A pause

Still touch and go with Wim’s system.

Yes I like the breathing, the meditation, and the health benefits of all of that including the cold showers… but in week 5 Wim wants you to take a 10 minute cold shower every day, and it gets deeper from there. In the beginning the practice was 30 minutes, then 45, now I spend over an hour every day doing the practice, which I believe will continue to increase.

I had to think to myself… do I really see myself submerging myself in ice baths, the lake in winter, climbing mountains, etc, for the rest of my life?

I’m just a little too busy lately to get on board with that deep of a continual practice.

I’ll keep up a schedule of breathing, stretching, and at times starting --but mostly ending-- with cold showers. However I don’t see myself hiking up any mountains without clothes on or jumping into a lake anytime soon. So I’m going to discontinue, at least at this point in my life, going any further with this practice, and just mix in a bit of it into my daily life.

I am reminded of the multiple times in my life where I got into a deep meditation practice, had amazing results and experiences, then life got in the way by keeping me busy. I stopped practicing for a day, two, three, and soon you forget about what results you experienced as if they never happened, and easily discard the practice all together... coming to that realization makes me believe I need to get back on the horse... Maybe when I start focusing on competition again, I will go deeper into the practice to give me a mental edge.

Not that you shouldn’t get into Wim's program! There are tons of awesome people in Wim’s facebook group jumping into lakes, taking ice baths, climbing mountains or even taking out the trash in their shorts. That type of involvement is just not me right now.

Best of luck!

Delays

I got into a bad habit of writing things on paper and not blogging them immediately.

I've been super busy with a few things that suddenly started happening for me and regrettably wasn't able to find the time to breathe, let alone sleep a decent amount of hours each day. I'm going to restart week 4 on Sunday.

Week 4 - Day 2

I've figured out why my retention times aren't improving...

1) I'm usually doing it after training/a long day as opposed to in the morning
2) I'm usually doing it after having coffee/dehydrated
3) I'm sitting with improper posture, even when I try to sit with proper posture. I work a desk job and my lower back is pretty weak because of it. I believe my tight back and chest restricts my ability to take air in.


I stayed home from training after work and decided to do the exercises at 5pm. I'm going to make a conscious effort to wake up early and get this done instead of leaving it until later.

After the first round of sitting upright and being disappointed in my results, I decided to lay down for the first time in weeks and instantly there were much better results. I was able to take more air in, I felt my hands cramping, I felt more fully charged, and more tingling in my body. I also saw more lights in the later rounds. This feels 'right'.

This week Wim has you do 3 rounds of breathing, pushups, more rounds (as many as you like), certain stretches and other yogic poses, followed by meditation. He gives you more mental coaching to help with the cold showers which has provided some interesting results.

Week 4 - Day 1

Week 4 looks amazing. The video is an hour as opposed to the regular 30 minutes.

My times were 130>145, 130>140, 153>230 and I did 70 pushups after round 4. I felt incredibly charged and had tremendous focus, with a sense of 'it's starting to make sence' (Why I'm doing this). My awareness feels stronger/less easily distracted.

I did 40 pushups afterwards

Week 3 - Day 7

I found that I'm able to retain better if I dont give myself opportunities to look at what time it is.

130>200, 135>200, 200>230, 215-245

I did 40 diamond pushups afterwards. Cold shower went fine, my initial reaction is less and less but I am anxious to get onto the next week already.

Week 3 - Day 6

Today didn't yield great results as it was 7pm and I had just finished eating

Times were 110>130, 117>200, 131>205, 145>215. I decided to do 35 slow pushups instead of giving it decent explosiveness

Week 3 - Day 5

I ripped home after teaching a tough jiu jitsu class where I worked myself to the limit and hardly ate all day. I wanted to do the exercises on an empty stomach but was starving.

Times were 115>140, 132>210, 145>235, 155>245

On the third retention as I was holding my breath I felt a fire inside of myself, and an extreme burst of energy. I wrote “POWER” down on my journal and dug my pen in as I was writing it

I’ve been training a lot, so I started doing the pushups on the inhale and already felt this wasn’t going to go well. I did 15, stopped and started doing situps instead for 40 before I relaxed into meditation

I’m listening to this to help activate the ‘third eye’ as I meditate. It’s produced some interesting results of feeling as if I’m not in my body.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4XILtCBJ3k&list=FLwwhsWFjgUx8x1Wd1LOm7fg&index=18

The cold showers afterwards are annoying to have to go through, but every day are getting easier and more tolerable.