Chris Meistre

Last Monday we started with our Infinite Tai Chi DVD. The first sections have all got to do with preparing yourself (body and mind) to start with the actual Tai Chi forms. It was during one of these sessions that I realised perhaps not everything can be taught using distance learning. Or at least, you need the right person to teach you.

The first couple of stages of exercises were:

• Breathing – a few exercising on getting you to breathe right
• Moving hands like clouds – moving your hands from side to side while focusing on your hands with your eyes
• Balanced walking – slow and steady walking feeling your weight shift from one leg to the other
• Strength and grounding parts 1 and 2 – a few exercising to help strengthen your body

All of the above were done with relative ease.  It is amazing that you can feel these slow moving exercises actually working your muscles.

The following evening we did the same things and then moved on to see how the first few steps of the Tai Chi form are.  It’s extremely difficult following what’s happening on the DVD and doing it at the same time.  There is no pause to explain to you what has happened or why you’re doing something.  It’s one move after the next, and with the camera angles it’s extremely difficult to see where your legs are supposed to go.

I’ve decided to first watch the complete DVD, as perhaps there is another section that goes into more detail.  I’m aware of the fact that Tai Chi forms are not really broken up on a step by step basis, and that everything must flow into the next move.  I however think that for illustration purposes this DVD could’ve done a lot more to make it easier to understand.

After watching the DVD I’ll also go through the book I have to see how we can make this one out.

I went to do my pushups and situps last night, and as I was reading the training guide, I saw that I have to do a progress test.

So I did both and got to 33 pushups and 50 situps. Making nice progress!

After missing out on 2 training sessions last week, I was impressed with myself when I picked it up again on Friday and Saturday. So as of today I’m back on schedule.

The last training session was quite hectic, and I could really feel in my arms that I had worked. Perhaps it was because I did the 2 sessions within 12 hours of each other. I’m glad to also report that I’m still keeping up with the amounts I should be doing. I even do about 5-10 more on the last set.

If ever there was a time to kick myself square in the pants, today is it. I’ve been working on a biggish project, and have gotten to the 95% mark when I hit the wrong button and deleted the whole directory with all the files in it!

And the last time I made backups (or when our backup server was actually still on) was about 6 months ago. Terrible TERRIBLE feeling. Strange how I always insist that our clients understand the value of backups, but I let my guard down with it comes to my own stuff.

Part of our service offering to clients is data recovery. As I’m running Linux with Ext3 Filesystem it is a bit more difficult than normal and a lot more labor intensive.

I am now waiting to see if it’s going to work. It will probably take another 2-3 hours before I know if I’ve lost the whole week’s worth of work. It’s not only the time I need to get it working again, but it’s to remember how exactly I did it!

Damnit, damnit, damnit!

The Spirit of Africa is the brain child of Sarel Van Der Merwe in conjunction with Mitsubishi Motors.  I am not only a fan of this competition because I love and drive a Mitsubishi, but also because it’s something put together by the legendary Sarel.

Towards the end of 2007 I read about this competition again, and something inside me said I must do this.  I spoke to Barto and together we decided that we will do it in 2008.  We didn’t really know what to expect of the competition, so really, we were expecting the unexpected, and we were surprised at the end of the day.

Maritime Motors in Port Elizabeth was kind enough to lend us one of their vehicles to go and practise a bit a couple of weeks before we went up to Kosi Bay for the first stage of the competition.  We appreciated this very much as it enabled us to get a feel for the vehicle.

We flew up to Durban, hired a car, and drove for about 450km to get to our destination.  There we were met by Sarel and his team and enjoyed the first evening relaxing.

The next day it was time for all the heats of the competition.  It turned out to be full on offroad racing.  Where time, hitting poles, everything was counting against you.  We enjoyed it very much.

The following day there were a couple more challenges, of which we turned out to be the first team to score full marks for one of them.  That was a nice feather in our cap.

After that it was back home, after an incredible experience!

This year Bernadette and myself will be going up as a team and Barto with another friend.