Property Investments, Landlording, CrossFit, Nutrition & Safety

It’s the 30th of November, which means that this is the last day of Movember, the world wide mens’ charity moustache growing event for prostate cancer research. Here’s my progress, each photo is roughly a week apart:

Whilst I did set up a Movemeber.com charity page to show my participation, I didn’t advertise it. The reason is that I believe that charity is a personal matter. It annoys me profusely to be constantly asked for cash for this and that good cause. Who I chose to give my money to is my business and a matter for my personal conscience and I will decided when and where I do that. I extend the same courtesy to everyone else, so it will be a rare day indeed that you ever get a begging message from me.

With Christmas round the corner, this is ties in with another of my annoyances: Christmas cards! I hate the commercialisation of Christmas and the social pressure that is put on people to conform to the xmas card exchanging frenzy that goes on this time of year. Woe betide you if you fail to remember to send someone a card who sends you one! Each year the xmas card list grows bigger and bigger incorporating everyone who has ever sent you one. It has become an annual popularity contest, the more cards you get, the more people must like you, yes? No! People mostly send cards out of obligation. Don’t be fooled by getting a large pile of cards that you are popular.

Some years ago, we decided not to play that game any more, so we just stopped. We send no Christmas cards out at all, none! Instead we take the money we would have spent on cards and postage and donate that to a worthy cause. To date, we have donated about £500 to charity as a result of following this policy. This year our donation will go to prostate cancer, as it is the Movember cause.

I should say that I am not a curmudgeon, rather than sending a bit of cardboard tat, I do a radical thing at Christmas: I pick up the phone and call people! Radical huh? 😉 Just to be clear then, you will not get a card from me this festive season, nor do I expect or want one from you.

So, I am not asking you for a charitable donation to Movember, but I would ask you to consider rejecting the commercialisation of Christmas and instead of sending cards, make a donation to charity. If not Movember, then something seasonal or something close to your heart.

Merry Christmas. 😉

If you’re my friend on Facebook (Colin McNulty) or if you saw my earlier post on Movember, you’ll know that I’m doing the Movember moustache growing challenge. This is progress after 2 weeks:

As you can see, it’s coming along nicely. The first 2 weeks were horrendous though, with a major amount of itching, week 3 has been rather better and I expect week 4 to be easier still. Not only is it all in a good cause, and a load of fun (there are about 30 people at work doing it too!) but a moustache has been crucial to many people throughout history. Take a look:

On Thursday, Karl announced that we are launching our first fully fledged PDR course. For an hour every Monday evening at 20:15 for 6 weeks, we’re going to be putting on a structured Personal Defence Readiness (PDR) course.

Starting from the basics of the Flinch Conversion, in just 6 weeks we’ll build on your body’s innate physiology to replicate withstanding a realistic attack scenario, utilising many of the capabilities you already posses, which we’ll show you how to access. It’s a fun and thoroughly enjoyable course, that’s personally challenging whilst being simultaneously light hearted and self enabling.

On day 1, we’ll be looking at Flinch. Take a look at these photos to see what we’ll be discussing:

Ask yourself: what are most of the people in these pictures doing? Are they all doing the same thing? If not, why not?

Come and get involved, overcome your fear, feel confident and SAFE.

This is a great example of how the flinch is faster… than well just about anything. In this case, the flinch is faster than the faint. It’s a perfect example of a Protective Flinch and validation (as if it was needed) that the SPEAR System (see http://www.TonyBlauer.com) is based on real physiology.

Come on down to the weekly PDR classes at http://www.Crossfit3D.com to find out more, or checkout my other PDR / SPEAR and general self defence videos and posts.

This video shows what can happen if you fail to read and react to pre-contact cues, something we specifically teach in our PDR (SPEAR) classes:

This morning’s Crossfit workout was rough: Murph. Which is:

• 1 Mile run
• 100 Pull ups
• 200 Push ups
• 300 Squats
• 1 Mile run

And if that’s not bad enough, it’s all done with a 10kg weight vest! At least you can partition the gymnastic moves as you see fit. Most people do Cindy rounds: 5, 10, 15 of the 3.

Well that’s the “as prescribed” workout. I’ve seriously neglected my training this year and am not nearly as fit as I was a year or 2 ago. Fortunately Crossfit scales to everyone’s ability, so I did 1/2 Murph with no weight vest. Even that still took 38 mins 11 seconds and I suspect it’ll be a few days yet before my pecks forgive me the 100 push ups (press ups if you’re English that is).

Certainly I want to be on form for Grace tomorrow. I’m planning on popping down to Crossfit Tameside for the Barbells for Boobs Charity event (Grace is an all olympic lifting workout and it’s going to be done for Breast Cancer).

Not to leave the boys out, November is being officially renamed to Movember in which, in the aid of Prostate Cancer, members of Crossfit3D will seeing who can grow the best moustache possible in one month! Do you reckon I could manage this in a month?

I’ve not had any facial hair for years, so it should be fun. I plan on doing a daily photo and stitching it all together as an animated gif when I’m done. Tee hee. It might end up more like this though, leather gear is mandatory of course:

A few weeks ago I put up a video of the Cross Extensor Reflex, which is what the SPEAR System calls the reflex we have to grab on tight to whatever is in our hands when we’re surprised. It showed a woman nearly getting mown down and running for her life, but not letting go of her shopping bag!

This video explains (I think) why we have this seemingly odd reflex. I say it’s odd, because it’s not helpful for an adult to have such a reflex. Checkout this classic picture:

What you see here is the bat flying into the crowd and everyone flinching (everyone except one that is!). It’s a classic because if you’ve ever been on one of Tony Blauer’s Personal Defence Readiness seminars, whether given by him or not, you’ll have seen this picture as it’s used to demonstrate the flinch response we all have.

But this photo also shows the Cross Extensor Reflex (CER) as there are several people, who despite flinching desperately to avoid the bat, haven’t dropped what’s in their hands, which often leads to some very weird flinches indeed! However, on to today’s video, which demonstrates why we as adult humans have this reflex:

Ok so hopefully you get the point now. The real question is, what use is this? Knowing that you will have this reflexive response to grab onto something when you’re startled, how can we apply this to our world here and now to improve our personal safety? We’ll be discussing this at tonight’s PDR class at Crossfit3D.

I like ranting, it’s good for the soul, just not too often perhaps. I ranted last week for example, specifically by letter to the insurance company Allianz, who I noticed politely told me they were going to share my details with other group and third party companies, but gave me no option to opt out of marketing material other than to write in to their head office! I can say I was quite pleased to not only receive a contrite letter from their complaints department, but also a personal call. It appears that as a result of my letter, they will consider reviewing their policy.

Boosted by my success, I’ve just shot off another rant, this one to the Institute of Engineers and Technicians (IET) who used to be called the IEE, a world recognised brand that they threw away in a moment of madness, but that’s another story. As a member of the IET and a Chartered Engineer, I get the monthly mags and the letters page is often filled with members bemoaning the state of the term “Engineer” and how Engineer means Mechanic to most people. Anyway, here’s my letter for your enjoyment:

Dear Editor,

I see that that perennial discussion about the wretched misuse of the title Engineer has reared its head again. I find it amazing that given the practical, common sense abound members of our organisation, ideas such as inventing a whole new title but that’s almost like the old one (Ingeneer!?!) are touted without thought to the cost and time implications and the likely chance of success of rebranding an established profession. Especially when such a simple and obvious alternative already exists.

Let’s apply our engineering minds to this issue and start by defining clearly the core problem. We would like a title that is legally protected and which the general public associate with having some level of enhanced skill and ability. In essence, we want to be seen to be a cut above the hoi polloi of people who simply fix stuff. (I will ignore the obvious debate about whether such an elitist goal is deserving of our learned efforts, or morally bankrupt in a classless society.)

On to the solution, ask a member of the public which is “better”: an Accountant or a Chartered Accountant; a Surveyor or a Chartered Surveyor; and Engineer or a Chartered Engineer? Oh, and there’s the answer! We already have a legally protected title that the public already understand to be a mark of some distinction, however few of us use it, even fewer companies advertise that they employ Chartered Engineers and I don’t ever remember the term being used on the news to describe an expert interviewee for example.

In my experience when asked what I do, if I reply that I’m a Chartered Engineer it always elicits a markedly different response to any other answer I may give. And as often as not, the next question is: “So what makes a Chartered Engineer different from a normal Engineer?” to which you can point out that the required 7 years of monitored education, training and work followed by an assessment interview, is the same amount of time it takes to become a medical Doctor. I guarantee that the recipient of such an introduction won’t class you in the “Upholstery Engineer, no experience necessary, clean driving license preferred” category. Yes that was an actual job ad I saw in the local paper once!

Best regards,

Colin McNulty

I wonder if they will publish it?

This weekly Monday video is what we’ll be discussing at the PDR (SPEAR) class at CrossFit3D tonight at 8pm. The question is: Apart from the obvious “Walk away”, what should this girl have done to avoid getting hit? There are several things.