But that’s precisely why they and many others seek the help of Steven Memel, a Los Angeles-based vocal and acting coach who, for nearly 20 years has counseled professional and aspiring performers with a philosophy of reinforcing the purity of art as an expression of the self, one that must come from deep within. “There is only one art,” he says. “And that is life. There are just different channels through which we express ourselves.”

Rooted in this philosophy are his techniques for awakening, or reawakening, that artist within. With acting, singing or speaking, Memel explains, we are playing the body as an instrument. “You have to have an activating energy and a vibrating mechanism,” he says in a rich and mellifluous voice. “With a cello it’s a bow and a string. With a drum, it’s the stick and the vibrating drum head. With your voice, it’s your vocal cords and your breath. The amazing thing about the breath is that through our emotions, through our desire to communicate — and that’s what singing and speaking are — our breath plays an enormous and essential role. You can’t communicate all those nuances of despair, anger, love, joy, without the breath. Every single one of these emotional states correlates with some action of breath that is common to all of us.”

The breath, he says, is the very foundation that enables us to express this art. Without ballet’s plie, he suggests, there is no leap. Without the backswing of a baseball bat in baseball, there can be no home run. Without the air — without the breath as the backswing, the preparation — there is no sound. “The role the breath plays is the essence of our life,” he says. “It is the fuel, the source that brings life to us. Without it we cease to exist.”

Voice is created via air pressure being exerted against the closed vocal cords. In the typical adult male, those cords are just under an inch long, even less than that for women. “When you think of all the pitches and all the dynamic levels you are able to make, you are talking about octaves of notes being produced on hardly any surface area whatsoever,” Memel says. “Those vocal chords have to change shapes for each pitch. The body has to regulate a different amount of air pressure for each note too. It’s a match-up between the air pressure and the vocal cord closure. When you start putting together all the variables that happen on such a tiny space — the speed and accuracy at which we are able to do that — and get to the point where you are not even consciously thinking about it, that is truly staggering.”

As with anything, mastery increases personal confidence and trust. It’s a process that takes practice. “Just discovering that there is a another possibility of how to breath is sometimes a completely revolutionary thought,” he says. “You can hardly speak to a person about letting go of the breath when, due to stressful conditioning or all sorts of other things, they don’t have a clue what that means.”

Conscious breathing brings many benefits, beginning with overall body awareness. “Being aware of my body and sensation puts me ahead of the game in everything I do,” Memel says. “I’m able to learn physical things faster. I don’t have to master the art of letting go in the midst of a learning or crisis situation.”

In his late teens and early 20s, “People used to call me Mister Intense,” he says. “Now they say ‘Steven, you are so laid back.’ I attribute an enormous amount of that to the ability to breathe the way that I do. Just like in Aikido and other martial arts, you must stay relaxed so that in your moment of necessity for movement you can move in any direction. It’s not a dead, heavy laid-back. It’s a laid-back that allows me to act and react more quickly than if I wasn’t in that particular state.”

With even rudimentary conscious breathing skills comes balance in dealing with emotions, physical pain, lovemaking, even listening. “You are a better listener when you are in a balanced state,” Memel offers. “It helps with stressful circumstances, and certainly most importantly it helps in ways spiritually to develop peace of mind and to loosen the grip in moments of tension or panic, which we all have. The breath centers you. When you hold your breath you are basically guarding yourself against pain. When you breathe, you are leaving yourself more sensitive and open.”

Performers allow people to “be voyeurs of our experience,” Memel says. “Besides the technical proficiency, it is really learning how to become someone who comes from their heart and makes you truly believe and feel what we are communicating through the music or the acting.” It is coming from a place of truth and purity.

When you are focused on your breathing, and not resisting it, you are much more alive, aware and spontaneous. But to achieve that you have to undergo an initial moment of letting go your grip, breathing, and discovering that there is safety in it. “From that place comes the greatest strength, the greatest freedom, the greatest joy,” Memel says. “That is the hardest psychological and emotional place to get to.

Memel recounts the story of jazz pianist Oscar Peterson, who, when asked what he thought about before he launches into one of his elegant and free-spirited solos, said, “What I think before I take a solo is, here goes.”

Says Memel, “It’s a matter of trust because of the fear of vulnerability, the fear that nothing will be there if we let go, rather than discovering the beautiful array of possibilities that are alive within us at every moment.”

Don Campbell and Al Lee are the authors of Perfect Breathing (Sterling Publishng/2008) and write, speak, train, and blog tirelessly on the subject. Discover more ways you can improve your health, performance, and wellbeing at http://www.perfectbreath.com Reach them at info@perfectbreath.com or http://blog.perfectbreath.com

Such a diverse man with so many interests in the world, space, ocean, people, controversy, knowledge and last but not least imagination.

What an interesting life he lead, Not only was he a great Scientist and a Mentor for many, he also traveled the globe and spoke to many

Universities students spreading his ideas as he roamed across the planet.

But Who was Arthur C. Clarke Really? Born: 1917 Dec. 16, Minehead, UK.Parents: Charles Wright Clarke (Lt. Royal Engineers, Farmer) & Nora Mary (Willis.) Married Marilyn Mayfield 1953; divorced 1964. Lived in Sri Lanka since 1956; First non-citizen to become ‘Resident Guest’ in 1975. Author of 100 books and over 1,000 articles and short stories. Laid To Rest at Borella’s General Cemetery in Colombo, Srilanka on March 19th 2008.Okay everyone knows the details’ they are everywhere! Type in Arthur C. Clarke and hundreds of pages appear with details of his life and death.

I married my husband Mohamed a native of Srilanka in 1987 and as we prepared for our first trip to Srilanka in 1992. We were watching a TV Show and It was narrated by Arthur C. Clarke. I told my husband that I really liked Arthur C. Clarke and that was when my husband told me that Mr. Clarke lived in Srilanka. He then asked me if I would like to meet him? He placed a call to his brother in Srilanka who new Mr. Clarke and the meeting was set. I could not believe that I was going to meet him not only did I get to go to one of the most beautiful places on earth, I was going to meet the infamous Sir Arthur C. Clarke in person.

When we arrived in Srilanka I still had a week to go before being able to go see Mr. Clarke. However Srilanka is a place where everything is serial and there were so many beautiful things to see and places to go so that the time passed swiftly. Talk about living the “National Geographic Dream” this Srilanka was a place of Mystery, Adventure and Beauty! The day finally came and I found myself In Front of Author C. Clarke Home, I was feeling a little nervous and very excited, we were invited in and taken to his office where Mr. Clarke was waiting for us. After being introduced properly Mr. Clarke invited us openly to make ourselves at home and to ask him anything that we would like to know” Boy here I was sitting in front of a man with so much knowledge and I could pick his brain and ask anything I wanted too (I needed to pinch myself at this point). The room was very relaxed and comfortable and you got the feeling right away that you belonged there. So having relaxed and feeling quite at home I asked my first question?

I asked Mr. Clarke Why out of all the places you have been in this world, why did you choose to live in Srilanka? He looked at me and said (Oh My Srilanka why not) it is a place of beauty and the people are full of kindness. They welcome you with open arms they accept you for who you are and love you anyway. A lot of my work now is about Srilanka and I will live out the rest of my life here in this beautiful country (And He did). As he spoke with the others that were with me my husband, my son, my brother in law, my daughter in law, I looked around the room the first thing I noticed was the pictures on the walls. There were pictures of many famous people with Mr. Clarke standing by them and a lot of framed Awards and Honors that he had received also hung on the walls. I noticed all this books that he had behind him on a large bookcase, it was his life’s work displayed everything he had accomplished in his life was in this room. Wow what an honor to be sitting here and talking with him. There was a few pictures that really stood out to me and it was Mr. Clarke with the Presidents of the United States. I thought about how proud he must have been at these particular moments in his life.

I ask him several more questions and we talked for a while he was very Pleasant, Funny, Kind, Amusing, Keen, and his Personality was very likable, he was a unique host and very colorful. But there was also a glimpse of sadness in his eyes that seemed to peer out at me every once in a while and it seemed to haunt him. What was it? What could a man of his accomplishment have to be sad about? Was it loneliness? Regret? Unfinished business? Was there an emptiness in him that a man of his status could not obtain or fill? Were there thing in his life he would have did different if he could do it over again? Had children maybe? Discovered alians? New God? Or made some infamous discovery at the bottom of the ocean? I at that time’ did not know the answer to what I was thinking and to what it was that I saw in his eyes. Maybe it was the fact that we were there to meet the famous Arthur C. Clarke that bothered him.The person he no longer wanted to be’ I Was not sure but what I did learn that day was that Sir Arthur C. Clarke was a normal person that had lived a tremendous life of adventure and accomplishments. However under all of that he was a normal human being with the same needs as the rest of us. But he was also very good at hiding that fact” They say the eyes are the windows to the soul and I believe this to be true, because I seen the sadness in him when I looked into his eyes that day!

My how the time had passed so quickly, It was time to say farewell to this wonderful man and the time that we spent with him. I told him that I was and always had been inspired by his work and that I now Knew that my interest in writing would progress. I also told him that I thought of him as a writer yes, but also and most of all as the greatest narrator that ever lived and I always thought of him as the man behind the voice, and that I would always remember him as just that. He looked a little surprised at my comment then he smiled and said he had a gift for me. He then reached into a box by the side of his desk and he handed me three books, It was his Space Odyssey series and they were signed by him to me on the inside of each of the front covers. I remember trying to hold back the tears in my eyes and I thanked him for taking the time to meet with us and for sharing a part of himself with me, I gave him a hug and said good buy. I new that this would be the first and last time I ever saw sir Arthur C. Clarke

However I left there knowing that he had given me a rare glimpse of himself and that I truly got to see, meet and to know the real man. The real Arthur C. Clark not the famous writer or scientist, not the under sea adventurous and not the famous man in the pictures on the wall. But a man that was gracious and kind, that laughed with us and welcomed us into his home and his life with open arms. He showed me the side of Arthur C. Clarke that the world rarely seen and did not know. As I now Knew the answer to the sadness I had seen in his eyes that day.

I now Knew why he choose to live his life out in Srilanka! (His Srilanka) was a place where everyone is the same and excepted, a place of true belonging. I Knew that this was what he wanted and needed.I don’t know why I Knew that I just did. His Srilanka was a place where he could be Arthur Charles Clarke the man that was born in Minehead, England on December 16th 1917, The man who adopted a country as his own. Here In his Srilanka he could be just the son of Charles and Nora Clarke, Here in his Srilanka he was treated as just one of the members of the community, Normal is what he longed for and is what he found. Here in his Srilanka he could truly be just himself. Here in his Srilanka he could be and just was a normal man that was loved and excepted as there own by the natives of this tropical paradise. Truly Here in his Srilanka he could just be the man behind the voice, “Himself”

By Dee Saibo

info@herbsnatureshealth.com

Here are some of the effective tips to help you excel in your betfair betting.

Tip 1: Know your trade

Know your trade!!! Study the market you are going to trade and stick with it until you completely master it. For example, If You are specialise in Football Trading, do not move onto Horse Racing before You make consistent profits from the Football market. From experience, I find that if I diversify too early, I end up making more mistakes and find it harder to focus. Every market is different so I think it is a good idea to devote all your effort into one market to master it before you jump into another. Sport Betting in Betfair is a game of skills. So master it. Don’t be ” jack of all trades, master of none”

Tip 2: Write down your plan and stick to your plan – Paper trading First.

Write down your trading strategy and stick to it. You must be able to justify why you backed a particular team at a certain price and why you lay it at a certain price. It reduces confusion and costly mistakes. Stick to you plan and do paper trading first. Firstly, it can reduce your betting risk, secondly , practice makes your strategy perfect. Thereafter, put your first dollars on the games, and monitor your outcomes closely.

Tip 3 Do not be emotionally involved

Do not be too greedy when you have have a winning streak. When you are on winning streak, don’t get greedy and remember to keep your winning. When you are on losing streak, do not chase the losing stakes. Chasing your losing streaks will have you emotionally involved in the games, and a heated mind will not provide you with good judgment.

Tip 4 : Use e-Wallet To Transfer Your Fund

One of the important techniques is using e-wallet to fund your betting account. One of the e-wallets I personally used is moneybookers. It allows me to withdraw winnings frequently or every/week so that the money left with the amount that I need to trade. It will give me the psychological effect of starting back at the bottom again at the start of every week. It also prevents me from losing more than what’s in my Betfair account and preserve my winnings.

About Eric Smith :

Eric Smith is a professional player on betfair and he has taught many friends and peers to make money on betting exchange, particularly on betfair. He is a small bettor, but the amount he makes over time has been snow ball.

Here are some tips to help you to take delightful photographs of your cat:

Create pleasant backgrounds. Pictures are best taken when the background is clean and uncluttered. Neutral backgrounds are best, such as plain white walls, or various single-colored backgrounds. Furniture such as bookcases, tables, chairs and such will interfere with the quality of the picture and the beauty of the photograph might be lost.

Put your children in the pictures as well. Children are photogenic, and they do not have the awkwardness as adults do when asking them to pose in a photo. Therefore your children and your cat are able to look natural in photographs, and being able to capture moments of happiness as your child play with the kitten is most heartwarming. Let your children play or tease the kitten with some toy, and take pictures during these times, as candid photographs are the perfect ones.

Take pictures outdoors. Sunlight provides a better lighting for taking prettier pictures. The early morning sun would be the best time to take photographs. Taking pictures in natural light will prevent the annoying ‘red eye’ that occurs sometimes in photographs. With your pet cat being in the outdoors, the pictures will turn out to be more natural, as that is where a cat belongs. Before you open the door to let your cat out, please ensure that the neighborhood is safe and there are no harmful creatures that will pounce on your cat.

Get as many close up shots as possible. Close-up shots of cats are sometimes the most adorable pictures of all. Seeing a kitten’s contented and natural expression on its face up close and personal is beyond words. See below for more information on cats pictures.

For more information on Photographs of Cats, a popular website that offers information on Cats, Cats Breeding, and Cats Behavior. Please leave the links intact if you wish to reprint this article. Thanks

In order to play in these situations, you should have a read on your opponent. Past observation of your opponent’s play should give you an idea of the strength of his hand. How has your opponent played a set in the past? How does your opponent play a straight? Unless you have a very good read on your opponent, it might be smart to fold your hand. As you get better, you will have better reads and feel comfortable in these situations. More advanced players will sometimes raise small pairs to disguise their hand. Pay attention to your opponents and small pairs will win you a lot of chips.

Napoleon Will is a self-published author and semi-professional poker player. He updates the poker review and strategy site
http://www.mypokerstart.com

Most poker players think they are the best player. I am a strong advocate of having confidence in yourself to succeed but don’t cross the line. Most poker players are stuck playing at the same skill level because they believe they have figured it all out. The majority of poker players are losing poker players because they let ego take hold of their brain. They are incapable of learning the simple strategy of poker. Take time to write down your poker goals and how you will control your ego. Make a promise to yourself to learn every single day at the table. Regardless of how much money you make, your poker skills will improve.

Napoleon Will is a self-published author and semi-professional poker player. He updates the poker review and strategy site http://www.mypokerstart.com

On the turn, it is probably best to check down your hand on a flop with ace or king. On flops without an ace or king, you should continue to play aggressively. Continue betting the turn and river against opponents who are probably holding weaker hands. Sometimes you will have to fold QQ against opponents who show strength. Past observation of your opponent should give you enough information to put your opponent on a hand.

Most players will simply check and call with a weaker hand. If your opponent raises you, think about the possible hands he could be holding. Many times an opponent will call pre-flop with a pocket pair and hit three of a kind. It is your job to get a read on your opponent and decide if he has three of a kind. It is not enough to simply guess, you must have reason to fold your hand. Experience will allow you to spot situations where you should give up the pot. Pay attention to all of your opponents and the cards will play themselves.

Napoleon Will is a self-published author and semi-professional poker player. He updates the poker review and strategy site
http://www.mypokerstart.com

Sometimes your opponents will flop a bigger hand than your pocket aces and you should lay it down. If you suspect that your opponent has hit three of a kind on the flop, you should fold your pocket aces. For the beginner, folding pocket aces may be one of the toughest things to do. The more hands you play, you will start to realize when AA needs to be folded. Avoid getting married to a great pre-flop hand only to lose your entire stack to an opponent who flops a set of threes. Experience will give you the instinct that will allow you to continue betting or give up the hand. Observe your opponents closely and pay attention to their betting patterns on the flop. A player who rarely plays on the flop is likely to hold a strong hand. A player who plays on the flop a lot is likely to have a weak hand. Use your own observation and judgment to play pocket aces. The more you observe your opponents, the easier it will be to play pocket aces.

Napoleon Will is a self-published author and semi-professional poker player. He updates the poker review and strategy site http://www.mypokerstart.com

Kiss the Bride centers around four sisters from an Italian Catholic family in Rhode Island trying to work out their childhood hang-ups as three of them—all self-centered, self-absorbed and out of touch with reality—return to help their little sister get married.

This flick has drugs, alcohol, bad language, some brief nudity and really heavy, dramatic fights that illustrate the frustration and stupidity of the sisters who, thankfully, finally get it together by the end of the film.

Kiss the Bride is almost nonstop bickering, fighting and unpleasantness. You wonder if these people are ever going to get their act together. I ask myself, who needs it?

Am I a better person for seeing this film? Are you kidding? You would have to be on crack and standing in the middle of a train track waiting for an approaching locomotive to send you flying to think that time spend watching this film had any redeeming value.

Once again we have a writer/director with the same name: Vanessa Parise. She offers proof again that being both the director and writer of a screenplay generally breeds more failure than success.

As if to outdo other writer/directors who have bombed in these dual roles, Parise takes the role of Chrissy as one of the sisters who is self-centered and self-absorbed. Maybe she should try a one-woman show so her wonderfulness could really shine through?

Parise (average rating) joins a not-so-exclusive club of fellow writer/directors who have fallen short, including Peter Weir (average rating) for Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, Nancy Myers (average rating) for Something’s Gotta Give, Thomas Bezucha (average rating) for The Family Stone, Michael McGowan (average rating) for Saint Ralph, Jared Hess (terrible rating) for Napoleon Dynamite, Robert Rodriguez (terrible rating) for Once Upon a Time in Mexico, and Paul Thomas Anderson (terrible rating) for Punch-Drunk Love.

See Kiss the Bride only once or, better yet, not at all.

Sideways – 2 Stars (Average)

Sideways focuses on two men in midlife crises taking a one-week excursion through California wine country.

One is a broken down actor named Jack (Thomas Haden Church) who wants to get laid one more time before he gets married while the other is a wannabe writer and English teacher named Miles (Paul Giamatti) who masquerades as a brooding loser.

They were college roommates and now Miles is slated to be Jack’s best man.

Both of these poor excuses for role models get into enough trouble in a week to last a lifetime, and leave lasting scars as neither one has a single shred of personal growth during their experience.

This movie has some humor, but it is really a drama about two men going nowhere fast, hence the name Sideways.

The ending is really weak and offers no redeeming hope that either character will develop a life purpose or a perspective on living other than continuing to occupy space on the planet with their miserable existence.

I was anxious to see this movie because it was recommended by Charles Krauthammer, the Pulitzer Prize winning syndicated columnist for The Washington Post. Krauthammer felt that Sideways was a really good comedy that smart people could appreciate.

There are only a couple of commentators in print and broadcast media that I believe are extremely bright, have tremendous presentation skills and are worth valuable time to watch and read. Charles Krauthammer is one commentator I look forward to seeing on the Fox network and reading his column in the local daily newspaper.

Krauthammer was right about his observation. Smart, savvy people loved Sideways. I was just not one of them.

Alexander Payne won the Oscar for his screenplay and directed the film as well. Sideways was nominated for 4 other Oscars, including Best Director, Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor (Thomas Haden Church) and Best Supporting Actress (Virginia Madsen).

The film also picked up another incredible 91 wins and an additional 31 more nominations. So what exactly is my beef to have the temerity to give Sideways an average rating?

Just this: Both of these birds are going nowhere 1,000 miles an hour, and I would not choose to live their life or make their choices on the worst day of my life. Neither Jack or Miles are even likeable characters. To say that you like these guys and look up to them is ludicrous.

There are so many better examples of people who resolve their problems and get over themselves. Why watch and emulate a couple of jerks traveling through wine country?

Am I a better person for having seen Sideways? Hardly.

The Academy members can give Alexander Payne all of the Oscars they want. I think he needs to tell a better story with some redeeming value. I doubt Sideways will go down as a classic film anytime soon.

In the meantime, a simple film like A Christmas Story will be a classic long after the dust gathers on the can that holds Sideways.

Copyright © 2006 Ed Bagley

Ed Bagley is the author of Ed Bagley’s Blog, which he publishes daily with fresh, original writing intended to delight, inform, educate and motivate readers with articles about Internet Marketing, Careers, Movies and Life. Visit Ed at . . .
http://www.edbagleyblog.com

Priority in the list of merits should be Paapagriha saamya. There are three counts; papa-griha-saamya, dasaa-sandhi & sama dasa and star-match in this order.

The first step is the valuation of the paapa-griha in both the horoscopes and it should be equal or the valuation of the girl’s horoscope should be very slightly less than that of the boys’.

Dasa-sandhi should be matching. In our life, there are 9 dasaas in this order, venus-14 years, sun-6 years, moon-10 years, mars-7 years, rahu-18 years, jupitar-16 years, Saturn-19 years and mercury-17 years and kethu- 7 years, and the total will be 120 years, a man’s life time; and if a person lives beyond this age, the dasaas will start all over gain from the beginning. For every one at the time of birth a different dasa starts according to the star. No matter which part of dasa starts these dasas and will continue in this order only. During some of these dasaas, a person has to suffer a lot, and during some other dasaas he will have every thing in perfect harmony. This simply means there are good times and bad times in our lives. When the husband is going through a bad dasaa, the wife’s dasa should be good, supporting her husband’s bad time. This way their life together balances out, to enable them to lead a normal life with minimum storms and upheavals. In case both the husband and wife face bad dasa at the same time, disaster will strike. This could even be fatal. On could lose his or her life or something equally bad.

The third step is star-match, in the order of preference. There are Rasi match, Rasyadhipan match, Vasyam, Ganam, Yoni, Dhinam, Mahendram, Sthree deergham, Rajju and Vedham. Out of ten, more number of matches are preferred.

Look For A Bride Online – Getting an Asian Bride Online