I got Epi-Lasik surgery done a little over a year and a half ago. Since then, I have been very diligent about taking care of my eyes (after all, I did pay a hefty sum to be able to see clearly now).

Last week, Christina conducted a yoga session that exercised the eyes. Which got me thinking, how often do we take care of our eyes? (more…)

I find it really interesting how emotions can affect my wellness. It kind of dawned on me early this morning the amount of tension that can build up in the body because of emotions. Whether it is stress, anger, fear, or sadness, the body reacts to it and manifests itself into something physical.

Today, as I was doing yoga, I found myself on the verge of tears half way through the session. Subconsciously, my body told me that I had to let this out.  “Logical” me was trying to figure out why I was feeling the way I felt at that particular moment. (more…)

As Angie already mentioned in her blog yesterday, a few mornings ago we had a 45-minute yoga workout before our weekly meeting started. All of us had our own yoga mats, except for baby Zen master and his nanny, so we laid them out and Christina led us through a couple of sets of nice and smooth Sun Salutations.

It had been quite a long time since I’d last practiced yoga, but I knew I wouldn’t have any problems going through the entire session – simply because it was what my body needed. I was very fortunate that my neck wasn’t causing me any problems, but there were some other areas of my body that felt uncomfortable, and my energy flow had been very low recently. (more…)

This week we had our first company yoga session – a series of Sun Salutations.

Christina made us do it:)

Actually, even though Christina really did make us do it, it was for the betterment of ourselves and our spines. Throughout the months of our weekly meetings, she noticed that all of our spines were starting to cave in. In other words, we were seriously slouching. (more…)

Three car accidents in one year.

Not really something to gloat about. I admit it, I don’t like driving. Never liked it, probably never will, but it is a necessity. Especially here in Southern California where everything is so far!

See, I’m originally from Northern California, where the lanes are a bit more spacious, the freeways are well thought out, and people are generally in much less of a hurry. (more…)

I couldn’t sleep much the night before the performance because I was so worried about my physical issues and the multiple roles I would have to play in one show. Fortunately, I felt better than expected when I woke up. Even so, I wasn’t that optimistic about my neck problem as I still felt uncomfortable in my neck and back areas.

As I was looking at my yoga DVD collections, I saw the Yoga Now 3 Set DVD produced by Giam. Because I wasn’t sure how much my body could handle the exercise (the previous night, while doing some yoga practice with another DVD, I was out of breath and dizzy, and almost became sick), I chose a 30-minute core workout instead of a 50-minute one. I grabbed the DVD, spread out a yoga mat, and popped the DVD into my computer. It was time to practice yoga. (more…)

So this is exactly what happened.

The day before the performance, my neck started to hurt badly.

Some of you who have read my previous blogs know that I have a chronic neck pain, but so far it’s only affected my right side. Well, this time it was on my left side, which was a first. Luckily it wasn’t as painful as my past experiences with the right side of my neck had been. Believe me – that really was awfully painful!! But it still hurt when I moved my neck and, at the same time, the left side of my back felt icky and stiff too. The pain in my neck was coming from my back – I could feel it. But even with the pain, I was still able to move my neck – and since there was a rehearsal in the morning on that day, I had to go! (more…)

As mentioned in my last few blogs, I’ve been practicing Koto (a traditional Japanese instrument) for months. I know myself well enough to realize that once I start practicing, I can’t stop. I don’t know when to stop because it’s fun to play.

That’s when all the pressure of playing affects my arm. It’s like a pitcher in baseball. He uses only one arm and practices everyday. You can imagine how much pressure the arm has to deal with from one pitch, two pitches, ten pitches, a hundred pitches…. If you are too lazy to release the stress of the arm right away, it stays and becomes pain. Yup, that’s me. I could feel that the muscles of my arm were exhausted, and sometimes I couldn’t even lift my arm up. (more…)

When you first got involved in a yoga class, did you know how many types of yoga there are?

I’ll have to be honest – when I chose a studio, I did not consider what style of yoga to practice. Okay, thinking back, I knew about Bikram and decided that it would not be my first choice. I took a second to consider and realized that Bikram would be too intense for me due to the heat and the enormous amount of sweat required of it. I likened the idea to being in a sauna, but with physical exertion. So if I don’t like to sit in a very humid and hot room for more than five minutes, chances are I would not last a full Bikram routine. I hear they are about 90 minutes long. With that aside, I figured that most yoga studios would teach a beginner’s class in a setting where the temperature didn’t have to be maintained above 95 degrees.
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I hear a lot about how everyone has been so busy lately, and so have I. I don’t even feel like I’ve been sleeping enough. Why have I been so busy? Well, the list I’ve drawn up on things I have to do is too long to show you, but here is the partial stuff: regular work; acting class; assignment for the class; networking by attending film festivals; meeting with my fellow actors about possibly making films together; writing scripts; rehearsing the play I’ll be doing this month; and practicing Koto for more performances – and there’s still much more on my list!

The ultimate priority is that I have to find a place to stay during this busy schedule. Sigh… It’s all too much, but sometimes you just have to keep moving. (more…)