April Lifestyle Challenge

Soooo...here we are at the top of another month - April - and the beginning of Spring....which means 25% of 2010 is gone, gone, gone.

Are YOU feeling "actualized" yet?

What are YOUR personal or professional goals? Writing songs? Reading a book? Changing your diet? Exercise? De-cluttering your life? Re-committing to a project or loved one?

I read about Rush drummer Neil Peart years ago when he decided one of his personal goals was to "read all the great books", so he started with a list of Pulitzer Prize winning books and a list of "the classics" and then...he started reading.

I'm off to do a workout, now, then eat a wonderful salad. This week will be predominantly both raw and vegan, but I'll likely add some sashimi or tataki at the end of the week. Prepping lessons for today as well as the new session at Beaumont; booking some more Alien Blue gigs; coupla phone conferences with prospective agents; decide if I'm buying a new guitar....it's a dog's life, eh? Hahaha!!!

So, for the April Lifestyle Challenge, what do YOU plan?

March 2010 Lifestyle Challenge!

For Facebook users, I'm rotating the tags (and using both my personal profile and the ALIEN BLUE page to tag), so don't feel left out if you weren't tagged...and don't be confused if you were tagged and haven't heard of our Lifestyle Challenges before. Same for MySpace & Tribe users.

For those unaware, it's all about self-analysis & improvement. Pushing yourself just a little or a lot. I list some of my goals, then ask abotu yours, which you can post to share with everyone. Lotsa mutual support here!

Sooo....It's time for the March Lifestyle Challenge!!!

What are your personal or professional goals? Writing songs? Finishing that book? Changing your diet? Exercise?? De-cluttering your life? Re-committing to a project or loved one?

My personal goals are more intense & productive workouts, and going back to near-vegan status (limiting sashimi heavily after learning about the continued devastation of ocean life & severe over-fishing of tuna, oysters, and other "seafood"). Ramping back up from about 80% raw to 90+% raw.

Biz goals are to book most of the 2010 dates for ALIEN BLUE. Looking for not only the type of gigs we did last year, but some major opening slots, larger blues, folk, & new music festivals, and the like.

Musical goals are (technical) to increase speed by 10% on all scales & arpeggios and (creative) to compose 4 new ALIEN BLUE songs....giving us about 8 new trax by month's end. Aslo looking for some old spirituals &/or work-songs. Let me know if you have any suggestions!

What about YOU???

Work Out

I'm asked a bit about my work-outs, so I thought I'd post something here. I've answered queries at Facebook and at SkinnyDevil.Com (on the "about" page), but I thought I'd post here as well.

Soooo....today's work-out (for a typical sampling) was body-weight callistenics & cardio, broken into sets with totals below:

1. Push-ups: 100
2. Dips: 100
3. Sit-ups: 400
4. Reverse Sits: 100
5. Bridges: 100
6. Calf Raises: 250
7. Squats: 100

Then some cardio, capped off by 25 pull-ups and 25 chin-ups.

Post work-out meal: Turkey tataki (seared exterior, raw interior) and an apple. Then I'll down about 16oz water.

Hope this helps. I also include running stairs, some light weight work, and punching bag (done in 3-5 minute rounds). It's also nice to stay active playing with the family & friends...rock climbing, hiking, biking, swimming (skiing, snowboarding, & tubing in the above picture).....

If you have questions, feel free to drop me a line.

February LIFESTYLE CHALLENGE!!!

It's time for the February Lifestyle Challenge!!!

What are your personal or professional goals? Writing songs? Finishing that book? Changing your diet? Exercise?? De-cluttering your life? Re-committing to a project or loved one?

My personal goals are more intense & productive workouts...

Biz goals are to either secure a booking agent or a promotional assistant who can handle some of the stuff that keeps me bogged down and less than productive....

Musical goals are (technical) to increase speed by 10% on all scales & arpeggios and (creative) to compose 4 new Alien Blue songs....

What about YOU???

January Lifestyle Challenge

Let's kick off 2010 right...with a brand new personal challenge.

What are YOUR personal challenges? Setting goals for music? Diet? Exercise? Gotta get to that project that you keep putting off or that book you always wanted to read?

Join us!

My personal challenges:

Music. - writing new material for ALIEN BLUE! Guitar - Working on those arpeggios, cleaning up the scales (time to nail down 150), and strum-hand technique...Teaching - We're still re-working the CD & hand-outs, but I hope to polish it all off by the end of this month! Diet & Exercise - I'm back to about 90-95% raw...mostly vegan, but stabs of sashimi...and increasing cardio significantly. I have a few professional goals that I will discuss elsewhere...

HOW ABOUT YOU?????

(most of the discussion takes place at Facebook)