Craig Constantine

Amos Rendao: Journaling, nutrition, and self talk →

Published July 10, 2019 · All posts on Jul 10 · Movers Mindset

Amos Rendao: Journaling, nutrition, and self talk

What does it take to balance creative passion, personal growth, and professional responsibility while navigating life’s unpredictable journey?

Amos Rendao reflects on what music means to him, flowing vs planning, and the benefits and importance of journalling. The conversation turns to the idea of success and what that means, before moving to Aikido, and information activism. Amos shares his insights on diet and nutrition, his journey with injuries and recovery, and how he manages self talk.

Journaling is such an important way to develop a relationship with yourself.
~ Amos Rendao (49:50)

The conversation covers the relationship between creativity, self-reflection, and structured productivity. Amos reflects on his deep connection with music, sharing how his early experiences in bands shifted to a hiatus as parkour and business took priority. He revisits his passion through home recording, finding renewed joy in music’s restorative power. This leads to broader discussions on the interplay between freeform exploration and the necessity of structure, reflecting on how Amos balances spontaneity with highly organized systems to maximize productivity.

Amos and Craig explore the transformative impact of journaling as a tool for self-awareness and growth. They discuss the challenges of maintaining consistency in habits, diet, and personal health while navigating entrepreneurial and athletic commitments. The dialogue also touches on the influence of aikido in shaping their movement practice, drawing parallels between martial arts and parkour. The broader theme highlights how embracing both structured goals and open-ended exploration can lead to deeper personal insight and development.

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Excellence is a habit →

Published July 9, 2019 · All posts on Jul 9 · Wisdom, Quotes

We are what we repeatedly do, therefore, excellence is not an act but a habit
~ Aristotle

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Once more unto the workshop →

Published July 8, 2019 · All posts on Jul 8 · On Writing

«https://www.gapingvoid.com/blog/2011/08/22/because-you-cant-live-in-a-hammer-2/»

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I’m well past 2,000 posts here and it does often occur to me to wonder why am I writing all these posts. It seems to be boiling down to…

If you can’t write clearly…

Crafting these blog posts has become a daily practice of introspection. Once a day or so, I stroll out to the digital workshop and putter around. Sometimes I simply clean up. Sometimes I do a bunch of heavy-lifting work. Sometimes I think I catch a glimpse of what it might mean to be a human being.

Over-thinking it →

Published July 7, 2019 · All posts on Jul 7

I just dropped a jar of salsa on the kitchen floor. How quickly can I agree that this is reality now? The reflexive internal discussion about what ought to be happening is usually an unwelcome distraction. It prevents acceptance. We should always be aiming for real-time acceptance of all developments, to the extent that it is possible.
~ David Cain, from Accept it whether you can change it or not

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Once you master that skill, the next pitfall is focusing too much on the future by over-thinking everything.

Broken jar of salsa? Easy. Takes a few minutes to clean it up. But . . .

Maybe I should move the refrigerator? …if I had room to open the door fully, I wouldn’t have dropped that. Maybe I should put cork flooring down in the kitchen? …that would greatly reduce breakage. What’s going to happen as I get old and physically less capable? I should develop the habit of placing my pinky finger under things like jars and glasses; When they slip, my pre-positioned finger gives me a much better grip. What if I reduced the amount of glass I have around; Buy more things in plastic? What if I could drastically reduce the number of things in the refrigerator?

Over-thinking things: That’s my current challenge.

Horsemen →

Published July 6, 2019 · All posts on Jul 6

When you recognize that it is actually impossible to do work tomorrow, then you know to stay with your work until something starts to take form. Today is the only day you can ever work, and once you see this truth, he is defeated.
~ David Cain, from The Four Horsemen of Procrastination (and how to defeat them)

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Is Burnout one of the Horsemen? Because that’s the one who defeats me every day.

If I could just convince myself that today was enough.

I’ve not the slightest idea what work-life balance is.

Look at that →

Published July 4, 2019 · All posts on Jul 4 · Perspective

In outer space you develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the moon, international politics looks so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, “Look at that, you son of a bitch.”
~ Edgar Mitchell

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Lynn Jung: Training, recovery, and goals →

Published July 3, 2019 · All posts on Jul 3 · Movers Mindset

Lynn Jung: Training, recovery, and goals

How does moving to Brighton and experiencing injury influence an athlete’s approach to training, recovery, and personal growth?

Lynn Jung discusses Brighton, what it means to her, and how moving there affected her life. She unpacks how she approaches training, her movement background, and her journey of injury and recovery over the past few years. Lynn shares how she came to freerunning, her current projects, and her involvement with Storm Freerun and xDubai.

Then I moved to England where I didn’t know anyone other than my boyfriend which I think is a very hard situation to be in because you don’t always just want to spend time with one person. You need to have a broader network of people which was hard to build up first.
~ Lynn Jung (13:30)

The conversation focuses on Lynn Jung’s experiences moving to Brighton and how it shaped her personal and professional life. She shares how the move initially brought challenges, such as building a social network and dealing with the absence of indoor Parkour facilities. Despite these hurdles, Brighton eventually became her home, supported by a community of Freerunners who shared her lifestyle.

Lynn also reflects on the impact of injury, describing her recovery process and the mental shift it required. She explains how her injury led her to explore other physical activities like yoga and diving, broadening her understanding of movement. Professionally, Lynn discusses her involvement with Storm Freerun, her commercial work, and plans to develop skills in filmmaking and photography. Throughout the conversation, she emphasizes the importance of community, resilience, and adaptability in navigating her athletic career.

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Evaluating self-criticism →

Published July 3, 2019 · All posts on Jul 3

The critic as an amateur hack | Seth’s Blog

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My first thought was that my worst critic is myself. It strikes me that Seth’s comments apply equally to the me-voice in my head. Criticising myself is literally zero-effort; Much easier even than someone posting a critical comment somewhere.

I’ve never been much for cheesy self-affirmations. (“I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me.”) But I suspect weighting my self-criticism more in line with the effort required to make it would be useful.

Were mistakes made? →

Published July 2, 2019 · All posts on Jul 2

The biggest factor in getting something to go from hard to easy is normally exposure. The more you encounter something, the less intimidating it gets. Your emotional relationship changes. There’s less uncertainty, your skill in dealing with it improves, your resentment for it fades, your craving for ease or salvation disappears. It has become easy.
~ David Cain from, How to make hard things easy

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That is so obvious, yet it’s so worth repeating.

What lies outside your comfort zone? Growth.

Yes, there are other things beside growth, outside your comfort zone: Fear, danger, and mistakes, for example. Irrational fears you know you should work through. Danger you know you should avoid. But what about mistakes? When’s the last time you made a mistake?