Chris Meistre

I’ve recently bought “Jeet kune do: Bruce Lee’s commentaries on the martial way“, which is basically an extended version of “Tao of Jeet Kune Do“.

Both are compilations of how Bruce Lee thought about Martial Arts and how he was trying to figure it out for himself. There’s a lot of lessons to be learned from all his notes. It’s not just about Martial Arts and fighting, it can be applied to every day life as well.

One of the notes I read involved the cognitive behavior theory involving a centipede.

The fluidity a martial artist seeks can be best described by the story of the centipede.  The many-footed creature was asked how it managed to walk on all its feet.  When it stopped to think about how it managed its daily function, it tripped and fell.  And so, life should be a natural process, in which development of the mind is not allowed to throw the natural flow of life out of balance.

More about the theory can be read on Centipede’s dilemm.

It’s definitely worth taking note of this and how “thinking too much” can hinder you. Instead let life take it’s course with you, and accept things that happen around you for what they are.

Master the Grace of the Cat – Practice the light, easy and graceful movements of the Cat.

Master the Anger of the Tiger – Overrun the courage of your enemy, advance harshly and retreat without confusion, estimate the situation then heavily punch with a sharp rush.

Master the Step of the Dragon – The Dragon is a symbol of strength and power, steps must be strong, powerful and resolute, the step is the source of the power generated by the movement, a non-confident step means a slipshod fist. When one step is over the movement of the body is over to.

Master the Speed of Lightning – Learn to instantly react to any changes.

Master the Sound of Thunder – The most powerful strike is delivered with a shout to obtain more powerful “effort-jin” emission.

Master the Movement of Wind – If you started fighting with a frontal attack, use your force on the left and right following the principle of ‘The fist is visible, the strike is invisible’ and ‘If you do not see your hand striking the enemy, you will never see this enemy’.

Master the Stance of Mountains – Your Stance must be impenetrable, train with Mabu, The Riders stance and Pole Standing stance. This will train strong feet and regulate breathing.

Master the Swiftness of the Goose – One must move quickly, lightly and instantly to respond to enemies actions, like the goose moving to the slightest whiff of wind.

Master the softness of Cotton – Before full exposure to rigidity, one must avoid vividly.

Master the hardness of Iron – Train the body to bear great pressure and power to overcome attacks with metal objects.

Google announced yesterday that they’ve released a new module for Apache (web server software) which will increase the page load time by up to 50%.  This is awesome news because I’ve been struggling to maintain SA Business Directory for quite some time now.  It’s just a lot more popular than I thought it would be and Drupal isn’t behaving as nicely as I would like it to.

What this module does it take fixes (or filters) that people implement on their sites to increase speed and then apply them to all your pages automatically on the fly.  This means you don’t need to physically go and edit your CMS or your pages.

Google also releases varies install files for the different Linux distributions out there, so it’s very easy to setup.  It literally took me about 15 seconds to get my Apache2 to load the new mod_pagespeed module.

My only concern is how much processing power it will take to apply these filters to each page before it is sent to a client.  I’ll be monitoring the resources over the next couple of days and compare it to previous records.  It has however increased the speed of the pages very noticeably.

To read more about mod_pagespeed visit http://code.google.com/speed/page-speed/docs/module.html

Ask a random person in the street if they are happy with their life and chances are you will hear a tone of hesitation before you hear a “yes”. Sometimes, you will also hear a person say that “I would be happy if I had this, or if I was there”. People in general equate happiness with an object or a desire. But what is happiness exactly?

Happiness is in fact not an object or the fulfillment of a dream. Happiness is a state of being, a nature of a person once he begins to identify with himself and the world more. And true happiness can actually be equated with being faithful to who you really are. Once you are aware of who you are, what it is you enjoy and love, or your what your inspiration is, you naturally become happier. But once you lose your identity, that’s when you start searching for happiness.

Happiness starts with a positive outlook on life. If you consider yourself as one of those people who are in search for their lost happiness, then here are a couple of tips on how to live happier life.

Relationships are at the very core of happiness; this however does not apply to intimate relationships only. Relationships here means to connect with the people in your life. There are several people who get caught up chasing after their dreams, leaving behind the people they care for. Reconnect with these people and fix any broken ties, sooner or later you’ll be surrounding yourself with nothing but love and thus become a happier person.

Next move is to check your whole outlook on life as well as your goals. If you are stuck doing something that you’re not passionate about, chances are that it’s the thing that’s hindering you from finding your true happiness. It has been said that one of the biggest mistake that a person can make is by doing something they do not love. Sometimes, your attitude and your outlook in your work and life can also affect your happiness. If you find yourself always whining and complaining about your life or your work, then a simple change in attitude might do the trick. If you start telling yourself that you love your life or your job, then the good vibes will eventually help to make you a happier person. Once you begin to appreciate the little things you have in your life, it will be easier for you to start loving your life.

There are also some people who forgot how it was being happy after a tragic incident or after they have been terribly hurt. The more you hold on to grudges, the less likely you will ever experience being truly happy. True happiness entails letting go of the things that hurts you or the things that have hurt you. You need to forgive the people who have disappointed you and instead try to live your life to the fullest. Let go of the past so that you can start living your present. You should never deprive yourself from having fun; enjoy a little spontaneity once in a while and just be grateful for your life.

Aside from correcting your goals, outlook, and attitude in life, it is also important that you take care of yourself more and get back in touch with your inner self. People might not necessarily notice it, but a person who lives a healthy life tends to be happier than those who do not.

Once you start taking care of yourself and stop neglecting your needs, happiness will eventually follow. It may also help to get in touch with your spiritual self. People who are committed to following a spiritual path are bursting with happiness in their hearts. A few minutes of spiritual practice, whether in the form of prayer, meditation, yoga, or the like, will help you live a happier and more peaceful life.
All in all, happiness is a person’s choice. If you continuously tell yourself that you are not happy, then you will never be happy. If you continue to dwell on what you don’t have instead of being grateful for what you have, then you will never be happy. True happiness is not something that we achieve; it comes once we learn to accept ourselves and the life we live.

For years we struggled with Tux’s eczema problem.  We felt helpless as we tried suggestion after suggestion, ointment after ointment and medicine after medicine.   He just kept on scratching to a point where he was drawing blood from himself every day.  It got so bad that he couldn’t sleep at night and was up scratching the whole time.  The only thing that helped was cortisone injections, but was told that we were shortening his life each time we injected him.  This broke our hearts, because in order to help him not itch so much, we literally had to make his life a little bit shorter each time we took him to the VET.  The VET even took a skin biopsy to try and determine the cause of the eczema.  The report came back saying it was probably allergies.  There was nothing more we could do for him.

That was until we met Liza from Body Benefits.  We met here when we went on an Animal Communication Course.  During the course she mentioned something to us called the BodyTalk System.  My understanding of it was that you are able to “listen” to your body to help you determine what exactly is wrong with it and if there is something you can do about it.

Bernadette and I decided to go to her for some BodyTalk sessions for Tux.  We had tried everything else, why not try this as well?  At the same time we wanted to deal with his extreme anxiety issues.  When I went to her the second time, she discussed the usage of tissue salts for healing purposes.  After using the BodyTalk System to test if this would work for Tux, Liza was very confident that it would work.  On the way back home I stopped off at a shop and bought some of these tissue salts.

I have to admit, at this point it was difficult trying to stay positive that we would ever find something that would help him.  That night I started giving it to Tux, and proceeded to do so every morning and every evening for the next couple of days.  6-7 days later I realised with shock that Tux’s hair had grown back.  At some point before this, he was probably only covered in about 20% hair.  He wasn’t constantly scratching anymore.  In fact, we also noticed he was only probably scratching a couple of times a day and it was normal compared to a normal dog.  We kept on giving the tissue salt and I am happy to say that after about 10 days his fur looks like a puppy’s fur again.  It’s so soft and so full.  The eczema seems gone, he has no raw patches and he doesn’t scratch so much anymore.  He even enjoys his undisturbed sleep.

We’re so happy that after trying endless amounts of medicines and ointments the BodyTalk System finally helped us identify what was lacking in his immune system.  I can assure you, the next time I hear about anything “funny” or “incurable” from friends and family, the first thing they’re going to hear from me is about the BodyTalk System.

If you want to know more about the BodyTalk System, check out their website on http://www.bodytalksystem.com/