Monthly Archives: December 2008

My Other Hobby – Aquariums

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1

Just wanted to take a brief detour and share with the readers of wujimon another hobby of mine, that is aquariums and fish tanks. More specifically, I enjoy keeping and maintaining freshwater planted fish tanks.

Growing up, I wasn’t allowed to have any cats/dogs/gerbils due the my parent’s allergies, but they did allow me to have aquarium fish. My first fish tank was given to me when I was 10yrs old by my cousin and it was a 20g angelfish/silver dollar tank.

Over the following 20 yrs, I have kept many types of aquariums ranging from a south east asian tiger barb themed tank to an african cichlid tank to a saltwater coral reef tank. I have finally settled on keeping freshwater planted tanks as cost and maintenance requirements of the tank fit well with my current lifestyle.

The link to a flickr photo set shows a photo of my saltwater coral reef tank that I had in college and then shows the progression of my 37g freshwater planted tank and finally shows the beginnings of my 20g long freshwater office tank. Enjoy :)

Flickr Aquarium Photo Set

YouTube Videos

What other hobbies are folks involved with?

My Other Hobby – Aquariums

Posted on
Reply

Just wanted to take a brief detour and share with the readers of wujimon another hobby of mine, that is aquariums and fish tanks. More specifically, I enjoy keeping and maintaining freshwater planted fish tanks.

Growing up, I wasn’t allowed to have any cats/dogs/gerbils due the my parent’s allergies, but they did allow me to have aquarium fish. My first fish tank was given to me when I was 10yrs old by my cousin and it was a 20g angelfish/silver dollar tank.

Over the following 20 yrs, I have kept many types of aquariums ranging from a south east asian tiger barb themed tank to an african cichlid tank to a saltwater coral reef tank. I have finally settled on keeping freshwater planted tanks as cost and maintenance requirements of the tank fit well with my current lifestyle.

The link to a flickr photo set shows a photo of my saltwater coral reef tank that I had in college and then shows the progression of my 37g freshwater planted tank and finally shows the beginnings of my 20g long freshwater office tank. Enjoy :)

Flickr Aquarium Photo Set

YouTube Videos

What other hobbies are folks involved with?

Listening Behind

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4

One of the things that Chen Xiao Wang (CXW) emphasizes in standing meditation (zhan zhuang) is ‘listening behind’.  That is, during our standing if we put our attention too much forward, it may cause too much agitation.  Therefore, he says that it’s good to ‘listen behind’ to balance out the energy.

To assist myself last night, I logged onto Pandora.com and created a station based on Liquid Mind.  I then positioned myself so the computer was behind me.  The soothing tones really put my mind at ease in that quiet place.  I made sure my stances wasn’t too wide nor too low.  Then I just stood.

Breathing slowly, I did counts of 25 for 4 postures.  In the beginning, I had to start over counting a couple of times because I was wondering if the music was too loud as I did not want to wake my sleeping son next door.  During the standing, I did notice I was trying to rush the counts a bit. There were other things I wanted to do during that time, but told myself I should be meditating instead ;)

John’s Tai Chi Drill Post Exercise

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2

Recently ran across John’s post on Tai Chi Drill Post Exercise that includes a Youtube video!  Be sure to check it out as I think he brings up some great points regarding zhan zhuang training.

For example, he talks about keeping the feet roughly one foot length apart. This is a great way to measure the stance as I have a tendency to make a much wider stance in zhan zhuang. I blame it on my old days of wushu and chen taiji :)

Also, I really like his point about not bending the knees too much, but just enough so they barely cover the toes. This is great as going too low can put undue stress on the knees, I have learned this the hard way.

After you have finished checking out his first video, be sure to check out part 2 that includes a couple of added drills! Saweet of John to post these videos and share his knowledge!

John’s Tai Chi Drill Post Exercise

Posted on
2

Recently ran across John’s post on Tai Chi Drill Post Exercise that includes a Youtube video!  Be sure to check it out as I think he brings up some great points regarding zhan zhuang training.

For example, he talks about keeping the feet roughly one foot length apart. This is a great way to measure the stance as I have a tendency to make a much wider stance in zhan zhuang. I blame it on my old days of wushu and chen taiji :)

Also, I really like his point about not bending the knees too much, but just enough so they barely cover the toes. This is great as going too low can put undue stress on the knees, I have learned this the hard way.

After you have finished checking out his first video, be sure to check out part 2 that includes a couple of added drills! Saweet of John to post these videos and share his knowledge!