Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Aikido

Aikido is a fully defensive Japanese martial art. It doesn't have an attack form. We do not kick, punch, or in any other manner, attempt to hurt our opponent. All the waza (techniques) are done using the attacker's force. The greater force the attacker have against us, the greater the force would go back to him/her.

Aikido doesn't only have techniques in standing position, but also in sitting position. When I see a suwari waza (techniques in sitting position), I often imagine Japan in samurai and shogunate time. People might be attacked when they were sitting--maybe in their homes, or in a teahouse, or in a bath house...

Aikido uses the attacker's force by sending the force back and sending the attacker off balance. When the attacker falls down we pin him down but we don't kick, punch or hit him.

A writing by Charlie Badenhop below explains about the meaning of aikido.

The meaning of Aikido:

合 "Ai" To gather or harmonize.

気 "Ki" Universal life force/energy.

This is the energy that we share with nature and all living beings.

道 "Do" An artful path of discovery.



"Aikido" An artful path of discovering how to gather and harmonize the energy of the universe.

When we sense and move with the energy that is manifesting throughout the universe we find that we have a greater ability to live a life that is healthy and fulfilling.

"Ki"

In Aikido we believe that all human beings utilize and share a common energy source (ki) that helps to run and maintain our environment as well as our individual human systems. We believe that since we all share a common energy source, that in some important way we are all truly members of the same family, and truly sharing our lives with all of nature. We do not have an attack form in Aikido, because attacking an opponent would be like attacking a family member that you love. Attacking an opponent would also be like attempting to damage the flow of Universal energy in the world, and such acts are likely to have many far reaching consequences.

In the Japanese language words that use the concept of "ki" are common.

"Gen-ki" means "root energy" or one's "personal health".

"Ten-ki" relates to "heavenly energy" or "the weather".

"Hon-ki" relates to "original energy" or "the truth".

"Yuu-ki" relates to "brave energy" or "courage".

"Ki o tsukete" means "attach your energy to what you are doing, or "be careful".

The origin of ki?

Where does ki originate from? In Aikido the answer is poetic in nature rather than scientific. It is suggested that ki was "born" at the same instant as the rest of the universe, and that we are all born from the ki of the universe. Ki is considered to be an energy that we all have equal access to. It is an energy that courses through our system if we do not restrict it. In Aikido we believe that excess tension physically and emotionally, fear, hate, greed, and anger, all cut us off from the universal source of ki. Our daily practice involves working at maintaining a balanced state physically and emotionally, and indeed, practicing ways to cultivate physical and emotional balance is much of what the study of Aikido is about. In Aikido physical and emotional balance are meant to be two sides of the very same coin. Physical balance helps to engender emotional balance and health, and vice versa as well. Often in my professional work with individuals I find myself first addressing the clients' physical balance when they come wanting to resolve emotional issues, and I do the reverse as well. I often first address or explore how emotional imbalance might lead to the physical difficulties they are experiencing.

...

Means when we have physical issues, we should address our emotional balance, vice versa?

Source: The Ki of Aikido - An Oriental Concept of "Energy" "Self" and "Mind"

* * *

Buat semua teman2 di dojo PTIK yang sempat saya kenal:

Pur sensei, Dedi sensei, mas Adi, mas Andi, Uswan, Isya, Cuncun, Artul, Tari, mas Pur,... juga yang cuma ketemu sebentar kayak mas Yarring (mungkin orangnya udh lupa sama saya).

Oya, tidak melupakan Hasnul sensei :-) kalo yg ini sih masih ketemu sekali2...

Deki - temen sejak kecil, temen setia termasuk selama latian aikido bareng... selalu menjemput mengantar diriku (karena gw bukan jelangkung yang tak dijemput tak diantar)

Pur sensei yang selalu memberi semangat agar rajin latihan...

Uswan yang selalu meng-encourage gw untuk cari "celah" yang pas waktu zagikokyuho... dan menggemari badge Powerpuff Girls gw..

Isya yang janji nraktir tapi tak pernah dipenuhi ;-p

BTW, merid ga ngundang2...!

Yah pokoknya semua temen2, sensei sempai,... apa kabar semuanya? Kalau ada yang baca tulisan ini, kontak dong...





powered by performancing firefox

Thursday, November 23, 2006

Quality of Life, and Happiness

How do you measure your happiness? To me it's about enjoying the process. Not preoccupied by reaching the goal and forgetting to enjoy our life with all the people around us.



I remember a conversation with an old friend, which again he stated on our phone conversation last night. He moved from the bustling Jakarta to a smaller town, Banjarmasin. His job assignment in Banjarmasin was supposed to be for 2 years but due to many factors, it was extended and he's been living there for more than 2 years now.



The last time we finally met again, he told me that now he intended to stay there, no intention to go back living in Jakarta. He was once offered a better career back in the company's headquarter in Jakarta, but he rejected it. He told me, he got something very invaluable in his life now that he wouldn't be able to have if he worked and lived in Jakarta--a good quality of life.



What does he mean? Let me retold his "story". Since he now lives in a small city, it takes only a few minutes to go to work. No traffic jams. So he doesn't have to leave home very early like Jakarta citizens do. That results an "extra" time he has with his family in the morning. He can bathe his son and play with him in the morning before leaving for work. "That kind of chance would be very expensive if I lived and worked in Jakarta," he said. I agreed.



Unlike the "slaves" in Jakarta who spend long hours working overtime, my friend goes home from work in reasonable hours. So again he has time to be with his family. He is happy with his life.



Jakarta conditions us to have less and less time for our family, social, and personal lives. Capitalism makes companies make people work almost like slaves, with too much work load, too close deadlines. As if those aren't enough, the horrible traffic drained the rest of the remaining energy that when people get home they have too little time and energy for their family and for their own selves.



Listening to my friend telling how his life was now with glowing expression, made me think. I remember my other friend who's been working VERY hard for several years. For her, going home very late at night is normal. And she only has FIVE days of vacation in a year! That's slavery. But since she was still single, she had chosen to stay with the firm. The pay is big and she needs it to support her family. She's smart, determined, and a real hardworker. But now she has a child she has to leave for 12 or more hours a day. Did she miss the moments as her child grows? I just hope you are always happy Nu :-)



I once read someone told us to stop and look around for a while. Don't run through your life otherwise you will miss many things. It's like what Pak Zuki posted on his blog, from an article written by Arvan Pradiansyah on Republika newspaper:



Di kantor upaya pencapaian target sering membuat saya kehilangan waktu untuk bersosialisasi dan menjalin hubungan dengan para kolega.



Di rumah target-target ini sering membuat kita menomorduakan hubungan yang akrab dengan anggota keluarga. Kita kehilangan saat-saat berharga dengan pasangan dan anak-anak.



Tujuan kita hidup adalah mencari kebahagiaan. Tapi banyak orang yang
mengatakan begini, ''Saya baru bahagia kalau berhasil mencapai
target.''

Free translation:



At work, efforts to reach a target often makes me lose time to socialize and make relations with the colleagues.



At home these targets often makes us put the intimate relationship with family members in second place. We lose precious moments with our spouse and children.



Our life objective is to find happiness. But many people say, "I will be happy if I succeed reaching my target."




Anda takkan pernah bahagia karena begitu target tahun ini tercapai,
target tahun depan sudah siap mengejar Anda, bahkan dalam jumlah yang
jauh lebih besar. Kalau saja target tersebut bisa berbicara, inilah
yang akan ia katakan kepada Anda ''Kejarlah Daku, Kau Kukejar!''

Freely translated:

You will never be happy because when this year's target is reached, next year's target is ready to keep you running.



It reminds me of a book I read, entitled "Be Happy." The important thing I learn from the book is this sentence: "If you want to be happy, be happy NOW." There is a caricature: a gravesstone written: Here buried a person who will be happy tomorrow.



Again, to me being happy means enjoying the process. So, don't give so many conditions for yourself to be happy. Be happy RIGHT NOW! :)



Link





powered by performancing firefox

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Japanese Encoding Support for Non-Japanese Mobiles



For exchanging emails with my friends and family in Japan I use my built-in email client on my mobile phone, since my Japan-based friends use their mobile phone (push) email address. Here in Indonesia as far as I know we haven't had such a service from our network providers here (but it must be coming soon for new mobile phones are ready with push emailfeature).

Apparently there are issues arise:

  1. I cannot read emails sent from Japanese mobile phones due to the "unknown format". It has to be something to do with the character encoding.

  2. Although many Japanese mobile phones can read my email messages, some phones cannot read them (invalid message). It must be, again, the character encoding issue.

Looking for tools for Japanese character support for Indonesian mobile messaging is difficult. I asked the phone maker and they cannot accommodate it. My phone only supports English/Western and Chinese inputs. It doesn't help. I then found a mobile email client software called iCJKMail, which supports Chinese, Japanese, and Korean character encoding. It is made generic to support many mobile phone brands. And it works well on my phone. It also supports multiple identities and SSL, which my phone's built-in email client software doesn't (well it does but it won't allow me to access Gmail)!

iCJKMail uses registration key and requires you to pay for subscription. I subscribed to the Japanese version and pay less than US$5 every month.

Although so far it can only read those encodings (no inputs yet), I found it very useful. Now I can read emails my family and friends send from their Japanese mobile phones, and the usually incompatible Japanese phones can recognize emails I sent using iCJKMail. I can also download picture attachments, although cannot attach any yet. With iCJKMail now emailing them is almost as live as SMS, and it's pretty satisfying considering the character encoding and wireless technology differences between Indonesia and Japan. Besides, since I subscribed to iCJKMail, they've been doing updates, bug fixes, and adding new features.

There is another workaround for sending an email to a Japanese phone so it is recognized by the incompatible phones. I must insert special characters that are available for the Chinese input on my phone. I usually use them to create at least one emoticon, such as: ♪(^▽^)/ or (☆_☆)
(I wrote those using Japanese IME for Windows) so it changed the encoding to Chinese, which apparently is supported by those Japanese phones. But for viewing Japanese encoded emails, I can only use iCJKMail.

Sometimes when the connection is not good, accessing mailbox or sending emails using email client software (built-in or iCJKMail) takes so long it results in time-out. I tried sending emails as MMS messages. When inserting text, I must remember to insert those special characters, otherwise my message will result as an invalid message on the incompatible Japanese phones. MMS supports delivery and read reports--it's good to know my message has arrived and been read. But my MMS messages never arrived satisfactorily because I got the report that the photo cannot be viewed.

So again, using the built-in email client software plus the special characters, or just using iCJKMail to type and view messages is the best workaround I found so far.

powered by performancing firefox



Firefox Blogging Add-on



Just upgraded my Firefox to version 2.0, and installed a blogging add-on called Performancing. This is the first time I'm using it, I want to test it. In the editor there is no menu/icon to change the font style. Somehow I lost the Title field on my Blogger's text editor--whenever I'm writing a post, there is no title field, so my posts have no title. There was once, but at some point in time it's gone. I don't know why and haven't tried to find out why. Or maybe since I changed the template (the pink one). I removed my old blog (which had titles) and created a new one using the pink template, and it had no title field.

OK it's getting late, gotta go now.

powered by performancing firefox




WORLD OF MUSIC, ARTS, AND DANCE

WORLD OF MUSIC, ARTS, AND DANCE


When I was in Singapore last 2006, I should've been to the WOMAD festival at Fort Canning Park.
I wanted to go to WOMAD in the evening one day before our departure from Singapore. But we spent our energy during the day for a day-trip to Singapore Zoo. It was pretty far from where we stayed. We explored the zoo, which is located near a reservoir. By the time we got back we were too tired to spend the evening at WOMAD.



Festivals in the outdoors, and in the evening, is interesting. And world music, arts, and dance are best enjoyed live. I used to go to music concerts and be up-to-date with arts festivals and events. But not today. Maybe it's the effect of the traffic that's getting worse and me who's getting older? :-p Anyway there are so many things now that such things as going to music concerts or having a full body treatment (used to do it with girl friends) is almost impossible. We're all now occupied with other things.



Many people don't like (or maybe even hate) world music. I think world music is interesting, especially when enjoyed live. I might get bored if I listen to it for an hour from a CD, for example. That's why many times I spent some time browsing for world music CDs but never did buy any. Enjoying the performace live is different. The music feels more exotic and alive, affecting the atmosphere.


Image courtesy of saharadja.net

I remembered watching a live performance of Saharadja in Bali. Their music is a mixture of world/ethnic music, classical, and jazz. (You can listen to a few of their music clips on their official site.) You can book them to perform for your party. I think it will be great to have them perform in outdoor parties and events. As far as I know they only perform by reservation, and they only sell their CDs on the spot when they perform. Got one of the CDs.

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

The sun. One of the sources of life on earth. Can't live without the sunshine. The sun had once for a few years made my skinny body dark (not in a good way), my hair dry, my face invaded by zits (according to my dermatologist, I was supposed to avoid direct sun exposure to my face skin). When I see a photo of me from a few years ago, all I say is "Poor girl... She was so skinny and her skin dirty." hehehe...

Now after years of "less sun exposure" since starting office life, I feel I don't have enough sunshine. I need the early morning and late afternoon sunshine on me.

  1. About a couple of months ago I heard from a professional acquaintance from France that in Europe when they only get so little sunshine, many people feel unhealthy, no spirit. Sunshine does bring us good in our body, mind and soul.
  2. From a conversation about health, I heard that elderly people must be exposed to sunshine everyday in the morning. It means, when we get old, we need sunshine even more. It also means that sunshine does help us keep our health.
I haven't searched for a scientific proof but even so I believe that sunshine is a source of life, a source of energy. Just put on a sunblock and go outside. Lately I need to get out for a while to feel the sunshine. I found out 2 different persons at work sometimes go outside to the building complex. One told me he needed to take a walk, and the other just need to feel the outdoors and refresh himself.

Lack of sun exposure could be one of the causes of "yellow babies". Today's parents do not have enough of sun exposure.

  1. Today's "using as few workers as possible and give them as much work as possible" trend makes people work long hours.
  2. Horrible Jakarta traffic. Jakarta workers take long hours on the road and traffic jams. If they drive manual cars, it takes almost 100% of the driving time to keep the clutch pedal down (because almost every street is too crowded).

Thus the lack of sun exposure.
Also of time & energy for family, social and personal lives.