Posts filed under 'Virtual Shopping Malls'
Now its not the most average of cars, the citroen berlingo. Its tall, huge and pretty much only comes in dark green. It is however my car of choice for the coming years, I actively seeked out a used citroen berlingo and proceeded to swiftly pay for it. But why I can hear you asking, why opt for such a dog, dog dog ugly car? well the answer is simple really, you cant go much wrong with one. See used citroens used to be a troublesome bunch, but they never have had bad depreciation like other used cars. Hence with thier more recent models seeing decent build quality I now opt to buy a used citroen, hell even if it dies on me I will just sell it on - i didnt invest much time or money into the used french car so what do you expect?
January 28th, 2008
Who was Joseph Hubertus Pilates? While millions of people do Pilates exercises everyday, most do not even know that Pilates was a person, let alone an extremely interesting and colorful personality who was at the leading edge of exercise science. It is interesting not only to hear about his life story, but also to explore his story in the context of the important social and political events of his time, as they all impacted his life and work. Of course, most of what we know came from Joseph Pilates himself, so the veracity of some of his claims is questionable.
Joe Pilates was born in 1880 in Moenchengladbach, a town near Dusseldorf, Germany to a gymnast father and a naturopathic physician mother. Moenchengladbach, located in West-Central Germany, was a center of industry and production, specifically cotton textiles. Pilates was a frail and sickly child who suffered from rickets, rheumatic fever, and asthma. Other children constantly made fun of both his name (they called him “Christ killer”) and his frailty, and Joe was too weak and skinny to ever fight back. He resolved to get stronger in his breathing and his movements so that he could defend himself.
One day Joe’s doctor gave him an anatomy book, and the seeds of Contrology were sewn. Of this book Pilates said, “I learned every page, every part of the body I would move each part as I memorized it. As a child, I would lie in the woods for hours, hiding and watching the animals move, how the mother taught the young.” While attending school and studying history, philosophy, and engineering, Pilates also studied Eastern and Western forms of exercise. The young Joe sent for more books and haunted the University libraries in Dusseldorf. The more he learned the more questions he had. He tried yoga, Buddhist meditation, and ancient Greek and Roman gymnastic exercises, and kept meticulous written records of what the exercises did for him and how he progressed. Pilates held fast to the ancient Roman credo “Mens sana in corpore sano (A sound mind in a sound body).” By the time he turned 14 he was not only strong enough to be considered an accomplished skin diver, gymnast, boxer, and skier, he also modeled for anatomy charts.
We know that Pilates traveled to England when he was in his 30s, but there are at least two different equally plausible stories about how and why he went. The first story tells us that he went there to box, having exhausted most of the prizefighting venues at home. The second claims that Joe had begun successfully performing in the circus with his brother, and they had a Greek statue act that was so popular they took it to England. Whichever is true, Pilates was in England in 1914 when WW I broke out and was interned by the British as an enemy alien. He first went to a small camp near Lancaster, where he began teaching self defense and wrestling to the other Germans, claiming that they would be stronger when they left than when they entered. It was here that Joe began to develop his system of Contrology. Then he was transferred.
During both World Wars, the British set up their Alien Civilian Internment Camps on the Isle of Man. Interestingly, they only interned males women were not interned. For WW1 (1914-1918) a very large camp was established on the west coast of the island at Knockaloe. The Knockaloe camp, intended to house 5000 men, ended up expanding to hold about 24,000. It was 22 acres large, divided into 23 compounds split into 4 separate camps. Each camp had its own hospital, theater, cafeteria, printing presses, etc. and the hospitals were used to treat soldiers injured on the front lines of battle. The Knockaloe camps were built from wooden huts, and became extremely depressing after several years. To make things worse, the camps did not close right at the end of the war, since there was a long period of postwar hostilities. The camps finally closed in late 1919, and most of the internees were deported back to Germany.
It was while interned at Knockaloe camp that Joe Pilates began to really experiment with his exercises and theories. It was obviously his priority to maintain his own strength and conditioning, which was not easy given the basic lack of hygienic conditions and the presence of injured and sick internees and soldiers, but Pilates also had to deal with the great influenza epidemic of 1918. In a time when there was no physical or exercise therapy and medicine was relatively archaic, Joe began to work with the sick and injured men. He taught them to breathe and attached bedsprings with straps to the walls by their hospital beds so they could begin to stretch and exercise by pushing or pulling on the springs before they could even get out of bed. His patients got out of bed much faster, and Joe’s experiments were encouraged. Outside of the hospital he took large groups of internees through his exercise regimen every day believing wholeheartedly that the more everyone breathed and moved the better off they would be. “Out with the bad germs and in with the fresh new oxygen,” he would counsel. England lost tens of thousands and while the camps were hit extremely hard by the flu, only 200 men died at Knockaloe, thus proving to Joe that he was right.
After the war Pilates was deported back to Germany, where he continued to develop, practice, and teach his exercises until 1925. He trained the Hamburg Military Police, took on some private clients, and worked as an early Physical Therapist, exercising patients who suffered from the same illnesses he had, including rheumatic fever. Joe met and collaborated with movement analyst Rudolf van Laban and famous German dancer Mary Wigman, and began developing spring based exercise equipment. “I thought, why use my strength [to exercise rheumatic patients]? So I made a machine to do it for me. Look, you see it resists your movements in just the right way so those inner muscles really have to work against it. That way you can concentrate on movement. You must always do it slowly and smoothly. Then your whole body is in it.”
Post war Germany was not doing well either politically or economically. The Weimar Republic was not accepted by many Germans, inflation was up due to wartime debts, and unemployment was at an all time high. By 1923 French and Belgium troops had moved in to Germany as she defaulted on war reparations payments. The government began printing so much money that the mark became worthless in 1914 the US dollar was equivalent to 4 marks, in 1920 40 marks, in 1922 200 marks, in 1923 18,000 marks, and by 1924 4.2 trillion marks. Things had literally gotten to the point where you needed a wheelbarrow full of paper money just to buy groceries.
In 1925 Pilates was invited to train the New German Army. However, given the situation in Germany, he had already decided to leave. Boxing expert Nat Fleischer and Olympic boxer Max Schmelling convinced Joe to come to the US, specifically to New York City. Here he could train boxers and continue to work on his equipment, inventing and patenting his new machines. He met his future wife Clara, a kindergarten teacher, on the boat to Ellis Island. The story goes that Clara suffered from arthritis and Joe worked with her to increase her mobility and relieve her pain. Once in New York they opened their gym at 939 Eighth Avenue, in the same building that housed rehearsal studios for George Ballanchine’s New York City Ballet.
Joseph Pilates never received the level of recognition that his brilliant work clearly deserved, and even today it is difficult to wade through the myth and find the true story. This is partially true because most of what we know about his life has come from students of students of his students.
While many facts about Joe’s life are verifiable, sources still disagree on the basics. In fact, I just reviewed several sites and each gave a different year of death (1966, 1967, 1968) as well as a different cause of death (he died in a fire as a result of a fire as a result of smoke inhalation from a fire etc.). According to his New York Times obituary Joseph Pilates died in 1967 at Lenox Hill Hospital, but the Times never mentions cause of death. And there was indeed a fire on the same floor as his studio in 1965 where Joe suffered a bad leg scrape while inspecting the studio. But, according to Pilates Elder Mary Bowen, “To set the record straight - no, Joe did not die in a fire. He died two years later…of advanced emphysema from smoking cigars for too many years….” Apparently all the good breathing in the world could not keep his scarred lungs (recall that he was rheumatic and asthmatic as a child) from feeling the effects of smoking. As Joe left no will, Clara took over and ran the studio until she retired in the mid-70s. This is where the story gets interesting…
The Question of Lineage
Most Pilates teachers out there today can trace his or her lineage back to Joe and Clara, and this includes such heavyweights as Winsor and Stott. I, for example, originally was a client at SUNY Purchase where I learned under Steve Giordano who studied with Joe’s student Romana Kryzanowska. Then I worked with Karen Carlson in Philadelphia who studied with Mary Bowen and Kathy Grant who both studied with Joe. And I received my certification from both Michelle Larson and her teacher Eve Gentry who studied with Joe. Since then I have worked directly with Romana, with Eve before she died, and with Kathy. So even though my studio training affiliation is with the PhysicalMind Institute I trace my lineage as a student and teacher back to Pilates himself and when people ask me what style of Pilates I teach I can honestly say that it is my own, but informed by all of my teachers.
Of the 10 students of Joe’s who taught Pilates either at his studio or opened their own (yes, there were other New York Pilates studios open in the 50s!), only 6 are still alive and 5 are still actively teaching in their 70s and 80s! Each individual took what he or she learned from Joe and Clara and expanded the work with their own knowledge and expertise. Additionally, many of the Elders worked with one another. Hence, the different styles of Pilates, all of which can ultimately be traced back to Joseph Pilates himself.
January 9th, 2008
My name is Greg Ryan. I am a fitness expert, professional bodybuilder personal trainer to movie stars, and former employee of Kathy Smith. For twenty years I have been able to keep my body fat levels lower than most, and consistently exercise five days a week, and having fun in the mean time. Not because I am anything special, but because I have learned a few tricks along the way, that I would like to share with you. Start incorporating them into your plan today and notice the difference tomorrow.
1. Set a time limit on all your workouts. End the workout if you run over.
2. Exercise larger muscle groups before the smaller ones. I.e… Back, Legs and Chest before shoulders and arms.
3. Change your workout plan up every twelve to fourteen weeks.
4. Treat your time in the gym as if it is your most important time of the day.
5. Make the workouts at the beginning of the week harder than those toward the end of the week.
6. Take at least one day off a week from doing any form of exercising.
7. Change your cardiovascular equipment up each time you exercise.
8. Monitor your heart rate all the time.
9. Go over your workout in your head before you start.
10. Efficiency is more important than length. Have a number of reps in your head before each time you do a set.
These are just a few things I have learned over the years. Do not be afraid to try different things. Listen to your body and never be afraid to ask for help.
START LOSING WEIGHT THE RIGHT WAY FOR GOOD TODAY! FREE MINI COURSE click here http://www.resolutions.bz Discover the common sense way to lose weight with out dieting that the doctor’s DON’T want you to know. Greg Ryan is a best selling author, former employee of Kathy Smith, and high profile fitness expert.
January 1st, 2008
Motoring in ceredigion is a great joy, you can spend hours driving around taking in the welsh scenery, but running a motor related business in west wales can be difficult. Less people means less cars which means a sometimes slow trade, but getting a good motor trade website is critical when your trade is so spread out. So Make sure if you are running a small motor or car selling firm in west wales, ceredigion or any similar rural areas that you don’t forget a car selling website is a great tool to get more business and secure more car sales.
December 31st, 2007
Last week my cousin said to me “trekkie?” I did refuse but he later explained neither is he, but he is doing quite well running a trekkie collectables shop in regents street. He originally opened the shop as a test base for a general science fiction collectables shop. I thought it was a crazy idea myself - a star trek shop I thought - that’ll never catch on. But it did, partly I think due to its proximity to the big shops in london and also partly due to holiday makers. Good Luck to him I say, but he has asked me to find a good place to get better supplies of star trek collectables and I can’t find a good source! Better go…
December 9th, 2007
Still struggling to find the perfect Christmas gift?
Confused by the retailers?
Ever considered wholesalers?
Whatever product or gift item you are looking for, your first question should be “Can I get it wholesale?”
Why pay retail prices for your expensive electronic gadgets, digital cameras, iPods, Brand name products, fashion items, jewellry etc., when you could save hundreds and even thousands of dollars by dealing directly with the wholesaler or distributor?
You could also save yourself some embarrassment.
According to a recent article in an Australian newspaper,sex toys are top of the list as the ultimate red-face Christmas gift, followed by diet pills, self-help books and personal hygiene items like sanitary items.
Sales of Adult products do increase over Christmas as couples buy sex toys and adult products for each other.
In another survey,receiving a stripper on Christmas Day comes in at number five of the top 10 most inappropriate gifts, followed by men’s clothing given to a woman, and an unwanted pet.
A large number of people support the art of re-gifting, and more than half admitted to giving a gift to someone they had already received from another.
My advice is to compile a list of gifts you want to purchase, and then find a reliable online wholesaler, who will enable you to source your gifts at wholesale prices, adding to your festive joy.
December 7th, 2007
Playing the download game, Wii personifies any video game system. If a gamer might save money and download games to Wii, they’re going to do it, if they’re able. This issue undoubtedly whether it is in fact worth the time to download game wii, or is it better to buy the discs buy the disc from the store
Public acceptance to the new Nintendo Wii platform leads many to wonder whether it is legal and ethical to download game Wii or not.
Googling “wii download” returns stacks of websites selling Wii game downloads and discussing the possibility of getting a particular download game. Wii is a unique new platform, yet it could be stressful trying to differentiate the websites who are trustworthy, do not contain malware, and sell a high qualityWii game download.
The reliable Wii game download website must put up vintage Nintendo games as well as the newer download game. Wii allows playback for standard Nintendo game titles providing you the capability to play the favourites of the previous Nintendo consoles, as well as the hot new games. If you want to download Wii games, find a services that sells access to a large variety of download games.
Wii is chiefly a console game manufacturer , so don’t offer personal information or money to the site you feel distrust, just for a download game. Wii is from Nintendo among the biggest video game manufacturers in the world, stick to professionally designed websites who will not resell your personal data or inflict your PC with spyware
In our search for better gaming, we have in fact found certain top websites who provide aquality service to buy a download game. Wii platforms are also amazing systems for playing dvd’s, the top-rated services we came across offer a very impressive choice of music, downloadable movies, Television programs, software, as well as access to your favourite download game.
Nintendo Wii is ready to assume the mantle of top gaming platform on the market again. I have seen plans for Public Access Wii Rooms which will allow patrons to book out a stunningly fitted room to experience your own Wii event with a 10 foot screen, cosy sofas and all the Nintendo Wii Games you could ask for.
Stay tuned for further news on this fun exciting concept.
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Yes you can Download Wii Games To The Nintendo System Wii. Information For Constructing The Ultimate Nintendo System Wii Room Check It Out
November 26th, 2007
Typically it can be troublesome hunting down a nice motor in west wales. You might have to go to 20 used car garage in west wales before you find something you are interested in. Eventually it is true you will usually find a good source of quality cars, but when your in a small rural community it can take a lot longer to do so than it should.
Personally I use the web firstly to find what I am going to drive to see but then also to contact the seller. Aber Car Sales in Aberystwyth is prime example of how well this works. I was looking for a used Peugeot within ceredigion and had checked out about 10 different garages online, they all had OK websites but nothing special, I had called them up but they did not have their stocklists online or a pug in stock. Needless to say I found great used cars in aberystywth through aber car sales, they really helped and actually found me a car! very good service.
November 26th, 2007
If you are interested in Australian Aboriginal Art designed by Australian Aboriginals or if you are looking for unique gifts with a difference for friends, colleagues, loved ones or the men in your life, look no further. You can surprise them with thoughtful Aboriginal Art gifts that no one else thought of giving and know that these original, authentic and truly unique gifts will always be treasured. We ship our unique gifts to every country in the world, and our commitment to customer service and product quality is paramount. We know you will love our unique Australian gifts for men and birthday gift ideas, just like hundreds of our happy customers. Be sure to check our customer testimonials page to see what our previous customers think of our beautiful unique gifts. Also, check out or most popular gift item on the entire site, the Stan’s Special.
August 16th, 2007
If you enjoy playing massive multiplayer online games or mmorpg as they are also called then visit the European marketplace and buy yourself a character that already got all the necessary equipment.
And here is a translation for the Swedish readers. Om du gillar att spela World of Warcraft eller om du är trött på din gubbe, lägg då in en annons hos wowannonser .se och få den bytt mot någon annan karaktär med hög level och bra utrustning, det finns bytes, säljes och köpes annonser.
For only $100 you can get a level 70 Human Warrior, tauren and warlock, located on one of the European servers. And if you are looking for wow gold then just put an ad up requesting 400 gold or whatever you want to buy. Have fun playing the game!
July 18th, 2007
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