Ghosts, Goblins, & Superheroes

Halloween is upon us and little ghosts and goblins are going to be roaming the neighborhoods demanding a sugar fix. For the past few years, we have made do with 2 costumes - a clown costume that Arjun wore for a couple of years and was then handed down to Abhi for the last two years. In the meantime, Arjun got a race car driver outfit that he has worn for the last two years. The costume required various adjustments to facilitate a better fit and it is only now that Arjun has grown enough to fit in it without any alterations. Of course, he is bored with it now. They both have new costumes for this time - Arjun is going to be 'Ironman' while Abhi is outfitted to be a 'Red Dragon Ninja.' This is a character of rather dubious provenance, but goes well with Abhi's recent closely cropped haircut. He could join Robinhood's gang with nary a raised eyebrow.

We got the costumes on Monday and they have been wearing it every night till it is time for bed. They can hardly wait to go out trick-or-treating. In fact, on Monday they were almost too excited to fall asleep, all in anticipation of Halloween night. Abhi's costume has a lot of loose folds and today we discovered that it fits Arjun just fine (& in fact probably actually has the intended look) - this is going to a be first for us - a hand-me-up: next year, Arjun can be the Red Dragon Ninja.

Arjun likes Pomegranate juice and I had bought the big bottle from Costco upon his request. Couple of days ago, I was pouring the last of it for myself. Abhi, who was drinking his milk was apparently following this closely and called out, "Why did you finish that, acha?"
Me (somewhat confused, since Abhi is not a big juice drinker): "Why, do you want some?"
Abhi: "No, but aeta likes to drink that juice." Arjun who was sitting nearby, nodded his head in confirmation.
I poured the juice back and wondered where this fraternal caring was at other times. Abhi got a pumpkin from his field trip, but has been protesting every suggestion of getting one for Arjun, coming up with one creative reason after another including insisting that Arjun had told him that he does not want a pumpkin. In this case at least, he would rather deny his brother.

Natural Born Runners

"Running shoes may be the most destructive force to ever hit the human foot." Thus starts Chapter 25 of the book "Born To Run", by Christopher McDougall. (The book is more narrowly focused on 'ultra' runners and the Mexican tribe of Tarahumara, who are called the 'Running People,' but often discusses running in general. I plan to write a review of the whole book soon after I finish it.)

The author then proceeds to list a whole bunch of research that has essentially come to one conclusion: the more cushioned/supportive the shoe, the worse it is for your feet. A very influential book for the pro-shoe lobby was "The Runners' Repair Manual" by Dr. Murray Weisenfeld, which made the case that the foot is the one part of the body that stopped evolving when we started walking on land and hence is imperfectly suited for running. He even went as far as to recommend surgery to remove cartilage from the knee to create the "runners knee", but most people who had the surgery came out with a painful condition that precluded any running.

One strong argument comes from a study published by Dr. Craig Richards in the British Journal of Sports Medicine in 2008 (Summary, Authors Blog) in which he found no evidence that high tech running shoes provide any reduction in foot injuries. In fact, the author went so far as to challenge any shoe manufacturer to produce such evidence, but nobody has responded so far. More about this later.

As in many other aspects, I was struck by the prescience of our yoga teacher Shashi. I find his insights into life and the human body to be very deep and powerful and have opined about this before. One of his bugbears is shoes - the manner in which they insulate and isolate our feet from the sensory experience of walking on the ground. He makes us do several exercises that are meant just to stimulate the foot. This knowledge is also used in Accupressure, of course. Contrary to the claims of Dr. Weisenfeld, the human foot is a marvel of engineering. The centerpiece is the arch, which as any civil engineer will tell you is the greatest weight bearing design ever created. The genius part is that an arch gets stronger under stress - the harder you push down, the tighter its parts mesh. Supporting the foot's arch is a web of 26 bones, 33 joints, 12 tendons, and 18 muscles, all stretching and flexing as required. The argument for barefoot running is very simple: the foot and the human body already know how to adjust to the impact of running. Shielding the foot with a highly cushioned sole is tantamount to cutting off the feedback loop. Sports car drivers call this having a "feel for the road." A sports suspension is tuned to allow you to experience every bump in the road because that directly translates to a more skillful driver. Every shoe store employee and several doctors (including mine) recommend replacing running shoes every 3 months. The research in fact shows the opposite: using older running shoes (the ones that have lost their cushioning and are essentially a flat piece of rubber that work only to protect you from stones/thorns/glass) are in fact much better at preventing injuries than brand new shoes.

I could on and on about this - the research, the anecdotes, the various big name runners who ran bare feet or with bare-bones shoes, but I will leave something for the potential readers of the book. Lest anybody think that I am questioning running as an activity, perish the thought! I am firmly in the camp (along with many researchers and doctors in the field) that there is no better aerobic activity than running. Done properly of course.

Is this all propaganda from the anti-Nike (the inventors of the modern running shoe) lobby? Hardly. Nike themselves know this and have implicitly acknowledged it.

In 2001, the highly respected coach of the Stanford track team (Vin Lananna) started training his athletes in bare feet, despite being a recipient of Nike sponsorship. When challenged by the Nike reps he simply countered that they had fewer injuries this way. To Nike's credit they did not play ostrich and proceeded to study it on their own and like any good business tried to find a way to make money off the 'barefoot movement.' After a few years of research and study Nike introduced a new shoe, the 'Nike Free.' A shoe that has almost zero cushioning and is meant to allow you to run "naturally." In true Nike style, the shoe was accompanied by an enticing marketing campaign with a very catchy slogan for the shoe:
"Run Barefoot."

Mr. Abhi Goes to School

Despite all their similarities, Arjun and Abhi have very distinct personalities. Arjun is the earnest one, Abhi is the interesting one. Arjun is driven more internally while Abhi is the reactive one. Many of his likes and dislikes seem to suspiciously mirror those of Arjun's. Going to school was no different. Arjun pretty much took to school (both Scripps Montessori and PV Elementary) right away, making friends and being totally involved and dedicated to his school work and activities. He is a bit of a perfectionist (total mystery to us of course) and gets very upset if you try to suggest that he is not doing something the correct way (once again, a big mystery).

Abhi could not wait to start school. He wanted to be just like his "eatta" and given his multiple visits to Arjun's class in Scripps, he was raring to go. The first week was fine and then the glow seemed to vanish. School was not just fun and games. There were lessons to be done and stuff to be learned. You had to repeat the same lesson and even worse, you had to remember what you had been taught. He adopted the tears strategy - as soon as his teacher (Ms Ada) asked him to do a lesson, he would burst into tears. She soon cut back from 3 lessons a day to just one. We would elicit promises from him every morning that he would not cry that day. Ms Ada was rather puzzled because he seemed to pick up stuff pretty quickly. Given his exposure to Arjun's learning and Malini's efforts, he was clearly ahead of where Arjun was when he started.

When I asked him why he didn't want to do the lessons, Abhi said that it was because, "I know I can't do it." Maybe our actions have something to do with this: We would often get upset when Arjun would make mistakes or be slow in doing some of his home work. So this may be Abhi's way of avoiding all that unpleasantness. Of course given that this is Abhi, I wouldn't put it past him to have computed that this is the easier way to get out of doing work!

Through all this, Abhi's natural instincts continued to shine through. Once after a bout of crying he told Ms Ada, "Don't tell my parents I cried. Its our secret." Another time, he asks her,
"What time will my amma pick me up?"
Ada: "11.30."
Abhi: "When will it be 11.30?"
Ada explained how the two clock hands would be positioned at 11.30. Then Abhi asks her:
"Can you please get me a small clock so that I can keep it with me? I want to know when it is 11.30."

Thankfully, things are looking up a bit. He has been better the last few days, going so far as to actually ask for lessons to do. He has worked his way up to 4 lessons a day and seems to enjoy (or at least tolerate) school much more. He would still like to be done though: Yesterday he wanted to know why he could not graduate like Arjun had earlier this year and then supplied the answer on his own: "Because I am not a big boy."
What gives us more cause for hope though is what he did in class yesterday: Out of the blue, he told Ms Ada that he wanted to sing a song for her and then proceeded to sing a made-up song which he refused to divulge to us. Starting to see their teachers as equals to their parents is a big milestone in a kids schooling life. Has Abhi reached that point? Maybe, but we are keeping our fingers crossed.

Nobel Peace Prize to Obama

The blogosphere must be going crazy today, especially the right wing ones. When Al Gore won the prize, Fox News suggested that he should have rejected it because the prize was tainted by the previous award to Yaser Arafat. Wonder what they are saying about Obama's win - I am sure Jon Stewart will have an outtake.

I thought I would weigh in before I read any of them blogs (not that I follow any) or hear from the TV pundits. I was shocked to hear about the prize being given to Obama this morning as I am sure the vast majority of people were. It still doesn't make sense to me. Does it dilute the prize or does it put enormous pressure on Obama? After all the Nobels have historically been given to recognize actions that have been deemed a success. Obama's election victory is certainly of historical significance to the US, perhaps even to the world given the prominence that the US holds in the world. However, is historical significance sufficient?

Then you flip the coin over and consider what message the Nobel committee may be trying to send. Perhaps they believe that the change of tone in the manner the US engages with the rest of the world is a sufficient achievement. In a round-about manner, perhaps they are trying to take the pressure off of Obama - "You are already a success, you can relax a bit now." Or maybe it tells us something about how Obama is viewed in the rest of the world - as a world leader who has fundamentally changed the way the global dialogue is held. His Cairo speech, the recent address to the UN, the attempts to engage with Iran, the backing off from the missile shield for Eastern Europe, are all signs of a more open, flexible approach to the world. After all the arguments have been aired and all the words are thrown back and forth, this will remain a choice that can only be vindicated by the passage of time.

The person I feel for most is Bill Clinton. He has been on the short list for a while and with his recent headlining activities, I would have thought that he would have been a good choice. One more Clinton aspiration dashed (hopefully only delayed) by Obama!