Yoga therapist took away my pains

Thanks to my business partner and friend, yoga therapist Yap Wee Cheng, I am well again :)

Last month, on April 18th, shortly after we moved house, and exactly two months in my day job at SAS, I felt a shooting pain going down the upper part of my right arm.

The pain hit me when I woke up and then came back again and again during the day.

I thought it might have something to do with my office ergonomics. Maybe my seat was too low... Maybe it was the table, with its designer curve on the side that forced my arm into an awkward position as I handled the mouse for hours everyday.

I raised my seat. I repositioned my computer so that my arm wouldn't have to stay in that awkward position for hours every day. But the harm was done, and the pain continued.

Wife told me it was probably my moving the heavy furniture at home by myself in the middle of the night. As usual, I couldn't wait to get everything in place so that we could begin to live well in our new apartment in Toa Payoh.

Whatever the cause, I needed to get rid of the recurring shooting pain. Ouch!!!!

I applied a massage oil. It didn't help. I applied my cream for hydrating joints and bones. It didn't help either. Evidently, they were not addressing the root cause of the problem, whatever that might be.

A doctor friend of mine, when told of my complaint when we met socially over coffee, said the symptoms suggested that it may be an upper back problem and that for some reasons, my bone may have ended up pressing on my nerves. So, it is a back and nerve problem?

When I met Wee Cheng, my yoga therapist friend cum fellow Bios Life Franchise owner, in the course of business, I told her about my problem. It didn't take her long to figure out that it may have something to do with my posture. A recent physical strain may hurt a soft spot and triggered the pain.

She said she had noticed for some time that I tended to stick my head too much out of allignment with the rest of the body, and she had wanted to ask if I have back pains or problems like that.

She immediately attended to me and helped me to straighten up with some hand stretching exercises. Those stretching exercises seemed to have gotten to the root of the problem for I'd feel the same pain not in my arm but in my fingers! It's like the pain was being moved down my arm to my fingertips. We also had a good laugh discovering that everytime I tried to straighten my head, my belly would stick out. So, I'd have to remember to straighten my head and tuck in my belly! These are things I could try to get right while on the MRT, and I consciously do it nowadays.

She offered me a series of private yoga therapy sessions. Being keen to get rid of the pain and to get well again, and being a believer in alternative approaches to wellness myself, I readily took up the offer.

Having advised her earlier not to sell her one-on-one service cheap (for she has limited hours to trade off), I offered to pay the full rate for consultations. S$120 per hour! She gave me some discount.

We had the first session at the Unicity office, an hour before her monthly Yoga & Nutrition workshop. For more privacy, and to avoid interruptions, the second session was held at my home.

Through these two sessions alone, I learnt quite a number of things about my physical self e.g. I not only had bad posture, I was bow legged! Me bow legged? And flat footed too!!! I have heard of that before but never knew what that meant. And I didn't breathe right either. For example, when I breathe in, my stomach would cave in when it should be ballooning out.

Wee Cheng patiently showed me how to stand, how to walk, how to breathe ... Yes, can you picture that? A middle-aged guy learning to stand, walk and breathe right, after four decades of doing it all wrong? ;)

Wee Cheng knows about my weariness about the spiritual dimension of Yoga, and that any chanting or calling on spirits wis a no no. She understands that I'd go along so long as it is taken at the level of breathing and physical exercises. Sensitive to my concerns, she'd explain to me the physiological relevance of various acts or moves. On that basis, I allowed her to go as far as to teach me the Sun Salutation poses. Two rounds of that made me sweat more than a 30-minute walk around the neighbourhood (my kind of exercise). It was GOOD!

At the end of just those two sessions, and it's been more than a week since the second, those shooting pains have disappeared from my arm. I no longer wake up with dread and a hint of that trouble.

She asked me this morning if I'd like to do another session this evening. I sheepishly and honestly replied by sms: The crisis has blown over. I no longer feel the urgency to spend time and money on another session. But I'll tell my friends about you and what you can do for them if they are in need of Yoga Therapy, I offered.

So, here I am. Happy to be well again ;)

By the way, Wee Cheng writes a blog of her own, in Chinese. If language is not a problem, go here: http://blog.omy.sg/tingting

Presenting New Hope .. and 2nd chances in life

I am happy and honoured to present to you New Hope Community Services - a charity that provides temporary shelter and counselling support to the displaced and homeless and also ex-offenders fresh out of prison with nowhere to turn to.

New Hope is represented in this photo by its founder and executive director, Pastor Andrew Khoo (standing in the middle), and Warren De Souza, a young entrepreneur who volunteers at the charity (1st from right).

My partners and I at The 5E Network recently found common cause with Pastor Andrew and New Hope, and went ahead to adopt the charity as our favourite charity to work with and to support long-term, on an ongoing basis. We are impressed by their passion, mission and good work to help the displaced and the shunned in Singapore's affluent society.

With this "adoption", we will help New Hope build up a source of income that is independent, recurring, growing and significant. We have set a long-term target of S$10,000 a month, or S$120,000 a year. New Hope runs on a budget in excess of S$400,000 a year. Our efforts kicked off in April 2008 with a handful of us - Lily Soen (seen in this photo with hubby Hoong Chiu), Alice, Sunny and I - procuring S$1,000 of sales with which to open a high-yielding Bios Life Franchise account for the charity.

Next, we are looking to identify one or two suitable candidates people from the two main groups that New Hope helps - the homeless and ex-offenders - who have a burning desire to turn their lives around and do whatever it takes to make life better. When we find these candidates, we'd go all out to sponsor, train and guide them to build up a personal franchise of their own. They may then be an inspiration to others.

Meanwhile, we have proceeded with our other major intention to promote New Hope's cause wherever we have influence or the opportunity to do so, with a view to procure for them financial and other kinds of support from as many sources as we can find. We have created a Facebook group to publicise their work and promote awareness of their cause. We have presented the charity to a group of Rotarians with a view to working out some long-term collaboration between the charity and the international service movement.

This is the beginning of an exciting, heart-warming and inspiring journey.

I'd like to invite you to join us. Together, we can give new hope to those who'd otherwise feel hopeless and give a second chance to those whom society would normally shun or dismiss as no-hopers.

To help you make that decision, you can find out more about New Hope Community Services at www.newhopecs.org.sg

Pursuing Happiness: Let nobody tell you what you can or cannot do

"Never let somebody tell you that you cannot do something ... not even me," said Chris Gardner to his 5-year-old son, Christopher, correcting himself after realizing that he had unknowingly knocked his little son's dreams of basketball stardom.

He had earlier told the boy he shouldn't be playing ball all day because he is unlikely to get good at basketball or get anywhere with it ... since his dad wasn't even an average player at it.

Correcting himself quickly, he said: "If you've got a dream, you got to protect it. People cannot do something themselves; they're going to tell you that you can't do it. If you want something, go get it. Period."

These are my favourite lines from the inspirational movie Pursuit of Happyness, starring Will Smith and his real-life son.

It is based on the true story of Chris Gardner, a black guy in San Francisco, who refused to let a long spell of poor sales and mounting financial debts stop him from keeping on trying to improve his situation while staying true to his promise to himself that he'd never let his boy grow up not knowing his daddy. He didn't know who his father was until he was 28.

His long spell of financial lack saw his him descend from a rented apartment to a small motel room and then, a temporary shelter for the homeless, for which he and his boy had to queue up, day by day, with no assurance they'd get a room or bed to sleep for the night.

Then, one night, because he was a little later than normal getting out of work, the worst happened - they ended up without the temporary shelter.

That was when they ended up spending the night in a public toilet in the train station! Tears streamed down his cheek as he tried to cover the ears of his sleeping child as someone banged on the locked door, trying to get in to use the toilet :(

During this trying period, his wife gave up on him and left for New York. He was also haunted, challenged and even jailed by unpaid rents, parking fines and taxes.

Despite all these, he did not lose heart. He kept going at two things that he believed will give him the way out of his rut - trying to sell off his stock of Bone Density Scanner for immediate cash, despite rejections, mishaps and thefts; and pitching hard for a chance to be considered for a job at a stockbroking firm, and then working tenaciously and creatively at cold calls at his no-salary internship at Dean Witter Reynolds so that out of more than 20 candidates, he'd be the one to get the one and only one prized job at the stockbroking firm.

In the end, he managed to sell off every single scanner, including those he managed to recover from "thieves", raising money badly-needed to help him and son get by, day by day.

He also landed the job. That led to richly-deserved success, an investment bank of his own (Gardner Rich), and eventually, wealth in the millions of dollars.

I watched this movie for the first time last Monday when it was introduced at our weekly seminar, and again early today, with my 7-year-old son Jia Wei, gamely watching it with me on my recommendation. My boy enjoyed the movie and found a number of scenes touching and moving enough. Here and there, his voice broke as he asked me to explain what was happening.

If you haven't watch this movie, go watch it. I'm sure it will put a lot of thankfulness in your hearts while adding steel to your back.

If for some reasons, you simply can't get around to watching the movie, remember this:

"Never let somebody tell you that you cannot do something ... not even those closest to you. If you have a dream, you've got to protect it. People who cannot do something themselves are going to tell you that you can't do it too. If you want something, go get it. Period."