Letting the days go by…

Originally published in The Groove, June 2007
by Tracey Stark

What follows is not my attempt at being deep or philosophical, but more an expression of my frustration with getting older.

I’m not frustrated because I’m getting a few wrinkles, a gut I can’t seem to lose, worsening vision or am suffering severe hair loss. Those can all be corrected through various medical procedures, should I so choose. No, what I’m frustrated with is time.

More specifically, the increasing pace of time as I get older.

When I was a child, and I suspect most of us felt this way, a week went on forever, summer vacation was an eternity and it seemed like Christmas would never come. A few years later, the school week went faster because of a heavier workload, summer vacations seemed shorter because of a job, and Christmas always came out of nowhere, because I already knew that Santa Claus was dead and I no longer cared.

Enter college. The school week became mostly irrelevant, summer vacation was an opportunity to earn some extra credits, and Christmas meant it was time to go home and deal with the family for a week. By this time, things had already started picking up pace. There was more to concern myself with and a greater sense of urgency to get things done.

At 8 years old, the only times I felt a sense of urgency was when I had to walk past the Ryan’s house. They had a German Shepard with a mouthful of teeth, a taste for moist, pink, human flesh and the ability to leap fences. I urgently needed to know the quickest escape route and the nearest climbable tree.

And now it’s almost halfway through 2007, I recently suffered another birthday and I can scarcely tell you where the first five months have gone. Hell, the last five years in and out of Korea have been a blur. My family has nearly forgotten what I look like because it’s been so long since I’ve been home, and I don’t feel like I have as much to show for my time as I did when I was younger.

It’s like that Talking Heads song, Once in a Lifetime, where David Byrne sings,

“And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack. And you may find yourself in another part of the world. And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile. And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife. And you may ask yourself, ‘Well...How did I get here?”

How did I get here? It feels like it’s been only five years since I was camping in the Florida Keys with some friends. But that was in 1990. It feels like it was only last year when I was running around Seoul for the first time, marveling at the sights and sounds of Korea. But that was in 2002. And it feels like only last month when I met the woman I eventually married. But that was in 2005.

It’s unfair if you consider that you spend all of your early years filling your time learning how to do things like reading, riding a bike, picking scabs, and burning ants on the sidewalk using a magnifying glass. Then as you get older, you don’t have as much time to do these things anymore.

Shouldn’t it be the other way around? Shouldn’t time go slower as you get older? Then you would have more time to appreciate all the good things in life, more time to stop and smell the roses and pick the scabs.

But, I suppose, it would leave you with way too much time to develop a sense of ethics and morals and wonder what it’s really like to pop under a magnifying glass.

So maybe there is some logic to it in the end. But not much.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some Christmas shopping to do before I retire.

The Weller Side of Life

Originally published in The Groove, May 2007
by Tracey Stark

Every so often a new “healthy living” trend will come along and sweep people up in a frenzy. While most of these fads die a rather rapid death, some manage to stick around because of the hard work of marketing geniuses.

Think of all those useless contraptions sold on late-night television designed to give you the “ultimate workout.” Most households have one or two of these things in a closet somewhere or perhaps being used to prop open a door.

Oxygen bars popped up in cities all over the world a few years back. Then, when people realized that they were already surrounded by oxygen, they stopped paying $20 to sit in a room designed for breathing.

The same can be said for diets. Low-carb, no-carb, high-fat, all-fruit, all-popcorn, all-bacon, no-taste, the list goes on. And as with every other trend, they have come and gone, replaced by the next big thing.

Then, in 2003, a private economic think tank in Korea advised companies that the new “well-being” trend was going to be big. It was even chosen as the management keyword for 2004.
In the beginning, this trend seemed to be based on the consumer’s best interests. Foods with all-natural ingredients were being marketed more. New healthy drinks and negative-ion air purifiers popped up everywhere.

But then, somewhere along the way, something went terribly wrong. Products began appearing, seemingly out of nowhere, touting their “well-beingness” when the relationship was tenuous at best.

I first noticed it more than a year ago when a new restaurant was going up in my neighborhood. The sign in front of the construction site said the diner was going to be called, simply, “Well Being.” Hopeful that it would be a vegetarian restaurant where I could take my then-girlfriend (now wife), I was anxious for its opening.

Within a month the restaurant opened and I excitedly ran up to the window to read the menu. The main dish at this shop was samgyeopsal (basically chunks of pork that are about half meat and half fat). Plastered on some of the walls inside were posters promoting soju, Korea’s favorite liquor. To say I was confused is a bit of an understatement.

As time went on, more examples of this well-being bizarro world appeared. Newspaper were writing stories and promoting goods like well-being refrigerators, well-being cell phones and even well being sneakers for old people. We used to call these shoes “orthopedic.” But I guess you can’t expect to keep pace wearing a pair of orthopedic shoes.

It all came to a head for me last year when the Doosan beverage company introduced a well-being soju. It contains 20 percent alcohol, versus the normal 25 percent alcohol content. By promoting booze as “well being”, they more than doubled their market share. It started to make sense to me. Apparently, it’s all about the money.

And it gets better. An editorial in a local English language newspaper written by a foreigner living in Seoul sounded frighteningly like ad copy for a cigarette company. In it, the author describes her discovery of a new low-tar version of her favorite smokes, designed, she said, in the spirit of the well-being trend with the health of the consumer in mind.

“It being winter, and feeling especially "fresh" from my Pilates workout and two-hour visit to the local sauna, I decided to try the menthol variety…” she writes. Her blather about this particular brand of cancer stick continues: "…it took amazingly little time to adjust, and after several weeks, I’m already feeling the benefits of smoking a lighter cigarette, not just physically but mentally as well, for having taken yet another step towards a better, brighter me."

Still, my favorite is of a business owned by a former friend of my wife. He decided it would make sense to call his new enterprise “Well Being Concrete Co.”

But, as I’ve pointed out already, all good things must come to an end. So, in order to promote a smooth transition to the next commercially-viable trend, I am going to suggest a replacement for the “well-being” fad: “Psychiatry.”

Think of the possibilities.

Chiro with a twist

Originally published in Seoul magazine, May 2007
By Tracey Stark

The mere mention of a chiropractor causes some people to cringe from remembered stories they’ve heard about a “friend of a friend” who had to go once a week for the rest of his life to get his neck and back cracked and crunched all for the sake of “proper alignment.” For this guy, a week missed meant a week of agony.

But Dr. Phillip Yoo (or Dr. Phil to his patients), the founder of the ChiroPilates method, is quick to dispel that myth of dependence on chiropractic treatment.

“Some chiropractors focus on pain care, they don’t treat the cause of the pain,” Yoo says. “If I wanted to have people just come in week after week, why would I try to teach them how to prevent the pain and take care of themselves?”

That’s where ChiroPilates comes into play. It’s a combination of chiropractic therapy and Pilates, one of the most popular fitness methods in the United States, which incorporates flexibility training, strength training of the core muscles (the muscles around the midsection) and correction of the posture. One of the main advantages of Pilates is that it can be practiced with very little equipment and, like yoga, has many basic exercises requiring only a mat.

While Yoo believes Pilates is a good system on its own, he notes that many people suffer injuries while practicing Pilates because a lot of instructors don’t understand the human anatomy.

“It’s not like aerobics. Pilates is about technique and body awareness,” Yoo says, which is why he limits his class size.

His Itaewon, Seoul sports medicine clinic has room for about six ChiroPilates students at a time and also offers therapeutic massage, fitness training and, of course, chiropractic care.

He’s even coined a phrase to describe the purpose of ChiroPilates: “To strengthen and flexen.” This, he says, means to workout in order to increase a healthy range of motion for your joints and spine and lengthen core muscles to assist in maintaining a normal posture.

“Only about 20 percent of people have good posture and exercise regularly, while 80 percent suffer from some kind of musculoskeletal disorder or pain.”

The American-born doctor, who is also a certified personal trainer and certified meridian therapy acupuncturist, believes that many conditions can benefit from chiropractic care.

He gives headaches as an example.

“A headache isn’t a brain ache. The brain itself can’t feel pain,” Yoo says. “But it’s the pain-sensitive structures in the skull, such as the web of nerves emanating from the back of the skull and the first few vertebrae of the neck which control things like sinus function and eyesight. When these vertebrae are out of alignment, the nerves are often squeezed, pulled, compressed or otherwise irritated, causing headaches.”

And so it goes down the rest of the spine. When the spine is out of line, things like digestion or strength can be affected. The main purposes of the nerves are to sense pain, temperature and touch, control motor function and reflexes and control organ function.

“Taking an aspirin may help relieve the pain temporarily, but it won’t fix the structural problem and the pain will return,” he says.

According to Yoo, the Chinese belief in chi translates in chiropractic medicine as “the body’s innate ability to heal itself.” It’s about the flow of energy which, Yoo says, is really the messages being sent by the brain via the nerves to the rest of the body. Block the flow of these messages through a misaligned spine and you effectively block your body’s ability to self-heal.

When spring returns, many people hit the trail or the court and find themselves in agony the next day. This is because they’ve failed to maintain a higher level of fitness over the winter months and returned to their warm-weather pursuits without the proper preparation. As a result, Yoo says, spring is his busiest time of year.

“People are afraid of chiropractic therapy because they want a quick fix,” Yoo explains. “But if you want to stay in shape do you go to the gym only one time?” he asks.

After a while, Yoo insists, his clients learn how to prevent their pain and maintain a proper posture. “Follow-up visits are really just for a tune-up.”

His commitment to removing the barrier between himself and his patients can be seen in his insistence on being called “Dr. Phil” and through developing and offering his ChiroPilates method. This leads to better communication and trust, which leads to real healing.

“The word doctor doesn’t mean God, it means teacher,” Yoo says. “A lot of doctors forget that."