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Can Men Be Yogis?

In Literacy, we learned about Gender Equity. So I wrote the article paper called Can Men Be Yogis? I interviewed a lot of people and I researched as much as possible to get better article paper.

 

Can Men Be Yogis?

By: Marady

Yoga is not only for women.

Yoga is an exercise for everybody in the world.

Yoga has both mental and physical benefits. Yoga can release stress and improve mental focus Yogantomy mentioned, yoga improves physical fitness, back functions, strength, body awareness and prevents injury. The important reason people practice yoga is for the flexibility, general condition, reduction in lower back pain, and improve overall health. Additionally, it has the immense benefit to increase energy with different poses, and lower blood pressure.

“I love yoga and feel like it is beneficial for my mental health”, Cara Shelton, a facilitator from Liger Leadership Academy stated.

“I found it to be a discipline that I could keep working on and that made me feel good. I found it to be very similar to meditation and was able to sharpen my focus. The type of yoga I did was quite acrobatic as well, which meant I got a good workout.” Waseem Girach facilitator at Liger Leadership Academy stated.

“The problem is that there are little amount of men participating in the yoga classes. Most yogis are women and yoga currently is still dominated by women.” Huffingtonpost website said.

Beckie Harmon, yoga teacher, had declared “I have been teaching yoga for a little over 4 years now, while it still remains a female-dominated practice in the area in which I live, there has been an increase in male attendants. I have also traveled a great deal and I often am in classes with men or with male teachers, however, these classes are all still predominantly female.  I would say I have at minimum one male person yoga class, sometimes more, I remember a few classes (over almost 5 years) that were small and it was more men than women. I did teach at the CrossFit gym for a while and there were like 1/2 to 1/3 men in those classes.”

There are less men practicing yoga, simultaneously, the number of women is increasing. As Yogajournal stated, 82.2% are women and 17.8% are men all around the world are practicing yoga. Ages ranging from 18-44.

For instance, during my trip to a Vagabond Temple Yoga & Meditation Retreat in 2018 at Kep, Cambodia. The Vagabond Temple had the yoga classes and meditations. There were about four men in the yoga class and about 20 women.

The stereotype different people had that only women practicing yoga. Based on DOYOUYOGA article said, even though it is benefits for the physical health for both genders but many people view yoga as a woman’s practice. Men can sit in the lotus pose if they can sit on the couch or on a spin bike. People view yoga as gentle, feminine workout, stretchy, girlie, and not a real workout.

“I think most men are not practicing because of clothing usually they wear the skinny-legs” Kieran O’Neil, Liger Leadership Academy facilitator, said. She continued “Yoga has the stereotype it is a show-off exercise so men are more likely have to be very strong athletes. Also, men are competitive so yoga is not required to compete with each other.”

Cara Shelton remarked “In my opinion, men see yoga as a feminine activity and could possibly worry about being judged. Maybe men prefer weightlifting or more strenuous exercise.”

“After some time practicing the “Ashtanga” style of yoga, I found it to be very repetitive, and I got bored of it. I also got very frustrated because I was not progressing as fast as I expected. In order to progress very well, you really need to practice 5 or 6 times a week.” Waseem Girach said.

“I really enjoy male yoga teachers: my reasoning as to why I typically find a male teacher better than female: there are more female yogis and teachers in the practice and with fewer men, to me, it shows a great deal of seriousness about the practice. they wouldn’t be doing it unless they were really serious about it since it is ‘less’ common for men to be doing yoga. AND every girl you mean has at least tried it or owns yoga pants (in the states-ish but probably internationally too). So in order to be a dude that does yoga or a dude that TEACHES yoga, you must be really into it.” Beckie Harmon stated.  

Yoga has a lot of benefits, women and mostly men should participate in the yoga class.  Encourage everyone that has the passion for doing yoga to join the class. Stop having the reasons and stereotypes why men shouldn’t practicing yoga. We need more MEN yogis because MEN can be yogis. Ask yourself what do you like? If you like yoga just do it, it doesn’t matter who you are. The yoga class is welcome for everyone.    

Works Cited

“7 Reasons Why Men Should Do Yoga.” Www.doyouyoga.com, 30 Sept. 2014, www.doyouyoga.com/7-reasons-why-men-should-do-yoga/.

Editors, YJ. “New Study Finds More Than 20 Million Yogis in U.S.” Yoga Journal, 5 Dec. 2012, www.yogajournal.com/blog/new-study-finds-20-million-yogis-u-s.

Edwards, Michaelle, et al. “Can a Woman Be Too Flexible for Yoga?” Yoganatomy, 2 June 2017, www.yoganatomy.com/womens-flexibility-liability-yoga/.

Gregoire, Carolyn. “The Real Reason Yoga Is Still Dominated By Women.” The Huffington Post, TheHuffingtonPost.com, 28 Oct. 2013, www.huffingtonpost.com/carolyn-gregoire/yoga-women_b_4163938.html.

Niiler, Eric. “Yoga Doesn’t Attract Many Men. Experts Say Guys Would Benefit from Becoming More Flexible.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 21 Oct. 2013, www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/why-yoga-is-still-dominated-by-women-despite-the-medical-benefits-to-both-sexes/2013/10/21/a924bed2-34f5-11e3-80c6-7e6dd8d22d8f_story.html?utm_term=.e33d82a38112.

“Study Shows More Men Are Doing Yoga.” Www.doyouyoga.com, 5 Sept. 2016, www.doyouyoga.com/more-men-yoga-male-yogis-47859/.

joe@soberwatersretreat.com. “Is There a Relationship Between Gender and Injury?” Yoganatomy, 11 Dec. 2017, www.yoganatomy.com/gender-and-yoga-practice/.

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Independent Discovery (Thai)

I am Cambodian and one of my neighbor countries is Thailand. The Thai language resembles to Cambodian and some words are the same. So I have an independent discovery just to learn Thai language. My main resource is Youtube. Since I love to travel so one of my goals is to travel to Thailand. I thought it would be great if I know how to speak Thai so I can easily communicate with them. I want to learn more languages but to start to want to learn Thai language first.  Right now I can understand a little bit of Thai but I can’t speak well. 

Here are some examples what I learned so far:

Telling time

Gii Moong what time? (day)

Gii Tum – what time? (Night )

 

Kun bpai tam-ngaan gii moong? What time do you go to work?

Kun ja bpai nawn gii tum? What time you will go to bed?

Dtawn-nii gii-moong laew? What time is it now? (day time)

Kun dtuen gii-moong? What time did you wake up?   

Muea-kuen bpai-tiao glap baan gii tum? What time did you come back home last night?

 

Emotion

 

Chan sia-jai – I am sad.

Sia-jai rueang a-rai? What makes you sad?

Nawk-jai (cheat)

Pii ….. (name ) aat-ja nawk-jai chan. …. – (name ) might cheat on me.

Tam jai dii-dii gawn – control your emotion

Ao dtae jai – be self-centered

Tueng chan ja ao dtae jai, dtae chan gaw jing-jai na. – Although I’m self-centered, I am sincere.

 

 

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Sydney Morning Herald News

On the weekend I woke up, and after I showered I check my social media. When I scroll down I saw Liger Leadership Academy post something. Then I kept continue scroll down then I realized who is that girl in the news? I looked at it again I saw myself. I clicked on the link and started to read the news in The Sydney Morning Herald of me talking about business.

Please enjoy reading about me and Liger school.

https://www.smh.com.au/business/small-business/a-small-school-in-cambodia-is-showing-entrepreneurship-can-be-taught-20180220-p4z0zi.html 

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Women in STEM

 

In physic, we’ve been researching about Women in STEM because currently, all of the famous physicist, biologist, Computer Science, and engineering mostly well known are gay discoveries. Actually, a lot of women have done many amazing discoveries but people don’t know about it. I researched about Joan Beauchamp about her life, determination and her discoveries.

 

Joan Beauchamp Procter was born in Kensington Square, London, United Kingdom. She was born in 1897 and due to her health issue, chronic ill-health, she died in 1931.

 

However, Joan was a very unusual amazing woman who is internationally recognized as an outstanding herpetologist (the study of amphibians and reptiles), and notable zoologist (animals biology).  

 

When Joan Procter was 10, she owned snakes and lizards as her pets. She brought her favorite lizard with her literally everywhere, instead of dolls, like most girls were expected to. Joan even brought a crocodile to school when she was sixteen. Her passion from a young age really impressed many zoologists.     

 

Her health issue often provided an obstacle to  her when she was attending university, but it never stopped her passion. During  1916, Joan became a research assistant working at the British Museum. In the same year, she presented her first scientific paper to the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) about the difference between the Central and South American pit viper.     

 

Later on, in 1917, she was selected as a Fellow of the Zoological Society, as the first woman to become a curator of reptiles at the London Zoo. So as she worked at the zoo, she got to interact a lot with the reptiles. Joan achieved many things and discovered a new species called the Peninsula Dragon Lizard from Australia.

 

She is a genius woman that always followed her dreams and never gave up on her passion. Procter gave so much value and care to the animals, especially reptiles and amphibians. She became an expert in handling large pythons, crocodiles, and she was the first person to recognize the Komodo dragon crocodile. Procter decided to adopt the Komodo as her pet.

 

Since Joan always spent a lot of time with reptiles, she was able to identify  new diseases and invent new veterinary techniques to cure sick reptiles. Joan’s lifelong interest was amphibians and reptiles, so she kept continue working at the Zoological Society of London.

 

ZSL has stated, “She had the design of the reptile house with all of the structures, floor plans, exhibit details. She used all of her creativity to form the feature for the exhibit.” In the Reptile House, there are collection of reptiles, and amphibians such as snakes, lizards, frogs, and crocodiles. The Reptile House still exists today and is very popular.

 

Femmetek mentioned, “With all of Joan’s determination she spent the last years of her life for ZSL. She often came to work in a wheelchair fighting chronic health problems.”

 

Despite the huge challenge that her health provided, Joan Beauchamp Procter always followed her passion to discover new reptiles (Peninsula Dragon Lizard), and accomplished many great things in the field of zoology. .

 

Works Cited

 

“Herstory Thursdays: Joan Beauchamp Procter.” FemmeTek, femmetek.net/home/2017/4/6/herstory-thursdays-joan-beauchamp-procter.

“Joan Beauchamp Procter.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 24 Jan. 2018, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_Beauchamp_Procter.

“Joan Procter, Dragon Doctor, The Woman Who Loved Reptiles by Patricia Valdez.” , The Woman Who Loved Reptiles by Patricia Valdez, www.penguin.co.uk/ladybird/books/1116440/joan-procter-dragon-doctor/.

“ZSL Celebrates Dr Joan Procter for International Women’s Day.” Zoological Society of London (ZSL), www.zsl.org/zsl-london-zoo/news/zsl-celebrates-dr-joan-procter-for-international-womens-day.

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Mondulkiri Campaign with World Renew

I had an amazing opportunity to join the World Renewed campaign in Mondulkiri. World Renew is the living justice loving mercy serving Christ. It was three days workshop with around 60 participants came from four different provinces and Liger students. The first day of the workshop we discussed all amazing works we helped to improve Cambodia so far. For Liger students we listed a ton of things we did from the past, for example, Journeys of Change bike tour experience, the Rabies mission, the drug workshop etc. On the same day, we learned about Primary Nutrition because a lot of Cambodian don’t know about the food nutrition that helps their health and also the babies. What I learned from that day is that it is important that mother eat healthy food when they are pregnant, because it could affect the child life when they born or when they grow up. The second day we learned about democracy leadership. There are three democracy leadership: autocratic, laissez-faire, and democracy. We also learned about immigration in Cambodia. A lot of people moved from Cambodia to another country for so many reasons. Some people immigrate to another country to find jobs, to continues studies, war, and family issue etc. The third was lead by Liger Leadership Academy students. My team was leading on drugs. Our workshop had 8 people, 4 from Liger and 4 is our partner, the World Renew students. The students that involved they have so much fun and learned a lot from each of our activities. I knew they learned a lot because when I ask them questions they answer very well, and when they worked in teams they shared ideas and very competitive. The workshop we did was similar to the workshop that happened in the four provinces we did so far. The only differences were we added game and we let the students create their own performance in groups about drugs to show to everyone. In the afternoon the workshop leads by Liger students as well,  about AIDS and HIV. Overall, I learned a lot and get to know more people. Most importantly, I want everyone joined the workshop to take everything they learned and share it with their village to make positive changes.

Photos coming soon. 

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Drugs in Cambodia

The amount of people using drugs in Cambodia is increasing rapidly. There are many different types of drugs: Opium, Marijuana, Cocaine, Heroin, and Methamphetamine. The common drug in Cambodia is Methamphetamine. I went to National Authority Combating Drugs he stated, “In 2000 the total of people that used drug was around 500 people, in 2017 there were 20, 000 people. We need to take that number multiply by 5 because those people spread and share the drugs to other.”

This is a huge problem in Cambodia, as a change agent, we (Liger students) have to do something. So my Exploration there are eight people. This Exploration is the first exploration that speaks Khmer only and worked with 8 World Renew students from different four provinces (Kampot, Svay Rieng, Kampong Speu and Prey Veng). World Renew is an organization that’s trying to combat drug as well. Our Exploration goal is to focus on promoting drug awareness and intervention.

Basically, the World Renew students came to Liger Leadership Academy school. First, they came to our school for the whole day to know each other, we shared what we learned about drugs to them, and create the plan for the workshop that happened in the four provinces. Then, World Renew students came to live in our school for the whole week to create the workshop.

They went to National Authority Combating Drug and Drug Addict Relief Association of Cambodia with us to learn about drugs so they can share that information during the workshop. Our main goal when we worked with them is to partner with them to run the workshop, simultaneously, to teach how to be a leader. All of them learned in government schools, which the program they learned is completely different from us. They never lead and do workshops before. So we wanted to guide them how to run the workshop and how to lead other people. After we do the workshop with them, all of them can lead the workshop by themselves without our help. We also taught them a little bit of how to use Computer, Camera, most importantly, we created educated short film about drugs with them as well.  

Out of the four provinces workshops I went to Kampong Speu province. We told World Wenew people to find location and tell people to come to the workshop. During the workshop we wanted them to have fun, everyone share their ideas, and most importantly, we wanted them to learn about drugs so they share with their friends and families. In our workshops, we divided them into four groups, the four group needed to compete each other to find the winner to get the prize. We have four activities so they can rotate. The four activities are types & effects of drug, drugs trafficking in Cambodia, Reason people use drug & preventions, and symptoms and impact of using drugs.All of these four activities we tried to find games to make everyone participate and have fun.  After the four activities we showed them our video, then close the event and give prizes to the winning team. In Kompong Speu we did 2 days of workshops and showed the video at night. Both workshops happened in two different pagodas. The first days of the workshop the participant age range were from 15 – 70 years old. There were about 80 participates. The four teams are competitive, share ideas, and it looked like they had so much fun. The second day of the workshop there were about 100 students participate, they were in grade 7 to grade 12. There were about 10 elders.

We wanted to show our short film about drugs to the whole village so we went to each house of the villagers to come to watch our film at night. We choose to show the film at night because want everyone to come. One of our strategies was that first, we showed Cambodia famous ghost movie to catch more people attention to come then we showed them our drug educated film. They liked to watch our educated film because the film mostly the world renew people were in it. So the World Renew people were all of their friends and neighbors.    

I hope world renew people take what we taught them and can create and lead their own workshop that is fun and people learn something from them.

Anyway, our workshop was successful. I believe all participants learned a lot about drugs and they will share the information with their friends and families. Moreover, we requested the posters from the ministry and they gave it to us, so we put the poster in the village (in front of villagers houses).

 

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Zoonotic Exploration

Liger Leadership Academy students committed to being the future Cambodia change agent. My exploration for is called zoonotic mainly focusing on rabies. This is because of rabies the huge issues in Cambodia. Based on Pasture Institute stated the information since 2009 “there are 5 million dogs in Cambodia.” Pasteur Institute had tested 120 dogs brains and half of them carried rabies. As a change agent, my exploration tried to reduce the amount of rabies in dogs and cats in Cambodia. This is because about 800 died in the year because of rabies. We partner with three main organizations in Phnom Penh that worked on rabies. There are Pasteur Institute, Phnom Penh Animal Welfare Cambodia (PPAWS), and Animal Rescue Cambodia (ARC). Basically, in this exploration first, we learned general information about human health, then zoonotic, after that we learned deeply about rabies all around world and Cambodia. In order to spread the information about rabies to the villagers, we need to master ourselves on rabies first. Mainly, in the class, we learned about rabies virus, symptom, how this disease spread. In order to learn more about this viral disease, we went to these three organizations (Pasteur Institute, PPAWS, and ARC) to get more accurate data and collect some more important information about rabies.

 

Firstval, we worked with Pasteur Institute and decided that we can help them to make poster, video, brochure to educate about rabies. So Pasteur institute can have more ways to share the information (Pasture in very famous in Cambodia and people go there to get the vaccine).

 

These are our work:  

 

 

Our team had collaborated with Phnom Penh Animals Welfare Society (PAWS) to help the villagers in Mondulkiri dogs and cats. Mainly PPAWS help the dogs and cats with free health check, rabies vaccinations, desexing, and spray the dog to kill the lice. Basically, we divided into groups. Then some teams went down to the village and spread the information about the mission and convinced the villagers to bring their dogs to the place that we’re working. Moreover, some teams were helping the vets holding the animals, checking the animals heart rate while they are doing the surgery. Some of us helped them to wash all of the material after the surgery. Some students talked to the villagers and explained them about rabies while they wait for their animals. A few students learned and helped to inject the vaccinations for the animals. It was a great experience to see the real surgery and saw a lot of villagers bring their animals. One of the saddest moment of our mission, there was one big dog and got cancer so they had to do three hours straight surgery.  

  • Gave cat rabies vaccine.

 

Our last and most important partner is ARC. We talked to them if we can get ARC to collaborate with us to create our first mission by given free rabies vaccination for dogs and cats. This is because ARC works with pagodas to give free vaccination for dogs and cats. We were so glad that ARC gives us this opportunity. In order to make this mission go well, we need to put so much effort and determination. ARC only help us to give free vaccinations on the 7th February. Our team needed to create the entire event planned and divided jobs. The main goals of this event are efficiently (we don’t want to sit and wait too long for villagers to bring their dogs and cats), to spread the information about rabies as much as possible, and we want as many dogs and cats as we can. This mission had happened near our school in the pagodas. Firstval, we did the survey of the people in the community. We wanted to see how many people are willing to bring their dogs and cats to the pagoda for rabies vaccine. Moreover, we gave these villagers some important information about rabies to convince them. It seems we got a lot of yeses. We also talked to the village chiefs and pagodas monks for their permission. We got two pagodas agree as well as the village chiefs. So this means this mission is going to happen one pagoda in the morning and another in the afternoon. The next step is to come up with the creativity to advertise this event because we wanted to give the vaccine a lot of dogs and cats. We had created a sign to put at the place where a lot of people can read it one week before the event starts. We also create another sign that’s looked professional to put at the place the event located on the day the event starts. What we learned from the first mission we had with PPAWS is that we started to tell people about free rabies vaccination on the day the event happened. So that was not a lot of people came because this information is too quick for the villagers to find the way to bring their dogs and cats. Additionally, their schedules were busy. For our mission, we started to go to people house and gave out flyers three days before our mission. Some family one day before, so people can arrange their schedule or call to Tuk Tuk to bring their dogs and cats.     

 

On the 7th February, the unpredictable day. We felt happy and nervous at the same time. This was because we didn’t know if our goals are going to succeed. We were really hoping people to bring their dogs and cats. Two of our members rode on Tuk Tuk and took the microphone put on the loudspeaker to remind the villagers again. The microphone helped us a lot. In the morning we got to inject the rabies vaccine so many dogs and cats. Therefore, everybody in the group we were all busy. We didn’t have time to eat snacks. It was a busy morning, this is what we want. In the afternoon at the second pagoda, there were not many people brought their dogs and cats. So after two hours and a half, we got around 20 dogs and some cats. We decided to go to the villager’s houses. So we got to inject so many more dogs and cats. In conclusion, it was a successful day for all of us. We had put our poster at the event so kids and some adults can read it. Also, we gave out brochures to the owners of dogs and cats and some other people that stand around to explain them more about rabies. It was an amazing opportunity and a wonderful mission. We are really thankful to ARC for helping us and spend the whole day with us. In total, we got 170 dogs and cats that got a rabies vaccine. I was one of the people to inject the vaccine (unbelievable experienced). I am looking forward for another mission later in the future.   

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Vagabond Temple Yoga & Meditation Retreat

On the 11, January 2018 I went to Kep for three days to do join the Vagabond Temple Yoga & Meditation Retreat. All of the classes I took the yoga and meditation I have only one word to describe is a “WOW”. The yoga class taught me to take care of my body, love the body that nature gives me and say thanks to our legs, arms, etc for all of the hard work to build and support who I am today. The main topic for the meditation class is mindfulness. I learned that mindfulness is all about to open our heart to the world. The teacher told the class to sit in the lotus seat and close our eyes. Then fulfill our heart with love and share it with every single thing in this world. This is one way to let our brain and heart in peace; meditation made me feel super fresh and released all of the mess in my brain. During the yoga class, I made a lot of new friends. They are very friendly and I had the chance to talk to them and share my experiences. This opportunity inspired me to research more about yoga because during I saw only 5 men and about 20 women in the yoga class. I had the question that keeps in my mind why fewer men are practicing yoga?

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Sea Festival at Kampot

What a great experience I had? On the 23, December 2017 I went to Kep to join the sea festival. During the sea festival, there are a lot of sports that attend, one of them is Frisbee. I am one of the members of the frisbee team. The SWA ultimate frisbee team asked the government for frisbee to attend to be one of the sport at the sea festival. This is the way we can promote frisbee to Cambodian because most of them don’t know what is frisbee. The impressive moment when I played the game is that when there are a lot of people watching us. Moreover, frisbee got into Khmer news in TV during the sea festival. There were one of the moments which is the best moment when I was practicing frisbee there were so many people came and asked us to join and want to try throwing frisbee. Most people it is a new sport, they never have seen before. I had so much fun and got a lot of new experiences during the game from my teammates. My team won the first place but I would like to say congratulation to everyone that attend this event. Most people done amazing job and most of them this is their first time to play frisbee on the beach.

 

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Mekong Business Challenge

This year I participated in the business competition called Mekong Business Challenge. The format has also transitioned from a business plan to a business model competition which encourages students to design new and innovative business models using the business model canvas developed. Mostly this competition is for the university students, but my team is one of the first high school participants. Our business idea is to provide the service for all Cambodian and foreigners that live in Cambodia. We will have a call center where people call in and describe what is bothering them, where they live and tell them the best hospital they can go. This business called Find Me a Doctor. It was a challenging and fun experience. Our team challenge is to figure out the price of the profit and loss because we need a lot of partner for transportations in this business idea. Also, we want to find out the price that is reasonable for our clients and partnerships. A part of that our team have so much fun while we’re making the video, divide speeches, and create some actings. Even though my team didn’t win the semi-final, I felt like we won ourself because we put all of the hard work, creativity, collaboration, share ideas, and give all of our effort into this competition.  

Please enjoy watching the video that our team submitted to the competition.   

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJKKRiSuYS4&feature=youtu.be