We wanted to know if you wanted to come to the mall with us today.” Hakagure said.

“Well, legally I’m not allowed to have plans, so sure.”  Y/n said.

“Wait do you have money? We’re going to shop for the camping trip.” Momo said.

“Yeah, my mom’s card.”

“What!” Urakaka said.

“Well she saved a lot of money without having to buy any back to school stuff when she had me switch to online. This can make the difference up.”

Y/n got her stuff and started walking back with the girls to the dorms so they could pick up their things for such a shopping trip.

“So what did you and Shouji do last night? Mina asked.

“Well, I lost my eyesight so he watched me stumble around because I wasn’t gonna tell him I was blind.”

“Why?” Tsu asked.

“I wanted to see how well my other senses could work it out.” She told them. “What am I? Open about all my issues? You guys get the crime stuff, but I’m entitled to my secrets.”

“Did he not help you?”Jiro asked, a little shocked about the word choice.

“I mean I guess.” She played it off.

The girls were hoping for this epic romantic little secret meeting and instead they just imagine Y/n walking around in a circle and tripping on stuff while Shouji watches. Shouji was a kind gentle giant who does help others, but the image they were seeing was Y/n would bite his hand off if he tried to help the girl. 

“Is the rest of the class coming with us today?’

“Yeah, mostly everyone.” Momo said.

“Wait, are you going camping with us?” Tsu asked.

“Yeah, Aizawa is gonna do the government a favor and get some baselines set for my quirk. He got approved for  quirk stabilizers too so I can use my quirk lessening the pain.” She said. 

“Are you sure it's safe?” Jirou asked.

“Well, I bet I'll be fine since Aizawa will be there.” Y/n said. 

 In all honesty, she did want to learn more about her quirk and it’s limits. She wasn’t allowed to for so long and now that she has permission! What a concept! Some freedom with her quirk. This might be what she got instead of a prison sentence, this was a lot better than she thought it was gonna be. It was separated by girls and boys. 

 The students met up and went to the subway. They were all planning what they needed to get for the trip. 

“I think I’m gonna get  bug spray.” Urakaka said. 

“That’s all you need?” Y/n asked.

“Well I already have enough clothes and-“

“I’ll buy you the bug spray.”

“What you don’t have-“

“I’m gonna ask to borrow it anyway, now it’s one less thing for me to pack.” She said. “Besides if my mom reads the credit card bill she’ll think I’m being responsible, it’s a win win.”

“I wanted to ask you something, just between us.” Urakaka whispered.

“What’s up, cutie?”

“Deku is always asking you for help with his training, and I wanna know if there’s anything I could do to make myself better as a fighter or just someone to rely on. You know a lot about that stuff.” Urakaka explained. 

“I don’t know  your areas of weakness besides your quirk being overused. Gunhead gave you some pretty solid training, I could try and teach you what I know, but it might not be what you need. I can’t really help with your quirk, but I’m sure this summer camp will help you. You’re already pretty light on your feet, that’s what most people here have troubles with.”

“You don’t think I’m weak?” Urakaka asked.

“No. I know you might think that because your quirk isn’t the best fighting one there is, you don’t shoot stuff out of your hands or anything, but it seems like you actually work on other things beside your quirk making you a whole hero.” Y/n explained.

“You know, I’m kinda jealous of you. You speak so easily what’s on your mind and it just comes out so easy for you.” Urakaka told her.

“That’s just because I’m not around my family. When I’m with them in public it’s just best to keep my mouth shut, but I’m not really worried about the consequences here.” Y/n told her.

“Are you parents...cold people?” She asked.

“They’re trying their best. They’re very career oriented people.” Y/n explained.

After they got off the subway, the class made their way to the mall. They were surprised to be recognized by civilians. People did surround them and asked questions. Y/n felt like the odd one out. She wasn’t part of this class, and yet now she was. Hagakure made a plan for the class to split up to divide and conquer and to come back in the meeting space.

“Shouji, you should ask Y/n to join us.” Tokoyami said.

“Why, so you can tease me more?” Shouji asked.

“I just figured she would order lunch from the cashier for us.” 

“Y/n” Shouji called out to her.

 Y/n turned her head to look at him and then stuck her tongue out. She made her choice to join Momo and Jirou instead.

“Looks like she’s not coming with us.”

“You should have flirted with her better.” Tokoyami said.

“That wasn’t flirting.”

“I’m talking about last night.”

Betrayal again!! Shouji didn’t let it bother him too much since the two guys had shopping to do. Should he talk to her about last night? She didn’t seem off or anything...was that normal for her? To open her bed and have a whisper conversation. They weren’t really flirting, just talking about silly concepts. It wouldn’t be weird if Momo were to do that. They were just having a sleepover…except there was that almost kiss…she couldn’t even see him. There was no way she was prepared for a mouth like his. She was just caught up in what right. Like a little summer romance.

“We should play truth or dare at camp.” Y/n told the girls. 

“That might be sensitive for you, you gotta tell the truth if you play truth or dare.” Jirou said. 

“Then I’ll just pick dare.”

“I dare you to pick the truth.” Jirou said.

“You got me there.” Y/n said. 

Momo laughed. 

“C’mon can’t you tell us there’s obviously something between you and Midoriya or you and Shouji.” Momo said. 

“Why not both.” Y/n teased. 

“Awh!  You’re too good at this!” Jirou complained. 

“I may secretly be in love with Sero, he liked my alligator stapler.” Y/n joked.

“Don’t make it harder to think.” Jirou said. 

“Maybe then we should drop it if Y/n doesn’t wanna be open about-“ Momo said.

“No, I’m digging this attention. I wanna hear more how I live rent free in your minds.” Y/n said. 

“I don’t remember you ever being like this.” Momo said. 

“It would be unladylike of me to have such selfish desire.” Y/n mocked her mother. 

“So if you two knew each other before this does that mean, do you remember Momo well?” Jirou asked.

“Momo was the pearl of her parents eyes.” Y/n said. “She may have been a little shy, but she made it a mission to talk to me, because I looked so cool.” Y/n said. 

“I just figured since we were the same age-“

“Admit it my frilly little dress and tap shoes was the fit of the century.” Y/n said. 

Momo laughed at Y/n’s teasing. They went back to talking and as the rule of three goes, Y/n took the back so her two friends could walk in the front. Life felt normal again. Well her version of normal. She was out with friends with little worries in the world. Her parents were mad at her, but that was expected. Being a teenager is hard and her parents cannot fathom what it’s like. As life goes on, their problems get more complicated. All was well in the world, but when people think that, that’s when disaster strikes. Momo and Jirou got further way as Y/n slowed down. A hand covered her mouth and pulled her to the side, to a privacy behind a store. She was thrown against a wall, one hand went to the side of her face. A blade was pressed against her neck in a threatening way. Her capture was none other than old business partner Dallas. The cold blade shivered against her neck.

“L-long time no see, Dallas.” Y/n said. 

“I don’t wanna do this...but I know you were captured by the police .”

To save him. 

“I have to know what you told the police. Spill it, everything.”

Not a single thing. 

“You know I wouldn’t betray you.” She said.

The blade we pressed deeper into the skin, causing blood to shed. 

“You’re lying you have to. What plea deal did they give you, huh?”

“You know if you kill me you’ll lose your best client.” She said hoping that would get him to think rationally.

This wasn’t rational at all. From the knife to the kidnapping. They’re in a mall, in the back of a store, a million cameras had to have caught him. The knife, if she does piss him off, the blood will go everywhere, making endless evidence. But he wasn’t training rationally, this was a last ditch effort. What was the police doing that made him so scared? 

“Damn it!” He pulled the knife back and then slammed it into the wall, causing another slice on her neck. “You think I don’t know that? I’m losing way too much. Your mother is trying to go sober to avoid suspicion. I can’t sell anything anyway! And the police haven’t led up at all! They’re choking us out with those damn heroes. You’re caught and you go walk free, what privilege you must have, being so rich you can’t even be kicked down.”

This was not the storyteller that was sneaking drugs into her mailbox. This was someone desperate. He never cared, but he used her loneliness to his advantage. He got too comfortable with the view up top, but now with one of his key players gone, he’s angry.  

“What’s killing me going to do? You would have known by now if I betrayed you or you would have been caught .” She told him. 

“Shut up!” He punched the wall beside her face. 

 She was scared despite her remarks. Her warm blood against the cold blade was reminding her how clumsy he was, that he could kill her on accident, here. He was pressing it enough to let some blood out. It trickled down her neck, onto the blade and her shoulder. She didn’t want to die here, but what was the plan? What does he want to know? She doesn’t have anything she can give him.

“What do you wanna know?” She asked. 

“Why would I believe for one second you got away with not telling the police anything?” He told her. 

“If you stayed behind, you would have seen how injured I got.” She told him. “Excessive brutality.”

“You know I’m kinda jealous of you. People will always pity you and feel like they’re going too hard on you for just existing the way you are. It must be nice to live in one giant cradle!” His voice is like a madman. 

That was it. She didn’t want to fight him, but he was picking his words poorly. She undercut his chin. He moved his knife like he was going to strap her in the arm, but missed and got caught in the hit. He jumped back instead of attacking forward. Their eyes locked, shocked out each other’s actions. He ran back into the public instead of finishing the job. She survived. He never wanted to kill her. Maybe he was just consumed with rage when he saw her here at the mall...

[studioserra]

A Complete Guide to Landscape Photography

There is little that compares to the grand majesty of nature. The allure of impossible rock formations, the breadth of expansive beaches, and the fairytale feel of canopied forests never ceases to stun even a well-seasoned landscape photographer.

Capturing stunning landscapes is an art in itself. Landscape shots require a deep knowledge of sense of scale, and how best to utilize the right time of day to one’s advantage. Follow the landscape photography tips below to land a great shot.

What Is Landscape Photography?

Landscape photography is photography that occurs in the great outdoors. It is separate from what we know as nature photography. Usually, landscape photography captures an impressive natural scene—an imposing mountain range, a serene, sprawling field, a river roaring by—untouched by human presence (besides the photographer’s, of course).

For all beginner landscape photographers seeking to explore the earth while capturing their own magnificent images, here is a complete guide to get started.

What’s the Best Camera for Landscape Photography?

While it is possible to take photographs with any camera, consider investing in a mirrorless digital camera or DSLR for your landscape photography needs.

Mirrorless and DSLR cameras provide maximum control over camera settings, which means not only is the baseline quality of the image automatically superior, the possibilities of creating professional-looking pictures are endless.

Mirrorless and DSLR cameras also allow the photographer to swap lenses.

For sweeping landscape images, like canyons and caverns, go with a wide-angle lens such as Nikon’s 14-24mm.

For more detailed and close-up images, don’t be afraid to use a zoom lens or telephoto lens, like Canon’s 70-200mm.

Experiment with different focal lengths (the distance in millimeters between the lens and the camera’s sensor) to see how the same vista can render in different ways.

Do You Need a Tripod for Landscape Photography?

A sturdy tripod is a landscape photographer’s best tool. Manfrotto manufactures a professional-grade line at an affordable price point. The basic function of a tripod is to act as an extension of the photographer. The tripod stabilizes the camera so you can take the exact shot you want.

A tripod is ideal in low-light situations or during night photography, as the steadiness allows you to lower the shutter speed without sacrificing ISO, or grain. A tripod is also useful for experimenting with angles and perspective; depending on the landscape, you may choose to photograph shooting up, across, or down to produce the desired effect.

What Are the Best Settings for Landscape Photography?

A competent landscape photographer possesses the fundamentals of good photography: knowing how and when to adjust exposure, aperture, shutter speed, and ISO. It is particularly important to have a good grip on these elements since most landscape photography occurs in the great outdoors, where weather and light can change dramatically—and quickly.

Aperture is the size of the lens opening, which lets in light.

Shutter speed is the duration of time the lens is open; low-light or long exposures depend on lower shutter speed to bring in as much light as possible.

ISO increases brightness, however, depending on the strength of light, ISO might also add grain. Know the difference between a lower ISO and higher ISO and the advantages and disadvantages of each.

Some photographers use grain to their advantage, but for a crisp image, try not to rely too heavily on ISO to compensate for light. All of these elements lead to exposure, which is the combined light that enters the camera sensor after adjusting aperture, shutter speed, and ISO. Manual mode controls each element separately, aperture priority favors the lens opening over other settings, while Automatic mode adjusts all elements automatically.

How to Focus on the Subject in Landscape Photography

Most landscape photography relies on wide-angle lenses and a large depth of field to adequately capture the subject. A high aperture, adjusted with the f-stop, allows most of the subject to come into sharp focus.

Use the gridlines in your viewfinder or screen to find focus.

Begin at either the top or bottom third of the frame, but don’t be afraid to experiment.

While there are some examples of landscape photography that prioritize the foreground, resulting in a blurred background (known as a shallow depth of field, or portrait effect), most landscape photography captures the entire scene at once.

If you have trouble getting clear focus across the entire frame, it is always possible to take a few shots with different areas of focus then layer them together in Photoshop during the editing process.

RAW vs. JPEG: Which Is Better?

There are a variety of file formats, the most popular and familiar of which is JPEG. JPEG files automatically compress details, which results in image quality loss. RAW files, however, retain all data and information.

While the processing time for RAW files is longer, the resulting images are easier to edit and higher in quality. All DSLR and large format cameras offer RAW as a file format. Advances in smartphone technology means your iPhone or Android can also shoot in RAW, with assistance from camera apps like Lightroom or ProShot.

How to Properly Compose a Landscape Photo

An easy tip for beginner landscape photographers is to build your scene around the horizon. Refer to the Rule of Thirds, which is a popular trick for composing perfectly balanced and aesthetically-pleasing photographs.

The Rule of Thirds crosses three horizontal lines with three vertical lines

You can set these up through your viewfinder or on the back screen of your camera

The points where those lines meet are the points of interest; place the most dynamic or compelling parts of your subject here

Take care to keep the horizon along that middle horizontal line, and you should have a foolproof formula for a picture-perfect scene.

How to Find the Best Light

The best light is soft and diffused, with a dreamy quality to it. True tones pop against that subtle light, which makes natural landscapes look all the more breathtaking. Early mornings before sunrise and late evenings, just before sunset, offer this “golden hour” light that photographers chase. When preparing for a shoot, make a note of sunrise and sunset times to plan accordingly.

You can also buy some lens filters to aid when the light is not to your advantage. A neutral density filter, for example, reduces the intensity of light and color coming through the lens, while a polarizing filter can help with things like darkening the sky and suppressing glare from reflective surfaces, like bodies of water.

Once the sun goes down, an entirely unique scene emerges. Experiment with long exposure photography to capture shooting stars, light trails left by passing cars, and other natural phenomena. Long exposure builds upon the basics of photography, but requires a few extra tools along with some additional know-how.

In order to take a proper long exposure photograph, set up your tripod and set the frame.

If the tripod is in a precarious position, weigh it down with a bag filled with rice, sand, or rocks.

Next, you’ll want to set the camera to bulb mode through the DSLR camera settings. Bulb mode manually forces open the shutter past the typical standard of 30 seconds. The longer the shutter is open, the longer the exposure.

A remote shutter release or cable release connects to the camera so you don’t physically have to hold down the shutter button to capture the exposure. Once you’re ready, click down to open the shutter and start the photograph. Once you’re done, click down again, and you will have completed a long exposure photograph.

How to Edit Landscape Photos

Post-processing is an important finishing step for landscape photography. Upload the RAW files into Adobe Photoshop or Lightroom, where you can adjust everything from exposure to contrast.

If the perspective angle is off, use the Edit > Perspective Warp tool to adjust the plane.

Lightroom is good for making quality edits to an image, whereas Photoshop offers a larger variety of options for transforming an image, down to the pixels. This is useful if you need to airbrush, smooth, or add other effects.

How to Become a Better Photographer

Being in nature is a pleasure and a privilege. There is an unspoken rule to leave the environment as you found it. But that being said, exploration is key to landscape photography. For beginners, it may seem daunting to go off the beaten path; this, however, is precisely where you will find the best scenes. Take hundreds, if not thousands, of photos experimenting with different techniques, perspectives, and angles. The best way to become a better landscape photographer is to simply get out there, enjoy the great outdoors, and capture as many images and experiences as possible.

Master photographers like Jimmy Chin honed their craft for decades before embarking on full-time creative careers. With Jimmy Chin’s MasterClass, learn to form the principles of your visual narrative, how to pitch, land, and work with clients, and which gear is essential for shoots--and how you can leverage the editing process to full effect.

Become a better photographer with the MasterClass All-Access Pass. Gain access to exclusive video lessons taught by photography masters, including Jimmy Chin, Annie Leibovitz, and more.

[mutantsrisingrpg]

Congratulations DAISY! You’ve been accepted as NIX.

I did my waiting... twelve years of it... until we finally got our Nix! Daisy, let me start this off with how happy I was to see an app for Luke in our inbox and that happiness only grew when I read through it. At the very end of your details section you said that Luke is contradictory to a fault - which is the very much something I was looking for with him. Luke is a danger, yes we all know this, but regardless of that he wants to protect his family and he has everything as his fingertips that could make him “holy.” I’m so excited to see where you take him! 

Welcome to Mutants Rising! Please read the checklist and submit your account within 24 hours.

Out of Character Information:

NAME/ALIAS: Daisy

PRONOUNS: She/Her

AGE: 24

TIMEZONE & ACTIVITY LEVEL: EST // I work a few part-time jobs, so my free time is mostly reserved to the evenings and weekends, but once I have muse for a character and find a great writing community, I really commit to the rpg! I would give myself a 7/10, with some weeks dipping down to a 6 just because of work schedules and such. If there’s ever a time I can’t be on for longer than usual, I’ll definitely let you know!

In Character Information:

DESIRED ROLE: Luke Espinosa / Nix

GENDER/PRONOUNS: Cisgender male & he/him

DETAILS & ANALYSIS: This is where you show us who the character is to you! The format of this doesn’t matter, whether it’s in bullet points or in para form, and can be as long as you’d like it to be. Feel free to get creative!

Luke — “light giving” / Espinosa — From the Spanish word, “espino,” which means “hawthorn”

It’s an irony that’s not lost on him, a simple name bestowed on him by a simple man, yet perfectly matched to his own particular talents. Privately, he smiles at the memory of his mother calling him ‘Luca,’ a nickname he’s revealed only to Isabel. (Naturally, she’s the only person he’d allow to call him that now.) Still, there’s a certain saintliness to the name that he feels is an ultimate disconnect to the man he believes himself to be: hateful, spiteful, and altogether brutal — in other words, totally undeserving of anything remotely ‘holy’. The hawthorn tree is often thought to symbolize love and protection, and are often beloved by birds for their many branches and fruits to aid in nest-making and hatchling development. Personally, I feel as though Luke wouldn’t give much thought to his surname, given the memories of the man who gave it to him. Still, I can’t help but think that this last name suits him exceedingly well, especially when I consider the arc I’d like to see him go through. Currently, Luke is someone full of anger; he’s bitter, rages often and relatively indiscriminately, and rejects responsibility out of semi-unfounded fears. He’s a weapon even though he wants to be a shield, too destructive to truly protect anyone from the wrath of the world — or worse, his own. He’s not a simple man, per se, but the outside world would be forgiven for thinking him little more than a bad-tempered, ill-mannered creature of habit, forever searching for something to destroy whether through punch or power. And yet, he manages to be more than all the red that typically surrounds him, and rather evidently, too; there’s rarely a day that he doesn’t return to the apartment if only to whip up a quick boxed dinner for Isabel and Isaac and bask in their company, sharing a laugh over Isaac’s latest mishap. He’s someone who will fight for his family, die for his family, even though he never wanted, expected, or asked for them. He struggles to balance the undeniable need to protect them against his utter lack of faith in himself and the world around them. It’s not that he doubts his powers; truly, he knows exactly how dangerous he can become, how all-consuming his light can be when his internal state reaches somewhere overwhelmingly dark. So, on the days he truly needs to get away, it’s not in the boxing rings of The Jungle or the bar at The Green Mill that call to him, but instead the rooftop of some nearby building, as close to the sun as the smokey city will allow, recharging and resetting in silence. Within the Blackburn Syndicate, he’s tough, some might even call him brave — and it’s partially true, though not because of some gallant side to his personality usually cast aside in favor of sulking in the shadows. Rather, his bravery displays itself largely in times of fear; scared for the safety of someone else, he’ll often volunteer to be put in harm’s way, though not without throwing some wayward remark about the other person’s inability to handle their job. Luke knows he’s an asset, a machine, a means to an end for the Syndicate. He’s quick to protect by means of a fierce onslaught of attack — which happens to make him the perfect weapon. He’s built his career, if not his whole life, on being menacing, on instilling fear into a person in any way he can and beating whatever’s left, out. Simply put, it’s just what he knows.  In terms of truly unleashing the full extent of his powers, there are so few lines he’d be unwilling to cross. Still, when the question of family comes up, it’s not hard to imagine him setting the world alight just to keep them safe. In short, although the baseline of his personality could default to a simple ‘angry boy’ trope, I think Luke is so much more than just that. I see him as someone so craving of stability, that the fear of not having it makes it impossibly easy for him to run away; someone with the power to absorb light, yet utterly incapable of providing it for himself; a shield with no defense — contradictory to a fault. 

BIO:

[ TW for violence, death, marital/family abuse, alcohol ] Fighting had always been in his blood, and he knew it. When he closes his eyes, he still remembers coming home from school to find his precious mother, still heavily pregnant with his unborn sister, bloodied and battered on the floor, bruises formed all over her body and cuts marring her pretty face. And his father, gruff and hulking, liquor evident from his smell and the arrhythmic steps of his heavy feet, ordering the young boy to help clean up – i.e., get rid of – his fatally wounded mother. He was nine then. A boy by all measures, but the ‘monster’ within claimed his youth, clawing from the depths of his grief as he clung to his mother’s life-drained body. At a moment so dark, his body emanated light and heat, overwhelming and blinding as his tears shed freely until the world around turned black with ash and fear. At ten, he was a child trapped in a plastic prison hundreds of feet underground, blocking out all sources of natural light after enough tests determined he drew his power from the sun. His body grew weak — no, he was made to be weak, forced by human powers greater than his own — though his appetite for destruction only augmented with each passing day. When the scientists deemed him feeble enough that he’d have little chance of full-powered recovery, he was placed into a foster home with fellow mutants. Fortunately for Luke, they vastly underestimated his body’s ability to  At best, their foster parents saw each of them as little more than the monthly check; at worst, they saw their ‘children’ as nightly entertainment, watching with eager abandon as the kids with control of their powers beat up the ones whose powers hadn’t fully manifested. Unlike some of the other kids, it wasn’t the pink hair he’d seen first, nor the trembling fingers he’d recognized all too well — a trademark of someone not fully in control of their powers, yet still grasping at some invisible force in the hopes they would come back. He saw the fear in her eyes, the silent plea for help in a moment of desperation, and on instinct, he stepped in front of Isabel, shielding her from the cruelty of kids competing for a love they wouldn’t receive from ‘parents’ who were anything but. They weren’t fast friends, exactly, but something deeper: family. In a world where choice had been so quickly taken away from them simply by the nature of their genetic makeup, this act of protection without care, of love without thought, was the loudest kind of rebellion two kids confused by the world around them could muster. Soon enough, their powers grew in harmony, working with each other to learn new tricks that complemented each other’s skills. And at twelve, after enough foster homes to last a lifetime, they arrived in Chicago with nothing but a backpack between the two of them, holding little precious trinkets they’d collected or — in Luke’s case — stolen along the way. Isabel caught notice of the Blackburn Syndicate shortly after they’d settled in the snow-strewn streets. He was hesitant and prideful, believing he’d be able to provide for the both of them through whatever means necessary. He knew his aptitude for fighting could land him some money, even if it meant getting some teeth knocked out every now and then, but when he saw her knowing fear and constant shiver, he conceded once more, letting her dreams dictate their future. His apprehension for yet another home claiming to welcome them and treat them kindly remained even after Alma agreed to take them in; the distaste only grew when it was clear ‘impressing’ the woman came in the form of Isabel fainting from over-exerting her powers and an altogether destructive showing of his own. Isabel assimilated quicker than he did, finding her footing well before him; half-scared to commit himself to this new environment and half-terrified that he’d lose her if he didn’t, Luke accepted menial jobs within the Syndicate as he worked on mastering his powers. When he turned eighteen, he took an under-the-table job at The Jungle, taking and encouraging bets for certain fighters in exchange for proper lessons. Here, he studied the best of the best until he was ready for the ring himself, and by twenty-four, he carved a reputation for being quite the fearsome fighter. “The Silent Striker,” the crowds dubbed him, when his quick but quiet fighting style emerged supreme against fighters twice his size. For the past few years, he’s kept the extent of his fighting a secret from Isabel and Isaac, telling them that he liked to go just to watch, or because he was on a special assignment from the Director. It’s not that he doesn’t trust them — on the contrary, he trusts them a little too much and believes that admitting to liking, perhaps even needing The Jungle as a form of release and rush would scare them away or cause them unnecessary concern. As much as they were his saving grace, they could also be his undoing and, in turn, his desire to protect Isabel and Isaac often meant shielding them from the truth of his being — the harsh cruelty he inflicted on others in order to make sure they’d all be taken care of, outside of the confines of the Syndicate. After all, the havoc he wreaked with just his hands was nothing compared to what he could do if he let light consume him, and when all was said and done, it was safer to have them wonder, “What is he doing?” rather than “What won’t he do?” Then again, when the question of family comes up, it’s not hard to imagine him consuming the world in order to keep them safe. 

EXPANDED CONNECTIONS: 

ISABEL ACOSTA: He might never say it out loud, but she is most definitely his saving grace. She’s more than a friend, more than family. Isabel is the first person who chose him, who saw him for what he was and didn’t shy away from it but instead welcomed him — hell, even needed him. He might not have known it at the time, but he needed her just as much, and certainly needs her now. When push comes to shove, he will follow Isabel no matter the consequence, no matter the reward because he knows there is no greater advantage than having her by his side. In terms of future ideas, I’d of course love to explore the depths of his relationships with Isaac and Isabel more. The concept of ‘found family’ comes with the territory of choice, which, for a man shuffled from one house to another and utilized as a weapon for about as long as he can remember, is something precious, if not nearly divine. I’d love to see these relationships tested and tried, and really pull and poke at the bonds those characters share just for Luke to realize the depth of his choice and see the lengths he’d go to ensure their safety. I’m a sucker for angst and tension and, naturally, would love to see Luke’s faith in his family falter, to play out possible betrayals or missteps if only to see him inevitably find his way back home. 

CAIN DOUGLAS: The great shame of any fighter’s life is knowing that fighting is simply in their lifeblood, something they can’t escape and something that they won’t necessarily accept, either. When he enters the ring to fight Cain, it’s exhilarating, enthralling, and ultimately exhausting. Each match between them is an excuse to learn and train, each new bruise and bloodstain practice for the ultimate fight that’ll come between the two of them, somewhere outside of The Jungle and upon the unending concrete of the city. In my head, Luke wears some sort of mask/head covering when he fights in order to separate this exceedingly brutal side from the calmer, safer person he needs to be around Isabel and Isaac. The only reason that Cain knows his identity is because he once bested him in the ring and part of his reward was unmasking the other man. From that moment, Cain’s known his identity, which pushes Luke to train harder and harder until he can defeat the man both in and out of the ring, potentially with the intent of silencing him forever. He knows that The Jungle is mostly safe for mutants, but it’s the threat of exposing his family to something so dark, so uncontrollable, so all-consuming that scares him to his core.

EXTRA: Here’s my insp tag for Luke! (The second post in that collection gives me such Luke vibes.) And here are some headcanons:

For obvious reasons, he’s weakest in the winter. During this season, he spends most of his free time around plants, which have their own special way of storing energy from the sun, as limited as the exposure is. Luke was born and ‘raised’ in a veritable ghost town somewhere in the southwest United States, and still speaks with a kind of southern drawl. He has a sweet tooth like no other and regularly starts his day off with a hot chocolate, add two sugars. Luke doesn’t know how to drive and typically relies on Isabel to get him anywhere that the city’s transportation system can’t reach.

ANYTHING ELSE: None, thank you! But if there’s anything you need to discuss about my app, please feel free to contact me @nfwmb !!

[flightysquip]

hi, what are some signs i should look for if i think i'm bipolar?

thank you for the ask!  so first thing i want to say, i am NOT a medical or psychiatric professional, but i know sometimes it helps just to have a sort of baseline

so first off, if you think something is wrong, you should see a doctor.  full stop.  the thing with bipolar specifically is you really shouldn’t self-medicate.  it’s tempting--god it’s tempting as hell--but while i’m all for self diagnosis, the thing is self-dx isn’t going to be enough to get the resources you’ll very likely need.  there’s a lot that you can do to help yourself, yes, but that’s more supplemental coping mechanisms than treatment on its own.  please, see a professional.  i understand that insurance can make this difficult, and anxiety, and i know it’s not as simple as just ‘see a doctor’--i KNOW it’s hard.  but it really is best if you do see one.  i’m not an expert by any means, but if you’re having trouble figuring out who to see or what sorts of financial options you have, or if you just need someone to help you make a phone call, or anything, i will do what i can to help you find these resources.

i also highly recommend, if you’re able to, taking someone with you for this initial appointment/assessment.  outside observations can really help pinpoint symptoms you don’t even realize you exhibit.  the relative objectivity can absolutely be good for your mental health.  also, having someone on your side in a situation that can feel frightening and unfamiliar can be important enough.  it’s important to find someone who can be a good advocate and support without actively speaking over you, though.  outside observations are important, yes, but you need to be able to communicate too.

now with that out of the way, as far as some signs to look out for...i mean, obviously mood swings are going to be the big one.  it was called manic-depression for a reason, right?  the real important thing to keep in mind is the extremes--extreme highs (i’m talking euphoria) and extreme lows.  everyone has mood swings, yeah.  everyone has various emotions.  not everyone goes from the pure nirvana of feeling like an omnipotent god among mortals to the crushing devastation of not even being worthy of suicide or leaving a pretty corpse.  (also, hey, important sidenote, mentally healthy people don’t want to kill themselves anyway, so even if you’re not bipolar, wanting to kill yourself, even in an idle sort of way, is reason enough to seek out professional help)

but that all sounds pretty subjective, right?  it’s hard to judge whether something is ‘how people usually feel’ or ‘am i unbalanced in some way’.  especially if you’re afab, it’s super easy for people to dismiss your feelings as “hormonal” or “pms”.  hey, for the record?  even if it is "just pms”, if you’re distressed enough by your emotions to want to kill yourself?  no fucking normal and not okay.  you deserve better.  also frankly, just because something is “hormones” doesn’t invalidate the pain or suffering of it, so screw their sexist bullshit anyway.

the big things i can think of with bipolar off the top of my head though, if i had to bullet point it, would be:

extremes in moods

risk taking behaviors (gambling, hypersexuality, picking fights with strangers, theft, drug use--so i’m not talking about “likes to ride rollercoasters a lot” as a risk taking behavior, i mean things with very real world consequences)

moderation? what’s that? (everything is an extreme of an extreme, black and white absolutes.  indulgence and lack of impulse control)

delusions of grandeur (you think you’re the most important person in the room, you have a sense of being ‘the main character’ in the narrative of life, you literally think you’re a good, you’re the most talented/most intelligent/the only qualified person on any subject whatsoever)

disrupted sleep patterns (too much/too little sleep)

disrupted eating patterns (too much/too little eating)

aggressive/agitated mood at little to no provocation

inconsistent/illogical mixed mood patterns (suicidal fixations in the midst of an otherwise pleasant mood, fits of anger during sadness, etc etc)

precarious moods (specifically being in a very good mood/emotional state, only for something very minor to completely knock you down again)

memory issues and issues with the perception/passage of time (suddenly realizing it’s midnight when it seemed like it was just 9 am a moment ago)

making big bold lifechanging plans on a whim (suddenly deciding to move across the country, changing career with little research or thought into it before)

financial irresponsibility (reckless shopping sprees, buying things on a whim continuously on unnecessary things, opening multiple credit cards and maxing them out)

a lot of these are specifically mania-focused, i’ll admit, because i feel like culturally, there’s more education on things to look for in depression.  there’s also a good deal of overlap between symptoms with bp compared to other disorders.  that is to say, just because some of these things ring true to you, doesn’t mean you’re necessarily bipolar (off the top of my head, other things that have similar symptoms are bpd and adhd, but that’s not an exhaustive list, of course).  

and i also cannot stress enough to listen to those around you.  the thing about delusions is, when you’re in the midst of them, you probably don’t realize you’re being delusional.  it’s sorta be design.  the thing about being angry is, when you’re in the midst of your rage, self-righteous fury can feel really toxically good, or at least justified (and it certainly feels better than depression and numbness).  the thing about euphoria is you really don’t have much of an interest in ‘baseline stability’.  the thing is, the delusions go away, the rage fades into shame, and euphoria is not sustainable.  a trusted loved one expressing concern can feel like an attack, but it can actually be a gift to have some clarity when everything is so stormy and off.

that being said, you never mentioned a loved one saying you may exhibit symptoms, so that’s just a tangent.  my advice really is: if you think you’re bipolar after seeing others with the disorder or reading about symptoms or listening to your gut, please see a doctor.  whether you get confirmation or not, there’s no shame in seeking help.  i know a lot of people say that these disorders are a moral failing, that they mean you’re predisposed to bad behaviors or toxic mindsets, but that’s just uneducated fear-mongering.  i don’t advocate for treatment because i think you’re broken or wrong if you’re untreated.  i advocate for treatment because you deserve to have a healthy, happy, stable life.  you deserve better for yourself.

i hope this helped answer your question.  thank you again for the ask!

[thecorteztwins]

[Just a small ficlet featuring little-known Marvel “villains” Black Mamba/Tanya Sealy, Haven/Radha Dastoor, Skein/Sybil Dvorak, and a surprise guest at the end in a comedy of errors!] Tanya Sealy was also known as Black Mamba, the mercenary who served in the Serpent Society and the aptly-named B.A.D Girls, not mention a super-villain with the Masters of Evil and a super-heroine with the Women Warriors. But she had another identity besides all that---Tanya Sweet, professional escort. As with her mercenary work, it wasn’t something she did simply for the money alone, or because she had no choice. No, far from it---Tanya did it because she liked it. Of course, the money was a factor, she wouldn’t have done it for free, just like she wouldn’t do a merc job for free, but she still liked a damn well lot more than she would have enjoyed some boring office job or dirty menial work. Why people thought it was degrading was beyond her; she got treated like a queen while the poor saps in retail, fast food, and any other service industry were the ones really getting reamed! One of the best parts was picking her customers. You couldn’t say “no” to them in most jobs, but Tanya could any damn time she pleased. Not that she often did, since most of the people who called her were those to whom she’d personally handed her card. She kept different business cards for her different careers/identities, and different phone lines as well. And right now, her line for escort work was ringing, with an unfamiliar number. So, a new customer! Time to find out who it was---someone she’d personally selected, or someone who had been referred to her by another satisfied client? “Hello there stranger,” she said professionally, though with of course the expected hint of sensuality, “You’ve reached Tanya Sweet. To what do I owe the pleasure?” “Hello, Ms. Sweet,” said a woman’s voice. Holy shit, that was unexpected. It wasn’t that she’d never gotten female clients, but they were very rare. “I’m calling about scheduling your services. We’ve met before, if you remember---my name is Radha Dastoor, I went by Haven?” Holy. Shit. No way. She had NOT seen that coming. Yeah, she remembered Haven from the slammer, but she had NOT read her as interested in women at all, let alone the type who would get an escort. It wasn’t that there was just one “type“ of person who purchased her time and attentions, there were a lot of different people who did...but there were a lot of different kinds of people who never would, and she could have sworn that this lady was one of them.

“Oh yes, yes I do,” Tanya swallowed her surprise and continued with her congenial customer-service-with-a-sexy-smile voice, “When were you hoping to schedule?” “There’s a gala in a week,” said Haven, then gave the specific time and date, and explained, “I apologize so much for the short notice, Ms. Sweet. My brother was to be my original plus-one, but something has come up for him, and he’s simply not comfortable attending to his own business unless he knows there is someone to go with me in his stead. He showed me the card you gave to him, and suggested you, since you’re...well, you’re a woman, but you’re also very capable. So he thought you would be the safest option for me.” It was extremely difficult for Tanya not laugh. Oh her god. Oh her GOD. This was HILARIOUS. She’d slid that big stud her calling card when he’d come to pick Haven up from prison, and apparently he had THOUGHT that escorting meant...just accompanying someone. And clearly Haven thought the same thing! Oh man. It was too funny. Though it also made a lot more sense! It also meant she could make some really easy money. “I’m absolutely free that night,” she purred, before realizing she should not be purring anymore, and amended to a more prim tone as she continued, “What will the dress code be?” “It’s black tie, but please don’t worry if you don’t something you feel is suitable,” Haven assured, “I’d be happy to buy you a dress and shoes sometime this week before we go.” Oh SWEET! For sure, Tanya was doing this gig. She’d have to remember to thank Haven’s big dumb lug of a brother next time she saw him! “Yes, that would be excellent,” Tanya continued to successfully contain her excitement at the easy work and free stuff, “After all, you’ll know best what’s appropriate for the occasion. Now, you mentioned your brother would be concerned about me being ‘capable’---are you expecting threats?” “Not expecting per se,” said Haven in a resigned tone, “But, well, a gathering of wealthy people in New York City...” Yeah, that was sitting ducks. Sitting ducks broadcasting their diamonds and Dom Perignon to every dumbass super-criminal in the city. Would the rich never learn? Black Mamba---er, Tanya---hoped not. “I absolutely understand. I assure you, my powers are suitable to combat both baseline and superhuman threats, and I have experience handling both. I believe I told you about my time in the Women Warriors?” She felt that emphasizing her background as a superhero would be better than bringing up her more regular, less legal doings. “Yes, yes I do,” said Haven warmly, “If I recall correctly, you protected the entire state of Delaware. So I have no doubt you can do so for me for the night--though of course I hope you won’t have to.” “And in the event I do, you understand I will be expecting compensation for any medical care needed for injuries I might incur?” “Oh, of course. Do you have a form I should sign?” She was starting to love this woman. Perfect customer. “Yeah, no worries,” she said, her professional veneer finally slipping into a more casual, natural mode for her, “I’ll just bring it with me when we meet up to buy the dress. Hey, is your brother gonna be there for that?” Alas, he was not. But once they had discussed rates, Tanya felt anything but disappointed. *** Things were going great. She looked fantastic in this dress, Ms. Dastoor wasn’t upstaging her---okay, her...Indian outfit thing...was super beautiful...but Tanya had LEGS and CLEAVAGE---, and she’d slipped her card to a whole lot of fine gentlemen who, if they were here, could probably afford her. And best of all, no one had--- “Well hello Tanya. I didn’t expect to see you here.” Oh great. It was Skein. Skein, aka Sybil Dvorak, was actually a friend to Tanya Sealy. They got along great, in fact. But the problem was, she was also a fellow, well, supervillain. One who had gotten her start crashing the parties of the social elite like this, not even for personal gain but for...kicks, Tanya supposed. Something to do with an ex boyfriend. “Hey, Sybil,” said Tanya casually, “Hey, not that it’s not great to see you, but you’re not planning anything, are you? Because I’m here on a date. You know, for work?”

“Ohhhh,” Sybil winked at her, “Well...since we’re old friends and all, I could be persuaded not to make a scene if you cut me in on what you’re getting for this “date”. Since we’re friends.” Tanya glared at her. “Come on, Black Mamba,” said Skein, undaunted, “You’re a mercenary. You can hardly judge me for being the same.” “I’ll still get paid no matter what you do here tonight,” said Tanya, “So it doesn’t really matter. In fact, she might tip me more if I save her from some disaster. So go ahead.” “Oooh, she?” said Skein, intrigued. Oh, double great. Tanya had forgotten---Skein had a crush on Haven. She’d been one of the other lady villains in their cellblock, and for some reason she was just crazy about her. Tanya didn’t really get it. Sure, Haven was beautiful, she supposed---Tanya wasn’t into women herself---but she was kind of old, and really boring. She just couldn’t fathom her being Sybil’s type at all. But then, Tanya, who considered herself an expert in matters of sex and romance, was of course aware of the old adage that opposites attract. Maybe Haven represented to Skein the sense of stability and restraint that Skein herself lacked. Maybe she felt she needed someone calm and responsible and conventionally moral in her life. Maybe she admired it. Or maybe she wanted to corrupt it. Whatever the case, Tanya was letting her find out that the object of her amorous affections was her meal ticket tonight. Skein might take it the wrong way.

So naturally, no sooner did Tanya decide this, than Haven glided up and greeted their mutual friend, “Sybil? Oh Sybil, that is you!” “Hi, Haven!” Skein trilled in a girlish sing-song voice, twirling a strand of her long black hair around one finger and assuming a flirtacious pose. Tanya had to try hard not to role her eyes at this, especially considering how obviously unaffected that Haven was by it. As crazy as Skein was about Haven, Haven was equally oblivious. Which was kind of odd, given how perceptive Tanya had noticed Haven was in her short time knowing her, but maybe she just didn’t know how to handle being hit on by another woman so blatantly. “Wow, I can’t believe you and Tanya are BOTH here!” “We’re actually here together,” said Haven, clearly having no idea the implications she had just dropped. And that was when Tanya knew...it was over. Sybil blinked. And then... “Are you kidding me?!” she shouted at Tanya, her dress unraveling around her in a whirlwind of thread. . “Sybil, chill out, it’s not what you think--” Tanya tried to calm her down but it was too late, the attention of the security guards had been attracted. A threeway battle ensued, with Sybil/Skein trying to attack Black Mamba while both attempted to evade the super-powered guards. As the completely baffled Haven watched in hypnotized horror, another party guest stepped beside her. “Ah, I’m sorry you had to see this,” lamented the tuxedo-clad Fabian Cortez, “They’re fighting over me, you see.” Haven believed him.

[thespermicidaljellies]

Positive reflective life ramble on adversity, sickness, and the aftermath of 'crisis mode'

So, getting severely physically sick gradually over the past year and a half---because really my doctors and I have figured out its been a gradual thing that's been deteriorating for a while, I realized that even though I've had a LONG series of really awful stuff happen to me, every single thing internally changed part of me in an extraordinary way that's so so healthy and solidifying. It's all because of the amount of work and time I've put in from like age 17 till now in therapy, personally, and within my relationships, and even though I couldn't abate the physical effects or my own frankly severe clinical depression due to genetics, the way I've handled and allowed events in the past year or so to impact me was like the stress test proving that the work has had a permenant impact? It proved to me that as a person I'm healthy, I take things in a healthy way, I approach people in a healthy way, I conceptualize criticism and failing in the healthiest way I can with my rsd, and I set healthy goals and have healthy desires. BUT I haven't been able to actualize any of it because honestly, after everything I kind of just wanted to stagnate and have nothing new happen event wise so that I could just breath and have some stability because I've been totally exhausted and burnt out. I should have taken a semester or a year off of school, the worry and sudden ambivilance to school really hurt my health and my ability to just breath again, and the decision to just tread water and endure without any real changes in my daily routine definetely hurt my energy and health. Taking almost a year off from any kind of dating and sex, and shit even research was good for me. Like to an extreme extent, but I should have listened to my body saying "I'm too exhausted to even use this extra time to benefit myself" and just taken time off from school to work and move out temporarily etc.

But none of that matters now bc I got very very sick, and being bed ridden, isolated, and totally stripped of any sense of security or complacency has really changed my entire perspective on life and the finality of it and the responsibility I have to myself not just internally but externally in the form of action and challenge. My family lives a supremely unhealthy lifestyle and it's impacted me greatly. Our diets are terrible, even with the changes I've made in the past to mine by eating less fatty meat and no frozen foods, it's not enough, I haven't exercised enough or respected my body at all and doing so now will literally kill me down the line. The second I'm medically cleared I'm getting a personal trainer/physical therapist and getting in very good shape, I was an athletic kid and I've said I wanted to do this in the past but there's this weird thing inside of me where a certain threshold is reached where I know that something HAS to happen and it's absolutely going to and it's there, I dont have a doubt in my mind that it's going to happen.

Mentally I need to find a stable medication and therapy routine to treat my dysthymia because I'm unfortunate enough to have inherited my mom's near Electroconvulsive Therapy levels of long term depression, but im extremely lucky it doesn't really come in the form of sadness, just all the other physiological and psychological factors like poor motivation, anhedonia etc. Finding the right treatment now will pretty much give me a baseline to know what my normal is, because it's been a FAT minute since I've been at my baseline, and that'll give me the awareness I need (combined with CBT) to identify warning signs because emotional states aren't identifiers for me. Lastly on a personal level, I'm in fucking shambles rn in all other facets of my life but my health destroying itself stripped me down to only my internal world, and who I am as a person as the only things left. And I feel incredible, like I feel so fucking healthy and loving and assured in who I am and my worth, and all of it has been tested and tried and proven through terrible events, but the only way to remove doubt from my brain was through those events.

I think the past few weeks have been really dark, depressing, and sad for me because its been this weird grieving period of fear and sorrow about all the negative shit that's happened and the perceived loss of the life I've been leading but really, every time I'd think it would lead back to a conclusion of how I'd benefited out of it and the reality that I havent been living, I've been in crisis mode since July 2017, and the strip back down to the core that I'm enduring now is exactly what needed and maybe even what was supposed to happen.

After two days ago, the worst I felt in my entire life, I woke up and like all the fear of intimacy, being vulnerable, taking risks, and making concrete choices is just gone, because there is  literally no more back tracking and hedonistic fleeing from fears even possible. The few people that I've not cut out in my life and have stuck around have said consistently over the past few weeks how much I've helped them and have given so many examples of times where I helped support them at their worst times, from suicide attempts to breaking off engagements to sexual abuse and changing careers, and I honestly didn't realize that people ever thought I'd had that much of an impact in that and I never really believed that I had earned or deserved to receive help or loyalty from people, it's been incredibly meaningful and validating for my biggest difficulty, vulnerability and accepting help. I think once I start to get my shit in order it's time I open myself up to a serious relationship or dating again, but without a goal of actively trying to obtain it, it needs to be with someone who's in the same position I am, the uphill climb AFTER the first uphill climb from neglect and lack of self respect to having identified what the soul needs and wants and what you provide and want others around you to provide to your life as well. I know this all sounds horribly pretentious but I'm here man, like it's all in the past been heal heal heal, and now it's like: the buildings are all built, let's occupy and use them and invite others in to use them as well. Idk yeah, that's everything I guess, I posted this for a specific few people who I know read my tumblr to keep an eye on what's been going on in my life since I'm not active on twitter/Instagram anymore, but thanks to anyone who read anyways.

Officially done with Lyme disease treatment today btw 🤘🏻

[bettsfic]

Betty how did you know writing was it for you? I've never had anything I was passionate enough about to make a career out of and it feels like you were able to aim your arrow at what you wanted and make it happen. Was there any questions you asked yourself that made it obvious?

great question, anon. i feel like there’s a lot of pressure to know what your passion is, and your purpose in life, and what brings you joy, etc, and the reality isn’t like that. at least, it wasn’t for me. i have a cousin who has wanted to be a bassist since he was ten years old. he eats, sleeps, and breathes bass. he’s 23 now and the most popular bassist in our city, and he’s happy and thriving. 

but like. that doesn’t happen a lot. 

for me, i had boxed myself into a corner. i was 25, and i enjoyed writing, but i didn’t think i could make a career out of it (i still believe that). i was working at the bank, and i’d been invited to a company retreat in cleveland, where i spent 3 days training on a new system. during that time, a woman who had my same job was retiring, and we had a party for her. she’d worked at the bank, in the same position i was in, for 46 years. she closed commercial mortgages for 46 years. 

that was when i knew i had to do something. i didn’t know what yet, but i had to force myself out of the stability and comfort i’d found, and into anything else. i knew if i didn’t move, i’d die at the bank. i’d live an easy, comfortable, boring life, and the bank would never fire me, and they’d certainly never promote me, and i’d blink and suddenly 46 years would pass and i too would be retiring. i found success and security, and i lived an easy life, which is the exact opposite of the millennial ethos, and i had to set it down and walk away, because it wasn’t right for me. 

i never made a conscious decision to “pursue writing.” i only made a decision to move from the place i was. i knew i wanted to go back to school, so when i started researching grad schools, i looked at counseling, education, i/o psych, epidemiology, law school, med school -- i cast a very wide net. i chose the mfa because it didn’t give me extreme anxiety when i read over the course descriptions. in fact it sounded fun. i’d get to teach, and write, and take what i already enjoyed doing seriously. and i thought, okay, even if this isn’t a career, i’ve been miserable at the bank for ten years. don’t i deserve two years of fun? 

so that’s all it was for me. i promised myself i’d dedicate 2 years of my life to a hobby i enjoyed, so i would be actually good at something. i’d never been good at anything before.  

it was while i was there that i realized it was absolutely a right place for me to be. not the right place, but a right place. i recognize i could get just as much emotional satisfaction out of a really good counseling program, or just as much creative exercise with an education program. but an mfa is what i was the most qualified for, so i went for it. even now, having applied for phds, i’m facing the question: do i really want to stay in academia (as a student) for four more years? i might love writing, but writing has multiple branches of Work (academia, publishing, etc), and that’s where i hesitate. even writing, as much as i love it, becomes a chore when you attribute money to it. i love teaching too, but even then, i question -- do i want to be doing this *forever*?? the answer is: no, and i don’t have to commit to that anyway. more on that in a sec.

what made me realize that writing was My Thing is the idea that i would do it regardless of success. i need to write. not-writing has never been an option for me. if i take away novel writing, i would write essays. take away essays, and i’d write poems. take away poems, and i’d write journal entries. i don’t need the promise of publication to want to write. i don’t even need read. i could spend my entire life writing for myself. that writing would look different than if i wrote for an audience, and i wouldn’t be as happy as i am sharing my work with others, but it’s still my baseline existence. when i don’t have anything to do, i write. it gives me energy, and makes me feel good, and it’s fun. i know i’m the exception to the rule -- most writers i know drag their feet. they see writing as work, a depleting force. it’s never been like that for me.

writing was also the thing i assumed everyone wanted to do. like it was so much a part of me that i thought it was a part of everyone else too, the same way, if you’re a wlw, you can grow up assuming that everyone is attracted to girls, because who wouldn’t be? and you realize shit i’m gay. so for me being a writer was like, goddammit i’m never getting rid of this am i. 

i guess i also want to say, as a sidebar -- there’s no such thing as a career. a career is a flawed concept that lays the mental foundation for staying stagnant in a workforce for 46 years, and allows you to make an identity out of labor. you do not have to choose a career. your only obligation is to feed yourself -- find the things that give you life. and if the things that give you life don’t also bring you money, then you have to balance that with a job. you do not have to find what you love and commit to it. you don’t have to see the big picture of who you are and the grand work you’re doing on this planet. you don’t owe anyone your greatness. your only goal is to find what thrills you and play with it, let it take you to the next destination. your only job is to keep moving, exploring, asking questions of yourself and the world at large. otherwise, you’ll retire at the bank after closing mortgages for 46 years. careers objectify the human experience. they turn us into machinery. do not let them.  

hobbies, passions, jobs, disciplines -- they don’t have to be the same thing. life doesn’t have to be one long, straight road with no stops or turns, barreling forward as fast as you can go. you can take your time, and have fun, and detour and get lost and go back to the start. your goal doesn’t have to be success, and you never have to decide on a single path. take what you’re into right now and roll with it.  

[xlsportclub]

Tip: The Most Hated Exercise The overhead squat (OHS) is one of the best multi-benefit movements. It's also one of the most hated movements by many people. There's a baseline of flexibility required for a proper OHS and, for some reason, many just don't see the value in pursuing it. If you can't perform the overhead squat comfortably, you've just failed a movement assessment. If you fail, it suggests you have a limitation somewhere in either your ankles, hips, thoracic spine, or shoulders. That means you'll need to cheat or compensate in other lifts. Compensating can go on unnoticed for months or years before a problem arises, then suddenly your back, shoulder, or knee blows out and your lifting career is over. Rather than avoiding a movement because it's difficult, prepare yourself for a challenge and master it. Not only will you get the flexibility and mobility benefits, but also shoulder stability, core strength, and leg strength. Common Problems and What They Mean Shins Staying VerticalIf your knees don't travel forwards as you squat, then your ankles probably lack dorsiflexion. Ideally, you shouldn't need to wear lifting shoes to do any squat. Can't Break ParallelIf your knees can go forward, but you can't sit below parallel, it suggests your hips lack the mobility to sit in a squat while keeping your torso upright. In this case, your knees will try to help which can cause knee pain. Addressing your hips will make both your back squat and front squat better as well! Can't Hold the Bar

[phogenson]

A Hard Year: Doctors and Getting Help

The past weeks I've really looked at the conditions I was in dealing with anxiety. So I spent time in the hospital; time taking different medications; time writhing on the floor of my bedroom in panic; and time trying to just get through the day. Eventually I'd move on from those experiences, and I started that movement almost as soon as I got out of the emergency room although it was way too difficult to get to doctors who could help me.

This week I'm going to look at the process and difficulties I had setting up two different doctors appointments. For the record, I think that the medical bureaucracy in America is totally a shambles. The systems in place for getting care really does not serve people in my situation well, and I had a ton of advantages in navigating the system:

For one thing I was in Minnesota, which has one of the most all encompassing medical industries in the country. Like you can't throw a rock in Minneapolis without hitting a hospital, but doctors were hard to contact and offices were far flung enough to be problematic.

Additionally, I had insurance through a parent's work. It's not the greatest plan in the world, but I had it and I didn't have to pay for the insurance although I got the bills. The insurance company was helpful and for some reason insurance at all is a bit of a luxury in America so I was fortunate in that regard. Just for the record, I've been on Obamacare in the past and it's so important to have that.

And I had my family, many of whom work in health care in some way or another. And I was in touch with them throughout the process of finding care. That's a huge help. All these things also really inclined me to stay in Minneapolis at the time too. That didn't workout in the end, but I had support every step of the way through care. And I'm naturally pretty good at navigating systems like this so even with other difficulties, I could've been in my element but it still wasn't easy.

The point is there were places to go where I was, there was a company that was going to cover part of my care, and I could call my cousin when I was struggling with making very course grain decisions which were hard for me at the time. So this is one of those important features of dealing with mental health in America, it's unreasonably difficult especially for the person dealing with their mental health.

Initially I thought, since I hadn't been out of school for more than a year, I could at least start by going by student health services. After all, I'd gotten tested for mono there just a few months earlier after graduating. But it was 2016 and I guess that was when the University decided to kick me out of their health system--although I could still use their useless career services office and the library.

So February 19, 2016 was unseasonably warm. Upper 30s and drizzling in Minneapolis. I walked over to student health services early, before work, and just walked up to the desk. When they asked about who I was or whatever, they told me they couldn't help. That's real bummer when you basically see yourself as in a place where people are there to help you and you're asking for help. That dashed the notion that doing this very simple thing--seeing a doctor--would be as easy as walking into the building where the doctors are.

Needless to say, facing a setback in that state of affairs is devastating. I went to an auditorium on campus and thought about how the effort to end it all would be less than picking up the phone just to get buffeted around and told that there was no help available. Making that call took like an hour to just get around to. But eventually I started making calls and walking to work. I was very attached to my phone and my notebook that morning.

An hour or two after the failure at student health services I had the above notes together. But I was really just barely holding it together. I fielded a few more calls from clinics and offices which got stuck on the Post-It's.

On a personal note, I'd like to comment on the degree of organization and planning that was going on here. I'm frankly amazed looking at these notes that they are as organized as they are. So I'd like to clarify a few details about my experience dealing with anxiety:

First, specific to these days, getting through the calls and scribbling these notes down was basically all I was able to do. And it was hard to start. I wanted to just see a doctor, when that didn't work I felt pretty fatalistic about the whole day. I plugged away for a few hours doing research and writing notes. But before I did that I was thinking about bridges and jumping off of them.

Second, in general about my experience with anxiety, I was resistant to dealing with anxiety, or taking medication, or probably even acknowledging the problem. The reason I was resistant to change was because the fuel of anxiety is very compelling for putting notes like this together, agonizing over details and perfection. I definitely made notes and calendars and even some creative work with the force of anxiety behind me.

Now I can't speak for all neurosis or all people who struggle with mental health, but I'm confident in saying that frequently dealing with mental health is as difficult for people because it has some attractive qualities as much as it is difficult to deal with because it's harmful to the individual. I felt like anxiety was frequently what let me get better work done, and I still don't think I'm totally wrong about that.

Bipolars sometimes forego medication because manic episodes can be euphoric; alcoholics will relapse because drinking is part of how they get through the day and how they understand themselves and contextualize their relationships with others. Some of the activity of depressives, I hesitate to posit, is sometimes attractive to an interpretation of some alternative course of action to an individual dealing with depression. Certainly, because mental health permeates your experience of the world, it can be deeply tied to identity and I like some of my anxious energy and have some belief that there are good features of my life which seem only to be possible as a result of having that feature of my psychology.

Regardless of if having anxiety made it possible to effectively deal with my anxiety, by the end of February 19, 2016 I had two doctor's appointments set up. First was with a GP the following Monday, second was with a psychiatrist in March.

Meeting with the GP was pretty straightforward but it's not like a good time or anything. Doctor's offices kind of suck. The questions on paperwork about my own health history and my familial health history made me feel all kinds of ignorant and self conscious.

Basically, though, the GP felt confident in writing a new prescription for the lorazepam I was taking on an as needed basis. She also put me on sertraline, brandname Zoloft, a drug she said she'd "had success with for other patients with anxiety and depression." And that's really about it. Like any doctor I've talked with about Zoloft the GP talked about the caution and acclimation period to this drug. I started at half a tab every day for two weeks and then came up to a full tab after that. Zoloft takes about three to four weeks for the effects to be felt.

Zoloft gets prescribed left and right like it's the cure to the common neurosis. And it kinda is. It works for depression, it works for anxiety, generalized, social, panic disorder, it works for OCD. But the way it works is by setting a new baseline for serotonin re-uptake in the brain. People can feel "flatlined" on it, like there's no up or down. That's true, but for me that was a really positive feeling. By taking away my body's regulation of it's own serotonin the rollercoaster was gone.

So I was glad to have something working for me after meeting with GP. Only the lorazepam gave me any relief for a few weeks as I came up on Zoloft. It was suddenly obvious when this drug was working too, but it did take weeks and the increased dose. But when you realize that 41 million Americans take Zoloft and you sort of figure all these people are dazedly smoothing out the wrinkles in their emotions, I wonder what we really do with this blunt instrument of psychiatric stability.

I don't take Zoloft anymore.

Seeing the psychiatrist was not as straightforward. I had a very early morning meeting. I was going to have to go to a clinic that was miles away. I was resolved to bike to Edina, and it wouldn't have been that bad 13 miles 50 degree weather. But I got a little worried about biking in a light rain and not making it back to work on time. So I took an expensive Uber out there.

There was a lot of paperwork before the appointment. I brought it with me. There was more when I was there. And some of this stuff asks you to rate how you're doing on a scale and you can just tell that the higher the number the worse you are. Going about inpatient work like this almost makes you feel like you're in deep shit. It's like you got called down to some middle school principle's office for adults. I told myself it was better to just be honest.

They got some vital information like hight and weight for their records too. Then it's just a very impersonal interview. Talking to a psychiatrist just doesn't seem like the right way to go about dealing with mental health. Even talking to a really good doctor like I did, I wondered what could this person get from just asking a few pro forma questions that my therapist didn't already have a better grasp on. But moving forward through anxiety in this health system really requires a broad effort of people and approaches which is distressing in it's own right.

The truth is doctors are kind of like plumbers and psychiatrists are working on a very limited set of "if... then..." propositions that lead them to their eventual diagnosis and prescription. There's also something about talking so briefly with a person about substances that will change the way you feel that seems like talking to a two-bit dealer just with an office. I can never shake the Trainspotting feeling I'm in a psychiatrist's office--a feeling that the doctor is saying "this is some good shit, man, try it" because I was often left to just sign on with something like "oh yeah, Klonopin sounds good to me."

So March 15, 2015 I was taking Zoloft and Klonopin which is a pretty standard prescription for generalized anxiety. But it's hard to jump through all these hoops and I was a good jumper. It's weird that the medical industrial system is spread thin on patients. It's spread thin not just in the sense that getting to a doctor isn't easy even in terms of location--not everyone can Uber over the psychiatrist, that's a pain in itself--but who you see is just going to be less than the most helpful. In a sense the doctor is barely as helpful as a good friend, but they can write prescriptions which can help.

I don't want to catastrophize too much. It was paramount that I get help with my mental health. And I got it. Getting help was so much the right decision. Struggling is not right. I went through the next six months on the wave of medications and doctor visits that started on February 19, 2016 and occasionally still occur. But there's a framework for providing care and understanding the problems of people struggling with mental health that just isn't fleshed out enough for patients seeking help.

These are problems I could talk about at length another time.

[kristablogs]

Surfers are riding a wave of new technologies to their Olympic debut

Riding waves is physically demanding, and preparing for competition requires intense cross-training that's being bettered by precise motion and muscle tracking. (Jake Marote/Red Bull/)

Popular Science’s Play issue is now available to everyone. Read it now, no app or credit card required.

One of the best surf spots in the United States to practice aerial tricks is in central Texas, some 200 miles from the Gulf Coast. On a brisk December day at the BSR Surf Resort, Caroline Marks was ripping a front-side air reverse. Aquamarine water sloshed off the concrete rear wall of the wave pool as she pumped down the line and flew off the crest of a head-high breaker into a clockwise spin. She grabbed the rail of her board as she came around and landed with a splash, sunlight glinting off the spray. She looked like she was having a blast.

The 18-year-old Californian has ridden in artificial lagoons before, but this was her first time at BSR. It features an oncoming white-water section perfectly suited to her signature explosive maneuvers. Surfable waves roll through with metronomic precision, as many as 150 an hour. “There aren’t always opportunities for people to do airs in the ocean, but at Waco there is, over and over again,” Marks says, grinning with characteristic excitement. She and three of her brothers spent the day here, one-upping each other into the evening under the glare of stadium lights. “One hundred percent, it was so much fun,” she says.

Luke and Zach Marks introduced their younger sister to wave riding when she was 8 and the family lived in Florida. Even now, she loves shredding with them. The week before their session in Waco, she finished the World Surf League championship tour ranked second internationally, behind Carissa Moore, the 27-year-old veteran who won her fourth title. That secured their spots, with Kolohe Andino and John John Florence, on the US Olympic team for the sport’s debut in Tokyo. Although the COVID-19 pandemic has pushed the Summer Games to 2021, the squad is set.

Moore, who grew up in Hawaii and has been a dominant competitor for a decade, says that when she was a kid dreaming of going pro, the Olympics weren’t on her radar and artificial waves were never consistent enough to warrant excitement. But—surprise!—in the past two years, she ended up winning the first major event staged on them and securing a shot at gold. Marks, on the other hand, has grown up with such things as givens. She was 14 when the games’ international governing body added surfing to the lineup. One year later, she became the youngest person ever to qualify for the professional tour.

As surfing prepares for its global spotlight, it is experiencing a seismic shift from a laid-back, go-with-the-flow mindset to one shaped by innovations in data analysis, physiological testing, and technology. Specialists in fields such as nutrition, psychology, and orthopedics are working with US surfing coaches like Brett Simpson to develop an Olympic training regimen that increasingly resembles those long favored by everything from basketball to volleyball. The team is undergoing cognitive analysis, establishing baseline biometrics, and tracking analytics to enhance performance. Surfers are experimenting with gear like pressure-sensing booties to glean insights into board control and GPS-equipped motion trackers to improve paddling technique. This embrace of science and technology has come as research and engineering yield advances long considered impossible—most obviously, consistent machine-made barrels suitable for competition. Some of the gadgetry can’t help but eventually make its way onto beaches everywhere, adopted by recreational enthusiasts and elite competitors alike, further changing the culture of the sport.

The job of maximizing all this potential falls to Kevyn Dean, the US team medical director. An orthopedic physical therapist who has spent two decades using physiology and biomechanics to help top wave riders achieve their best, Dean was the first to push such an approach within USA Surfing, the organization that selects teams for international competition. He sees the evidence-based methods that he pioneered within the sport inevitably ruling it, pushing it into the future. “Caroline’s is the generation that will be coming up with these tools, and more, at their disposal,” he says.

Caroline Marks rides a wave in ­Honolua Bay, Maui. The Olympian is among those at the vanguard of surfing’s embrace of science. (Kelly Cestari/World Surf League/Getty Images/)

In September 2015, when she was a 13-year-old preparing for the International Surfing Association World Junior Surfing Championship, Marks broke her foot and ankle in several places doing a backside turn. The move places heavy pressure and flexion on the leading ankle to drive the board up the face of the wave, and the white water shoved her foot into an acute angle. “I was out of the water for three months,” she says. “I went from surfing four to six hours a day to nothing. It felt like an eternity.” Dean treated her with the goal of erasing the deficits from her injury and tweaking her technique to reduce the chance of another—a kind of “prehab.”

They worked on improving her stability, balance, and coordination with exercises that increased the strength and functional range of her joints and bolstered her core posture and movement. (One foundational technique, called dynamic neuromuscular stabilization, saw her crawling much like a baby to unlearn bad habits by relearning basic movements.)

Like many, Dean once viewed surfing as a lifestyle, not a sport. He came to it after earning his graduate degree in physical therapy in 1991 and going to work at a Veterans Affairs clinic in Long Beach, California. His hobby and his career converged on the shores of sunny SoCal. “As I surfed more frequently and wanted to get better,” he says, “I started to think about it differently—what do I need to do to catch more waves and make more turns?”

Spending time in the gym was not something any respectable surfer did back then; likewise, few people considered hanging ten a serious athletic pursuit. But Dean’s clinical background led him to begin reconsidering those notions. When his son started catching waves with friends, he asked more questions: Why don’t surfers train the way football players and wrestlers do? What are the baseline functions they need to perform? He assessed the boys’ movements on the water and developed conditioning plans involving unstable surfaces like balance boards and Bosu balls. The teenagers eagerly sought every advantage, so he reevaluated their progress regularly and responded with new adjustments. He reviewed hours of video footage, focusing on their technique and pondering how to help them from a biomechanical perspective.

Dean expanded upon that model when he opened a surfing-oriented gym in 2005 in Huntington Beach, a seaside community near Los Angeles. (He moved the operation a bit farther south to San Clemente, home to many of the sport’s stars, in 2010.) Over the years he has trained Simpson, who won two US Open championships, and other stars of the pro tour, including Nate Yeomans, Griffin Colapinto, and Kanoa Igarashi. Six years ago, he added physical therapy to the mix, tying together the two threads of his life’s work.

USA Surfing named Dean medical director in 2017 and tasked him with assembling a committee of coaches, orthopedic surgeons, physiologists, psychologists, and other experts. Their mandate is to create “high-performance” surfers. In the competition lexicon, that means emphasizing anything that can improve the odds of winning: strength and conditioning, nutrition, equipment evaluation, video and data analysis, even mental health. The US Olympic & Paralympic Committee has long embraced such a strategy. “My whole goal,” Dean says, “is to get top surfers to do what a lot of major sports are already doing.”

His methods grew from a belief that competitors should control the variables they can and leave the unknowns on the beach. A nutritionist, for example, advises on energy and hydration needs before, during, and after an event. “You’ll see a lot of surfers who barely take a sip of water in a five-hour competition in blazing sun and heat,” Dean says. “Can you think of any other elite athletes who aren’t drinking water?”

Dean radiates calm expertise. While he embodies the professionalization of surfing, his fluency in its sick-stoke language lends him credibility. “There are definitely some choke points when it comes to growing out of a lifestyle,” he says, recounting some of the criticism he’s read and heard over the years: Spend all the time you like in the gym, but the only way to improve is on the water. Competition and scoring bastardize the sport. The best surfer is the one having the most fun. “But the reality is that there are elite athletes making their living by performing at a top level,” he says. “The best surfer is the one who is actually in the water, and if you’re injury laden, you can’t be in the water. Everyone can understand that.”

On a bright morning in December 2019, Dean was performing a medical assessment on Nico Coli, who had just won gold in the team Aloha Cup event at the ISA world junior championship. The 16-year-old Californian was among a handful of amateurs spending the day at Mamba Sports Academy, the top-flight gym co-founded by the late NBA star Kobe Bryant. They were there to see how science, technology, and data can augment conditioning and improve performance. Coli’s left ankle had been bothering him. “You can see over time that as these kids get older, the back leg hip rotation becomes much more limited,” Dean said, pointing out the shorter range of motion of the teenager’s left leg. “The symptom of this is ankle pain,” Dean continued as Coli, who tries to surf twice each day, grimaced. “So even though his balance and coordination are pretty spot on, we work to give Nico more mobility.”

Mamba Sports Academy emphasizes using science and data to boost achievement, something that has prompted NBA and NFL players to train there. Dean works alongside Tracy Axel, director of high-performance analytics for the Olympic team. They met in 2011, when Dean advised her on her graduate thesis, and in 2018 they published a paper in the International Journal of Exercise Science. The study—based on measurements from 19 elite surfers—found that an emphasis on building core and lower body strength, rotational power, and flexibility significantly improves ability, which may increase the odds of success in competition.

Marks was among eight Olympic hopefuls who met at Mamba in early 2019 for physiological and mental evaluation. They spent two days jumping and standing on sensor-laden platforms to analyze hip and groin imbalances, taking cognitive tests to judge reaction time, and having their body composition measured in an egg-shaped device called the Bod Pod. Each of them had a high chance of qualifying for the games, and USA Surfing wanted to establish a baseline of their fitness and conditioning to help their coaches develop programs with input from physiologists and other experts.

In the cognition lab, Marks smacked buttons in a test designed to assess her reaction time and peripheral vision. In the gym, she leaped off a box onto force plates that recorded her center of gravity and weight distribution as she landed. “I’d never done reaction time testing, or the balance of your right foot versus your left foot,” she says. These factors are key. “It’s amazing to have these tests show you that what you felt like is not always the reality. And the more information you know about your body, the better, I think.”

An emphasis on science and data seems like a no-brainer. But adopting the “Mamba mentality”—the phrase Bryant coined for this kind of all-in, focused preparation—can be tricky when it comes to merging Olympic team priorities with those of the athletes and their coaches.

Mike Parsons, a big-wave rider who was inducted into the Surfer’s Hall of Fame in 2008, works with Marks and her teammate Andino. Although Parsons welcomes Dean’s insights, they augment, but do not replace, his regimen. “Their programs are pretty specific and strict, from what they eat to their sleeping habits,” he says. “It was all pretty dialed in for the world tour, and they’ll likely stick to that routine for the Olympics too.” He pauses, then laughs. “The stakes are just a lot higher.”

That explains why Coach Simpson urges team USA to tap Dean’s expertise. “With the Olympics only coming every four years, the pros are nervous about messing up their routines,” Simpson says. “But they should be looking at this kind of training as an extension of their careers.”

Not everyone will embrace these new tools due to time, cost, personal preference, or just plain superstition. And even the best preparation is no guarantee of success in a sport that places everyone at the mercy of waves, weather, and other factors. No one ever thought a sea turtle would lay eggs on Tsurigasaki Beach near Tokyo during a trial run of the Olympic surfing format in July 2019. And no one expected to find themselves grinding through rapid-fire heats in brutal humidity and temperatures that reached 90 degrees during the ISA World Surfing Games two months later. At least in some ways, surfing will always be surfing, in all of its variable, unpredictable glory.

This story appeared in the Summer 2020, Play issue of Popular Science.

[scootoaster]

Surfers are riding a wave of new technologies to their Olympic debut

Riding waves is physically demanding, and preparing for competition requires intense cross-training that's being bettered by precise motion and muscle tracking. (Jake Marote/Red Bull/)

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One of the best surf spots in the United States to practice aerial tricks is in central Texas, some 200 miles from the Gulf Coast. On a brisk December day at the BSR Surf Resort, Caroline Marks was ripping a front-side air reverse. Aquamarine water sloshed off the concrete rear wall of the wave pool as she pumped down the line and flew off the crest of a head-high breaker into a clockwise spin. She grabbed the rail of her board as she came around and landed with a splash, sunlight glinting off the spray. She looked like she was having a blast.

The 18-year-old Californian has ridden in artificial lagoons before, but this was her first time at BSR. It features an oncoming white-water section perfectly suited to her signature explosive maneuvers. Surfable waves roll through with metronomic precision, as many as 150 an hour. “There aren’t always opportunities for people to do airs in the ocean, but at Waco there is, over and over again,” Marks says, grinning with characteristic excitement. She and three of her brothers spent the day here, one-upping each other into the evening under the glare of stadium lights. “One hundred percent, it was so much fun,” she says.

Luke and Zach Marks introduced their younger sister to wave riding when she was 8 and the family lived in Florida. Even now, she loves shredding with them. The week before their session in Waco, she finished the World Surf League championship tour ranked second internationally, behind Carissa Moore, the 27-year-old veteran who won her fourth title. That secured their spots, with Kolohe Andino and John John Florence, on the US Olympic team for the sport’s debut in Tokyo. Although the COVID-19 pandemic has pushed the Summer Games to 2021, the squad is set.

Moore, who grew up in Hawaii and has been a dominant competitor for a decade, says that when she was a kid dreaming of going pro, the Olympics weren’t on her radar and artificial waves were never consistent enough to warrant excitement. But—surprise!—in the past two years, she ended up winning the first major event staged on them and securing a shot at gold. Marks, on the other hand, has grown up with such things as givens. She was 14 when the games’ international governing body added surfing to the lineup. One year later, she became the youngest person ever to qualify for the professional tour.

As surfing prepares for its global spotlight, it is experiencing a seismic shift from a laid-back, go-with-the-flow mindset to one shaped by innovations in data analysis, physiological testing, and technology. Specialists in fields such as nutrition, psychology, and orthopedics are working with US surfing coaches like Brett Simpson to develop an Olympic training regimen that increasingly resembles those long favored by everything from basketball to volleyball. The team is undergoing cognitive analysis, establishing baseline biometrics, and tracking analytics to enhance performance. Surfers are experimenting with gear like pressure-sensing booties to glean insights into board control and GPS-equipped motion trackers to improve paddling technique. This embrace of science and technology has come as research and engineering yield advances long considered impossible—most obviously, consistent machine-made barrels suitable for competition. Some of the gadgetry can’t help but eventually make its way onto beaches everywhere, adopted by recreational enthusiasts and elite competitors alike, further changing the culture of the sport.

The job of maximizing all this potential falls to Kevyn Dean, the US team medical director. An orthopedic physical therapist who has spent two decades using physiology and biomechanics to help top wave riders achieve their best, Dean was the first to push such an approach within USA Surfing, the organization that selects teams for international competition. He sees the evidence-based methods that he pioneered within the sport inevitably ruling it, pushing it into the future. “Caroline’s is the generation that will be coming up with these tools, and more, at their disposal,” he says.

Caroline Marks rides a wave in ­Honolua Bay, Maui. The Olympian is among those at the vanguard of surfing’s embrace of science. (Kelly Cestari/World Surf League/Getty Images/)

In September 2015, when she was a 13-year-old preparing for the International Surfing Association World Junior Surfing Championship, Marks broke her foot and ankle in several places doing a backside turn. The move places heavy pressure and flexion on the leading ankle to drive the board up the face of the wave, and the white water shoved her foot into an acute angle. “I was out of the water for three months,” she says. “I went from surfing four to six hours a day to nothing. It felt like an eternity.” Dean treated her with the goal of erasing the deficits from her injury and tweaking her technique to reduce the chance of another—a kind of “prehab.”

They worked on improving her stability, balance, and coordination with exercises that increased the strength and functional range of her joints and bolstered her core posture and movement. (One foundational technique, called dynamic neuromuscular stabilization, saw her crawling much like a baby to unlearn bad habits by relearning basic movements.)

Like many, Dean once viewed surfing as a lifestyle, not a sport. He came to it after earning his graduate degree in physical therapy in 1991 and going to work at a Veterans Affairs clinic in Long Beach, California. His hobby and his career converged on the shores of sunny SoCal. “As I surfed more frequently and wanted to get better,” he says, “I started to think about it differently—what do I need to do to catch more waves and make more turns?”

Spending time in the gym was not something any respectable surfer did back then; likewise, few people considered hanging ten a serious athletic pursuit. But Dean’s clinical background led him to begin reconsidering those notions. When his son started catching waves with friends, he asked more questions: Why don’t surfers train the way football players and wrestlers do? What are the baseline functions they need to perform? He assessed the boys’ movements on the water and developed conditioning plans involving unstable surfaces like balance boards and Bosu balls. The teenagers eagerly sought every advantage, so he reevaluated their progress regularly and responded with new adjustments. He reviewed hours of video footage, focusing on their technique and pondering how to help them from a biomechanical perspective.

Dean expanded upon that model when he opened a surfing-oriented gym in 2005 in Huntington Beach, a seaside community near Los Angeles. (He moved the operation a bit farther south to San Clemente, home to many of the sport’s stars, in 2010.) Over the years he has trained Simpson, who won two US Open championships, and other stars of the pro tour, including Nate Yeomans, Griffin Colapinto, and Kanoa Igarashi. Six years ago, he added physical therapy to the mix, tying together the two threads of his life’s work.

USA Surfing named Dean medical director in 2017 and tasked him with assembling a committee of coaches, orthopedic surgeons, physiologists, psychologists, and other experts. Their mandate is to create “high-performance” surfers. In the competition lexicon, that means emphasizing anything that can improve the odds of winning: strength and conditioning, nutrition, equipment evaluation, video and data analysis, even mental health. The US Olympic & Paralympic Committee has long embraced such a strategy. “My whole goal,” Dean says, “is to get top surfers to do what a lot of major sports are already doing.”

His methods grew from a belief that competitors should control the variables they can and leave the unknowns on the beach. A nutritionist, for example, advises on energy and hydration needs before, during, and after an event. “You’ll see a lot of surfers who barely take a sip of water in a five-hour competition in blazing sun and heat,” Dean says. “Can you think of any other elite athletes who aren’t drinking water?”

Dean radiates calm expertise. While he embodies the professionalization of surfing, his fluency in its sick-stoke language lends him credibility. “There are definitely some choke points when it comes to growing out of a lifestyle,” he says, recounting some of the criticism he’s read and heard over the years: Spend all the time you like in the gym, but the only way to improve is on the water. Competition and scoring bastardize the sport. The best surfer is the one having the most fun. “But the reality is that there are elite athletes making their living by performing at a top level,” he says. “The best surfer is the one who is actually in the water, and if you’re injury laden, you can’t be in the water. Everyone can understand that.”

On a bright morning in December 2019, Dean was performing a medical assessment on Nico Coli, who had just won gold in the team Aloha Cup event at the ISA world junior championship. The 16-year-old Californian was among a handful of amateurs spending the day at Mamba Sports Academy, the top-flight gym co-founded by the late NBA star Kobe Bryant. They were there to see how science, technology, and data can augment conditioning and improve performance. Coli’s left ankle had been bothering him. “You can see over time that as these kids get older, the back leg hip rotation becomes much more limited,” Dean said, pointing out the shorter range of motion of the teenager’s left leg. “The symptom of this is ankle pain,” Dean continued as Coli, who tries to surf twice each day, grimaced. “So even though his balance and coordination are pretty spot on, we work to give Nico more mobility.”

Mamba Sports Academy emphasizes using science and data to boost achievement, something that has prompted NBA and NFL players to train there. Dean works alongside Tracy Axel, director of high-performance analytics for the Olympic team. They met in 2011, when Dean advised her on her graduate thesis, and in 2018 they published a paper in the International Journal of Exercise Science. The study—based on measurements from 19 elite surfers—found that an emphasis on building core and lower body strength, rotational power, and flexibility significantly improves ability, which may increase the odds of success in competition.

Marks was among eight Olympic hopefuls who met at Mamba in early 2019 for physiological and mental evaluation. They spent two days jumping and standing on sensor-laden platforms to analyze hip and groin imbalances, taking cognitive tests to judge reaction time, and having their body composition measured in an egg-shaped device called the Bod Pod. Each of them had a high chance of qualifying for the games, and USA Surfing wanted to establish a baseline of their fitness and conditioning to help their coaches develop programs with input from physiologists and other experts.

In the cognition lab, Marks smacked buttons in a test designed to assess her reaction time and peripheral vision. In the gym, she leaped off a box onto force plates that recorded her center of gravity and weight distribution as she landed. “I’d never done reaction time testing, or the balance of your right foot versus your left foot,” she says. These factors are key. “It’s amazing to have these tests show you that what you felt like is not always the reality. And the more information you know about your body, the better, I think.”

An emphasis on science and data seems like a no-brainer. But adopting the “Mamba mentality”—the phrase Bryant coined for this kind of all-in, focused preparation—can be tricky when it comes to merging Olympic team priorities with those of the athletes and their coaches.

Mike Parsons, a big-wave rider who was inducted into the Surfer’s Hall of Fame in 2008, works with Marks and her teammate Andino. Although Parsons welcomes Dean’s insights, they augment, but do not replace, his regimen. “Their programs are pretty specific and strict, from what they eat to their sleeping habits,” he says. “It was all pretty dialed in for the world tour, and they’ll likely stick to that routine for the Olympics too.” He pauses, then laughs. “The stakes are just a lot higher.”

That explains why Coach Simpson urges team USA to tap Dean’s expertise. “With the Olympics only coming every four years, the pros are nervous about messing up their routines,” Simpson says. “But they should be looking at this kind of training as an extension of their careers.”

Not everyone will embrace these new tools due to time, cost, personal preference, or just plain superstition. And even the best preparation is no guarantee of success in a sport that places everyone at the mercy of waves, weather, and other factors. No one ever thought a sea turtle would lay eggs on Tsurigasaki Beach near Tokyo during a trial run of the Olympic surfing format in July 2019. And no one expected to find themselves grinding through rapid-fire heats in brutal humidity and temperatures that reached 90 degrees during the ISA World Surfing Games two months later. At least in some ways, surfing will always be surfing, in all of its variable, unpredictable glory.

This story appeared in the Summer 2020, Play issue of Popular Science.

[entergamingxp]

Project Cars 3 takes the series in a new direction • Eurogamer.net

One of the very best things to emerge from a world without full metal racing, alongside the deluge of virtual racing with all its drama and hijinx, has been a series of fantastical tweets from MSV press officer Tom Arron as he fills his time before motorsport proper returns. Remember when Le Mans was dropped from the schedule and the Snetterton 24 Hours was revived with a full field of WEC cars? Or when an unfortunate typo in the regs saw a mob of angry Group C cars replace the group B field as they took to Brands Hatch’s rallycross circuit?

It’s pure nonsense yet these small videos are incredibly convincing, thanks in no small part to the all-encompassing nature of Slightly Mad Studios’ Project Cars 2 which Arron uses for his flights of fancy. It goes to show that, for all its faults, there’s perhaps been no more comprehensive a racing experience. This is the game that lets you do everything, whether that’s taking a Porsche 917 around a recreation of vintage Le Mans or splashing around a sodden Cadwell Park in a clubman Ginetta.

Still, I was slightly taken aback when first laying eyes on Project Cars 3 – indeed, I wasn’t even sure if this really could be Project Cars 3 as I watched a Mercedes AMG GTR being hustled around the streets of Shanghai and Havana. This was firmly in the realm of the arcade racer, territory Slightly Mad Studios’ new owner Codemasters had staked out as recently as last year with the Grid reboot which saw spectacular street races around those same two cities. Is this new direction a result of the recent union between the two companies?

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It’s mere coincidence, it turns out – these are completely different takes on Shanghai and Havana that don’t share any assets with last year’s Grid, and as for that more arcadey lilt it’s a direction Project Cars 3 was set on long before the merger. It’s an attempt to present a more open-armed, accessible racing game for all – and a side of the game that’s additive to the sprawling comprehensiveness of Project Cars 2 rather than a replacement for it.

“The physics engine and the simulation under the hood – it’s not exactly the same as it was before, but it’s exactly as sim-focussed as it was before,” Project Cars 3’s director of production Pete Morrish reassures me. “Anybody looking at this coming to similar conclusions to you, they don’t need to be worried.

“One of the concerns with presenting things as simulation is it can be quite po-faced, it can be quite dry, and we wanted to make it much more friendly, much more supportive, much more democratic, so new players could come along and learn at their own pace and get to the point where we as racing game fans, as simulation fans are. At any point in that continuum from beginner to proper esports racer, you can find your level and find your enjoyment.”

To that end one of the new features Slightly Mad Studios is leading on for this reveal is a revised career mode that gives players a curated experience through 10 car classes, introducing car customization for both aesthetics and performance. “We found over the previous two games that a lot of people were coming to Project Cars as they’re graduating from some of the more arcade games, and it’s their first more serious, more sim-focussed racing game,” explains Morrish. “We didn’t really have the tools to help those people with that process, to help them learn and encourage them to start turning assists off.

I’ve yet to get my hands on it, but the signs are good – Paul Rustchynsky and some of his DriveClub colleagues are onboard with this, and if it feels as good as the PS4 exclusive did on a pad I’d be more than happy.

“The structures and modes we’ve added are designed, yes, to keep the core fanbase satisfied, but also help people who are making that step into serious racing games to have a more obvious pathway, to have goals in front of them that feel attainable that they can work around and adjust to their personal taste in terms of cars and even driving style as well. It’s not about a huge sweeping change to the overall game, it’s more about keeping what was there for the people who loved it and helping more people along the way make those steps into sim racing.”

It’s all very reminiscent of another top-line racing series, though I appreciate how in some areas it doesn’t even try to hide the fact – there’s a new asynchronous multiplayer mode that’s simply called Rivals, while away from the Forza inspiration skill-based matchmaking in multiplayer which sees drivers divided into splits for regularly scheduled races takes its notes from iRacing and, of course, Gran Turismo Sport. It’s all good stuff, but the most important aspect of Project Cars 3 is hard to get an angle on until we can get our hands on it. The handling in Slightly Mad Studios’ series has always been – how to put this? – a little inconsistent, at best.

In recent months Reiza Studios has shown that a satisfying simulation can be wrestled out of Slightly Mad Studios’ engine with its superlative Automobilista 2, and it sounds like Project Cars 3 is setting out to provide something just as engaging but for a broader audience. “One of the big things for us is the gamepad handling, which we think we’ve properly nailed,” says Morrish. “In some areas we’ve just refined it from where we were before, in other areas it’s been kind of a bit of a sidestep and a mental shift to a different way of approaching things. But we think our out of the box gamepad handling is second to none.

“And once you combine that with some of the improvements we’ve made to things like the way that we’re handling assists and the subtlety of them, so that there’s no kind of ham-fistedness when when traction control or stability control takes over, we think we’ve got a really good continuum whereby beginners can have a fantastic experience out of the box and they can gradually dial back systems as they move forward through the through the career system.”

Interlagos is a real world addition to the track roster, and we’re told to expect a few more too.

And what about those who spend their weekends ferreted away in sheds behind a Fanatec? Slightly Mad Studios’ Joe Barron has good news for the nerds out there. “On the wheel side of things as well we’re taking a sort of step by step approach for each phase of the corner, looking at details that we needed to add in the braking phase in terms of how different elements of force feedback fade in and fade in and out, then through the turn phase and then through the exit phase, as well, almost like a three step cornering process,” he says in delicious detail. “We’re now in the fine tuning phase, adding little things, tweaking the baseline values, and making it easier to customise force feedback settings and have a more consistent experience across the car roster as well.”

For old car bores like myself they’re making all the right noises. And, more importantly, is it still possible to take a clubman racer around a drenched Cadwell Park? “That stuff’s all in there,” says Morrish, noting that some 13 new track locations are coming to Project Cars 3 as well as 40 new vehicles. “None of that has gone away. If the first thing you want to do when you get into the game is turn every assist off and drive in a thunderstorm in pitch dark at midnight or something, you can still do all of that.”

There’s not too long left to find out how it all comes together, with Project Cars 3 set for a summer release on PC, PS4 and Xbox One (there’s no word at present about whether or not it’ll come to next-gen consoles too, but I wouldn’t bet against it). It’s an interesting proposition that I’m looking forward to sampling myself, and to see how that new direction pans out. Project Cars was the driving game in which it was possible to do almost everything – I don’t think you can blame Slightly Mad Studios for making this new edition more palatable for everyone.

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/06/project-cars-3-takes-the-series-in-a-new-direction-%e2%80%a2-eurogamer-net/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=project-cars-3-takes-the-series-in-a-new-direction-%25e2%2580%25a2-eurogamer-net

[gabriellakirtonblog]

These Are the Best Advanced Personal Training Certifications, According to Personal Trainers

It doesn’t take much to get started as a personal trainer. Most gyms require little more than a baseline personal training certification, an interest in helping people, and a willingness to work long hours for whatever they want to pay you.

But you’ll soon face two challenges:

· How do you get the continuing education credits you need to retain your certification?

· How do you get paid more and move up in the fitness industry?

The answer to both questions is the same: Get more certifications.

“The number of certifications has a huge impact on a trainer’s productively and take-home income,” says Danny King, who’s in charge of education and development for personal trainers at Life Time. “If a trainer has at least three specialty certifications, they’ll be a top earner and have a packed schedule.”

The reason is pretty straightforward, King adds: “The type of fit pro who puts time, money, and effort into their education is also the type who tends to be successful. It really does seem to matter.”

Raphael Konforti, national head of fitness education for Youfit Health Clubs, agrees. “Many big box gyms, like Youfit, require specializations to be promoted and get paid more” for each personal training session.

But with nearly unlimited choices, how do you decide which ones are best for you? We asked personal trainers to weigh in on this Facebook thread, and a consensus quickly emerged.

1. What types of certifications are most valuable for your career?

2. What certifications do personal trainers find most useful?

3. What certifications probably won’t help you very much?

4. What certifications will help you beyond personal training?

 READ ALSO: The Best Personal Training Certifications in the U.S.

1. What types of certifications are most valuable for your career?

First things first: Make sure any new certification will count toward CEUs for the one you already have. So if your baseline personal training certification is from the ACSM, for example, check to see if it’s accepted by the ACSM for continuing education.

Certifying bodies will encourage you to take their own courses, as you’d expect. If nothing else, you don’t have to worry about whether they’ll accept them for CEUs. And while one of those may indeed be your best choice, you owe it to yourself to broaden your scope.

Consider which ones will help improve your income or status. For Konforti, those fall into three categories.

Behavior change

It took a few decades, but fitness pros eventually figured out that yelling at people to exercise more or eat better doesn’t really work. Knowing how to help your clients break old habits and establish new ones is a crucial skill.

“It doesn’t matter how much technical knowledge you have from other specializations if you can’t motivate clients and keep them consistent,” Konforti says. Understanding how clients differ from each other also helps you coach them in a way that makes exercise more enjoyable, he adds. “The happier the client is, the longer they train.”

And the longer they train, the more money you make.

Among the organizations that offer behavior change certifications are:

· ACE Behavior Change Specialist ($249)

· ISSA Transformation Specialist ($799)

· NASM Behavior Change Specialist ($499)

· PTA Global Behavior Change in Exercise * ($299)

*Konforti’s company, Youfit, has a partnership with PTA Global, and Konforti has also worked with them in several capacities.

Group exercise

“Group training is a tremendous asset and opportunity for trainers, whether it’s small-group or traditional group exercise,” Konforti says. “You learn how to make things fun and quickly adapt to different people, which in my mind is critical to retention.”

Your options include:

· ACE Group Fitness Instructor (from $299 to $449)

· ACSM Certified Group Exercise Instructor ($239 for members, $299 for nonmembers)

· AFAA Group Fitness Instructor ($299 to $374)

· ISSA Specialist in Group Fitness ($799)

Immediately applicable knowledge and skills

A manager at his company once told Konforti that a foam roller generated more than $100,000 in sales. How?

· It quickly removes a client’s discomfort

· If produces an immediate change to the client’s body

“It’s what people want [from personal trainers], but it’s hard to deliver in a single session,” Konforti says.

A few certifications in this category that trainers singled out:

· Acumobility Advanced Mobility + Mechanics Level 1 ($250 for eight-hour in-person course)

· ISSA Corrective Exercise Specialist ($799)

· TriggerPoint Foam Rolling Principles and Practices ($149)

2. What specialty certifications do personal trainers find most useful?

The most useful specialty certifications and continuing education workshops, King says, are those that meet these criteria:

· Limited in scope

· Include hands-on or practical components

· Apply to most of the clients a trainer works with

The certifications most often mentioned in trainers’ responses fit into four categories.

Skill-based

The skill-based and equipment-based categories have surprising crossover. Consider, for example, Josh Henkin’s DVRT (dynamic variable resistance training) Level 1 and 2. “A lot of people think it’s about training with sandbags,” says Joe Dowdell. But what it really does is teach movement principles, “and if you know those, you can apply them to any of the methods.”

These courses go by acronyms that, to an outsider, could just as easily be medical diagnoses or nuclear launch codes: FMS (functional movement screen), DNS (dynamic neuromuscular stabilization), FRC (functional range conditioning). Only USAW (USA Weightlifting) sounds like something that might be related to sports or fitness.

There is a financial benefit to having one or more of the following credentials, says Chris Bathke, owner of Elemental Fitness Lab in Portland, Oregon. But it’s indirect. “Clinicians are more likely to refer if they know continuing education and some sort of screening and sensible programming are happening.”

· DNS Exercise Course (certification takes more than a year, with multiple exams followed by a practical test; there’s an additional fee to be listed on the site as a certified practitioner)

· DVRT Level 1 ($399 for online or in-person course)

· FMS Level 1 ($399 for online course; $549 for two-day in-person course in the U.S.)

· FRC Mobility Specialist ($899 for two-day seminar)

· USAW Level 1 ($499 for two-day course; to become certified, you have to complete an online training module and pass an online exam within seven days of finishing the course)

Equipment-based

Equipment-based workshops and certifications got some of the strongest endorsements and most scathing criticism. “Most tool-based systems are redundant, low on actual knowledge gained, and so strict with technique they often become rigid and dogmatic,” says Daniel Silver.

Especially if the equipment is inflatable.

“Knowing what I know now, I would tell my younger self to pass on the BOSU ball cert,” says Nathane Jackson. Glenda Watt has similar regrets about a stability-ball certification: “That would qualify as the biggest waste of money.”

The best ones, Konforti says, are fun to take, expand your repertoire of exercise variations, and keep you motivated. That’s in addition to the CEUs, which you have to get anyway. But they rarely add much to your bottom line.

These three were endorsed by trainers for different reasons: RKC and StrongFirst for the quality, depth, and rigor of the program, and TRX for the immediate applicability to clients.

· Russian Kettlebell Certified Instructor ($1,199 for two-day course)

· StrongFirst SFG 1 Kettlebell Instructor ($1,595 for three-day course)

· TRX Qualified Trainer ($221 for one-day course)

Population-based

The major organizations we listed in this article offer certifications for just about any demographic you might be asked to train: seniors, youth, pre- and postnatal women, special populations.

But no trainers mentioned any of them to me, either on the public Facebook thread or in private messages and emails. These three, however, got solid endorsements.

· EXOS Performance Specialist ($1,130)

· Girls Gone Strong Level 1 ($799)

· NSCA Tactical Strength and Conditioning Facilitator ($300 for NSCA members, $435 for nonmembers)

Nutrition

The three criteria Danny King mentioned at the beginning of this section only kinda-sorta apply to nutrition certifications. They’re not really “limited in scope,” given how much there is to cover. And it’s hard to imagine a “hands-on” component, unless it includes chef training.

Finally, while it certainly “applies to most clients,” that doesn’t mean most clients want or expect it from their trainer.

But being able to offer nutrition along with fitness programs can elevate a trainer’s status and income, especially online. And there’s only one certification that got enthusiastic mentions from multiple trainers:

· Precision Nutrition Level 1 ($799)

WHAT ABOUT ONLINE TRAINING?

There’s one training credential that doesn’t fit neatly into any of our categories but is nonetheless worth mentioning:

· Certified Online Trainer ($1,999)

Like the others in this article, it’s accepted for CEUs by every major certifying organization. And because it’s our own course, we feel confident saying it’s the only one on this list that teaches you how to make more money while giving your clients the service and results they want.

3. What certifications probably won’t help you very much?

Certifications provide lucrative revenue streams for those who offer them, including the ones with .org in the URL. And where there’s potential profit, there’s temptation. If they can make a lot of money from a personal training certification, and maintaining it requires continuing education, why wouldn’t they offer advanced and specialty credentials to fulfill those requirements?

The power to create both the supply and the demand gives them a pretty sweet business model. But at least you get CEUs out of the deal.

The certifications to view with the most skepticism “are the ones from weekend seminars led by one person,” based on that person’s own training system, says Cody Hill.

At least wait until the system has achieved enough recognition among your peers to give the credential some prestige, even if clients don’t know what it is.

And that brings us to the final category.

4. What certifications will help you outside of personal training?

If you know me, you know I’m a writer and editor, not a personal trainer. But because I write about fitness, the CSCS I earned in 2001 has helped me in multiple ways.

First, it forced me to learn exercise science at a deeper level than I could’ve achieved without having to study the NSCA textbook cover to cover. That was important because, as I used to say back then, it made me bilingual. I could speak with trainers about what they did and why they did it, and then translate what they told me into English.

When it worked, everybody won: Trainers not only got to share their ideas with audiences they couldn’t otherwise have reached, they got to see their names in magazines and books. The readers got the best information and advice in language they could understand. And because I got paid for all that, my family was able to enjoy luxuries like food and shelter.

It’s not unusual these days for fitness writers to have certifications. Pete Williams, for example, got a personal training credential after he was turned down for magazine assignments because he didn’t yet have one.

While Williams got his from the NASM, most of the fitness writers I’ve known and worked with chose the CSCS. There’s a simple reason: It may be the only training credential recognized by people outside the fitness industry.

It also has surprising weight inside the industry. “My CSCS allowed me to negotiate for a higher starting salary at my first physical therapy job,” says Mike Stare, DPT. “It seems to carry more weight in rehab circles, compared to other certs. Those with the CSCS are often given stronger consideration and more compensation.”

That brings us back to where we began:

When you consider specialty certifications and continuing education workshops and seminars, the most important question is, what’s in it for you? Will it make you more valuable to your employer? To your clients? To your peers? To media gatekeepers outside the fitness industry?

The answers will be different for everyone. What matters is that you start with the right questions.

    Ready to Start Your Personal Training Career? 

Starting your career isn’t complicated. All you need is for someone to pay you to train them.

But how do you get that first client? What do you need to know? Where do you want to work, and how do you get hired? 

If your answer to any of those questions is “I don’t know,” you need The Wealthy Fit Pro’s Guide to Starting Your Career, the ultimate launching pad for ambitious personal trainers. 

Jonathan Goodman will show you how to … 

Land the perfect job for you (pg. 17)

Attract more clients (pg. 95)

Keep more clients (pg. 55)

Get even more clients through a foolproof referral system (pg. 115)

Learn the no-fail secret to motivating clients (pg. 61)

Set yourself apart with programs your clients will brag about (pg. 71)

Master marketing skills that open up new income opportunities (pg. 152)

Become the best trainer you can be (pg. 46)

If you’re just beginning your journey in the fitness industry (or know someone who is), you won’t find a more authoritative or comprehensive resource. 

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