J . M A I L

Yoga Panic

I like the way the words “Yoga Panic” go together. They juxtapose in a very pleasing way to me and represent an idea I have been thinking about for the past two days.

“The Art of Failure” is article written by Gladwell and is included in his collection What the Dog Saw. I found the dissection of the terms “choke” and “panic” in such detail intriguing and though why not take it a step further and ask when is panic a good thing. I think an example of such a time is during the practice of yoga… let me explain.

Panic … causes what psychologists call perceptual narrowing. In one study, from the early seventies, a group of subjects were asked to perform a visual acuity task while undergoing what they thought was a sixty-foot dive in a pressure chamber. At the same time, they were asked to push a button whenever they saw a small light flash on and off in their peripheral vision. The subjects in the pressure chamber had much higher heart rates than the control group, indicating that they were under stress. That stress didn’t affect their accuracy at the visual-acuity task, but they were only half as good as the control group at picking up the peripheral light. “You tend to focus or obsess on one thing,”

“Panic, in this sense, is the opposite of choking. Choking is about thinking too much. Panic is about thinking too little. Choking is about loss of instinct. Panic is reversion to instinct. They may look the same, but they are worlds apart.”

I find in my own practice that careful and mindful “perceptual narrowing” is what allows me to make the most progress with my technique. When beginning or deepening into a posture it’s the narrowing of focus to minute details and excluding other thoughts that makes the big difference.

EG: Warrior II

Is my back arm in line with my body and are my fingers straight and reaching? Yes? ok next…

Is my bending knee beyond my front toes? If so move the back foot further back… Is my front heel in line with my back foot, does an imaginary line from my heel bisect the middle of my back arch? Yes? ok next ….

and so on…

I don’t rely on subconscious thoughts taking over to perform each pose. I quiet my mind and instead focus on minute details almost as if I were to “choke” in the sports sense of the word.

I panic by thinking too little about what the rest of body is doing. I choke by focusing too much on one small detail. Now this is now how choking and panic usually happen, with a mindful degree of control, yet are there not similarities?

Your body might be screaming from a certain stretch but you turn off that thought and instead focus the find. An important aspect to my practice is to turn off that one thought that is trying to capture the attention of the mind and then focus the mind elsewhere.

Perhaps by cultivating panic we can hope to move further towards controlling it in other areas of our life.

But it’s a dry cold.

I thought I would take a few minutes on a lazy Friday afternoon to update my blog without any real objective or goal. So where do I start… I am settling into my new life here in a new city. My classes are going well, I have submitted assignments in both classes so far. I realized just yesterday that maybe my marks don’t matter so any more. Marks probably will help when I apply for scholarships but to be honest I am unlikely to get low marks in a grad school class, and to be even more blunt, being an opinionated native English speaker in a computer science grad class tends mean I will do well marks wise.

Some thoughts that I have had this week:

• Everyone is too uptight when it comes to citations and rewording things from other authors. I was reading Gladwell’s new book and got to to thinking about the topic. I realized how often, when citing other people. I feel that they first author to say something often says it best and changing a sentence just to change it is often pretty silly.
• I looked up some people on Facebook today that I hadn’t in a while and I think I feel good that they are doing well. What good would someone else’s unhappiness do me? If anything, other people having a good life gives me/us all hope that everyone can have a good life.
• I am down to one pair of jeans and so I will likely go get another pair this weekend. I get the feeling my parents will pay for them and that feels weird. Not that they never give me money but that they seem much more willing now that I am living back at home. I guess I am actually costing them less by living at home than I did while I was living in Guelph.
• I am trying to decide what I am looking forward to these days. If I get Lasik eye surgery this month (I have an appointment, just waiting for some government money to come in) then I don’t know what I will set my sights (no pun intended) on next. I think I am generally happier when I am waiting for something in the future to happen. The only other thing I am really looking forward to is getting a window cubicle in my research lab, it’s really pretty when the sun is setting.
• I have been thinking about girls, as I often do, and I have mixed feelings. Is there any rush now that I am in the next stage of my life to meet someone? I forget what that that falling in love elation feels like and it much harder to miss something I don’t remember. Maybe life is just simpler on my own.
• I want to get bigger again but I find my will power lacking a bit compared to the past. I get a lot of satisfaction from the results of going to the gym but that satisfaction is not producing more motivation for me right now.
• I much prefer Calgary weather to Guelph weather. This dry air, while the cause of some problems, makes leaving the house every morning much nicer.

I also want to say, to my friends who have having relationship problems right now (you know who are you), things will get better with time, you guys are all pretty awesome, and I have no doubt at all that things will get better for you before you know it.

e-hug,

J

iPad - Please Don’t Hate

I was excited to watch the apple release of their new tablet yesterday. This has apparently been a pet project of Steve Job’s for years now and you could tell he was really excited to show it off. The reaction from most other people has been poor and I want to address this a bitty.

1. This is first gen product and those that do buy it will suffer an early adopters tax much like the first ipod/iphone/zune/eeepc ect. but unlike a lot of other first gen releases this one is built upon a much stronger foundation of the existing iPod line and iPhone OS. I expect this to be the most polished launch product apple has had in years.

2. People complain about the lack of media card reader, camera, stylus (I really wanted this one), but that is missing the point. This product is being let down because the expectations placed upon it are far too great by far too many.

Apple is not know for making new revolutionary things (despite what they say) but are know for making existing things better than the competition.

IE. Mp3 players had been around for a long time but the iPod line was just better in a lot of ways than anything else in the market.

Smart phones have been around for years but Apple was the first to really hit the sweet spot and combine technologies for the North American market.

So then what is apple making better this time around? the ebook reader!

If you want this product to replace your laptop you will be disappointed, if you want it to replace your phone you will be disappointed, but if you want to compare it to a Kindle ebook reader you will be amazed.

For $10 dollars more than the top of line Kindle you get a WHOLE lot more, colour screen, better build quality, internet access, iBook store, overall prettier product ect.

3. Yes, the next gen of iPad will have the features people wanted this one to have but for the price of $500 us (way below expectations) can you really complain? If it had everything included in this version and had cost $1000 people would have complained about the price?

4. For novice computer users this will be a great product. For some people file management and folders are confusing, multitasking is confusing, the internet and email are a mystery. For the novice users, the iPad and a wireless router will let them do almost anything they can imagine. They won’t know any better about the quality of the virtual keyboard compared to a physical keyboard. This device will just work for them.

5. This device, I hope, will do for books what the first ipods did for digital music, make a bigger and better industry with easier access for consumers.

Will I be buying the first gen iPod? I will probably pass for now as I am very happy with an iPod touch and my 11.6” windows netbook.

School @ UCalgary

I have been in Calgary for a week and am really impressed with the university so far. The people, the facilities, the ideas, the classes, and the perspectives are are so different from what I am used to.

To start with, my classes seem really awesome. Qualitative Research Methods for System Engineering seems like it will really expand what I thought I knew about qualitative research. While I thought I was more of a qualitative researcher all along, rather than a quantitative (numbers) researcher, I think I might have been wrong all along. I really hope this course will help to really learn to study people without the idea that I always have to be able to numerical categorize my findings.

My other course, Software Planning and Release, will be interesting in that I will learn much more about best practices for software planning and I think this will be very important for web applications I work on now and will develop in the future, I kinda see my future as a movement towards focusing on development of web tools and apps.

From talking to my new advisor here I realize how much of usability mind set I have. I approach problems with a “fixit” attitude or with the idea that I will find problems to resolve or with the goal of improving systems. What I have never really focused on is creating COMPELLING systems and this is something I think I will learn here. The closest I have gotten to this in the past is making interesting things, I think this is the next step beyond just making good/interesting systems.

The iLab area, where I work out of, is a show piece for the university and I have already been warned, as we all have, to be ready to demo all the time as the president of the university makes this lab the first stop when showing people around the university. There is so much technology in this lab, Microsoft surface tables, giant displays, miniature hardware ect and so many research projects in so many areas it’s a bet overwhelming at this point. I do really like my computer and dual 24” displays at my desk though :)

Further, I learned that I will have a lot of opportunities to go to conferences, learn, and meet new people while I am here. If we publish here we go to the conference. We can even go to conferences that are important for our field that we may not even present in. This is very different from what I am used to and a very welcome change.

I will have the opportunity to take actual design courses here in the fall and work with different materials beyond just computers and I really really excited about that.

All the said, overall the University here seems nice although different. There are a LOT more people here and the building are much bigger. I am learning my way around and have even starting going to the gym here.

I am super excited to come and see everyone this coming week in Guelph/Toronto. That said, I hope you all can come out at some point and visit me here as well.

I will start updating this blog more regularly, the recent lack of posts just reflects how busy I have been the past little while.

Home Away From Home

I am now in Calgary. I will be back in Guelph to defend but I am not sure when, I will update FB/Twitter when I know more.

My last few days in Toronto were really great. I saw almost everyone, had a lot of laughs, talks, and great meals.

I want to thank everyone again that helped me move during my last days in Guelph. I can’t wait to be back there to see everyone again.

I miss Dave the cat.

Now that I am in Calgary I have so many things I want to buy it’s kinda crazy.

It is gonna take a while to get used to living at home again. I am living the basement which is ok. I can see myself trying to find a new place pretty soon though.

I will keep on updating this blog over the coming month with details about what is happening here, happening with my thesis, and my travels back to Guelph.

Happy 2010 everyone.