RoryQ

Well, whereabouts do you live, Linda?

My front piece evolved as follows:- chest plates first, then the jump to deciding to do a full front piece. Tomo was able to fill in between the plates and then he had blank space all the way down to my thigh pieces. My left sleeve is all Mo Coppoletta and although it was extended from a quarter sleeve (above the elbow) all the way down, it's cohesive. The right arm is a blend of Ching (elbow to wrist) and above that Mo and a deceased Irish artist, Mick. My back was one piece, all Ching. My legs are Mo on the left and a patchwork of trad on the right. I'm just filling them in willy-nilly from now on. So I have a mix of big planned pieces and one-shots. If I were going to go back and start again... IMO big single design front and back pieces are the way to go but for arms and legs as a collector I think I would possibly go one-shot all the way.. I'd just chip away tying small pieces together and getting tattooed by multiple people. In a way I think I would be sad to only get tattooed by one artist for a bodysuit, no matter who it was. My only 'design' concept from here in is that I will stick with Japanese style and trad.

If it's an occult / Twin Peaks owl then normal rules of thumb do not apply.

This isn't necessarily awful advice. There is an aftercare school of thought that if you keep a tattoo clean and avoid picking, abrasion etc then it will heal fine. I haven't always used this method but when I have it hasn't caused any problems in the long term although heavier dryness or scabbing can be a feature. Applying product of one kind or another can relieve a feeling of dryness / stretching and in some cases prevent heavy scabbing, but the flipside is some people invariably over-apply at first. A secondary argument is that every time you handle the tattoo and apply something there could be an issue if your hands aren't clean. Just keeping it to washing eliminated a lot of fingering. If the tattoo really healed that badly then maybe the bigger issue is the ability of the artist versus the aftercare. If (if!) he was a complete butcher then no choice of aftercare would salvage it. His response to you as quoted is undoubtedly poor. Vote with your feet and go elsewhere for a good cover-up.

Sorry to hear this @coloredguy ..

Did battling ropes recently at a strongman conditioning session for the first time... Quite devilish.

I'm Irish, we're much too repressed to get shunga. Actually maybe that's the whole point of shunga, but still... Nah.. A crab or other sea creature is possible.

Dan Sinnes, October, in Luxembourg. My wife for sure and me if there's time! No shunga... Maybe a spider but I feel like everyone has got one of those from him!

Great session with that level 2 SFG Kettlebell instructor. We broke down my swing and get up in detail, I really feel like I got a lot out of having some of the finer points tweaked. I'm confident the targets with the 32kg are do-able now with consistency.

@Wilhell Nice! You must be pleased to have only one sitting left... But it can be bittersweet too to be done.

A fucking tattoo... Like, shunga?

I've got a one to one session with a level two SFG tomorrow (that's Pavel Tsatsouline's organisation). To be honest I need a coach to tell me if I've gone wrong, so this is overdue. Doing a Kettlebell program at the moment that's 10x10 swings and 10 Turkish get ups a day (doing near daily sessions). I'm using a 24kg and 16-20kgs for the TGUs. My goal is to use a 32kg bell for all of it, hitting particular time targets. The swings will be do able but the TGUs will be a lot harder! Something a bit different. I'm giving it till the end of summer.

Yeah, I found what I was thinking of. YZ Tattoo from China posted a picture of the second session in a full body tattoo a few weeks ago. It looked like the guy was 90% lined and they were starting shading from the bottom up.

Obviously for bigger pieces I.e whole fronts or backs including the tops of thighs etc lining sessions can be extensive. Even so, to line out a whole bodysuit at the outset would seem to me to be quite "all in" in terms of commitment. I think I've seen evidence of some Chinese / Taiwanese artists who seem to have lined whole bodysuits out at the outset but I couldn't swear to it. I'd go along with just about anything Alex Reinke said on the subject however. He seems like a very reasonable, professional person, and I suspect for any nervous client, autistic or not, he could be a good choice.

@BrianH Your deadlift and squat are probably going to continue to progress at different rates and remain different in terms of your PR:- Your deadlift will likely always be higher than your squat unless something has gone wrong. At a bodyweight of 210 you should be able to *eventually* deadlift 420 (x2 bodyweight) and squat 315 (x1.5 bodyweight) for singles. I reckon it's likely that you could deadlift 300 x 5 on your way to that, but squatting 300 x 5 would be tougher. 300 x 5 squat at any bodyweight would be pretty good going for someone on CF programming in my opinion. In the timeframe you outline it's hard to say. Adding 5-10lbs a week becomes harder the further you get from being a novice. A lot might also hinge on your bodyweight. If you are going to lean out more over the next while and drop down to, for example, 190 or below, then re-figure what your likely strength standards are.... 300 for 5 might be really good going then. I said this before, but for the above I'm referencing Dan John's basic benchmarks. I think Mark Rippetoe has similar standards.

Like I said, I was mostly joking - I certainly didn't mean it as a reprimand. At the end of the day I think people are rightly free to post pictures of a tattoo that's on them if they want to either way.

Yeah, that was what it was getting at, in a jokey way. I don't know if it's still the case that they feel that way but I haven't put up the dagger I got from Steve anywhere. I'm not judging though ;)

The first rule about Smith Street is...

I trained in an MMA gym all through my 20s. Originally I joined up for the BJJ program, and that was where I spent the most amount of my time, but the nature of the gym was that everyone did a little bit of cross-training. Over the years we all ended up spending various amounts of time trying to improve our stand-up by taking Muay Thai, doing little clinics in boxing etc. I was never particularly brilliant at any of it, but it was a lot of fun and filled up the evenings when I didn't have a girlfriend. Although sparring with contact is intimidating and presents the risk of injury, the reality is that a responsible coach should work you up slowly before you're sparring with any degree of contact. We spent a lot of time on the pads before we sparred, and when we did it was introduced incrementally (things like doing left hand only rounds, then all hands, then all adding kicks etc. only finally graduating to adding in clinches and some takedowns). We wore wraps, 16oz gloves, gum shield, groin protection and shin guards (more to protect the other guy's quads than your own shins, when throwing round kicks in sparring) and I agree with whoever said that you need to mind your joints from accumulated striking… 100%. I'm not so sure I agree on the headgear recommendation. I don't claim to be an expert, but what I've always understood is that headgear results in less soft tissue damage to the face and head, but doesn't reduce the amount of force being sent through to the brain. In fact, I've heard it argued that if your soft tissue is getting bruised up then that evidence it's actually absorbing some of the shock, which is a good thing if it means that it's being partly dissipating there rather than entirely in your brain. Paradoxically I found sparring under MMA rules with lighter gloves - 10oz, 8oz and even 6oz gloves to be sometimes safer, because people are cagier about hurting their hands punching extremely hard with less protection. Also, you can also clinch and tie people up it seemed like there were also less clean standing blows landed, full stop. If you were getting mauled by a good striker you had the option of trying to close the distance and tie him up, or take it to the ground. You might not necessarily fare enough better, but at least you could try to move through different ranges to find a place where you were safer. The worst injuries I ever got training actually came from brazilian jiu jitsu and practicing our takedowns in MMA classes. Grappling, by it's nature, can result in pretty chronic injuries when it goes wrong. Quite a number of the guys in the gym used to blow out their ACL practicing takedowns or takedown defense. I tore my MCL grappling and I also dislocated my kneecap (same leg). Also got one of my front teeth broken in half by a knee (I have a deep crown now, looks quite fake). I also cracked my ribs (big takedown with a guy landing on me just-so) and eventually managed to jack up my neck to such an extent that I decided that enough was enough and hung up my kimono. I still want to be running around and training with I'm 70, not forced into something like Tai Chi because I'm so totally crippled. I ended up taking up escrima (filipino martial art, sometimes called kale or arenas) on the basis that because it uses tools like sticks and knives it would be less full body contact. That's been true, by and large, but occasionally we spar using rattan sticks, fencing masks and hockey gloves, and judging my the lumps I have on my head from training last weekend it's possible that I'm deluding myself about it being safer.

The devil's anchor? :0

I booked a couple of months before I visited, but on the day there were a couple of people who got walk ins. Steve said whoever is free will try to fit them in. I'd call rather than take a chance.

It's possible to set a timer and hit a bag for intervals, and you'll get a metabolic hit and release some tension... ...but... ...You can't learn to box, or learn any martial art, from a book or a video, in my view. I'd really recommend a coach, the longer the better, really. Without someone to check your form and watch you, you're risking ingraining bad habits or courting injury. I've known guys to maintain their punching power just with bag work, and use it for fitness, but the other side of it is that without a moving, reacting pad man or sparring partner to test you it's hard to learn to land any of your striking effectively. You also never learn the hardest part of boxing: Defence. If there's no boxing coach nearby try an MMA gym or Muay Thai gym. You're unlikely to find yourself being elbowed in the face or beaten up... Possibly unless you ended up fighting in a professional bout. In training in most clubs safety is key, and most people have jobs to go in to the day after a sparring session. With 16oz gloves, gum shields and groin guards it's safe enough. If someone does want boxing DVDs then Donn Familton's "Superior boxing" is good. There are specific DVDs just on bag work also.

@daveborjes Nice... ...shunga for the neck piece? I wouldn't be brave enough personally.

Meant to post this earlier:- According to his Instagram Dan Sinnes is in LA, Miami & Atlanta for the next few weeks, taking bookings. I'm hoping to get tattooed by him in Luxembourg later in the year, my wife too. I love his new style Japanese stuff.

Seven Doors also springs to mind...