Uke Lesson

During my Kauai trip, I made an appointment to take a beginner's Ukulele lesson from an accomplished Slack Key Guitar and Ukulele player. I can't tell you his name until I become a good uke player myself.

My teacher was very good and he was very serious about teaching, so Jack and I were very serious too. He said Jack could sit in the room while I was taking the lesson, as long as he stayed quiet.

My appointment was at 10. Jack drove me to find his place, and we were 30 minutes early, so we parked the rental car in the neighborhood community center parking lot. About 5 minutes before 10'clock, Jack said: "Did you clip your nails?" I showed him my left hand's finger nails, and he said they weren't short enough to play a Ukulele. I didn't bring my nail clipper, so we had to drive across the street to a convenient store to buy a nail clipper.

I bought a Ms. Manicure brand pink nail clipper. We only had 2 minutes left, so Jack drove straight to the class, while I carefully clipped my nails.

"This is a good nail clipper. Look, my nail is so smooth now." I said, as I was carefully clipping methodically starting from my thumb.

Jack took a look at my hand and started laughing: "You don't have to clip your thumb nail!"

Yoga home practice

When I first met Jack's mother, Sue, who was in her 70s and a retired Yoga teacher, I was amazed at how straight her back was and how strong she was, because at the time I was in my early 30s, I was already slouching and bothered by back pain.

I determined to revert the pain and prevent premature aging, I started to practice Yoga. I go to Yoga and Pilates class weekly, and a third day in the week I do cardio exercise plus extensive stretching. It is funny, when I was younger, I never had the patience to stretch before or after exercises, as I didn't see it any use. I actually feel that my body a living organism, like a machine, all the moving parts need proper care, and stretching of the muscles is to prevent stiffness so that they don't have to remind me their existence. I have done this exercise routine for over three years. After a good Yoga or Pilates class, I would fell that my body was "lubricated". Now as I walk around, I can proudly feel my back is straight, my abs tight and most of the time my muscles are OK.

I have always wanted to add home practice to my normal routine. It can be challenging to do, when you don't have the right frame of mind or the discipline. It's not impossible, but it is hard for someone like me, who have been avoiding order and organization in life. But I never stop trying despite multiple failures over a long time.

During our Spring Kauai trip, I actually had a breakthrough and possibly found the tricks to building my own Yoga home practice.

To have a good home Yoga practice, the first thing is to give in to your normal lifestyle, if it is the stressful kind - rushing from home to the office; rushing to finish the email at the same time responding to multiple chat windows; rushing to head to the gym or make an appointment on time; rushing to go home and make dinner and feed the dogs. Like learning new things after you already know quite a lot of other stuff. You have to give up certain things on your plate so that there is room for the new stuff.

Try to give up the need of meeting all the deadlines and obligations, you will find that you and others which demand your time will survive, then you can find some space and energy to do this wonderful practice. Yoga is rejuvenating because it gives you a chance to empty your mind; to breathe deep into your heart and lungs, send all the much needed oxygen - the life source - to your whole body, your limbs and your brain. At the same time, your muscles from head to toe got properly stretched, building strong muscles and joints.

Removing the obligations from life? Easier said than done, right? Yes, that's why I could only get a breakthrough during my vacation, when I dropped everything from my work and life, went to a remote island and have plans of doing nothing. Then I could quiet down and figure out my needs and design a program that fits that need.

Namaste.