The Adventures of Bloggard

Been Around the Block. Got Some Stories. These are Them.

The Wonder of Acupuncture

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White Crane Kung-Fu Studio, Geary Boulevard, San Francisco, 1974: In my Kung-Fu phase, I was crazy about everything Chinese … except the interior decorating. I know that may sound just too, too gay, but aside from mysteriously grand Chinese interiors in old movies, have you ever been in a Chinese restaurant that wasn’t garish as hell?

I’ve come to learn that it’s because Red is Lucky, and no sensible Chinese person on the planet wants to be unlucky. Of course, when you think about it, that makes perfect sense. I wouldn’t either.

Back to the Kung-Fu and acupuncture. This is a story about needles and eyeballs, but it turns out OK. Just warning you …

Being temporarily Chinese myself, I ate Chinese food, learned to use chopsticks, went to the fighting movies every weekend — A tip: the movies made by Mr. Run Run Shaw are better than movies made by his brother Run Me Shaw — and of course I joined a Kung-Fu studio, where we wore the most uncomfortable shoes ever invented.

We learned weird movements named after the White Crane, and there were huge bags hanging from the ceiling, and they were filled with rocks. One bag was little, bitty gravel. Another bag was marble-sized stones. And the third filled with great whumping big rocks.

It was kind of like the three kinds of porridge in the Three Bears house, except that none of the bags was just right. The idea was that you would hit these bags with your hands.

I did it once.

But getting back to the acupuncture … The deal is that, because my Kung-Fu master was also a master acupuncturist, I had acupuncture a couple of times. And then one time he wanted to send a needle to hit a point behind my eyeball.

This was to cure me of wearing glasses.

With some misgivings, I said OK. (The needles are very fine; I figured I couldn’t bleed to death through a hole that small.)

So he sent this long and thin needle twirling into the skin, and beyond, and further and further, and …

As it turned out, I got a real good discount on my seeing-eye dog, and we’ve been very happy ever-

Just kidding. It worked fine; I didn’t go blind, and in fact I could see without my glasses for the rest of the day. Go figure.

However, I’m a big chicken. I didn’t want to do it again.

Glasses seemed safer.

Now, I’m not so sure.

But that’s life in the kung-fu movie, right? You pays your money, and you takes your chances.

Breaking Rocks; Breaking Free

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[reprinted from my former site How to Tune a Human, January 9, 2009]

Play the ToneWeaver with two-handed tapping technique.
Mobius Megatar ToneWeaver Guitar.

I make and sell guitars. Unusual guitars that you can play without strumming or picking, and this lets you play strings with both hands, so you can play bass strings and guitar strings at the same time. The name of this instrument is the Mobius Megatar.

Recently, a college student had inquired because he wanted to get one of our instruments. We wrote back and forth, and he was all set to go, but then he sent me this email —

“I’m sorry but the Megatar is not in the picture any more. I was coerced into buying a 2700 dollar classical guitar from a company that gives referral bonuses to the teacher who I was coerced by, so I’m left broke and on crappy terms with my main teacher for the next 3 years.

“I really wish I had the cash and time to delve into a tapstyle instrument right now, and if I could, it’d be a Mobius with Bartolini pickups, but it seems like that won’t be available for a while. With student loans and a no emergency funds (thanks to the aforementioned jerk of a teacher) I’ll be lucky if my car makes it without scheduled servicing for the next 6 months.”

What is really odd is that I got another email from another college student, in a similar situation who told me something of a similar story, that he’d been required (or perhaps urged) to get a nylon-string guitar for some upcoming course work. However, the second student seemed much less bitter.

And it got me to thinking. I can understand the disappointment he must feel.

And actually, it does sound kind of crappy behavior for the college music instructor, to push the student toward an instrument that pays the instructor a commission.

On the other hand …

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One’s True Nature

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Snakes will be snakes.

The snake begged the frog for a ride across the stream.

The frog expressed fear, but the snake reassured him, pointing out that should the snake bite the frog then both would die.

The frog agreed. And mid-stream, the snake bit the frog.

“Why did you do that?” asked the frog, “Now we’ll both die.” The snake just smiled.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “but I’m a snake.”

Mental Health Made Easy

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[reprinted from my former site How to Tune a Human, August 17, 2008]

What is it about taking a shower that causes new ideas to pop into your head?

Is it the invigorating ions that are caused by splitting water droplets?

Or is it a simple as Murphy’s law triggered because you will never have pencil and paper in the shower?

I don’t know the answer to this time-proven rule, but as of this morning’s shower, I do know a super-simple way to look at mental health, a simple way to be happier and more productive.

It’s simply this —

[Read more…]

Tiny Flowers

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Weed, California, Saturday May 10, 2008: Usually around mid-day, the dogs and I like to take a little walk around the house and the very large vacant lot next door. It’s mostly an open field, with some tall and graceful trees at the far end.

If we have walked to the end, and walked around one or more of the trees … well, we know we’ve been somewhere.

Today, the air was cool, but the sun was warm on us, and I plodded along after Charlie the dashing young boy, and I was lost in thought, watching my feet, for the now fast-growing grasses can hide gopher holes.

And I saw …

Tiny little flowers, a pale lavender color, just tiny little things.

And I remembered … back when I was four and five and seven and nine, and visiting my grandmother’s farmhouse, and how along the paved walkway to the chicken yard and the barns beyond … on the left she kept bushy thick plants with a million tiny little flowers, in yellow and blue and purple and white.

I don’t know what they were called. I had forgotten them.

And now, those tiny, tiny flowers came back, over the years. And as I walked here in the now, I realized they were everywhere at my feet, the tiny purple flowers. Everywhere. I smiled.

“Hello,” I said, “Hello, Grandmother.”

I walked on through those tiny galaxies, and once again I felt loved.

I realize: the flowers are everywhere, if you look.

The world is filled with twilight and memories and shifting shapes, if you look. The ones who have gone have left ripples, and sometimes we feel them eddy around us. And within us as well.

Tiny flowers. Filling the world.

I Say it’s Spring

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Weed, California, May Day, 2008: I find myself waking earlier, for the sun bangs upon the blinds, and the dogs grow restive.

Yawning, I stumble outside, following the dogs. There is white frost on the newly-long grasses, and I blink in the light. The mountain is wreathed in clouds upon its shoulders, but rises above, up into a clear pale blue sky, and bright sunlight startles me in the crisp air.

Dogs dart here and there, in a world of fantastic scents hidden in the chill. As we make our way around the house, the frozen grasses crunch beneath our feet.

Suddenly I’m startled by the little tree near the road. I’d been told it was a cherry tree, but now I know.

Upon its twisted branches, pink cherry blossoms.

Best Friends

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Kanab, Utah, April 22, 2008 — Adrienne has gone to the dogs, and it’s just great for her. Over the last several years, she took on volunteer work. First she found a ‘shelter’ for dogs which was actually kind of a collector’s nightmare, with scores of dogs kept in small pens, all day, every day. There were ups and downs, but in the end the place was shut down and Adrienne placed 96 of the dogs in homes and in other shelters. A better life for all those jailed puppies.

She’s been studying the Secret, and she made a vision board. She was living in a little apartment in Mount Shasta, and not really finding work that touched her heart, and then one day she woke up, and she thought …

“Call Best Friends.”

Best Friends, in Kanab Utah, is perhaps the best animal shelter in the United States. They shelter thousands of dogs, but they also rescue horses, cats, pigs, goats, and all animals.

She called them.

When they heard of her experience, they were interested, but their process is to have the prospect come and volunteer for two weeks. So she and I worked together and got her to Utah, where she loved the place. Located in Angel Canyon, the rear of the sanctuary overlooks the Grand Canyon. Everyone can take their own dogs to work with them. There’s a vegetarian cafe on the premises. She made friends right away.

Then, guarding her gasoline like gold, she made the trip back to Northern California. A few weeks, some more telephone interviews, and they said, “You’re hired.”

Off she’s gone, moved to Utah she has, and Lizzie the dog has gone with her. Quite possibly I will never see Lizzie the dog again. I miss my best friends.

The Amazing Fork Trick

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Weed, California, April 14, 2008: This weekend my brother David and his new wife Annie came to visit me. My little brother is now 48 and is working on a larger project in Silicon Valley that involves General Dynamics and the gubbamint. So they kindly drove up to the mountains to say howdy, and I discover that I’m awfully proud of the fine man my brother has become and Annie is just a delightful woman, whose company I enjoyed.

We mostly just talked about happenings in our lives (moves and kinfolks), what we’re studying (Tolle, the Secret), and we ate delicious meals and drove around to scenic vistas.

And they showed me the Amazing Fork Trick.

The dust has mostly settled from moving into the new factory shop that we built, and I’ve been focussing on losing weight and having more energy. So I’ve been getting back to my Vegistentialist way of eating, and following my 3HourCycle/3MinuteGym method of exercise.

Now, all my life I’ve tended to have the gobbles. That is, I eat (they say) too fast, and I have an automatic tendency to eat everything on my plate. And I’m at least a hundred pounds heavier than I was at one time in my life. Having been both thin and fat, I can report that being thin is not only more fun, and not only can you wear nicer-looking clothes, but the nervous system seems to work faster and better when thin.

But back to the Amazing Fork Trick.

I’ve noticed that, if I eat a largely-vegetable diet, then my tendency to eat a large volume of food doesn’t matter much. My weight stays the same or maybe drops, but it won’t increase. And when I stay away from eating animal products — meat, fish, milk, cheese — my weight drops as well. But still I have a tendency to eat a large volume of food.

The Amazing Fork Trick seems to help that.

I’ve read, as perhaps we all have read, that we should sit at table, and have no TV on, and we should focus on our food. Though I’ve read this, I pretty much rarely remember to do it. But the Amazing Fork Trick is a simple exercise that causes this to happen.

It’s just this …

(1) You take a bite of food.

(2) You put your fork down, and take your hand away from it.

(3) Now you chew and enjoy your food.

(4) Only when that’s gone do you pick up your fork again.

David and Annie were doing the Fork Trick, and so I tried it too. During dinner at the Mexican Restaurant (even with the Patron shot and the Margharita!), and at the big breakfast at the HiLo, and at lunch and dinner yesterday.

For some reason, putting the fork down makes it easy to enjoy and focus on the food, and it also slows down the process. In each case, I’ve eaten much less, sometimes half as much as usual, and noticed that I was feeling content (shift in blood sugar), and my stomach felt comfortable (enough food). Of course, I’m also *trying* to notice when I feel the blood sugar shift and the change in stomach feeling.

I think I’ve found a workable way to eat less food.

Maybe one of these days I’ll be back down to my fighting weight.

There you are.

The Amazing Fork Trick.

 
 

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