Anomalous Data - Kung Fu/Running/Fitness

The Wife of Mullet Pig Walks!

Teresa Lhotka — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 11:25:57 GMT

Do you guys remember my posts about Mullet Pig from last year's Susan G. Komen 3-day walk?

Well, his wife is walking again this year, and she needs donations!

Here's the URL for her personal site.

http://www.new.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=118056168624&h=EvXLi&u=xVmnj&ref=mf

I'll get some links to my mentions of Mullet Pig after I get the kids off to school.

I guess I might be a little evil

Teresa Lhotka — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 04:30:18 GMT

Good class tonight. My students tested last night, and all of them passed. Nobody had to repeat any part of their test. I rewarded them tonight by picking up the pace and making them work harder. They were wiped out when they left. I'm a little tired myself.

I seem tense?

Teresa Lhotka — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 03:18:13 GMT

Samantha: "Tense? Me? I'm not tense. Am I? When did you first notice?"

Jack: "As. We. Met."

- Carter and O'Neill, "Ascension" Stargate, SG-1

I have the Best. Students. Ever. Tonight I got a Christmas present from one of my Kung fu families (the dad and two kids take the classes).

They gave me a gift card for a massage.

Like I said: Best. Students. Ever.

UPDATE: My, Christmas DID come early this year. Pcomeau gave me a link to this Rodney video, which is Frickin' PERFECT:

Random thought: Putting Daniel, who is cutest when he is annoyed and uncomfortable together in an episode with Rodney, who is cutest when he is being annoying and discomforting was the most genius Atlantis-related idea ever.

Random Thought 2: Is is bad that I also think that my husband is cutest when annoyed and uncomfortable?

Cheering, Support, and Love

Teresa Lhotka — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 12:43:11 GMT

A little more about the walk…

At the closing ceremony, the MC of the event told us that the world would look a little different. We wouldn’t have people cheering us and honking and waving at every intersection, for one thing.

And she’s right…but it’s funny…I just have this feeling that they MIGHT, or that I just might cheer THEM if I just knew their story.

I saw so many feats of selflessness and kindness, heard so many stories of bravery and love and perseverance, enjoyed so many demonstrations of humor and consideration, that I have to believe that it is still right there, under the surface in almost everyone, just waiting for a chance to express itself.

Every person I meet that I don’t know, might have been someone who was standing along the route cheering, a sponsor, a crewperson or a walker. The lady behind the desk at the car dealership who handed me my license plates, for instance, or the guy who put them on my car for me. They might have been standing out by the side-walk and handed me a bottle of water just when I needed it, or a piece of candy when my energy was flagging, or they may have been one of those Angels sent directly from God who had string cheese (salt AND protein in one delicious package).

Maybe it’s just residual endorphins, but I sort of expect to see acts of kindness, gratitude and generosity around every corner right now.

You wouldn’t believe the outpouring of community support. Every time we crossed over a freeway, cars honked and people waved. Cars honked at almost every intersection. When we were walking on sidewalks, cars passed and honked.

The cheering stations were full, and there was one that was so unbelievably huge. There were probably over a hundred people there.

We were walking along on a trail through the woods, and I was in an extremely focused moment. It was fairly quiet, and we were somewhat behind because of Sue’s sprained ankle. We were going up a hill just as the path turned a sharp corner, and as soon as we came in sight a loud roar started, and just kept going.

I stopped and just gaped like an idiot. An involuntary “wow” escaped. The people standing closest to me cheered even harder and smiled even more broadly. People yelling, waving signs, flags, pink flamingo lawn ornaments, funny hats, it’s all a blur. But I remember that it wasn’t until about a hundred feet down the path that I began to be aware of the pain from my blisters again.

Sometimes a cheering person would hold up their hand for a “high-five” and say things like “Thank you from my daughter, who can’t be here” or sometimes there were little signs and memorials with pictures of people who had died of breast cancer. Their families standing around clapping and cheering and saying “thank you”.

There is a traveling couch memorial that is just wonderful.

Bald women sitting in the shade with tears in their eyes, saying “thank you for walking for me”

But all of that is just prelude to the crew.

The crew were sent from God. One the second day, pit stop 4, it was necessary for us to walk about a block-and-a-half off of the path, attend the Pit Stop, and then walk back to the path.

You would not believe how bad that was for our psychology. Sue sat down and said “I want ice for my ankle, but I don’t want to walk all that way and then walk back again.”

I couldn’t blame her. I didn’t want to either, and I didn’t have a sprained ankle as an excuse. Suddenly, a crewperson appeared, and said “I will go and get you ice, water and food. Just don’t move.”

Sue replied “No worries, I’m not going ANYWHERE.”

“Let me help you with that”; “Let me get that for you”; “Do you need anything?” “Are you OK?”;”Can I get you something?” ; “Everything OK here?”

That is what crew sounds like. These people worked their ASSES off, and I’m pretty sure that at least once, I forgot to say “thank you”.

They road bikes up and down the line day after day to make sure nobody was in trouble. They called sweep vans for the sick and injured, they monitored stoplights and directed traffic and entertained us while we waited at stoplights.

There was a guy in a pink cowboy hat who just sat there looking like he was happy to see each and every one of us. There was a lady with a sort of Genine Gerafalo sort of dead-pan humor who cracked me up every time, once augmenting her directions on how to safely negotiate a complicated intersection crossing with the safety instructions for exiting an aircraft in an emergency. And then there was Mullet Pig.

Mullet Pig was a guy in a pink pig mask with a “diamond” tiara and magenta hair weaves. He was a little chubby, and had a big hairy belly. I know, because he often performed cartwheels as part of his acrobatic cheering routine. Also, jump-split kicks. He had a sort of “Wyld Stallions” vibe going on as well (a-la Bill and Ted).

He referred to himself in the third person. As in “Mullet Pig loves all the three day walkers”, and “Mullet Pig doesn’t want you to get crushed by a truck, so listen up!”

For a significant portion of the walk, we entertained ourselves by brain-storming a buddy-movie in the vein of the “Bill and Ted’ or “Jay and Silent Bob” movies: “Mullet Pig saves the 3-day”. Of course, we also amused ourselves at Susie’s report that she mispronunces “National Philanthropic Trust” (just try it, you’ll get the idea…it’s a spoonerism).

I think I love Mullet Pig. I think that everyone should have a Mullet Pig of their very own in their lives all of the time.

The last day, 1.5 miles from the end, I was beginning to tear up from the pain in my ankle. I knew I could finish, but I also knew that we still had a long way to go and it was going to hurt.

And there was Mullet pig, shaking his pink pom-poms, and yelling something we couldn’t quite hear. When we got closer, I yelled: “we love you Mullet Pig!” He yelled back “I love you too”.

When we got to him, I gave him a hug (not pleasant for him by now, I assure you. I was a grimy, sweaty mess), looked into his eyes and said “Thank you. Every time I see you, it makes me happy”. Just for a moment, the Mullet Pig persona disappeared, and he said “That’s why I do it. Thank You.”

I think it's pretty safe to say that he's not in it for the hugs from sweaty, road-grime-covered, sun-burned chicks with no make-up and hair that has not seen a blow-dryer or curling iron for three days.

There’s nothing I can say to express how important the crew is, and the people who show up to cheer at these events. Amazing.

So if you volunteered to crew, or if you showed up to cheer, or even if you just tooted your horn and waved as you drove past the event…Thank You.

Post Susan G. Komen brain-dump

Teresa Lhotka — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 12:57:58 GMT

I have a just walked sixty- plus miles in the Susan G. Komen 3-day Walk For the Cure.

The actual total was 61.5. Thank you to my sponsors. Everytime I thought it would be easier to take the sweep van, I thought of you, and how I was representing you and the money you invested in my participation. It kept me strong and helped me finish. Thank You.

Yes, I walked every single mile, and the half-mile too. This does not include all of the walking we had to do at camp in order to get through the thousands of tents to the one end of camp to get dinner…and to the other end of camp to get a shower…and then again in the morning for breakfast, medical tent the get blisters properly lanced and taped, etc.

The rest of my team finished as well:

Suzie Andert (three-time veteran of the 3-day; friend, advisor, coach, and the prettiest darned supply pack-mule Ive ever seen)

Leslie Dwight (Who gets my "super-trooper of the year" award. This woman is a walking machine)

Susan Grove (Who got swept once due to her sprained ankle, but the extra mileage made up for it..and anyway, getting swept takes nothing away from the fact that she walked around thirty miles with a sprained ankle…and was only taped for 17 of them)

And me.

About half-way through, my ankle started hurting so I went to the medical tent and had it adjusted by a chiropractor. Apparently, I’d walked 15 miles with it out of joint. I’m glad the chiropractor knew what to do…all I knew was that I had a large purple-and-magenta bruise on the blade of my foot, and my ankle was swelling. And adjustment and some support tape made all the difference. Then I just had the pain from the inflammation to deal with…but it was less than half what I’d been dealing with the day before.

The bottom of my right foot has three large blisters…one that actually covers the entire ball of my foot, and two the size of quarters on either side of the heel. There is no epidermis left between any of my toes. On my left foot, I have two small blisters on either side of my heel.

I’m not stiff and sore, though…a testament to a well-designed training schedule and the power of frequent, disciplined stretching. Also, I think the fact that I slept on the hard ground rather than an air mattress helps. Don’t know why, but I find that I am less stiff and sore after a big physical event if I sleep somewhere firm. Air mattresses or soft mattresses kill my back and hips!

#1 important re-cap point! Rocky watched the kids all weekend, including our God-daughter (Sue's daughter). He managed the house very well. It looked great when I got home. He got all of the kids to all of their events (some of them 25 miles away), got the kids to do chores, had dinner waiting for us when we got home....etc. He's so wonderful!

He also brought the kids to see us and cheer us. They waited for several hours until we walked past. Sue almost cried. I was so happy. For the moment, all of the pain went away...and actually the last 2.5 miles went much easier because they were there for us. Then, they also went forward and were there to see us finish as well!

Factoid: Did you know that your feet can swell up so much that your toe-nails turn black and fall off? No, that didn't happen to me, or anyone on our team, but I heard at least a dozen people say it happened to them...and more who said that it had happened to them one of the other times they did the walk. One lady said she only had three toenails left, and was pondering whether or not she could get a discount on her next pedicure.

At one point during the last half of the second day, Sue and I both had ankle injuries (we later found out that she had a sprain from twisting it on a bit of uneven ground. I had a bone out of joint) were Marching along in grim silence, just putting one foot in front of the other, feeling the pain each time, and moving through it one step at a time.

Sue: "What's that up there?"

Me: "Nothing. Just more people."

Sue: "No...no. I think I see Bataan."

Of course, while she was historically accurate in that the Bataan death march was sixty miles long...technically, Bataan would have been BEHIND us, and there would have been soldiers yelling in Japanese and shooting the stragglers, rather than "sweep vans". Oh yeah, and no "Pit Stops" with food, water and port-a-potties.

Still, the analogy FELT accurate enough.

Another snippet of conversation with Suzie (not to be confused with Sue)

Me: "Ouch".

Suzie: "Uh-oh, what's wrong."

Me: "Nothing. Sorry. One just escaped.

Suzie: "An ouch escaped?"

Me: "Yeah. I try to keep them in a little corral so they don't get out and bother you. I've got a little collie that runs around herding them into the corral."

Suzie: "The inside of your brain makes me laugh."

There was a little boy visiting his mother at the lunch stop, and he ran over to a crew member with his mom's empty water bottle:

Boy: "Can I have some water for my mom?"

Crew: "Sure. Hey kid, do you know why I work crew?"

Boy: "No."

Crew: "So when you grow up, you won't have to." (because breast cancer will have a cure)

I’ll post about this again, and do a much better job of it, but I wanted to give you some idea about what went on.

When we have pictures, I will post again. I especially need to show you the picture of, and tell you about “mullet pig”. He was one of the volunteer crew members that helped us (and entertained and encouraged us) at street-crossings.

One last thought: THIS is the strength of our nation. These women are housewives and office workers and beauty consultants and three-time cancer survivors...and yes, some figherfighters and police officers, and personal trainers...but mostly ordinary everyday women.

And they can walk sixty miles on sprained ankles and feet that have lost toenails, and taped-up knees.

They can walk and sing funny filk songs about "I'm walking on blisters (to the tune of "Im walking on Sunshine")" and they can stay up an extra hour and dance like there's no tomorrow on day two.

And if they start to falter, all it takes to keep them going is a sign that reminds them that "blisters don't need chemo" (that one worked for me), or a thought about their sponsors, or a funny man dressed up in a pig mask and magenta hair weaves (I'll tell you about him later).

If they think a cause is worth it. You might say that it isn't important to finish, because we raised the money whether we finish or not...but that isn't true.

See...many people say that it is impossible to find a cure for breast cancer. Many people also say that it is impossible for an average suburban housewife to walk sixty miles.

Well, here's news to them. The "impossible" is NOT impossible.

So there.

Now, Im going to the gym.

Come to our Happy Hour Fundraiser!!! Bring a friend!!!

Teresa Lhotka — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 14:57:19 GMT

Happy Hour Benefit for the
3 Day Walk for Breast Cancer

Monday, August 11th

5:30 pm – 7:30 pm
Billy’s on Grand (in the Café)

857 Grand Avenue
Victoria and Grand in St. Paul
(651) 292-9140

Live music by The Fabulous Retreads

Complimentary appetizers

(generously donated by Billy’s on Grand)

Happy hour drink specials

Suggested donation $10 per person
All in-person donations will include a raffle ticket for a prize drawing.

Please come support team Beautiful Feat in our goal to raise $8,800 for the fight against breast
cancer. On September 19 – 21 we will be walking 60 miles through the Twin Cities with
thousands of other men and women in order to raise funds to support breast cancer research
and education. To find out more about the 3 Day Walk for Breast Cancer, go to
www.the3day.org.

Team Beautiful Feat is: Susan Grove (breast cancer survivor and team
captain), Susy Andert, Leslie Dwight and Teresa Lhotka.

If you can not make it to happy hour, but would be willing to make a contribution,
please go online to: www.the3day.org • Click on “Donate Now” • Click on
“Search for a team” and enter “Beautiful Feat” as the Team Name • Click on the
team name which will appear below • Team members are listed at the bottom of
the team homepage - click on a member (preferably the one currently furthest from
their fundraising goal) and follow the directions to make a donation. Or if you
prefer, e-mail susandert@gmail.com for the mailing address to send a check. Thank
you for supporting the fight against breast cancer and us on this incredible journey!

All donations are tax deductible!

I case you have any doubts about Susan G. Komen, here is their Charity Navigator rating:

http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=4509

Uh...Thanks?

Teresa Lhotka — Wed, 21 May 2008 15:21:38 GMT

I went to Home Despot today to get some necessary items for home improvement (new kitchen faucet) and yard improvement (cedar mulch I know, I just bought some…but I needed more).

As I was loading everything into the van, a grey-haired older lady walked up to me, and said:

“Oh my goodness! Did you load all of that yourself?!”

I thought “Gee, what do those bags weigh? 20 lbs? I didn’t even notice.”

I said, “Yes.”

And then…

…I shit you not…

She reached out her hand, grabbed my upper arm, and felt my muscles.

“Wow! You’re doing great! And at your age too! Keep it up!”

And then she walked off while my brain spun little hamster circles for a while trying to figure out what happened.

Beautiful Feat

Teresa Lhotka — Wed, 14 May 2008 05:14:09 GMT

Once again, my friend Sue has done it: She’s gotten me into trouble, and over my head.

I’ve committed to participate in the Susan G Komen walk for the cure…3 days…sixty miles.

It’s mainly because, when your best friend comes to you and says “I have cancer” and you say “Let me know if there’s anything I can do”…you can’t really renege when she comes up with something…even if it is a grueling three-day walk in September. Even if it involves sleeping with a stranger in a two-man tent that even the site trying to recruit you describes as “cozy”.

Here’s my personal webpage for the event. It hasn’t been personalized yet, but the donation button works (nudge nudge).

Here’s the personal website for my team-mate Susy (not to be confused with Sue, who is also on my team, and has met her goal).

Our Team name is “Beautiful Feat”. Originally, I proposed the name “Oh, my DEAR GOD! My Feet! My Feet! My beautiful feet!”

Most people seemed to think it was really stupid, but nobody came up with anything better, so they shortened it, turned the word “feet” in to a word-play, and viola! Clever team name.

When we do a testicular cancer walk, though, I have the perfect team name picked out : “Not my gum-drop buttons!”

Anyway.

I’d like you to meet my personal trainer, J-dogg. He’s a real slave-driver. With him as my coach, I’ll be able to walk to Tibet. Not that I’d want to walk to Tibet:

But I’ve got a problem.

In order to do this, I have to raise $2,200 in donations.

That’s where you come in, gentle readers.

It is time to bring you and *the begging* together in the same place. I don’t ask much of you. I don’t put ads up here to make money, and I don’t make personal demands upon you except for the occasional participation event (which most of you ignore anyway).

I know you’re out there. I see the hit counts, and I can count subscribers on the newsreader sites…so don’t pretend you can’t hear me. Please, please Pleeeeeese contribute to my fundraising account.

And those of you who keep coming here off of Google searches for “Wookie Scrotum”…

…I think you get enough amusement just from that alone to make it worth a ten-spot.

Shiney happy $^%$#^% people...watching me fall on my face.

Teresa Lhotka — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 02:37:32 GMT

I was out running with the dog today. It was nice.

We were loping along, not really pushing it; sort of trotting, really. The sun was finally shining again, and the air was just the right temperature; not too warm, not too cold.

I was feeling pretty good. Not running to work out, just running to save time. The dog's gotta cover a certain amount of ground in a day, or he gets neurotic. If I run, this takes less time.

He was behaving very well, running roughly at "heel". A Fed Ex driver came out from a house and smiled broadly at him as she got into her truck to make notes on her little clipboard.

Half a block later, it happened. My toe caught on a raised bit of side-walk, and I tripped.

My Kung-fu reflexes fired, and I thought that - just for a moment there, mind you - I thought that I had avoided a fall.

Unfortunately, my high-strung puppy-dog had much less faith in my alacrity. He startled, then he jumped. Then he dashed forward and side-ways all at the same time with his tail between his legs, and he didn't stop until he had hit the end of the leash with a *snap*.

I was done for; fell to the ground like a fifty pound bag of rice.

The Fed Ex lady was staring at me, yelling "You all right?"

Some twiggy little trophy wives out for a stroll were giggling. The dog looked like he expected the world to cave in on him, and I tried to jump to my feet with as much dignity as I could muster. My knee was scraped and bloody, but that was it. I tried to be as cool as possible as I walked away...

...until the Fed Ex lady pulled up, beeped the horn, and yelled "Your cell phone and your keys are laying on the sidewalk back there!"

Doh! Self-respect elimination, complete...your work here is done, Murphy.

Postcards from the gym.

Teresa Lhotka — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 20:32:28 GMT

"Leftovers"

I'm still adjusting to it being spring, with the snow melted and all that. Now I can ride my bike to the gym, or run if I wish. Today I rode my bike, as I had already been out for a long walk with the dog.

So I arrived a the gym and my work-out went really smoothly. I was able to put a lot of explosive power into each lift, and really get the muscles burning. Sometimes I arrive with a sort of lackluster energy level, and can't really shake it. Not today. The muscles were really happy to work, and the burn felt GOOD! In fact, I was completely wrecked by the time I finished my stretches. I was a big pile of goo, ready to go out and get in my car and drive home for a soak and additional stretching in the neighbor's hot-tub (whish we have a standing invitation to use any time we want to, as it is out-of-doors and they're really nice people).

Yep, I'd managed to put everything I had into my work-out, and I felt really good about it. I hadn't held anything back...

...and then I opened the locker and saw the bike helmet there.

Crap.

It was only a mile-and-a-half home, and surprisingly,even though I thought I had nothing left...I made it back.

"I juggle my family" (ten brownie points the the person who gets that referance. Hint: it is said with a crap Russian accent)

Two of my favorite machines are the hip abductor and hip adductor machines. I like to work on explosive power on these machines, keeping the weight down somewhat, and just working on maintaining a fast and powerful, but controlled contraction through the full range of motion. I've found that this has really helped those muscles relax later, when I stretch them, and has helped my flexibility as well as the speed of my kicks. These muscles take a lot of abuse in the martial arts, and isolating them for a little intense, focused work makes them feel really good.

I do 145 lbs on each machine (these machines work both legs at the same time, so it isn't as much as it sounds).

Anyway, I got on the hip abductor the other day, and the weight was set to ninety lbs. I didn't think anything of it, there are a lot of little old ladies at the gym that time of day, and tiny little trophy wives. They use the weight machines, but can't lift very much weight (I routinely find the bench press at 50 lbs).

I rapped off my first set of twenty, and then paused before doing the second set, and realized that the lady on the hip adductor machine next to me was openly staring at me.

I wondered for a minute if there was a green, slobbering space monster behind me or something, but then I realized that the lady had the machine set to 90 LBS. I smiled. She smiled back uncertainly, and then began painfully struggling through another set.

I blew through my second set, and went on to the glute machine to wait for her to be done with the one she was on.

The moral of the story is, apparently, I am very scary to suburban housewives.

"Dirty old men...kind of".

There's this little old lady that I see at the gym sometimes. I'll call her "Carmen". She's in her late '60's and she's just the cutest thing. she wears a pink Nike track suit, and she works out everyday at about the same time. I always enjoy seeing her there, because she's friendly, but I must admit that I get some entertainment at her expense sometimes.

I'm not proud of it, but I think you'll forgive me when I tell you why.

Carmen has replaced much of the subcutaneous fat that we all have when we are younger with a nice layer of muscle. She does a lot of shaping and toning exercises, so that her posture and shape is that of a much younger woman...

...and hence the humor

You will see her working out, and every once in a while you will see an older man here or there who has not encountered Carmen yet, and he will be checking out her butt.

Then, he suddenly realizes that he is checking out the butt of a woman he must imagine is decades younger than himself, and he looks chagrined. Then, he gets a look a Carmen's face and realizes that under that dyed red hair is the face of someone more his age, and then he gets a different expression a "I was checking THAT out?!?" expression...and then he realizes that the old lady he finds so unattractive is his own age, and he gets another facial expression, which is best described as deflated.

Those asses don't kick themselves, you know.

Teresa Lhotka — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 00:25:41 GMT

Had a great time at Kung Fu today. One of the other second degree black belts and I mixed it up with some old-school grappling/strikeing/take-down/groundwork stuff. It was fun.

I got to show off the superior core-lower-body strength of women fighters. Men like to think that they have the upper-hand because of superior upper-body strength, but in the end, all that does is put you at risk for letting yourself get put off balance. Don't get me wrong, upper-body strength is great for climbing trees and chucking spears and stuff, but when it comes to throwing your opponant over your hip, I'll take a nice, low, girlie center of gravity any day.

I also got to show how ~~rabbit punches~~ (sorry, meant rapid punches.)to the body, comined with knees to the solar plexus and elbows to the jaw can short-circuit a lot of standard wrestling moves.

And yes, I pretty much got powned after my opponant drove his shoulder into my chest, and knocked me into the wall. I wasn't even thinking when he went to back off and I put him into an elbow lock, but I didn't hit him.

Normally, I hold back quite a bit because I am sparring lower-ranked people and it is my responsibility to make sure that neither of us gets injured, and to make sure that they improve and learn.

What's great about this, though is that even thought it LOOKED like we should have been completely wrecked after the fight (knees to the solar plexus, elbows to the jaw, trips, throws, etc. - neither one of us had even a minor injury.

I get more bruises from a tepid sparring match with an intermediate student.

I got rocked pretty good when my break-fall didn't completly keep my head from hitting the ground after a leg-trap-take-down, but it cleared right away. No worries.

I'm happy endorphine girl now. It's been a while since baby's been able to play.

Lactic acid overdose.

Teresa Lhotka — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 03:56:27 GMT

I taught Kung Fu for seven hours straight today. After about four hours, I stopped doing everything my students did, but I still had to do almost constant demos to help them.

When I am demo-ing for students, I like to model perfect form and explosive power. Sometimes, when I am just refershing their memory, I will be more relaxed, and not go deep into the stances, or preform the moves with full power. However, the first time I teach them the moves, and any time I am critiquing their technique, I like to put everything into being the best example I can be.

I am completely exhausted right now. It hurts to sit in any one position for too long, or even to lay down in one position too long. Every part of my body seems over-sensitive.

Legend has it that the monks used to train to exhaustion...to the point where they collapsed.

Well, I wasn't quite there, but I WILL say that I think I will go and hang out in the steam shower for a little while now...thanks. Do some Yoga in a 115 degree, steam-filled room and hopefully I will be able to go and train tomorrow.

I'm too old for this shit. :-)

LOL!

Teresa Lhotka — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 05:21:16 GMT

"Don’t worry, this isn’t feel good new age spirituality, it is simple mind-body connection."

I mean, I'm not trying to dis the usefulness of visualization...'cause it CAN BE helpful for certain kinds of people, and practice can make you more effective at helpful visualisation.

Somehow, merely being useful rescues the concept of "mind-body connection" from the New Age label, I guess.

And through a doctor's guidence I used "biofeedback" to short-circuit panic attacks...I suppose 'cause it seemed to work in my case that makes it not "altie woo-woo medicine" even though it can't be scientifically verified to be effective across a random sample of the population?

Nothing like supportive friends.

Teresa Lhotka — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 02:38:48 GMT

So I wrote an e-mail to my friend, Mike, who I took over the Kung Fu classes for. I was asking him for some information, and then told him that I thought the classes were going well, with the exception that I felt like the kids were still looking at me like I was from another planet, so I must do things very differently from him.

He just responded. Among other things, he says: "They are probably looking at you like you are from anothere planet because you are really weird, and probably have booger or something hanging out of your nose."

mutter mumble grumble.

Busy busy newsy news

Teresa Lhotka — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 17:07:10 GMT

For those of you who have been wondering if the world opened up under my feet and swallowed me whole, or if the ferocious Neo-Nazi home-decorator squad came and got me, none of the above.

I've been cutting up deer, organizing my house, cutting up piles and piles of undonatable junk clothing into quilting squares, and trying to rid the yard of fall leaves.

Also, I've been volunteering as an ESL tutor. So far, I've been teaching a Somali woman and a Ukranian man. I highly recommend doing ESL tutoring for anyone who thinks that immigrants are just lazy slugs coming here to drain our society. You wouldn't believe how hard-working and appreciative they are. They are America's greatest fans, happy to be here, and looking forward to forging a great future in the "land of opportunity". Programs can always use more tutors.

Oh yeah, and they've added three Kung Fu classes to my teaching schedule. I've got my two special needs classes, two classes for typical children, and an adult class. One of my classes has 20 students! I might have a co-teacher as soon as one of the other second degree black belts returns from hernia surgery...but I don't know. I might be on my own from now on!

Needless to say, time has been a little tight, but this Kung Fu teaching is starting to look more and more like a job than a marginally profitable hobby.

Newsy-news for those who care

Teresa Lhotka — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 12:01:32 GMT

Home Front 1 Allergies: No reaction to the allergy injections, beyond the expected swelling and rash at the injection site. I’m told that I must do a peak-flow test every time I come in to get the injections (every 3-10 days – 7 being optimal). I’ll need to come in that frequently for about 6 months, until I reach my maintenance level. Then, it will be roughly every 28 days. As an aside, my peak flow measurement is still 600, despite the fact that I have not been running or training with nearly the vigor I usually do for quite some time now. Not bad for an asthmatic, eh?

Home Front 2 Kung Fu: I’ve been given three more classes to teach. The classes previously belonged to my friend, and Kung Fu “brother”, Mike. He’s found a new job that will require him to travel, and he has to give up his classes. I now have three classes with typical students in addition to my two classes with special needs students. Mike is a very good teacher, and his students have a very high level of achievement over-all. As far as I can tell, there are no super-stars, but all of his students perform at a high level. The highest rank in his class is 3rd yellow. The classes are fairly homogeneous as far as rank goes, so I don’t have to worry about teaching to all different levels at once. A real load off my mind! Still, I am going to have to work very hard to keep the level of instruction as high as Mike has set the bar! A little daunting.

Home Front 3: I think Rocky’s coming down with the flu.

Home front 4: Rocky’s brother and his family is staying with us this weekend. A happy, bustling household. The kids are thrilled to see their cousins.

Home Front 5: Grasshopper has a cello recital today at 3:30 in Minneapolis, and I have to judge a Kung Fu contest in Hopkins. Rocky is speaking at a Code Camp in Bloomington, and Adventure Boy is going to be the only one who stays put in the house today. Yet, there will always be several people home. Weird.

Oprah's thyroid

Teresa Lhotka — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 14:36:35 GMT

So now Oprah has been diagnosed with Hypothyroidism.

Here’s the Wikipedia page for hypothyroidism.

I feel bad for her, I really do. I know what this condition does to a person, and I know how it feels to have it go undiagnosed. Depression, fatigue, a sense of impending mental break-down or dissipation. I remember with horror the inability to focus thoughts, inability to discipline oneself.

I understand how much willpower it takes to drag your body out of bed and meet the demands of the day, force yourself against the screaming drag of your own body to force yourself to exercise…only to gain weight.

No amount of make-up can hide the bad skin, no amount of careful self-maintenance can get rid of the blue bags under the eyes, the dullness of the hair.

“You look tired” gets to be like a mantra chanted by everyone you meet. Sometimes with sympathy or concern, more often with a bit of the gloat behind it. What they really mean is “You’ve really let yourself go”.

Going to the doctor to find out what’s wrong, you’re told the only prescription you need is more self-discipline and will-power.

Even the Oprah show, which made its name singing the praise of persevering in the face of insurmountable problems manages to slap you in the face, when Dr. Phil says “You’re not fat because of your thyroid. That’s just an excuse.”

I actually went to the website and left a comment. I said it was irresponsible for Dr. Phil to say something like that. I went back later to see if there had been any response to my comment, and I couldn’t find it anywhere. I assumed it had been deleted.

I had gone for years with an undiagnosed thyroid problem because of just such a response from a Doctor, who refused to administer a simple blood test, despite the fact that I have a family history of low thyroid, and all the symptoms. And I DO mean all of them. The CNP who eventually ran the test said that I was in s life-threatening situation, and not just because of the suicidal thoughts.

But this doctor just gave me the smug look, and the condescending encouragement to do more push-ups…push up from the table. He actually SAID that.

Normally, I would have stormed out of his office and went to find a doctor who would run the test. Unfortunately, depression and fatigue caused me to simply shut down in shame and never mention it again…until my friend Sue kicked my ass and told me that she didn’t know what was wrong with me, but I’d better figure it out soon, because she didn’t like who I had become, and she wanted her friend back.

I’m sorry for Oprah that she has to go through this. But I’m glad that finally, she might address this really important subject, and empower women with knowledge and encouragement to speak up for themselves and demand to be tested if they suspect they have a thyroid problem.

Thyroid disorders require constant maintenance. I recently went in for my annual test, and found that I might have to have my dosage upped again. Not a big surprise. I’ve gained weight, and I’m tired and cranky when normally I would be chipper and happy. I’ve been unable to focus at my usual level in normal times, and become downright useless in times of stress. Things that were once easy, have become difficult. I’m confused, forgetful, and sad.

But I’m going to get a second test done, and it’s likely that a simple dosage adjustment will fix the problem. It’s such a simple solution. All you need is the knowledge of what your condition is, and the support of knowledgeable people to help you treat it appropriately.

Another American soldier does his job.

Teresa Lhotka — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 00:39:04 GMT

In a couple of weeks, my friend and Kung Fu "brother", Chris, will be heading for Iraq.

For those of you who weren't here for my Black-belt saga, Chris is the really big guy who gave me the merciless "beat down" for my sparring match at the end of my test. Exhausted, sore, mentally and physically drained, I had to go three minutes non-stop fighting this guy who probably outweighs me by close to 100 LBS and is a good eight inches taller than me...and who does 150 mile bike races for "fun" and charity.

I could hardly lift my hands above my waist, but Chris came at me like a freightrain, and got the adrenaline going so I could not only lift my hands, but hit him hard enough to spin his head-gear around sideways once, and cave his belly in enough to make him give out a "whoofing" noise.

I don't really remember much of that fight (I was somewhere else in my head, cross-country skiing), but suffice it to say that it had the "buddy-cop" effect.

Chris is kind, good-natured, competative and generous. He's a good man, and a good friend. We'll all miss him, as will his wife and his German Shephard, Axel.

Good luck, Chris, keep yer head down, and thanks for serving.

The Road back.

Teresa Lhotka — Mon, 14 May 2007 03:18:31 GMT

I ran a mile today as a warm-up for sparring class. I was able to breath the entire time! (and for the eight laps up and down three flights of stairs.)

If these new meds keep working, who knows, I might be up to try a half-marathon by the end of the season. No marathons for me, though. I need more speed if I'm going to try that. I can't run for five hours straight. I'm not like the man who runs all day.

The Man Who Runs All Day

Teresa Lhotka — Tue, 08 May 2007 13:32:32 GMT

“There he is”, I say.

Grasshopper nods, “Yep. The man who runs all day.”

The sixty-something guy chugs past us, oblivious as always, with his headphones playing whatever sixty-something men listen to when they run. He’s wearing his usual spring get-up of gym shorts and a commemorative tee-shirt from some run or another. In the winter he is in a heavy track suit, hat and scarf. I don’t know if he has special shoes to handle the ice or not.

I don’t think it’s ageist of me to worry about him slipping on the ice and breaking a hip. I worry about that for myself, and I’m not even forty yet.

Anyway, every day we are out waiting for the bus, rain or shine, summer or winter, wrath of the great old ones or thankfully pre-apocalyptic, he chugs past us. As reliable as a Maytag is reputed to be.

We call him “the man who runs all day” because one day Grasshopper and I were out running errands on a weekday. It was one of those blessed no-school days, yet we were up and about at bus time (8:00AM), ready to begin the day. The running man was there, on schedule. We waved at him as he passed in front of us. He chugged on, oblivious.

We passed him on our way to the mall to pick up some things at Target, drop some stuff off at the dry cleaners, buy some things the dog needed, get the oil changed in the van. We had lunch at the mall, splitting a plate of Chinese food from the food court.

I decide to take the alternate route home, and there he is, the running guy. It’s after one in the afternoon, and there he is…still running. His knobby gnarled calves churning away at the pavement like pistons in an engine…persistant, mechanical, seemingly effortless precision.

Two hours later, I have to take grasshopper to an appointment. There’s the running guy, strolling along on his way back towards our house, not looking the least bit fatigued. Back straight, slightly paunchy belly moving in a barely perceptible fashion with his easy breathing, bald head not particularly gleamy.

And that’s why we call him the man who runs all day. Because “The man who runs 2/3 of the day” doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.

All Boy

Teresa Lhotka — Sun, 06 May 2007 19:22:17 GMT

Grasshopper and one of his best friends (S-dogg)got into a knock-down fight at Kung Fu yesterday.

Apparently, S-dogg punched Grasshopper in the throat (not a legitamate target), AND hit him a little harder than the "light touch" that they were instructed to use.

So Grasshopper punched back really hard. They then attacked each other full force, and fell to the ground, whereupon ShiFu broke them up.

I arrived shortly after, and they were not speaking. As we walked out to the car, I told them a little story about a similar thing happening with me and a friend of mine in the Karate school. I tried to make it funny and instill in them the idea that one day they would laugh together about this.

By the time I dropped S-dogg off at his house, they were laughing and sharing snacks.

Isn't that just like boys? All-in with the fight, and then totally over it when it's over.

Immunity

Teresa Lhotka — Sun, 06 May 2007 02:38:58 GMT

So, I went to the allergist today. Three bouts with bronchitis in a row, plus endless breathing problems before that, and I'm done. I don't care what it takes, just break out those needles and FIX ME!!!

For those who don't know, they draw a huge grid on your back, and poke you with some sharp peices of plastic containing concentrations of allergens.

You also get two controls: one is a non-reactive substance (I assume Saline or something equivilent) and the other is Histamine, the chemical that is produced by the body's attack on the allergins, and which causes the allergy symptoms.

My reaction to the non-reactant control was the expected - and my reaction to the Histamine was the expected ++++

This gives you the range from no reaction (-) to the Histamine reaction (++++) (a scale of 0-4, basically).

Here are my test results: Mold Spores:

Paper Birch ++++ Short Ragweed ++++ Alternaria -

Boxelder/Maple Mix ++++ Giant Ragweed ++++ Cladosporium +

Mulberry ++++ Marshelder ++++ Epicoccum +

Red Oak ++++ Sagebrush Mix ++++ Helminthosporium +

White Ash ++++ Russian Thistle ++++ Aspergillus fumigatus +

Shagbark Hickory ++++ Careless - Pigweed ++++ Pullularia +

American Elm ++++ Fusarium +

Kentucky Blue Grass ++++ Penicillium +

Timothy Grass ++++ Phoma +

Dustmite (D. Farinae) - Rhizopus ++

Dustmite (D. Pteronyssinus) +++

Cat ++++

Dog +++

Cockroach -

My allergist, who seems to have a gift for understatment, said "You are a candidate for shots."

No wonder I have been having a hard time running. I'm allergic to the whole darned out-of-doors! (And the in-of-doors too!)

One up-note...my peak-flow reading in the middle of an asthma attack was 490...a good score for a normal, healthy adult woman.

Another up-note is that I CAN get shots, and don't have to sell the dog and buy pet cockroaches. LOL! Although those Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches are pretty cool.

When will the hurting stop?

Teresa Lhotka — Sun, 04 Mar 2007 16:05:40 GMT

Sparring with REALLY strong guy yesterday. He was acquiring some new skills that involved finesse. Acquiring new skills often means a temporary decrease in control and focus expressed in the older skills.

As the swelling goes down,the bruises are beginning to appear.

"Sport"

Teresa Lhotka — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 03:57:56 GMT

Today was the last day of the term for my Wednesday class. I am always sad to see the end of our six-week terms. Mostly because in the past, there has been a two-month –long hiatus, and in the mean-time my families get busy with other stuff and don’t come back.

(For those of you who don’t know, I teach two Kung Fu classes for special needs kids. I told my SiFu a while ago that this was one of my goals, so he found some classes for me to teach.)

This time, there is only one month between terms, and they handed out registration forms right in the class. All of the parents swore they would be back. I’ve heard that before. In all this time, I’ve only had one family return…but hopefully we will keep the terms going back-to-back in the future and get better retention.

I’ve got to tell you about one of the kids, though. I’ll call him Sport. He walked in the very first day, chest puffed out, head up, looking around the room as he crossed it with a confident stride.

“I’m going to like this class. I’m going to be really good at it. I can tell. This is going to be great.”

Sport started and ended every one of the six classes we had with that attitude. Shouting “Look at me, I’m doing this really good!” When I have them do a stretch, and tell them where they should feel it, Sport always declares “I feel it! I’m feeling the stretch!” So excited.

Sport has serious problems with balance, and his muscles are as tight as a tow strap trying to pull a Hummer up a hill out of a foot of clay mud.

His greatest asset is his attitude, which never seems to tire or disappear. He shows up on time, every week, striding confidently into the room, squinting through his glasses with the one eye that isn’t covered with an eye patch, 1000-kilowat grin on his face, and a story about whatever great exploit he accomplished today.

Today I presented him with his certificate of achievement and a little medal on a red-white-and-blue ribbon. He put it around his neck, grabbed his dad by the hand and said “I’m going to wear this to bed tonight.” As he walked out the door.

I wonder if he’ll come back, I wonder if I was able to help him at all in the six short weeks I had with him.

Whatever the outcome for me, I imagine Sport will have few problems ahead in life despite his difficulties. I have a feeling that even if he doesn’t walk back through that door, I’m going to be hearing about him again.

Woo Hoo!!! It's official!

Teresa Lhotka — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 04:07:36 GMT

I am twice deadly now! I passed the final portion of my second degree black belt qualification.

I'm a 2nd degree black belt.

Sweet.

Oh! and I've joined the 21st century and got a cell phone. A present from Rocky on our anniversary.

Alright, I'm going to go do some more painting on Grasshoppers bedroom walls. Almost done. I'm painting two of his walls camoflage, which is a pita...but that's what he wants.

Fun fun fun.

When will the hurting stop?

Teresa Lhotka — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 23:16:59 GMT

After a few weeks of stress and family problems, and stress and home improvement woes, and the good (but still stressful) stress of a long string of many out-of-town guests, and the allergies (from the dust stirred up by home improvement) and the cold, and the bronchitis...

...I returned to Kung Fu on Sunday. Of the three hours of intense training I usually do, I made it almost 1 and 1/2.

My ab muscles feel like someone is taking a rake to them.

Today, all I managed to do was take the dog for a walk.

Somebody call the whahmbulance.

Regaining lost fitness levels is the suck.

Second Degree Black Belt Test

Teresa Lhotka — Sun, 17 Dec 2006 04:59:03 GMT

So, I passed everything except the Tai Chi portion of my second degree black belt test.

Apparently, getting your head bounced off the floor a couple of times can cause you to lose focus and have a hard time remembering your moves smoothly.

So. In two months, I will be able to take that portion of the test again, and I will get my second degree Black belt! Yeay!

In the mean time, I'm going to go lay down on a heating pad. My neck is killing me, and my head doesn't feel too good.

Avindair and Geekgoddess, thanks for inviting me to the birthday party. I had a good time, and thanks for worrying about me, although as you can see, it was unecessary.

Fool me once...

Teresa Lhotka — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 16:10:15 GMT

EclecticsAnonymous has an article about how politics and the politics of money, decisions of ethics, media coverage, and the making of personal health decisions affect each other. Needless to say, he hits enough triggerpoints to start an all-out flame-war if he just had a couple thousand readers.

Ben writes:

Do I think stem cell research is inherently unethical? No. The unethical part of the discussion is the disingenuous arguments coming from the anti-choice, religious right trying to claim that unused embryos created during in-vitro fertilization are the moral equivalent of a 5 year old child. These people leave a slime trail.

On the other hand, I have long since lost the ability to believe that scientific progress is either good or inevitable.

We have, on one hand, the morally mangled far right who believe that every embryo has the right to be born and then grow up starving, impoverished, uneducated, and surveyed closely by the government with no privacy at all until it dies from lack of healthcare (but was hopefully a productive worker who generates shareholder value for most of the time it was alive, and certainly, we hope it didn’t have sex unless it managed to get married).

On the other hand, there are the people promising imminent miracles from stem cells, listened to by desperately sick people who want to believe anything (Many of whom, frankly, HAVE to believe that an answer is coming soon. Look Michael J. Fox in the eyes and shoot his puppy, I dare you.), and a public who believes that scientific progress is like flipping a switch to get light. You put in money, and useful results flow out. If useful results don’t flow, then the science is “broken” and the money and time spent is “wasted”.

It’s clear from history that science has lead down many dead ends. Most of those dead ends didn’t look like dead ends at the time we studied them. Generally, the study of science history emphasizes how each success lead to the next. So if we are not careful, we have this distorted perspective that leads us to think science “succeeded” when it produces something we can see and hear and touch and feel, and “failed” when it only produces information about what NOT to do in the future.

Ben also talks about a story where Pfizer pulled a heart medication from clinical trials, costing them truckloads of money. The news story declares it a loss for heart patients as well as the company. Ben points out that maybe heart patients would do well to pin their hopes on lifestyle changes rather than medications, and that money is the root of what drives the medical industry…not health. So people should look to themselves first, and stop counting on a pill to come along that will solve their problems. Implied is the point that we should never forget that we live in a society where the purpose of big money is to make bigger money.

I agree.

1) The purpose of corporations is to make money. When they do something that costs them truckloads of money over an ethical issue (even one that is enforced upon them that they would have to cheat to avoid) it is going to cause commentary from the media. We really expect (as a society) for corporations to do anything to make money.

I was just at a dinner where a man was listening to someone describe the draconian and ethically questionable changes made to his place of employment by a company that acquired them in a hostile take-over. The guy listening said “I just have one question, how soon can I buy the stock?”

2) A LOT of people abuse medication to avoid doing the hard work of living a healthy life. I remember this delightful child that I used to babysit when I was a kid. I would pick up groceries on the way to his house and cook him good food while I was there. Luckily, I babysat him a lot. He as a very picky eater but I was able to find some healthy options he would eat, and managed to get him to expand his repertoire a little. I was sad to hear, about ten years ago, that he was in my cousin’s boy scout troop. Apparently, he was a fat, hyperactive kid with bad skin whose mom sent him to boy scout camp with a bottle of Ritalin pills, and a suitcase full of Ding-Dongs and cans of Mountain Dew.

3) Many people need medications to help them augment their already healthy life. I have a friend whose diet and exercise regimen is excellent. Per his doctor’s orders. He follows it pretty religiously. He’s in pretty good shape most of the time. If he is not very strict with himself, he becomes over-weight very quickly. But no matter what his weight, his cholesterol is up around three hundred. Sometimes even higher. With medication, he is able to get that last piece of his fitness puzzle to fit into place. Without it, he would be in serious trouble.

Sociologically and personally, prevention and modification of lifestyle for harm reduction is cheaper than medication. Practically, medication is desirable and necessary where those things are inadequate.

But while sick people are more costly for society, they are more profitable for big Pharma (and it's investors).

And Big Pharma doesn’t have to do ANYTHING to make it happen, beyond providing the product. People just being people is enough. And hey, some people would like to stop it, but at least as many are looking at their portfolios and thinking of their retirement.

So what can you do about it? Big-picture? Alone? Nothing. Not a damned thing. This isn’t a marching-in-the-street issue. This isn’t something that will fit in a slogan or on a bumper sticker…or even allows for a lucid, well-structured blog post (at least not one written in construction zone while trying to get the kids off to school and make sure the puppy doesn’t piddle on the carpet).

This is the sort of issue where the steps one through five are becoming informed, which is much, much harder than it should be, but it gets easier over time. Step six is making personal choices based on that information. Choices about lifestyle, investment, advocacy of public policy, voting, etc.) step seven is informing others and eight through ten are repeat steps one through seven.

Goin' with the flow

Teresa Lhotka — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 04:07:58 GMT

Today in sparring class SiFu spent about ½ an hour working with me. ½ speed, just setting things up, taking shots and countering. I’d throw something, and he would have me throw it again and again as he worked out counters to it, and then he would throw something, and do it over and over again, making me react differently every time.

He made me step out of my comfort zone, which is hard blocking. I like to cover up and just take the full brunt on the technique with a leg or arm block, and then power through with a counter-technique.

We’ve worked on “sticky hands” type stuff a lot, but it’s really not my style. I can get it in drills and such, but when it comes to real-life applications, I tend to revert to my tried-and-true bulldozer methods. Everyone else seems to get it easier than me.

For some reason, today the lesson stuck. I went on to fight Joe, who we call “little Joe”…to distinguish him from “Big Joe”.

Anyway, Joe and I were working out, and after the second or third time I flowed with his block, and came around it and tagged him, he said “Jeeze, you’ve got some serious Wing Chung workin’ for you.”

That made me feel good. I finally got a small taste of what it is like to “flow like water”, and be “soft as cotton, hard as steele.”

The arm techniques are starting to flow. Now all I need is to loosen up the leg techniques a little bit. I’m still indefatigably Okinawan with the kicks. All power and straight lines.

Who knows, my TaiChi might actually start to look like Tai Chi, and less like I’m having a slow-mo epileptic seizure.

"How's Qigong going?" Part IV

Teresa Lhotka — Sat, 05 Aug 2006 17:07:24 GMT

I started doing Qigong because it is part of Kung Fu training. It isn’t required, but the more I learned about Kung Fu, the more I learned that historically, serious practitioners have done Qigong.

Some of you may know, that there are internal and external aspects to all martial arts training. Most schools in the US have focused on the external aspects, building strength and speed, focusing impacts – scoring points and breaking boards.

There are ancillary internal pay-offs described as confidence, focus, mental discipline, etc. Many parents start their children in martial arts for these pay-offs, and there is little doubt that people get those results from the training. The external training has internal pay-offs

Qigong is supposed to focus on these “internal” aspects as the primary product of Qigong training, with ancillary external results.

If you have ever seen a Tai Chi practitioner, you will know what I’m talking about when I refer to external results. They seem to flow like water, the coil and snap like a whip. They seem very graceful and soft and fluid, but then there is that moment when you see the end of one movement, just before it blurrs into another, and you realize how much force was generated by that move, and how it was redirected into the next move, and how only perfect balance makes it seems so effortless.

Well, maybe you do and maybe you don’t. I was sitting with one of my fellow students at a competition a couple of years ago, watching this woman who comes to almost all of the local competitions. She studies in China , though she lives here. She is amazing. I’ve learned enough Tai Chi to know how completely hopeless I am at it right now. Some day, I hope to have a tenth the skill this woman has.

My friend and I were commenting on the tremendous power that her technique had.

“No she doesn’t”, said a lady next to us, who I had seen as a judge at Diamond Nationals. “She doesn’t have any power at all.” We could hear the incredulity in her voice that we could say any such thing.

My friend and I just looked at each other. WE saw it. It was obvious to us, who had been working so hard to attain that skill of “flowing like water”, and being “soft as cotton, hard as steel”. I myself was feeling somewhat discouraged…but now I felt better as I realized that at least I had learned what it is supposed to LOOK like, and even got shadow sensations in my muscles of what it would FEEL like when I finally did it correctly.

Coming from externally focused Karate myself, I had just heard an echo of my own voice and biases from years ago, where upper body strength, expelling breath noisily, and yelling were the ultimate ways to project “power” and I realized how much I had actually learned.

I remember that was the beginning of my break-through with tornado kicks…the moment that I knew what it would feel like to do a correct tornado kick. After months of fruitless practice, I finally had fruitful practice, and my progress (though not instantaneous) was encouraging.

Anyway, Qigong is supposed to help you develop that internal sense of the flow of “chi” (energy, power, life) through the body, and help you express it in not only your martial arts, but in your relationships, and personal life.

As I’ve mentioned before, it’s supposed to make you softer, gentler, more generous, more open and more forgiving, yet also more untouchable by the “slings and arrows” of everyday life, stronger, more resilient. The internal achievements manifest in external movements that are softer, more flowing, and yet more powerful.

So, what have I actually seen as a result of two months of Qigong practice? Well, not a lot. But it HAS been only two months.

I DO think I’m somewhat more patient and focused (some days are better than others). I’ve noticed that my work-outs generally seem to be easier, and I accomplish more.

I’ve broken a plateau in my flexibility work (although anyone can tell you that once you’ve been doing flexibility work for a few years, gains are very, very small.)

I carry a lot less tension in my shoulders, neck, and mid-back and the absolute inflexibility of my hips and lower back region shows signs of releasing.

My shoulder pain has almost completely disappeared, although knee and hip pain has remained unaffected, and is actually worse some days. This is most likely due to some new exercises that SiFu has added to our regimen.

I don’t exactly sleep better, (I still wake up frequently at night, and I still have trouble falling asleep) but I feel less tired for all that.

Finally, I think I’ve mentioned that I’ve done some “healing” meditations for other people. This is done in the Sitting meditation “Self-concentration. You visualize “chi” moving through you from the universe at large, and into the person you want to heal.

Do I think it “works”? Nope. Not as such anyway, but like I mentioned before, I don’t think it actually helps someone when I say “I hope everything works out” or “Get well soon” or when I “Think good thoughts” about them during a job interview or a surgery. But I do it anyway, because it is a human thing to do. We can’t stop ourselves from fruitlessly wishing others well, or “hoping for the best” despite its ineffectiveness. It is good for us to do so, and I stand by that.

Coincidentally, two out of the three people I did meditations for reported improvements in their conditions and/or flawless recoveries. Kudos to the trained staff of medical professionals who worked tirelessly and skillfully for their benefit.

The third person reported no change for better or for worse.

"How's Qigong going?" Part III

Teresa Lhotka — Sat, 05 Aug 2006 04:48:52 GMT

Today I am going to talk a little about sitting meditations. I want to remind everyone that I’ve only been doing this for a couple of months, so I really don’t know what I’m talking about, and shouldn’t be viewed as an expert by any means. Also, remember that I’m very skeptical of the results some people claim for Qigong, and VERY skeptical of the mystical explanations for the results one gets, while still believing that it is a useful discipline.

So some of my explanations are going to be very unorthodox. They are also very incomplete. You can’t do Qigong by reading what I say and trying it yourself. You should find a teacher.

I have learned to do two sitting meditations. One is called “Small Universe”, where you visualize “Chi” moving into your body with your breath. It requires a lot of focus and concentration, but also relaxing. It is quite demanding. After I do it, I feel very energetic, but also rested. Like after a good nights sleep. The rhythm of the breathing is dictated by a chant, which I currently have on CD. For all meditations, both active and sitting, there is a special method for breathing called “reverse breathing”. Some people would call it “breathing from the diaphragm”.

This is the first Qigong sitting meditation I ever did. I had a very strong reaction to it, which I told about in a previous entry.

What I didn’t mention in that entry was that I had a panic attack right in the middle of the meditation (which I haven’t done for years). My chest, throat, and sinuses closed up. It was all I could do to get any breath. I thought my heart was going to burst out of my chest. I felt overwhelming sadness. My eyes watered uncontrollably. When it all cleared up, I got angry…or maybe it was the other way around.

I had other physical sensations, like my lower body going to sleep, but that is very consistent with sitting cross-legged and unmoving on a floor for half an hour when you are not used to it.

Small Universe has gotten easier and easier to do as time has gone on, and the meditations, while pleasant, tend to not have a very strong effect anymore other than generally being energizing and centering.

The other sitting meditation I do is called “Self-Concentration”. This is where things get interesting. You are supposed to visualize your “chi” as a ball of energy that sits just behind and below the navel. You focus on that, and breath. For a specific length of time. I usually go for half an hour. I have a CD that has music made for this meditation, but it is not necessary.

This meditation is a lot like sleeping, although you don’t really sleep, you just sort of become blank consciousness. During this time, it is not unusual for me to “see” and “hear” things…much the way you do in a very vivid dream. You know you’re not really hearing it, and yet it is very vivid. The first time I did Self Concentration, it was lot like the first time I did Small Universe.

I’ve done quite a few since then. None of them have been quite that intense. No more tearing in the eyes, no more panic attack symptoms.

I see a lot of bright and vibrant colors with my eyes closed…a lot like the Northern Lights. Purple, white yellow, orange, green, and red. Mostly purple and white. Everyone sees colors when they close their eyes, but the ones you see in meditation are much more intense and bold.

I’ve “seen” such things as familiar, favorite places. Felt the wind, the warmth of the sun, smelled the grass and trees. I once had a meditation where I was looking at a room I’ve never been in through a prism. That was a weird feeling. I “heard” a woman whisper “We don’t have to keep doing this to each other.” I once “heard” SiFu’s voice asking “Why do you always have to re-invent the wheel?”, and mine answering “Because the wheel is broken.”

When I recorded that last one in my journal, I wrote “Fortune cookie anyone?” That is seriously inscrutable.

Other visual images I’ve had in meditation are:

A swarm of ants.
A gust of wind bending a grove of trees and carrying Aspen leaves upward in a swirl of air. For some reason, there was an old pump house near the grove of trees, but no other buildings that I could see. It was a very desolate and painfully beautiful image. Ang Lee would have been proud of it.
An image of a drowned woman’s face underwater, accompanied by a feeling of peace, acceptance, and gratitude (Drowning is a serious freak-button for me. This should have squicked me right out). Not to mention that the image was seriously creepifying, though I didn’t have that response to it. Didn’t seem to have any effect on the every-day life issue of drowning squickiness, though.
Once, an old person came and offered me a huge box full of things. There were a lot of very valuable, precious, and shiny things in the box. I chose a small piece of tiger’s eye. Later, three young men showed up and were goofing around near me. I got the impression that they should have bothered me greatly, as they were malicious, destructive, and petty…and I got the impression they were trying to start something with me. They didn’t bother me though. I took minimal notice of them and they went away.
Once I felt like the right side of my body was shrinking, causing my spine to twist. It was very uncomfortable and freaky. I just kept concentrating, and it went away.

I’ve had lots of images, sounds and sensations in the meditations where I remember that I had them, but don’t remember what they were…just like in dreams.

So, you might be wondering, since this stuff is so weird and a little creepy sometimes, and uncomfortable…why am I doing it? What do I get out of it?

But that is a question for another time, as it is nearly midnight, and tomorrow I have four hours of Kung Fu and then a good night of partying (a friend of mine is having a house party) after that. I went to help mix the margaritas this evening, so I have some idea of the vast quantities of booze before me tomorrow night. Must rest up. J

"How's Qigong Going?" Part II

Teresa Lhotka — Fri, 04 Aug 2006 14:55:23 GMT

One thing that makes Qigong different from any other kind of meditation I’ve ever done, is the active component.

Qigong is often taught in conjunction with Tai Chi because Tai Chi is also active meditation. The Qigong active meditation exercises are very similar to Tai Chi. They are slow and focus on flow and balance through breathing. Sometimes, you begin to feel as though your breath is causing the movements.

The proper stances, balance, and synchronization of your muscles and breath generate an amazing amount of power.

And an amazing amount of heat and sweat.

I’m not kidding. The amount of body heat I sometimes generate makes me think of the popular stories of spontaneous combustion told to me by those weird kids who carried around magazines dealing with cryptozoology and comic books about ghost ships from WWII haunting the Bermuda Triangle. (OK, I admit it, the only reason I didn’t have those materials myself is because my mom would have burned them).

I’m not a sweater. When I got to the gym on non-running days and hit the elliptical, I usually do a calorie burn of between 800 and 1100 calories in a 60 minute work-out and five-minute cool-down. I don’t usually break a noticeable sweat until about 40 minutes into the workout.

Twenty minutes of focused Qigong, and I’m often getting running trickles of sweat. It’s disgusting.

On days when my focus is impaired for some reason, I generate little to no heat, and no sweat to speak of. This is still most days for me, probably six out of ten. Don’t get me wrong, there is often SOMETHING happening, but not enough to write home about, as they say.

As I understand it (I may be mistaken) the mystical purpose of these exercises is to “open your energy channels” and remove “energy blockages” from your body. You are supposed to “feel the energy” when you have been doing the exercises for a while. I have, indeed, felt an electrical tingle running up the sides of my fingers, through my hands and arms. This is not the same as the “Pins and needles” sensation you get from having your arms “go to sleep”. I’ve also felt the “tingling” from hyperventilating. This is nothing like that, either. It is different, weird, and a little unsettling, but cool as hell. I have been given reason to believe that eventually this effect will happen through all the “energy channels” of the body. Presumably, I will then disappear in a flash of white light and leave behind only a faint whiff of ozone, because I can’t imagine the heat that will generate.

Days where I have had an effective active meditation are almost always characterized by a more relaxed attitude, loose muscles, easy stretches, increased appetite, and effortless workouts. I’ve had a couple of days, though, where the opposite happened: I was wiped out, cranky, had unexplained stiffness and pain, nothing tasted right, and I just wanted to lay down in a dark room. Whatever the results, they are quite dramatic.

My impression is that the concentration and repetitive movements have a self-hypnotic effect that can make you very susceptible to suggestion. Therefore, it would be rather important that the concentration be focused on how the joints are warming and loosening, how the pain is fading and how relaxed and happy you are. Intrusion of negative thoughts, or the inadvertent focus on an ache or pain or unpleasant memory might account for any back-fires. Indeed, the beginning of the active part of the meditation is a series of positive affirmations to get you in the correct state of mind.

Right now, the active component is the biggest barrier I have to practicing every day. I still miss about five days out of the month. I’m not sure which is more daunting, the idea of spending half-an-hour to forty minutes doing something that has little or no results, or the incredibly powerful results I sometimes get. Some days I just can’t face the thought of either one first thing in the morning. Some days I just want my coffee and my e-mail.

Today happens to be one of those days.

Tomorrow, I’ll discuss the “Sitting meditations”. That involves some pretty freaky stuff, so you don’t want to miss it.

"How's Qigong going?" Part I

Teresa Lhotka — Fri, 04 Aug 2006 04:07:06 GMT

The other day, my friend Conrad Zero asked a loaded question: “How’s Qigong going?”

I said, “It’s complicated.”

My friend and fellow Kung Fu-er, Blake, who understands my aversion to mystical frufery, chimed in something along the lines of:

“Yeah, are you getting all your channels cleared out, and those blockages eliminated?”

I said, “Shut Up.”

See, I really believe that there is something to the whole Qigong thing. I’m with Han Solo in believing that “There’s no mystical energy field that controls MY destiny.” On the other hand, though I’ve not “flown from one end of the galaxy to the other”…I HAVE seen some “strange stuff”…so I’m willing to give most things a chance.

I DO believe that the mind can cure any problem the mind creates or can improve any condition it contributes to, and that seems to be a LOT of stuff. I think that time spent focusing, and disciplining the mind, listening to your subconscious, taking time to listen to your intuition and reconnect to your senses is useful and important. Certainly, the active meditation exercises contribute to flexibility, physical relaxation, and coordination much the way that yoga does.

So, yeah, I think Qigong can lower your blood pressure, mitigate your anxiety disorder, or reduce your dependence on an inhaler for stress-induced asthma. It’s not beyond my imagining that it can help with sleep disorders or stress disorders, or ADD or any one of a number of other conditions.

After all, I was trained in bio-feedback at our local hospital to control panic attacks, and Qigong is no that different. It just uses different language to describe what's going on. I used those techniques to lower my heart rate, lower my blood pressure, manage panic attacks, and strangely enough, a chronic skin disorder that I’d had for ten years cleared up during that time (No kidding, the Dermatologist called it a “stress rash”.)

Do I think it can cure infections, or fix a faulty heart valve, or cure a brain tumor? No. Do I think I’ll gain super natural powers? Nope. I don't want 'em. I've got enough power right here in this ordinary human sack of skin as it is, thank you. I'll find it a triumph of a worthy life just to learn to master what I have effectivly and ethically. Do I think I’ll be able to heal other people? Not really.

I do the healing meditations though because I think that it is a natural and healthy human function to spend time thinking about others, wishing them well, and dedicating our thoughts to their well-being. Do I really think that if I do a healing meditation for another human being that they will directly benefit from “energy” beaming from the universe, through me, to them?

I have no reason to believe that, any more than I have any reason to believe that it is helpful for me to “wish someone well” or say “sorry to hear that” when I hear of someone else’s misfortune.

It might do them no good, but I do it anyway. Why? Because I’m human and not a socio-path. For me to wish someone ill does them no harm, but it is bad for me. To wish someone well does them no good, but it is a good thing in and of itself. It exercises the part of you that can reach beyond yourself and invest in something other than yourself even when it doesn’t directly affect you. In short, the part that makes us social creatures. The part that makes us capable of altruism, or at least enlightened self-interest.

To spend an hour focused on wishing another well, to invest time and energy and focus on their well-being exercises that part of my nature, and grows it. Does it mean they will be healed or get better as a result? Probably not. But what it might possibly do is put me into deeper contact with my natural human ability to appreciate another’s condition, to connect with them in such a way that I see opportunities to actually help them that I would normally miss while wrapped up in my own head and my own world.

The teachings of Qigong are to cultivate an open, generous, forgiving and giving nature. They teach a soft, focused, loving approach to life, and produce a strong, relaxed, resilient physical existence.

The language of Qigong is mystical, but I don’t believe that it’s results are “mystical” at all….so I use the mystical terminology, and I say things using that mystical, metaphorical language – because that’s what is there to work with.

Much of the discipline of Qigong is representational. You visualize things, make mental representations of them, and then use your mind to manipulate those representations. This is a valuable skill that many people just simply don’t have naturally. Developing it can help with abstract reasoning across the board. Ask any Martial Artist who has “practiced” their martial art mentally while injured. They can sit in a chair and “do” the forms in their head, and then go back and perform those forms flawlessly after their recovery. Many athletes “picture” themselves doing the techniques of their sport perfectly in order to mentally pattern themselves for the real thing.

Yes, it’s sold as a kind of sympathetic “magic” through the power of some universal “force”. Well, if that’s how you talk about it, then that’s how you talk about it. The language to me is representational and poetic, not mystical.

So yeah, I do Qigong. I do it because I believe it is good for me, and I find it personally useful. Do I think there is anything “mystical” about it? No. But that doesn’t mean some freaky weird shit doesn’t go down during the meditations. Which, should surprise no-one when you realize that you are opening up the big can of worms that is the human mind, which is housed inside a human brain, which is connected to a human body…all of which have been evolving endlessly through a constant fight for survival, and to which each generation adds it’s own small amount of baggage.

No big revelation there. We make meaning in very, very complex ways, and some of them we may never understand. And venturing into that jungle isn’t for the faint of heart, but there’s no reason to believe that there’s anyone or anything in there but what we bring ourselves.

But I realize that I’ve gone off on a tear, and haven’t actually addressed Conrad Zero’s question. So I’ll have to do that tomorrow. Until then, I’m off to help with the kid’s Kung Fu class.

Running is FUN

Teresa Lhotka — Thu, 03 Aug 2006 21:28:29 GMT

Today is a running day...haven't made it out yet...will probably go tonight after Kung Fu.

Tuesday SUCKED. 77 degrees SHOULD have felt cool, but the humidity was such that apparently human body temperature was below the dew point. Between the condensation, sweat, and drizzle, I was soaked. Like coming out of showering in your clothes, but without the freshness. ugh. Plus, I made it almost all the way around Staring Lake, and decided to take the ski-trail to add on a little distance. When the ski trail rejoined the bike path, I took the wrong turn, and went back the way I had come, so my 3-mile run turned out to be somewhere around five miles.

It was like running five miles in a tepid steam room five miles long, with people spitting on you the whole way.

Except that analogy doesn't really encompass the mosquitos that came out in clouds whenever the drizzle let up.

The one good thing was that I'd taken the kids to the pool, so when I got back, I got to stretch out in hot, humid air...which made for a very effective stretch. NO soreness.

Feel the burn.

Teresa Lhotka — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 02:30:34 GMT

I burned 1,011 calories on the elliptical jogger today 65 minutes...went a little over seven miles.

Then I came home and did a little cleaning, made dinner, and scooted off to Yoga.

Endorphins are good.

Yep, Yoga is Evil

Teresa Lhotka — Thu, 22 Jun 2006 02:37:57 GMT

Via the Agape Press, I find out about Pastor Hubbard, of the Evangelical Free Church in Smith County , Kansas .

He’s worried that Hindus are moving in to his area to build temples and won’t admit that their purpose is religious.

He says they are being dishonest when they say that one can do Yoga and transcendental meditation without it being a religious practice.

I can see why he would think that they could only make that claim dishonestly. It is a common view of people like Pastor Hubbard that mankind has one inherent nature…brutal, sinful, deceitful, thoughtless, and base. Without supernatural intervention, man cannot change that state. Any attempts, successful or otherwise, to transcend the selfish and corrupt aspects of the human condition, must then involve the super-natural.

So if someone says that they can teach skills and exercises and philosophy that will help others become better people, then they must be proselytizing a religion. If they insist that they are not proselytizing a religion, then they must be lying. It is the self-loathing and rigid thinking of the fundamentalists that make them unable to explain the behavior of the Transcendentalists as anything but deceit.

And why shouldn’t Pastor Hubbard suspect that the people in question are lying? After all, many a Christian missionary has gone to China to “just teach English”. I think its common human nature to suspect others of the duplicity that we practice ourselves.

But I don’t think the Transcendentalists are lying. They might well all be Hindus themselves, but they are correct in saying that a person can learn meditation and Yoga and benefit from the discipline, exercise, and contemplation regardless of what they believe or disbelieve. The Hindus would have no reason to actively “convert” those they teach. Some might convert, but that would not be the goal. The goal would be to help their fellow human beings be healthier, calmer, and more free from suffering; thus increasing the peace and tranquility of the world. Don’t forget…Eastern religions play the long game. What do they care if you meditate on the name of Jehovah, or Shiva, or The Flying Spaghetti Monster? What matters is that you meditate, and become better able to bear your burdens, help bear the burdens of others, and refrain from adding to the burdens of yourself and others. If you don’t find Nirvana in this life, you’ll come around in the next, or the next. They are not trying to convert.

Many Eastern philosophies and health practices are interwoven with the various religious beliefs found in the East. Just because Christians developed the philosophy of the Enlightenment and the Rights of man, it doesn’t mean that one must be a Christian in order to embrace modern Democracy. Similarly, just because Hindus invented Yoga, it doesn’t mean that one must become a Hindu to successfully stretch one’s muscles and relax one’s mind by performing “The Sun Salute”. If saying the Rosary was a physical work-out with widely acknowledged health benefits akin to those attributed to Yoga, I’m sure you could find an atheist or two doing it on the advice of their doctor, and it would be as likely to convert them to Catholicism as doing yoga is to convert you to Hinduism.

But back to Pastor Hubbard. He’s a true American Christian, at least. He acknowledges that the Hindus have a right to their religion, and to own their property and use it for any legal purpose they desire. But he is going to preach against them, and their teachings and their work. Because he judges them and their actions by his own limited understanding that he is too afraid to expand. So he will preach love from a foundation of ignorance, fear and hate.

What’s that Pastor Hubbard? It’s NOT hate? Really? How do you explain that?

While he does not hate these people, Hubbard says he and other townspeople are opposed to their teachings. "It could be any one of a number of divergent religious groups and we would still have the same problem," he explains.

Oh! It all makes sense now! It’s not discrimination if you hate and oppose the practices of all non-Christians equally. Silly me. How could I have misunderstood that? Well then, you just go on preaching against the new people and their practices. Also, if I were you, I’d make sure that any member of your church who associates with them, or goes to any of their classes gets disciplined, like being shunned, or kicked out of the church or censured, or called out about it from the pulpit on Sunday morning.

After all, you wouldn’t want them to learn anything that might help them develop self-control. I mean, then what would they need YOU for?

They like me! They really like me!

Teresa Lhotka — Fri, 16 Jun 2006 19:26:29 GMT

I guess I'm going to keep my special needs Kung Fu class.

SiFu just send me an e-mail that says the progam I am teaching for has gotten "Rave reviews" from the parents, and the parents who commented want to be sure I come back to the program in the fall.

That is so cool. I just love working with those kids, and their parents are THE BEST. The parents have an excellent and healthy approach to learning and progress. They are very good advocates for their kids, and let me know what their kids need in order to do their best.

Also, the education specialist that I am teaching the class with has been the greatest. Her name is Kelly, and she just rocks.

I have enjoyed teaching that class more than any other class.

It's easy to work with good material.

Another evil thing Christians don't want you to do.

Teresa Lhotka — Fri, 16 Jun 2006 14:23:24 GMT

Oh No! You guys, I just found out that Yoga is Evil! Yep.

According to more “Christians” than I can count right now, Yoga is an ancient form of meditation whose movements are designed to put you in a self-hypnotic state and lead you directly into the waiting clutches of a false God!

Oops.

I’ve got my husband doing this stuff! Oh no!

Here are the best links I’ve found regarding the evilness of Yoga:

“Author wants to enlighten Christians about Yoga’s demonic influences”

“What is the Christian view of Yoga?”

And here you thought it was just stretching, and mind-calming, mind-body connecting meditation.

In actuality, it wants to deliver you into the clutches of a false God – You! Yep, people who study Yoga eventually decide that they are God, and God is them.

And we wouldn’t want you to end up in charge of yourself, now would we? God knows, you’re not the smartest person on the planet. You should only be allowed to make you own decisions when it is profitable for US companies for you to do so (and it’s better yet if they are "free" to avoid giving you relevant information). Otherwise, do what the preacher tells you, and for God’s sake, don’t do that “downward dog” pose. Can’t you see how evil it is? Evil I say.

And it’s false healing, because any benefit you get from Yoga, you did yourself, through the self-hypnotic state. It didn’t come from God.

Self-hypnotic states are evil. You shouldn’t trust them. They don’t lead anywhere good.

Let me give you and example: during a brief resurgence of my Christian Fundamentalism in late High School, I attended a faith healing service at one of the local pole-barn churches scattered on the outskirts of Bemidji . I wanted to be “healed” of my addiction to tobacco.

During the service, I went forward, and was surrounded by praying Christians. In the course of the prayer session, I reached a place where I felt like I was floating (I’d been doing “Christian meditation” during this time as well…a practice that I now recognize as zen Buddhist meditation with the serial numbers filed off…so I’d had some practice already with getting into a hypnotic state).

I came back to myself an indeterminate amount of time later, and was helped to my feet by elated charismatics who informed me that I had been “slain in the spirit”, and that my sins were all whiped out, and I was healed. I had a bruise on my right wrist, where it had struck the floor during my “fall” (some of my fellow Christians had eased my transition from standing to prone, but my arm flapped out and hit the floor)

On the scale of weird, unexplainable shit, this was about a six out of ten, so I figured they probably knew more about what they were talking about than I did. Sure enough, I was filled with euphoria as I threw out my cigarettes and ZZ-top novelty lighter (ZZ-top! Good God).

And I coasted through the next 24 or so hours without a single urge to smoke…until the self-hypnosis buzz wore off and the residual nicotine left my body and the actual withdrawal began.

I was able to lay my hands on some Camel straights fairly easily (despite being under 18…it WAS Bemidji after all) but I never again was able to find a ZZ-top novelty lighter. Years later, I quit for good. Know how? I took control of myself and my behavior. I trusted my own judgement and abilities. I made a decision with my human mind. I stuck to it with my human will. It was incredibly difficult, and I had to fail a few times. But I stuck to it and it worked! It's a miracle! Woo Hoo. But dang it, I could still light my candels with a ZZ-top novelty lighter, if I had one, which I would if I hadn't gotten suckered by self hypnosis psudo-spiritual bullshit. Evil, I say.

So you see, while self-hypnosis might be evil and ineffective, and may or may not be anti-Christian, at least if you are doing yoga, you are already sitting down and nobody need catch you. Also, while you may be opening yourself up for demonic influences, at least you’ll be able to tie your shoes without having to find somewhere to sit, or prop your foot up…and that’s not nothing.

Still not too sure about qigong

Teresa Lhotka — Sun, 14 May 2006 05:28:20 GMT

Ya know how when you have a fishbowl, and you go for a while without cleaning it, all the stuff sinks to the bottom, and you don’t really realize it’s there? The water LOOKS clear.

The meditation I’ve been doing all my life is the meditation that stills the waters and lets all the stuff sink to the bottom, and the water looks clear.

Qigong is more like, turning on the filter and stirring the water up.

Physically, mentally spiritually.

This is completely not what I signed up for, not what I expected, and not really what I wanted.

All that old crap just get churned up and cycled through. I hope my filter is working.

Plus, there is numbness, tingling, eye-watering and charley horses.

Somebody remind me why I’m doing this again?

Seriously.

Last time we did a meditation, I cried, and beat the crap out of my wave bag. I did it without gloves, because I needed to HIT something, and the gloves just wouldn’t have done the job. It chewed up my knuckles.

Tonight, tears streamed down my face (wouldn’t call it crying, exactly), During the meditation, I found myself in a place our family calls the Big Flat Rock. It is a dome of granet up north on my grandparents farm...in the middle of the beef cow pasture. My grandparents used to take us out there all the time for picnics. We would have a picnic, and then they would build a fire and we would have s'mores. Anyway, I was on the Big Flat Rock, and I was all alone. I was filled with intense, gripping, paralzing loneliness and as sense of loss so intense I could hardly breath. My sinuses were closed, my lungs tight, my throat closed. Then, one of the garter snakes that lives under the rock (there's hundreds of them) came up to me, and slithered right up into my hands. I held it, and it looked at me. I remember seeing how its skin shone in the sunlight that was suddenly all around us. Things cleared. I felt better, except I was aware of a pain in my leg. It was unbearable, and I came out of the meditation about five minutes early. Couldn't help it.

Then I came home and scarffed a ton of pizza and ice cream. Weird. Can I blame that on qigong?

"Healing Art" my ass.

Teresa Lhotka — Sun, 07 May 2006 15:03:16 GMT

Qigong kicked my ASS last night. As in hella kicked it. This is only the second lesson. I could barely stand afterwards, and I couldn't feel my legs at all, they were completely asleep. As in, dead from the waist down, except for the bottoms of my feet which felt like they were levitating on a four-inch-thick layer of elecricity. Also, I cried and I don't know why. But on the other hand, I felt completely stupid. Stupid monkey.

Came home, felt the urge to work the heavy bag. I remembered some of the combinations that Sensei taught me years ago. Over-did it a bit and brutalized my knuckles and elbows some before I realized what I was doing. Then, I went to bed. Slept like a baby.

This morning, except for the fact that I can't really hold onto anything heavier than a coffee cup,...I feel great.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

Stand Back.

Teresa Lhotka — Thu, 04 May 2006 17:34:57 GMT

I recently started a Qi Gong class through my Kung Fu school. I wasn’t sure if I should. See, Qi Gong deals with meditation and internal energy manipulation and there are a lot of explanations for how it works, and ideas behind it that sound like a lot of mumbo-jumbo to me.

And I’m not a big fan of mumbo-jumbo. Mumbo-jumbo is responsible for a lot of the misery I’ve had in my life. Also, Flim-flammery. Not a fan of either.

But I do accept the existence of a creator. So things that are not quantitative are undeniably part of my world-view already. I think we’ve been over this before. While I have encountered no proof of a creator’s existence, I have likewise encountered no proof of its non-existence. My mind provides no guidance on the matter, so therefore I allow my heart to guide me.

I don’t have any REASON to accept it (I don’t, for instance, think that anything in any holy scriptures is proof of a creator or actually reflects anything but a running chronicle of some of mankind’s attempts to understand the creator. As such, I take it with the same grain of salt that I take any human endeavor.).

I don’t have any NEED to accept it that I’m aware of (I don’t, for instance, assume that my belief in a creator in anyway obligates the creator to do anything for me).

There is nothing COMPELLING me to acceptance (I don’t, for instance, think that I have to believe or the creator will do something bad to me).

My acceptance simply is.

Moving on.

I am a Kung Fu student. I study, I practice and I daily do stuff that I would rather not do. I do exercises and stretches that often violate current thoughts on what is appropriate training. Fellow active people have often asked me “Aren’t you worried about over-training?” Sometimes they inform me that a particular stretch I’m doing “isn’t as
good” as one they learned from someone who learned it from a professional personal trainer.

I don’t worry about it. I’m sure that current trends in sports science are very impressive, but I also know that the goals and demands of the martial arts are as unique from modern sports as modern sports are from each other. The training techniques of a marathon runner are different from the techniques of a Hockey Player, are different from the techniques of a Bowler.

I assume that the techniques handed down for generations are appropriate for the activities we do in Kung Fu. Martial Arts ARE, after all, a progressive training program where the body is conditioned at the lower levels for the more demanding activities that you encounter later on.

But back to Qi Gong. It’s part of a traditional Kung Fu education. It seems like, if I’m going to study Kung Fu, I should at least try to study all aspects of the subject. As a student, I should first master ALL the material, and THEN decide what I’m going to accept and what I’m going to throw out, and what I’m going to modify in order to have it work for me.

So I’m going to study Qi Gong. I’m going to set aside my reservations and pre-conceptions. I’m going to learn and practice and get results. And I will evaluate what I have learned.

It seems to me that it’s a mistake a lot of people make; thinking that they have all the answers before they really begin learning the subject.

They decide on a route and a destination, and they forge ahead unquestioningly, and (in their mind) unerringly. They don’t allow themselves to be side-tracked by “barriers” or “detours”. And their lives are a constant battle as the whole world seems to have turned against them and seems to tirelessly keep them under continuous assault in an effort to keep them from the goal. They assume it is the hostility and enmity of the world that is confounding them…and not their own arrogance and unwillingness to allow the path to teach them.

Others follow the path wherever it goes without curiosity or questioning. They aren’t making the journey, they are simply following…and are surprised if they end up somewhere bad, or nowhere in particular (ask anyone whose ever walked in the woods, following a “path” that suddenly dead-ended. It wasn’t a “path” at all…but a series of choices to go the way of least resistance.) They don’t progress.

Having done both at some point in the past 38 years, I hope to avoid such pit-falls going forward. I’ve chosen a path, and now I will actively engage and allow it to teach me. And whatever I learn, it will be my lesson, and I will have learned it completely.

I’ll let you know how it’s going from time-to-time.

Miracle Man

Teresa Lhotka — Thu, 27 Apr 2006 03:48:19 GMT

There's this little old guy I see at the gym all the time. I'll call him…Barry. Don't know why. I guess I just like the name.

Anyway, Barry is a sweet little old guy. He's had a few serious injuries in his life, including a car accident that almost killed him. He's got almost no cartilage left in his body. His knees, back, neck, hips, you name it, are all messed up.

He's bent into a permanent question mark.

But he shows up at the gym every day. Since I go at different times of the day, I only see him there sometimes...but he's there every day – doing his physical therapy.

Barry is always smiling, always happy, always up-beat. He always has time to chat with you and he always has an encouraging word. He also always has a local community fund-raiser that he's working on, whether it's selling stuff to raise money for an outreach program at church, or signing people up to sponsor him for a walk-a-thon, or promoting a benefit concert.

You can tell he's always in pain. You can see it in the way he moves. His body just moves the way bodies do when they are in pain – a LOT of pain.

But he doesn't act like a guy in pain, and though he is bent, and his movements halting, stiff, and jerky, you can see that he's still got tremendous muscle tone for a guy in his late sixties.

Barry comes in wearing his khaki shorts, white fruit-of-the-loom T-shirt, navy blue stocking cap, white knee-socks and brown sensible shoes. His 1000-kilo-watt grin practically precedes him through the door.

No matter how big a hurry I'm in, I always take the time to talk to Barry. I can't help it. He's got a lot to say. He's always got a home-improvement project that he's doing or helping someone else do. He's always got something he's looking forward to. He's always got a story, and he's always ready to tell it.

I usually just end up listening and nodding and saying "uh huh" a lot. Barry is one of those people who talks without pauses. He doesn't talk fast…just deliberately…and he works like he talks. There's no wasted breath, no wasted time, space or syllables. No "ums" or "ahs" or "lets-sees" Not even the occasional "ya know?" He doesn't seem to be doing much, but you're amazed at what gets done. You don't think he's talking a lot but you're amazed at how much gets said.

One of the things Barry likes to talk about is miracles. He can go on and on. Barry's life is full of miracles and blessings. He's up to his tiny, stooped little neck in them. He drops them into his conversation as casually and as naturally and as regularly as the little machine that dispenses Hershey's kisses onto the conveyor belt.

He talks about his miracles and the miracles of others. His blessings, and the blessings of others. He sees them everywhere, listens to the stories of them from other people and passes them along. He's like the local Johnny Appelseed of miracles.

And I find that as much as I don't believe in miracles…as much as they tick me off when I hear about them from other people…I still like hearing about them from Barry.

When most people tell me about miracles, it annoys the shit out of me. Other people talk about how they got saved from something that was supposed to happen, but didn't…or how they asked for something and got it…or how they dodged a bullet by asking to avoid it. Or worse…they try to tell me about some stupid statue weeping blood, the Bible that stopped a bullet, or some medieval case of stigmata or some sick stuff like that. It makes me think of that Gabrial Garcia Marquez short story: "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings." About an ugly angel that falls to Earth and gets held captive by local townspeople and forced to perform useless miracles.

But when Barry talks about miracles, he's not talking about how something that should have happened didn't. He's not talking about how the normal function of the world was interrupted for his benefit, or the benefit of an individual. He's not talking about freaky disturbing imagery that can only come from a death-cult mentality.

He talks about our extraordinary world, filled with extraordinary people doing extraordinary things in the face of ordinary troubles, problems and obstacles, and he takes great inspiration from them. He takes the world as it is as a miracle. People doing what people do as a blessing. He lives his miracles and his blessings to the utmost every day, and he shares them selflessly, simply and unabashedly.

And as much as I deny that miracles exist, I find myself unable to argue with him at all, but I am instead compelled to sit and listen...

...and that, in and of itself, is a little miracle.

Huh. Chivalry IS dead.

Teresa Lhotka — Mon, 24 Apr 2006 14:17:37 GMT

Anyone whose known me for any length of time can imagine how little I like being treated like a girl when it comes to Martial Arts. I don't mind being knocked down, hit, whatever.

Well, OK, to be perfectly honest, I'm a little bit of a girl when it comes to take-downs and throws. I don't like that at all...but I don't expect that to stop someone and I certainly think I need to get over that, so bring it on. Anyway, here's a little story about how great my fellow Kung Fu-ers are about not treating a girl like a girl when they're in the ring with her.

I was at Kung Fu on Sunday (yesterday) and we were in sparring class. We were fighting point matches as opposed to the more traditional continuous sparring that we usually do.

I was fighting Joe, who is the biggest guy in the school. He’s got really good control and everything, but he likes to hit in the head, and I have a tendency to be sort of weak with taking head shots. I get punchy pretty quickly.

Anyway, I had already taken a couple of good tags that day, and I’d started with a headache…so when he hit me again, I was little off balance, and started to go over.

I felt Joe grab my arm, and ShiFu yelled “break!” Because he wanted to score Joe’s point for hitting me in the head.

I grinned at Joe, thinking how nice it was that he had kept me from falling on my ass and embarrassing myself.

“Thanks”, I said.

He grinned sheepishly, “It wasn’t sportsman-like. I was grabbing your arm to pull you into another punch.”

Oh. OK then. As long as we’re clear. J

News Flash

Teresa Lhotka — Mon, 13 Mar 2006 17:00:27 GMT

Spent most of my time last night fighting a teenager who had been out for a few months with an injury. He's a LOT taller than me, a LOT faster than me, and he can kick over my head as easily as the average person could kick me in the knee.

He was feeling his oats a little bit, and not in a lot of practice with control. Drilled my under the armpit with a side-kick. Knocked the wind out of me. A couple of head shots that knocked me to the ground, including a reverse hook kick. My neck is sore, and I've got several scrapes on my arms from the velcro on his safety gear.

He busted his dad's face up with a punch, too (minor nosebleed, cut on cheek). His dad's in the sparring class, and is one of the biggest guys I've ever fought.

I don't think it's a permenant thing. He's usually got pretty good control...just out of practice and trying too hard to score after too long out.

Glad I was wearing my face-cage, though.

When I'm over this cold, I'll be in a lot better position to fight this kid. Until then, the chest congestion makes me too much of a non-starter to pull it off.

Guest Blogger! Sue again.

Teresa Lhotka — Thu, 09 Mar 2006 03:48:15 GMT

Introduction: Sue goes to the same Community Center Gym that I do. The one where I made a discovery that cryptozooligists only dream of making...the one with the persistant newbies, and even the odd creepy old man.

The lady referred to in this entry is one who repeatedly told me that having an underactive thyroid had nothing to do with my weight struggles and that until I admitted that I was weak-willed and lazy, nothing would change. She is, as they say, a "piece of work". But then again, aren't we all?

Anyway, without further ado, here is Sue and her story:

My timing was off at the little community gym this morning, and as an unfortunate result I ended up logjammed in the locker room with the old ladies water ballet class. Don't get me wrong; most of them are sweet little ladies. But all the chaos & chatter slows me down when I'm trying to race out of there to get to work.

This morning, Annie Bannanie (no lie, that's what she calls herself) brought in a whole load of purses that she had crocheted by hand. The locker room was really buzzing with oohs & aahhs, and "oh fer darlings!".

Until Mrs. Crabby Crabmeister broke in, "I have one like that in red and purple, only mine's bigger. And it's made by ________ (insert famous bag designer name here) "

Um. yah. Blank stares. Movin' right along. "Ooh my granddaughter will love this one!" Cash changes hands. Crablady interrupts, "I just LOVE the <famous designer brand> bag my husband bought me."

Good share. Another lady generously says, "You know I have one of those <pretentious,overpriced> bags, but it's so heavy that it's just not practical to carry. These are the perfect size, and so unique & pretty."

Crabby Jeans, not quite defeated, repeats, "Mine is just like these, only bigger."

Then Annie notices me smiling at the craziness & says "You can look too, if you're interested." I was already late to work and was about ready to leave, but I set down my gym bag and checked out the goods. Very cute. I made loud proclaimations about the creativity and care that was clearly evident in her work. More loud happy noises. Then I bought a black one with sparkles. Would've cleaned her out of her whole damn inventory if I'd had the cash to do it, just to piss off the now silent Crab woman.

When I grow old I will be like the ever-sunny Annie Bannani who makes purses, each with their own with personality; I will make things with love. And I will not be defeated by the frumpy Crabby Green Jeans of the world who "marry well" to brag of Coach purses and blinding anniversary rings. No amount of bling can make a dull woman shine. The proof is in the purses.

New-Years-Resolutionist gym noobs

Teresa Lhotka — Thu, 12 Jan 2006 17:15:57 GMT

Well, I’m off to the gym.

I have to say, I’m impressed by this years crop of New Year’s Resolutionists…Resolutionaries…Resolutionistas? Oh well…whatever.

The gym has usually emptied out by now.

But not this year. I’m starting to do some ice skating to round out the work-out. While I wait for the noobs to shake out…either they stop coming, or they manage to acclimate themselves to how the gym actually works. I know most of these people aren't going to keep their resolutions more than a few weeks. I had a conversation with another regular as we waited for our machines (something we NEVER have to do any other time of the year). It went something along the lines of :

Me: "It's crowded in here."

Her: "Yep. New Years Resolutions"

Me: "Give it three more weeks, it'll be back to normal"

Her: "Yep"

Are we bad? Is it wrong that we are waiting for our fellow human beings to fail in their quest for self-improvement? Oh yeah...I'm going to the special hell. The one they reserve for hypocrites and sneaky saboteurs. But I have some pointers for those who are actually going to stick it out. Call it my pennance:

1) “You’re only supposed to use a machine for ½ hour. It says so on the sign.” *Rolls eyes*

Warm-ups and cool-downs don’t count.

If they did, there would be no point in working out in the first place. A ten-minute warm up,

ten minute work-out and ten-minute cool down is just silly. Why even bother?

2) If you are worried about smelling bad during or after your work-out, bring a shower bag, and use the showers afterwards. Nobody is going to notice your sweat smell in the middle of your work-out. They’re too busy sweating themselves. DO NOT take a bath in cheap perfume before you come to the gym. Some of us have allergies, and asthma, and we don’t like trying to work out while not being able to breath. The headaches aren’t much fun either. (Hint: If I come home, after getting no closer to you than three or four feet, and my husband can smell your perfume on my hair and clothing…it’s too much. Plus, imagine how you would feel if you found out that the guy on the treadmill next to you was shot by his jealous wife, and it was because of your perfume. Not cool.)

3) Gobs and gobs of gaudy jewelry are uncomfortable, get in the way of working out, and make you look silly. Plus, if one of those diamonds falls off and gets in the tread of the treadmill, don’t come crying to me.

4) It is OK to ask about how to use a particular machine correctly. Experienced gym users are usually happy to help, as are staff members. This keeps the machines working properly, and it is easier to wait patiently for a machine if you can plainly see that the person using it is getting full benefit (or at least some benefit) from the work-out rather than just dinging around.

5) It’s OK to set one TV in the place to your favorite soap opera. It’s NOT OK to set two or three of them to the same channel because you find the others “distracting”. Asking if it’s “OK” first is a nice idea, but it just doesn’t work in Minnesota . I don’t care what you do, because I’ve got my eyes closed, and I’m listening to music…so I’m going to say it’s OK…but then I have to listen to all the other Minnesotans bitch about you after you leave…even though they said it’s “OK”.

Mr. Miagi has passed away???

Teresa Lhotka — Mon, 28 Nov 2005 18:18:11 GMT

I'm sad to hear the Mr. Pat Morita has passed. I loved him in Happy Days, and I have to admit that I was inspired by The Karate Kid.

Even with the dissappointing knowledge that his "secret crane technique" was just a scissors kick and any Kung Fu yellow belt can do it.

But there it is. Mr. Miagi's wisdom, humor, compassion and self-possession will always be an inspiring example to me.

Remembering Bruce Lee

Sun, 27 Nov 2005 15:01:47 GMT

Today would have been Bruce Lee's 65th birthday.

I don't wonder how he would have spent it. I know.

Training. Training Training.

Well...off to the gym.

Abused Wookie Scrotums.

Fri, 04 Nov 2005 22:29:39 GMT

Just got back from the gym. Holy crap are some people obnoxious.

My jammed toe is still stiff and achy…as is the bruised arch…so I have not been running…but I took a walk to the gym with Rocky, and then walked for an hour or so on the treadmill, just to burn some calories, and did some upper-body-abwork type stuff.

As I was walking on the treadmill, jamming to Rob Zombie (Hellbilly Delux), I became aware of a noise. And by “became aware of” I mean that it drowned out the extremely loud heavy metal music that my iRiver was pumping DIRECTLY INTO MY EARS.

The noise sounded like Chewbacca with his nuts in a vice.

I recognized it immediately as our Community Center’s resident weight-lifter version of a lounge lizard. (Insert “ew” sound effect here).

This guy punctuates many of his lifts with a noise that lets everyone know, in no uncertain terms, that he is lifting something very heavy.

It also has the effect of causing every woman within hearing range of it to turn repeatedly in alarm. Now, they may be turning because it is an in-bred survival response that allowed our ancestors to survive enraged yeti attacks and live to spawn us; but the effect this guy must be after is the fact that while we are looking around trying to figure out which way to jump, we can’t help but see his bulging muscles. But maybe I'm not giving him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he's trying to selectivly attract the attention of women with a burning obsession for cryptozoology.

Anyway, I continued my habit-trail workout, and Chewie continued to punctuate Cake (Prolonging the Magic) and The Chrystal Meathod (Legion of Boom) and System of a Down (Toxicity). Some were compatible with the sounds of abused Wookie scrotum, and some were not.

Just to be clear, Cake and Wookie scrotum do NOT go together. (Yes, I went there, aren’t you so glad you have an RSS feed?)

Anyway, this is the same guy who I once heard talking to a lady during a between-sets break. She mentioned that she was in her mid forties, and he exclaimed;

“No kidding, I thought you were MAYBE twenty-five!”

OK, granted, this lady does not look her age. I’m thinking early-to-mid-thirties would have been a very nice and also true compliment. But still, yeti man, really…try to have a little subtlety.

Then, he passed the mark.

“How old do you think I am?”

The woman froze, uncertain if she should return the compliment contractually implied in the set-up, or if she should tell the truth.

“About 32…right?”

“Uh…yeah. About 32.”

Dude looks like he’s fifty if he’s a day.

I think I’m going to have to return to my habit of making it to the gym earlier in the day.

Well, It's not broken.

Mon, 31 Oct 2005 14:02:49 GMT

Last night at sparring, I jammed my left big toe in a sparring match. To celebrate the public resurrection of my obscene mad-libs (which I’d almost forgotten about), I will give you a chance to play with my quote.

“Oh, son of a(n) (adjective), blistering, (noun) of an (adverb) (verb) elephant.”

I went up for a front kick, and Greg blocked it with a double palm block. Nice and solid. No bend in the elbows of his oak-branch like arms.

I don’t know how to say this without sounding like I have the hots for him (which I don’t), but the man is a solid, and very shapely wall of muscle. I have numerous friends who would swoon in his path. I am not one of them. (In both senses of the possible meaning…in that I would not swoon in his path, and in that I am not one of my friends. I can be, in fact, my own worst enemy. I’ve tried to get me killed, and I don’t forget stuff like that.)

So, I’ll just sum up this story with:

1) No ladies, I checked for you , and he’s married w/children. Besides, he’s right at the tippy-top of most of you-alls age range, and way beyond it for the rest of you.

2) The arch of my left foot is very swollen, and I can wiggle my big toe, but not bend it. In a nutshell, running is out, and I’m on severe diet as of today.

3) My trips to the gym will be focusing on upper-body, ab-work, and stretching. Grumble. All the stuff I hate. Life; lemons – sour lemonaid.