Thoughts for Company

Running is widely regarded as the simplest form of exercise.

Want to get fit, quickly and easily?  Just lace up your running shoes and go!  There’s no need for fancy gear or equipment that you don’t already have.  It can be done any time, anywhere, and by anyone (barring some sort of physical impediment).  So what if your gym is closed all week for the Jewish holidays, or even a forklift can’t lift your gym partner off the couch?  It’s just you and the open road.  No more excuses.

But, as I learned the hard way this weekend, there’s a lot more to the art of running than you might expect - and it’s going to require serious commitment and mental faculty to make it work.

You may recall that I’d been taking some lessons in the Alexander Technique with local guru Dr. Gabriella Minnes Brandes.  So when I learned that Gaby was bringing renowned running innovator and Alexander teacher Malcolm Balk from Montreal to deliver a series of workshops, I carved 4 hours out of my busy weekend (ha!) and patiently waited for Malcolm to turn me into a running artist.

About the clinic (from the Art of Running website):

Learn to run efficiently, effectively and enjoyably at one of Malcolm Balk’s ART OF RUNNING workshops!

‘Art of Running’ workshops are based on the proven principles of the Alexander Technique, which encourage good use of the body and greater awareness of the way it functions. Malcolm Balk is a Level 4 athletics coach, certified Pose Method instructor and a world expert on Alexander Technique and running. He shows how to achieve and maintain fitness without injury and overcome self-imposed limitations to successful running.

I have to admit, seeing this video of Malcolm running on ice in regular running shoes didn’t exactly make it a tough sell.  And I figured the $100 fee wasn’t too steep if I considered how I’d be able to avoid all future ice skate rentals…

To be honest, I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with running.  My dad was supposedly a runner in his younger years, though my mom never saw such a need to rush anywhere.  And I’m no scientist, but I guess the powers of genetics managed to create a wholly mediocre hybrid.  I recall participating in grade school track and field clubs, though I certainly can’t claim to have excelled.  I favoured events like the 100 m “dash”, 4x100 m relay (can’t blame me, it’s a team effort!) and long jump - anything under 30 seconds, I suppose.

At that age, you’re encouraged to try basically everything.  There were years when I, the least tall of all girls in my class, was selected for high jump training at a nearby school.  (Maybe I was so bad they brought me just to catch up, or they just wanted to stop me from distracting our legitimate athletes during practices.)

In any case, I enjoyed the social aspects, mainly -  “training” after class at the boys’ school and missing tests for track meets.  As for those “long distance” fitness tests (where the runs should have taken less than 10 minutes) in high school - I’ve effectively erased all memories of when we may or may not have hid behind some bushes and pretended we ran 3 laps instead of 2.

I’ve never considered myself a runner.  Sure, I ran a few Vancouver Sun Runs and posted decent times.  I even ran at lunch hours during some of my university co-op work terms, either with my manager or with a fellow employee who moonlighted as a running coach.  (Did I tell you about the first time we ran together?  I later learned it was a 7.7 km loop around UBC, completed in under 35 minutes - no big feat for real runners, but for a short-legged poser I’ll take it!  Anyway, mid-run and desperately out of breath, I told him I felt like I was going to die, and he ignored me completely and kept on his way.  And it wasn’t exactly like I could just stop by myself, deep in the woods of the UBC forest, without any idea of where I was… I still had to report back to work, after all!)  But I’ve never (intentionally) run more than 10 km at once, and certainly not with the same pretentious vigour of those virtuous marathon trainees around me.

Running simply failed to excite me.  I didn’t seem to experience the same “runner’s high” that I thought I was supposed to feel.  I got bored.  Still, I went through the motions because it’s good for you and, let’s be honest, I’m kind of a sucker for those things.  I was always far happier to be done the run than to have actually been running in the first place.

So when my knee started acting up (and I found myself facing an unrelated physical issue), I took that as my excuse to stop running.  Fortunately, this “ailment” didn’t seem to affect some other, more interesting physical activities.  Funny how that works out perfectly, eh?

When Malcolm first came to deliver the workshops in Vancouver last fall, we had the opportunity to meet, although my knee prevented me from participating.  Malcolm, bless him, called me on my bullshit and said that I could indeed still run, despite my supposed knee problems.  “Alright”, I replied incredulously, “I’ll come to your workshop next time!” - which is a particularly convenient line to use if you’re not sure exactly when “next time” is.

But “next time” turned out to be the past weekend.  I still hadn’t been running for some time, though it wasn’t for a lack of effort (not entirely, anyway.)  I had tried to run on the treadmill the previous week in Vegas, but my knee still hurt, so I was relegated to entertaining the spa’s trail mix dispenser for the remainder of our gym time.

Turns out the running motions I was so sternly attempting to execute were all wrong!  How is it possible that running - something considered so natural, so innate, so instinctual - could be performed so poorly after all these years of evolution?  Apparently, children running barefoot in the yard are fairly good examples of how we old folks should do it, how we used to do it, before we overcomplicated things, learned and then reinforced bad habits.

We spent much of the afternoon session outside in the gorgeous Vancouver sunshine.  And while I can’t explain the concepts nearly as thoroughly (or in such an amusing manner) as Malcolm, I did pick up a few good points.  That “heel-toe” business?  Now why would you want your momentum working against you, forcing you in the opposite direction as you try to propel yourself forward?  Putting on the brakes, literally, is a waste of energy.  Same goes for those long, grandiose strides (lean and leggy runners be damned!) and bopping up and down any more than a few inches.

Of course, Malcolm shared many more juicy tidbits, but I’ll have to leave some of those for him to explain.

(from theartofrunning.com)

Malcolm recorded a video of our running form “before” and “after” his workshop.  The whole group then watched as Malcolm ripped our form to shreds, albeit in his complimentary but constructive sort of way.  And although there were almost a dozen participants at my session, not once did I feel like I didn’t get enough individual attention.  In fact, the group setting gave us the opportunity to learn from others and ample time to work through each of the exercises.  We even did some short hill runs, which - and I swear it’s true - did not even feel like hills.

I managed to squeeze a few extra tips out of Malcolm regarding my bum knee, which shouldn’t be a problem after some basic exercises and adjustments to my running form.

And, perhaps most importantly, I left the workshop surprisingly motivated to take up running again.

If you’re at all interested in running, I’d highly recommend attending Malcolm’s next workshop, likely in Fall 2010.  But until then, you can get a head start by picking up his book, Master The Art of Running: Raising Your Performance with the Alexander Technique.  It’s no substitute for time with Malcolm in the flesh, but it may save you some jabs at your running form when he critiques your videos.

We will inevitably, at multiple points in our lives, reach a fork in the road, where we have one choice to make from two very different paths.  In all likelihood, one option will be well-lit, smoothly paved, and bring you to a destination in good time and with considerable ease; the other will require great sacrifice and tenacity, and offers no guarantee of the ultimate prize.  However, the rewards offered by the latter are far richer.

As someone interested in the topic of health and wellness, I like to keep abreast of the latest and greatest, and consider myself open to all schools of thought.  While I respect and trust Western medicine, I believe it can coexist with alternative therapies.  I’ve even tried drinking potions from a Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) doctor - with the requisite twigs, bark, forest carpet, and God knows what else!

Aren't you lucky you can see but not smell this post?! (from tcmadvisory.com)

My mom knows a couple who recently emigrated from China; the young woman is a TCM doctor, married to a Western medicine doctor (surgeon and head of the department in a Chinese hospital, to be precise - har har!).  They have an adorable baby girl and came to Vancouver to provide a better life for her, since it certainly isn’t going to be a better life for themselves - at least not right away.  We hear this story a lot, because very fortunately for many of us in Canada, our parents/grandparents/etc. made that leap for us too.

After flying back and forth from China after several failed attempts to make a decent living on this side of the Pacific, the well-educated couple have finally made the decision to make it work.

Vancouver is their new home.

It’s challenging enough to build your own medical practice having grown up and studied here, but doing so with a number of obstacles - including limited financial resources, language skills, connections, and more - well, why bother trying?  Immigrants, in health care like many other fields, essentially start from scratch when they come to Canada, despite a shortage of qualified professionals.

The TCM doctor, licensed on her last trip to Vancouver, recently found employment at a local Chinese medicine store, which seemed like the perfect fit - regular hours, steady pay, meaningful work in a relevant field, the opportunity to interact with patients and business contacts in the community - to supplement her own private practice.  It seemed like a great situation.

That is until her boss instructed her to write more prescriptions for her patients, boosting required doses from once a day to twice, for longer periods of time, for the explicit purpose of selling more medication.  Though I wasn’t surprised, it sickened me to hear this.

But my faith was restored when I learned that this doctor put her foot down, refused to exploit her patients, and simply quit that job.  To fight the employer would likely have been fruitless; instead, she did what she thought - indeed, knew - was right, what was in her power to do.

You see, integrity lives on.

A very special person likes to tell me that there is always WAY too much going on in my head - as if I needed a reminder.  While I am, generally speaking, intensely focused, I have my scatterbrain moments.  Sometimes too many genius ideas are born at once - I can’t help it!

I like to cite this as an excuse for my bad habit of not finishing books - though I’ve yet to decide if this is actually a “bad” habit.  On one hand, my parents taught me to finish what I started (I think this applied mainly to meals); on the other, why waste my time with a book that fails to capture and/or retain my attention?

A few years ago, it happened with Orson Scott Card’s critically acclaimed sci-fi novel, Ender’s Game.  Even with the rest of the series at my disposal, I just couldn’t bring myself to finish it.  And it happened again with Christian Lander’s “Stuff White People Like: The Definitive Guide to the Unique Taste of Millions” (as well as a handful of other books along the way).

You may recall my post from August 2008 (!), when I first learned of Lander’s satirical vignettes about white people’s shared appreciation for certain people/places/things/ideas/etc.  At the time, I had every intention of breezing through the easy read and immediately reporting on my whiteness.  The writing was witty, entertaining, and - best of all - light.

Then I lost interest.  I made it all the way up to #69 (Mos Def) before taking an indefinite hiatus.  The material wasn’t offensive, but I could only relate to so many items on the list.  So I picked up a different book, and then another… which brings us to March 2010, over a year and a half since I introduced myself to The White Stuff.

(from StuffWhitePeopleLike.com)

Today, I resurrected the book from the three-foot-tall, barely-started/almost-done/still-to-tackle literary graveyard next to my bed to bring you this: my whiteness score!  Skimming through the rest of the entries (#70-150) ensured that I sufficiently understood each one before I proceeded to fill in the trusty checklist at the back of the book.

I wanted to set up a table with separate columns so that you could easily compare the items that fell in each of the categories - but I couldn’t figure out how to do this, so here are the basic lists (along with some important commentary, of course).   I even have one for N/A items, which were omitted from the calculation!

Note that I’ve considered the opposite of “Like” to be “Not Particularly Like” - and not “Dislike”.  “Not Particularly Like” is a more comprehensive term that encompasses a range of emotional states, including apathy.  “Dislike” seems kind of harsh, no?  (Dear Mr. Zuckerberg: Facebook should consider using “Not Particularly Like” - or “Indifferent” - as a replacement for “Dislike.”)

LIKE:

1. Assists
2. Farmer’s Markets
3. Organic Food
4. Diversity (I’m not biased!)
5. Barack Obama
6. Asian Girls (Again, not biased at all…)
7. Tea
8. Yoga
9. Gifted Children (Biased, obviously! :p)
10. International Travel
11. Architecture
12. The Daily Show with John Stewart/The Colbert Report
13. Renovations
14. Arrested Development (Waiting for the movie!)
15. Apple Products (A loyal Blackberry user, but Macs sure are pretty.)
16. Sushi
17. Plays
18. Whole Foods and Grocery Co-ops (Power Muffins. ‘Nuff said.)
19. Living by the Water
20. Sarah Silverman
21. Dogs
22. Kitchen Gadgets
23. Apologies (I’m Canadian, eh?)
24. Natural Medicine
25. Toyota Prius
26. Recycling
27. Bottles of Water (I drink a lot… of water.)
28. Musical Comedy
29. Multilingual Children
30. Modern Furniture (Especially when it doesn’t look like furniture anymore!)
31. Dinner Parties (Because this involves food.)
32. Scarves
33. Self-Deprecating Humour
34. Free Health Care (Anything with the word “free” in it. Though there is no such thing as “free health care”. We pay for it.)
35. Platonic Friendships
36. Reusable Shopping Bags (As long as they’re clean.)
37. Acoustic Covers
38. The Simpsons (Used to watch at least 3 episodes a day in high school; don’t ask how I was able to graduate.)
39. Following Their Dreams
40. Not Having Cash (I’m paranoid about misplacing things… especially money.)
41. Singer-Songwriters (Biased!)
42. Books (I collect them. Don’t necessarily read them, but collect them.)
43. Hardwood Floors (Better than carpets for sliding around. Rug burn is not so much fun.)
44. Therapy
45. Self-Importance (see Like #9)

NOT PARTICULARLY LIKE:

1. Coffee (Like the smell though. Love the smell, actually.)
2. Religions Their Parents Don’t Belong To
3. Film Festivals
4. Making You Feel Bad for Not Going Outside
5. Wes Anderson Movies
6. Nonprofit Organizations (I have nothing against profit. Plus many are poorly managed.)
7. Having Black Friends
8. Hating Their Parents (I love mine!)
9. Awareness
10. Being an Expert on Your Culture (I’m not an expert on anything.)
11. Writer’s Workshops
12. Having Two Last Names
13. Microbreweries
14. Wine
15. David Sedaris
16. Manhattan - and Now Brooklyn, Too! (Never been.)
17. Marathons (Too lazy.)
18. Not Having a TV
19. 80’s Night
20. Wrigley Field
21. Snowboarding (I can barely ski - and that’s on two independent legs.)
22. Veganism/Vegetarianism
23. Marijuana
24. Brunch (Why condense two perfectly good meals into one… Why?!)
25. Netflix (Damn, Canada.)
26. Indie Music
27. Public Radio
28. Asian Fusion Food (Confusing. You must mean Asian ConFusion. Har har!)
29. The Sunday New York Times
30. Liberal Arts Degrees
31. Vintage
32. Irony
33. Lawyers
34. Documentaries
35. Japan
36. Bicycles (Not if you like your crotch.)
37. Knowing What’s Best for Poor People
38. Expensive Sandwiches (”Expensive” anything is unattractive. Except maybe shoes. And handbags. And jewellery.  And - wait…)
39. Coed Sports (Face it; it’s not a level playing field and never will be, no matter how hard we try to pretend.)
40. Divorce
41. Standing Still at Concerts (What about sitting?)
42. Michel Gondry
43. Mos Def
44. Difficult Breakups
45. Study Abroad
46. Gentrification
47. Oscar Parties
48. The Idea of Soccer (I like The Idea of Fitness and Sport. I don’t like The Idea of Getting My Shins Kicked.)
49. Graduate School
50. Hating Corporations (Quite the opposite, in fact!)
51. Bad Memories of High School (Loved it - sorry! see Like #23)
52. T-shirts
53. The Wire
54. Shorts (Unless it’s really hot out. Otherwise, I’d be way too cold.)
55. Outdoor Performance Clothes
56. Having Gay Friends
57. St. Patrick’s Day
58. San Francisco
59. Music Piracy
60. Rugby
61. New Balance Shoes
62. Beards (Please don’t.)
63. Having Children in Their Late Thirties
64. Red Hair
65. Noam Chomsky
66. Non-Motorized Boating
67. The Boston Red Sox
68. Cleanses
69. Integrity (Defined in the book as “when an artist succeeds to the point where they are paid for their work and are exposed to a larger audience”. No apologies here.)
70. The Criterion Collection
71. Natural Childbirth
72. High School English Teachers (Ha!)
73. Native Wisdom
74. Trying Too Hard (I try just hard enough.)
75. Portland, Oregon
76. Che Guevara
77. The New Yorker
78. Non-American News Sources
79. Subtitles (I’m at the movies to watch, not read.)
80. Premium Juice
81. The ACLU
82. Plaid
83. Dave Chappelle
84. Tibet
85. Nintendo Wii (Except sword fighting.)
86. Conspiracies
87. Avoiding Confrontation (Bring it!)
88. DJs
89. Carbon Offsets
90. Adopting Foreign Children
91. LEED Certification
92. Expensive Strollers
93. Eating Outside (Show me a Chinese restaurant with an outdoor patio.)
94. Music Festivals (Too old for this.)
95. Glasses
96. McSweeney’s
97. Bakeries
98. Modern Art Museums (Tried this in London, but just didn’t get it.)
99. Cheese (Not part of the traditional Asian diet - unless you count Cheez Whiz.)
100. Public Transportation That Is Not a Bus
101. Dive Bars
102. Rock Climbing

NOT APPLICABLE:

1. Being the Only White Person Around
2. Threatening to Move to Canada
3. Pretending to be Canadian When Travelling Abroad

At the end of the book, Lander includes a simple formula for determining one’s whiteness; unfortunately, I had to complicate the formula by accounting for the N/A category (not to mention his error with calculating percentages, but I won’t get into that).

45 / (150 - 3) = 31%

Not far off my estimate of 50/150!  (And in fairness, it’s possible that I’ve become slightly less white since my original post in August 2008 - that’s a long time ago!)

So how white are you?

Has a nice ring to it, eh?

Unless you’ve been living in an igloo somewhere far, far away from Cypress Mountain, you’d have noticed by now how insanely, uncharacteristically, fantastically festive the city of Vancouver has been over the last 13 days of the 2010 Olympic Winter Games.

I dare you to try walking down Robson Street at any hour of the day without feeling like the lone west coast salmon swimming upstream.  Vancouver is known for its seafood, after all.

Some revellers might even describe the international sporting shindig as a zoo.  And perhaps they’d be right, judging by the photograph below.  We snapped this one last Thursday outside the Richmond O Zone after a rockin’ set of classic 90’s hits by Canadian band Our Lady Peace.

Why a zoo?  Because animals don’t wear mom jeans, silly!

Obviously.

So whatever animal came to the party in the wrong outfit quickly learned the error of his ways and found redemption in the form of indecent exposure.  Isn’t it amazing what a little Heineken can do?

Now, watch as I cleverly sidestep the obvious pants-on-the-ground joke…

Back by popular demand…

It’s the latest episode of my oh-so-riveting video blog, you lucky duck!

As you can see, it’s been a little slowgoing at the Thoughts for Company offices lately.

And I know what you’re thinking.  Enough with the excuses.  Get back to work like the rest of us slaves! Like addicts, you scream in your loudest whisper, “Where’s the stuff?!”

But, in a shining example of The Secret at work, I find myself plagued by yet another technical difficulty.

This time, my video camera refuses to upload into iMovie.  Or the other way around.  (I have no idea.)

“Check your camera,” it tells me.

Check it for what?!

“For the problem, you dumb@$$!” it retorts.

Lovely.  I’m talking to my video camera.

And it’s winning.

So, short story long, the videos I filmed last week will have to wait for my episode of VH1’s Behind the Music, where they will be showcased gloriously as never-before-seen footage.

A real ratings boon!

Now don’t get antsy.  You shouldn’t have to wait long - I’m expecting VH1 to call any minute now…

This episode features exactly one minute of bonus footage - how exciting!

I’ve tasted all the flavours, and I think I’ll go with one scoop of Gloating on a slice of Humble Pie - hold the Humble.  Just don’t pinch me… I know I’m dreaming.

If you managed to catch my cover of Matisyahu’s inspiring new single entitled “One Day“, then you’re in good company.

“Matis” himself took the time to view the video and leave an encouraging comment.

…

Yes, you read that correctly.

Would you excuse me for a moment?  Thanks…

(AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! :o  It’s been a good half week and I still haven’t managed to pick my jaw up off the floor!)

Check out the comment:

Missed the cover?  Here it is again:

Of course, I appreciate each and every view of and comment on my YouTube videos, but one from the artist themselves - or their people (close enough for me!) - that takes it to a whole other level.

My initial reactions of “shock”, “disbelief”, and “joy” were closely followed by the inevitable “embarrassment”.  A self-described recovering perfectionist, I’m uncharacteristically lenient with the quality of my YouTube videos.  So when I read Matisyahu’s comment, I had to rewatch the video… and cringe a little (or a lot).

“Damn, should’ve spent more time developing that one…”

Not that I’ve learned my lesson or anything.

Stay tuned for more inadequate covers (squeaky pedal and all), coming to you soon!

SPOILER ALERT!

The final score in this episode: Squeaky Pedal 1, Roshena 0.

(Anyone else seeing a pattern here?)

In preparation for an upcoming gig, here’s my latest cover (not to be confused with Timbaland’s The Way I Are!).