Just got back from Seattle at the Primal Move (Charge) Workshop with Peter Lakatos.   You’ll be hearing more and more about Primal Move because it is simply a fantastic system – accessible AND intensely advanced at the same time, I am planning on learning as much about it as humanly possible.   It has a certain quality about it that just MAKES you want to get good at it – it looks cool, and the amount of control required is of special interest to me.   Can’t wait to start teaching it to clients and friends too!   In the mean time, you can learn more here: Primal Move.  This approach to Joint Mobility and movement patterns really seems to have a rejuvenating effect as well.  During the weekend, it felt like some small muscles had somehow “woken up” and given me small bits of useable hidden strength and a few extra degrees of mobility that I didn’t know was there!  EXCELLENT! 🙂  Again, more and more info about this and with any luck a local seminar when I complete the instructor certification requirements.

We were all able to check out the new Dragon Door Catalog called Body Hero, which you should be receiving in the mail soon if you’ve ordered from them before. If you can’t wait, and I don’t blame you, you can download it and the new Hardstyle catalog on this page.

Also I now have the brand new Pavel DVD: Hardstyle Abs, along with the 4th Convict Conditioning DVD and Manual set – Advanced Bridging: Forging an Iron Spine.  Divoriced of its yoga-trappings, I have really gotten into bridging over the past year because of the original Convict Conditioning book… previous to this, I hadn’t paid much attention to the move or it’s progressions.  Now it’s one of my favorite things to do, especially during a mobility or GTG day you may find me doing a walk down the wall/ walk up the wall bridge, hoping to one day earn my way to the ever elusive ultimate goal of a standing to standing bridge.   Pretty sure this DVD set will help with that process BIG TIME.  Tonight is basically “Dragon Door Movie Marathon Night” at my house… and look forward to some reviews VERY soon.

Speaking of reviews, I am also working on a review of Dallas and Melissa Hartwig’s (of Whole9 and Whole30 fame) faaaantastic new book: It Starts With Food.  Great science and a great SUSTAINABLE food plan, without any of that self-punishment/deprivation garbage!

Seattle…

Having never been to Seattle, I gave myself a few hours on Monday to poke around and see what it had to offer (in a small way).  This of course led me around town -where I found statues that were so lifelike that when I sent a phone picture to a friend back in Florida, she thought they were living statue performers!   And these trees, which had their trunks painted that particular shade of purple/blue that does a funny thing to my head (long story)

Seattle has a great food culture, I had to check out the famous market of course:

Incredibly colorful fruit, vegetables etc were everywhere – it was hard to not just dive into it face first:

Fortunately, I was soon distracted by a traditional looking Chinese tea shop – Vital T-Leaf.

Far, far from the tv-popularized cheesy mall chains, this type of store has the teas that really interest me.. the “serious” teas – mainly pu erh and oolong teas to be exact. The higher quality and more rare the better. An incredibly knowledgeable and skilled tea enthusiast, Becky (Check out her blog: Tea Pleasure) was preparing tea samples in the gong fu method. So of course I had to sit down immediately and try some.  We sampled many of their very best, and admittedly dauntingly priced teas, the names and prices of which I will not publically disclose.  They aren’t on the website either, btw.    Since I no longer have any interest in wine etc, my snobby pallet has gone into overdrive on things like tea, chocolate, coffee, raw cheeses, weird fruit, etc.  Today was no exception to that rule.  My passion for tea was in extreme overdrive which might explain why I decided to have the majority of my purchases shipped home direct from the shop.   Some of the items I had been trying to locate for over 3 years.  This includes the JUST RIGHT gong fu tea tray, and various other implements.  These are “purchase once” items too, so now I can move on to just obsessing further over the tea and it’s method of preparation.

That’s not spinach, it’s Oolong tea leaves!  More photos as the shipment arrives later this week, a very serious tea time is imminent!