Water

As most of you know already, I worked in Dargan Healthfoods for about 4 years after I finished college. I always really enjoyed working there; the staff and my bosses were great people to work with, and have remained good friends of mine. Another thing I really liked about working there was learned about all the herbs and vitamins, and alternative ways of living. And if I were to pick the one most useful thing I learned during my time there it would have to be drink more water!

It is definitely the best information I learned for myself and was able to give to people. Unfortunately it was also the one piece of information which I think people had the least amount of belief in. Why? Well, probably because it sounds too easy, and because it doesn't cost anything! People, in my experience, put way to much value in things that cost a lot of money, and sometimes overlook the basic free things in life. Many are happier going to expensive specialists and paying huge amounts of money for a new drug that has just been released (read: you are going to be a guinea pig for this new drug!). Countless times we would speak to people in the shop who said they had tried everything for their specific condition; tried all the orthodox medicine, and gone to the most expensive specialists. But nothing had worked for them, and as a last resort they decided to try the alternative angle. Often we would talk with these people about their lifestyle and find major flaws; drinking 10 cups of coffee a day, not eating vegetables, or not moving their bowels. And with slight and simple changes we often achieved positive results with many of these people.


So my whole point here is drinking water is a simple everyday process that can lead to a much healthier life. Everybody has heard at some stage that you should drink 8 glasses of water a day. But most people have never even tried it. If you wanted to see if it actually makes a difference to you, you should try drinking 2 litres of water a day, every day, for 2 weeks. After that time you can make a valid decision, for yourself, whether it makes a difference in your life or not. An important note is not to drink over 3 litres a day for a sustained period of time, as this much water washes water soluble vitamins from the body.

But I'll have to go to the toilet more often!
Yes you will, but after a while your bladder will accustom itself to receiving the amount water, and stabilise itself. Your body will be able to detoxify itself better, and many things in your life will improve. Your concentration and sleeping patterns will improve, your mood will be lighter, and you will have more energy.

In Japan, people do not seem to drink much water!
In the offices that I work in at least, there is no water filter! There is a coffee machine and a water boiler which people use to make green tea. So I keep a bottle at work and fill it from the tap. Unfortunately however, most of my colleagues drink mostly coffee all day. One of my Japanese teachers of English (JTE), the teachers I work with, drinks 6 cups of coffee a day, no water but occasionally one cup of green tea. Many people argue that coffee is good for you. That may be so, personally I'm not convinced - and definitely when people add white sugar to each cup, they are also adding many health risks. (I’m not going to go into the known health risks of white sugar here.) Coffee is a diuretic, which means it takes water from your system. Water, on the other hand gives water to your body.

My JTE suffers from constipation, and regularly takes medicine to alleviate this. One of the primary causes of constipation is lack of water. If the stools are not moist they cannot move. I have encouraged her many times to drink water, unfortunately she didn't try for more than 2 or 3 days. Not enough to have an effect. It's a pity she didn't give it a real try.

I wonder how many people are suffering because they are dehydrated.

Regatta 2008

On Monday 15th September 2008 the annual regatta for amateur rowers took place at Aquapal Boat Plaza in Honjo. Our Board of Education entered 3 mens, and 2 ladies teams. In total there were 54 mens teams and 19 ladies teams. Our team name was Aburakoji Guys. Aburakoji is just where our BoE is located. There are 5 members in a rowing team, 4 rowers and a coxswain. The coxswain sits in the back of the boat facing in the direction the boat moves and gives us instructions, all the rowers face the opposite way. I was in stroke position, which is just in front of the coxswain. On my team was Takafumi (Japanese), Jon (Canadian), David (Tasmanian) and Brett (American). We had about 6 practices before the competition, which was a 50% increase on the amount of practices we had last year!


In our first race there were 3 boats, and we needed to finish in the top 2 to qualify. Despite me getting my oar stuck in the water at the start of the race and almost dragging the boat underwater, we managed to recover and passed out a much slower boat to finish in 2nd place. So we progressed to the next round, though we were going to face much stronger teams from there. For our 2nd race we were supposed to be in a 3 boat race, but one boat did not turn up. This was a very good thing for us as we needed to finish in the top 2 again to progress. But obviously we wanted to win our race. And as the gun fired and we had a very strong start we quickly pulled into the lead. However another oar got stuck, not mine this time. But as that rower was sorting that problem out, his seat came off the rails... so we were going nowhere fast! Eventually when we did get going again, we accepted the fact that there was no way we were going to catch the other boat, and laughed and acknowledged how lucky we were that the 3rd boat hadn't turned up!


After having progressed from a awful last round we were finally in a race with 4 boats. We were also racing against another boat from our BoE. Before the race Jon and myself studied the previous race times of the boats involved in our next race. We needed to make a 6 second improvement on our first race time to be in with a real chance. I was hoping that my mistake may have lost us close to that, unfortunately I was wrong. For out final race we gave a very good performance, we beat the other BoE team, but were far from catching the much stronger 2 boats in that race. Had we finished in the top 2 we would have advanced to the semi finals, where we would have been embarrassed!

Our best time, over 500m, was 2:17. The overall best time in the competition was 2:02.

One of the ladies teams however, made it to the final! Two of the ladies, Amelie and Sophie, were on the same team as me last year when I was coxswain for them. They showed amazing strength and speed in the 2 rounds before the final, finishing in 1st position both times, and by a long way! They started strong in the final race too, but one boat gained a sizable lead. The ladies were neck and neck with 2nd/3rd position for the majority of the race, as the last boat seemed to lag way behind. But in the final stretch the last boat steamed forward and with a very tight finish between the 3 boats our ladies were robbed and finished in 4th position. Overall it was an excellent display from a very competent team, who were all very pleased with their performance.

Their best time was 2:27 with overall best time in the ladies at 2:22.

During the day the BoE had a tent by the river, and they cooked us lunch and gave us drinks. And after we took down the tents at the end of the day we all went out for dinner and more drinks.