Periodization

Periodization has been a very interesting concept to me recently. Mostly because it's been something I've been reading about a lot in fitness training manuals and books. I recently finished reading a book by Ori Hofmekler called Maximum Muscle, Minimum Fat and I must say I'm really beginning to dig this biological stuff! He goes into the deeper details of fitness to the level of hormones and how our bodies are actually pretty damn balanced. I mean, it's very hard to get it out of whack unless you keep it that way chronically. It was quite interesting to finally really understand the biological processes that your body goes through that explains the reasoning for a zig-zag diet and how many extreme diets, like the low-carb diet are eventually going to come back and bite you in the ass. I've never been a fan of taking information at face value, I want to know why this information works before I'll truly believe it. I mean, learning about the mitochondria size of different muscle fibres and how they affect the ways your body burns fat is really interesting and brings a whole new level of insight into the ways I can design my own workout routines. Too often you see people say stuff like "oh I just follow this workout because it works", sure that's great, but eventually you're going to run into a brick wall because there are only so many generic workouts that'll work for you. Eventually you're going to get more and more specific with your goals and you'll have to work that way as well. Learning how different muscle fibres work and how they get trained has taught me to better understand why there are times when I'd feel like I had a blast working out and times when I'd feel fatigued at the gym. Woah :) Knowledge is awesome! I'm currently reading The Poliquin Principles and it goes into the finer details of things such as the science behind different speeds of lifting weights. It's awesome! I knew there was a lot to this point but most people are so focused on the exercise, they ignore the form!

I respect a movement's form because it ties into a lot of other things I do. My comedy requires a lot of body language and as they say, majority of your message gets communicated through your body, and only through a mind-muscle connection can you properly execute a smooth expression with your arms, legs, face, etc. The key here is to be as relaxed as possible so that you are in full control of everything. When you're under tension, it's harder to control things. It also ties into my drumming which always, always, always emphasizes on the idea of staying relaxed. Even at high speeds, the more tense you make your muscles, the harder it is for you to progress. Only through relaxation are you able to execute each movement properly and smoothly. At the same time, slow movements allow you to conciously notice the details of inbetweens. Just like when you watch a slowed down instant replay of a sports event, you get to see things you conciously missed (even if you subconciously noticed) and then really absorb everything.

I've slowly been noticing how my body isn't balanced physically. I'm not talking about the typical right arm stronger than left arm issue a lot of right-handed people suffer from, I'm referring to my level of flexibility. My left side is actually tighter than my right which in turn affects my posture as well as daily life. For example, for anyone who's bumped into me, you'll notice I almost always have a back-pack with me. I rarely ever leave the house without it because it contains my laptop and maybe a book, some snacks, my music (yay for big headphones!) and in the summer, a spare t-shirt and of course, my very, very vital water. Everytime I look into the mirror, I see my left-side strap lower than my right. As much as I balance the strap lengths, my shoulders seem lipsided. Yet when I'm standing straight without anything on my back, my shoulders are balanced. Then I started noticing my posture from different directions, most notably from the sides. It seems that due to the tighter chest muscles on my left side, my left shoulder leans a bit more forward than my right, thus causing an imbalance in my bag's weight. And so here I am constantly conciously reminding myself to force my left shoulder back a bit more so as to make it into a normal habit of mine. Muscle memory at work once again.

The more I dig into this, the more I'm noticing how my forearms are different too. I've recently been studying my left and right hand movements during drumming and my left hand is definitely a lot less flexible than my right and so I have to conciously force it to turn a bit more so as to stay in balance with my right hand. The joys of perfection. Sigh.

Going back to my title, periodization to many is the period of certain things happen, but to me it's a block that signals an expected time of a goal being achieved. It's like a period of time of going to work before you get your paycheck, I'm focusing on the paycheck so as to make each day seem worth treading through. Honestly, it's barely any fun watching your left hand do single strokes but I know as long as I work at it, by the end of a certain period, I should have matered the technique properly. And to be honest, my hand drumming speed has improved a lot recently through my single stroke practicing. Though I'm slowly feeling that I can't keep neglecting everything else :( Much like any training, the key is good for combined with holistic training that works everything. My biggest challenge is to better understand how long it takes for the Central Nervous System to usually recover from a tiresom training session before when I can train it again productively. So here goes another 10 days. By then, I should hopefully have moved onto the lovely double stroke rolls which my feet are dreading but have to master. Speaking of which, I think I'm going to hit the drums for a bit of practice. Especially since it's so darn gloomy and rainy outside, I don't want to think about the rest of the day :(.

So let's see how the next 10 days unfold, and how many of my goals I achieve! :D Charge!

Digging up the roots

So here I am in the middle of the night. Technically a day late for my Day 10 entry, but at the same time, I count my days from the time I rise to the time I retire. So I'm still on time :).

Recently, I've been going back to my roots and foundations and exploring whether or not I need to re-evaluate everything so I can further progress. I've noticed this necessity in my drumming, especially after I watched Benny Greb's The Language of Drumming. It's been a while and I'm still working on my single-strokes, pretty much the first thing any newbie drummer will learn to do. After all that research about muscle memory, I've been paying a lot of attention to the finer details of every movement I make. It's a tough test of patience but it does pay off. I can't wait to move into double-stroke territory.

My ankle has also healed pretty much 100% and I'm glad to say this has been the fastest recovery ever. Partly because I took care of it and followed the RICE guide although I skipped the ICE part but used one of those Japanese muscle pads (like Tiger Balm) and boy oh boy did that help! Also, I've been taking omega-3 fatty acid supplements so I'm guessing that contributed to the healing process pretty well, after all, it's good for joints and well, I hurt my joint. So with a healed ankle, I could finally work on my feet at the drums and I realized my feet progress is around 50% that of my hands. Like my hands can increase at around 40bpm each session, but my feet go at 20bpm/session. It also takes much more mental energy and concentration for me to keep my feet focused and disciplined so I can hit the mark of my metronome on the dot. For all of you drummers out there, I use the Boss DR-90 Metronome which has an in-built accuracy tester and I've kept it at the hardest. I mean, if I'm going to be practicing, I might as well do it right and perfectly. Like they say, perfect practice makes perfect. Not just practice.

Let's hope in the next 10 days, I can move on from single strokes and start with double-strokes!

Another thing I've been re-visiting is my comedy. I've been going back through some of my old bits and refining them. It's a very, very time-consuming process but the outcomes is worth it. One of my famous bits used to be good and now it's nice and tight. It's a great feeling when you know you've created an A+ bit that a lot of people remember you for. It's one of those signature bits :). I'm planning on going through all my other bits and watching my tapes, re-writing the wordings and making them tight, tight, tight! I'm talking machine-gun punchlines! Also, my goal for 2009 was to have a one-man show in English, which means I need a good 1-hour set. Right now I'm at a solid 15 minutes or a pretty alright 20 minutes if you include B-grade material. I recently got to watch Paul Ogata, who in my opinion has completely blown me away time after time and is the 1st live stand-up comedian I got to watch and ever since that has been a target I'm trying to achieve. It's great seeing him on stage and being able to speak to him off stage. He's a humble guy and as much as you ask him for advise, it comes down to one thing -- writing. And he's so right. I could read all the fitness magazines or listen to every drummer alive, but until I hit the gym or practice my drums, I'll get nowhere.

He said comedy is like a muscle you have to keep training and boy is that true. People don't get rusty for no reason, just like your body gets out of shape so does your mind. That's why I'm trying to go back to my beginnings and work from there again. The good thing is, having been there and done that before, I know what to expect and what to avoid, so it makes the process of progressing so much faster. It's like being fit once, and getting out of shape, oddly your body has a (different) kind of muscle memory that remembers the fitness level you were at before, and you can easily get back to that with a bit of training. It reminds me of my return from New York. I had put on a good 4lbs and oddly enough in a week's time I shed 70% of that new weight! Woah! I suppose it's like riding a bike, you might kind of need to warm up after not having ridden one for a long time, but it's a much faster process that it was when you first started learning.

I've also gone back to enjoying Buddha Bar music. No Phantom of the Opera for me for now. I've also been reading a lot of books on mind-mapping, hoping to find some awesome trick to improve them but in the end it seems I just have to go and map what's on my mind. I had made one on a large sheet of paper, but the speed of my thinking is much faster than the speed I can write at, I can at least type almost as fast as my thinking so that helps. I'm evaluating iMindMap to see if it fits what I'm looking for. I've found a lot of other mind-mapping software both open source and commercial but all of them looked too technical and seemed very creatively limiting. Tony Buzan talked about how we keep using our left-side of the brain and don't stimulate our right side enough because we often lack colors, images, sounds, etc. so I'm trying to make sure my right side gets strong too by incorporating all these into my mind maps. I've realized one limiting factor is my inability to properly draw what I see/think in my head. I've tried but it just doesn't work. I had talked about this being something I'm going to work at every night but I've come to realize leaving something to do at night is not a good decision because usually near bed time, I'm quite burnt out or exhausted mentally and being told to learn something that doesn't require just passive reading or watching is really not attractive at all and by this time my level of discipline has dropped too due to my low energy levels.

On a reading note, I'm currently ploughing through Beyond Brawn and so far the initial chapters are full of stuff I consider nonsense. Not saying the author is not good at delivering his message, I mean it's still I already know and it's basic motivation repeated in different words. I'm planning on following this book with Weight-Training Technique because I'm starting to get into much heavier weights and before I injur myself, it's best I make sure my technique is perfect. This is also the phase my imbalances will start getting exagerated, like my stronger/bigger right arm is more noticable now and so it's time I upped the level and really killed myself at the gym. The last time I had a leg day, I came out totally trashed, in a good way. Not "oh my goodness, I'm so tired I want to die" but "oohh, I can feel my legs are exhausted after a good, hard workout". I felt good. Which is often how I feel like at night after a long hard day of work, work, work and achieving!

So far going to the foundations has been helpful for me and may be good for you, maybe you should spend a few hours and re-evaluate the steps you took and make sure they were perfected before you progress even further. Heck, no one wants to climb back down a hill because they realized they left something at the bottom, right? At least not when you're near the top.

Back on Track

And finally, my life is back on track. Well almost.

After my trip to New York, I had so much catching up to do, it wasn't funny. I then realized, I was falling back into the old ways where I'd get stressed out because I kept looking at my never-ending to-do lists and felt like there was always something waiting for me, even if it wasn't due today.

I then did what most people would do to give themselves a fresh start. Well, most geeks really. I did the equivalent to a girl getting a haircut to shed away her old memories or a guy buying himself a new cap. I reformatted my computer and boy does it feel good! It gave me that fresh feeling that made me feel like it was time to throw away my old ways and get on with the new. I sat down and went through all my work processes and figured out all the problems I was facing and listed them out, and solved them one by one. I've also started on a book called The Mind Map Book. A clear classic and figured I could use with the extra information this book has on Mind Maps. I mean, no one really needs to be taught mind mapping, but it's more like how to best use them. Kind of like no one ever needs to be taught how to do make to-do lists, but it's how to effectively use them, or make them more efficient that helps.

I must say, I've got back into my GTD ways and it's rocking my world like it did before. Especially since I've modified the way my to-do lists are displayed to me, hiding anything that isn't due today, until I want to see it (ie. when I've finished everything there is to do today :P). I've got myself into a fixed routine of practicing drums around 30 - 40 minutes a day, as well as a good, efficient workout routine that gives me days off without the psychological guilt trip many gym-goers get when they take the day off for rest.

I've also figured out a bunch of ways to keep my mind constantly growing in all my passions, from my love for everything metal to learning about the most effective way to do a bicep curl. I've also got myself going back into drawing but that's where I still have to work a bit because I still suck :P. I can't even seem to draw stick men properly.

My band, Eve of Sin, had a gig on 11 April 2009 during Easter weekend and boy was it awesome! Oh man, the crowd was freaking insane! I loved it! Thank you so much! We filmed it down but it's really quite dark. I should have used my night-vision setting, even though it makes everyone seem like green zombies, it's better than looking at a patch of black. But after some post-production, I can see the crazy moshing and oh man, my favorite, wall of deaths! We didn't expect it during one of our songs, but the crowd just spread apart like the Red Sea in the story of Moses! And before we knew it, BOOM! Ahah, I have to get the video to the other bandmates before I get everyone's approval to upload it for your viewing pleasure. Please be careful, it is still metal so mind those ears! :D

Comedy's been going good and I had 2 good shows this weekend, with English on Friday and Chinese on Saturday :) I hosted the Chinese show and it's a lot of fun, even though I'm not very used to starting a show, but the coolest part of hosting is that you get to keep going back on stage :) So if you ever forget to say something, you can go back and do it! :D There is a 2nd chance! :D i even got invited to go on a TV show called Sunday Whiz (Check out the 19 April 2009 episode) as a guest to talk about racism in Hong Kong. It's in Cantonese, but it was quite interesting. I guess the thing is, if you ask me to point out racist events in my life, I could go on and on and on, but at the same time, I don't feel that racism really. I just feel it's racist only if you take it as racism. Calling someone a gwailo, in my view, is racist only if it's said offensively or if you want to make sure it's distinguished that you are not them. But there are a lot of people who feel good being called that, it makes them feel like they are part of society, now that they have terms like that that are specifically for them. But oh well, I respect everyone's opinion :).

I'm hitting a slight plateau in the gym though, so my routine's probably going to need to get changed in a week's time, however, the coolest thing is that I'm getting some pretty good gains though. I think it has to do with the way I plan my meals before and after my workout and so far so good. I have to say though, I've come to realize, my flexibility isn't balanced though, my left side is muuuuccchh tighter than my right, which sucks but also makes sense seeing as my right side is stronger and also from my drumming, using the computer, it's my right side that moves the most, left side usually stays there, hence the muscle tightening. Sigh :\

And everything else is so far so good. Today I get to take it a little easy and I've got myself a slice of salmon. Did I ever tell you how much I love salmon? You have no idea, whenever I buy it, I literally have a singing tune in my head as I wait to get back and cook the hunky piece of juicy fish :). Maybe because it's good for my heart, it gives me that warm fuzzy feeling you'd get when you saw, say, a handbag of your dreams and you fell in love with it :)

Mmm... salmon *drools like Homer does*

Floating in the clouds from New York

Hello hello from thousands and thousands of feet in the sky! That's right, I'm actually typing this on my laptop on the plane going back to ol' Hong Kong! Boy it has been a sweet 2 weeks in New York! I fit right in (except my inability to differentiate coins unless I take them out, look at them, and go "oh a dime is 10 cents!" :P)

So here I am, with almost 14 hours still to go before I land back home and I figured after this lovely vacation (with some "work" thrown in for good measure), it's time to get back in the groove and have a head start on stuff. And what better time to begin than now?! :) I was watching some stuff on Studio CX which is Cathay Pacific's in-flight entertainment (which I must say has completely blown me away! I'm used to flights with 1 TV screen everyone shares) but figured I can reward myself later on in the night when everyone's sleeping.

For those of you who's managed to somehow get info. about my time in the big apple, you'll know it's been one crazy but fun time. The key features of my trip are all the food I ate! I got to perform in a few real New York comedy clubs! I shopped a whopping 23kg worth of stuff! I've become a master at using the New York subway and of course, I'm exhausted but well rested mentally. Exhausted because I have not had a day during my trip where I've slept for anything over 7 hours combined with the food I've been eating (ranging from pizza to pancakes, to fried chicken, to cup cakes), I can feel my body crying for proper rest and nutrition like before! But mentally, I'm ready to rock! I can't wait to get back and get into the groove of life in Hong Kong!

You know, the odd thing is that New York is really actually quite similar to Hong Kong. As Jami Gong, the founder of TakeOut Comedy says, it's "New York on steriods", which in many ways I admit is true. The only part HK loses to NY is in the artistic side and their variety in food and shopping. The supermarkets in NY are unforgiving! If you go in without a specific shopping list, you're screwed! I've found myself wandering around, looking at the 3503853052820539 types of cereals they carry, thinking "oh my goodness, I'd never get anything done with all these options!" But at the same time, it also means you have no excuse for limiting yourself. Heck, everywhere you go it has nutrition labels attached to it! Starbucks, McDonalds, etc. all tell you how many gazillion calories they contain. Oddly enough, people are probably immune to those numbers and you still see them munching happily away at 29035503 doughnuts each weighing in at 300+ calories. And speaking of calories, they're serving lunch now, so I'll continue this in a bit :)

Ahh and we're back. Dinner alongside the movie "Body of Lies". Another one of those movies that I just can't seem to follow and probably need to re-watch. Oh well, so we've got around 11 hours to go and it's quite odd, seeing as it's 8am Sunday in Hong Kong but I'm still attached to New York time, making it 8pm on Saturday night. I hope I don't get too much jet-lag. It's funny about flights nowadays, especially long flights like these. You find yourself "hanging out" a lot just because you've sat for too long and really need to walk around to get that blood flowing properly again. Oh and speaking of flowing, I never realized they have power sockets for your laptops on the plane! OMFG do you realize what this means? I can have my laptop on all flight long! Woohoo! I went to use the restroom just now and oddly, on the door there's an ashtray. This is of course after they've repeatedly warned us that this is a non-smoking flight and should you be caught smoking, you will be fined up to HK$50,000! But if you're going to do it, at least don't get the ashes everywhere.

Going back to my story about NY vs HK, one thing I liked the most about NY was the fact that you're on your own. You'll have weirdo's, people screaming and dancing in the middle of the subway, literally full blown bands playing, and you know what? No one's going to stop you. It's not so much people don't care, but it's more like no one seems to frown upon that behavior, it's taken as being normal. If this happened in HK, even though chances are no one will stop you, they will give you the stink eye and dirty looks. That's definitely one thing I like a lot about NY, however, what I don't like are things like sales tax (freaking 8.375%! WTF?!), the price of food (I eat on average at least US$5/meal, which makes it like HK$40! I'm used to HK$25 - 35 tops!). But I suppose I could definitely see myself living in New York, for around a year, just to really dig into the "you're on your own, you make your life" vibe.

Speaking of being on your own, I got to do three 5 minute sets of comedy in New York! Do you know how insane that is?! Not only i that almost unheard of because stage time is so darn rare there, but for me, a dude from Hong Kong, having done comedy for around 15 months, to come over, not have to do any street barking (ie. give out leaflets) or work my way in the club, to get a spot, that's hardcore crazy! But boy what an experience, as I've told lots of people, it's like I moved into the big leagues. The guys in HK are great, but in a comedy show in NY, everyone is top notch and polished and boy you do not want to have an off night, especially not for me. And man I was nervous, it'd been a while since I was this nervous really, especially since it was only 5 minutes. I'm used to 10 - 20 minute sets in Hong Kong but being at a whole new place and an unknown audience sure sets your heart beating fast. I got to perform at the famous Comic Strip, Ha! Comedy club and at 5-points variety show :) I also did a friendly bi-lingual show for Jami Gong and his friends :)

I got to explore all over NYC on foot simply because it's all flat land. I mean I would literally come back home with aching feet and sore legs from hours and hours of walking non-stop (with the occasional food and toilet break). Oh, speaking of toilets, NYC really loses compared to HK with regards to the availability of public toilets. But I somehow managed to find one in times of need, or at least I knew where to find one (eg. I could be found going to the M&M's store in time square many times solely for the use of their nice toilet :P).

So well here comes the end of my vacation and I guess I do understand why people need to just "get away". Had I just "taken 2 weeks off" in Hong Kong, chances are I wouldn't be a mentally rested as I am now, nor would I be so charged up to start everything and get back on track. So I guess this is one of those "small step back to take a big step forward" deals where I kinda lost out 2 weeks of getting stuff done, but hopefully I'll make up for it in the coming time. And if I don't, well at least I'll have fond memories of shivering in the cold of New York and enjoying soul food and just witnessing blue skies over and over again. Oh and getting to enjoy graffiti everywhere. Lots and lots of lovely graffiti. Hey, at least I got to smile for 2 weeks :)

Hong Kong, here I come!

New York, New York trailer

It's finally registered in my head, I'm going to New York this Sunday the 15th of March! Oh my goodness! I've never been to the USA let alone New York! There's so much I want to do, so much I need to prepare, so much to get done before leaving it's not funny.

I'm actually fighting time now because I'm try to get everything done before I head off this Sunday and well time's just flying. Heck, I'm late for my Day 10 entry here because I've been pushing so hard trying to crank out all the work one by one.

So have you been to New York before? I've heard mixed stories about it, people saying it's dirty but fun, it's full of life but people are rude, etc. I suppose having lived in Hong Kong all my life and only enjoying USA via TV shows and movies, I'd be more than happy to get there and keep screaming (in my head) "Oh my goodness! I've seen that on TV! I've seen that on TV!" I can't wait to just walk around there on my own for a whole day, visit museums, go to Central Park, eat Pizza, have a hot dog, drink coffee, shop (I'm from HK damnit!), look at all the graffiti, hit the comedy clubs, watch street basketball games, take the subway and just generally soak in New York, New York! As one of my friends said, it's so good they named it twice, New York New York!

Any tips? Any experiences you'd like to share? I'd love to hear from you as to where I must or must not go.

Back to life here, it's already Wednesday, and I'm charging through my inbox and all my work pending to be completed and I must say, I'm feeling a bit stressed out because I've started to build a certain level of discipline that is enforcing itself, by itself. It's a good thing, but the problem is that darn thing we call time again. I've got a lot of things to do, and I want to do them, but somehow I don't have enough time to do them all. Darn.

Speaking of time, I've finally reloaded my Phantom of the Opera music into my play list and I'm loving it. It's been quite a while since I last worked while listening to this album. I've gotten a bit tired of Buddha Bar mostly because I hate it when I go to a cafe and they're playing it there, it makes me feel like I'm back at work.

For those of you who've been reading my blog recently, you'll notice I talk a lot about different music for different situations. It really works, my mind has been conditioned with certain songs that it shifts into a different mental zone upon hearing different songs. I suggest you give it a shot on days when you feel like you just can't get yourself to focus or get into the right mind-set. I have yet to find music to get my mind at optimum condition for stand-up comedy, then again, I suppose it's better that I just watch the show and all the comedians before me, that'll get my blood flowing from laughter.

There's a long day ahead of me and a long, fun 2 weeks waiting for me on the other side of the planet, so I shall sign off here and continue after my trip (no idea about Internet status while there) so I hope everyone has a great March ahead of them and we're almost 25% done with 2009! Scary eh? :) Well that should get you motivated to live!

New York, New York! :D

Red shoes!

I think I have a shoe fetish. When I saw these shoes yesterday, I literally had the same emotional feeling I had when I saw my lovely, dovey pink shoes.
So I figured to stick with tradition, I'd add these to my blog and share them with everyone :)
Yummy.

2 years. Where was I?

Woah, it's been 2 whole year as of today since I started this blog! It's so much fun travelling back in time and reading these sorts of logs to see where I was and where I am and how much of it was "pre-planned" and how much of it just happened. Poof, I can honestly say, whatever's going on in my life, at most 30% of it was planned 2 years ago when I started this blog. The rest? Well the rest is as with anything in life, it goes with the flow.

It's times like these that makes me happy to know I'm a person obsessed with leaving my footprints and marks of my history for the future me to enjoy and recall about :). To be able to see how I had treaded up the mountains just to scream my lungs out not knowing that in a matter of months, the emotional turmoil I was going through would be nothing compared to the craziness that I'd be thrown into. To know that the emotional turmoil I'd once gone through was actually a blessing in disguise revealed to me a few entries later. Heck, every entry of mine surprises me with something I didn't expect. So what's to come in the next 10 days for me?! Who knows! :) And that's the great thing about life, you just can't get bored of it.

A lot of times people need stability, they need a routine, hell, I need a routine too, I can't wake up every morning not knowing if I'll still have a bed to sleep in. However, I do wake up every morning not knowing how my day will unfold until it does so. I may give myself a rough outline of the day's schedule, but rarely has it ever followed precisely and I've come to accept the standard rate of error (you know those +/- 5% sorts of things) in my time management. I no longer freak out when I'm 5 minutes behind schedule, I simply appreciate that I'm not 6 minutes behind and charge on.

I guess in the last 2 years, a lot of me has grown and improved. Kind of like a person with a better haircut doesn't make that a different person, it's still the same person but with improvements (or if it's a bad haircut then the other way round). For one, I've come to establish that I can do what I want to do as long as I genuinely know I want to do it. There's no faking passion, as I've said time and time again in my posts. The things I do cannot be faked, you can't fake enjoying heavy metal, you can't fake being fit, you can't fake being funny and you sure as hell can't fake having a passion about something. Reading through my entries in these last 2 years, my passions have remained somewhat the same, however, I've grown in terms of depth regarding them. My drumming's improved, my fitness has gotten better, my comedic performances are more enjoyable and well heavy metal music still is like a brain massage to me :) Speaking of which, if you haven't already, you must check out Lamb of God's newest album Wrath. It's one of those discs that need time to absorb and enjoy. You can't enjoy red wine without letting it breathe a bit, the same goes for this album. It's really, really good and now has become my mental gear shifters for the gym. I turn this on and boom my muscles are pumped with blood and ready to dance with dumb bells like it was Saturday night live.

I won't let this post go on for too long but I just wanted to share with you the joys of having this blog that has been a part of me for the last 2 years and if you don't already do so, start writing a blog or a journal. You may not see the point now, but in a few months when you look back at where you were and where you are, you'll be very, very happy about it :) Trust me.

Enjoy the fine Wednesday and look forward to the weekend, it smells like a good one!

Seeing is Believing

I'm finally here, at my lovely blog, sitting peacefully without having to rush off somewhere in a short while. It's been a crazy week with a lot of spontaneous events that have stopped me from keeping up with my Day 10 schedule and thus I'm late, late, late for my entry. So um, oops. I guess that'll suffice.

I think I've scratched my left eye while sleeping because I woke up this morning with tears and a shade of red covering it. It's making this entry seem so emotional because every now and then I have to dab it to prevent the liquid from dripping every now and then. Yet, mentally I'm feeling fine. Hah silly eye, it's got the wrong emotional signals.

I guess we see the world in our own little ways, through our own eyes. One moment the world is blurry, and put on your prescribed glasses and next your moment's all focused. Some people are the type that they have to see something to believe it for themselves. Like watching something on video versus watching it live. It's a different feeling. Say going to a concert, it's not about just the visuals, it's the aggregate effect all your 5 senses receive from the experience. You've got the heavy bass running through your skin, loud music pumping into your ears, the smell of smoke, sweat, lights, everything pounding your nose, the taste of excitement in your mouth and well, of course, the look of the band you're watching in your eyes. Add a frame around that and slap on a YouTube logo and half of that vanishes. The same really does go for stand-up comedy, even though a lot of people may not agree, it's a different experience watching someone do a bit in person versus on video. The other day I had a guest appearance for a university singing contest and I did one bit I'd done on TV and people still cracked up. I knew some of these people had seen my bit before, but they cracked up more on the fact that they were waiting for something they knew was coming -- the punch line.

It's a weird thing when you realize sometimes it's kind of like singing along with your favorite song at a concert. Some punch lines are so good that people want to say it with you in their minds. I guess that's when you know you've got an A-grade bit. I've discovered the same is when you're talking with friends and when they know you and your style well enough, they can predict what you'd say for a certain situation or conversation. You know how sometimes people would tell you stuff and you'd say "Oh, it couldn't be him, he's not like that." It's something similar to that because you just know that person's style.

I guess style is something that unites a lot of the arts, because that's what people keep working at discovering and also work at developing and innovating. It's something that only comes with time and experience, you can't just say "ok from now on, this is my style." In my opinion, it doesn't work that way, your style develops by itself, you just have to keep poking new boundaries and keep doing things to let it develop. Kind of like working out, the muscles don't need you to mentally focus on them, as long as you're working them out the right way, they're going to respond by growing and improving. It's an involuntary/sub-concious event.

Going back to seeing, in many ways seeing is quite a sub-concious event too, you notice things you didn't expect or after a while realize you did see it without realizing it. Often people have talked about when you want to see something, you will see something more. Like if you started taking the time to notice people in pink, you'd realize there are in fact a lot of people in pink! It's not that you suddenly managed to create a cosmic effect that cause people to choose pink for a change, but that you switched your sub-concious observation to a concious one and now you're noticing this stuff. Kind of like me and nutrition labels. Without realizing it, I'd notice them and for one, I noticed them on freaking bottles of water. I mean really? Do we really need to be reminded that water has 0 calories? 0 carbs? 0 fat? And 0 protein? I suppose on paper it doesn't seem so bizarre, but when you're holding the bottle thinking "they actually spent money on some science experiment to discover this information?!" I guess seeing in believing as well as enjoying because a lot of things are only great in that moment. It's one of those "you had to be there" things.

The moment. It's another one of those cosmic ideas that makes you really go "woah" sometimes because when you find the right thing at the right moment, it's quite mind-blowing. Kind of like having a good come-back without the short period of time where come-backs are powerful and not lame. It's weird when you break down and analyze things like these, it makes you realize that there's often some science behind every form of art. I mean in my opinion, technique is some sort of science because it's has a fixed pattern that you work at to improve. It's like a formula in a way that leads to a certain outcome. However, it also blends in a lot of personal touch because everyone's mind and body is different so the same technique may not work for you but a slight variation would. I guess it all comes down to seeing what works for you and believing in it and working at it. Enjoy!

Logs, logs, logs, logs and more logs

I've come to realize I'm the type of guy hat loves to keep logs of everything I do. I keep records of my comedic performances on video tapes, I log my drum practice sessions, my fitness workouts, even what I eat every day! Heck, I'm (b)logging right now!

The other day, I was at the gym, lifting weights when one of my fellow iron pumpers came up to me (he's seen me there and always smiles and occasionally has a small chat with me) and told me to stop logging everything down (I carry a notepad and pen with me to keep track of how much weight I lifted compared to my last session, so I don't get lazy) and told me to just lift as much as I could and I'd get stronger. It made me think, was this overkill? I mean to keep track of things to this point, does it take the fun out of the whole deal? When I log down everything I eat, do I forget to enjoy what I eat because I'm so busy worrying about the nutritional content of what I'm eating?!

Honestly, it took me less than a second to realize, no, I love logging what I do. This way, I have a starting point from where to keep progressing. Not to mention it gives me more motivation to try harder because I've got written proof of where I was and where I am now. I mean, if I re-read posts in my blog that are like almost 2 years old, I'd even read about how I felt after having arguments with people, I'd remember those memories of struggling with my 1st comedic act, heck, I even have a post where I was so excited that I did 20 minutes of comedy in Cantonese! Now I can do a 1 hour show! :D Hell, my fitness log keeps me in check every time I'm at the gym because if I'm not getting better, I know something's wrong. Then I can go back to my food log and check if I've been eating right and perhaps it'll explain why my energy levels were lower than usual. Come to think of it, I feel like an Area 51 experiment but without the scientists around me, but instead, inside me.

I do admit, sometimes when you have logs of everything, you have a tough time maintaining these logs. It takes me time to actually stop, write down my drum speeds and progress and compare them to previous practice sessions. Time I could have been using to enjoy the sunshine or reading a book instead. Speaking of reading books, it's been so darn long since I actually read a book. It's crazy. I used to read my books on buses and trains but now I've almost always cut out taking the bus anywhere because I've come to realize it takes me just as much time to walk to the closest train station as it would if I waited for a bus, took the bus, then took the train. Not to mention I get that little walk and save some money! Win, win I tell you! :D Especially now that it's still a bit cool, I'm not all drenched in my sweat from walking around, so I might as well make the most of it while it lasts. I'll miss this when summer comes.

And when I'm on the train, I usually have my music playing and I'm just giving my brain the massage it deserve with some nice music. Ok, nice is a relative term I must admit. Last night I was out with a friend for dinner and we were talking about our musical preferences. As many people know, I love metal. And when talking about it, it made me realize (and I've probably said this before) that metal is one type of music you can't fake enjoying to be cool. Unlike, say, hip hop or jazz, it's not that easy on the ears so if you don't like it, after a while, it's going to show. Don't get me wrong, I listen to jazz and hip hop too, but given a choice, it's usually metal first :) Recently, my workouts have been always fueled with Lamb of God's album Sacrament or a collection of my favorite Chimaira songs. It's gotten to the point that I have a psychological switch when these songs come on. Like I'd be walking on the road and when one of the songs, such as Lamb of God's Again we Rise or Redneck comes on, my mind will suddenly have images of the gym and weight plates. I've recently even been learning the drums to that song and it's a lot of fun, not too hard to play, but does require some focus because of the fills.

Speaking of drumming, so here we are in February and I had a new year's resolution of constantly working on my drumming skills from month to month. So here's the breakdown for those of you (read me):

• Blast Beat #1 fastest stable speed: 150bpm
  
• Stable double bass pedal for 1 minute: 155bpm
• Song learned: Lamb of God - Redneck
• Song perfected: Chimaira - Power Trip
• Song in progress: Lamb of God - Now You've Got Something to Die For

So there you go, more logging on my part. At least I'm living up to my word. The thing is, with these numbers, 1 year from now, when I look back, I'd probably laugh thinking "I could just do 150bpm only?!" because that's what I often do when I go back to some of the old drum exercises I used to do and marked it as "80bpm max" and now I'm hitting like 140bpm :) So logs, even if overkill, put a smile on my face after all. And thus, they'll keep going, on and on and on. At least if I do lose my mind one day, I'll still have my logs to tell me where I was when I was still less insane. Have a good next 10 days and you know what? Why not keep track of something and see where you got to in just a measly 10 days. Honestly, 10 days is a loooonnnggg time! :)

The pre-CNY edition

Time really flies and even a month can zoom by when you really want it to crawl across the road that is your life. Here I am, one day away from Chinese New Year, only to realize these last few weeks has been ridiculously busy for me. I wish I got a dollar for every time I started a post like this.

So the last 10, well 12 days, seeing as I'm late for my entry sure have been wild! I had one of the best crowds at the comedy club and managed to squeeze in a bi-lingual show (always refreshingly fun) and boy did the laughter sound like lions roaring! They were such a fun crowd to perform for because you could see people were genuinely enjoying themselves, no golf claps at any point!

I've also managed to realize that setting goals are great, achieving goals are even greater, but accepting that you could not attain a goal because it was out of your realistic reach (for now) bring a real level of inner peace. The funny thing is, I've had so many occasions when my plans for the day have failed that it no longer bothers me as much (it still does) as before. Kind of like how even if I know I have a big stressful thing to deal with tomorrow, I can still properly let go of everything today and enjoy it. Even though tomorrow's Chinese New Year, I have to film with RTHK for the show I'm hosting called Hong Kong Stories. It does suck, I must admit, because every year, Chinese New Year is the one time I can honestly rest. I mean this is when I can tell myself it's really me time. But this year, after filming, I'll be catching up on all my emails and projects I still have to go through. It's horrible that I'm so behind on my own personal projects as well as web projects I have on hand. I really don't like to keep people on hold let alone myself.

On a brighter note, like I said, at least I've learnt to deal with failure much better than before so it doesn't bring me down as much as it used to. I accept it, move on and plan my next day better so I can achieve a little bit more than the day before.

So we're nearing the end of the month and a few things I had set out as monthly goals. One of them is my drumming. A key goal I had was to improve my double-bass speed and so far so good, I'm hitting 170+ bpm and even managed to squeeze in 190 on a good day! :P Going to the gym and working out those legs like a madman really does help! Not to mention I've adjusted my diet a lot to help promote a healthier lifestyle for me. Although I'm saying this 5 minutes away from eating Cheesecake. Why cheesecake? Well it's my grandmother's 83rd birthday today and she absolutely loves cheesecake so that's why. Oh and this is me after I had a sudden insane craving for chocolate chip cookies last night just before bed. Yes, a healthier lifestyle in italics. No but seriously, I'm eating better which in turn helps me out everywhere because boy do I need the energy to keep up with everything that's going on!

I should have a small, tiny cameo role in the new movie All's Well End's Well 2009 so hopefully I'll get to check it out some time soon this week. Ahah, really don't know what to expect seeing as the filming they did of me was really, really, really short but who knows :P People have told me they saw my name in the credits so I should be somewhere in the movie. But nonetheless, it was an eye opening experience, especially since that was my first proper "filming" I had ever done. Boy was I nervous.

Speaking of being nervous, do you ever get worried when you try a new hair dresser? I do. I hate cutting my hair because I always feel awkward when I do because it's like you're literally tied down to a chair and forced to create small talk. And if you don't, it's like you're worried the barber will not do a good job because you're just any other guy. Well such was my case yesterday. I just wanted to cut my hair a bit because it was getting too wild for me (curley hair does that after a while) and figured to save time, I'd just go to a close by salon and well, it sure was awesome price-wise, everything else though, was dreadful. From the moment the guy was shampooing my hair, you could kind of sense he was only doing it for the pay. I mean, I don't blame him for feeling that way, but it kind of sucks because I mean, had they dont a better job, chances are they could charge a slightly higher price and still keep their customers. If you ask me, a good shampoo at a hair salon makes a big difference, it's like getting a good massage. The room could look like shit, but a good massage makes a biiiiiiiiig difference. So there I was, all wet in the hair, and I waited for the random barber and he came over, started snipping away. I thought to myself "hold on, don't you want to ask me what I want?!" at that point I realized it was too late. I was getting a hair cut not a hair style. Before I knew it, he was done. I told him "Could you cut the top a bit please?" after all, it was the top that was going wild the most, and so he did, he washed my hair, blew dry (...or it is blow dryed?) and well I sat there thinking "really? You're honestly happy with this cut?" not to myself, but to the barber. I mean, it felt a bit lopsided to me but by that point I just wanted to get out and get on with my life.

So check this out, I have to pay, thinking I have just enough money for the cut, and bam! I was slapped with a "oh we charge $30 more for today because it's just before Chinese New Year". Ouch. A bad hair cut, $30 more and I didn't have enough cash with me. And they only accepted cash. So now I had to run across the street and get some money from an ATM. The best thing though, no ATM. So the next best thing is the supermarket, so there I was, lining up, just to get money. Boy did that feeling suck. So here I am, typing this with a head of hair I'm not very happy with. I've learnt my lesson. You get what you pay for. Sure the hair stylist I normally go to is pretty damn pricey, it's like 5 times more expensive! But to be honest, it's worth it. Kind of makes me think of my web design skills. I do admit I charge a tad bit more, but the heart I put into my work, I'd say it's worth it.

I mean, I get why people would go back to this hair salon, because they're used to these hair cuts, but for me, I think of it this way, while I still have head on my hair, it's a worthy investment to hold it proudly. Yes, I'm a dude. I haven't forgotten that, but it doesn't mean I'm not allowed to be proud of one part of the hair that covers my body. Right?

So the big Day 10 words of widsom are: You get what you pay for. Unless you're an idiot and get ripped off. And on that note, Happy Chinese New Year!! Let the lai see floooooowwww!!

2009 for the win!

Hello and happy new year! How is everyone doing so far? I hope these last few days have been an awesome start for you! It sure has been a hectic bun worthy beginning to 2009 for me. I had an awesome (2nd) one man show on the 9th, the crowd was just perfect, people wanted to be part of the show and thank Goodness I didn't end up being a jerk to anyone :)

But boy this weekend just zoomed by me! I mean omfg it's almost Monday morning. Woah what?! I have some filming tomorrow in the morning at like 10am so this won't be a long post simply because, well if I type now, I'll regret it later. But to keep with my goal of staying up with my GTD list, I must finish my lovely Day 10 entry before I hit the sack.

Ahh, doesn't sleep sound so good when you know you don't have much of it, but at the same time, on days you sleep in, don't you sometimes wake up regretting it because you burnt up half your day? Recently, my sleeping pattern has gotten screwed over and I'm back to my like 5/6am sleeping and it sucks! However, hopefully this week of crazy filming will force me to fix that and so by the next Day 10 entry, I should be back on track and rising before the sun goes down :P Actually, how many people enjoy staying up late nights? I must say, there was a time I really loved them, because I could focus, it forced me to do my work and nothing else since nothing else was open, however, it also meant that I'd wake up and rush to get everything done before everyone else called it a day.. and should I find myself out at night with my friends, I'd feel guilty because I really should be working at that time.

But ah things have been off to a really good start so far and I'm looking forward to a really kick-ass rest of the year. Last year, on New Year's night I went up hiking on my own in the super duper cold weather and well, I was talking to myself during the journey. Call me crazy or whatever, I love it :) I bet everyone talks to themselves all the time :P I say it's actually healthy. But yea, going back to that, I talked to myself and kind of tried to envision what 2008 would be like and to be honest, a lot of things I wanted to achieve I didnt, but there were a load of things I never dreamed about and they happened so in many ways, my 2008 was better than I hoped for, so for 2009, I'm excited and so far things are working out. Don't get me wrong, it;s only been like 2 weeks and I've already had a day of frustration where I felt like I didn't have time for myself and my own stuff. I mean, this is a common situation for me it seems since I'm always whipped up with all the things I'm involved in, but it's good to stop and go "RAH!" every now and then make the best of the situation. I guess if there's one thing I've learnt so far it's that it's not about how many plans you follow and how many goals you achieve, it's about maximizing the moment more than anything else. I mean, as long as I know I tried my best, even if none of the things I planned to do today were realized, I know it wasn't due to my laziness, it was a choice I made and well, I still have tomorrow to achieve them :) And you know what, this way of thinking sure as hell is un-stressing me out a lot more... anyhoo, it's bed time so have a good night and see you in 10 days! :D

The Year End/New Year Edition

And we're back. Another wonderful Day 10 entry and this marks the beginning of my new year's resolution. Yes, I know it's still not yet 2009, but I usually start mine approximately 10 days before the new year so I can work out any bumps along the road. I find that if I say I want to start on 1 Jan and once I find a problem, I feel like it's a big dent in my resolution and it crashes into my confidence and just makes the whole thing seem like a mess.

So how are you and what are your resolutions? But before we go into that, how many of your previous years' resolutions did you manage to accomplish? This is always a sensitive topic. Well I'll admit, there are a tonne of things I didn't manage to accomplish, for example, it's been over 2 years since I told myself I really want/need to master the use of Adobe Illustrator and till today, I'm not confident in using it like I am with say Adobe Photoshop. However, I have to admit, putting this next to all the things I did accomplish makes it seem like a very minor set back. For one, where I am as of today has completely surpassed where I aimed to be, at least with my comedy and my band as well as my self-confidence. I've said this over and over again, success breeds success and the more you succeed, the more you believe you can succeed and in doing so you succeed more. And it goes the same way, failure breeds failure. The more you screw up, the more you will screw up. Think about it, the more you feel depressed about say, your body composition, the more you're going to avoid the gym and hit that tub of yummy ice cream and end up hating yourself even more.

For those of you following my blog, you'll realize that I'm one to believe in invest now, reap tomorrow. A prime example is my drumming. Had I not picked up those drum sticks and invested in an electronic drum set 3 years ago, I'd still be dreaming about playing drums today. I will never, ever forget the days I used to stare into the mirror and air drum thinking it was the coolest thing since slice bread but feeling hopeless as I knew I couldn't drum so who was I really kidding? But then again, no one was born with the ability to drum or do a lot of things for that matter, it's something you just have to start now and keep working at it. Then you have those excuses of oh but I'm too old to start. It's like that with any musical instrument. I started playing drums at 23, that's a pretty darn late age to start seeing as every other 23 year old drummer I knew put my skills to shame. However, with disciplined practice all the time, I've managed to grow fast in the last 3 years. At least I'm proud of my drumming abilities for a 3 year old player. Another great example is someone who doesn't know how to ride a bicycle. It's a shame if you're my age and you can't ride a bicycle. Imagine needing training wheels when you're old enough to shave yourself? How embarrassing is that?! But to be honest, embarrassment is really all in your head. Sure, it's easier said than done, but it really is. Take for example a guy who has to dress up for work, say in a clown suit. Is he embarrassed to be in that suit? Perhaps on the first few days, after that it just becomes normal. I try my best to keep reminding myself of that idea. Especially when I'm at the gym working out during the time the trainers are. Just keep reminding myself that at one point, these trainers were as weak as me :) I'll get there. Oh and keeping a log really, really helps. Like I have a training log that reminds me what weight I was pushing in my last work out and that definitely puts a smile to my face when I see myself pumping a tad bit more today than I did last time.

So what are my new year's resolutions? Well this year I'm going to try to take it as seriously as I can. Not just putting down points "Learn illustrator". After reading countless books on achievements and goal setting, I've come to realize, goal setting is a bit more than just setting a goal. You need to work out the full strategy of achieving that goal to make it happen. Like, how many times have you said "lose weight" and just sat there staring at the goal and doing nothing about it? :\ Also, I've come to really appreciate the idea that there is a different mindset for different things. For example, you have to get into a different mindset when planning stuff out versus when you're actually doing those things. For example, when I sit and think about how to do something, I'm writing it all out based on the ideas I have and what should work in theory. Of course, we all know, rarely do things happen as planned and that's why we need this guide to help us stay on track so that we don't need to worry about that part of the issue. When things don't work smoothly, we know what our next step is and so we find new ways to getting towards that next step we already defined in our think it out phase.

I'll give you one break down I've created to accomplishing my new year's resolution. I've always had the dream of being Hong Kong's best metal drummer. Sure this sounds quite far fetched, after all, I've only been in this for 3 years but so what? It's not how long, it's how well you adapt. I've seen people work out all their lives and still never get that six-pack they aimed at achieving when they first got their gym membership. Reason? They didn't do their research properly and ended up just going in circles. They'd work out great but not eat properly, or else they'd work out badly and starve themselves. So here's the break down.

What makes a good metal drummer?

Well playing drums for metal music is basically about speed and power. A lot of it is about creating that adrenaline rush and feel like an engine roaring. To achieve that you need to really hit people with the lower end of the sound spectrum. In other words, it's about the bass drum constantly fire. This means I need to have lightning fast feet while playing. The normal goal for metal is to have 200 beats per minute, right now I can hit 160 and on really good days 165 beats at most.
So now I know I need to increase my bass drumming speed by 40bpm in a year's time. That might seem scary at first, but if you break it down, it's really (40/12 months) approximately 4 bpm per month only. I think that's achievable.
So now I have my first goal:
Increase bass drum speed by 4bpm per month

Wonderful. What else? Well it's about blast beats. They really bring out the brutal sound of drums gone wild. What are blast beats you ask? Well here ya go:



Crazy eh? Yep. So now the next thing I need to do is learn my blast beats. How can I go about doing that? Well there's the various books I can buy, the DVD's I can purchase or simply falling in love with the power of YouTube and all the free lessons you get on it. I'm going with YouTube. Lovely.
Learn 1 type of blast beat per month

Now I've also got to have crazy speed fills to help my musicality. I've found one of my weaknesses in drumming are fills. A lot of my fills I create are groovy. Not as in cool, but like bouncy. I really like playing drums that make people want to bounce (hip hop drumming is fun!) but I need that intensity sometimes, like a car engine roaring, not bouncing, so I have to work on my single stroke rolls. Single stroke rolls?



Saw the ending? See how the seemingly boring beats suddenly became so brutal all because it was done super, duper fast?! Ive got 2 chapters in one of my drum books teaching all about drum fills and incorporating hands and feet together, exactly like you see in the video. So I guess that's where I'll have to go.
Learn 1 drum fill a week
Do a recap of all 4 drum fills learned in the month and apply them to various drums/songs

Lastly, I need to learn to be musical with my drumming as well. With speed and power doesn't come musicality. I could be the fastest drummer ever but no one wants to hear noise, they want to hear music. This requires my studying different music and learning from the masters. Seeing as I want to develop my metal musicality, I need to work on cover songs in my genre. One of my favorite drummers is Chris Adler of Lamb of God. I like his taste in drumming as well as his goatie. Yes. I wish I could grow a goatie like that. So the best thing for me is to try to follow him and learn what he does best. Playing drums
Play 1 Lamb of God cover song per month

Now here comes an issue, since Lamb of God songs are so darn complex and fast, how the hell am I supposed to be able to hear out exactly what he's doing? Well here comes the awesome-ness that is Lamb of God, they've come out with a Producer Edition of their latest CD which includes separate tracks of all their instruments. In other words, I can hear the drums and only the drums for each track. Accompany this with my search for drum tabs and voila, I can train my ear as well! Fantastic!

Hopefully by following the above, I'll reach my goal by the end of 2009 :)

And there you have it, one example of how I make my resolutions and my hopes of it being the way of my achieving them too :)

I could go on and on and on but seeing as I've just spent the last hour thinking/typing this out, I'll stop there.

So you've got 10 days to go and I strongly suggest you start your planning and begin within the next 5 days so you still have 5 days to take care of any teething problems with your resolutions. Good lucky and Merry Christmas! :)

I doubled my funnies :)

This is a quick post and even though it's like 4 days late (it happened 4 days ago, on Saturday night), I won the English Comedy Competition and became Hong Kong's funniest person (in English) in 2008 :)
So now my trophies stand proudly on my shelf, side by side:

• 2007 - Funniest Person in Hong Kong: Chinese
• 2008 - Funniest Person in Hong Kong: English

I'm a happy (but very, very exhausted) chap :).

Inspired...finally

Yes. I'm back on track. My sleeping cycles have gone back to normal and I'm feeling more inspired than ever! So much has happened in the past 10 days, I don't know where to start.
So I have an early morning tomorrow (Wednesday) but I figured I really ought to stay on track with my blogging, after all, once I fall behind my schedule, I'll keep tumbling like before.

Tonight, I got to enjoy a great, great drum clinic by the magnificent Marco Minnemann and boy oh boy was he mind blowing. I mean, it was crazy enough just watching Mike Mangini yesterday, but Marco just finished me off! As much as deep down inside I'm thinking "man, they're so lucky to be able to play like that", I know there's no luck involved, it's all hard, dedicated effort they've put in over the years. I mean these guys have been playing drums for over 15 years so I'm nowhere close to them with just a bit over 3 years under my belt. The cool thing is, this is exactly the kind of inspiration I needed recently. I've been really busy filming for a documentary I'm hosting for RTHK that I haven't had a chance to sit in front of my kit and just play let alone practice!

Speaking of practicing, I haven't had a chance to rework my set for this Saturday's English Comedy Competition Finals! Yikes! Filming has been non-stop since Sunday and every evening I've had the drum clinics and here I am on the verge of going to bed so there goes any chance to work at my material and refine it even more. For those of you who weren't at the heats, this year's competition is very, very stiff! Everyone's upped their game and this is exactly the way I love it! May the best man/woman win! I really appreciate a good, hard competition because it makes the victory all the more worth it, not to mention even if you lose, you know you lost to some of the top notch people available! :D So in many ways, I've already won. In fact, this reminds me of this time last year when I was just getting into stand up comedy. Before the Chinese competitions, my friend Bun asked me once on the phone "Just tell me this Viv, what will you do if you don't win the competition?" and I responded "You know, the fact that I'm just able to do stand up comedy is a victory for me, it was a dream, now it's a reality, winning the competition is secondary" and in many ways, the same applies this year. I mean, sure, it'd be great if I won, I'd love it and all, but if I don't, so what? I mean, I'm the type of person that grows through both success and failure so both ways I will come out strong so I'm not really worried in that sense. I'd only feel bad if I knew I could have done better. In fact, isn't that what kills most people? Not the feeling of losing, but the feeling of losing when you could have won if you just did your work better?

I've been recently reading some stuff about fitness and it had a whole chapter talking about goal setting. Sure, every book always touches on that topic but this one included some really good points as well as quotes and I'd like to share them with you here.

In his book Watermelon Magic, Wally “Famous” Amos wrote:
“Mistakes are natural. Mistakes are how we learn. When we stop making mistakes, we stop learning and growing. But repeating the same mistake over and over is not continuous learning – it’s not paying attention.”

Legendary Green Bay Packers Coach Vince Lombardi put it best when he said, "The dictionary is the only place success comes before work. Hard work is the price we must all pay for success."

And finally,

In developing the martial art of Jeet Kune Do, Bruce Lee worked hard to quantify and formulate a philosophy for self-defense and personal growth. His formula was: 1) Research your own experience, 2) Absorb what is useful, 3) Reject what is useless, and 4) Add what is specifically your own.
“Formulas can only inhibit freedom,” said Lee, “They are externally dictated prescriptions that only squelch creativity and assure mediocrity. Learning is definitely not mere imitation, nor is it the ability to accumulate and regurgitate fixed knowledge. Learning is a constant process of discovery – a process without end.”

I guess when you put all these together, it kind of tells you the same thing, everything requires effort. There is no quick fix nor a short cut. Marco Minnemann never got to where he was from just mucking around, he spent hours and hours working at his technique and refining his musical mind. But effort really isn't enough. Like Bruce Lee says, learning is not mere imitation, just repeating something that already can be done is useless, why would anyone find you to do something they could find someone else to do? It's point #4, adding what is specifically your own that makes me smile. It's this point that differentiates us from anyone else.

Even in my comedy, I know it when it's my style, that's my goal, to have my own style, my own signature, my own stamp that people can recognize immediately. The same goes with my drumming as well. Of course, don't get me wrong, I personally think imitation is a form of learning, much like how you have to learn the rules before you can expect to break them. With drumming, you got to learn the basic rock patterns before you expect to create your own. Like Bruce Lee said, after researching, you absorb and reject the information, then you personalize it. I do this a lot with my comedy, I observe my surroundings, absorb, perceive and acknowledge it, then let my perspective on it sink in and see what I get out of it. Very often I get nothing. Sometimes, however, I get a great bit and that goes into my arsenal of humor. Heck, sometimes I could be showering and an idea comes into my head and I'm rushing to write it down or I keep repeating it so I don't forget. If there's one thing I really don't like, it's forgetting an idea. Great or not great idea, I hate forgetting it because there's a difference between being great now, or being potentially great. They're both great, just at different times. Just like asking, which is better? Sun rise or sun set? They're both good in their own ways.

So, as usual, my inspiration is limited by the same thing as always -- time. It's Tuesday night and I feel like I've accomplished so much, yet accomplished nothing at the same time because things I wanted to do haven't been done, but things that needed to be done, have. Well on a brighter note, tomorrow I have a quick medical scan, then I can finally sit and catch up on my work. I've got a lot of stuff lined up, so hopefully I'll be in the cranking the widgets mentality and get it all done as fast as possible. And now, I'm off to bed. Have a great night's sleep and happy hump day! :D

Better late than never - Day 10 + 6 Months + 100th Post

For all of you who have been keeping track of my blog and wondering why the hell it has been oh-so-long since I last posted, well I've been going through a phase of lack of focus alongside crazy surprises complimented by weeks of constantly new challenges which have left me either mentally exhausted or plain ol' too lazy to blog. I actually felt bad because I missed a 6 Month entry as well as a Day 10 entry not to mention this is my 100th blog entry! 100! Woah I didn't even realize till now to be honest.

Seeing as this is a 6 Month entry, that means I need to evaluate where I was and where I am and since it also is a Day 10 entry, I need to have some wisdom to share with everyone. Oh how much fun that sounds :P

The truth is, my time has been shrinking more and more as I find myself getting deeper and deeper into the things I love. Have you ever noticed how the more advanced you get at something, the more time you have to spend towards just maintaining that level? For example, with my drumming, if I don't practice for say 2 - 3 days, I can see how my playing degrades and I find myself wasting 1 practice session catching up so I get back up to speed. This is a real waste of energy as not only have I missed 2 - 3 days worth of practice time, I've had to pull myself back up to where I was 3 days ago, making it 4 days wasted, not to mention I could have improved today, making it 5 days wasted, which then ends up being a week lost. Wasted time is one of my pet peeves that really frustrates me and ends up discouraging me which then makes me lose my focus, thus wasting more time to get back on track. Yes, it's basically a vicious cycle. The problem is, sometimes I fall into these vicious cycles and just can't pull myself out easily because I've forgotten what it was like when I was in the good cycle and I forget that sense of satisfaction I had when I got my work done or accomplished something :(.

Satisfaction. That's something I really want to dive into and talk about. I live everyday by my motto of "I don't want to wake up tomorrow regretting today". I think this line is really powerful because it forces me to work hard today, but still know that there is a tomorrow. So what I want is to wake up the next day satisfied with where I am and where I was. This is definitely a very, very difficult thing to do because very often I find myself greedy for more. You'll see in many previous entries, I talk about how I'm greedy to live even more. I really am, I always want to do a bit more than I did and this in turn makes me constantly look forward, but then I often forget to appreciate what I've accomplished behind me :(. However, at the same time, deep down inside me, I'm still satisfied with what I've accomplished. It's like I have this mix of emotions where I'm satisfied but not quite all at the same time and I suppose this is where all the frustration comes up which then works against me.

So am I satisfied with what has happened in the last 6 months? To be honest, I am and I'm not. I feel like had I not been bombarded with all these surprises all the time, I'd have been able to better maintain my focus and probably end up accomplishing more. I suppose it's times like these that make me really stop and reflect and realizing that you know what, sometimes things are out of your control and you need to accept the reality of the situation rather than wish it wasn't so. At the same time, it also reminds me that it's good to always have a leeway of space for things to creep up when you least expect it. As I mentioned before, I'm a freelancer, which means that my life is a constant blank canvas waiting to be painted the way I want to paint it. In fact, just today, I was on my way home from watching Cheung Tat Ming's latest Comedic Performance when one of my friends/comedians asked me what time I had to go to work tomorrow and then I told her I was a freelancer and she kept telling me about how lucky I was but how I had to be uber-disciplined to pull it off. It kind of struck a cord in my mind because I realized recently, my discipline has been less than satisfactory.

Discipline. Yes, that's another thing I want to touch upon in this entry. I've realized that my discipline is in sync with the way my environment is. When my environment is a mess, I'm a mess and my discipline falls along with it because I feel like I'm constantly being bombarded because everywhere I look, it seems like something needs to be tended to. I once talked about the art of keeping things simple and to be honest, that's the way I seem to work best. Keep it simple, if I don't need it, I don't need it! And I suggest you think the same way. Almost everything could be useful but is it really useful now? No? Then get rid of it. If I've managed to survive for say the past few months without noticing something, I convince myself that it is unnecessary. The less I have, the less stimulation I have, the less distractions I have and the more I'm able to focus.

Focus. This is a hot topic I always cover in my blog because I'm constantly trying to manage this part of my life because it's like a muscle that I have to keep tamed and trained and continuously improve and make more efficient. I've talked about how I'm an efficiency-aholic and one key aspect of efficiency is to maintain good focus so that the process can be carried out without obstacles such as distractions and unnecessary problems. When I'm in-the-zone, I find I'm really motivated to work, in the sense, I'm not working because I want to get the job done, but instead, I work because I'm enjoying the progress I'm making and it is this progress that is giving me the satisfaction I crave. And in achieving this satisfaction, I remain focused like a donkey who managed to get a bite of the carrot dangling in front of him. I read in many places that it is usually the first 5 minutes of any job that is the hardest, once you get your wheels turning and the work flowing, you just keep working and this is so true for me. I just need to get past that initial inertia of no desire and then I'm all good.

Desire. I always find myself desiring a bit more than I have. Yes, I'm greedy, we all know that. I always wonder what if I had just a bit more? Like a kid wondering what it'd be like if he just had 10 extra minutes on his newest gaming console. I always desire improvements in myself and I often have the ability to map out what needs to be done to achieve those improvements. Of course, mapping it out and actually practicing the plan is a different game. Take my fitness for example, I'm currently in an anabolic phase of my workout routine where I'm bulking up. I try my best to stick to the workout plan as good as I can because I know if I get lazy, my whole plan fails and I'm back to square 1. However, there are times when I just can't help it, like say tomorrow, I normally should be going to the gym because tomorrow is my legs day. However, due to my schedule, I'm unable to do that because I have to be out most of tomorrow and I'm jamming with my band's new guitarist tomorrow night in preparation for jamming on Wednesday with the rest of the band. Not to mention I have to go reset my drum set because it's all a big fat mess. So there goes my gymming out the window. Is it because I lack the desire or this is just reality after all. You can't always get what you want. But I suppose, I'd much rather have a desire for something and not achieve it, than have no desire for anything at all. Woah, imagine life without any sort of drive.

And now a review of where my life is.
And you know what. I'm going to allow myself 12 hours to think about this and finish off this post then.

A week later

Oh man. Did I say 12 hours?! I probably should have said 12 days! I haven't had a chance to sit down and just spend some quality time with my blog for the past week! Sorry about that.

So now my review of everything. The thing is, we're already in October, which kind of makes this a 2008 review so let's start from the beginning. I've found myself, through my stand-up comedy, in a lot of newspapers and press articles. I've been invited to help HK celebrities perform in their promotions, I've been a guest at corporate events where I was treated, literally, like a VIP (still feel weird when people do that). I'm going to be entertaining a lot of Indian people in Hong Kong soon when I perform for the Progressive Diwali Ball this year and I have a lot, and I mean a lot of gigs lined up in front of me :) So my comedy life is really taking off now.

My band, Eve of Sin, got to play our first gig in February 2008 and we're scheduled to play again on 28th Nov 2008 so we're all excited about that! We've been practicing very hard and working out new music as well as improving our skill in general. At least I can say my drumming's gotten much, much better, although I haven't reached my goal I set for myself to hit before the end of 2008... darn. But at least I haven't gone backwards :)

Drumming, well yes, I've been slacking off practicing for the last week just like I slacked off typing up my blog because, seriously, I've been so busy. I mean I'll admit, I've had times when I've found myself literally hanging out at a coffee shop for 2 hours, but that's because I really was mentally exhausted :( I mean I just lost that motivation to work. In fact, to be honest, when I look at my drum set, I just think like "ahh, my body's feeling tired". I know it's a lame excuse I've been giving myself, but I just can't seem to break out of it.

However, fitness wise I've been a good boy. Oddly enough, I think it's just getting out of my room that is the trick I need. When I get out of house, I feel energized and ready to rock, once I hit my room, it's like I don't know where to start. I recently joined Fitness First and now I'll be saving much more time going to the gym, it's like 15 mins walk away from my house which is fantastic, because now it takes me only 30mins to go and come back from the gym! It used to be like 1:20 hours before! :P Almost an hour saved is a big, big deal to me. I think I'm going to stick to weights because I've built up my stabilizing muscles to the point I'm able to control my form properly and am really getting the best bang for my buck it seems. My routine actually has not hit a plateau because of the highly mixed up exercises I use which keeps things really fresh for my muscles :) I love it.

I suppose now is my time to exercise my beloved art if keeping things simple. Instead of me going on and on and on about a topic or talking about how I need to improve life or get more stuff done, I'm going to end this entry here and go practice some drums. Talking the talk is great, but it's walking the walk that counts :)

So have a good day and I'll see you (fingers crossed) in 10 days :)

In bed

Technically, yesterday was my Day 10, but I'm not really late because I haven't gone to bed yet, so it's still, in my terms, Monday to me right now :P

So I thought I'd share some good things with everyone, seeing as a lot of my posts are usually me sulking about how tough life is or how I need to improve myself to attain a certain level of satisfaction. Lately, I've been really noticing improvements in my drumming because I've gained a lot more control (and speed) over many aspects of my music. Stuff I remember totally going "no freaking way" a few months ago is like "woohoo I did it!" now! It's a great, great feeling if you know how impossible something felt, yet you can do it now, makes you really feel like the world is your oyster. And indeed it is! I've always been a firm believer that nothing is impossible, it's just a matter of putting in the effort to attain what you want to attain. I still remember a few years ago, I was looking into the mirror air drumming and thinking "it'd be so cool if I was a drummer!! I'd be like this awesome rockstar rocking it out!" and guess what! I am a drummer now and I do rock out! Ahaha even when I'm at home, just practicing, I really get into it and go insane! :D It's really good to just shut the world off for 1 hour and go berserk for that period. For some reason, once I get on my drumkit, it's like nothing else matters, I don't care if I have 305353535030392004 things due, I'll tend to it when I'm done with my practice/jamming. It's a good feeling, especially when you pick up exercises you did a few weeks ago, and try them now and totally blow yourself away with how easy it feels! The other day, I was practicing some hand exercises. The last time I did them, I was hitting 180 bpm (beats per minute), and when I picked them up again a monthe later (sometimes I do other exercises in between if I get tired of one book) I was hitting like 220 bpm! I actually stopped and re-checked my notes to make sure I was doing this right and I was!! 40bpm in a month! Now some people might be tapping their thighs right now thinking "er, I seem to be doing 300 bpm, what's the big deal?". No. I'm not talking just 220bpm, I'm talking 220bpm at 16th notes, which makes it 220 x 4 (don't asky why, it just is) = 880! Woohoo! Sure, there's bound to be another drummer who thinks this is no biggie, well it really isn't that good, but to me it's freaking awesome I hit 880 hits per minute! 1000 hits, here I come! :P You know what? The guy with the fastest hands in HK is at 974 hits per minute, so 100 more hits and I might get the new title :P Exciting. Another thing I can tell you is when I first started drumming, I thought 900 hits a minute was totally, ridiculously out of this world! Like I couldn't conceive how the hell a person could do that in just 60 seconds! Let's say 900 hits in 60 seconds means each second you need to be doing 15 strokes! But like I said, nothing is impossible and my drumming has always reminded me this, and lucky me, I keep a log of my progress which means I can always look back and compare where I was and where I am. Don't get me wrong, this hasn't happened overnight, nor has it happened without its fair share of frustration for me! I've had so many occasions where I've been fed up with my drumming abilities, always feeling like I'm just lacking in so many things, and you know, being a metal band doesn't help because metal is all about power and speed, 2 things that only come over time! Even now, when I'm jamming, I can still feel there is so much more I need to improve on to reach the level I want my band to be at for our music. Sigh, but again, I'm not upset about this, this constant need for improvement and change actually is a good thing, it makes sure I never hit a rut or a plateau in my playing, much like my fitness as well.

Anyone who's looked a bit into personal fitness knows that after a certain period, our bodies hit a plateau when it comes to fitness and your progress kind of slows down a lot. You have to constantly change your routine and give your body a new challenge before it'll respond with improvements. This also keeps things fresh and also makes sure it weeds out those that really want something, and those that are just in it for a good time. I'm not saying it's wrong to just scratch the surface of stuff, everyone's got their own style and everyone's got their own passion. I scratch the surface of a lot of things, not because I'm not a passionate guy, but simply because I may not have the same amount of passion towards something as the next guy, and it's not wrong in any way. Heck, I'll give you an example. I've always wanted to draw by hand, I think it helps me express my ideas if I could draw properly, I want to get all these images in my head on paper. I've tried working at it, but never really got much success because I always end up stopping halfway because I'm busy. Now those who know me, know that I'm one to say there's no such thing as "no time", you make time. You find ways to make the time. I can make time to improve my drawing skills, however, I chose not to. Heck, if I really didn't have time, then surely I shouldn't have time to practice drums either? Get my point? I've come across a lot of people that actually tell me how they're frustrated with their life because there's so much they want to do, yet they can't because they have no time to do it. You know, you can still get good at something even with 10 minutes of practice a day. Heck, if you really want to push it, make every commuting minute time to learn that one thing you always wanted to learn. Take off those headphones and stop staring into blank space, and just go learn that thing you wanted to learn! Even if it's 5 minutes a day, in a week, you've hit 35 minutes, in a month you'll have spent 2 hours! 2 hours in a month may not seem a lot, but spread over 4 weeks, your mind is given time to digest what you learnt in 5 minutes each day and you'll be shocked how much you can improve already! :P

Yes, I'm going on and on and on once again, I know, but this is a topic I really enjoy -- self-improvement. I always believe people can improve. Again, a little info about me. I'm one of those guys that don't believe people can change. By this I mean, once a crook, always a crook. I have yet to meet someone who has truly changed. I've met a lot of people who can control themselves better, but they're still the same person as they were before at heart. Like a drunkard is a drunkard to me. You can stop yourself from drinking, but deep down inside you're still the alcoholic you were. Again, I hope to be proved wrong one day because I do believe this is a rather grim way of viewing the people of this world :\. Anyways, going back to self-improvement. However, as much as I believe people don't change. I do firmly believe people can improve and upgrade themselves. A crook can upgrade him/herself to be a more sophisticated crook. A comedian can improve himself to be more spontaneous and natural. You get my drift. And this is something I aim to do daily. I know my personal quota of learning everyday is 2 hours approximately. I know after 2 hours of reading, I hit a point that I'm reading for the sake of reading and it's really a the point where I'm getting diminishing returns of knowledge really. So knowing this, I try my best to take advantage of those hot 2 hours each day and fit in whatever it is I'm trying to get better at or learn. Oh, these 2 hours are the amount of time I can spend reading about something. My drumming practice goes by another system. Just FYI, after 1 hour of drumming, I also end up wasting time. By 1 hour, I mean 1 hour of honest, intense practicing, not mucking around and jamming and stuff. 1 hour usually gives me 3 solid exercises to work on alongside an initial warm up routine.

Hmm, my eyes are slowly closing, I suppose being in bed is sometimes too comforting and that probably explains why I'm typing so damn much in this post. Ahaha, I just feel like I've had all this time to think about so many things, I want to spill them all out and get them written down asap. But if you've read so far, you might as well read on, heck you've spent all this time already, it wouldn't do you justice to stop now. Actually that's another thing I was thinking about. You know how sometimes you're at the bus stop and you're waiting for a bus and it just doesn't come. 20 minutes later, you're thinking if you should just go and find an alternative way to get to where you're going, but you're worried that once you leave, the bus will come, and you end up waiting for an hour, when you could have been home had you just walked from the get go? That, I must say, is something I really hate happening, which also explains why I much prefer walking everywhere than depending on a bus.

So going back to what I was saying, today, is my celebration of where I'm at. I think you should do that for yourself too. It's not often we stop and turn around and look back with a smile. Most of the time we only see where we haven't reached or we only notice all the paths we didn't take, but we don't retrace our steps and appreciate the path we did take and where it's lead us. Sure, this is easier said than done, but it does help to have a log of your pathway. Like I said for my drumming, my log book has been gold in keeping me motivated and encourages me to keep pushing because I do see results! It's a (good) vicious cycle. I see improvements, I want to work harder, I work harder, I see more imporvements! Woohoo! So yes, stop and be happy to be where you are, heck, just be happy to be alive! If your life seems to be in the shitters right now, just put on your favorite song, stop for 1 hour and tell the world to go down the drain (what I do when I go to the gym or when I'm drumming) and just do what you love. I'm serious. It'll do you good :).

Of course, when that 1 hour's up, you have to step back into the craziness that is your life. But before you do, ask yourself this, how many people get to be you? Much like everyone says their family is the worst/craziest, everyone thinks their life is the toughest, but you know deep down inside, your life is the toughest out of them all, so how many people not only get to be you, but survive being you, on a daily basis? Not many, and for that, you deserve a pat on your back.

And I deserve a massage. Hmm, I really could use 1. Have a good day! :D Off to snooze it up!