When There’s Ants in Ze Pants
September 3, 2010
It’s one of those Fridays. I mean that in a good sense. It’s one of those Fridays where there are extra ants in my pants and I want to do 101 things over the weekend, all of them involving me prancing about in the Great Outdoors.
Should I take the bike out? Road or mountain?
Should I hop on a boat and get to Bako?
Should I run up Singai or mosey up the Indian Temple or hop up Santubong? ….hmm no, maybe not Santubong (it’s haunted – haha, ain’t that a great excuse?)
Should I go for a swim? Jump down a waterfall (and swim with a snake)?
It don’t matter what I do, it’s gonna be a good one.
People, it’s GOOD TO BE ALIVE. Now go out there and do something you love for the weekend.
Photo: That’s the look I want on my face this weekend.
“Kick Me”
August 26, 2010
Remember that scene in Enter the Dragon, about five minutes into the movie, where Bruce Lee says to the young Shaolin student, “Kick me”? (and he says it oh so coolly).
Well tonight, my Sifu said to me, “Kick me”. I looked at him – brain freeze. In my head I went, “Noooooooooooooooo - déjà vu!” and wanted to run screaming away with hands a-flailing because Sifu was surely going to flip me three times and stuff me down the drain pipe or something like that. But there he was, pointing at his right shoulder.
“Kick me”.
*Gulp* So I did.
“You call that a kick?” At that point I was looking around for a hidden camera. Enter the Kuching Dragon, perhaps? (And if you’ve never watched the movie, please, stop reading and go watch it now. Everybody watches Enter the Dragon, Kung Fu or no Kung Fu).
*Double gulp*, so I did again. Quite a few times because I missed a couple of times (so sue me, it’s not everyday that I kick people on the shoulder). And then the Little Mouse ran to his other shoulder and did her little mouse kicks on him. Two ladies flanking a middle aged man, raising their legs at the same time and kicking him without really pulling back. Holy green hornet, the man did not even flinch.
Geez.
So what am I doing kicking a man at 8.30 on a Thursday evening? (Take that kinky thought out of your head or I’ll kick you instead). It started out as a work project. I needed to understand the philosophy of Kung Fu for work, amongst other reasons (busted ankle – had to do something with less impact, like Wing Chun) Ask me no questions and I’ll give you no kicks. Don’t ask. Just read on. Anyway, Sifu and I are part of a well-oiled team at work, and he gives Wing Chun classes, so there I was.
It was research and when I first started three weeks ago, I had four left feet, two right arms, a wooden noggin and I thought I would never get it. Never mind that I did Tae Kwon Do 24 years ago in school and was not too bad at it. In fact, I used to do 180-degree splits front and side and broke a few boards with some kicks. I even had a plastic medal to show from some long-forgotten tournament which I am completely embarrassed about. But as Bruce Lee once said, boards don’t hit back, and I took it up just for kicks (pun intended), as a sport; not for self defence – all of which are exactly what self defence and Wing Chun are not. The bottom line was, for real I-can-use-this-on-an-attacker Kung Fu, I had to re-programme my preconception of Kung Fu and martial arts. Mentally, I had to do back flips, somersaults and brain contortions to get there.
Three weeks into Wing Chun, and intellectually, I appreciate the philosophy of it more with each lesson. It’s turning out to be a beautiful journey of rediscovery. Kung Fu is the corner stone that has reopened for me a deeper understanding of Chinese culture. With that understanding, a deeper appreciation of connections to other cultures, of universal life philosophies and a re-examining of self. Trust me, it’s like peeling a giant onion. And it ends up not just being about Chinese culture but about life in its entirety. Beautiful, ain’t it? Walk it, then you’ll know it.
Right. Back to the Wing Chun dummy (yeah, muggins here). What connected in the head has not transferred to the body quite yet. While the philosophy is really starting to click in the grey matter, I’m pretty sure I look like one of those movie extras who look positively arthritic when they do Kung Fu. And they’re always the first ones to get their asses kicked or killed.
So anyway. “Kick me”, said Sifu.
I did. And learned what it feels like to do a real kick. Well, not a real hard kick. Just a not-for-show no-nonsense kick.
More about Cyn’s adventures (or should I say misadventures?) in Kung Fu soon.
N.B. Cyn does Wing Chun (or Eng Choon) at Kuching’s first Wing Chun training centre here. She also does White Crane Qigong at the same place, which she absolutely loves because she gets to huff and puff and blow a house down (ya, right).
Photograph sourced from: http://s592.photobucket.com/albums/tt3/hottamale6996/.
Tao De Bike (Offroad Riding) - Musings of A Newbie Mountain Biker
March 10, 2010
Last week, I went on my first off-road mountain-biking experience. Like most things that I get myself into, I had no idea what I was in for. When I was 12, I used to do bunny hops, wheelies, track stands and other popular BMX stunts popular with the neighbourhood boys. At least, I think I tried to execute some pathetic semblance of those tricks. Frankly, I think I only imagined I did those bike stunts. It probably looked more like a chubby kid looking weird on a BMX. I never thought I would ever, ever, ever have to try and do those things again in my mid-thirties.
I bought a second-hand mountain bike off a friend who was going away for a few years. It was a decent 3-year-old GT Avalanche for RM500 (~USD125). I’m told it’s a very decent bike (I know very little about bikes. They are meant to be hopped on and pedalled away. Period). Two days after I wheeled it in, I took it out for what would’ve turned out to be a 120-kilometre ride if I had completed it. It had a wonky back wheel, under-pumped tires, and the last time I did any serious cycling, I was not old enough to drive.
Obviously, I had no idea what I was doing.
That was last September. I’ve cycled over 900km on-road since. Closer to 1,000 actually.
Back to my off-road experience. It was in a quarry. There was a lot of getting off and pushing the bike; a lot more huffing, puffing and some wheezing. And then it was speeding downhill on a rocky road with a high chance of flying off your bike and doing a superwoman into a ditch. My first downhill slope scared the living daylights out of me. I had to come off the bike and push. It scared me even more when one adventure buddy hurtled pass me in a blur and kissed the rocks on the ground.
But, you’re off-road, it’s a long trail. It gets tiresome to push your bike, especially downhill. You get fed up and you tell yourself what the hey, just go for it. The more earthy of us went “SH*&#T!!” I’m more religious. I went “SHHHHHHH*#^$^#P$$TTTTT!” first and then “Thank you, Lord” when I reached the bottom in one piece. Essentially, it was a matter of hanging on for dear life. But what fun. And what freedom. I now understand the true effect of adrenaline a lot more. There’s always an element of fear, but then you face that and the adrenaline is like a drug.
And then you’re free.
But on my last and steepest downhill hanging on to dear life jobbie, I struck the beginnings of what I call mountain biking zen. I realized then that off-roading is a lot like life:
1. If you look at all the pebbles and rocks right in front when you’re going downhill, you’re more likely to fall off unnecessarily. Look ahead at the bigger picture, aim for where you want to be, hang on, keep your balance, and you’ll reach your destination.
2. You can’t sit on your behind all the time. Sometimes, very often, you need to stand up on your pedals or pedal very hard in order to stay on the bike, or to make your ride smoother.
3. Going uphill is a real slog, but no matter how slow you get, as long as you pedal and keep your balance, you’re unlikely to fall off.
4. It’s OK to get off and push. We all need a little help from time to time.
5. Experienced mountain bikers often look cool, tough and intimidating because they have skills. And they look….cool. But once you get into the thick of things, they are approachable, good people. Some are even teddy bears. Don’t judge books by their covers, even adventure thrillers.
6. You don’t really need to train yourself to go off-road. The off-roading itself is the training. Pre-offroad training in the gym, on-road, etc. helps, but they are not the real thing.
7. People are kind. They will encourage you. They will make jokes. But they are kind. How you act or react to them is entirely your choice.
8. There will always be fear. If you don’t meet it head on, you’re not going to finish the course.
9. Adrenaline rocks. It’s also scary. Every time.
10. You test your faith all the way. You’re also better off competing with yourself and enjoying that
Will I go off-road again? Very likely.
Will I be scared? Indubitably. Scared beyond belief.
Will I have fun? Isn’t that the whole point? Isn’t that life?
N.B. The Wordsmith has gone off-road twice since writing this. Each off-road experience is
different from the next and brings with it different life lessons and zen realizations.
Massage Therapy That Works
December 28, 2009
Nevermind that you are half naked. Nevermind that you are wearing a curtain with rubberband. Nevermind that you are lying on your stomach, completely vulnerable. When elbow comes down, you are in utter bliss. Forget that you are being kneaded like a giant blob of dough on a baker’s counter. The only thing you care about is that you woke up this morning in blinding agony, neck cricked on one side and swearing like a sailor; and now, all of that seems like a drugged fantasy.
That was me on a Sunday afternoon. I had injured my shoulder and neck a few weeks ago. That is what happens when human sacks of potatoes slip and fall. I had spent copious amounts of cash on masseurs and masseuses all over town but here I was, weeks later, and a second injury on top of the first.
There are about a million massage centres, foot reflexology spas, fish therapy rooms and quacky gurus from Batu Lintang to BDC. I’ve tried about 500,000 of them and decided that maybe one is okay for certain ailments, one is okay if I’m feeling charitable, most have quality control issues, and some think I will pay for hanky panky.
Friends recommend their favourite to me all the time but I am a royal fusspot when it comes to massage. Most of the time, recommendations just do not cut it for me. The first time I heard of Beijing Natural Healing was from an old friend who had a serious problem with his shoulder four years ago. As usual, I pooh-poohed it away, knowing that these rave reviews seldom amount to much. More recently, friend who have had chronic back and knee problems started talking about Beijing again and how they engage only masters from Harbin in China.
I have a problem with my Achilles tendon on top of my injuries. Two reflexologies and a corrective therapy later, I am quite happy to sing the praises of the masseurs at Beijing Natural Healing. They know their stuff and have been consistent in standards. They don’t say much, these masters. They look, touch, and they know how to make you squirm. The dough-kneading was fantastic, but by the time he worked his way down to my shoulder, I felt like a wet towel being wrung out to dry. The strain and pain is gone, I feel a bit bruised from all the manhandling; but I’m going back for more. A 90% improvement after one session is something to write home about. After the shoulder, I’m going all out for the Achilles heel.
Beijing Natural Healing, 103, R.H. Plaza. One for the books.
Keeping Things Simple This Holiday
December 3, 2009
Keeping busy is a wonderful thing, but it does mean opportunity costs for things that lie beyond the to-do list, like blogging, for example.
The holiday season is upon us. I try to unclutter if I can, when I can. For those of you who aspire towards the same, here’re some tips I found to be profoundly useful. Enjoy.
1. Don’t let perfectionism ruin your holidays.
2. Make a list of 5 projects/tasks you want to finish before the end of the year.
3. Heed your limits of time and money.
4. When you start to get irritable - take a break.
5. Say what you want, instead of hinting.
6. You get to choose how busy you want this season to be.
7. Take a drive to see the lights.
Cycling Sematan on a Lazy Saturday
November 1, 2009
Question: Who wakes up at 5am on a free-and-easy Saturday?
Answer: Nuts who are into cycling around the countryside, exploring less beaten paths.
It’s always a blessing and a joy to be able to hurtle away from town and get into whichever adventure gear with like-minded activity buddies. One lazy Saturday, it was to be cycling in Sematan.
Off we went, the three of us; minus our Sifu, Yoda and Master Kwai Chang Cane equivalent, who had to save the world from his office.
We piled the bikes on the pick-up and drove 110 km to the coastal village of Sematan, my childhood holiday beachside playground. We clocked 24 km at a leisurely pace, stopping often to take photos, enjoy the scenery and say hello to the friendly locals.
This is a pictorial essay of our trip. For once, I will let pictures paint my words. It was wonderful. I want to savour the joy of the ride in my soul for the moment.
Parallels
October 3, 2009
Somewhere in Vancouver, my friend Lou is in his home. He’s probably fast asleep as I type. Maybe he’s tapping at his keyboard, writing out those words of his I find so absorbing.
Somewhere in Africa, Kate is tracking elephants. Maybe she’s at her lab, analyzing data. I don’t know. I don’t know the time difference between here and Tanzania.
Somewhere in New York, or maybe California, I don’t know where he is right now, Ian is sending good thoughts to his loved ones.
Somewhere in Yunnan China, a little old lady gets ready to take her daily afternoon walk.
Somewhere in Long Lellang, the folks I haven’t seen for so long are hard at work in the farm. It’s another couple of hours before the day winds down for them and they head home.
And right here, right now, as all these people are doing their thing, here I am, sitting at my desk, thinking about all the parallels and possibilities that this little mind can possibly conceive of.
Photo: This little old lady takes a daily walk every afternoon. She is of the Naxi people in Yunnan, China. I didn’t ask her, but I guess her age to be a 100, judging from other little old ladies I have met and asked in that area of Yunnan. I wonder how many great-great-great grandchildren she has. I wish I had had the time to talk to her and hear her stories.
Fit For All Seasons
September 26, 2009
In the eyes of many, only the beautiful and the glam are found in gyms. Why? Because only they look good enough for the gym? Wrong. Because the fashion industry says thin and made up is good and most of us get suckered into that. Come to the gym I go to. I’ve never seen so many shapes of people in one place – round, pear, gourd, lumpy, apple, Spongebob, stringy. You name it. All of them beautiful in their originality.
When we tell people that health is more important than looks, everybody nods sagaciously and agrees. When it comes to the crunch, we all tend to be like lemmings and follow the leaders; and when we think we are too fat too thin too ugly too short too tall, we think less of ourselves and become walking self-fulfilling prophecies of failure.
Looks do not matter. Seriously, they do not. Why worry, fret and spend on something so flitting that few people have in the first place? Being fit and healthy is what counts. If you’re already fit, fantastic. You can always be fitter. Fitness is for life. Don’t stop just because you think you’re too old for it.
Impossible, you think? Why? Is it because being super fit means having to look like a Calvin Klein model? No. Being healthy is about taking care of three things: your physical fitness, your mind and your spirit. That’s holistic health and one of the keys to happiness. I’m going to concentrate on starting a fitness regime in this post. There’s really no big secret to it:
Decide whether you want to be physically fit and commit 110% to it. Why 110? Because most of us, no matter how determined we are, tend to have about 10% slack or down time. Put in 110% and you have 100% commitment. Go the extra mile. It’s not hard. All you have to do is take that first step.
Fitness is a path, a journey. It MUST be part of your lifestyle. If you’re going to treat it like a diet – i.e. a temporary thing, don’t bother. What’s going to happen is you’re going to end up in an exercise-diet-stop cycle and end up nowhere.
Know this: fitness comes first. Looks come last, if at all. It’s better to be big and fit than skinny and unfit. In a study of 5,400 adults, weights and cardiovascular risk were compared. The results showed that half of the overweight subjects and one third of obese subjects were metabolically healthy. That means that these overweight people had healthy levels of good cholesterol, blood pressure and blood sugar (read more here). This DOES NOT mean that you can now go ahead and be unhealthily overweight. It does mean that you can be fit and big at the same time.
Make time for healthy food and exercise. Make it part of your daily routine. Do it so regularly that not doing it feels strange to you.
Exercise can be anything – walking the dog, running, group fitness classes, taichi or yoga classes, martial arts lessons, tennis, go-carting (I hear it’s pretty intense), swimming, sex. Anything that makes you move your body and gets your heart pumping over an extended period of time. Variety is best; but whatever you do, you have to love it so that you look forward to doing it regularly all week. I do 4 different types of group fitness class in a week, plus swim and jungle-trek (whenever I can). I love all of it. I recently learned how to kayak. Whilst I don’t do that regularly, I love it enough to want to do more of it.
Start slow and build up.
Watch what you put in your mouth. You ARE what you eat.
Minimize sugar. Bad oils give you high cholesterol. Sugar makes people fat.
Don’t starve yourself. Only people who want to look thin starve themselves. There’s something very wrong with that frame of mind to start with. Look around you. Number one, 99.9% of people around you DO NOT look like super models. Number two, many super models are not that healthy. Number three, there are things called Photoshop and make-up to make people look super beautiful in magazines. Get over it. You are beautiful already without having to compare yourself to other people.
Keep at it. Love yourself enough to take care of yourself. Exercise is health insurance. Don’t scrimp on it.
Consider this: people from 5 generations ago never talk about diabetes, high cholesterol and obesity. Why? Because they led an active lifestyle by default. In Borneo, people farmed and hunted a lot. I believe it wasn’t much different in the West. We’ve been so successful at getting ourselves out of back-breaking manual labour that we now have to pay through the teeth to be as healthy as our ancestors. For that matter, most of us don’t even make it that far.
I’m off to the gym.
Photos courtesy of Tigre sin Tiempo and Alternative Wellness.
Money and Debt
September 16, 2009
Some people just can’t save money. Some people just can’t get out of debt. Financial wealth, like all wealth — no, wealth is not just money –is a state of mind. Understand why you’re in debt in the first place is the key to getting out of debt. If you don’t do this, you will NOT get out of debt just because you get a pay rise. You will NOT get out of debt even if you work another job. You will NOT get out of debt even if a long lost aunt dies and gives you a million bucks. Saving money has nothing to do with how much you have or how much your boss pays you every month. It’s about you spending your cash on things you do not need.
Here’s why you’re having a hard time saving or getting out of debt:
- You buy things you don’t need. The Hobbits call these ‘mathoms’. It feels good to buy them; owning them makes you feel terrific. After a while, they become clutter. Mathoms. Not a good idea. If you don’t need ‘em, put the money in a piggy bank instead.
- You eat out at expensive places often. Treating yourself to a nice meal is perfectly acceptable, once in a while. Steak and sashimi two to three times a week is way too much. Again, put the money in a piggy.
- Use plastic because you don’t have enough cash. It’s 18% interest per annum. If you can’t pay off your credit cards in the same month, leave them at home.
- You don’t have a budget plan. It doesn’t have to be an elaborate worksheet. Just work out how much you should spend a week, set that aside, keep to it, and let the rest care for themselves.
- You have a get-rich-quick mentality. Few people get rich quick. Those that do spend most of it in a very short time. The sooner you get over this, the better off you are.
- You are going through or went through a divorce. Face it folks, divorce is financial murder. If you’re not sure about the other party, don’t get married. It saves a lot of pain and cash.
Obviously, dealing with the above is a good start. Beyond that, here are some more suggestions to help you get started:
- Learn about money matters. Google it up. There’s lots of free help online.
- Take care of your health. It will save a lot of medical bills later. Use the money and join a gym instead. Get with a group of like-minded friends and workout.
- Thoughts lead to feelings. Feelings lead to actions. Actions produce results. Get jiving with the right vibes. Like I said, it’s all about mindset.
- You are the architect of your own future. Where do you want to be five years from now? Eight years? Ten years? Are you heading that way at the current rate you’re going? Rectify your life accordingly.
When you figure most of that out, you’ll be able to deal with getting out of debt, staying out of debt, and putting extra cash aside.
This post is as much for me as it is for the next reader. Drop me a line and tell me what works for you and what doesn’t. If you’ve got it down pat, tell me how. I’ll buy you coffee and we can compare notes.
Caffeination Explanation
August 20, 2009
Ah, coffee. That aroma. That culture. That addiction.
But it’s never been my addiction; and Starbucks was never an attraction not just because I don’t do coffee, but because of the whole faceless corporate giant factor.
However, when Starbucks came to Kuching, I starbucks-ed along with my litter of misfits. I always went for the green tea latte (no syrup) though. If I ever downed a latte or god forbid, an Americano, it would have been mostly out of the cool factor of coffee. Admit it, the coffee culture is cool. Before too long, I was a regular and more than a few baristas could point me out in a line-up.
So, out of pure curiosity, when a buddy of mine invited me to a coffee seminar courtesy of Starbucks (there’s such a thing? Yes, there is), I said aye.
The aim of the Starbucks Coffee Seminar is to enlighten coffee lovers, addicts and dabblers like myself to an enlightened state of the coffee experience. What’s the diff between robusta and arabica beans? What’s the aroma, texture and feel? Where exactly does it tickle your tastebuds? What’s special edition coffee? Who created Starbucks?
It’s all quite fascinating really. There’s a great degree of coffee connoisseurism than the average Kuchingite would come across. But let me say this, if nothing else, I took back with me a slightly changed perspective of Starbucks the corporate giant of coffee sellers. They is a nice degree of the personal touch in their approach to business, certainly here in Kuching. Yes, it’s publicity, but it’s a nice sort of publicity because they’ve reached out to their market and gained quite a few supporters that night. Add to that a nice haul of free Starbucks merchandise and organic coffee grounds for the garden.
Not bad, coffee people. Not bad.