Excellent quadruped position:

"Rethink Your Drink"

Recently there is a photo going around the internet and it arrived on my Facebook wall:

I would love to give credit to the creator of this picture if I know him/her.


This is a brilliant way to get a clear idea how much sugar is in the crappy drinks! They should really have shown the sugar content in Ribenna and the Vitamin Water!


For teachers and parents, this is a great activity idea. These are what you will need to prepare:
- kitchen scale
- clear plastic bags
- teaspoons (1 teaspoon = 4 grams)
- huge tub of white sugar


As your children to name one of their favourite drink, get them to read the nutrition table on the packaging and weigh out the amount of sugar contained in the drink into the clear plastic bag. Get them to compare the sugar among their drinks.


You can also check this site out for a list of sugar content in the common drinks in Singapore.

Attended a pilates course recently and met up with many fellow practicitioners.

There are so many new Pilates studios set up lately, I am glad to see the industry blooming, that means people are more aware of the goodness of Pilates. Consumers are really spoilt for choice ^_^

I have updated studio listings, check them out:

• In KL, Malayisa
• In Singapore

Artificial colouring

I love love love Starbucks' Green Tea Latte, but on my health-conscious days I find it too sweet for my liking and sadly, unlike buying coffee from kopitiam, I can't ask for "siew dai" (less sweet in Hokkien) because apparently it is made with a  pre-mixed formula readily loaded with sugar.


To curb my craving in a healthier way, I decided to try my luck and make my own concoction using my Nespresso machine. I bought a pack of premium grade Japanese green tea powder from the supermarket and added 5 teaspoons of powder (which was meant to make 5 cups of tea) into the steamed milk...


The end result, it tasted absolutely delicious, creamy texture with intense green tea fragrant, but...


It just didn't look like the real deal, see the comparison:

I added more and more and more green tea powder (15 teaspoons in total!) but the colour was not even half as green as the Starbucks'... I gave up.


There is no way that Starbucks could have used pure green tea powder as the cost is too high, so I concluded that they have added colouring (lots of it) into my favourite drink! sigh...


And here is an article that confirmed my suspicion, and to make conscience effort to reduce use of chemicals in their products, Starbucks use insect-based ingredients to make their drink colourful and attractive. I am really not sure if I should be happy to know that the colouring is now more "natural", because given a choice I wouldn't consume insect for its brilliant colour...


The amount of chemicals from artificial favourings, preservatives and colouring we consume daily is horrifying. You just can't run away from it, they are everywhere be it cheap or expensive food sources. These kind of additives are added liberally just to make the products more competitive and lucrative. Many studies show links between consuming food additives to diseases like hyperactivity in children, skin allergies, asthma and even cancers. How can we not fall sick if we keep pumping in harmful chemicals into our bodies?!

Why can't they leave a simple drink to look simply the way it is??

Movements? Children know best.

Charles often demonstrates "Pilates moves" in his playtime. Inverted V, plank, leg pull etc. It's not easy to capture his movements on camera because those movements take place so naturally and quickly. Here are few rare shots that captured Charles in "Swan" and "Single leg kick" positions, look at that beautiful extension throughout the spine ^_^:

Healthy children are born with natural instinct to move their body efficiently, and in the way the body is really designed for. Remember the graceful somative movements seen in the video in my post "The Forgotten Fundamentals"? Moving efficiently can be viewed in terms of whole body coordination or in terms of specific skilled movements (Booth et al., 1997; Clough, McCormack, & Trail, 1993). It is very important for children to retain this ability to move efficiently for long term engagement and also enjoyment in physical activity throughout whole life span.


However, as the pressure to excel in school increases, children are spending more and more time sitting down reading and doing homework. Of course academic and cognitive development in children is very important for the competitive world today, but the implication of sitting for longer duration is that poor posture is often developed in these otherwise healthy children, causing them to lose the ability to move efficiently. This can possibly reduce their enjoyment in being active and in sports performance, and many children grow up as sedentary adults. The rest is then history and we know that inactivity among adults is now epidemic.

I will be sharing more of what I read and learn about movement development in children. Meanwhile, let your kids have as much opportunity to be active as possible. Tumbling on the grassfield, having ball of a time in all kinds of ball games, or even just hopping around the house... more importantly, parents are really children's best friends and teachers that we have to be involved. Jump and hop silly with them, run and laugh in the park... Through these activities, not only we can emotionally bond with our kids and improve our own health, we are actually helping them associate physical activities to the warm feeling of being loved and being happy...all so important to make being physically active an enjoyable experience for a life time.

There are many ways to add fun physical activities in our daily life. What do you do with your kids?

Special Core Training

Physical and skills development for Charles has always been our top priority. ^_^

Challenge to this exercise can be increased by shifting the supporting surface away from the centre of torso. Maybe next time we will ask Charles to rest only his heels and top of his head on the wood stumps.

Closure of Planet Earth Pilates

I have closed my studio. Exactly ONE YEAR AGO.

Sorry if I took longer than expected to announce this on P-Latte. It was not easy for me to recover from the heartache of shutting down something which I have put so much effort and time (not to mention $$) in. In fact, I was like a cowardly ostrich and was not motivated to talk about it.

You may wonder why was the studio closed, well, in short and cliche, due to partnership problems.

The history was, Planet Earth was meant to be P-Latte Studio and was really meant to be the manifestation of my passion and love for movement and should have been operated by myself. My very close Uni-mate cum ex-boss, pleaded me to combine my studio with his organic food business. His wife called me and told me how devastated he was when I rejected the idea. In the end, I joined the partnership.

I gave up the 800-square feet dream-unit overlooking the greenery of MacRitchie for a 2100 sq.feet office space in order to house the organic biz. In the end, some partners did not do what they were supposed to do, they point fingers at each other for low revenue and slow growth. They felt that the only salaried staff aka me (as they all continued their full time, stable day-job), was not doing everything under the sun as they assumed I would. They felt that I should not only teach Pilates, but also to man the organic shop, wash toilets, water the plants, housekeep, stock-take, do sales calls and even deliver. In reality, I simply couldn't do all those all at the same time.

When the biz ran low on cash flow, they stop paying me the monthly salary as promised, claiming that I could take the revenue of Pilates classes in return. Then suddenly they demanded rental for my studio space. And suddenly they were closing their organic biz and asked me to take over their shop space if I wished to continue my studio, however I would need to pay them a reasonable "take-over" fee.

I was hoping to find a solution to be able to afford the rental of the huge extra space, but yet again, another "surprise" came suddenly from the landlord who called me the day before Christmas eve in 2010, our rental unit will be repossessed in 24 hours because my partners had not been paying the rent for months, and I needed to pay the outstanding of $10k or i vacate within 24 hours!

at this nick of time, my partners were uncontactable, they left me alone to settle the issue. They had no sense of urgency, no moral values, no ethics. They had been pocketing the rental I paid them and left me alone to solve all the problems they created!!

At last, after few stressful weeks, I was lucky enough to have found a Church which could take over the rental lease, such that I did not need to pay any penalty. I closed the studio, stored or sold my equipments. Said teary goodbyes to my clients, and finally  I broke clean from the "partners" and ended the year-long nightmare.

A precious lesson learnt.

So that was it. The short-lived Planet Earth disappeared.

From then, I was very depressed, beaten and lost. For months, I doubted myself in all aspects: my ability in decision making, my ability in trusting others, my ability in teaching, even my intelligence and my self-esteem; I could not even look at other people in the eyes because of the intense shame and sense of being a loser in me! The whole business experience negatively impacted my emotions, my family well-being and my relationship with my husband...

One year has since passed, I finally got myself up and look at the flipped side of the failed business. I rediscover my strengths and weaknesses, I am more awareness of my blindspots, and most importantly, I learnt that I am surrounded by people who truly believed in me, loved me and supported me. My husband and son who stood by me throughout the year and bear with my endless bouts of unreasonable emotional roller-coasters; great friends who helped me and encouraged me during the most difficult time (like Elsie Tan & Jason Lim); and also clients who showered me with endless understanding, trust, support and loyalty; through this difficult period, I was brought much closer to God and I now understand that there is really a reason for everything that happened. All this happened because it is part of our Master Weaver's plan.

 

My life is but a weaving
Between the Lord and me;
I may not choose the colors–
He knows what they should be.

For He can view the pattern
Upon the upper side
While I can see it only
On this, the under side.

Sometimes He weaves in sorrow,
Which seems so strange to me;
But I will trust His judgment
And work on faithfully.

‘Tis He who fills the shuttle,
And He knows what is best;
So I shall weave in earnest,
And leave to Him the rest.

Not ’til the loom is silent
And the shuttles cease to fly
Shall God unroll the canvas
And explain the reason why.

The dark threads are as needed
In the Weaver’s skillful hand
As the threads of gold and silver
In the pattern He has planned.

~~ Author Unknown ~~