Smooth Yogurt

December 3rd, 2007 at 10:39 · Filed Under At Home, Food, Health · Comment 

Many of the local brands of yogurt are heavily sweetened and I don’t really like them. Certainly, we don’t like to give them to the kids. All these local brands including imported brands of yogurt are really smooth. All the while, I enjoyed smooth yogurt. This becomes the opposite not long before I read in Purely Random about yogurt. LA has told me about stirring yogurt some times ago.

Don’t stir the yogurt! All the yogurts on the shelf are stirred and blended with bits and favors of fruits to enhance the taste. In the process of adding fruity favors and bits, the yogurt has to be stirred. Stirring breaks up the solid texture of the yogurt.

The Sunglo’s all natural yogurt contains all the solid texture. It tastes great when mixed with fruity jam!

The price of the yogurts are getting more expensive now. I am thinking of making our own yogurt. I will write about our experience making our own yogurt later.

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Uechi-Ryu Zankai - My Anamnesis - Part 7

November 30th, 2007 at 23:55 · Filed Under Essay, Karate, Philosophy, Training Journal · 2 Comments 

While my muscles are slowly building up (stronger rather than bigger), I realized I am going through another steep learning curve like I experienced while I was on Okinawa. I believe it is partly due to lack of training while I was busy setting up the doukoukai. The pressure of next visit to Okinawa next August is getting more intense and I really feel so stressful looking at my performance currently. I understand that my body is undergoing another phase of remodeling according to my physical work out and training. Based on my past experience, I cannot rush things but to let it slowly recover. What I can do now is maintenance training and pushing a little more everyday.

Another reason is being the only person in Malaysia to know Uechi-Ryu Zankai training and there is no second person with adequate knowledge and skill level to train with. Although Allison is approaching, her skill level is still quite far away. A maintenance training will be good to maintain my knowledge and skills I learned on Okinawa and not to let them getting worse or diminished.

With the newly installed mirrors, all the kouhai including myself are able to see the reflection while training to correct body posture and movement. Thanks to our sponsor. This evening, I started to have more intense training after the class. I was alone in the doukoukai so I took off my shirt. I could see my muscle working during my kata performance. When doing kata, it is best to remove the shirt so that the muscles can be seen in the reflection and you can judge whether your training is on the right track or not.

I could see my muscle relaxed and contracted on impact. I could see my muscles twitching during movement. I could see I am on the right track of the training.

My training has been so so since last week. But there is a good news. A new member joined my class on November 13. He has got 5 years of training experience and currently Ikkyu (1st kyu) from other karate style. He found out about Uechi-Ryu in a Chinese language martial arts forum. He is studying at MMU and he is staying nearby the doukoukai. He suffers from asthma since childhood and every time the weather changes, his asthma will attack. He has to relied on medication to get rid of the phlegm.

On the first evening, I taught him Sanchin. He is a fast learner but needs to work very hard to achieve the requirements in Uechi-Ryu Zankai. I was told by him that he vomited a large amount of phlegm the next morning after his first lesson. He has never experienced this before without the help of medicines. It is a good sign as his lungs are learning to breathe differently and are able to discard phlegm by themselves. This is a very encouraging and interesting live experience from a real person who has started to learn Uechi-Ryu Zankai karate-do.

Let us look forward to see if his training will prevent him from the asthma attack after 3 months or so. I wish him a good start in Uechi-Ryu Zankai and best of health.

So, encouraging isn’t it? This has also provided me some motivation and to wake up from the steep learning curve. I could feel my thrusts had become more powerful during my training tonight.

As I mentioned in previous part, the training at Uechi-Ryu Zankai is very dull and monotonous. It will affect one’s motivation if he/she has got not enough new excitement or motivation. I hope there will be more encouraging and interesting live experience along the way to keep us/me motivated. If not, enough proper rest will be necessary to let our body and mind to recuperate to the state ready for more severe training.

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