Time for a final check-in on the goals I set at the start of 2020 in this original post. Previous check ins can be found here: 3-month, 6-month, 9-month.

I’ve achieved some of the initial goals (at least a third), but a lot of them felt less and less relevant or achievable as the year progressed and I was limited by lockdowns and moving. Maybe I would have pivoted earlier, but in spring and summer I still thought life might go back to something more normal.

A lot of the goals below were calisthenics based (with some hoop thrown in), because that’s what I was focused on last year and at the start of this year. But through lockdown, the balance changed. I’ve been doing a lot more yoga again this year, and I got back into silks for a couple months while studios reopened, as I wanted to explore something a bit different.

In some ways, this was mostly an experiment to see if tracking my goals publicly would help or affect the completion rate. I don’t think it did, and I didn’t enjoy it enough to do it again in the same form. I’m also going to be setting and tracking things personally on a shorter time scale for a little while while life feels so in-flux – it seems hard to plan a full year ahead at the moment.

Main goals (2/4)

• get better at working out by myself more (e.g. one proper session a week out of class?) ✅

Done, the pandemic “helped” with that by being the forcing function. The quality and results of my home training aren’t as good, but it’s still much better than nothing….

• if we move, explore studios and options in the new city ✅ (Berlin)

• if possible, sign up to participate in another competition or showcase ❌ (Covid)

• doing better at Spartan, or a different OCR (skill-wise this means handling advanced monkey bars) ❌ (Covid)

Skills (3.5/9)

• holding L-sit for at least 5s (starting off: ~0 straight, ~5s each side) ✅/❌ (I held it a couple of times for almost five seconds, but I didn’t keep it up enough and it went away again)

• holding shoulderstand for at least 5s (starting off: 0, but tuck feels easy) ❌ (don’t have the right equipment at home, and didn’t want this goal badly enough to get it)

• 8 pull ups (or chin ups) in a row (starting off: 3, but I had 5 a couple months ago) ❌ (sadly went down during lockdown – don’t have the right equipment at home, and wasn’t diligent enough about going to the park to train)

• active flat front split, standing or inverted (starting off: probably about 5-10cm away) ❌ (I think this is about the same, but to be honest I’m still not quite sure how I measured it in the first place)

• visible progress on middle split (starting off >30cm from the floor) ✅ (a bit under 30cm now, let’s say 28cm)

• visible progress towards drop back to the floor (starting off about 60cm from the floor) ✅ (current best is about 40cm from the floor)

• visible progress towards pistol squat (maybe at least right angle in bent leg) ✅ (I can do a negative + short hold on each side, but can’t come up. I can come up from just below right angle)

• hoop: front balance, hands off ❌
• hoop: single leg hocks circles (currently: 1-2s) ❌

No chance to practice hoop and test these two out, sadly. I’ve gone to a few silks sessions though, and while what we did felt unrelated to these, it still felt much better than the last time I tried it. And it was only late on that I realised that there are some bars in parks where I can practice similar movements, although it’s a bit different with them being straight.

Stretch goals (3/8)

• toes to bar with straight legs ❌ (don’t have the right equipment at home, and wasn’t diligent enough about going to the park to train)

• muscle up (of any kind) ❌

• pincha and/or handstand ✅ (kick up next to wall for handstand, walk up on wall for pincha)

• crow – headstand transition ✅

• shoulderstand – L-sit transition ❌

• single arm hang for 10s and single arm scapula pulls ❌ (can do a couple scapula pulls (little ones) and hold briefly, but I haven’t properly tested this in a while)

• some new arm balances – single leg crow maybe? ✅ (I’ve technically tried a few new arm balances, especially “funky” ones, but not yet near single crow)

• weakly defined, but progress on side body: some kind of flag/meathook perhaps ❌ (as I knew at the time, this goal was too weakly defined)