Matt Chung's Site

Author: mattchung

  • Foot injury and recovering from (potentially) foot poisoning

    Foot injury and recovering from (potentially) foot poisoning

    • In London, I religiously attend (House) Dance classes every Tuesday and Thursday evening. That’s my ritual
    • Unfortunately, this will be the second week that I’m not attending class due to Bunionette (i.e. Tailor’s Bunion) flaring up, me unable to bear my full weight on the left side of my foot
    • Though I’m not 100% sure, I suspect that the Tailor Bunion has less to do with overuse (that was my initial guess) and more to do with the barefoot (on hardwood) 2 hour movement / mobility workshop that coincided with the dance workshop
    • In addition to foot pain, Sunday evening I started feeling “off” in my body. Sweaty despite cool weather. When I had returned back to my flat, I had the urge to rush to the toilet and suddenly I had two back to back aggressive diarrhea, an absolute purge of whatever was in my body
    • I tried to analyze what I had eaten throughout the day and nothing out of the usual. But the one outlier was that (because I ran out of food gloves) I was handling the dog’s (raw) chicken with my bare hand (something I never do) and I suspect that (despite washing my hands) I probably flicked some raw chicken in my mouth
    • So yesterday, I practiced self-compassion because due to the stomach pain, had woken up several times throughout the night, curled up in the fetal position. So I was barely able to work (put in about 2 hours) and ended up heading to the chemist (i.e. pharmacy) and picked up Paracetamol and took it twice, 2 pills each time (4 hours apart)
    • Thankful that I didn’t have Elliott the evening I was sick otherwise I would not have been able to give her much parental attention that I’d like
  • Practicing short and simple post – Recap of today

    Practicing short and simple post – Recap of today

    In many areas of my life, I am mindfully resisting perfection. Same applies to this blog post. Instead of another post sitting in DRAFT status, I’m going to publish a post with a few bullet points:

    • Elliott woke me up a couple times throughout the night so when I woke up at 5:00 am this morning, I felt like a train hit me: I’m totally exhausted
    • She helped me make her own breakfast today – I pulled up a chair so that she could stand above the stove and I helped her pour in the eggs into the pan. Yes — cooking breakfast takes more time but I enjoy teaching her and she loves feeling involved. Also, one top of the egg omelet, we spread seaweed all over
    • We took “Racey” (her new toy remote control car I purchased her) to the park
    • Juggled three balls in the kitchen – while she was eating breakfast, I juggled and at one point, juggled two balls in one hand and she was like “wow dad!”
    • We watched parts of Toy Story – I skipped over parts I felt that would be too scary for a 4.5 year old
    • I let her watch about 45 minutes of Disney+ while I napped next to her – I was struggling, hanging on by a thread. So she sat next to me while I napped for about 30 minutes to recover from her numerous wake ups (see above)

  • Styling arms in house dance

    This morning, I re-watched a video that I recorded the night before, while practicing dancing some house dance. And what stood out to me the most was not my footwork, but my arms. In particular, something seemed “off” about the positioning of my fingers as well as the angle in my arms. Given arms is not a topic frequently covered in house dance, I decided to draw inspiration from ballet and contemporary to see what those styles teach because I’m sure there is some theory behind placing the arms in such a way that is aesthetically pleasing.

    So the main take away from watching a series of YouTube videos this morning is that:

    • Arms are always at a diagonal (even when you think they are straight)
    • Engage the shoulders
    • In ballet, elbows should be raised above wrist

    From Pole Dancing

    • Generate the movement from the shoulder blade, initiating from the back

    Contemporary

    Arms

    • Arms out to the side is not actually a straight line
    • Arms protruding slight in front of you
    • Similar concept with arms up, you want to keep the shoulder position natural and therefore keep arms out slightly in front

    Legs

    While watching the video on arms, the YouTube recommendation engine suggested a video on theory of legs which I found just as interesting

    • When extending leg out in front, lead with the knee
    • Avoid tilting the pelvis
    • Squeeze muscles of thighs and inner thighs and glutes so you are pulling / dragging the leg instead of just picking them up and plopping them

    Jazz Arms

    • When extending arms up and out, a good cue is that you should be able to see your fingers in your periphery

    Ballet

    • A couple different analogies and metaphors including squeezing your hand through a glove
    • Shaking your hand vigorously and then in the last moment, however your hand lands, that’s how it should look
    • Mind is blown right now in her statement “if you have tension in your hands it means you aren’t using your shoulder blade muscles enough”
  • Receiving end of racism: distress tolerance (STOP) skill

    Receiving end of racism: distress tolerance (STOP) skill

    It’s been a while since I experienced overt racism but today, while working remotely in the Morden Costa coffee shop, a man sitting a few tables away from me, shouted “Hey, CHINA man”, trying to get my attention. After I ignored him, he followed with shouting out a few expletives, then proceeded to step outside the front door, temporarily leaving his belongings behind.

    I felt in my body my subjective unit of distress (SUD) increase.

    I recognized I was distressed but could not immediately pinpoint my primary emotion. So I immediately applied the STOP distress tolerance skill: the goal is not to improve the situation, but not make it worst. And the reason I decided to just momentarily pause was because I had the thought to dart over to him and confront him, the urge to dangle my index finger in his face, wanting some sort of physical altercation.

    Now, in this moment, I recognize the primary emotion: anger.

    I felt injustice. Is it valid? Yes. Is the anger justified? Yes. And at the same time, acting on the anger would NOT be effective. That it, it would not be aligned with my long term values.

    After allowing a few minutes to pass, it’s now obvious that this man is either drunk (or on some other substance) and/or dealing with mental health issues. I’m in this moment, typing this, practicing compassion, trying to look beyond his visible behavior and give him the benefit. Of course, I would physically protect myself should he approach me and I felt like I couldn’t avoid, but I don’t feel that that’s the case.

  • Proud dad moment: Elliott blowing a bubble (gum)

    Proud dad moment: Elliott blowing a bubble (gum)

    Experiencing Joy and Pride

    • I experienced an intense level of joy (6 out of 5) today when Elliott blew her first bubble gum, which was caught on camera
    • I was so proud of her and felt even more proud of her response to my joyful reaction: “I feel proud of myself”
    • About 4 weeks ago, June 22, her and I picked (for the first time) up bubble gum at the local convenience store and started the chewing gum journey
    • After semi-regular practice (about once a week) she not only landed blowing bubble, but enjoyed the experienced so much that continued to chew gum for about 1-2 hours after

    Parenting philosophy

    • I recognize that I value independence and probably much more relaxed than the average parent when it comes to “rules”
    • As her father, I’m not seeking “compliance”. Often, Elliott asks the question “why” a lot. It’s not just a single “why”; sometimes its a recursive why of about 5-6 (sometimes more).
    • During these moments, I practice mindfulness and patience (for the long term), really putting my best foot forward to answer honestly. I love the fact that she probes and questions and applies critical thinking, even at the cost of (short term) effort and sometimes frustration that I experience

    Teaching emotions

    • We sat in bed today, watching trailers of “Inside Out” and “Inside Out 2”. She asked “who’s that” and I would explain that’s envy, a useful emotion. All emotions serve a purpose.
    • Emotions is not only something I am devoting time and energy as a 36 year old learning, but a topic that was never discussed with me growing up
    • I recognize in this life time, I can only pass so much down in one generation and if I had to prioritize, learning about our inner emotions is one of my main priorities

    Spiritual Growth of Elliott

    • Relatedly, I’m interested in nurturing her spiritual growth (cannot even define this yet and still learning about this topic)
    • I try to remain very curious of her own values and try to remain aware of my own blind spots and times when I imposing my own values. For instance, to name a few, I value physical activity, independence, curiosity. Will Elliott value those things? Maybe. Maybe not.
    • In fact, I already recognize (perhaps through osmosis from her mom) that Elliott pays attention to aesthetically beautiful things (I do not necessarily have a high value for beauty like things in nature)

  • Complimenting someone on their outfit and experiencing minor embarrassment

    While sitting in a local cafe where I work remotely, sipping on my Earl Grey Tea with a splash of Soy milk and honey, I shifted my gaze away from my laptop and saw a woman standing outside, a person I had walked past by earlier. When I had first saw her, I thought to myself: I really liked her vibe and her outfit. So I had the thought to go step outside and compliment her.

    Paying people genuine compliments is a skill that I’ve been practicing over the years. Because I am sensitive to people’s responses, I sometimes feel a bit anxious as to how they will react.

    I have thoughts of: will this person think I am hitting on them? Will they get offended, thinking that I am objectifying them?

    These types of thoughts run through my mind when approaching both men and women (although I would say I am extra mindful when approaching women).

    Before approaching anybody, I call upon my DBT (dialectical behavior therapy) skills. I think to myself: is my wise mind saying that I am behaving in a way that’s accordance to my long values?

    A quick cope ahead: even if they respond negatively, can I tolerate their reaction?

    At the same time, DBT wise mind skills includes a quality of “participation”, to give in fully to the moment. For example, if you are out dancing the night away, you might want to just root yourself “in the moment” without overthinking, without over-analyzing.

    While juggling both wise mind “effectiveness” and “participating”, I stood up from my seat and walked outside the cafe, approached this woman and said “Excuse me. I don’t mean to bother you and I just want to say I really like your outfit.”

    Her eyebrows raised, and I interpreted her response as a bit surprise. In her thick (I think) French accent, she responded.

    “Um. Uh. You want this?” pointing at her scarf.

    I felt so embarrassed.

    Living in London, there’s so much more diversity when compared to America (where I was living). Here, one cannot safely assume that people speak English. Often just when you are out and about, you’ll hear so many different languages. Sometimes I can pick up on the language (e.g. Spanish, Russian), other times not.

    Now, though I felt temporarily embarrassed, will I pay a compliment to someone else in the future? For a brief moment, I felt discouraged. But the reality it is that you can never fully anticipate how someone will respond.

    Sometimes someone will appreciate it.

    Sometimes someone will not.

    And sometimes someone will think you want their scarf.

  • 90 days of blogging

    Over the 90 days, I’m going and aim to blog little micro entries on this website. It’s okay if I break the chain. This will be a practice in discipline.

    I’ve been exchanging emails with Kit Laughlin, the pioneer behind Stretch Therapy. In addition to asking him (and his partner and co-owner of Stretch Therapy, Olivia) if he had felt comfortable about me embedding clips from their program into my stretching journey video logs (they said yes), he was responding to submission to the teacher training intensive program that they (currently do not) offer. In his reply to that submission, he shared a link to a blog post of his: the 90 day blog challenge and the 50-year test.

    After reading that post, I wanted to challenge myself to see if I can blog for a consecutive 90 days. As mentioned in (almost a year ago) blog post titled “A brief life update”, my blogging habit stopped when I tried to start monetizing the content. In a separate post from this, I’d like to dig into it but for now, I had unexpectedly added self-imposed pressure and overwhelmed myself; that combined with my sensitivity to criticism basically crippled me.

    And now, I’m trying to jump back on the proverbial horse, so to speak.

    I’m not going to “force” myself to blog 90 days. I’d like to gently encourage myself to write everyday. Add an element of play. See how it might complement my video blogging (on YouTube and Instagram).

    So for the next 90 days, I think I want to practice and blog about things where my curiosity currently leads me:

    • Improving my breathing – I’ve been fighting off a lingering lung infection for the past 12 weeks and tackling the problem with a multi-faceted approach with visiting salt caves (google view link here), practicing Buteyko Breathing (took this online course) after reading the book Breath
    • Reading “Good Inside” by Dr. Becky Kennedy – After following her Instagram and watching (twice) the podcast episode of her on Huberman Lab, and feeling like her Instagram content resonates with me, I started chipping away at the book that I rented from the Merton Library (for free). Though I’m no longer in dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), I’d still like to continue practicing mindfulness and other skills and become the father that I envision for Elliott. I’m a great father. And I can do better.
    • Chipping away at Waves of Focus online course – my capacity for being “productive” has dropped substantially over the past few months and I suspect that my body and brain are responding to the major life change of going through a divorce, moving to a new country, etc. So I’m both extending self compassion (this really is a hard time and anybody would find it difficult to go through a rather drawn out divorce process) and at the same time, developing skills to work with my wandering mind. So I signed up for a one-week trial of Waves of Focus, a program developed by Koroush, who I worked with 1:1 last year when building up my productivity system. Just today alone, I blasted through about 10 modules because I felt so much joy, excitement and hopefulness of a more controlled future regarding productivity
    • Stretching and Pilates – I’m on a personal journey to overcome body stiffness. This journey, I suspect, will take about 5-10 years (trying to set the reasonable expectations for myself) and in the short term, increasing my ability to crawl around on the floor with Elliott, perform certain dances moves that I’ve avoided out of fear of pain. Also, I’d like to get teacher training in both stretching (through Stretch Therapy) as well as Pilates instructor training as well. In another blog post, I’ll talk about how I want to transition from working behind a computer (which I think I’ll always do) to something more physically active and more human interaction based.
    • Dancing – Every Tuesday and Thursday I take a house dance class at The Pineapple and Base Dance Studio, respectively. In addition to this, this upcoming weekend July 20th and July 21st, I’ll be attending the Mighty Mover Seminar, followed by a monthly jam hosted by Indahouse UK, then on Sunday I will be attending a dance workshop.

    Okay, so writing this blog post absolutely surprised me. Often I think I’m not going to be able to write more than a few sentences. But after just sitting here and typing away for about 20 minutes, I’m on a roll. Okay next 90 days: let’s go!

  • I just spotted the Squat University dude in a Kelly Starlet video

    Rhetorical Device: Sequence

    1. After stretching my hamstring this morning, I was surprised when I experienced that the the intensity of IT band reduced
    2. I was perusing the stretch therapy forums, searching the word “IT band” and stumbled on this post
    3. Kit Laughlin said he spotted a video once with Kelly Starlet (a name I recognize, author of the “Supple Leopard”) and how there’s some video online that Kit had saw which he found valuable
    4. Another person posted a comment on the thread, providing a link to the YouTube video
    5. When I played a few seconds of it, I spotted another guy I thought I recognize on YouTube, the person who owns and runs Squat University
    6. I did a google Search of “Squat University Kelly Starrett” and landed on a Twitter post and learned that Kelly Starlet was hugely influential on his career
    7. Turns out that although Kelly Starrett is influencing to his work, the squat university dude is NOT the person in the video so I feel a little embarassed that I mixed up two Caucasian men

  • Stretch Journal – Monday July 01, 2024

    I’ve entered the 6th week of my stretching journey. In today’s program (12), we focused on the following muscles: calves, quadriceps, and ankles.

    Throughout this journey, I’m semi-regularly tracking my progress because I have this vision — a very clear image (which almost brings me to tears thinking about it) — of me moving gracefully, without pain: the source of pain turning into source of pleasure. This vision is somewhat far into the future, anywhere between 2-5 years (by then, my age will be between 38-41).

    Notes

    • Total duration of today’s program about 19-20 minutes
    • Equipment relied on was 1) a mat to support the knees 2) chair for the squat and 3) bolster to adjust the seiza position, the Japanese kneeling position
    • The focus was on the calves, quadriceps, ankles
    • Listened to my wise mind and added much needed adjustments like both sitting on the bolster, resting my ankles on top of a folded up sweater since ankles could not sustain being pressed against hardwood floor. In the past, I avoided adjustments, perceiving myself as weak. But I’ve abandoned that idea, welcoming adjustments to create an environment that’s conducive for relaxing into the stretch
    • Today I experienced another instance of actually enjoying stretching, no longer trying to “search for” or “experience” pain. Instead of forcing myself through the pain, pushing through the pain. I’m minimizing and avoiding it all together. Those previous strategies (e.g. no pain no gain), do not serve me in my quest of becoming a supple leopard.
    • I’m continuing to open up to finding alternative exercises at varying intensities that work for my body
    • Eye opener experience for me is (and continues to be) tilting the pelvis (or as they say “tucking the tail”), which avoids tweaking my lower back during certain exercises like the quadriceps stretch
  • Short self analysis on house dance move: toe tap

    Short self analysis on house dance move: toe tap

    I almost always post recap videos on Instagram after taking dance classes (of course unless the class does not permit or discourages filming). In addition to capturing, creating and posting these videos (that hopefully show the spirit of the class), I’ll sometimes review clips of me dancing in class, playing back certain moves that I remember not “clicking” during the class; then I will try to observe and identify what specific parts of the move I’d like to refine. From yesterday’s class, one move (there are others) that I noticed I want to evaluate and improve was the part of the loose leg transition: the toe tap.

    I like to be as specific as possible when attempting to self-correct a movement. And while there may be other aspects that could be “cleaned up”, the two that I’m going to direct my focus towards are:

    1. The the angle of the tapping leg when its lifting in the air – was not engaging the gluteus muscle (more on this below)
    2. The straightness of the base leg – again, was not engaging the gluteus

    As a relatively new dancer (i.e. less than a year), it’s not always obvious to me what appears “off” (that’s why I feel private 1:1 are so effective because instructors can often immediately articulate what specifically needs attention).

    In other words, sometimes my eye detects something needs improvement but I’m not able to pinpoint specifically what I’d like to change.

    As such, I will juxtaposition two videos side by side, lining up two clips: the first clip of someone I consider performing the move that inspires me and the second clip of myself. I then frame by frame play back the two videos in sync (a whole separate topic), relying on my eye to spot the subtle differences.

    After analyzing the above sequence, I walked over to the mirror hung up in my bedroom flat and then watched myself in the mirror as I emulated he r movement. I attempted to both straighten the base leg and lifted the tapping leg. What’s most interesting about this exercise is that (like I continually to learn over and over) I was essentially not engaging my gluteus muscles. My directing my attention to them and flexing them, the move itself cleaned up.

    So in short, dance for me serves as a mechanism — a vehicle — for increasing body awareness.

    Recap Video