Introducing Paradoxa
I wrote a thing!
Over the past 4 or 5 years I’ve been trying to write something about strength. Specifically, the definition of strength, and how one goes about gaining it. It’s led to a number of projects (mostly unfinished), but last year I began a writing experiment that took the methods and ideas behind game design and smashed them up against exercise theory. It took a lot of time (over a year), and a lot of drafts to come up with something marginally cohesive.
Paradoxa is the result of that work. It’s nothing grand or world-breaking. It’s a 58 page booklet - a zine, ebook, resource guide - whatever you want to call it, it’s a collection of ideas, theories, and principles that can be applied to exercise in order to understand and use it in an open source, non-dogmatic way. It’s a system and tool agnostic lens intended to simplify the process of understanding exercise-based movement.
More simply: it’s is a ruleset for exercise, heavily influenced by game design. It is a free, open source resource that has been hacked from a huge variety of influences, from within the exercise and fitness world and without - there are methods culled from Olympic weightlifting, dance, gymnastics, physical rehabilitation, olde time strongman, and more.
The term ruleset is very loose, as every idea in Paradoxa is intended to be warped, changed, and reinterpreted. Break all these rules, and create your own. Paradoxa is just a jumping off point - for ideas, discussions, and experiences.
If you’re interested in checking it out, you can find it here: Paradoxa on itch.io
You can purchase and download a pdf copy, but if you cannot afford the price, there are free community copies available. If you purchase or download a copy, please leave a comment or rating. Both help me get Paradoxa in front of more people.
And if you do check out Paradoxa, please reach out with any thoughts or questions: tyler@themightyodd.com. I’d love to talk about it!