Anvil or Hammer

So what is this anvil or hammer business??

It’s philosophy, let me try to explain.
I was introduced to the expression via the 1960’s British TV show called The Prisoner. The episode is titled Hammer into Anvil. In the episode the Antagonist (Number 2) tells the Protagonist (Number 6) “Du musst Amboss oder Hammer sein”, to which #6 says, “I suppose you see me as the anvil then”. #2 replies “yes, I’m going to hammer you.”.
The quote come from the famous German Writer Goethe, it means “You must be the anvil or hammer”. The episode intentionally misuses the quote. It was pointed out by Orwell that “The anvil nearly always breaks the hammer”. It is in this spirit that I have named my Blog Anvil or Hammer.
Let ther be no doubt, every person is either the hammer or anvil. No one gets to avoid it and action through inaction is no choice. This particular blog is about my fitness and training, it is not the full story of my life, although sometime life and training can and do mix. It is my desire to be the anvil and to use the exercises as the hammer. With the two together, maybe I can make something useful and maybe I can make some art and if either of the two breaks, I hope it’s the hammer, an old anvil never looks pretty though.

Does that make sense?

So you can find my blog at http://anvilorhammer.us
You should still be able to see it at the old address if you have always accessed it that way. It’s not really moving, it just has a new phone number.

Conversaton with a Mountain Man

I got to do a lot of talking with Chris Rice at Seneca Rocks. One of the topics that came up is my weight struggle and the similarities with his own son’s struggles. Chris’s son was a collegiate athelet and far above my level of strength but ther were similarities. The most important one to me is the fear of cardio do to the loss of muscle mass and stength. In order for his son to lose very nearly 100lbs, he had to set aside this fear and accept the inexitable. Doing so provided him with the pay off of better health, fitness and athleticism. That is what I hope to do.
Sean’s tool of choice was the Concept II rower. I’ve looked at one of these before but can’t quite afford one. I’m gonna have to be a bit cheaper. So my goal is to run every day and see what happens. I’ll mix it up all over the place, differnt levels of intesity and volume. Some of it will be based on time at my disposal and some on my disposition. The idea is to keep myself healthy but get a little bit of cardio in everyday. With any luck, by the time I hit 225, I’ll finally be able to afford a Concept II, maybe as a reward for losing the weight.

Will I lose strength? it’s a sure thing but the important thing is to get healtier, to me, the benfits out weigh the loses.

Gonna Climb

Started off my Monday back right, yoga. I knew I needed to do it but really wasn’t feeling it. I went through it though.I kinda took it at my own pace. I really wanted to focus on the stretching more than the strength.
I was planning on an involved climbing gym trip tonight. Unfortunatly I ended up with a very long day at work and ran out of time to climb. I had planned on a very short run after climbing (more in a sec) but since I couldn’t climb, I ran, about 1.5 miles at an easy pace. Then I walked it out the same distance. I think the walk was the best thing I could have done. Just standing around for a few minutes before it, I noticed that my quads got all pumped and burned a little bit when I first started moving.
I got more running in than expected but didn’t climb. I will have plenty of time tomorrow to climb so that will be good.