Keeping in Shape - Eric Kim (Fri 04 Jan 2014)

street portrait - Lisbon (Wed 14 Aug 2013)
Eric Kim (*) writes On Photography (*):

taking photos is like training a muscle. You need to do it consistently to keep it fit and in shape. And even more important is to keep your eyes sharp and ready to look for photographs.

via On Consistency and Street Photography (*) by Eric Kim (*).

Compact Camera - Diado Moriyama (YouTube)

Compact Camera - Diado Moriyama (*) / Youtube (*)
An excerpt from a longer video which I will put here soon.

Great to see him in action on the Streets of Shinjuku which I recently wandered myself. I like this quote from a 2005 Interview (*):

My photography is about desire. The internal world meets the outside world and takes shape. When [my] desire takes some kind of shape, it becomes a photograph.

A photo I took using my iPhone - the battery on my S95 was well and truly flat..
Shop Front - Times Square / Shinjuku / Tokyo (Mon 17 Sep 2012)

Hope - Story of Telling (Wed 28 Dec 2016)

Mickey and Donald - Glebe (Thu 22 Dec 2016)

Story of Telling on Hope:

Hope impacts our internal narrative acting like the aperture of a camera’s lens controlling the amount of light reaching the film. It makes us more resourceful, fuels our resilience and strengthens our resolve. We might not have the ability to alter the scene but we can change our perspective.

We have more power to shape our stories than we realise

via The Power Of Perspective by Story of Telling.

On Performance - Drew Ginn (Mon 24 Dec 2012)

Uniform Top Swap Buddy - The racing was done and the "high pressure" uniform swapping process was in full swing. They had paddled with the USA U23 team and were from Philidelphia. His 16 year old twin brother had already made a swap for an Australian top, so I was more than happy to make sure he did not miss out / one of those great moments in life and paddling for someone like me, who has been around a while - 2011 World Dragon Boat Championships / Tampa (Sun 11 Sep 2011)
After a 16 year career of international performance, the recently retired Drew Ginn (*), made a summary of his personal views On Performance (*). He starts out with the a succient and general summary of his learnings (*):

to compete there needs to be a certain level of conditioning reached through quantity and targeted intensity while maintain integrity of movement effectiveness and harmony.

From which he expands:

Now there is heaps in all that but suffice to say if you do the work, row effectively and are ready for the event then it becomes easier.

Thats not to say its easy to do but rather the flow, process and deliver can be uncomplicated and then the depth of effort can be reached which can put athletes into that state. The state where it takes everything they have while the realisation emerges that it was less hard and not as difficult as previously thought or perceived.

So simply work to make it easier. Focus to help it flow and push to let it happen. Under do it and you feel guilty, over do it and frustration appears and so to get it just right is the key. The flexion point between effort and ease, tension and relaxation, concentration and letting go, its all a fine line and to learn & master is where art form meets science.

Finally then with out the work your not in the game. With out the efficient your unable to make the most of the opportunity. Then with out being ready for the nature of the big event all can be lost in the blur and intensity of what rises on the day. To seize the day requires all three elements to be developed, stimulated and firing.

Been following Drew's Blog (*) since March 2007 and through it I have watched him through two Olympic Games, three World Championships, back surgery after Beijing, a short and successful bike road racing career and his comeback to rowing.

For myself, he has inspired me through three World Dragon Boat Championships, two Asian Dragon Boat Championships, and three World Club Crew DB Championships and countless Local and National events. I think I have just about experienced everything in paddling, though I am not so sure (*) on that - which is something I have learnt from life and I think is a good thing.

His writings make sense to me and I can relate to much of what he has written and shared with us. In short, he is a role model to me and I think he has helped shape who I am as a paddler and a person. He has influenced me in how I train, race, and behave on and off the water. In fact, it was Drew's blog [along with Vern's (*), who is someone Drew can learn from as he moves forward with his coaching career] that helped me get started (*) here almost four years ago.

The above piece of writing at the end of his long and successful career as a rower, is a brilliant summary of what it is all about. He will take all of this into his new career as a coach. All the best Drew.

With thanks .. Geoff

Grief is concentrated in the face [take2] - The Art of Grief by Jonathan Walker

Grief is concentrated in the face. It makes the flesh sodden and unresponsive, dull with blood, like when you are drunk and heat comes off the skin like vapour off water, as if your vitality is evaporating into the air. The muscles go dead around the mouth and eyes. It almost hurts when others smile and your own face remains inert, held down by the drag and weight of the blood. The memory of grief stays in the flesh. The body recalls it, feels its weight, moulds itself automatically to its shape as the loss is remembered, the mask becoming tighter as the memory becomes clearer; not the memory of the dead person, but the memory of grief itself.

Page 24 The Art of Grief by Jonathan Walker

Geoff - "an early start for the first day of the rest of my life - 'where do you start?'" - Alexandria - 7am Wed 01 Jul 2009 (picasa)
Took this photo of myself the first morning after Jenny had died. I slept OK, all things considered and was up early - I had no idea what the day would bring. All I knew there was a Funeral to organise and many people to be contacted. No stranger to all of this, so I headed up to my usual Coffee shop (Cafe Sofia) so that I could have a few quiet moments to myself before the onslaught of the day.

Not sure why I took the photo - maybe so that I could remember that moment of numbness, despair and initial grief. I did a similar thing when my younger brother Tim died (see here).

The words above by Jonathan Walker (he reviewed one of my photos that I took in Newtown - see here) seem to match up with what I now see of myself in the photo.

The following gives some context to his writings on Grief - The Art of Grief - and its relationship to his new Novel - Five Wounds. It is complicated, but Grief is a long drawn out and complicated process. I am still trying to work it all out myself.

Five Wounds: An Allegory by Jonathan Walker

Five Wounds is a parable as well as a fairy tale. Throughout, it refers to an invisible, suppressed source: ‘The Art of Grief’, an abandoned essay on the deaths of my parents. This essay is never acknowledged directly within the novel, but it will be made available in March or April 2010 as a free download on my website for those who wish to investigate.

[..]

‘The Art of Grief’ is a key, which unlocks hidden meanings in Five Wounds. However, the relationship between the two texts is more complex than that of a riddle to its solution or a joke to its punch line, because Five Wounds has an independent life of its own. Its characters act according to their own natures, and make their own choices. They are not mere ciphers, condemned to act out episodes of my biography in a disguised, pathological form. The characters may be fantastic, but they are real within their own world, even when they unknowingly refer to events beyond its borders.

In this case, then, one text does not solve the other. Rather, Five Wounds places stolen fragments of ‘The Art of Grief’ in a new setting, which transforms their meaning, as the Venetians studded the façade of the church of San Marco with pieces of marble looted from Constantinople. Here, however, the arrangement is reversed. It is not the loot that shines brightly, but the container, within which the quotations are safely hidden away, like bones in a reliquary.

UPDATE: To download a PDF version of 'The Art of Grief', go to this part of my site

[Geoff: A repost of a version I was working on that somehow got posted on the 10 Apr 2010 - subsequently deleted and this is the remaining version.]

What matters most is what we believe about ourselves - Alain Briot (Dec 2010)

What matters most is not where we are right now.

It is not the skills we have today [..].

What matters most is what we believe about ourselves.

Why? Because it is this belief that will determine what we can become, what we can achieve in the future.

It is this belief that will shape the road ahead, it is this belief that will influence which path you are going to take.

Alain Briot from Rethinking Talent at Luminous Landscape (Dec 2010)

Jenny - She always believed no matter the circumstances - she has shown us the way forward so that we can live meaningful and fulfilling lives - she still guides and inspires us - always will - Broadway / Sydney (Sat 20 Jul 2002)
Geoff - Sydney - 2:57pm Tue 01 Feb 2010

Any good endurance athlete will say ..

With 100 metres left, there’s really no thinking, it’s just endurance and just focusing on the pain and trying to ignore the pain at the same time, which is a strange thing. You’ve got to focus on where the pain is and try to eliminate the feeling of fatigue and really just focus on maximizing each stroke, which is a difficult thing when everything’s on fire.

As far as the pain goes, you’ve got to keep pushing it or do I choose to relent and give in to my body’s reaction to working too hard?

The test of an endurance athlete is to push that limit and push that boundary and tell the body it’s got to sit tight a couple of minutes as you see how much you can do.

Any good endurance athlete will say that maintaining their form and their technique through those moments of pain and fatigue is probably the most key aspect to maintaining the speed. It’s really easy to break down the technique and not to be as snappy to return to the setup phase in the kayak stroke.

Adam van Koeverden, Oakville, Ontario, Toronto Star, 21 August 2008

k1-500m Final - 2004 Olympics
sportsscientists.com have a great post on Pacing strategy - how good pacing wins gold medals ..

Now, we know that in virtually every single type of sport, as soon as the event lasts between 3 and 5 minutes, the optimal pacing strategy is a fast start, then a slowing in the middle and an increase at the end, so that the two halves are close to even, but there is an "inverted U-shape" . This is why the first and final laps of mile and 1500m world records are significantly faster than the middle two laps.

When races are short, like a men's 400m or 800m run, or the men's 200m or 500m kayaking event, then it's different - the best strategy then is to go out hard and accept some kind of deterioration at the end of a race. Longer races, like men's 5000m and 10000m running events, the marathon, the Tour, all benefit from even pace, or even a slower start, with an 'endspurt' in the final kilometer. It's not co-incidence, for example, that in 24 of 25 World Records over 10,000m, the fastest kilometer has come at the very end of the race!

[..] for an event lasting 3 to 4 minutes, like the [..] K1 1000m kayak event, the optimal way to race is to hold reserve over the first half and then finish almost as fast as you begin. [..]

And we are not so different that each individual has an optimal pacing strategy. Yes, some are better at sustaining faster starts than others, some are better at kicking later in races. Much of this is psychological, I feel, but there are likely physiological reasons too. But these physiological differences are not so large that anyone can get away with vastly different strategies. For some reason, Germany have figured this out and are winning races that physiologically, they might otherwise have lost.

For a Moment, Forever .. To be an Aurora - eljeiffel (Wed 19 Aug 2015)

A Moment - Before, During and After - Racice / Czech Republic (Sat 29 Aug 2009)

For a Moment .. You think, you dream, you are inspired and you decide to go for the Team. You plan, you flex, you push, you pull, you metal, you shuffle, you kettle, you stand and paddle, and jump a few hurdles, and suddenly, you've made the Team, the first stage of a dream. You smile for a while, but you know it is only the first mile. You train, you strain, you pain, you drain, you gain, you laugh, you try, you cry, you learn, you create capacity and experiences, and build motion, connections and emotions for a Moment that seems so far off. You desire, you aspire, you perspire, time transpires and suddenly the Moment is there just in front of you, just there waiting for you to decide and respond as only you know how to. May you seize this Moment just ahead. It is just there .. waiting .. yes, just there. Where? It's there, just there, you know it. Grasp it with both hands. Fight for the inches, they are hard to find but they are there. And given an inch, take a mile, no mercy. What lies ahead is a mystery and shortly it will be history, to become your few threads in the rich tapestry that became before you. Be in and saviour this Moment, it is there waiting for you to move into and through, just like a door, to shape you and to become your memories with friends for a lifetime. Forever. As Jenny would say, "Don't Wonder 'What If?'". Go Australia!! Go the Auroras!!

Birds of Tokyo, "Lanterns": Stripped Down (Live)

Gerald the Dog - Blue - Slug - Erskineville Road / Erskineville (Thu 02 Dec 2010)

Gerald the Dog - Blue - Slug - Erskineville Road / Erskineville (Thu 02 Dec 2010)
Our pooches transformation is virtually complete. The shape of the top of his head and ears have changed and the colour of his skin has transformed from Yellow to Blue.

Gerald the Dog - Blue - Slug - Erskineville Road / Erskineville (Thu 02 Dec 2010)
Gerald the Dog - Blue - Slug - Erskineville Road / Erskineville (Thu 02 Dec 2010)
Gerald the Dog - Blue - Slug - Erskineville Road / Erskineville (Thu 02 Dec 2010)

Quote: Half a Life - NYT Book Review (12 Sep 2010)

Dani Shapiro writes in her NYT Book Review (12 Sep 2010) of the book, Half a Life by Darin Strauss:

What life delivers to us forms us all, but as surely as random .. events shape our lives, so too does our response to those events. Something happens, something tragic, immutable and unfair (whatever that means). So what are we going to do? Cave in? Become controlling, rageful? Shut down? Live lives of quiet desperation? At the center of this elegant, painful, stunningly honest memoir thrums a question fundamental to what it means to be human: What do we do with what we’ve been given?

An interesting observation and question. Maybe Petria King's quote might be one way to look for an answer.

Chaos - Shopfront Advertising - Singapore - Tue 29 Sep 2009 (picasa)
The Book was reviewed in last weekend's Spectrum. Will track it down and have a look. Found the review quite useful and informative.