Friday Go Forward: Week 50

Overview

It’s been great getting to slowly have go pick up in my life again. Starting with the go workshop I volunteered at the mall last weekend, it’s been a little tumultuous since I’m dealing with old habits that have plagued me for quite some time; however, I’m glad to be back into it and trying to work through it. Just taking it one move at a time…

Training Regimen

• Step #1: Do 10 go problems a day. (Estimated time: 5-10 minutes)

Games

• KGS - 0 games
• DGS - 2 ongoing games
• OGS - 5 ongoing games + 3 finished games

Books

• Worked on Graded Go Problems for Dan Players - Volume One: 300 Life-and-Death Problems.
• Worked on Life and Death Problems 1 - Basics by Robert Jasiek.

Friday Go Forward: Week 49

Overview

Another week has passed me by and man have I been swamped. On the upside, I am starting to be able to grasp my to-do list and really start cutting it down to size. It’s certainly been a big relief as I continue working on multiple aspects of my life. Once again, I must apologize for being so absent this week; but I am really hoping to be coming back full swing with real consistency soon. So until then, hope all is well with you and your journey to gaining the next stone!

PS. I’ve updated my Leather Goban Review to include information on how it was made. Be sure to check it out if you haven’t read it already!

Training Regimen

• Step #1: Do 5 go problems a day. (Estimated time: 5-10 minutes)

Games

• KGS - 0 games
• DGS - 1 ongoing game
• OGS - 5 ongoing games

Books

• Worked on Graded Go Problems for Dan Players - Volume One: 300 Life-and-Death Problems.
• Worked on Life and Death Problems 1 - Basics by Robert Jasiek.
• Finished Fighting Fundamentals by Robert Jasiek.

Friday Go Forward: Week 48

Overview

Happy Chinese New Year everyone! It’s the Year of the Horse and with that I think the theme for this new (lunar) year will be charging forward full speed!

I’ve been a little quieter this week than I would have liked, but I’ve started on some new ventures that I think will greatly enhance my life and I’ll be sure to report on them once I feel I’ve settled down and gotten in a good rhythm with it. But meanwhile, I’ve been working hard on figuring out how to do game reviews effectively without consuming a lot of time. It seems as if I’m constantly trying to catch up on creating game reviews no matter how hard I try. I think the plan is to try and review the games immediately after in order to speed up the process.

Second, I have been much more active on KGS that I have been in the past. In particular, I have actually started playing longer games again (i.e., 30 minutes main time each person). Many thanks goes out to my friend Nate for helping me get back on track. I will write a post on his advice to me later, so be looking out for that later.

The other focus of mine has been to get the rest of my reviews finished within the next week or so. I still have a couple of product and book reviews to finish and they’ve been hanging over my head. So hopefully I’ll be able to get those done ASAP so I can alleviate that weight off my back.

Finally, you’ll probably notice that I but the training regimen in half. This is due to the fact that I was actually having a hard time simply doing 10 a day. It’s not so much that I “couldn’t,” but more along the lines of I was unable to be consistent since the 10 problems felt like a lot more when you also have like 30 other things that need your attention that day. So I’m dropping it down to 5 to see if that can get me to a perfectly consistent level.

Training Regimen

• Step #1: Do 5 go problems a day. (Estimated time: 5-10 minutes)

Games

• KGS - 2 games
• DGS - 1 ongoing game
• OGS - 7 ongoing games

Books

• Worked on Graded Go Problems for Dan Players - Volume One: 300 Life-and-Death Problems.
• Worked on Life and Death Problems 1 - Basics by Robert Jasiek.
• Worked on Fighting Fundamentals by Robert Jasiek.

Friday Go Forward: Week 47

Overview

This week is all about playing catchup and getting back to where I was prior to my trip. While it was fun, I have to say that it threw me more out of sync than I would have liked. No matter. Content is back up and running and I’ll do my best to prevent it from stopping again.

In terms of overall, the highlight of the week is definitely finding out about Kaz’s Online Go School. If you haven’t heard about it, go check out my post and I definitely recommend that you sign up! Even if you can’t make all the classes, Kaz will send you the game record from the lesson and it will include his written comments (since he won’t be using a mic). Isn’t that great?

Other than that, I’ve been doing my best to actually start playing again. Trying to not put so much pressure on myself before each game. I still get a bit anxious before playing, but I’m hoping that will get better over time. See you all next week!

Training Regimen

• Step #1: Do 10 go problems a day. (Estimated time: 10 minutes) - My California trip totally threw off my training regimen. So this training has been lacking lately. Trying to get back on track this week. Hopefully it’ll be back to normal by next week.

Games

• KGS - 1 game
• DGS - 1 ongoing game
• OGS - 7 ongoing games

Books

• Worked on Graded Go Problems for Dan Players - Volume One: 300 Life-and-Death Problems.
• Worked on Fighting Fundamentals by Robert Jasiek.

Videos

• None this week. Been super swamped in California. Haha.

Tiny Habit

1. Every time I use the restroom, I will do 5 tsumego problems.

Friday Go Forward: Week 46

Overview

This week has got increasingly crazy with work and such, but I’m proud to say that I’ve managed to keep up with all that I’ve wanted to do in regards to go so far. I still have a bit to go before my habits become a lot easier to execute without it feeling slightly laborious, but it’s nice to feel like I’m making some real and steady progress. Hope you all are doing well!

Training Regimen

• Step #1: Do 10 go problems a day. (Estimated time: 10-15 minutes) Though the recommended problem set would obviously be life and death, other problems like tesuji and endgame are more than adequate. Be sure to pick problems that are around or even slightly below your level. Remember, your goal is just a bit of exposure to go everyday. And if you think it’s not that much, that is the entire point. Because it’s only a small mouthful, there is little excuse for not doing it everyday.

Games

• KGS - 0 games
• DGS - 3 ongoing games
• OGS - 10 ongoing games

Books

• Worked on Graded Go Problems for Dan Players - Volume One: 300 Life-and-Death Problems.
• Started working on Life and Death Problems 1 - Basics by Robert Jasiek.
• Worked on Fighting Fundamentals by Robert Jasiek.

Videos

• None this week. =(

Tiny Habit

1. Every time I use the restroom, I will do 5 tsumego problems.

Friday Go Forward: Week 45

Overview

They say if you want to start out anything, start out strong. So in lieu of starting strong with the blog, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to go ahead and bring back Friday Go Forwards! I’m still on the fence about the overall format of the post (in terms of making it as informative and useful to you), but I’ll continue with what I have for now and hopefully inspiration will strike me (or you can leave a comment and be my muse! xD).

In terms of my progress as a player, I have rebooted my entire training regimen and am starting with the lowest common denominator: go problems. The key to any sort of growth is most certainly consistency. And since 2013 was a bit rocky for me, I would really like to use 2014 to build a well-oiled and super efficient machine. So if you’re interested in trying to gain the next stone while not taking a huge amount of time, join me as I pursue the ideal training regimen.

Training Regimen

• Step #1: Do 10 go problems a day. (Estimated time: 10-15 minutes) Though the recommended problem set would obviously be life and death, other problems like tesuji and endgame are more than adequate. Be sure to pick problems that are around or even slightly below your level. Remember, your goal is just a bit of exposure to go everyday. And if you think it’s not that much, that is the entire point. Because it’s only a small mouthful, there is little excuse for not doing it everyday. Good luck!

Games

• KGS - 2 games
• DGS - 3 ongoing games
• OGS - 11 ongoing games

Books

• Started working on Graded Go Problems for Dan Players - Volume One: 300 Life-and-Death Problems.
• Completed Position Judgement 1 - Territory by Robert Jasiek.

Videos

• Baduk TV English: Kim Seongryong’s 007 Lessons: Lesson 1

Friday Go Forward: Week 44

In the past week, a lot has happened and it has forced me to reconsider a lot of things that are going on in my life. As much as I regret to say this, it seems that I will need to cut back even further from go and blogging than I thought. So though I thought I would at least be able to keep up with my Friday Go Forwards, I regret to say that this will be going on hiatus as well.

I have a few more reviews that I need to wrap up, but it seems that the blog may be going into hibernation mode sometime this month. I’ll be sure to write more about it when the comes, so until then, I’ll do my best to finish up what I have left.

Friday Go Forward: Week 43

Overview

As a one man team, it was only a matter of time before I was unable to keep up with the content I’ve been wanting to create. So though it pains me to do so, Monday Go Meditations and Weekly Go Wednesdays will be going on a break for a while until I can find a way to bring it back into my crazy schedule. I will still be keeping up with this weekly progress report, but otherwise you can expect to see a more traditional blogging style appear over the next month.

And for those wondering about my reviews, those are ongoing as well and I will be posting them as I finish them, so no worries there! For those who celebrate Thanksgiving, hope you had a great one and I’ll talk to you next week!

Games

• KGS - 0 games
• DGS - 2 ongoing games
• Nova - 3 ongoing games

Reading Material

• Worked on Changing One’s Conceptions: Awaji’s Aphorisms.

Friday Go Forward: Week 42

Overview

Can’t seem to make up my mind about how I’m writing this summaries, but perhaps this is due to my own confusion lately. There hasn’t been too much going on this week, but I have become aware of a few weaknesses of mine that are definitely holding me back and I’ll have to address them over time. Meanwhile, I will try to simply survive the onslaught that is work and the rest of my life. Hope your week went better than mine!

Games

• KGS - 2 games
• DGS - 2 ongoing games
• Nova - 3 ongoing games

Reading Material

• Worked on Changing One’s Conceptions: Awaji’s Aphorisms.
• Started working on Breakthrough Attacking Power.

Videos

• Baduk TV English: Attacking Vitamins: Lesson 2
• Baduk TV English: Attacking Vitamins: Lesson 3

Friday Go Forward: Week 41

Overview

Note: It seems my life will forever be consistently crazy and busy, so instead of talking about all the time I don’t have, I will be approaching these overviews from more of a goal and progress type theme for now until I can come up with something better.

This week’s goal was to really started chipping away at the pile of equipment reviews that I need to do. I’m happy to report that I’ve finished two (Go Bento Box and Folding Go Board), but there are still quite a few to go and so that work will definitely resume into next week. In regards to my progress of studying however, though that as taken a back seat for a little while, I was able to fit in a couple lessons with my sensei frozensoul. There are quite a few things he remarked on that have got me thinking, but more on that when I have processed it a bit better.

For next week, I’m hoping to wrap up on all of my equipment reviews so that I can can resume work on my book reviews. In addition, I will be going on a mini-go retreat at a friend’s house this weekend, so I will also be looking to put out a detailed post recounting the games and good times that is sure to come. So be on the lookout for those! See you next week!

Games

• KGS - 2 games
• DGS - 2 ongoing games
• Nova - 5 ongoing games

Reading Material

• Worked on Changing One’s Conceptions: Awaji’s Aphorisms.