In "A Little Worried about My Head" (Friday, November 27, 2009), I wrote that ever since I got hit in the head on Sunday, November 22nd, the unusual sensation in the head had persisted, and I would get nauseated every time I worked out in the gym. I hoped that it'd go away in a week. When it did not, I decided that it was time to go see a doc, but I could not get an appointment anywhere before today.

Thankfully, on the night of December 3rd, or the 11th night since the incident, I did not get nauseated in the gym. Ever since then, I had been nausea free. I was greatly relieved; I was getting really worried.

So I had not symptoms for a few days, but I went into the clinic anyway. I hadn't been to this clinic before and I thought it'd be a good idea to establish a doctor-patient relationship with a doc there.

The doc did some simple tests. She said I was not showing any neurological symptoms, but told me none the less to avoid any impact on the head for another few weeks.

I mentioned that I had pulled some muscle in the neck/shoulder area while doing clean and jerk, simply because I was asked if I had any other health concern. I was very surprised the doc knew what clean and jerk was.

check cholesterol have to miss breakfast

Wellbutrin

I had another Eureka! moment about my side splits tonight.

I have been working on my side splits for months now. As I wrote in "Observations from My Stretching" (Friday, November 20, 2009), I have long suspected that my right side is tighter than the left. Figure A. below illustrates it. The arrow with the "L" label represents the left leg; the one with "R", the right. The arrow in the middle represents the centerline of my pelvis. So you could think of it as how my legs look when seen from behind, as in the photo on the left. This photo is from "My Hip Flexibility - The Status Quo" (Monday, August 21, 2006).

After I spread my legs as much as I could by myself, I would ask someone to pull my right foot outward. I naively thought what is depicted in Figure B. would happen; the right side gets more stretched. In other words, I assumed that my centerline stays pretty much the same and does not move.

However, I realized that what is depicted in Figure C. is actually happening. As the right foot is pulled outward, my centerline is tilted, causing the left side to be more stretched than the right. I have been trying to balance the flexibility, but in reality, I have been making it more and more unbalanced!

In "Observations from My Stretching", I wrote I get twitching mostly in the left leg afterwards. Similarly, when my right foot was pulled, my left leg would start shaking, while there was no shaking in the right. Those phenomena are indicative of my left leg being or having been stretched. This is what lead me to realize the above.

There was also another indicator of the flexibility imblanace, which helped me realize it. It's the angle of the foot against the floor. R., one of my gym friends, noticed that my left foot was lying more than the right. In other words, he noticed that the sole of the foot is more perpendicular to the floor with the left foot than with the right foot. When he pointed it out, I thought it was only because of the difference in flexibility in my shin muscles. That is not entirely wrong, but I eventually connected this phenomenon with the shaking/twitching and figured that it's a sign that the left leg is more stretched than the right.

The diagram above was created on Creately, which I reviewed in "Gliffy Got Greedy; Captivatingly Comes in Creately" (Saturday, September 05, 2009).

I love all of Bach's Cello Suites, but particularly this one:

From the technique point of view, this is not a hard piece. I started learning cello when I was seven years old and I was playing this piece in a year. This does not mean I was a kid genius or anything. It was the first piece in Suzuki's second textbook for cello. You only need to be able to handle the first position and the second position (finger positions for the left hand), I think, just to play this piece.

Yet, I am amazed time and time again how beautiful it is. This piece definitely represents my kind of beauty. Of course, pros, such as Mischa Maisky here, bring in techniques that an eight-year-old might not even think about doing.

One is bowing. The bowing I learned for this piece is very straightforward, but Mainsky does it fairly differently. Another is intentional use of lower strings. You can hit the same note with different strings. It's just that the lower string you use, the higher your finger position has to be. Why would you want to use lower strings despite the trouble? Even if the pitch is the same, lower strings give a softer feel. So, for example, you could use a high string to play a phrase the first time, but use a lower string the second time when you do a repeat, to make it more interesting. You can see Maisky do that in the following video.

The following is the very first piece of this suite. I am sure you have listened to it somewhere. Recently they used it in a TV commercial:

Last Sunday, when I sparred with a few guys, one of them insisted on hitting me in the head relatively hard repeatedly. I willingly let him because I like to spar in realistic settings. I thought it was fine because I was wearing a helmet.

I felt the effects immediately after. That happens, but what was surprising for me was the sensation persisted till the next morning. It did not go away the next day, the day after, etc. In fact, it is still there now. I do not think I have any obviously concussion-related symptoms, such as cognitive impairment, slurred speech, blurred vision, headache, etc. But I think my head still feels a little heavy on the right side near the front and a little empty inside. Maybe it is indeed empty inside (I've always suspected that!).

I am refraining from any impact-causing workout for now, which unfortunately includes most of martial art related workout. What I am afraid of is so-called second-impact syndrome, or SIS. Probably I am just being paranoid; according to Wikipedia's entry on concussion grading systems, my case should be considered the mildest of all at worst in all the three systems, because there was no loss of consciousness, amnesia or "confusion." I'd still rather err on the side of caution.

In "Cheap Camcorder for Capturing Fast Motion?" (Wednesday, September 23, 2009), I expressed my interest in Kodak's Zi8 as a possible choice for caputuring fast martial art movements. It is going to be released in Japan as well, so they published a review of this product in Japanese.

Naturally what I am most curious about is its performance in "720p/60", or 1,280×720 resolution at 60 fps. They show a sample (~21MB). This video is shot outside with ample lighting and it only shows slow movement. Under these conditions, it seems to do quite a good job. Unfortunately, what I wanted to know was how it performs when lighting is not not so ideal, i.e., indoors with no proper lighting equipment, and when you want to capture fast movements. They do not provide such a sample.

The reviewer says use of a tripod is imperative to shoot good videos with this device. This sample (~59MB), shot in 1080p/30, not in 720p/60, is supposedly there to prove a point that fast motions of bridge posts in the foreground are not captured well. However, to me, it is actually much better than I had expected. Another sample (~270MB!) supposedly shows encoding noises. It does, but I thought it was acceptable. However, the image is too shaky, too Blair-Witch-Project-y. It's also too contrasty. These videos are post-edited and re-encoded, by the way.

As I described in "Dang It. I Am Screwed!" (Friday, September 25, 2009), I have a cracked tooth on the upper right side, for which I had had a filling as a temporary fix. Guess what. It came off this past Friday.

Fortunately I am not in pain. I went to 45th St. Clinic as as a walk-in-basis emergency patient (otherwise they won't even see you). The dentist said I need a root canal about this tooth. She said she could do a part of it, but they are not able to finish it all, and that I need to go somewhere else for it. I chose not to do anything at all, because I'd have to do it all over again at some other clinic.

I called them today again with a faint hope that the particular dentist that I received a treatment from recently might give me the whole nine yards. I knew he works there only on Wednesdays. The receptionist said yes originally, but after talking with him, said he can only do a part of it only. In other words, the same story with the other dentist.

I will try their affiliated clinics elsewhere, which are much farther from here. However, they will not even let me come to them till December. Even then, you do not even know if you can receive any treatment. Great.

This year seems to be a bad year for my teeth. Just recently I lost a half of another tooth --- actually the matching tooth on the left upper side. Oh, I need to start wearing a tooth guard....

Google announced last month Google Maps Navigation for Android 2.0 devices. It basically turns your Android 2.0 cell phone into a car navigation system, for free. Today they announced the expansion of the service to devices with Android 1.6 and higher. These include T-Mobile's myTouch 3G and the G1. There are some limitations on those devices, but there is no doubt that it's great news to those device users.

Recently I am spending more time on side-splits, or, to be precise, mere attempts at them. This is the part I hate most in my workout because it gets really uncomfortable.

Yet I am glad I am seeing results. Today, I was able to bring my right roundhouse kicks even higher than before, "a hole higher" (~2 inches). Currently my record is 22 holes high; those holes are in the four posts in the squat cage for safety bars and bar catchers to go in. "22 holes high" is higher than my own height, when I am standing in a fighting stance. Granted that my actual kicks won't go as high because this record is achieved while I hold on to one of the posts, I cannot be happier with my progress. My left roundhouse kicks went 21 holes high, which is the same with the previous time, but I have no complaints.

I am thinking the difference in height comes from the asymmetry in my hamstring flexibility between right and left. I am quite certain that my right hamstrings are tighter than the left, but it is hard to quantify the difference. I am beginning to think, though, that the difference may actually not be subtle, but fairly significant. I am thinking if my right side got as flexible as the left, then I could spread my legs as much as three inches more.

You get twitching in the muscles after you stretch them well. I am trying to increase the flexibility of the right side of my hamstrings and their peripheral muscles mostly; and yet twitching occurs mostly in the left calf and thigh. No idea why.

Talking of asymmetry, the left side of my torso is far tighter than the right. I do not even notice this disparity in my everyday activities, but when I see it, I am stunned how big the difference is. I have no idea how this imbalance was developed. I am incorporating the QL stretch I found before into my side splits, and hoping that will make it even.

One odd thing I notice after my side-split stretching is that some anterior muscles right below the illiac crests get sore. What are they? Are they the satorius muscles, the tensor fascia latae muscles, or something else? Whatever they are, they should not be the muscles being stretched in this stretching (I would think, from the location of the muscles), so this is just puzzling to me. Or am I flexing those muscles without knowing so?

The shooting pain that used to run along what seemed to be my right gracilis muscle bothered me much; but once I taught my body not to engage the muscle when it does not have to, the pain is almost completely gone. In fact, I am beginning to forget that I used to have this problem. I get slight pain when I throw high left roundhouse kicks, and that happens only when I am kicking at a target. This is the only reminder at this point. Now I get no pain even when I do the same stretching that used to give me the pain. I am just amazed how a little change in the mind can bring about such a dramatic change in the body.

When I saw Bill "Superfoot" Wallace's videos, I thought his (left) foot was dangling. As my overall leg/hip flexibility increased, each of my feet started to feel to be dangling also when the corresponding leg is raised. This is a completely new sensation for me. This is both a good sign and a bad sign: a good sign because it indicates increased flexibility around the ankles, and a bad sign because unless I strengthen muscles around the ankles, I will easily sprain them.

By the way, today I trained with D. also. I can see he is bringing in more techniques when we spar. This means I am improving. It must still be a walk in the park for him, but a progress is a progress. I am happy about it.

Banya 5 is doing an early-bird half-price promotion. Arrive before 2pm on Wednesday, Thursday or Friday, and you have 50% off of the entry fee, which is $35. With tax, you'll still be looking at ~$20, but I might consider it when I am really fatigued or something.

I was sick till the end of last month. I finally started to feel better at the beginning of this month. I went to ID on Monday, November 2nd, and I believe that's when I got groceries and started having a good diet again.

Every time I stop having a good diet, I get health issues, especially in digestion. This time also, I was feeling that there was unwanted stuff still left in the gut and felt bloated. This happens every time without fail.

I think it was yesterday when I finally felt that I have got rid of that kind of stuff and got my completely flat tummy back. So it seems that it takes about two weeks for a good diet to take its full effect.