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On the 100th Anniversary of Bay To Breakers: A TCM View on Running

Hae Min on 15 May 2011 | 1041 Comments | Tags: health, medicine, running, barefoot running, fitness, massage, sports injuries, health advice, TCM, chinese medicine, acupuncture

I am not a runner now, but before I started training in martial arts, I ran for over ten years almost daily. I started in high school when my friends started doing it to get into shape. I hated it at first. My lungs hurt, my stomach hurt, my face would get really hot, my body seemed to be saying "yuck!" but I kept at it because I was convinced that running was something that fit people did. I started out jogging really slowly and going for 15 minutes at a time. Eventually I worked up to 20 minutes and so on, until I could easily run 45 minutes to an hour. That seemed like the optimal time for me. I never ran with the track team. It almost didn't even occur to me to go fast or to run for time. I just liked the motion of it, trying to get my body into a better rhythm and connect with the ground in the smoothest foot exchange possible. I was also taking dance classes at the time, so I was hyper-aware of posture, stretching, and the importance of not heel-striking as I ran. Eventually I was hooked. I ran every day, sometimes twice a day, rain or shine, wind or hail. I usually ran first thing in the morning, but sometimes I was foolish enough to run in the midday sun. It felt exhilarating. 

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Kitchen Medicine: Table Salt

Hae Min on 5 May 2011 | 29258 Comments | Tags: salt, table salt, sodium chloride, herbal remedies, home remedies, barefoot doctor, natural cures, kitchen medicine

I am starting a series of blog entries (I do not promise that they will be consequtive or follow some kind of logical progression.) on the topic of Kitchen Medicine. Kitchen Medicine is what is practiced already in every home in every country since humans began trying to cure ourselves of what ails us. Mothers, fathers, siblings, friends, and neighbors act as doctors and nurses, examining, consoling, questioning, diagnosing, performing triage, and treating. Often what we know to do comes from our own cultural traditions, herbs and foods that our ancestors learned how to use, what we learned from our parents. Rarely did we turn to a written resource unless it was more serious. Now there's the internet, a great deal more useful and extensive than the Encyclopedia Brittanica that we had when I was growing up.

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