Female sumo wrestlers

I think it's so cool that a few women have taken up sumo wrestling. I found Sports Illustrated has done a layout on female sumo wrestlers.

This ancient Japanese sport is reserved for the full, hefty-bodied male, rikishi.
Women can compete only at the amateur level. Women aren't allowed in the matches because the platform is blessed by a Shinto priest, and women are considered unclean. There's a lot of ritual purification going on in this sport and there is no protesting the judges' rulings.

Sumo wrestlers charge their opponent with a weighty burst of energy

Photo credit: hotblack from morguefile.com

 
Wrestling is a full-contact sport. The objective is to use your mind to out-maneuver your opponent with your body in order to get control of your opponent and pin them down or push them outside the ring. This sport is performed barefoot while blending disciplines of self-defense, martial arts, and hand-to-hand combat.

Wrestling reminds me of a chess game with two queen game pieces remaining on the board-every move is vitally pertinent for the win. Even the stare-down, the psyching-out your opponent, is all part of the sport.

But unlike chess, tennis or boxing, sumo wrestling has a lot of rituals dating back hundreds of years.
When you watch a match, don't blink, because the wrestling match could be over in seconds. The opponents size each other up to get that split second lead of charging first with a blast of energy to throw the other off balance. Blink, and you might miss their lightening moves.

Sumo wrestlers have to be limber because a match can put the wrestlers in all sorts of configurations.  I like watching wrestling matches and sumo wrestling matches are the most fascinating to watch.

Dan Gable won an Olympic gold medal in wrestling-I had the privilege of attending the same high school he graduated. There's a large portrait of Dan hanging in the school gymnasium. I preferred going to wrestling meets than football or basketball games because I think wrestling is more exciting to watch..

Wrestlers, no matter their weight class, have to be quick, strong, limber, and light on their feet. It's never boring to watch because there's always action on the mat.

Wrestlers have some nice physiques, too.

Sumo wrestlers must be comfortable with their bodies to move about while wearing only a big thong, uhh, I mean a belt, called a mawashi.
Women sumo wrestlers wear a mawashi over spandex, thank goodness.

Japan's national sport.

More interesting facts to know about sumo wrestling.


These wrestlers are strong and solid. View this video and notice when they go down, nothing giggles.



  
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Back to women and wrestling... take a look at this young female sumo wrestler from the UK. Even though I've never been to a sumo tournament, I can see participating in this sport would increase one's focus, strength, agility, mind control, and improve one's self-defense skills, as well.

In the UK, this grandmother is a sumo wrestler weighing in at 32 stones, which happens to be 448 pounds. She's been winning her matches. Good for her.
And this Indian woman needing a sponsor so she can compete in more sumo competitions. Hatal is pursuing her passion and doing well in India as the sole female professional sumo wrestler in India. She is determined and aims to "destroy all existent stereotypes. I hope she gets some sponsors and continues to make a name for herself and reaches her goals as an athlete and representative of her country.                                                   

If I could quickly charge someone and knock them over before they knew what hit 'em.
they'd think long and hard before messing with me again!

But first, I need to practice my squats.

Little address book

I came across my old address book. It had been hidden inside a box in my storage shed. Flipping through the pages I felt as if I were flipping through time. These pages were like opening a time capsule of the period of time and the people back when I was establishing myself.

My old address book

On the first pages were addresses I resided after college. I needed these addresses a couple years ago when I was filling out an application of all my prior whereabouts. The address of the apartment I stayed in Jackson, Mississippi, and then my addresses where I lived in Shreveport, LA.  I eventually stopped renting and bought a condo, so that address as well as the clinic I worked were all there.

Flipping through the months for birthdays,  I saw names of people I've long forgotten. Name and birth dates listed were Ella Mae Patterson, my Dad's dad's sister. I remember her place was near the Super Dome in New Orleans. It was at her place on hot evening I learned that roaches lived in trees and they can fly and if they land on your head, they give off an awful smell hard to shampoo out. It was a flight of stairs up to her place, and the other side of the duplex was my aunt and her kids. I do believe I have a photo of me sitting with my grandfather and Monique on the sofa at Ella Mae's. I also remember Ella Mae read her Bible daily, and it was a biggest Bible I'd ever seen due to the large print. I haven't heard what happened to Ella Mae after that. Some 30 years ago have gone by.

Names of some of the guys I knew in the Corps, Mark, Rocky, David, to give a few, and names of classmates I went to college with.

Names of my first clients in Montgomery I saw. Virginia Durr was one of them. Her husband, Clifford Durr, defended Rosa Parks after refusing to give up her seat on the bus to a Caucasian man back in the 60s. Mrs. Durr had a memory like and elephant.  She told me many things when I was working on her in my office or in her home when I made house calls. If someone called and wanted to interview Mrs. Durr, she's oblige while I continued massaging her, and when the call was over, she'd hang up. Never did I hear her say 'good-bye'. She summered with her daughters in Martha's Vineyard. Hanging on her bedroom was a photo of her husband, and on the wall in her living room was a large painting of her. One of her daughters was married to Hugo Black, a past Supreme Court Justice. Mrs. Durr was like a living history book. She'd met Eleanor Roosevelt and was instrumental in woman's voting rights. I could go on and on. I still have her book she signed for me and a note in her handwriting that she was well pleased with the services I provided.

 I flipped through and saw names of people I did business with in Shreveport. Some names I ran across drew a blank. I couldn't remember why I wrote their name and phone number in my address book.  They had to mean something to me at the time to write their name in my address book.

Some old boyfriends and their brother's and mother's names I have listed along with birth dates.


I have the couple's name who befriended me in Jackson Mississippi. I hadn't thought of them in
years. I remember their home was situated amongst some big, tall pine trees in Jackson. I wish I had kept in touch with them. I really liked that couple.

And Dr. Ed Gavin, from whom is posted to this day on my board a card he gave me which reads, 'How to succeed in business'. Turn it over and  in bold letters it reads, 'GO TO WORK, IT NEVER FAILS'.

 And Pam, whom Mom hired to make a house call to give Grandpa a massage to help relax his rigid muscles. Pam and I spoke and she helped me get started doing massages in Montgomery. Before I had enough money to order a portable massage table, I made do with a foam cushion that was long enough to lie on and I covered it and use it to give massages. It was rough because I was on my knees. Pam referred her clients to me when she got married and moved to Birmingham. I soon bought a massage table and steadily got more clients from word of mouth and advertising in the Montgomery Magazine. Those were my early days and lean days and got me going until I took the Chiropractic Boards.  Pam gave me so very good contacts for which I am still very grateful, because some became my good friends and stayed clients and patients until I retired.

My friend from high school, Eileen, I have six addresses listed for her ranging from Corpus Christi, Lockhart,  and Austin. She moved around a lot, but she always informed me of her new address.

 I even have Jimmie J. whom is female, one of my patients in Shreveport.

And, Darla, (I've changed her name) who had a house cleaning business located on Southern Boulevard. Her business was doing well and she was employing at least a dozen women. I knew Darla before I opened my first office in Montgomery and in a position to afford hiring staff and employees.  I saw that Darla gave classes to her employees and they worked in teams to clean a house.  Darla's weakness was she liked to buy expensive dresses. She came to work dressed to the
 hilt as a professional business women. I saw her dresses on racks in her office. She could start her own woman's exclusive clothing shop with what looked like a hundred or more dresses.
She confided to me that she was in serious trouble for not paying some taxes. She didn't want to but she divorced her husband as a tactic so their home wouldn't be confiscated.
I hope it all worked out. I noticed her business closed after that and I've not seen or heard from her since.

I have my Dad's addresses listed when he lived in Oklahoma, Mississippi and Florida.

Derrick's address and phone number. Derrick was a Marine Corps vet who lived on the next block in Waterloo. I rode my bike back and forth to work when I was temporarily home but still active duty. He saw me wearing my uniform and stopped me and told me he had been in the Marines. He was planning to learn the trade of working on elevators and went to live in Brooklyn. He started a neighborhood organization called T.A.S.T.E. It's amazing that I remembered that. But I've forgotten what it stands for. Oh well.

This little address book is like going back in time to the places I've lived and the people I've met and were connected to at the time.

Funny how some names immediately conjured up memories, and a few I can't recall anything about at all. From now on I must write something along with their name so in the future I will have something to go on.

I wonder if my name in someone's address book has a problem remembering who I am?

Next, pull out my old journals and see what I wrote back in the 70s.

A powerful color punch

There are certain colors that resonate with me. 
 For a long time my favorite color was blue.
What I mean by resonate, is the color does 'something' that's not easy to explain, but I like looking at it and how I feel when looking at it.

Check out these colorful exterior homes.

Chartreuse, anyone?

Colors with unusual names.

Color is important and every where from college colors, to traffic signs, flags and wrist bands.

Here is what someone describes what it's like to be color-blind.

Some vivid colors or groupings of colors we tend to 'like' better than others. 
Color is perceived through wavelengths to the retina of the eye and sends an electrical  impulse to the brain which recognizes what we call 'color'.
Perhaps a related experience which our brain then relates or recalls to that 'color' and that's why certain colors resonate and we like them over other colors.

I like these artists use of color-
Roy Woodard-Fairchild
Diane Clancy

How do we perceive color?

Can color change your mood?   or affect your mood? 
How about the psychological effects color plays on mood and emotions?

Hue, saturation, temperature and value can used to describe colors we see, making for visual interest.





Photo credit: cohdra from morguefile.com

Photo credit: matthew_hull from morguefile.com

Photo credit: taliesin from morguefile.com

Photo credit: beglib from morguefile.com  


Well, I was just thinking that the world is colored so vividly. It's so nice that our eyes are tantalized by so many beautiful colors!

A Veteran's viewpoint

A few days ago, I received an email.
Because of it's content, I believe it's worthy to share, so I've copied it below.

The 'beige puppet", whom might that be?
And more importantly, I'm wondering if many will be voting at the polls in future elections.
It's looking pretty slim we'll ever return to the 'olden days' of baseball, apple pie and the traditional family together sitting at the family dining table.

Oh well, those days are history.
A new view of everything is on the scene calling the shots and has the masses wanting this big change (mind you the details about the changes in store were never clearly addressed).
I can only hope that down the line those voting for big changes aren't unhappy when the big changes take affect.

I can't help but think that sometimes a person doesn't know they're in quicksand until they're in with both feet, trapped with their freedom to move severely limited. Physical strength isn't adequate to free oneself from quicksand, and being rescued needs to happen, or keep a cool head and remain calm rather than getting excited so one can float out of the 'sucky' predicament.
America, the land of the free, home of the brave, is in quicksand. So many problems are 'sucking it downwards'. We need help from the heavenly direction to bring us out of our sucky and murky, messes.


Read below what one Veteran wrote.

those who serve know 'best' the cost and value of freedom

Photo credit: aconant from morguefile.com
 

The American Dream ended on November 6th in Ohio,

written by a USMC Vet

  The second term of Barack Obama will be the final nail in the coffin for the legacy of the white Christian males who discovered, explored, pioneered, settled and developed the greatest Republic in the history of mankind.

A coalition of Blacks, Latinos, Feminists, Gays, Government Workers, Union Members, Environmental Extremists, The Media, Hollywood, uninformed young people, the "forever needy," the chronically unemployed, illegal aliens and other "fellow travelers" have ended Norman Rockwell's America.

The Cocker Spaniel is off the front porch...the Pit Bull is in the back yard.
The American Constitution has been replaced with Saul Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals" and Chicago shyster, David Axelrod, along with international Socialist George Soros will be pulling the strings on their beige puppet to bring us Act 2 of the New World Order.
Our side ran two candidates who couldn't even win their own home states, and the circus fattster Chris Christie helped Obama over the top with a glowing "post Sandy" tribute that elevated the "Commander-in-Chief" to Mother Teresa status.
 People like me are completely politically irrelevant, and I will never again comment on or concern myself with the aforementioned coalition which has surrendered our culture, our heritage and our traditions without a shot being fired.
You will never again out-vote these people. 

 It will take individual acts of defiance and massive displays of civil disobedience to get back the rights we have allowed them to take away. It will take Zealots, not moderates--not reach-across-the-aisle RINOs to right this ship and restore our beloved country to its former status.
Those who come after us will have to risk their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor to bring back the Republic that this generation has timidly frittered away due to "white guilt" and political correctness...

I'm done, but before I go I’d like to share a one sentence editorial that appeared today in the Illinois Newspaper the Peoria Journal Star... It speaks volumes:

"A pen in the hand of this president is far more dangerous than a gun in the hands of 200 million law-abiding citizens."

If you want to share this with your friends, please feel free to do so!