Roll With The PunchesGlobal Poo Etiquette (And Other Deep Life Lessons) | Patrick Bonello - 894
Well, I don’t know how we ended up here, but somehow, this episode of Roll With The Punches went deep (maybe too deep) into the intricacies of sleep habits, morning routines, global poo etiquette, and the unexpected life lessons that come from learning new things as an adult.
As always when Patrick swoons in our chats are anything but conventional. As we dive headfirst into a topic nobody saw coming - the science of squatting, bidets, and how different cultures approach their bathroom business. Turns out, Patrick has done extensive research into the art of the squat toilet, and I might have just ordered myself a Squatty Potty mid-conversation. Who knew bowel mechanics would be such a hot topic?
But it’s not all toilet talk (promise). We also explore something that’s been on my mind a lot lately - learning new things as an adult. I share how I recently picked up the piano (yep, Aussie's most promising concert pianist in the making) and why stepping into a completely unfamiliar world has been both challenging and exhilarating. Patrick, on the other hand, took up singing during COVID and now performs with a choir, proving that it’s never too late to start something new.
Tune in, have a laugh, and maybe walk away with a new perspective on learning, mindfulness, and, well… better toilet habits.
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Good a team.
Welcome to Roll with the Punches podcast. I'm your host, TIF Cook and if you are brand new, if this is your first time here, hello and welcome to the show. Before you finish listening, make sure you duck over to your app and hit follow or subscribe so that you can keep tuning in because bloody hell, I tell you what you're going to want to after this conversation.
We're talking to Patrick Baronello.
He's a regular guest on the show and we are quite literally talking shit today. We talk about Pooh a lot. It's a fun chat that always is. I love talking to Patrick. We never have a plan and it's always interesting. So I hope you enjoy it. I hope you love it as much as what you do, and hopefully you'll be returning for our next conversation. Enjoy. Nobody wants to go to court, and don't. My friends at test Art Family Lawyers know that they offer all forms of alternaty dispute resolution. Their team of Melbourne family lawyers have extensive experience in all areas of family law, de facto and same sex couples, custody and children, family violence and intervention orders, property settlements and financial agreements. Test Art is in your corner, so reach out to Mark and the team at www dot test Artfamilylawyers dot com dot au.
Patrick Bonnillo, welcome to Roll with the Punches.
Hate if it's so nice to see you.
I mean, I feel like this is a really good time to chat because we've just done a previous podcast. But you know, it's there's another bloke that gets in the way of it. Intert me it is his show, I guess, but I just feel like, you know, I see you sitting in my little chat window and you don't stay an awful lot, but I see you there, and then when I get a chance to jump in on your show, I feel like I've got your undivided detention, and it feels so much more intimate and fun like we're hanging out as buddies.
It's so funny because we literally hang up from a call and talking for an hour. I hang up log into a new zoom Oh went and got myself a little coffee from the kitchen, not from the cafe, and then I'm like, oh, how are you?
And I'm like, what a weird thing to say.
You've just been talking to Patrick for an hour, But I haven't because it's different.
It's weird, isn't it.
It is different, and we kind of tell things that we probably don't normally talk about. And you know how I slipped in today and I felt that the previous podcast was just the warm up to this.
Podcast, and tell us elaborate more on the sleeping in process, because that was going somewhere fun.
Okay, So I stayed at a friend's place last night, and it may be somebody that we both know, and I know, look, it's funny when you've stayed someone's the place for the first time.
And it was a really hot day.
And I got over there and we were sitting downstairs and I know you know the house because I know you've been there as well. And then we went upstairs and he's got two air conditioners, right, but he hadn't turned them on, and so it was stiflingly hot. I mean, I get up and it say, oh, this is really warm, and I want to go to bed, and I go into the spare room.
It's like, oh, I can just crank the window open.
And I don't open that window because it looks straight over the neighbor's house and you know, see he can't open the window. I'm thinking, well, how am I going to get air and oxygen to survive. I'm a person who has to have their window open. Did you have to sleep with the window open?
I haven't cracked open yet, But well, I.
Live in the country, so I don't get all the traffic noises. What I like to hear is the bird noises, and I just I And because I have a window right over my bed at nighttime, even on a hot night, you get a light breeze and it feels just great, you know, the little gusts.
Of wind that kind of blow through. So for me, I love that.
And going into a room without a window that you can open is almost psychologically struggling. So yeah, I go into this stiflingly hot room and I can't open window. None of the air conditioners are on, and you don't. And the thing is, there's no air conditioner in the room anyway, So I guess you'd have to have turned the air in the office.
And hope that the air would flow through the room.
But then you'd have to open the door. And I can't sleep with the door open.
Oh god, I can't.
Be out of sorts.
I sound like a bit of a princess because then and then and the pillows were too high, so I felt like I was sleeping with my head at ninety degrees for the whole night.
So hang on, was this last night?
Yeah? It was last night and before so before.
Because you're telling me that you woke up five minutes before the podcast, but then I'm going hang on them and you weren't at your house.
But it's funny.
I shouldn't bitch because someone very kindly took me in as a wake off the street. I had no fixed a dress for the night, and they took me and let me stay at their house and they gave me a measured cup of almonds, of toasted almonds, and a cup of tea.
It's so true, isn't it.
The person we're talking about, that's what they're going to offer you your rock up and it's like of almonds, it wasn't measured, fifty grand toasted, so nice, and a selection of teas.
I had a green tea, which is nice to go to bed with.
That's super fun and lovely conversation. That's the caffeine. A bit of caffeine in that green tea before bed.
I had you sleep.
Oh well, not well obviously, nowhere condition green tea, plenty, pillows that were too big, all that I had to stay closed.
You were telling me I was more interested in enlightening the audience with your this morning's pre sleeping and free podcast preparation.
Absolutely so, I very.
Rarely sleep in, and in fact I never sleep in, and normally I go to bed and five hours later, almost to the time to the actual exact five hours, I wake up and then at that point I either.
Try to psych myself into going back to sleep. So we're talking, I wake up at one or two am in the morning, depending on what time I go to sleep, and then I try to get back into the zone. And what I've.
Discovered is if I concentrate on my previous because I dream a lot, I have lots of dreams, which I love because I have so many adventures in.
My dream I love dreaming.
Yeah, me too.
And the more you focus on dreaming, and I think this is actually recognized, the more you think about dreaming, or if you write them down and acknowledge them, the more you'll remember them. So people who say that I don't dream, try to focus on the first thing you remember when you wake up, and then your mind kind of flicks over into a mode that recognizes that you're trying to remember the dreams. So if I try to remember my previous dreams of the last five hours, I can go back to sleep again. So that's my insomnia way of going.
Back to sleep. But if I think about the day.
What's coming up the next day, all the things I have to do, worst possible thing and even worse than that, is doom scrolling. But the other thing I've discovered recently is so I put on my audio book, I can set it for blocks of either five, ten, fifteen minutes. I find that I can go to sleep to that as well. But what I did the other night in the you know, the hard pillow hot house with no windows and doors, what.
Happened was I kept a prison. Well it should bedroom doors have locks on the outside.
Maybe if you're on the inside, maybe it's the safest way to be, oh dear.
But what I did was I forgot to set the timer on my podcast, and then when on my podcast, I was listening to an audiobook and I went back to sleep, and then obviously I fell asleep after five minutes, and in the morning and the book's gone like for four hours. Like shit, Now I'm going to keep tracking back to work out where I was. But so short of it is, I had not the best night sleep the previous night, and then last night went to bed, got up early, but then managed to go back to bed because I did my whole focus on dream thing, which is my new technique for getting back to sleep, and I just had a whole array of dreams and I woke up and I thought, I'm feeling so refreshed. And then I look at the time and it's quarter two, and it's like shit, I've got two podcasts back to back. I've got to talk for two hours, and oh man, what are you Okay, I've got things I need to do. I've got to prioritize. So you go into mad panic priority mode. So what's the most important thing you work back for me?
Right?
So mentally I think, okay, So I've got to go down to the studio space. I've got to turn on the computer, get the camera working because it's been playing up. I've got to make sure the audio is working, turn on all the equipment. Now I know that's going to take me about three and a half minutes. I've then got to also send a copy of all my notes, which I haven't already sent, so that's got to go to the other person we were talking about, and I've got to do that, and that's going to take me at least two minutes. I've got to boot up the computer first, then I can send the notes. So this is about six and a half minutes of work I've got to do before I log into zoom. Now Zoom is going to take me a minute to find the link, so that's seven minutes. And now I've only got right, eight minutes to decide. Okay, I've got to put clothes on because I'm standing in my room with the jocks, and I've got to put clothes on and get ready, and that's probably a two minute thing for me to stumble around because it's dark. So now I've added two minutes to my seven minutes. That's nine minutes. So now I've got six minutes to decide. I really need to go to the bathroom, but I don't have time to do a number two. I've only got so for a number one, So I've got a triage here. This is what goes through my head, is this a scary thing tip the natural normal people actually think this shit up when they're running late.
I think they do.
What's hilarious is I've kind of pooh shamed you a little bit, so I didn't give you time for pooh. But between podcasts I said, when where we saw enough from Harps? I said, I'll send you a link. I'm just got to go have a Wii, which was a lie because I needed to go poo.
And then I went.
As I went on my mission, I thought, now I have just dogged myself in for a Wii.
Is this going to be a smooth.
Sailing expedition where I can get this out in a timely manner? As you can tell, very efficient. Came back in no time and only up to it as we speak.
The secret to a quick pooh is don't take your photed with you.
Just get the task done. Stay focused, Stay focused.
Do you I'm going to ask some ridiculous questions if so. Years ago.
When I went to China for the first time, I went into a bit of a panic because I thought, I don't know how to use a squat toilet, and I know we're going to be traveling through some rural areas, and we're going to be in public places where I'm going to need to go to the toilet. And I'm a pretty regular person, so I like to do my poo in the morning and then I'm okay for the rest of the day. But what if I get stuck somewhere in some backstreet of I don't know, Beijing and I need to go to the toilet and it's a squat. So I went onto YouTube and learnt how to squat.
I had to.
So there's youtubes on how to go to Asian countries and when happens. Do you know how to use a squat toilet? If you ever use a squat?
No?
Okay, Gary, Like I don't even know which direction to face him. And the other thing is Asian people are really amazing at squatting down because we tend to stand on to kind of when we squat down, we use our toes and we don't flatten our feet. It's very hard to get into a position that's comfortable for a Westerner average Westerners and be comfortable in that squatting position without putting pressure on your toes, whereas a lot of Asian people that I know, and obviously when you go through Asia and China, because they've been squatting, they can flatten their feet perfectly well and balance and be able to use a squat toilet. So these are things that I think about before I traveled the China, and I was really quite nervous about using squat toilet. So I jumped onto a YouTube and there's this guy who had lived in China and he's giving you directions on how to squat out a squat toilet. So I was doing squat practicate practice before I left. And then in my deep dive of using Google to use squats, I suddenly stumble across some information that says using a squat toilet is much better for bowel movements because it orients your bow much better because your legs in are a better position and your whole body isn't. So when we sit down, our bow was kinked. And so if you sit on a normal toilet with your feet in the normal position, it's actually not the best position to go to the toilet. So I then invested in it. I found out there's a little.
Stool that you can put squatty body.
Squatty potty, said, I use a squatty potty.
Well, I think it's a good So recently one of my I take it one fitness class a week and at PCYIC and one of my clients we were training. He's Asian and we were training the other day and I was like, Joe, your squat is amazing low Jo gits and He's just like, Yeah, I'm Asian, squat like this on the toilet every days. I spend five minutes on the toilet like this every morning. And I'm like, that is so good. That is so good for your body, like his mobility. Yeah, So I'm thinking of I might get a squatty body. We've talked about it a few times.
It's a big investment. It's a great investment. Bugger all that don't cost a lot. And I use it every day because and then when you go somewhere and you have and you don't have one, you're looking at where you can hook your legs up to try to get into the same position.
I've done that before. I'm thinking, what can I put my feet on to get my legs up so that I can squat better.
Ah, I've plugged it into Google as we speak. I'm gonna get I'm going to look, there's one for sixteen dollars there from COGD.
I'm going to grab that. I as I was.
Thinking about I think about toileting overseas.
I've never used the bidet.
I've never used the washing system, and oh yep, I'm equally torn. Like when I think of comparing both to cleanliness, the fact of just dragging dry toilet paper over an unclean area seems pretty rank.
There was a French influencer, yeah, a French influencer who was saying that bidets are then absolute must have to be used. And she basically said, if you had to pick up a piece of feces on the ground with your hand, right, would you just use paper to clean it?
Yeah? Yeah, it's gross.
Of course you wouldn't even a good thorough washing. And that's what you're saying every time you go to the toilet. That's why because in Europe. This is a funny story. TIF when I went to Europe for the first time. My parents are from Malta, and when I went to Europe for the first time, I would have been I think I was eleven and I turned twelve.
I went for six weeks.
It was one of the most amazing adventures of my life because for me as a young kid, it's probably still my most vivid memories because it was a big adventure flying on a plane for the first time.
It was an.
Alataria jumbo jet that I reckon, struggled to get off the ground. The engines went into turbo charge mode, and it was a big adventure for me as a kid to fly over there. And the first I get out of the airport and I'm busting, like I'm gonna wet myself, bustin' right, because I've always had this thing as a kid, hated to go into public toilets. I just hated going to public toilets. So anyway, I get to my Auntie's house and I go upstairs. I said, I need to go to the toilet. I go upstairs and there are two toilets to what is an eleven year old kid. So there's a big day on one side and a normal toilet on the other side, and thinking which one do I use?
Is one for poo in one for poo?
Well, I was too embarrassed to ask which to toilet to use, and so I kind of go to the bidet and I turned the velve and this is jet of water that squirts up. It's like, Git, don't want to go near that one, so I go to the other toilet. So but but I've got friends now who swear by them and are retrofitting their toilets. You can go to Bunnings and buy a bidet to put onto your toilet, and you don't even I think you. You still need to plumme it in obviously, and you need a PowerPoint to plug it in.
But friends of mine swear by them for the cleanliness.
Yeah.
Yeah, but still like just hosing yourself to hosing yourself.
Down, You're still not really you know, like this is that effect.
Okay, I've got to have those.
I'm a toilet white girl. I like to have yes, you know the toilet. Yeah, that's the only way for me.
Now, I save you some money, yes, okay.
So I had a dermatologist who said to me once, rather than using those wipes, you can get a non so kind of cleaning thing. I think set of Fill is one of the brands. So it's no fragrance, no soap, and it's a cleaning It's for people who have problems with the dermatological problems. So they might have rashes and stuff like this. And because it's quite a pH neutral soap, it means you can use it. But if you just fold the paper in fours and you use this thing, then you don't have to use the wipes. You just consist a large tub lasts forever and you get a whole year out of it or something, and it's just wipes. Set of phil ct A p h I L And it's a set of pil clean.
Yeah. Yeah, I can send you a picture of the one that I ease.
I've got a lot of things in my.
And believe it or not, Tiff, I have a small bottle that I take with me when I go away places.
That is so hard because there's nothing worse than being somewhere I am.
This is getting really kind of hygienic here.
But what I do is I get two pieces and then you've got to get two pieces of paper because one's too thin, and you go through it and then I folded in fours so you get this extra layer of thickness, put a little squirt on it, and then you do that for you so you do the dry wipe that you did the wet wipe.
It's so interesting.
When I was in India, obviously they have their own methods. And I remember I was when we were eating somewhere and talking about them eating with one hand. I can't remember I left or right because they toilet with the other hand, and it's I was just like, I can't, just like, I can't just use that one hand when I'm eating, But I really want to if anyone glances at me, I just want to out loud say I haven't touched my poo with the other hand, like I want to clarify that I'm not using that.
And that's a lot of the Middle Eastern countries as well, and I think that's because of the dry temperature and all that sort of stuff. But yeah, you have one hand for cleanliness, and it makes perfect sense that culturally you use.
One hand and I don't even know which one it is.
You use one hand for wiping in one hand for eating, And it does make a lot of sense if you don't have proper hygienic practices for whatever reason, may be because you don't have a lot of water, you're in a desert region, and you use one hand to eat with in the other hand. But yeah, but then because in some countries it's quite acceptable to use your hands to eat.
With, isn't it.
Yeah, But then I just think in my mind, I'm like, oh, then I just associate, well, that other hand is just covered in pooh?
What are we touching with that? Is that just is that? If it's too we can't touch our food with it? Then how dirty is that hand?
Yeah? And which handy you used to pick your nose with?
All right, well how did we end upy?
I don't know, as me sleeping in Sorry, sorry to everybody who listens to this podcast.
I don't know.
Think I might name the show.
I might name this episode Global poo Etiquette.
Well, there must be lots, and thank God for toilet paper, because otherwise we're using dried leaves and moss.
I remember going in two years ago when I went to Vietnam and did our cycling tour, and we were cycling around and one of the ladies partway through obviously different food over there, and she had a bit of an upset tummy and we had no toilet. She's like, because anyone got any tissues or anything, because I need to I need to go.
I've got an upset tummy and nobody did.
So then when we had to stop and wait for her, you've just got that thought of like what is.
Going on with that? Like how is that playing out for you?
Well, I think everybody has a Pooh story that causes you to cringe. A girlfriend of mine who I absolutely adore, one of my tai chi sisters because when you do tai chi, it's funny. The first time I went to China to do tai chi, you suddenly realize the language they use is the tai chief family. So if you like you have a tai chi brother, and the connection with some people is almost familial and even more than familial. So if you're part of a tai chi group, and it's a bit similar to say a dojo, if you were in a karate group, but the relationship between the members is thought of as a family in a real sense. So if you're an elder sister or you're a brother, or in the thai chif family, you're accepted instantly. And because we have a tai Chiese school that we're affiliated with in China, it's amazing feeling. It's a really special feeling because you're absolutely a brother or a sister of that family. So one of my Tai Chiese sisters who's here in Australia, and we went to China and we were walking along the Great Wall, and there are some parts of the Great Wall of China that are very tourist oriented, so they even have little toilets like the order potty toilets, the portaloos or whatever. And this friend of mine was in the same situation as your girlfriend who went writing with had real stomach problems. But so she's she's disappeared from our group and no one noticed, and I thought, oh, where's that person. I'm not going to say her name, where is she? And I'm looking around, I'm thinking, oh, I'm concerned here. We're on the Great Wall of China and I can't find her. And then eventually, twenty minutes later, we find her. And so she's gone into one of these toilets, but she's.
Just absolutely had difficulties and anyway, and so she's then tried to clean it up.
These toilets are monitored by people's staff to make sure they're always clean. Anyway, so she gets out and go embarrassingly has tried to clean it up as much as she could, but she can feeling sick and the guy starts chasing her, what have you done with my toilet?
In Jarna.
She's so humiliated, the poor thing, and this guy's chasing after her, like it's like, look, you've done my toilet.
Oh my god, so adding insults injury.
I know because I know what you would have tried to have cleaned up because you take your toilet paper with you. That's the other thing. A lot of toilets don't have toilet paper. Oh wow, you have to take your supply with you. Yeah, that happens as well, So you're going to make sure you've got enough toilet paper with you.
I feel so yeah, much shame for her.
I know, I felt so sorry for her. We do. We died on that. We don't literally die on that story.
That sounds gross, but we talk about that story a lot my friends and I oh out.
What was I thinking before? Well, like the idea of how.
Circumstances connect us, like when you talk about tai chi and people, and it reminded made me think of when I was in India and how you're in like one of the busiest, most populated places ever where. Upon going over there, I felt quite.
I guess I was a little bit scared.
I was a little bit like people had told me stories and I didn't feel like it was going to be very safe for welcoming for me, and it was quite the opposite. And how on the plane from Kulu back to Delhi, I was sitting in front in next to one guy from South India and his friends behind, and once we started talking and he was sharing all the places that I should go, and ends up telling me if I come back and I want to go to South India, that he would him and his wife and his mother would accommodate me and cook for me and show me these places that I simply have to go. And I just remember thinking how in such a busy place, for no reason, they give you this sense of belonging and real care. And I was thinking of how we seek that and find how special it is. I just started a new hobby which I haven't told you about. Yeah, I'm a pianist. Really, yeah, I went out and bought a piano. And part of the reasoning like I wanted a new hobby and a new thing and a new experience. But also a big part of that decision making or looking for something was, what's what's a thing that's not like me and not like any of the people that I spend my time with. Now, what's something that can break me into a new whatever it might be. And it's interesting because as soon as I have conversations with people, you're connecting over something completely different, and it's like, oh you oh a piano. You play piano, and it strengthens the bond.
Yeah, yeah, that sense of connectedness. So did you what type of piano did you buy?
What?
I bought a digital piano. It's called roll in FP ten. I did my research. This played out in a probably a twelve hour period.
I watched a movie.
I had my first Saturday off, so I don't think I've had a day. I was been a seven day week chronic worker for years now, and I decided, after coming back from Tazzy, a full day off on a weekend and also a full week day to work specifically on other parts of my business, not training and coaching people. My attentions to split. So first Saturday off, had a great day. Decided to watch Netflix that night, watch a movie called Whiplash.
Have you seen it?
Oh Whiplash?
Yeare of the drama?
Yeah?
Yeah, it's pretty intense in one of a lot of boards, didn't.
It I don't even know. I just I didn't even realize it was a popular movie.
I think it is phenomenal. Yeah. Yeah.
By the end of that, I was like, there was there was this the music teacher who was quite brutal, obviously, but I guess that to a agree. That training philosophy reminded me of my boxing coach and that dedication. And I think by the end of it, I started decided, I'm going I'm gonna buy a keyboard tomorrow. I would just go and get one up the road for fifty bucks. Then I went on down the rabbit hole of research. Thanks chat GPT, because you can learn a lot a lot of things that you don't know on that And by the next morning I ducked out and bought myself a digital piano.
Oh and they can do so much.
They can emulate, they can the sounds are phenomenal and it's a really good brand. Even me, who knows nothing about them, knows the brand. Roland And have you ever done music before? Did you get did you learn any music at school? Have you ever played an instrument? No?
I remember in high school choosing the piano. But I was not a very applied student in high school, and I didn't actually learn it, like I probably learned, like obviously learned a bit of music, but I zero that I could retain. So I look at the piano. I don't know how to play it. I don't know how to read music. I don't know how to so I'm starting from absolute ground zero, which I love.
Yeah, and are you going to try to learn how to read music as well and apply that to playing so you've gotten down the proper educational path because there is some very talented people who are able to play by sound and can play a whole song without actually reading music, which does my head in as well.
Yeah, I would like to learn to read musical I want my first official lesson on Saturday this week.
Yep.
And I've just been I've been using an app and I just found a new app that is very good that I just started trying the last couple of days. It has a music teacher and goes through a lot of that stuff. So I'll do both ways. But yeah, I really wanted to learn properly and learn. I treat it like boxing, and boxing's come in so handy for this because in the middle of doing something you know nothing about and being shit at it, it's like, Okay, just have to keep punching away at the keys, even though it sounds ridiculous.
Because it's too hard.
I just keep throwing this left hook at the at the c cord and eventually it will sound good.
Funny how those skills, though, that make you good at boxing are exactly the same type of focal skills that you apply to learning and something new, like learning how to play a piano.
The first thing I recall vividly after my first fight, So I had this, I did this fight. It was a twelve week experience it and it changed me. And I remember getting changed after the event, standing in my little yellow frock with a glass of wine in my hand, watching the fights that fights after me, and I remember thinking to myself, Oh, this is every goal you have in life. You just put twelve weeks of constant and intense disco like changing everything for this six minutes in the boxing ring. That means a lot to you, but that doesn't mean anything to all of these people here supporting you. So it was just this lesson in goals. What matters what work is required and what level of discomfort for what ratio of a moment of meaning, And so that really end the idea that I think. I was very fixed mindset before that. And one of the things I remember is going you can actually learn anything. You don't have to wait to be told you good at it. So if I wanted to which I'm terrible, I can't hold a note. But I remember thinking to myself at the time, if you wanted to learn to sing, you could just learn to sing. You don't have to be a good singer, because someone will teach you, just like that they did with boxing.
So is that funny? Because when COVID was on and people started baking bread and learning how to dox sour dough, I actually decided to do singing lessons. Did you always wanted to sing? And I never had done it at school?
I think in year year ten we may have had a choir for one term or two terms, But.
I'd always wanted to learn to sing, and I just never got round to it.
And so that was my COVID new skill that I developed, and then I joined a choir recently.
So we're actually singing at.
A festival called kraz Fest coming up in Creswick in Regional Victoria, and there's the Bland Autumn Festival. We're going to do some singing there as well, and there's a few songs I've got to learn though, because I'm terrible at remembering all the vocalers, so I've got to get my head into that. But we're doing lots of little songs and lots of little bits and pieces.
But yeah, it's great. And I didn't.
Realize this, but I've got a really good vocal range and I don't know if you know how.
I still don't know it fully, but have you heard the term falsetto?
When I have heard that, I can sing falsetto right well, really deep range as well.
The only reason ILL with that term is because I'm currently reading John Farnam's biography and talk about his faults voice.
Yeah, yeah, so men who can sing at that high range. It's amazing when you hear a vocalist who can do that. And it's a skill like anything. As you know, you know you're going to take time to practice. So Tuesday nights is our choir practice night. We do ninety minutes and we do warm ups and things like that, and it's a.
Lot of fun.
But the other thing is, it's really quite an interesting thing that I was reading recently that attending and going to a choir has an amazing connectedness with people when you sing together with people, even as opposed. You know, people have coffee groups and hangout groups and whatever, you know, to go to the gym together. But there's something about singing that is a really lovely communal thing. And yeah, I kind of read this article after I joined the choir and thought, oh, yeah, that's really cool that. You know, I know I'm getting something out of this. You're getting new skills, but there's also a sense of almost elation when you're singing with someone and you're putting your voice out there. So I've got a real lot out of doing that. I really enjoyed it, and hopefully the music will be the same for you.
That doesn't surprise me, especially with the singing that because you're creating a resonance and you're expressing, which I think, even just metaphorically for me, the power of expression, Like I would love to be able to sing, and but starting i'd be starting from a real awkward place with that, Like I am not I lip sync Happy birthday, you know, like, I'm pretty bad. So you know, what I'd love to think is that I'm starting to understand music and with my ears, because I don't even have that, Like, I don't have any aptitude with music at all, aside from just listening to song and going, oh, I like it or I don't. So I'm I'm interested to see how much relationship with understanding the sound of music as I'm playing it starts to make sense, and whether or not any of that translates into what you sound like.
You hear the term tone deaf and when you wonder whether that can be trained out of you.
Someone said recently, I don't know.
They must have been talking about singing, and they said that nobody's tone deaf.
And I'm like, mate, wait till your birthday. I'll come around and prove you wrong.
If you're jumping out of a cake, it won't matter what you sound like.
But it's the idea. And this applies to every topic.
And I used and I eventually have to apply it to music as well. You go, like, anything that I don't understand is stuff that I've never paid attention to the learning process, and for me, that was quite a few things.
At school.
Like I was, I would pick things up very quickly. Some of my teachers hated me because I was not hated me, but frustrated with me because I'd pay zero atten. But I picked it like maths class, just the most disruptive little fuck in the class, always getting sat outside on a bloody desk because it was like shut up. But then we'd do exams or we'd do tests and I'd be a plus and I'll be finished in not time, and they're like, you don't even deserve these marks.
At the end of view twelve, my biology teacher took me aside and he said to me, he said, you know, you had the potential to be the best biology student I've ever had, said if you would put the effort in. And I said, but I've got a's And he said, yeah, I know, but you could have tried harder.
It came so naturally to me. I just absorbed.
I think I've always been interested in tech and biology and how things work, whether it's on a biological scale or a technological scale. You know, I made friends before I went to primary school. I made friends with the rubbishmen, you know, the guys that collected the rubbish pets in those days, they would hand throw the rubbish into the rubbish bins and and I made friends with them, and I'd wait at the gate and they would give me toys and stuff that people had thrown away, and it would take them apart. And I vividly remember one day Mum inviting one of the rubbishmen in because I turned an old broken toy. I had a motor with a propeller on the top, and I'd made a helicopter and connected a battery.
And that was before.
Primary school, so it would have been pre primary school, so I would have been what five four and a half or something, And so I was one of those kids that just loved to take things apart con so I had to know how it worked. And I think I've told this on I'm not sure if I've told it on your podcast, But do you remember the first time, and you're not old enough, probably I remember our first video recorder. It was an Achi video recorder, and they were so expensive people had to save up so much. Was over one thousand dollars, and we're talking one thousand dollars in the early eighties, right, So really really really expensive, and so Mum and dad and we were working class. You know, Dad worked at a factory, Mum had a job cleaning at night. So it was very very working class Coburg. And they'd invested in this Achi video recorder because everybody was getting them in video libraries were starting to open up, and you know, everybody had to get a video recorder.
So you could go and hire a video and that was the big thing.
And so Mum and Dad bought this thing with They had it for a week and it was Saturday morning and they were about to drive off to go do the shopping, and I'm looking at it, and for the whole week I'm looking at it. It's looking at me, and it's like, I need to take you apart. I have to take you apart. I can't sit there and look at you and watch the cassette go in and not know how it works.
So for the whole week.
Before this, I'm thinking, I have to take the cover off, I have to look inside.
This is a burning desire that I've here.
So anyway, Mum and Dad pull out of the driveway, I'm home by myself, and I reach for the screwdriver and I start unscrewing all the screws on this over one thousand dollars AI video recorder. So I'm standing there with all the screws in my hand, the cover off, and Mum and Dad pulled back into the driveway. Mum's left her purse at home, so shit, So I throw all the screws in my pocket and just loosely put the cover back on the video recorder and try to act innocent, because of course they're going to know. You know, you've got some guilty look on your face. Anyway, they come back and they, you know, Mum gets her purse, and then they drive off again. And so yeah, I take the cover off and I'm looking at it and I'm thinking, oh yeah, the tape goes here and it extends over the playhead and I I had to, I just I had to see how it worked. It was and I did put it back together again, and there's always one extra screw.
I don't know how that works. I put it together and it's like I put all the screwsy in, but I've still got this one screw. Maybe they just build this shit.
With it and it was a spare. I just found this s where the spare.
One for the whole of my life. With most stuff I took apart, there was always an extra screw. Anyway, I put it back together again, and you know, thank goodness, worked and it still worked. And then years and years and years later they upgraded their video recorder and I moved out of home and they gave me the old Aki and I think I had it for a few years before it eventually died.
But yep, so first week I take it apart, put it back together again.
I remember when I was seventeen, I had my first motorbike, which was a z z R two point fifty. I remember getting that out in my driveway and pulling it apart and pulling my plugs out and just playing with stuff. Same with my car. I had a Hyundai Xcel. Doesn't sound cool, it was very cool. I ended up getting mirror tinted blue windows all over it and did not get booked for years until I moved to Melbourne and parked it at the train station and then bang, but I pulled the wheels off that I painted the drums myself, like I just I was such a little I'm going to watch this all about I'm going to do it.
It's two things I'm impressed with. One is that you took everything apart and you were able to put it all back together. That again.
But the other thing I was impressed with was he actually pronounced the word correctly.
Hyunda.
One peras it words says it correctly. If you've noticed that people don't pronounce it Hyundai. They said they hi Yundai. Oh yeah, that sort of stuff, because when they first marketed in Australia, it was say high to hi Yundai. But the actually is not how they pronounced the name. So they had this whole marketing campaign incorrectly pronouncing the name of their company. And then later because I was working in radio, I was doing voiceovers and I had to do an ad and so I learned how to pronounce it because it was Hyundai, and that's what they Eventually their marketing went to Hyundai. But even now I find I reckon fifty percent of people don't know how to say Hyundai.
Do you know what's funny? When you said that.
As you were talking, I'm thinking if you would have put that word in front of me and said how do you pronounce this?
I probably would have hesitated.
Not known the other day on a podcast, Harps pulled me up twice and then I think I said it another three times jokingly, But I've been using a word doesn't exist and I didn't even know. And when he said it, I was like, Oh, did I say that?
Oh?
I think I do say that, but I can't recall. I'm like, that's not a word, though. It's weird how we pick the word was happening, so I'm saying instead of saying I having to do something, I'm going happening. And I'm like, well, obviously someone says that. But when I remember a few couple of years into the podcast, I was editing one of my episodes and I'd use this word. I'm like, what like an academic word of some description that I've obviously picked up along the way, and I googled it. I'm like, oh my god, I better google and see I've used that correctly. And I like, language is amazing how we pick up and evolve and understand things. But in hearing it so in conversation, I obviously was confident I knew it. I knew I was but then when I've picked it up, I go, I've better look up this word where if I learned it when happening has one has slipped through the cracks on it classic.
So you've made up a word. Well, he use a word now if you're.
Using it, I would say somebody's using because I'd be mimicking it. Someone would I would use it, and I just use it because of that.
I'm thinking probably my mum.
I think sometimes we use tazzy bloody, yeah, Bogan tazzy.
We had lots of words that didn't exist.
You know what a you know, a dandylion is, m Yeah, well we didn't call them dandylions, you know, we called them when we were growing up.
Well did he Dong's?
What the fuck did that word come to?
Dong?
Like? Yeah, So I remember someone saying to me, you know, you know, name what this is, and it's like, I don't know it's a dinny dong.
It's like it's a dandylion. It's like I was an adult. I didn't know what the word was.
I didn't know what a dandylion was because I know, maybe it was a baby word or something.
It's like, what the heck.
I remember being at primary school and then my mum used to call your lady bitsy blossom. And at our primary school we had fucking blossom trees.
And I remember we were walking down there. We were walking down out the gates to go walk down to the church. So I went to a Catholic promise.
We were in a church and it was spring, so the blossoms were out and someone said something about the blossoms and I'm like blossom and no one laughed, and I was like, oh, why is not anyone think that's funny? Then I realized it wasn't a universal word.
I reckon.
I mean, you've heard of the website Urban Dictionary, haven't you, yea, which is fantastic. I use it all the time because I get presented with terms.
And I have no idea what they mean.
And even in a tech world and the tech slang when things are used, I've kind found that I needed to go to Urban Dictionary to work out what it is.
I remember years ago had Tracy Bartram on the show.
With Tracy How great is she? She's out there, She's so out there.
I love Tracy so good and she'll pulls no punches, and I remember teaching her about dingleberries.
You know, I don't know what is a dingle berry.
No, no, I've got to tell you.
Dictionary, it's the Yeah, it'll suit today's conversation.
I'm going to get the definition. What is a dingle berry dingle bearry?
Dingle beerry is a term to just use to describe a small piece of poop cling to the butt of human or an animal.
Oh that's Larius.
It can also be used to informally refer to a foolish or stupid person. Don't be a dingleberry Patrick.
Having a dag hanging on the back of a sheep if.
You ever are.
Do you know the worst thing?
I've tied that into my search engine and then it's got explore with images and it's got no big picture of a turd.
It feels like that's an appropriate theme for the show today, though, because we have unnaturally delved in the private places of things that don't normally come out of the conversation. So I hope people are being entertained by them. But you know, we're talking about dinny dongs and things that get used in phrases and terminology, and it's almost like when you finally go to school, you need to be re educated into how to speak so many words that get used. I'm trying to think of other ones at home. I mean, I grew up in a family where my parents, although they're Maltese, they both spoke perfect English because in Malta at the time they grew up when Malta was a British colony, so they came out as British citizens and the native to all the languages. That the native languages of Malta are both English and Maltese. So even now you know, if you go to Malta, every person speaks English. And in fact, that's what helped a lot of Europeans. Earlier Europeans coming out to Australia, Maltese people spoke were bilingual or trilingual because they spoke Italian as well.
Malta was when they were growing up. I don't think Maulta could afford.
Television stations, so they used to watch Italian television because of Malta's right underneath Sicily. So most Maltese people speak fluent English, Maltese and Italian, so they're trialing, which is actually a really good skill. And when they came out to Australia, a lot of Italians came out, a lot of Greeks came out, particularly to Melbourne and a lot of the big cities in Australia. And the interesting thing is that a lot of Maltese had an advantage over a lot of them because they were already fluent in English and that made life a lot easier for them, whereas the other people who came out had to struggle to learn a language, and that's hard as an adult. Young adults and people who came out here to escape torn you know, ravaged World War two on torn Europe and they looked for a new life. That would have been so hard for them because they had to learn something new. You're about to learn how to play the piano, and it's harder to learn anything new from scratch as an adult.
It's a lot harder for us to learn. Our brain plasticity isn't as plian, I guess.
As what a young person is. You know, you've got this empty sponge when you're a kid, but when you get to our age, you've got this packed hard drive and it's like I've got to I feel like I've got to delete something to make room for the new thing I'm learning.
Yeah, it's really it is interesting.
As before we even said that I was thinking about the how obvious it's been made that learning something from scratch is an adult is a whole thing. When I was looking for a teacher and I'm an adult saying hey, I'm a complete beginner. So we go on to have a chat and you know, like it's like, oh, how's this, how's this different? Well, I'm just just because I'm grown up a little bit.
Yeah, And that's look.
I teach tai chi, and I often say to my students, and I struggle as well with learning new forms. I've just finished spending a whole year learning a form called the Wu form, and it's one hundred and twenty one moves, so one hundred and twenty one unique moves that all come together to form this form, and it takes like twenty minutes to do the entire form. So if you think of a choreographed dance sequence, taye chee is a little bit like that. So tai Chee's a martial art. You do lots of moves that are blocks and punches, but they're done exceptionally slowly, which is great because it means core stability. If you think of trying to throw a kick and you're balanced, but you try try to throw a kick slowly so all it focuses all your weights on one foot. You kick out with the other foot. Then you're using all your core to be able to balance yourself. And if you're doing a form that takes twenty minutes or so, learning all the moves and remembering them in the sequence like some moves repeat, but you still got to I guess it's like learning the chords of a song you know, or you're playing something you know. To try to remember all that you can't I mean, I guess.
You use the notes and you can.
I mean some people can just look at music notes and be able to play at the same time.
But for me, that's one of the biggest things.
Not only am I learning tiechie, but I'm teaching it, so you need to know it so well. It's another skill again on top of that to be able to teach that to make sure it's so when you're in the gym showing someone a move, you've got to be really mindful that what you're teaching them is so anatomically accurate because they could hurt themselves, particularly when they start pushing higher weights.
So are they in the right position if it's a squad, you know, where are their feet, where's their back, where are they leaning? You know the biomechanics of doing that.
And so as we get older, they say it it's better for us to try to learn new things. What you're doing is probably one of the best things you could do for your brain. And I know with me, I try to learn new things, and that's been a real kind of push for me to be when I was kind of encouraged to teach. You've got to learn it to a whole degree more than when you just participate. You can get away with a lot more when you're just participating in a group and you just follow along. So if you put yourself in the middle and you see other people doing the form, it's like, oh, yeah, that's where I'm up to now. But if you're out there in front of everybody and you're suddenly performing in front and you're there that I had a funny can I tell you this story when I was in China. So one of my second trip to China to train in tai Chi, I was in a hall.
So our training.
Hall we had people from Japan, Korea, all over China and Germany as well. As a big Australian contingent, So we may have had maybe eighty to one hundred people in the training hall, and they were all training in a particular form that I'd never learned before. So I decided I would go and just practice in another form by myself, and I do a couple of tai Chi sword forms, and this was a broadsword, so it's a broadsword blade and it's a very slow movement with the bl So I'm off in the corner doing my training and I turn around and everybody has stopped and they're.
All watching me. So what had happened was our grand master.
So the hierarchical thing of tay Cheese that you have a grand master who then has a students underneath them, and that those students have their students, and so there was literally four generations of students in tai Chi who were there at the training hall. And here am I just doing my wu sword and I turn around and everyone's looking at me because grand master must have turned around and noticed me, you know, a I've grabbed one of the weapons and I'm off their training by myself, and I turn around and everybody's watching me, and it's like holy shit. And so I keep doing it and grand Master doesn't even speak English. And then I finished the sword form, scared shitless because everyone's watching me all of a sudden, and he turns to one of the translators and says, whoa, because he'd never.
Seen the form before.
It was a form that he hadn't seen, but he knew because there are four families of tai Chi, Wu, Chen, Sun, and Yang, and so he knew the style of the form that I was doing by the way I performed it. So my tai chi teacher came back to me later and said, oh, thank goodness, you did it perfectly. Everybody was suddenly focused on me, and because of the way it's looked, see, there's a lot of respect. So if I do a form really well, that's not just me doing the form.
It shows that my teacher has taught me the form correctly.
So it actually, you know, the fact that I did it properly said a lot about her and her ability to teach. So there's a real sense of lineage. And that's what's really interesting when you talk about martial arts. So you know, so me being good reflected on my teacher, and that was really interesting, and I got to tell you another funny story if you've got time when I was there. So I love a lot of the co And you were talking earlier about that amazing Indian family who offered to virtually take you in.
And show you around.
And I love the connectedness and the sense of wherever I've gone, a smile says a million words. You know, you might not be able to speak the language, but eye contact and body language are universal. So for me, I've loved I've had these amazing moments where I've connected with people through my tai chi, particularly in Asia where I've done tai chi at an airport where I connected with this older woman, like an old lady, who then joined me.
And we didn't speak at all.
We just did tai chi together in the middle of an airport randomly at like two am in the morning, and at the end of it, she just smiled this beaming smile and bowed to me, and we just walked out in our own separate ways. But when I was in the training hall in China and I was training, I turned to my one of my tai chi teachers. So my master, my tai chi master, is an Australian guy. So I have a tai chi teacher. She's my larasher, and then above her, her teacher is my tai chi master. So she's my teacher, he's my tai chi master, and he's tai chi teacher is my grand master.
And that's kind of that lineage.
And so there's this amazing scene of respect and saving face in a lot of cultures.
And I just.
Happened while we're in China to say to my tai chi master, where's the washing?
Where can I do my washing?
Because everyone was washing their stuff in their showers, you know when you travel and you just kind of washed off of a night and then hang it up in the shower the next day, you got your clothes to claim.
I think I'm not doing that.
It's I've saved up on my clothes and it's like, where can I get some laundry done? Anyway, he says, oh, I have a look for you. And we're in the middle of the training hall. We're all in the middle of this session, and all of a sudden, three blokes walk in with a washing machine. They walk through the training hall and we take the washing machine to the showers and they unplug one of the showers and plug in the washing machine, get an extension lead, plug it in and Grandma and they basically say, your grandmaster organized for you to have a washing machine.
Oh my.
I was so humiliated, Like everyone's looking at me. So because I happen to ask about doing some washing, They've gone out and got a washing machine from somewhere just for me one load of washing. Oh my god. And like they still dine out on that story here in Australia. Everyone talks about that story so much. It's like Patrick asked for a frigging washing machine and got one.
I walked in with a fucking washing machine, Oh my god.
Because of course I knew straight away as soon as I saw the four blokes with the washing machine. It's like, oh no, oh, he's brought that in especially for me to do my washing. And everyone says, looked at me the dirty Isn't.
That funny When you don't you don't realize a cultural difference or something like that, and you make an inquiry and then this whole thing plays out and you're like, oh.
This is because.
Because I was a visitor who needed to do washing and I didn't have a place to do it, so for them they were there was a sign of so part of it was saving face to say, oh, you know, we could organize a washing machine for you, that's no problem.
I don't know how much trouble.
I mean, what the hell someone got to their house ripped out their bloody washing machines so that I idiot, you know, visited from Australia, it's too bloody lazy to do his washing in his shower and just ends up with a washing.
Machine that purposely connected and brought in from some poor bastard's house.
Oh god, when you were talking before about teachers and teaching, and that's become.
Really apparent to me as well.
And another crossover from boxing is like I started just with an online thing, and I've got some friends that are musicians that can play piano.
A little bit that said, I'll show you a thing or two.
One of my new clients had he works at a piano shop, and he had said, I could, I could give you lessons, but he's self taught, and most of these people are self taught, and I'm like, that's that's okay, but I really want to do my lessons with someone who teaches, even if they're self talk, I'll probably ever know. Like it's hard to I don't know that. I'm not in the world of music or pianos, but I would like to train with someone because, like as a boxing coach who's coached, who's trained under a lot of different coaches, understand that there is different levels of understanding and different Yeah, it's just interesting.
So I do you get that?
Because I guess the thing is if you get taught badly. Sometimes I jump onto YouTube and I see other people and this sounds really arrogant, but I see other people doing tai chi.
And I think, oh, no doing where are your hands?
And you don't know what? You don't know?
No, that's right because the beautiful thing about ty chee is it's this beautiful flowing movement. But it can be too flourishy because the basis is still martial arts. So I might be blocking a kick and then throwing a punch. So the idea is that you don't you know if martial art application would be someone comes towards you to attack, you don't resist, you deflect. So if someone threw a punch at me, So if you threw a punch at me, I wouldn't try to resist the punch. I would grab your arm and deflect it beside me. More energy is being used against you. So the application is you throw a punch at me, I just take your punch and I deflect it to the side of me, and then I bring up a knee as you go past. You know, it's that sort of application of what you would do. So you would never directly resist the energy of the other person. The idea is to deflect the energy away. So a lot of the movements are about that movement balance, standing to the side, grabbing the person and moving them to the side. And then when you see someone doing all these amazing flourishes and it looks like this great dance, it's like, well, no, you wouldn't have your hand above your head, wouldn't have your arms out wide, because now you're vulnerable to an attack. And you know what it's like. You've got your hands when you're boxing, they're up in front of you. Your hand wouldn't be flying out the sides, you know, And suddenly when you know the application. So when I like to talk about tai chi, and and I get taught by people in Taichi when they talk about the martial art application and why you're doing what you do.
Then it makes sense to me, And I guess for you.
Learning something somebody who knows music and knows the notes and knows how to sustain the note.
And you know, so some notes you extend, so.
It's not just playing it once, it's actually playing it and holding the notes, so that extends further. So you know, you could see a note on a page, but if it's an extended note, then you've got to play it for longer, you know, those sorts of things.
Yeah, so it's fascinating. It sounds like you're on a really interesting journey.
Bloody love it? Have you? Does taichi give you?
I always talk about boxing from the standpoint of it introducing me to myself, like I learned a lot about and I always learn And because I'm not training at the moment and training when I'm not training competitively, I missed that aspect of going into the fire to see who you are, to learn who you are today? And do you get that from tai chi? Because I always relate it to in boxing, I'm forced into that fight or flight environment, so there's no time to fall back on a bullshit story. We make up, which we don't always think we're making up, but we're kind of reason making machines, like oh, I just do it like this, and the next minute there's no time because you're in fight or flight and you either duck the punch.
And throw back or you fucking run away. There's no story.
They can't tell another story about that bluffy wat You blinked and you coward and you let them hit you, or you didn't hit back, or you whatever happened happened.
No with me with tai chi, I call it a mindful meditation, moving meditation. When I I may not have told you the story I picked up on tai chi when I moved out of home. I went to Geelong first, and I worked in Geelong as a kid and loved.
Being in there.
And I did a short course in tai chi and it really resonated with me, but the course didn't continue, and so I went for this period where something about it resonated. But it was only maybe ten years later or longer that.
I was living in Melbourne.
I'd moved to Brighton East and I kept seeing an ad in the local paper for Taichi and something about it made me think oh, I'm got to keep this another go. And at the time I had a double mortgage. I'd started my business, I had two staff, I had a colleague and an employee. I was hemorrhaging money, like it was. Interest rates were ridiculously high, and I was a real crisis point in my life. I had to make some decisions. I'd left radio and started my own business.
But at the same time I had a breakup and I had to buy out my partner. So I had a double mortgage.
At the time, rams were doing a no DOS loan, not a low DOS loan, no docks, with ridiculously high interest. And for a time there, I was just paying the interest on my credit card, just paying the interest on my mortgage, and I was hemorrhaging money. And by the end of the day I was getting stress headaches. So I just get to the end of the day and think, farck, I've got so much to do tomorrow. I can't get it done. And then I just rediscovered tai chi, and for me being mindful and being in the moment, I would get to class and then I'd be learning a new form. So I'd have to focus on the moves, focus on what I was doing, trying to remember them, trying to practice them, and then the instructor and say, now you do it.
And then I'd get halfway through the class and I think to myself, my head aches gone.
And I've been mindful. And so for me, what I love about Thai cheese for that moment. It might be for fifteen minutes or half an hour. Normally I do it almost a two hour session every Saturday morning, and I love it. It's great fun. We laugh, but that entire time, nothing else goes through my mind when I'm doing that tai chi. Nothing else With my staff, I try to do tai chi in the morning. In the afternoon, we get off our desks and we do a little simple form that I love to do because it's actually a really good stretching exercise as well. And even for that small amount of time, I really get a sense of in a piece when I do tai chi.
So that's for me, that's the focus.
That's the moving meditation where nothing else in the world exists except what you're doing, and that's mindfulness. You can sit by a creek and watch the water and listen to it and the sounds and smells and that for some person might be mindfulness, but for me, mindfulness in taichi is.
When I'm in the moment doing.
The form, and when you really know a form, and I guess I know boxing is so freestyle because you're reacting to the opponent, but when you're doing a form where so the twenty four form is the most common form done.
Around the year in the world. It's called the Yang twenty four.
And if you go to San Francisco and there's a group of people doing tai chi, more likely than anything they'll be doing the Yang twenty four or the Beijing twenty four. And when I do it, because each who flows to the next move, and because I've done it so much, I don't have to think about what's coming up next. So it's only twenty four moves, and I've done forms that are more complicated, but the flowing into one move to another is almost a surreal experience for me when I do it, and I can I've done it in parks. You know, I might be going and I might be somewhere where I think, you know what, I'm just going to stop and do a little bit of tai chi, and you just get into the moment you start the movements and nothing in the world exists for that six or five and a half minutes that you do that form. So that's for me, is what is the beauty of doing tai chi? And anybody can do it at any age, which is great.
It doesn't you know.
If anything, the slow movements are actually really good for your core stability and balance and focus. So there's mental phos called focus, physical focus, balance and coordination.
You know, I'm kind of doing a big up cell here, aren't I.
But I love it. I think I really love it, and you can just keep doing it for your entire life. A friend of mine, her daughter, grown up daughter, has arthritis and it's really crippling. And there is actually a form of tai chi for arthritis a couple name of doctor Paul Limb, and he specifically designed tay chief forms for people with severe arthriters.
How good is that?
Yeah, it sounds there's so many similarities. I mean, I guess with anything, really, but you talk about that and I'm like, oh, yeah, that feels the same as you get that in boxing, but in a different, different context. Like most decisions, boxing is really complex because you're you're training these instinctial reflexes so that you don't have to think, so that they just happen.
But at the.
Same time as you'll always simultaneously need to be controlling a different focus. So it's like if you train your responses to things like what you see, you then have an action too. So a punch comes to me, I will slip and throw back slipping count it's count, right, So that will just happen at the same time as I'm looking after maybe what direction I am, or where I am in the ring, or what you know, a whole bunch of different things, which feels a little bit like trying to play chords on my right hand and play a fucking accompaniment or whatever it's called on my left hand, Like doing two things at once so that they become automatic, so that you can think about something else at the same time, and that will just happen naturally.
It's the left and right brain working in harmony, isn't it controlling body? And that's a really amazing It actually makes so much sense because you're developing the muscle memory to a point where it's instinctual, so your reflexes have to move.
My Tai Chee teacher is.
This lovely little lady, gray haired lady called Patricia, and she tells this story. Because all of our tai chi movements are very slow moving, you can kind of you know, I would never want to get into a fight.
In fact, I've.
Always said that I've won all of my fights by one hundred meters.
That's I'm just not that sort of person.
But we do do moves that require slow movements, that are based on martial art movements. And my tie teacher told me this one day that this little tiny lady someone came up behind her in an alley and grabbed her from behind, and instinctively she did a move that we do entai chi, which is an elbow strike. So you bring your elbow back, which would go into the solar plexus of somebody. So it's funny because the movement is really slow and ti chie, you know, you bring your elbow back, the hand flows out to the side, and there's this move called repulse Monkey. It's a funny movie called Repulse Monkey. I try to visualize the moves, you know, clouded hands make sense, the hands move, but repulse monkey, like, what the hell. So she's grabbed by this bloke and she's instinctively, without even thinking of it, brought her elbow directly into his solar plexus and he was doubled over and she ran off like she managed to actually get away from him and say herself like goods knowows what would have happened, But that was an instinctive move that she'd from just tens of thousands of times in doing it in tai chi, it was an instinctual move. She never practiced what we call hard martial arts. So there's hard martial arts like kadate judo, and then you've got soft martial arts like tai chi.
Yeah, interesting, isn't it? That muscle memory it is.
You better tell people how they can get involved in tai chi via your horror oh on.
This google it because there's tai chi groups everywhere. But for me, I have a little website. I build a website during COVID called tai Chi at Home, and I did it because I wanted my students to still be able to practice.
I've just got a number of exercises. It's all free, and.
Then there's a donate button, but I don't think anyone's ever donated to it.
But it's really nice.
But I need.
I mean, I'll eventually update the videos and put some new stuff on there, but there's enough there that if you wanted to get a little bit of an inkling of whether Thai cheese for you, or if you just want to do some really lovely pass exercises. One of my favorite exercises I was telling you that I do with my staff is called chen bar Chun, and it's this amazing stretching exercise. You know, you bring your body up, you bring your hands over, reach behind you, kind of reach down. But if you work at a computer all day long, or do anything that's repetitive and you're not moving around much, this simple, simple exercise it's about two minutes. I do that twice with my with my colleagues and it's great and we just get away from our desks and we do this chen bu Chun movement.
But that's a little exercise. On the website you can follow along with Fritz is there.
Little Fritzi is part of my my You know what it was like during COVID, I put I got, I bought all this black material.
I put it in my lounge room, turn it into a studio.
Got some signs made up came up with a website called tai Chi at Home. I thought, oh, no one's ever registered tai Chi at home. So if you go to tai Chi at home dot com TODAYU, there's this website that I created during COVID that hasn't really been updated since. But it's got all this Thai cheese stuff. It's got little videos of exercises you can do that you can.
Follow along with. So if you to give it a go, go to tai chie at home and check it out. Ty che at home dot com today.
I might give that a go. I'm hoping I it with you live.
You know that I would get in class with you.
I was Jess going to know.
What I was just going to say, is I have that weird switch in my brain that's like if something is live or recorded. If something's live, I'm fully engaged. Yeah, but it's recorded. Even if it's an interactive like a whatever, it doesn't have to be exercised. But there's something in my mind that's wanting to hurry everything or rush through it, or you're not in it with someone.
It's weird, isn't it.
I had a friend who was in lockdown in COVID.
And came out to Australia for the Australian Open Tennis as a journalist, and they had to do the two weeks of being in lockdown in an apartment. Remember they were hotel lockdowns, and so every day we would do tai chee together, So get our phones out and I'd set up the camera and we'd do tai chee together. And I've done that with my sister in law in Canada. Well, we were doing some tai chi together during COVID as well, So I found that I was doing a lot of that just with friends, just logging on and doing a Zoom whatever it was. Because Zoom was free then as well, you could do an unlimited or what that works as well, you know, doing a little session. But I love doing that. And when my colleagues work from home, we still do tai chi. We do it remotely, so we jump on and get the cameras going and we do a little session together as well.
Yeah, I loved that.
I loved I was training the paramedics over that time online and that.
Kept me so fit.
And then after I think in the last lockdown where my contract with them was finished and we weren't doing them anymore. For a little while, I just continued doing them for free because it made me train better, It kept me fit, and I enjoyed the training because I was doing it for other people, whereas just getting bundle up in your bedroom doing your own fucking hit out.
Well for me building this web site during the time when none of my students were able to do classes, it was great for me just to do that as a gift to the students to keep them motivated as well. It was just something that helped me get through it. And that's still a surreal time for me, fill for a lot of people it is. I think there's still a lot of fall out for kids that went through those landmark times in their lives, whether it was going through school at a crucial time, so going from primary to secondary school, or maybe doing year eleven and year twelve, or just starting out in the workforce. But I kind of feel for a lot of people who still have the carryover effects.
Of what they were forced to go through.
And I'm more I think more about kids I reckon, you know, being in primary school, the first two years of primary school on a camera, or going from year seven and then going from primary school into year seven and doing that with a screen in front of you. My first day of year seven, I went into the yard and I sat down next to this blonde kid and I turned around and introduced each other, and his name was Peter, and we ended up being best friends.
Like we were in the same class.
We didn't know this, and we ended up being in the same classes for the entire time of secondary school. And we were just the best buddies. And we just met in the school yard that very first day at school. We just happened to sit next to each other.
How good is that?
Yeah? And so I still think I do think about other people and what they were forced to go through during COVID and how much of an impact, particularly young people.
I always think about experiences like that, and even for myself because there's a level of fondness I have at that time for me, and that was getting out of getting out of an environment I didn't realize was really negatively impacting me.
Also, I assume.
Looking back, I have a perspective that there was a sense of connection because we're all in this together. So for someone that's completely independent and very I think if I look at the perhaps the underlying things that challenge me is hyperindependence, a bit of insecurity about the future, a bit of abandonment stuff. It's like, oh, we're all in this together, and I can and I will be okay because I'll show you.
And I guess I like that.
And also the support, you know, it was like the support that government helped small businesses so I had. It was like, oh, the normal Tiff running in front of a train on train tracks and never been able to stop, which is kind of how I often feel in life.
I can't stop. I can't stop.
I can't stop, I can't We could just step off the tracks, Tiff. Now I can't stop because I've got to stay on the tracks because I can't get off track. That was paused. It was like, okay, you can get off the track and just reassess things, and there's this support here for you to do that.
It's funny, isn't it.
How COVID affected many people in different ways, and I was the same as you.
For me, it was a breath.
I took a breath during a really deep breath, and I reevaluated. And because I'm a really social person, I teach regularly, I do stuff at night, so It's not unusual for me to get up at five point thirty. I'm out walking the dog and I'm doing stuff. I'm active, and then at nighttime I work through I've got a young guy who comes into the office after school and then he works through it or six, and then from six I go on to teach. So you know, there's a few nights a week where I get up super early and I'm not home till after eight o'clock, and so it's really long days and I love that. But COVID was a time just to take a breath, for me to reevaluate, and because you were forced not to interact with people, you know, as someone who does actually.
Like this space. But it's very socially.
You know, I've got a friend staying over at the moment and her boyfriend's coming down today. And these are my close friends who actually live in Queensland, and they're obviously all the dramas that are going on there at the moment. They're worried about their home. But we're going to hang out. We're probably going to go rock climbing today because we all climb and it just indore.
But you know, we've organized to do something tonight. We're doing something tomorrow. You know, it's going to be a hectic weekend and I love that. It's going to be a hectic weekend, but it's going to be NonStop.
Yeah.
Sorry, you asked me to wrap things up and I just kept talking.
Well I'm thinking, I'm like, he's got friends over and I'm making turning this into a bloody ninety minute chat.
Should let you go? Should let you go? Live your day? I've also got a well I don't have to.
I've got a friend's boyfriend is stranded in Melbourne at the moment from Queensland, can't get back there. So I'm going to reach out and see if he wants to catch out for lunch today and just so that he's good, so he's not.
Meandering around the city going and nothing to do here.
Oh that's nice of you. See that's great when you can help friends out like that.
Yeah.
Yeah, so do try Tiede she at home if you want to just join in.
It's a bit, but it was doing everyone.
Let's do it all right? Thanks Patrick always.
Yeah, I was going to say the same. It's lovely hanging out with you.
We'll see each other in real life.
Soon.
We keep saying that's been been months of saying that, but it's going to happen.
I cant have to go and have a plane is and my friend Kim because she's got a Wally Walter is her whipper.
Well.
I have Saturdays off now, so tradom.
Yeah, it's a bit of Okay, that's the date. How's that?
Thanks Patrick,
