As you might now be aware a Nia includes elements from three disciplines from three different arts. From the martial arts, we borrow from Tae Kwon Do. Not just “moves” from Tae Kwon Do but also some of the other elements of it. With its kicks, punches, blocks, and stances it helps allow Nia to be a great leg workout and provide a stable base for some of our other moves.  Tae Kwon Do can also contribute to one’s confidence by providing exercises that allow one to become strong and stable.  These are the things Nia gains from Tae Kwon Do.

Nia calls Tae Kwon Do the Dance of Precision.*  So when delivering a punch, block, kick, etc. with the energy of Tae Kwon Do, it is done with precision and intent.  However, Nia likes to play so at times even though we might not be executing a punch or a kick, but we might choose to energize our movement with “Tae Kwon Do” like energy, and be forceful and aggressive even adding sound to our movement.  

Adding the energy of one form to the moves of another is one of the things that make Nia fun and keeps is challenging.  It takes different muscles to skip with force and authority than to skip like a child without a care in the world.  That is an example of how Nia incorporates different moves with different energies.

In Nia we don’t “DO” Tae Kwon Do, things have been gleaned from it and brought into Nia and mixed in with aspects of  Tai Chi, Aikido, Jazz Dance, Modern Dance, Duncan Dance, Yoga, the Alexander Technique and the teachings from Feldenkrais, and the combination from each form is Nia.  A lot of Nia routines include moves and concepts from each discipline, but not always.  In an effort to keep each workout fresh, fun, and joyful teachers often mix things up. 

If you are near San Jose, come to one of my Nia classes.  If not, I hope that you will find a Nia class near you and give Nia try.  

*Both the Nia Technique Book and The Nia Technique – White Belt Manual state this. Both books are by Debbie Rosas and Carlos Rosas. **V3 of The Nia Technique – White Belt Manual

Yesterday was a wonderful Thanksgiving. I had both of my daughters home, and other friends and family. The food prep felt almost effortless, and everything was delicious. I gave some friends a few WW recipes and was amazed and pleased at how yummy and undietish it tasted. We had a creamed spinach that was absolutely decadent: and only one point!

I woke up early and went to a Turkey Trot organized by some other local WW leaders.  Around 60 people showed up and we took a lovely trot down the shoreline. The weather was chilly but sunny and really perfect. I think the course was around 5k. I walked out, enjoying a nice chat with one of the members from my Mon night meeting. When we got to the turnaraound point, I was feeling nicely warmed up and was really in the mood to try to run. I told myself, I’ll go until it doesn’t feel good. Well it felt GREAT the whole time! My ankle did not hurt or feel the least bit unstable. (I was wearing my brace) This made me very happy and something good to feel thankful for (among many).

The rest of the day was wonderful. Great food, laughing and a hilarious game of Apples to Apples.

This morning, though, I woke up and had a very sore throat. Wah. I haven’t been sick in so so so long. But here it is. I’ve had a regular flu shot but not an H1N1. I am hoping for the best. I hope I am well for my WW meeting on Sunday morning –this is not a good time to try and find a sub!

I crept out to a Nia class at 9am and took it easy- I felt like I needed to stretch and move, but when I came back that was definitely the big energy expenditure of the day.

Can you believe we had NO – I mean NO turkey leftover? 15 lbs for 15 people, and it just vanished. This made me feel bereft. All that stuffing (pans and pans!) and gravy and potatoes and EVERYthing — but NO TURKEY. So I stopped at the grocery and bought a 5 lb turkey breast and just roasted it. YUM. (why don’t I do this more often? It’s so easy! and yummy!) It was even better than the big turkey yesterday.

Is it starve a cold, feed a fever? Whatever it is, I am in eating mode.  YUM TURKEY.

And then… nap. Ahhhhhhh.

PS. Anybody have any ideas for leftover shrimp? We had shrimp cocktail as an app yesterday, and there’s about a pound leftover. I thought… shrimp salad, for sandwiches? Any other ideas?

Dragon slayer via Mugley

I

I’ve got issues with bureaucracies. In the past, a few years ago, it actually made me quite angry. I’m not like that anymore, but it just gets frustrating. Today, the plan was simple. Pick up my health check, get some documents from NTNU and go to the NIA office. This was what I was told to do. Unfortunately, things didn’t work out as planned.

When I arrived at the hospital, I was informed that I didn’t have the measles antigen, so I would need to be vaccinated. $20 and half an hour later, it was done. The woman from whom I had to pick up the health check realized that a part of my health check wasn’t done. She wanted me to come back next week. I saw no deal. I came to the hospital on the 17th to get it done. I was only here for a pick up. Now she wanted me to wait even longer?

I argued and made a big foreigner mess. I didn’t shout, but I made it clear that it was her fault (or the hospital’s) and that she needed to resolve this. 20 minutes later, some doctor performed a cursory exam of my skin for Hansen’s disease and I was done.

I went to NTNU and met Ying Ying. She was nice and helped me out with some docs. It took 15 minutes. I left for the NIA office. I arrived quickly enough, with about 1 hour to spare until closing, but I learned that it was here that I had to apply for an ARC, not get the resident visa. I had to go to BOCA¹ to get the resident visa. It was too late. They renewed my Visitor’s visa and took some of my paperwork, which means that I’ll have to get another printout from NTNU on Monday. Then off to BOCA and back to the NIA office. I was told that it might take a few days to get the resident visa, a week or two. I just want to be done with it.

II

I’ve been back in Taiwan for about 5 months and I only did one Visa run back in July because I arrived with a landing visa, not a visitor’s visa. Getting a visitor’s visa in Canada is quite expensive if you don’t have a car. I was living in Quebec. The TECO office is in Ottawa, 5 hours away.

The last time I did this, I spent over $400. This included travel and the visa itself. Back in May, I also spent a hellish night/day in Ottawa. This was because you need to arrive before 10AM at the TECO office in order to get your visa the same day. There are no overnight buses or really early morning buses from Quebec to Ottawa. The latest leaves at 8PM and arrives in Ottawa at around 1AM.

Siberian huspy pups, red/white color combo

III

I’ve been a bit sad about the Siberian husky that I found in the park yesterday. He would have been a great dog to have, but it would have been too much. I hope that he found his master. I’ll get a Taiwanese friend to ask Temple Man what happened with him. Siberian huskies are very beautiful. This one had are brownish/reddish white fur and they tend to have clear blue eyes. This one was docile and very friendly.

The bad thing about adopting an unfixed adult dog is that you didn’t raise him, nor did you train him. Admittedly, since he was pretty friendly, this wouldn’t have been hard, though I didn’t like how he kept marking everything. Even in our courtyard and my patio, he just kept at it. It was quite annoying.

A working dog like that needs hours of exercise every day. Spike is very laid back. In total, he does get somewhere between 1-2 hours a day outside. With a that husky, I would have to take him along while running or biking (daily) in order to work him out. Technically, that’s not a bad thing. I’d probably have taken him out while running, though he’d have to learn to run behind him. From what I’ve seen with Chad’s dog Ash, that isn’t easy since huskies like to run fast out front.

Once we get back to North America, I’ll get myself a medium-sized dog. It will either be a Siberian husky or a border collie. Naturally, we still plan on being French bulldog fanciers. Frenchies are great companion dogs.

IV

So I think that I’m nearing the end of Dragon Age, even though it says that I have only completed 25% of the game. I think I’ll try to complete the side quests before I complete the main quest. It sounds like once you start the Landsmeet portion of the game, it sets the wheels in motion for the final part of the game. I completed the DLCs The Stone Prisoner and Warden’s Keep. The first one adds Shale, a golem, to your companion roster. The second one gives you access to a castle as a base of operations. There is a chest there where you can store all of your gear, cheap merchants, and you gain two new abilities. The mage abilities are called Power of Blood and are very close to blood magic, but so effective. Dark Sustenance sacrifices health for mana and Blood Grasp sends some of the caster’s tainted blood onto targets. Works even better on darkspawns.

* * * * *

[¹]: Bureau of Consular Affairs of Taiwan

I remember getting a call from Rahul Jethi, a banker in Sydney, and a good friend and whose brother is in Indian army, early in the morning of 27th Nov 2008 [Sydney time which is 5.5 hours ahead of Indian time], about the terrorist attack in Mumbai. I switched the TV on and saw the reporting of the attack. It made me sad and angry at the same time. As it became clearer that LET was involved, I became more angry. I was helpless as I could not do much to help the people in Mumbai.

I watched the attack unfold and kept myself updated through the days. I kept reading the statements from leaders from all over the world. Thankfully, Kasab [the lone terrorist survivor] was arrested. I was angry that pakistan kept denying the nationalities of the terrorists even when the evidence was overwhelming. That has become the standard operating procedure for Pakistan. Shameful and outrageous!!

By now, we have details of Kasab’s interrogation/trial, and have seen the reports in various channels including ABC Australia, CNN and BBC.  Only recently, Farid Zakaria covered it in CNN GPS programme. A great deal is known by now. It is all clear that 10 terrorists came from Pakistan and LET was the sponsoring terrorist organisation. These terrorists were trained in Pakistan. The whole world is asking Pakistan to bring the perpetrators [supporters/sponsors] of the Mumbai terrorist attack to justice.

Lot of things have changed since 26th Nov, 2008. I hope, things would keep moving in the right direction to prevent further terrorist attacks in India. The whole world has to work against the menace of terrorism. Either Pakistan changes its ways itself or the world forces it to change. There is no alternative option.

So many people lost their lives for no reason. This has to end.

As I see it, following come to my mind;

1. India will continue to have attacks of this nature because some elements in Pakistan are hostile to India and have an agenda to harm India. Some inside ISI and Pakistan army are madly fundamentalists and are pathologically inimical towards India.

2. India is a vast country with long borders with Pakistan and Bangladesh, from where these terrorists do cross into India and will keep crossing in future too. We have to do every thing to reduce if not prevent it. India must identify illegal Bangladeshi stayers in India and expel them without much delay. Throw them in the ocean if we have to but they can’t be allowed to stay in India. No vote bank politics please!

3. The whole world has to force Pakistan to dismantle the terrorist organisations and their infrastructure to prevent attacks from Pakistan. USA and Europe are crucial in this. India must keep working with the world powers to force Pakistan to change its ways. India needs to have the right people in the ministry of external affairs to be able to have a desired effect in this matter. Shashi Tharoor is a competent minister with the contacts and experience in these matters and may be, he should be made the cabinet minister.

4. India has to improve the intelligence gathering capability significantly.

5. India has to improve the command structure to face such attacks effectively and efficiently. There was a significant delay in getting NSG commandos to Mumbai during the attack. They had to wait for hours before a plane could be arranged to fly them to Mumbai. That is outrageous. India needs to have a proactive thinking rather than a reactive one. Even the chief minister Mr Deshmukh took more than 4 hours to return to Mumbai.

6. Indian media must be forced to follow certain rules during such attacks. Media was showing the live coverage of the attack which was used by the terrorists’ minders/handlers in Pakistan to guide the terrorists. It was not helpful. I dare say, it led to many more deaths than it would have been otherwise. Indian media needs to be told that certain things are not on. Their TRP battle is not above human lives and national interests.

7.1. India has to become ruthless in investigating and prosecuting those who are involved in terrorism and those who are supporting such elements. There should be a speedy trial. Once convicted, these terrorists should be punished severely without any delay. It is not a good idea to keep convicted criminals like Afzal Guru to stay in the jail because his mercy petition is pending with the president for this unusually long period.  Why is his mercy petition pending with Indian president for years? This is outrageous! Those dreaded terrorists who were released during the Indian Airlines plane hijack, were also in the Indian prison for years without a trial. India has done a good job by establishing a national investigation agency [NIA]. NIA officials should be given freedom to work independently without any political pressure.

7.2. India must not allow any segment of its society to feel alienated. All opportunities/benefits must be truly available to every Indian irrespective of their region, religion or caste. Nation building must be taken up with redoubled vigour.

8.1. India must have a campaign to do public education to make people aware re how to keep the eyes/ears open to anything unusual and what to do when a terrorist attack is happening. We saw a big crowd of onlookers during NSG [National Security Guards] counter-attack which is not smart. Where was the crowd control?

8.2. The civil police must be trained properly. It is not a good idea for top police officials to be in one single car which was not bullet proof. This was the case even when they had access to the bullet proof vehicles. This led to costly loss of lives of the leaders of police force. We hear that Mr Karkare and others did not receive immediate help after being wounded. One wonders whether some of these great policemen would not have died if we had an efficient medical, police and rescue systems.

8.3. India and Indian public needs to do every thing to look after the near/dear ones/dependents of the brave security men/women who give their lives to protect us and the country. Gov authorities need to do many things to let people know that India has utmost respects and gratitude for such brave men/women.

9. Indian leaders were issuing the statements after statements but not much came out of that. We should learn to show results rather than just talks.

10.1. India needs to improve its military capabilities in such a way that Pakistan or its supporters do not dare look towards India. We need to revamp the capabilities of our air force, navy and artillery.

10.2.While working on the military capabilities, India needs to work with redoubled vigour to settle the outstanding issues with its neighbours.

I am keen to hear from you with your views on these matters.

Yadu Singh/Sydney/27-11-09

Niacin is another name for vitamin B3.

Day 68 – More Lily: Today has been a hella busy day at work, dealing with a story about a shop and balloons being a safety risk.  Google it and you’ll find out more I’m sure.  So, it was nice to come home and finish editing my pics from last night – here’s one of my favourites.

The last months of the year provide us with many opportunities to connect with community, family and friends in the spirit of love and gratitude. With this comes an added level of stress and pressure to our demanding schedules. It is vital to stay balanced and to care for the self during these times. The extended evenings equip us with favorable circumstances to direct our attention inward and to nurture ourselves. Tamara Albright, Nia Instructor and Kibwe Parker, Reflexologist are pleased to offer you two beautiful tools for wellness for free on December 3rd at the The Self Discovery Center, 1315 South Ponce de Leon Ave NE, Atlanta GA 30306.

Nia with Tamara – Move Your Body and Lift Your Spirits
7:30p- 8:30p
Nia (nee-ah) is a unique blend of dance and martial arts set intuitively to exceptional music. This joyful, class is a creative arch flow -  warming the body from within, engaging your mind, body and spirit to a peak, then solidifying the experience with healing movements and symbolic gestures. The loose structure engages the mind while leaving lots of room for personal expression through personal style, levels of intensity and vocalizations. Nia is safe and adaptable for all ages and abilities. You’ll finish feeling, relaxed yet rejuvenated! Best of all, it’s FUN!

Benefits include:

• Increase the pleasure of living in your body
• Facilitate weight loss and proper weight maintenance
• Calm the mind, and alleviate depression, anxiety, and stress
• Strengthen muscles, improve muscle tone, and increase muscle definition
• Improve circulation, concentration and cognitive function
• Improve heart & lung function
• Build reservoirs of chi energy
• Enhance sensory awareness
• Heighten sexual function
• Strengthen immunity

Wear what feels good on your body and allows you to move freely. Bring water to maintain proper hydration.  Nia with Tamara – Move Your Body and LiftYour Spirits! For more information, email: infoatalbright-creative.com . To find local Nia classes, visit http://www.albright-creative.com/movement-nia.html

Reflexology by Kibwe – Within your feet are a map to your body
5:00p- 9:00p
Reflexology is a holistic healing science that helps to heal the body mind spirit by utilizing acupressure to stimulate nerve endings within the feet. Reflexology’s benefits include relief with headaches, back pain, cramps, digestive problems arthritis and other inflammatory symptoms as well as stress reduction. It helps to increase vitality, energy, and the natural healing properties that our bodies already possess.  Kibwe Parker has been studying reflexology for eight years. His additional interests include aromatherapy, music and art. To schedule a full appointment, or for more info, email: quinnlanvos1@live.com .

Day 67 – Smile, it’s Lily: Tonight I photographed Lily Allen’s show at the NIA for The Daily Dust.  She was surprisingly good and put on a thoroughly enjoyable show.  Lighting was good, got some top shots so I am happy!

It’s politics as usual in New Delhi, and no one seems to care

A year has gone by after the carnage in Mumbai that left over 190 people dead and hundreds injured.  In the immediate aftermath of 26/11, articles were written about the gaping holes in India’s internal security preparedness.

Recommendations put forth to the Indian government are all in public domain –  a tougher anti-terrorism law, a separate ministry for internal security, police reform, increasing NSG headcount and footprint, and enhancing India’s covert ops capability.  The Filter Coffee also presented recommendations in the wake of the 26/11 attacks.

Of the recommendations made, Manmohan Singh’s government chose to make the establishment of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) central to its response to the holes in India’s internal security preparedness.  To be sure, the establishment of the NIA was an important move, because it addressed Centre-State jurisdiction issues that hitherto plagued the CBI.

However, the NIA’s mandate notwithstanding, nothing in public domain indicates any significant activity in the NIA, until 11 months and two weeks after November 26, 2008, when the NIA belatedly sprung into action, based on inputs from the FBI on David Headley and Tahawwur Rana.

In addition, by virtue of design, the NIA mostly addresses post-incident investigation and forensics.  Manmohan Singh’s government articulated little by way of detective and preventive enhancements to India’s internal security preparedness.

The bigger picture that needs to be examined on the first anniversary of 26/11 isn’t necessarily about specific structural and organizational changes, but about the government’s willingness (confidence?) to make public aberrations in its response to the terror attacks and how these can be addressed.

In the year following the World Trade Center attacks in the US, the Bush Administration constituted the 9/11 Commission to examine aspects of US’s response to the attacks as they unfolded, and make recommendations on how the US should proceed, going forward.  The US Department of Homeland Security was born out of these recommendations.

India deserved its 26/11 commission with a limitless mandate to examine our response to the attacks in Mumbai. Key aspects of the events of 26/11 require independent review.

These include incident-specific issues relating to governance and leadership such as  (a) How long it took to notify key stakeholders, such as the Prime Minister, NSA, intelligence services and ministers of Home Affairs and Defense, (b) The time it took for the relevant stakeholders to coordinate and assess the situation, (c) How long it took to authorize deployment of anti-terror units to the scene, and (d) Crisis management — who was coordinating what aspect of India’s responses.

The second aspect of the commission’s review should have entailed structural and organizational changes and enhancements, including those previously discussed.  Sadly, this government does not have the gumption to constitute such a comprehensive review of its responses to the 26/11 attacks.  This isn’t an assailment of the the UPA administration, it is an indictment of India’s petty political environment.

There are critical aspects of the attack that require further analysis — aspects that India is still uncovering, including the roles of Headley and Rana — and questions that no one seems to be able to answer, such as how a bunch of semi-literate people alien to Mumbai, were able to negotiate their way through the city’s conspicuous and inconspicuous landmarks, without local assistance.

This cannot be accomplished by adhocism or through token responses, such as establishing the NIA and deploying the NSG in some cities. One would have thought that the time was ripe for such a bold response, faced as the UPA is, with an ineffectual, embattled Opposition. Sadly, barring a few cosmetic rearrangements, not much has changed in India, and no one, least of all Mumbaikars seem to care.

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Day 66 – Birmingham Rocks: It’s weird, up until last Friday I’d never photographed a show at the NIA, and yet, just like a bus, I’ll be back there again tomorrow to shoot Lily Allen.  Good times.  Oh, if you hadn’t guessed already, I’ve done nothing today!

Pesanan mbak Nia Karlina, untuk baby shower (baby boy) temennya. Cerita serunya bisa dilihat di sini yaa.

NB. Pemesanan cupcakes dengan desain seperti di bawah, MINIMAL satu minggu sebelum hari H. Terima kasih atas perhatiannya.

I so wish I had had a camera to capture the moment… I just came home from an excellent brunch at Pamelo, a small cozy place in Noe Valley. Accompanied by Fran and Zack.

Fran I know through four different connections. She showed up at my a cappella groups concert because she knew one of the singing group members, she came with a colleague of mine and recognized me from the Nia class. Most recently I met her when she was performing in a singing workshop that I also did a couple of years ago. The world is very small. Apropos spontaneity and singing – without getting to far out from the story line – the singing workshop we both did was led by jazz, R&B and soul singer Jesse Foster. The concept is very cool – you work with Jesse as a vocal coach in individual sessions and four Sunday afternoons in a row you perform with his band at  Rasselas Jazzclub on Fillmore in the jazz district together with other vocal students of his. Prepared in the sense that you have chosen and worked on the songs to sing, spontaneous in the sense that there is no practice with the band ahead of time. You just do it. And it is fun! So talented musicians, wonderful people, supportive audience. Safe. I can warmly recommend it!  (Check out the links if you are interested to step out of the shower singing stage and do the same!) Soon you will see Fran on the music scene in San Francisco.

Zack is a multi doer. I participated in one of his first Nia classes at Dance Mission when I was just about to move to San Francisco. The theme was “Transition” – how appropriate. Today he had another excellent class – the fact that he is also an actor and brings in that spontaneous playfulness in the room makes it a lot of fun. And so to the story… towards the end of the brunch today he suddenly reaches for the spoon in my cafe latte, takes his water glass, clinks the glass while standing up. The murmur in the room stops and he has full attention: “I just want to toast for spontaneity!” he says with a steady voice and a big smile and raises the glass. Facing the wall, I’m turning around and every face in the room cracks up to a big smile and a common toast, laughter and joy.  There are many ways you can show up in life. Such a small gesture – such a great impact.

The sense of joy created in the room reminded me of the sense of joy created by the movie Validation (below). Take a moment to watch it – get inspiration and share the beauty! Who can you make smile today?

Zack and Fran, you are awesome!
Cheers,

Johanna

As a Nia teacher there are prescribed steps we are to take to learn a routine. It is easy to skip steps in the interest of time. We all learn in different ways and as humans we tend to follow the easiest path. No matter what we are doing our tendency is to do it the easiest way possible. So some of the steps might be skipped.

I recently attended a FAB*, it was short workshop that covered some of those steps. Being in a workshop with everyone focusing on the same thing made it a lot easier to learn. At home, when I set about working on learning a routine, I get very distracted by things. So being in a room where there was no cat, no computer, no dirty dishes, no laundry, and no cleaning that needed to be done was awesome. It really enabled me to focus.

The routine that we were working on is called Aya (one of Carlos AyaRosas, FKA Carlos Rosas). It is very Latin based–it has both Latin music and Latin moves allowing for a lot of hip swaying and sexy moves. One of the songs that we reviewed was not in English and someone translated it for us. I have to say that sometimes when you know the words of the song it can make the movements different.

This workshop was a shortened version of another workshop that was recently held in Concord. That was a two day workshop where they reviewed the entire routine. The one I attended in Nevada City was only four hours. We reviewed two songs. I will be honest and tell you that I could not do the songs without seeing them again. But I am confident that once I purchase the routine and set out to learn it, these two songs will be a snap.

I also returned to San Jose with a renewed sense of knowledge. I might KNOW something, but it always helps to review and to look at it from different angles. I enjoy hearing how information filters into people differently.

Nia is so wonderful because it is so many things. It is a workout, it is a practice, it is exercise, it is something that brings people together, it can be the basis of a workshop, it is just fabulous.

*FAB = For all belts. Nia White Belts, Blue Belts, Brown Belts, and Black Belts.

NOTE: The pictures are actually from the little birthday acknowlegement we had for the owner of the studio.