Everyday Systems

Well, as it happens, I started doing Shovelglove a couple of years (maybe?) ago. But due to various things (including my own faults, I'm sure), I let it slip.

So now I'm starting again. I had gotten a six-pound sledgehammer for my weak self, and the day before yesterday, I jumped right in and did fourteen minutes of sledgehammer slinging. It was a ton of fun.

I think before I had started with nine minutes, going off the logic that my dentist schedules things in ten-minute increments. Fourteen seems to work for me now, though!

Of course, since we're cleaning up after a hurricane, I didn't shug yesterday. But I'm going to get on a regular schedule!

In addition to stabbing people I don't like, churning butter, and paddling my canoe around, I'm counting my reps in Spanish. It may sound silly, but in my language studies the thing I do LEAST often is count. The repetition and speed means I have to think fast until the numbers become totally natural.

So it's also an intellectual exercise! Of sorts.

Welcome back!

I'm counting my reps in Spanish. It may sound silly, but in my language studies the thing I do LEAST often is count.

It may sound silly, but I do exactly the same thing.

I notice it gets much harder to count (unless I know the language really well) toward the end when you get exhausted -- but I imagine that's when the practice does you the most good.

Reinhard

Well, I'm glad you do it too, Reinhard.

I'm thinking of making up my verb charts again (maybe just irregular ones) and then repeating those instead of counting...but that's an awful lot of work if I'm not being graded on it!

So today I did Timothy's Shovelglove 101 just to see if there was anything fun there that I could add, and it confirmed something I already knew: at just over five feet tall, I have hopelessly short arms!

I can't do his "bullroarer" at middle grip--I have to hold my shovelglove even farther from the head so I won't jab myself in the armpit and lose my rhythm.

I've decided to see it as a good thing; it's just a little more difficult, which means I have to do a little more work and get the effects.

Short limbs run in my family. My father (who has to be at least average height for a man) has a ridiculously short inseam and he has to cuff most of his pants.

Iam kind of jealous about the ability of counting in different languages. I am fluent in mumbling and still trying to get a grip on english. I learned most of the 4 letter words while in the Army.

It CAN be hard. I have the toughest time with remembering the difference between seis and siete toward the end when I'm getting tired, and every so often I go nuts and do forty-two of an easier move just for the counting, and I still find it hard to remember cuarenta.

There's an added bonus--if I have the TV on while I do it, I'm usually watching HGTV, and numbers come up a lot. Since I'm in Spanish mode for numbers, it doesn't mess up my counting!