Lex Life

Food to Keep Us Young

noreply@blogger.com (Lex Bonife) — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 15:12:00 +0000

Here's an interesting news from yahoo enumerating the "7 Anti-Aging Super Food".

Their list includes: chocolates, blue berries, fish, nuts, wine, olive oil and yogurt.

Why these foods? Visit this link http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/health/7-anti-aging-super-foods-272163/;_ylt=An.59owXPy.Bq56WyCfEKSZabqU5

The Sattvah Method

noreply@blogger.com (Lex Bonife) — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 15:27:00 +0000

Sattvah Wellness Group is a newly opened alternative medicine center that offers stress management and wellness through intergated natural energy therapies in Katipunan, Quezon City (Philippines).

The basic premise of their service is to work on the energy emitted by the human body. This energy has been named in various Asian traditions -- "Chi" in Chinese, "Ki" in Japanese, "Prana" in Yoga traditions. It is what acupuncturists make flow using needles to enhance health. When the body’s natural energies are flowing, there is balance in mind and body.

The Sattvah method is about integrating various energy therapy methods to bring balance to the individual.

For more information about the programs and services of Sattvah, visit their website at www.sattvahwellness.com or email them at sattvah@yahoo.com

Brainy Surprises

noreply@blogger.com (Lex Bonife) — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 13:41:00 +0000

The human brain is one of the most fascinating things in the universe. And this is held true by the book "Phantoms of the Brain" by neurologist V.S. Ramachandran. In this brilliant account of different cases on neurology, Ramachandran gives us a peek into the inner workings of the human mind -- how we deceive ourselves, how we perceive our world, why we laugh, why we are depressed, why we could unconsciously be in denial of many unnacceptable things in our body and in our life and why we believe God.

Many of the featured cases here are bizarre. His experiments are simple. But his deductions about brain function would just jump through you and will make you look at life yourself in a different way.

It's a witty and insightful book about many things we never knew about ourselves. And this is just one of those books that I would always remember for the rest of my life.

My Tiramisu Love Affair

noreply@blogger.com (Lex Bonife) — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 12:37:00 +0000

The first time I fell in love with this popular Italian dessert is at Petra's restaurant (Connecticut st., Greenhills) owned by Paolo Bustamante several years ago. And from then on, I have always craved for a tiramisu experience. I must say that many of the tiramisu cakes are quite bad even among popular Italian restos.

Here's a list of some of my best tiramisu around Metro Manila

* Bread Talk (right serving, consistently rich taste)

* Chocolat at North Edsa & Mall of Asia

* Edsa Shangri-la Cafe (soft, jelly type)

If you know of any place in Metro Manila with a must try tiramisu, please leave a comment :)

Visiting Ngong Ping 360

noreply@blogger.com (Lex Bonife) — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 03:14:00 +0000

The beautiful commercial village of Ngong Ping 360 in Hongkong is a forty minute cable ride away from Tung Chung train station. This carefully designed community sits beside the gigantic Tian Tan Buddha statue. There are numerous interesting souvenir shops for tourists in the area as well as entertainment and dining shops awaiting its visitors.

Guests are greeted with a beautiful landscape upon arriving from the cable car

An interesting entrance at the village.

One of the finely crafted statues guarding the giant buddha

The steep climb to the Tian Tan Buddha Statue

Your Private Yoga Class in Ortigas

noreply@blogger.com (Lex Bonife) — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 13:46:00 +0000

Chi, The Spa at Edsa Shangri-la is now offering a personalized yoga class for everyone. So whether your goal is to have a relaxing session of stretching or a dynamic and muscle toning class or simply to breathe away the stress of the day, there's yoga class for your specific needs right at the heart of the most luxurious hotel in Ortigas (Philippines).

This elegant spa offers of one of the most beautiful yoga studios in Metro Manila -- serene, quiet, it even has a small library for its clients to have a deeper understanding of the yoga lifestyle.

This private session may also be availed by two individuals -- perfect for couples or friends who would like to enhance their relationship through a fun and interactive partner yoga class. In this kind of yoga, clients perform their yoga poses together with their partners building trust and connection in the process.

Classes are conducted by a Yoga Alliance USA registered instructor. Each session costs Php1500 (good for two individuals; additional Php500 for a third participant). You may call Edsa Shangri-la at (632) 6338888 to request for a schedule anyday of the week.

My First Year Teaching Yoga

noreply@blogger.com (Lex Bonife) — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 06:00:00 +0000

It has been a year since I attended my Yoga Teacher Training. And looking back, my life has dramatically changed.

First, I now teach seven days a week. I grow with my students and they inspire me to have a deeper yoga practice.

Teaching 15 classes a week, have made me let go of several television and film projects. But It is a decision I would never regret.Because teaching yoga does not require me to go on late nights with killer script deadlines, kiss ass with entertainment executives and deal with tantrums from "wannabe stars".

Teaching yoga simply requires to be myself - adventurous, appreciative and nurturing. It does not require me to wear nice fitting signature pants,expensive watches and other fashion statements shouting "look at me, I'm a creative person". Everyday, I simply wear my most comfortable shorts andsneakers geared to face the harsh urban Manila.

And because I can simply leave my fashoin in my closet, I can now afford not to drive my car. With the onset of exorbitant gasoline prices, I'm just glad that most of the studios I teach in has a direct access to a train station. Now, I can pay for the food that I crave for without thinking of my gasoline and parking expenses for the next day.

For the most part of the week, I only teach in the evenings. For this reason, I have gained enough free time to write about things closest to my heart: yoga, my queer advocacies and the philosophies that I stand for. I have written scripts for films which have earned praises from critics and have grown three blogswith hundreds of readers a day. And for the first time in my life, I am publicly recognized as a writer.

Aside from the great wonders of a lifestyle change as a yoga teacher, my practice has deepened. I am now entering the realm of backbends, something for me was impossible for the past three years of my yoga practice. My meditation has become deep enough for me to have an overmhelming appreciation of my life and the world around me. Having attended the Asian Yoga Conference in Hongkong has taught me that there's a huge world of yoga outside of Manila. And there's a limitless direction into how I want to grow my practice.

Let me end this note with my most important lesson so far -- I have learned that our lives are anchored on our mind and our body. The lifestyle of yoga leads us to a better body and a better mind. Hence, as I grow in yoga as a teacher and as a practitioner, I live a better life and so do my students.

Lessons From My Yoga Practice

noreply@blogger.com (Lex Bonife) — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 03:10:00 +0000

One of the most important things I have learned in my three yoga personal yoga practice is to respect and honor my body. Before becoming committed to my practice, I always pushed my body to its limit -- work hard, sleep late at night, and allow stress to settle in.

But through yoga, I have learned to appreciate the complexity of my body. And that is not just an instrument for work and to make money. It is the vessel of my life, my only vessel in this world.

Anna Forrest's Healing Class

noreply@blogger.com (Lex Bonife) — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 06:20:00 +0000

One of the best yoga classes I have ever attended is Anna Forrest's "Heal Your Backpain" class at the 2008 Asia Yoga Conference in Hongkong.

The class started with pranayama as we decided on which part of the back do we intend to focus our practice on. Then, we did some agni sari and kapalabhati.

After breathing exercises, we did some deep abdominal work using classic Forrest Yoga crunches. Most of the asanas as expected focused on strengthening our core and upper back muscles.

Now, what's amazing about this class is how Anna Forrest delivers her instructions. There is immense knowledge in her that anyone could have a profound appreciation of one's body after a class with her. One of the attendees was pregnant, and the way she took special attention to the pregnant lady was very enlightening for a yoga instructor like me.

Being trained in vinyasa, all my life, I felt that attending a forrest yoga class was quite a struggle because, holding a position for a long time needed more effort for me.

This class was so good that it felt like it was the very first yoga class in my whole life.

Now only, if only if I have the money, I would definitely fly to US to take further studies in Forrest Yoga.

An Excellent Lecture from Ellen Heed

noreply@blogger.com (Lex Bonife) — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 06:52:00 +0000

For me, one of the highlights of attending Evolution: Asia Yoga Conference 2008 is the class of Ellen Heed, "Open Up your Core"

Ms. Heed teaches forrest yoga, craniosacral therapy and is an expert in human anatomy and physiology from the perspective of yoga and traditional medicine.

Ellen taught us that bodies may be categorized into two different types: the tendon type and the fascia type.

Tendon Type. The tendon type are those whose body gets lean and ripped off easily from working out. Their achilles tendon are very pronounced. And there is less thickness in the fascia surrounding their muscles. They could be less flexible than other people because their tendon are thicker within their joints.

Fascia Type. The fascia type are those people who have a tendency to store fat around their muscles. Their connective tissue and fascia are thicker. Hence, their muscles may not be very evident from outside of the skin despite how strong they could get.

These differentiation in connective tissue structure is important because they influence the movement and flexibility of the body as these tissues restrict the movement of the muscles.

The class of Ellen taught us how to ensure that the connective tissues in our body help us to achieve an optimal result in our yoga practice. She taught us the importance of heating up the connective tissues within the abdominals by using pranayama techniques like Agni Sari and Nauli.

She also gave us a set of abdominal crunches which I suppose is a staple in a Forrest yoga class. As these set of abdominal workout was also presented by Anna Forrest (post to follow).

These sets of pranayama and abdominal workout warms the core so effectively that the whole body warms up instantly even without surya namaskar (sun salutations) before the yoga practice.

The class ended with some very amazing transformational bodywork where Ellen asked for a few volunteers from her students. She probed for some very sensitive area within the body that sent the two volunteer students shaking and the other one crying. Ellen explained that the body "hides" some emotional issues within certain parts of our muscles. And these issues come to surface whenever we press these areas of the muscles.

It was first time to hear about this practice. And this sends me really curious about this tradition. If I'm attending next year, I will surely get another Ellen Heed class.

Breathing with Andrey Lappa

noreply@blogger.com (Lex Bonife) — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 01:54:00 +0000

The celebrated yoga teacher Andrey Lappa came into the room with his gold laced violet outfit. He was a stocky man with an authoritative Russian accent.

This was my first class at the Evolution: Asia Yoga Conference in Hongkong. And it's all about pranayama. Mr. Lappa declared that if we want to have a deeper knowledge about yoga, we must decide which teacher we should follow for the rest of the conference. And he even sneered at other teachers mixing yoga with other stuff such as the "yoga hip hop" class.

He demanded absolute silence in the room. And he spoke with great authority as he represents his deep experience in yoga and other traditional eastern methods. I was amazed by his anecdotes about his experiences with his gurus in yoga as he also talked mentioned "astral bodies", or holy people who have appearing all around the world all throughout time.

Andrey Lappa simply comes from a world far from what I have known what life is all about.

The meat of the class was spent on the different types of pranayama (or breath control) that was practiced by the yogis from all over the world. And he came up with a chart that specifies which types of pranayama would work well with others.

Mr. Lappa encouraged us to look at yoga different from how the west sees it. He tells us to stop calling ashtanga yoga by its name. Its proper term is "ashtanga vinyasa". And we should stop calling ujjayi breath its name if we dont use "mulla bandha", "uddiyana bandha" and the chin lock after each set of breath.

Although I feel that the practice was too deep for me, I was able to appreciate the wealth of experience and the rich tradition Andrey Lappa represented in logical and an updated manner.

Breathing with Andrey Lappa was a moment I would always remember in my journey in yoga.

My Diet at the Malls

noreply@blogger.com (Lex Bonife) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 05:51:00 +0000

Eating healthy food is certainly not cheap in Manila. I know some people who even spend at least a thousand pesos a day so their south beach diet could be delivered to their officers or wherever they are.

For my own diet, I require myself to eat fresh vegetables everyday and a hearty serving of chicken or fish. I have not been eating rice years before the food crisis came to explode.

If your meal budget is around Php400, finding healthy meals would not be much of a problem.

But if you are like me, whose budget is quite limited, here are some affordable suggestions if you find yourself inside a mall and you need to sitck to eating healthy:

* Kenny Rogers Healthy Plate -- a serving of chicken, fresh greens with iced tea for about Php170++

* Kenny Rogers Sandwiches -- wheat bread and your choice of filling for about Php100++

*Almon Marina meals -- Good tasting and complete meals for about Php180++

* KFC Spiral Salad and KFC Hot wings -- my source of daily energy! I can't get enough of these :). Costs really chep for about Php130++

Hope this recommendations help. Happy eating and stay healthy!

Yoga Conference in HK

noreply@blogger.com (Lex Bonife) — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 23:00:00 +0000

I am looking forward to attend my very first yoga conference. It will be held at the Hongkong Convention Center next week. Some of the best teachers in the world are giving out classes in this 4 day event. I am also very excited to buy new yoga CD's for my class music as well as other accessories for my practice.

I have enlisted my name in the classes of world renowned yoga teachers: Ana Forrest, Ellen Heed and Andrey Lappa.

You can check out more information on Evolution: Asia Yoga Conference at

http://www.asiayogaconference.com/2008_new/

The Yoga Bible

noreply@blogger.com (Lex Bonife) — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 14:03:00 +0000

Christina Brown's "The Yoga Bible" is my very first book in yoga. I remember saving money just to purchase this handy and colorful guide to asanas or yoga poses. I bought it in Fully Booked (The Block at SM North Edsa) for a little more than one thousand pesos. And after half a year, I saw the same copy at National Bestsellers (Robinsons Galleria) for about Php500. It really pays to scout around first for this type of books.

The instructions here are very clear. Poses are plentiful especially for a beginner in yoga. And every pose is captured in a progressive sequence of movement.

For me this is the best book that I have seen for every beginner's who would like to study yoga poses.

Urbiztondo, La Union

noreply@blogger.com (Lex Bonife) — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 12:49:00 +0000

The beach at Urbiztondo, La Union (Philippines) is popular among surfers. It is just about six hour drive north of Manila. But before I tried surfing, I made sure to do my yoga asanas first.

a variation of vasisthasana

bakasana
atavakrasana

Yoga at Chi (The Spa at Edsa Shangri-la)

noreply@blogger.com (Lex Bonife) — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 15:08:00 +0000

Yoga combines meditation and various postures to promote body harmony and inner tranquility. At Chi, The Spa at Edsa Shangri-la (Mandaluyong city, Philippines), yoga classes are available everyday as a mind and body workout for professionals and executives in the business district of Ortigas.

Special Yoga packages are available for 12 sessions for only Php6,000 plus a free spa treatment.

Visit Chi at Edsa Shangri-la for more details.

Currimao is Actually Beautiful

noreply@blogger.com (Lex Bonife) — Mon, 26 May 2008 04:04:00 +0000

The name of the town Currimao (Ilocos Norte, Philippines) to me sounded like a name of a folklore monster. According to my research, its name was derived from what the locals used to call pirates who frequently came by during the Spanish regime.

And unlike its name, Currimao is a actually beautiful and scenic place. It's worth a side trip on your way to the church of Paoay and to Laoag should you plan to visit Northern Luzon soon.

Loving Lea

noreply@blogger.com (Lex Bonife) — Sun, 25 May 2008 11:42:00 +0000

Last night I saw the Lea Salonga Concert "Lea, My Life On Stage". I have never missed any concert of Lea Salonga in Manila for the past seven years. And I must say this one is really memorable for a Lea Salonga fan like me.

This show is a tribute to her 30 years in show business. And here, she was candid enough to admit some of the biggest failures in her life: her not being a Filipino pop star and the two month stint of Flower Drum Song in New York. Lea admitting to these failures, is inspiring especially for someone who always saw her as the benchmark of success for a Filipino artist.

Some songs moved me to tears as they were beautifully re-created by Gerard Salonga and Filharmonika: "Two Words" and "I Still Believe in Love". Some numbers were heart pounding: Miss Saigon segment and Les Miserables Encore number. Some numbers were quite personal and would require genuine interest on Lea's personality for one to appreciate.

All in all, the night encapsulated all the best of Lea Salonga's unparalleled career. And it was such a treat to a fan like me.

The Majesty of Paoay Church

noreply@blogger.com (Lex Bonife) — Fri, 23 May 2008 17:02:00 +0000

The Paoay Church (Ilocos Norte, Philippines) has an imposing beauty on anyone who sees it for the first time. Built by the Augustinian friars in the 19th century, this structure is a unique combination of Gothic, Baroque and Oriental design. Don't forget to try the native delicacies right in front of the church!

Silent Boracay

noreply@blogger.com (Lex Bonife) — Sat, 17 May 2008 15:52:00 +0000

If one craves for silence in Boracay, Fairways and Blue Waters is the perfect place in this island. An exclusive and gated community, it is complete with a golf course, lovely pool and for me the most important, a beach sanctuary, where one could enjoy the fine white sand and clear water without the crowd -- A perfect setting for a yoga practice.

The Kiltepan Trek

noreply@blogger.com (Lex Bonife) — Fri, 16 May 2008 02:31:00 +0000

The Kiltepan Point is one of the highlights in a Sagada trip. It's about an hour and a half trek from the town hall. The kiltepan peak offers an awesome view of rice terraces. Unfortunately, I only have a point and shoot camera, so my camera could barely capture the wonderful details of this view. I'm sharing some of the views on my way up.

The Lighthouse at Punta Malabrigo

noreply@blogger.com (Lex Bonife) — Fri, 16 May 2008 01:54:00 +0000

This lighthouse in Punta Malabrigo is located in Lobo, Batangas (Philippines), a 20 kilometer rough road travel from the city of Batangas. One thing that struck me as I first visited this place is the silence amidst the vast land and sea that borders this area. This is the first lighthouse that I have ever visited, and I was amazed how time and history have been painted slowly all throughout this structure. Just a warning though, you would need an SUV to get to this place. (Photography by Jay Altarejos)

Failure to Launch

noreply@blogger.com (Lex Bonife) — Thu, 15 May 2008 04:05:00 +0000

Water Skiing is not for me. Despite the strength that I have developed from years of yoga and pilates, i could barely lift my body to stand on water as the motor boat dragged me.

I tried this in El Rio y Mar Resort in Maricaban Bay, Palawan

Parasailing in Mactan

noreply@blogger.com (Lex Bonife) — Thu, 15 May 2008 03:11:00 +0000

In 2005, my sister treated me to Shangri-la Mactan (Cebu, Philippines) with my mom, niece and my best friend, John. It was April and it was my birthday. As expected, Shangri-la Mactan was a luxurious place and the food was awesome. Although their white sand beach was far from being the best beach in our country, the water activities available are fun. And parasailing on top of Mactan was particularly memorable.

The Lights of Julia Vargas

noreply@blogger.com (Lex Bonife) — Thu, 15 May 2008 02:46:00 +0000

Before the renovation of Megamall (Ortigas, Philippines), I enjoyed sitting at the Sugarhouse overlooking Julia Vargas st. while eating my favorite cake. The silent movement of the cars below me was a very relaxing sight. I captured this "juxtaposition" of light through the glass beside me. And the result was quite interesting.