Thanksgiving Obviously Stressed Me Out

First off I hope everyone enjoyed Turkey Day with family and friends. Like every American, I love the traditional Turkey dinner with sweet potatoes and cranberry sauce, but I was also invited to my friend Katie's house, who is of Vietnamese decent. Her mom cooked us an incredible meal with authentic Vietnamese food, including some great crab. A very interesting mix of tastes throughout the day. Then it got interesting.....

After dinner Katie had her Mother perform a traditional Vietnamese therapy on me called Cao Gio (the Chinese call it Gua Sha). Now I usually don't let people try to bruise me with coins but she seduced me through wine so I was all in. She used a balm oil and a quarter and began scraping my back along my spine and ribs. It is believed to break apart the capillaries to increase the white blood cell count, which helps with healing and stress. It is used for fevers, colds, injuries, headaches, and multiple other conditions. After seeing how red my back was I think I might be a little more stressed than I thought.

Watch the video below, there's a crazy story at the end she tells about how parents were thrown in jail because teachers thought they were beating their kids when it was just Cao Gio treatment.


Good fun though on Thanksgiving!
Here's a before and after picture. It has died down a little since yesterday

Right after she started on my spine-----> After

Sports Photography and Jakes New Show

This past week I gave my blog a little makeover as you can see. While looking through templates and photo's I remembered a photo shoot that my friend Cole Barash did a while back for his Blog call "Sports Silho." Cole is an incredibly skilled photographer. He got his start shooting local snowboarders in Vermont and since has worked for Nike, Rolling Stone, and every big snowboarding magazine out there. Here are a couple of his pictures from that shoot but check out his blog to see some great photography.

He captured movement with a different eye and style than from what I've seen. It gives me the feel of being in that mindset where you can block out all distractions and focus the task at hand.

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More Pics at his Blog.

Before you go, my friend, Jake Blauvelt, has a short series of episodes coming out on Fuel TV called "Blauvelts Backcountry," that airs on November 17th (I think). Watch the teaser below, it speaks for itself. Jake constantly progresses himself and his riding to new levels.

Gain 12 inches of flexibility in 3 minutes???? Kinda.....

To set up this video, you'll see my friend Matt Tosches go from being about a foot away from touching his toes to touching them in about 3 minutes or so. What I did was have him perform these exercises that re-patterned his hip hinge. The result is pretty amazing, and it will probably allow him to move better, which can reduce injuries and improve performance. If you can't touch your toes, try these 3 exercises and chances are you'll see some crazy results.