The Marvel of WaterGym

“Have you ever heard of WaterGym?”
 

“Would you believe it if I were to tell you that I prefer to do aerobic exercises in the swimming pool than to swim in it?”
 

In fact,both the above questions are related to a floatation belt which is distributed under the brand name of WaterGym. It is sold in the US market and is specially designed to be tied around one's waist so that one can float vertically in a deep-water pool with one’s head and neck above the water level. Hence one can perform all sorts of exercises which are more extensive than swimming, without worrying about drowning. Exercises such as jogging, cycling, dancing with the body in the upright position or dancing with the body in a sleeping posture on the water, front or side leg-kicking, boat rowing, rock climbing, various yoga asanas, aerobic exercises and many other forms of exercise, some of which you may not have even thought of can be done.
 

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JX4TfSRxtlI)


     WaterGym is now widely used by the female swimmers at the Bukit Mertajam Country Club particularly for those who go there for a morning dip. Now, practically every female swimmer who comes for the morning-session work-out would carry a WaterGym belt, thanks to the energetic and efficient Miss Chiah Eng Too. She took the initiative and trouble to order the belts via the internet for members and friends who were interested to purchase the equipment. Since the past few months, she has already ordered more than twenty belts.

     Those who have used the WaterGym floatation belt, all agree that exercising using the WaterGym is more effective than swimming to burn off calories in a single session of a workout as it is more vigorous and more effective.

     Miss Chiah opined that,“I find exercising with the WaterGym is very good. It helps to strengthen my muscles and improve my swimming strokes.”

I have personally benefited much from using the WaterGym. After a few sessions using the belt in the swimming pool, to my amazement I was able to master backstroke swimming - something I have been wanting to master. Now I can perform more variety of exercises in the water apart from backstroke, breaststroke and freestyle - all these exercises can be done with or without using the WaterGym belt.

WaterGym has given me a new insight regarding swimming. From my experience of using WaterGym, I perceive that swimming is not as difficult as most people are made to believe. Actually, a person just needs to master the technique of breathing in the water,that is, to inhale with either the nose or mouth when his face is above the water and exhales with the nose once he is totally immersed in the water. As long as he has acquired the technique, he can innovate his own style of swimming; not necessarily confining to the conventional styles of swimming like backstroke, breaststroke and freestyle.

     The story of the widespread use of WaterGym at Bukit Mertajam Country Club started with my wife who has been plagued for years by her knee problem. One orthopaedic surgeon at the Hospital Pantai Mutiara in Penang, Mr.Wong Chee Leong, advised her, four years ago, to reduce her weight to lessen the burden of her knees in supporting her body. She was counselled to do exercises in the water as it is injury-free due to the buoyancy of the water. As my wife is a non-swimmer, she needs a float as a safety measure. She has tried out many types of float,but not to her satisfaction until last December when she was recommended to buy the WaterGym floatation belt from a swimming instructor at the Penang Sports Club. She found WaterGym to be the best floatation belt she has ever used.

     She uses it to do cycling and jogging in the pool. She also tries out other exercises that she has learnt from the physiotherapists at the hospital.

     Miss Chiah was curious and fascinated by the many uses of the WaterGym. After watching my wife using the WaterGym and watching the WaterGym DVD, Miss Chiah wasted no time in ordering the belt from the US. She loves cycling and remarks that cycling in water is safer than doing it on the road as one is exposed to the high risk of being robbed or knocked down by a motor vehicle.

     As the use of the Watergym becomes widespread among members, the rapport among them has improved, as the members would meet to explore,discuss and teach one another new exercises using the floatation belt.

     Occasionally, they would ‘temporarily forget about their weight control’ to organise Sunday morning gatherings with a potluck.

     Watergym is really a marvellous equipment. It is not only used to tie to the waist of the swimmer, it has also ‘tied the hearts’ of the members together by strengthening the relationship of the club members through frequent interaction and get-together.

     Believe me you will be impressed with the WaterGym.

A Letter from Nanyang

A Letter from Nanyang

Although my eldest brother whom I addressed as “KoKo”[哥哥] only went through three years of formal education in a remote village of Guangdong province of China, nevertheless he was acknowledged by many people who knew him as a gifted ‘petition writer’ in Mandarin. In those days,during the post-Merdeka years,in the middle of the last century, the only form of communication linking the people of Malaya and the People’s Republic of China was through the postal service as there was no diplomatic ties between these two nations of different ideologies. All correspondence in our household was handled by ‘KoKo’ who enjoyed letter writing to the extent that he would do it for free for all his friends and relatives who approached him.

He took pride in all the letters he had written. He would retain the drafts or carbon copies of all the letters that he had posted. He would read the letters time and again to his friends and relatives,‘highlighting’ the style, presentation and special quotations he used in the letters. Many's the time he would ask me to read the letters he had written to my uncle in China which I reluctantly obliged  as it took me quite some time to comprehend the content of his letters as he did not use punctuation marks. In order to understand his letters, I had to go through an initial round of tedious punctuation exercise.

He treasured all his correspondence, which he would keep in a drawer, for his future reference and for further reading. Unfortunately, almost all the letters were left in the shop house when the family vacated the building as it had to be  surrendered to the owner at the beginning of this century.

The other day when I paid a visit to my sister-in -law in Nibong Tebal, I happened to come across a few drafts or carbon copies of the  letters left in a cabinet at the dining hall . One particular draft attracted my attention. It was written by my late ‘ KoKo’ to my late maternal uncle in the year 1962, at the time just before my late mother made her maiden trip back to China after she had left mainland China for fourteen years.

The letter reads:

My dearest and most respected maternal uncle:

    It has been quite a long time since I last wrote you a letter. How’s everybody back in China? All of us in the family pray that you are in the best of health. Mother is very concerned about the well-being of uncle and uncle’s family members,especially your daughter,Sister Ah Gee, who was very helpful and close to mother. Mother is also very concerned about my paternal grandmother who is blind and leading a lonely life in the care of my cousin brother in China.

Mother always reminds her children to be grateful and thankful to uncle, auntie and my maternal cousin sister,Ah Gee, for all the assistance rendered in time of need when we were living in great hardship back in China. At that time while mother and I were living in China, mother had to shoulder the burden of taking care of me and my paternal grandmother. She had to take up any odd job available in the village,working as a farm hand,toiling in the fields,threshing rice or plucking fruits in an orchard, or working as a building construction worker,carrying stones,sand or cement, to earn a meagre income to support the whole family . As uncle is well aware that job opportunities at that time were scarce,especially in our remote and underdeveloped village. At times,mother was out of job for days, particularly during the drought，flood and winter season. Our livelihood was badly affected. Consequently,all of us in the family had to “tighten our belts” during those difficult times. Sometimes mother could not stand to see grandma without proper meals for days. She had to resort to a short-term but yet effective measure: to bring me along to visit uncle for a few days,so that we could have “ free food and lodging” at uncle’s house. When it was time for us to go home, uncle would provide us with plenty of foodstuff and other daily necessities taken from uncle’s sundry shop.

Some ignorant and irresponsible folk in our village misconstrued the noble intention of mother. They blamed mother for being unfilial by leaving grandma alone at home uncared for, while we, mother and son, were having ‘happy hours’ at uncle’s house. Little did the folk knew that the provisions mother brought back from uncle’s place were worth more than mother’s income for the whole month.

Going through life in hardship certainly is not a pleasant experience.Nevertheless, it is one lesson that is never taught in school. Through suffering,one learns to appreciate and to be contented as to what life can offer. It is no wonder that mother always told my other siblings that “as long as there is a shelter above our heads with three meals a day, we should be thankful to God.”[有得吃，有得住，就要谢天谢地.]

Uncle, you were indeed our refuge during those miserable days just as the ‘Triple Gem’ is to a lay Buddhist. Without uncle’s help in the past, we could hardly imagine how we could survive our days in China. Our family is deeply indebted to the kindness and generosity of uncle. No amount of words is sufficient to express our profound thanks and gratitude to uncle.

In this letter I wish to inform uncle of a piece of good news. In a month’s time mother will be making her historic voyage back to China to pay her visit and respect to uncle and grandma. She will board the cargo vessel, Hai Wang[海皇号] in Penang ，and disembark at the port of Swatow[汕头],China. As she is an illiterate, she needs a trustworthy person to help her to handle matters pertaining to customs and immigration document papers in China, and to dispatch the recipients in China the cargoes in the form of a baggage of used clothes and a kerosene tin of pork oil, and monies brought by mother on behalf of our friends and relatives at Nanyang. I suppose uncle is the person best suited to perform the task. Hopefully uncle would help mother in every possible way to make her short stay in China a smooth sailing, pleasant and memorable one.

That is all for the time being. I shall keep uncle updated concerning my mother’s upcoming trip to China from time to time.

Thank you very much!

With love from your nephew,
Tit Kong [的康]