Zumba - dancing my way to health

The story of zumba apparently started with an accident. Back in the 1990s in Colombia, a dancer and choreographer named Alberto Perez was teaching an aerobics class but forgot his regular music. So what he did was to just search his backpack for music, and pulled out tapes of salsa and merengue. The rest is history.
Zumba does not seem to mean anything in particular, it is simply a brand name. This fitness trend has become so popular globally. Most sports clubs offer free classes to its members. Brazilian pop singer Claudia Leitte has become the international ambassador to Zumba fitness.

Because I love to dance, zumba really works for me as an exercise routine. It's like dancing your way to a healthy habit, sweating and working out. The choreography involes hiphop, soca, samba, salsa, merengue and mambo, which includes squats and lunges.

According to one report, there are now approximately 15 million people taking regular zumba classes in over 200,000 locations across 180 countries.
Over at the New York Sports Club in Bayonne, where I take my daily classes, almost all my zumba instructors are from Latin America, all of them with awesome energetic moves.

It used to be that swimming is my favorite sport, still is, but zumba seem to have taken me over!
Since I started doing zumba regularly about 2 years ago, my blood pressure has normalized. Hope to keep it that way..

Megacities: overpopulation, traffic and crowds

A megacity is defined as a very large city, typically one with a population of over 10 million people. Throughout my life and career, I have lived in big cities, so I consider myself mainly a city girl. Although born in a small rustic town in Laguna, my family moved to Metro Manila when I was only 3 years old and lived there until my early 40s.
I then had the opportunity to do my Ph D at the University of Chicago, so I also experienced life in the Midwest. Then my professional career with the United Nations took me to New York City, and to most of the top 20 megacities in the world, like Delhi, Bangkok,  Dhaka, Moscow, Mexico, Beijing, Karachi, Seoul, Jakarta, and Tokyo.
The UN reports that more than half of the world's citizens live in urban areas, a figure expected to reach nearly 70 percent by 2050. Globally, 1 in 8 of those city dwellers lives in a megacity. And what is common about all these places - overpopulation, congestion, traffic.. and often described as hectic, crowded and chaotic.
A friend of mine who lives in Europe visited NYC for the first time and was shocked. She said, this is New York city? It's all buildings and people! and the Manhattan traffic is awful!
At the same time, these big cities offer many things - jobs, shops, cultural places, great universities, structural icons and touristic places. Hence, they have a very strong pull or influence on people to live, work, study, or migrate to those places.
One author wrote about megacities and said, "I am fascinated that so many people can co-exist in such crowded places! There's never enough space. But there's also a current of inventiveness, a sense of community" (in a strange way..). In NYC, people who don't know each other often have a sense of being one, as "Nuyokers".
In NYC which houses the United Nations, an advertisement for a credit card once said.."New York is the only place in the world where there are as many restaurants to please the palate as there are member nations of the UN". This is true, wherever you come from, when you come to New York, you will always find a restaurant to eat something familiar to your taste, if not actually, an authentic restaurant from your native country.
Don't get me wrong, I also love the rural areas.. and in fact, I always enjoy visiting my hometown of about 5 million people whenever I go home to the Philippines, but there's is something about being in Metro Manila that gives me security.. there's always shops, restaurants, and places to visit, and to do things with family and friends.
Having lived also in Ulaanbatoor which is a city with only about a million people, I can say there's so much beauty in it that I would love to go back to many times over. The people are so nice and the culture, unique. Going out of the city though opens up a whole new world of beautiful nature, blue skies, mountains. I can never forget those hospitable families in colorful gers on the gobi deserts, who welcomed us during field visits with local tea and milk candies. It isn't a megacity, but UB is also not spared of traffic and overcrowding especially in the more popular residential and commercial areas.
Overall, megacities provide useful indicators  of the economic and social activities in any country. It could be seen as progress in many ways, but critics, also have referred to some aspects (referring to poverty, squatters, unemployment, etc) as critical measures of underdevelopment.

Chuleta and Taco- on unconditional love

Anyone who has a dog or dogs know how incredibly loyal they can be. I grew up in a family with dogs. When I was young, I used to be the one to bathe our dogs, and often I got reprimanded, because I take too much time to do so because in the end, I bathe myself with the dog (using the good 'ol water hose used for gardening).
Dog owners also know that dogs give unconditional love. No matter the occasion, the weather, or the situation, they never show any bad moods, or when they occasionally do (e.g. when you take their toy away, or find competion from another dog), they easily come back to normal emotion! Dogs are also low maintenance - rub their belly, and they immediately fall into sleep! Give them a treat for any good deed, and you see their tails wagging endlessly. In the mornings they jump up on your bed to wake you up to give you doggy kisses, or they stay through the night with you, simply snuggled into your blanket.  When you come home yout dog is usually to be first at the door so excited to greet you! And if you just want to sit down and relax while watching TV, they don't complain. Dogs are equally ready to just relax with you.
A walk in the park, or a walk around the block to "take care of daily business" is also often a pleasant one. 
Dogs are great therapists - they encourage you to go for a walk; dogs help relieve your stress - they give love, support , encouragement and entertainment!

When we moved to America, we left the last family dog we had, a Japanese spitz named Saki. Not knowing if our home to be in NY would allow dogs, we left him in the Philippines with a friend.  A few months later he died, due to depression. Sad to remember this.

Eventually, my younger daughter decided to own a dog, this time a Shitzu named Chuleta. She has become the love of our family, and really on a busy, hectic day, she is everyone's stress reliever and entertainer. More recently, my daughter adopted another dog from the shelter, Taco, a tiny chihuahua. Between Chuleta and Taco, we have seen human like love for each other as well as typical sibling rivalry. In the earlier days, it was a challenge to keep them calm together, as Taco amuses himself playing with Chuleta's old toys. It took Chuleta time to accept the "sharing" part with her new brother, even as she herself has ignored many of these toys in the past.


Since we have had Chuleta and Taco in our midst, we have gotten so much joy out of them. They have made us happy and entertained us with their antics. The only unpleasant task is to clean up their shit, but that's part of parenting dogs. What's amazing, dogs never complain, they  don't argue nor disagree with you. They are not judgmental; they never criticize! Evidence shows that having dogs around reduce stress and help improve blood pressure levels; and contribute to your overall well-being. They never get tired of you and are always ready to show you love and support. No one loves more unconditionally than dogs. Spending time with your dog or dogs and taking care of them, giving them food and water, grooming them, dressing them up for occasions (which they dont always like, haha), walking and playing with them,  will take you out of yourself. Being with them makes you feel better, overall.

Just look at these two dogs, Chuleta and Taco - who wouldn't fall in love with them? And they never get tired showing their unconditional affection! After they pee or pooh at the right spot (their weewee pad), they are just too happy to get a simple treat!

With my one and only grandson, Jakob, and these two additional grandkids, I don't mind being called a grandma of 3, they all bring me so much joy.Cheers!

MMA: Helping boys and girls face a world of bullies

My grandson was promoted to the middle red belt on his 11th birthday. Having started at age 6 with his beginner white belt, he has earned his current middle red belt status by training 4-5 times per week for the last 5 years. There are 7 belt colors and 3 levels earned within each color group. The belt colors and levels signify each student's journey at Tiger Schulmann: white belts become blue, then yellow, green, red, brown and finally, with a mastery test judged by Senseis and Semapis, the ultimate achievement of the black belt.

Having seen him train every now and then, I am now more educated about mixed martial arts (MMA) and because of his involvement with this unique programme, I also have gotten to watching UFC fights on cable TV.  I even know now some of the more popular UFC champions!


At Tiger Schulmann's Hoboken, Sensei Louis Gaudinot (champion UFC fighter) motivates boys and girls raning in age from 4 and above to work towards achieving the belt at appropriate levels. He is however, also quick to take the belt back (temporarily or permanently) if he sees that someone is not deserving. For these young kids, this act of revoking the belt could be based on poor academic performance, a behavioural complaint, or simply lack of discipline.

The Tiger Schulman branch in Hoboken is one of so many throughout continental America. In this branch, there is a huge poster of tribute to its founder, Danny "Tiger" Schulman.

As a young man, after years of rigorous training and winning over 100 competitions, Daniel “Tiger” Schulmann set his sights on the ultimate: full contact bare knuckle competition. This type of competition was widely known to be the most brutal and challenging of all, testing the true effectiveness of each competitor’s martial arts skills. Drawing upon his exceptional technique, speed, and non-quitting spirit, Tiger Schulmann reigned as the undefeated North American knockdown champion for six consecutive years.

Tiger Schulmann could imagine no greater pursuit than to give back to others what the martial arts had given him, so he devoted his life to developing what has become the most comprehensive and effective style known today. The master spearheaded the development and growth of Tiger Schulmann’s from one school in 1984 to now more than 40 schools, located in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Florida.

The programme teaches character and values formation, and emphasize the importance of NOT being a bully, of NOT allowing oneself to be bullied by others. The techniques learned in class are meant to be used for the students to not only defend one's self against bullies, but to also defend others who cannot defend themselves.

The greatest lesson at Tiger Schulmann is discipline and self confidence and the 'Tiger Schulmann non-quitting spirit". With hard work and determination, we support Jakob on his journey to his black belt. So proud of my grandson, Jakob! Keep it up. I know you will be my (our) defender! 

Don't forget to also tune in on January 3rd as Jakob's Sensei Gaudinot defends his title as part of the main card of UFC 182 live from Las Vegas! All of the Tiger Schulmann students and families will be cheering for Sensei.

Of Life and Leisure: Halloween: Do you know how it started?

Of Life and Leisure: Halloween: Do you know how it started?: I happen to be in a place right now where the celebration of Halloween is  forbidden because it is considered a type of idolatry.  Howe...

Malls and mall-ing...a global phenomenon!

In one of my previous blogs, I featured the lowly, but highly reliable, hardworking donkey.  This time I want to give you a flavour of affluence in Cairo. Sometime ago, I went to have dinner at Porto Cairo Mall...a newly opened mall along the ring road connecting Cairo city to Ismailia and Alexandria. Since it is a weekend, I hired a private taxi to take me to and from the place. Since this mall opened (although it is not yet completed), it has become a favorite dinner/weekend destination by both locals and foreigners, especially those who live in the neighborhood of Rehab (a residential area). It has branches of some of the best restaurant chains in town. It is so modern, if one did not notice the largely Arabic speaking crowd, one could think he or she is in a European capital. Egypt, being a middle income country,  has many features of modernity, inspite of various interpretations around religious conservatism  portrayed by media.

 Have you ever been to a mall and wondered, where and when did this phenomenon of people (families, friends, coworkers, tourists, etc. ) spending hours shopping, eating, strolling, seeing a movie, window shopping, people watching, or just enjoying an airconditioned ambience) begin? 


 

 Did you know that shopping malls existed in Ancient Rome? Wikipidea on the history of malls says, “they originated in the forums where the markets were located? If you think about it, a shopping mall is not all that unusual when you look at the history of commerce? Even in ancient societies, and along trade routes, all the shopping was located along one thoroughfare or in one marketplace. If you fast-forward 2,000 years, the concept of a shopping mall is still alive and at work in a much bigger and more uniform way, in the modern shopping mall.”Do you know what was the earliest shopping mall? Trajan’s Market in Ancient Rome was built around 100, and that was the first real shopping mall. It was a direct forerunner to the modern shopping mall. If you want to look at one of the earliest shopping malls that is still around, just look at The Grand Bazaar of Istanbul, which was built in the 15th century. It’s still one of the biggest shopping centers in the entire world, and it has over 4,000 shops and 58 streets. However, if you’re really talking about mall-type shopping centers, and not just masses of stores in one central area, then you need to look at Gostiny Dvor in St. Petersburg, and it opened in 1785. There were about 100 shops there.

My research also led me to find out the top 11 biggest malls in the world. I was surprised to see that 2 of them were in the Philippines, 3 in Malaysia, 2 in China, 2  in Iran,  1 in Thailand, 1 in Turkey, as follows: Mall of Asia (Phils)  and SM City (Phils);  Sunway Pyramid , Mid Valley Mega Mall and Utama Mall (Malaysia); Cevahir Mall (Turkey); Isfahan City Center and Persian Gulf Complex (Iran); Central World (Thailand); Golden Resources Mall and New South China Mall ( China); They range in size from about 400 to over 1000 shops in one location that can span from about  700 sq feet to  6 million square feet.

In Egypt, malls have also started to mushroom in recent years especially in Cairo, in Alexandria and other urban parts of Egypt, among them:  Mercato in Sharm-El Sheik,  Arkadia Mall , Cairo Gate Village,  City Light Mall,  Cleopatra Plaza Mall in Alexandria,  Cleopatra Village Mall, Dandy Mega Mall,  Designopolis,  Festival Centre, Galleria Shopping and Leisure Center,  Green Plaza in Alexandria,  Maadi City Centre,  Madinaty Park,  Mall of Arabia in Guhina Square,  Mivida New Cairo City, Nile Plaza, Rehab Mall 2,  San Stefano Mall in Alexandria,  Stars Centre, the First Mall,  the Venice Canal Mall in El Alamain,  Uptown Cairo Mall, etc.  
Porto Cairo Mall is a new concept of shopping mixed with entertainment and the perfect location that could be reached from 10-15 minutes from anywhere in Cairo.   It has a variety of 180 shopping brand names that would suite the tastes of all mall visitors. The mix of Entertainment mediums at the Porto Cairo mall is irresistible between the 6-screen cinema, the sky café overlooking the dancing fountain, food court, and international restaurants. Once fully completed, the mall will have a parking capacity for about 1000 cars, and more than 5o international restaurants and cafes, the largest outdoor and kids park, and fashion street with the biggest international brands.

Malls and malling - it has become a favorite destination and pastime among friends and families alike.  I don't know about you.. but me, I also enjoy malling, but when it is too big, I get tired and easily lost. I like medium sized malls, and sometimes even  smaller good ol' department stores, where one can find most of what one needs much easily. Although, because malls make you walk a lot, it's also a healthy past time. Its also therapeutic, when you want to get rid of stress. The downside, it also makes you spend.  Window shopping is great, but sometimes, its hard to resist the temptation of buying. 

Have you ever been to a mall without buying anything?

Halloween: Do you know how it started?

I happen to be in a place right now where the celebration of Halloween is  forbidden because it is considered a type of idolatry.  However, in a city where there are many expatriates, some kind of halloween is happening more to give kids the joy of treat or trickin' by giving candies to other tots, and wearing cute colorful costumes.

My quick and dirty research about halloween led me to some facts. About 2,000 years ago in the area of the world that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom, and northern France, there lived a group of people called the Celts.  The Celts' lives revolved around growing their food, and considered the end of the year to be the end of the harvest season.  So, they celebrated new year's eve each year on October 31st with a festival called "Samhain," named after their Lord of the Dead (also known as the Lord of Darkness). The Celts believed that on the night that marked the end of summer and the beginning of winter, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead blurred allowing ghosts of the dead to return to earth.  Celts thought that the presence of the ghosts made it easier for their priests to predict the future.  These predictions were an important source of comfort and direction for the Celts during their long, dark, frightening winters.  The Celts eventually were conquered by the Romans, and by about the year 43 AD two Roman festivals were combined with the Celtic Samhain festival.  The first Roman festival was Feralia, a day in late October when the Romans traditionally commemorated the passing of the dead.  The second was a day to honor Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees.  By 800 AD, the influence of Christianity spread into Celtic lands.  In the seventh century, the Celtic festival of the dead was replaced with a related, but church-sanctioned holiday, Pope Boniface IV designated November 1st as All Saints' Day, a time to honor saints and martyrs.  The combined and updated celebration was also called All-hallows or All-hallowmas (from Middle English Alholowmesse meaning All Saints' Day) and the night before it, the night of Samhain, began to be called All-hallows Eve and, eventually, Halloween. So there is its history. 

But what about the pumpkin? Where did it come from? And why has this annual tradition now in many countries become so associated with the orange squash or pumpkin?

Apparently, on All Hallows' Eve, many Western Christian denomination encourage abstinence from meat, giving rise to a variety of vegetarian foods associated with this day, such as apples.

So how did the pumpkins go from being an ordinary squash to a Halloween staple especially from the mid-19th century? In Pumpkin: The Curious History of An American Icon, Cindy Ott  explores the origins of the carved jack-o’-lantern, especially as it relates to the classic Sleepy Hollow legend. One of the best-known literary works in which a pumpkin stands in for a man’s foolishness is Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, published in 1848 and set in the rural countryside of New York’s Hudson River valley. As a central element of the tale, the pumpkin represents the its main character, Ichabod Crane. In the story, Crane, a silly, gangly, itinerant schoolteacher, spends his idle hours spooking himself by reading local ghost stories, especially a notorious one about the Headless Horseman. According to the legend, the Horseman’s head was severed from his body during a Revolutionary War battle fought in the area, and he periodically rides again to reclaim it. One night, while returning home late from a party down an isolated country road, Crane, who is afraid of his own shadow, is chased by the Headless Horseman. As the apparition rides past Crane, the ghost throws a headlike object at him, terrifying the schoolmaster so profoundly that he runs away and is never heard from again. The end of the tale reveals that the ghost was actually Brom Bones, Ichabod’s rival for the attention of a farmer’s attractive young daughter. The head was nothing but a pumpkin!

It is reported that the top 10 countries that celebrate Halloween big time are: USA, Ireland, Canada, England, Mexico, Sweden, Austria, Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands.

A California farmer has introduced an innovation that raking in lots of money from sales. He spent 4 years  perfecting pumpkins grown inside plastic molds to resemble the head of Dr. Frankenstein monster.  According to media reports, it is in such high demand for Halloween saying that his harvest of 5,500 trademarked "Pumpkinsteins" have already sold out!
  
I do know that Halloween surprisingly has become a big thing even in countries where there is no winter (to signal darkness), apples are not grown, and squash is known mainly as a vegetable rich in Vitamin A! By now, almost all countries that honor the dead in some form or another, also observe both or one or the other of Halloween and All Saints' Day on  the eve and the day of Nov 1, respectively.  In contrast to Halloween's costumes galore, house decors, and scary objects that give this supposedly dark night, a colorful festive spirit, All Saints Day is a much more sober day as people flock to cemeteries to offer prayers, flowers, and candles to their deceased loved ones.

I remember when I was young, older uncles or cousins would  scare little kids like me by giving us a quick "scary ride" through our local cemetery. I thought that was a truly scary experience then, to an extent that  a minute or two in front of a dark cemetery felt like an hour! That was the highlight of our Halloween!

True that this annual event has also become so commercialized. Parents flock to stores to buy pumpkins of all kinds, and the best constumes for their kids. The nice thing about kids' costumes is that they need not be scary, just cute! I think the older folks are the ones who get a kick out of dressing up and looking scary! Interestingly, pet lovers also spend time and money to give their dogs or cats that halloween look, whether they like it or not!

Oh well, I dont know at what age it stops, but I think my 10 year old grandson is almost over the trick or treat part of it. Now, for me, it is more about honoring the dead, and paying respects to our departed loved ones on All Saints day, my grandparents, parents, 3 siblings and relatives included.  May they all rest in peace.