Self-knowledge cannot be gathered through anybody

Jiddu Krishnamurti:

That is why it is important, as I said, to understand the process, the ways of our own thinking. Self-knowledge cannot be gathered through anybody, through any book, through any confession, psychology, or psychoanalyst. It has to be found by yourself, because it is your life; and without the widening and deepening of that knowledge of the self, do what you will, alter any outward or inward circumstances, influences - it will ever be a breeding ground of despair, pain, sorrow. To go beyond the self-enclosing activities of the mind, you must understand them; and to understand them is to be aware of action in relationship, relationship to things, to people, and to ideas. In that relationship, which is the mirror, we begin to see ourselves, without any justification or condemnation; and from that wider and deeper knowledge of the ways of our own mind, it is possible to proceed further; then it is possible for the mind to be quiet, to receive that which is real. - Ojai 4th Public Talk 24th July 1949 Collected Works, Volume 4

Some random thoughts reflected in a famous quote

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it around carefully with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless-it will change. It will not be broken; it will be become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable."

C.S Lewis

Visiting Princess Dyanna

It has been a while since I last posted on my blog. Many things have happened but I couldn't bring myself to type it out on the computer. Work has been crazy eversince I returned from my personal and office trip last month and I haven't been training aikido for about 3 weeks now. Not a happy camper. But that is how it is in life, you CAN'T have it all. Hahahaha.

Now to something very joyous.

My buddy Chin gave birth her first child last week and is blessed with a beautiful princess by the name of Dyanna H. Chin said I will be D's chinese godmother so I get to speak Mandarin to her. I arrived at about 8:45pm last night and Chin was breastfeeding D. D looks so adorable with that head of hair and glazed eyes. Chin the mother looks gorgeous and glowing for a mother who's just given birth. You know how they are usually, tired and haggard form all that labour and delivery and endless feeding sessions as well as inadequate sleep. But I don't see any of that from Chin! I think all moms should look like that!

Seeing D made my maternal instincts come back with force. I had wanted very much to hold little D in my arms but is afraid that I won't do it right. So godma will wait until you're a little bit bigger before I hold you. Needless to say seeing you little D makes me want to have a child! Sigh. But of course, I quickly tell myself that God has plans for me.

This picture was taken after I obtained consent from Chin. D had just finished an hour long feeding session and is looking perky indeed. She kept giving that pouting look and I was wondering whether she was still looking for milk. Chin put her finger on the side of D's lips and if D follows that means D wants milk. D did not follow Chin's finger. Not looking for milk.

I took a few more pictures but stopped soon after because I didn't like the fact that the red focus light kept shining on D's face whenever I was about to take a picture. I did manage to take a picture of D's smile though! She looks alot like her mommy here.

I will see you soon little D. Drink lots of milk and sleep lots. Love you!

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to all celebrants.

I won't be celebrating Father's Day this year. My father is in East Timor and unreachable as he is up in the mountains. My maternal grandpa is having his own party with the Lord. But I did wish him Happy Father's Day and gave him a kiss on his forehead :-)

Many thoughts are running through my head which I will not articulate here.

It is enough to know that I love you.

Can't get you out of my head

How should I put this?

I haven't felt this way for a long long time.
I couldn't stop thinking about the time we spent together.
I long for your company and embrace.

Hmmm...I think something is going on here, something that is not logical neither is it tangible. But I am pretty sure that something is going on.

Welcoming 2010

May the year ahead be one with blessings of love, health, joy and success to all!

Heading towards gemuksville

It's official: I am heading towards the land of abundance!!!

As I look through photographs of myself over the past 10 years, I realized that slowly but surely I have changed in my physical outlook. Yes I somewhat matured and there is more feminity oozing out of me, but some part of my body are also oozing with excess lemak. I would know why- as you hit the 30's your metabolism slows down and its all part of the aging process. but then again, the fault of such weight gain is entirely mine.

I have a tendency to overindulge. I have a sweet tooth, very sweet tooth. I still eat like I do during my tennis days. I snack at night. I LOVE to eat. I think you get a very good picture of what I am trying to say.

Bottomline, very little self control.

I started gaining weight in my late 20's and that sent me on a downward spiral of low self esteem and mild depression. I wanted to lose weight but couldnt overcome my demons. Then I met a friend who showed me how he did it. He explained to me that the most imporant thing about losing weight is to have a balanced diet. Exercise is a supplement. What matters is what goes in inside your body and if you don't sort it out no amount of exercise will help.

Raise your metabolism I was told. I started eating 5 times a day. My meal consists fo 40% proptein, 40% carbohydrates and 20% healthy oils. Weight loss should be gradual and no more than 2 pounds a week. No fried food, no sugar (NooooOOOoooooo!) , no alcohol ( not a problem as I don't drink) and no processed food.

Go on calorie deificit. If I need 2000 calories a day to lose weight I'd take in only 1500 calories. Divide that by 5 meals and its 300 calories per meal.

Burn more fat with weight training. I'd do my cardio in the morning and weights in the evening. Later on I would just exercise in the evening and do alternate weight training plus core conditioning.

I did that for 2 years and never felt better. I look good and feel good. But after that though I started to go on a sweet tooth rampage and gained back the weight. For someone who's on the extreme end of the spectrum I've come to realize that I need to do things with moderation. I can still do my 5 meal thing but I need to control what I eat. I can still indulge on my likes but I must not overdo it. Only that way can I maintain lifelong well-beingness.

So what went wrong? I have gained 2 inches on my chest, 5 inches round my waist and 2 inches round my hips.

I know what went wrong. Please refer to paragraph 3 above.

I want to be healthy, I want to feel good about myself. I want to live a meaningful life and do the things I want to do. I want to still have full function of all my faculties after retirement right until the time the Lord calls me home. But all this takes work and effort and I am not doing it.

As 2010 approaches, I have in my mind a goal. It is not to lose as much as I can so I can look nice in my clothes. Neither is it so satisfy my vanity. My goal to to achieve physical well being.

Have a great year ahead everyone.

New Addition

After having made my first order of dogi through a friend, I have discovered the joys of dogi shopping. Hahaha. After 21/2 years of training, I went from the 40 bucks" its-not-a-dogi dogi" (the belt kept riding up my waist), to Aididas judo gi (that went 2 size smaller) and a "B" brand dogi that should really not be used in a country with an equatorial climate. So I thought its time I get the summer dogi. The first pair were from Yamato. It has a good but tough texture. I thought to myself maybe it would be good to have 2 more sets as I train mkore or less 4 times a week. That way I only use each dogi once a week.

I ordered one set of dogi from Shirakawa and another from Suzuki through a friend in Japan. I was rather excited when I went to the post office to collect my goods. Aren't we always excited about new things??

This is the Shirakawa dogi. the first thing that struck me was how white the dogi is. Bleached maa. This dogi is a stiffer type compared to the one I ordered from Yamato.

It came with my name embroidery but it wasn't as nice as the embroidery on the other set.

When I took out this set I like it instantly. The material is soft and smooth. The pants is so comfortable you could use it as your PJs. But then again I don't...nevermind. Let's not go there. By the way this is the yomogi which is an anti fungus dogi.

The name embroidery is ostensibly better than the last one.


And this is an added bonus which incurred my great pleasure. No more complaints about my jacket opening up all over the place during training!

I have since used both sets of dogi and I do prefer the second set. The first set is very stiff and the collar often gives me problems at the side of the neck though continue friction. It's very uncomfortable to train with collar burns especially if you're someone like me who sweats buckets. Depending on how it goes I may order 2 more sets and a hakama next year. My hakama looks very weathered now and it is time to get a replacement.

Sweet Temptation

I was telling someone the other day about my love for chocolate pudding. There is this place in Jalan Muara that I would go to to have my chocolate pudding with my "kaki". He suggested that I should try out the warm chocolate pudding with ice cream at Saffron. I've never heard of it until now. What got me interested is the quality of chocolate used.

What happened after I took the first bite? I had 7 servings in 2 weeks. Enough said!

"PAK!"

Image courtesy of Martial Artist

This month sensei, NTC and myself agreed that we should set aside extra time apart from regular training to fine tune whatever we have been training. We have been talking about it for a long time now and it is great that it has finally come to pass.

We started our first session yesterday evening. We just did alot of repetitions on kihonwaza, taking care on our footwork. Most of the time we focus on the upper body and neglect the lower, resulting in a somewhat less dynamic movement because of our small/weak tenkan etc. It was tiring and more tiring for sensei and NTC because they started 40 minutes earlier.

During training we would give feedback to one another on how we felt about the techniques that are being performed and what needs to be improved. Then sensei asked us if there was anything in particular that we wanted to train and I suggested, "how about koshinage?". Immediately I got a look of dread from my senpai. Ahhh, the much dreaded and avoided technique. To be honest there is no helping it. As part of a group of aikidokas that is interested in sharing and training with others, I personally feel that aikido training is also about overcoming your fears.

I find that most either fear or find aikido difficult because they fear falling. No one like to fall and certainly be made to fall or kiss the ground. It is part of our ego. As one of our visiting sensei once told us, we practice ukemi to crush our ego, and build it up again (with paraphrase). One is afraid that he may not take the fall safely or injure himself here or there in the process. My fear is doing koshinage.

I don't want to do the nage/flip because it seems so strenous on the body. Plus I have an old lower back injury and I would still like to walk on my feet for as long as I can. But iIam among friends and ones who value safety in training. Since there are only the 3 of us why not? I am sure we can practice this safely. After training for 30 months it is about time.

In the end we simulated everything, short of executing the technique. As a compromise we decided to train our nage. We tried using the training method that judokas used, where one kneel on all fours and the partner attempted to do the nage by holding on to the flaps of the dogi on the kneeling partner. I had so many thoughts running through my head before I moved and it proved to be a big big mistake. I had to learn how trust my sensei, my partner and myself. so in the end, I said to myself if I need to face my fears and just do it. the first few times I landed incorrectly and there was some pain on my upper back and my shoulder but I continued with it. NTC also did the same and we started building up confidence along the way.

When sensei saw that I had got the hang of it he asked to changed the method of training to be the uke for kotegaeshi. Both the uke and nage are stationary with the nage holding the uke's wrist in the reversed manner. We chanted one, two, and on three nage tenkan and I went "foooooooo...pak!" Sometimes it is ok and sometimes I would bang my toes. Ouch. But on the final round, I did the nage where sensei and NTC said, "That was good. That was good."

I was delighted. I decided to stop there to savour the moment and give my body a rest. Learning the nage was not jsut for myself, but I wanted my partner to have the benefit of having a wider repertoire during training.

Well, I am very happy with the training and there is a long way to go. I can't believe I pulled it off and I am thankful to sensei and NTC for their guidance and assistance.

The rain makes me feel like taking a long nap.