"The journey is what brings us happiness, not the destination." Peaceful Warrior/Dan Millman

Friday, December 31, 2010

THE FASTEST MAN IN THE WATER IS A BRAZILIAN! 10th FINA World Swimming Championships (25m) in Dubai (UAE)


Cielo’s high note

Extracted from: http://www.fina.org/H2O/index.php?option=com_content&view=frontpage&Itemid=1

In what was perhaps “the” race of the championships, Cesar Cielo Filho (BRA) got the gold in the men’s 100m free, touching home in a new championships record of 45.74. Winner of the 50m free and third in the 4x100m free relay here in Dubai, Cielo also obtained the world crown in the 50m and 100m free at the 2009 long course championships in Rome (ITA), and getting the gold in the 50m free and bronze in the 100m free at the 2008 Olympics.

At 23, and training in Auburn (USA), Cielo is already the best swimmer in Brazil’s history and will certainly be the sprinter to beat at the next major rendezvous, including the 2011 FINA World Championships in Shanghai (CHN), and naturally at the 2012 Olympic Games in London (GBR).

In his successful trajectory, Cielo has been the “obstacle” of French sprinters, namely Fred Bousquet, Alain Bernard, Amaury Leveaux or Fabien Gilot. This time, the latest “victim” was Fabien Gilot, who finished second in a time 45.97 – it was his first individual medal at world level, after being first in the 4x100m free relay and third in the 4x200m free relay. The bronze went to Russia’s Nikita Lobintsev (46.35), who got his fourth medal of the championships, after winning the 4x200m free relay, and finishing second in the 400m free and 4x100m free relay.

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

BRAZILIAN CONSULATE VISIT



On December 21st I had the opportunity of meeting the Brazilian Consul at the Consulate General of Brazil for the San Francisco Branch. (http://www.brazilsf.org/indexE.htm)

The main reason of my visit was to officially thanks the Confedaracao Brasileira de Desportos Aquaticos,(http://www.cbda.org.br/canal-cbda/links-id-3604), for sending me the official Brazilian Swim Team uniform so I could proudly wear it in England/France during my Solo Channel Crossing Trip, representing Brasil.

It was a dream coming true representing Brasil with the Brazilian colors and the Brazilian Flag in Open Arms.



Follow below the letter I sent to the consulate:

December 21, 2010

Vossa Excelência
Consulado Geral do Brasil
300 Montgomery Street, Suite 900
San Francisco, CA 94104

Dear Vossa Excelência,

On 19 July 2010, I swam 21 miles across the English Channel, from Dover to Calais in just a swim suit, cap and goggles (no wet suit, per official rules). This swim is considered the Mt. Everest of open-water swimming, and only about 1,200 people in history have successfully completed it. I proudly represented Brazil with the Brazilian flag in open arms, becoming only the 16th Brazilian to conquer this major venue of open cold water. In September, two more Brazilians swam the English Channel (including, to my knowledge, the very first paralympic Brazilian, an almost unimaginable feat), bringing the total number of Brazilians to 18.

I was inspired by the Brazilian swimmers who have been conquering this challenging body of water since 1959, when Abilio Couto became the first Brazilian to swim it in 12:49 hours. Below is a list of all the Brazilian swimmers who have successfully crossed the English Channel to date (2010 is the first time more than one Brazilian did it):

1. 1959 Abilio Couto
2. 1979 Kay France
3. 1989 Rogerio Lobo
4. 1993 Ana do Amaral Mesquita
5. 1994 Jose Rodini
6. 1995 Dailza Damas Ribeiro
7. 1996 Igor de Souza
8. 1997 Igor de Souza (double crossing)
9. 1998 Renata Agondi (em memoria)
10. 2001 Christiane Fanzeres
11. 2003 Percival Milan
12. 2004 Marcelo Lopes
13. 2006 Marta Mitsui Izo
14. 2007 Paulo Maia
15. 2009 Luciana Mesquita
16. 2010 Edison Peinado Jr. (myself) – TIME: 12:29
17. 2010 Marcello Collet (paralympic athlete – one leg) – TIME: 10:06
18. 2010 Tiago Sato – TIME: 9:51

In an effort to shine light on a sport not yet as prominent in Brazil as our world-class soccer, I would be grateful if you would, in the name of the sport of world-class open-water swimming, give notice to the Confedaração Brasileira de Desportos Aquaticos and the Federação Aquática Paulista that three Brazilians (Edison Peinado Jr., Marcello Collet and Tiago Sato) achieved what was at one time considered unachievable.

My swim was ratified by the Channel Swimming Association:
(http://www.channelswimmingassociation.com/).

For 2010 swim results, please see:
http://channelswimmingassociation.com/doc/2010_Swim__list_181010_for_the_web_site.pdf

I would like to express my gratitude to the Confedaração Brasileira de Desportos Aquaticos for sending me an official uniform of the Brazilian Swim Team so I could represent my country in English and French Waters. I also would like to highlight the special care that Ms. Chrisitane Fanzeres, the CBDA Maratonas Aquaticas secretary and also a successful English Channel swimmer and Mr. Coaracy Nunes Filho, CBDA President, for making sure I received the official Brazilian uniform in time to my trip to England.


I have read that more people have been in outer space than have accomplished this feat. I am honored to be a part of this incredible family of brave and passionate athletes, and to have represented Brazil among them.

I appreciate your attention, and I look forward to talking to you in person if you think it is necessary.

Sincerely,


Edison Martos Peinado, Jr.

Sunday, December 26, 2010

CSA DINNER AWARD


On November 2010 Kim and I went back to Dover, England in order to attend the Channel Swimming Association Dinner Party. During this dinner I received my Solo Crossing certificate. The dinner happened on November 6th at the Dover Town Hall



Arriving in London



The Varne Ridge



Dinner at the Royal Oak with David and Evelyn, owners of the Varne Ridge and Gary Bruce, my Channel pacer.



10 mile run; Folkestone-Dover-Folkestone, before the CSA Dinner.

Moments before my run I asked David to help me make a hole on a pound coin so I could start my new collection of earrings. Evelynn got so excited with the idea she ended up getting some pound earrings to herself too.



CSA DINNER

During the CSA dinner I had the opportunity to meet the Deputy Mayor of Dover who made me an honorarian Dovarian.

UNE MANCHE PARTOUT STEPHAN LORENZZO


On July 2010 after my Solo Channel Crossing I had the honor of meeting French swimmer Stephane Lorenzo who became the first French disable swimmer to conquer the English Channel. He crossed the English Channel in 16:11 Hrs. Follow below his story and his website.(Stephane Lorenzzo, second from the right).


http://www.unemanchepartout.fr/mediascont.php?id=15

PRESENTATION.
STEPHANE LORENZO.

I am 37 years old, a competitive sportsman, and was a member of the French "Handisport" [disabled] swimming team from 1992 to 1996 and from 2003- 2004.

The passion is still the same - that of water and water sports, most particularly swimming.

The different occupations that I have had have always been in that area, and even now as I work as a Bodyguard and Swimming instructor at Aix-Les-Bains swimming pool, a qualified Sports Teacher.

After a break of several years for family and professional reasons, I decided to get back in training in the pool in order to take up a mad challenge: to swim across the English Channel. My motivation remains as strong as ever.

As I was born with a handicap, with no femur in my left leg, I still have to prove that I am as capable as an able-bodied person.

In taking on this challenge, I am hoping to prove to everyone that in spite of a handicap, of whatever kind, the human body can adapt and achieve great things.

To succeed in this project, I am giving myself two years of preparation [the crossing is planned for the beginning of August 2010] in order to make sure of my plans, to amass sufficient funds and to do my training.

I want to hold all the trump cards, have all the advantages on my side and so I have [ the help of] a physical training specialist, Frederic Bocquet, a physio-masseur, who will co-ordinate training sessions, and an advisory doctor, Valerie Gueguen, a sports doctor who will also look after my diet.

My preparations are made up of 6 x 3 hour long training sessions each week, plus a regularouting in a kayak on Lac du Bourget of about four hours.

I have the physique to do it, the mental capacity to succeed and the support required to make a go of this marvelous project: to be among the 900 swimmers to conquer the tiredness, the cold, the Channel currents and above all the first handicapped Frenchman to succeed.

An Association " Une Manche Partout" has been set up to collect the necessary funds. Also there is an internet site "http://www.une manche partout.fr" in order to publicize and give up-to-date information about the crossing, the training and to provide a site for the partners [sponsors]

I already have the support of various media groups who will follow my preparation up to the crossing. I would be very pleased to count on you as one of my sponsors, to carry our symbol, the flag of Aix-Les-Bains, of Savoie and of France as a sign of success and of surpassing oneself.




Swimmer uses Tibetan meditation technique in crossing of English Channel, Pt. 2

By South-Ender Mark Welte:

Mark Welte is a yoga-guided writer who has been practicing for over ten years and teaches in the San Francisco area. He aims to spread greater vitality in others-in mind, body, and spirit-through yoga, and help to de-mystify the ancient practice. Plain-spoken and humorous, Mark helps make yoga and its benefits accessible to everyone-including his wife and daughter! Reach him at . ilfaunoyoga@gmail.com


With so much going on for the first few hours of the swim--new waters, gargantuan challenge, a pilot boat the size he'd never encountered before, etc--Eddie neglected his Tummo. At the six hour mark he started Tummo, and "I started feeling warm, which totally changed my crossing. It became a joy. The water temperature was below 60 degrees but it felt like the Caribbean. When I finished I was on fire: standing on French shores I didn't feel cold or hypothermic. I got on the boat and my crew insisted I put on some clothes, even though I didn't want to. Later that evening, eating dinner in an English pub, I had to remove my pants because I was so hot! I got very little sleep that night."

Eddie was in the water for twelve hours and twenty-nine minutes, at temperatures under 60. He still practices Tummo, "it's winter and the Bay is getting cold!" He'll be using Tummo next week as he attempts to set a record for swimming from Alcatraz while towing 13 kayaks, as part of a fund-raiser to help repay the generosity the South End Rowing Club bestowed on him, helping him raise the funds necessary for his Channel crossing. The water temperature is currently around 54 degrees, and the swim should take well over an hour.

While Tummo's role in the athletic feat is undeniable and impressive, it's Eddie's larger conclusion that might be the most profound. "I would say you are what you believe. I see everything in life as energy. What we think about, we will attract. If we can mentally see ourselves accomplishing something, then we will accomplish it. As they say, “What you believe you will achieve.”

To the yogi that's truly paying attention to their practice, that sounds about right.

Please subscribe to this column, and follow me on Twitter, @ilfauno

Thursday, December 2, 2010

Swimmer uses Tibetan meditation technique in crossing of English Channel Part 1

By South-Ender Mark Welte:

Mark Welte is a yoga-guided writer who has been practicing for over ten years and teaches in the San Francisco area. He aims to spread greater vitality in others-in mind, body, and spirit-through yoga, and help to de-mystify the ancient practice. Plain-spoken and humorous, Mark helps make yoga and its benefits accessible to everyone-including his wife and daughter! Reach him at . ilfaunoyoga@gmail.com


Most people associate the practice of yoga with a routine of poses and a few minutes of meditation done in a room warm enough to illicit from the yogini a NyQuil cap of sweat, all packed into a 60-to-90 minute session. A yoga high follows, sometimes a frozen yogurt, too, and we're off on our blissed-out way.

That isn't the kind of yoga experience that San Francisco athlete Edison Peinado is used to. In "Fast Eddie's" world, the routine consists of one action repeated thousands of times and meditation that lasts hours, conducted in an environment of salt water ranging somewhere between 53-60 degrees Fahrenheit. And it goes on for over twelve and a half hours.

Eddie is an open water swimmer who this past summer completed the crossing of the English Channel. The feat is paramount in endurance sports, and calls on every fiber of the athlete's body and mind. Re-loading on food and supplements "mid-practice" is mandatory to keep up one's body heat and energy reserves. But sometimes even packet after packet of various "goo" supplements aren't enough to ward off the cold that drives down deep into the bones: "for the first six hours my stroke rate decreased and I started feeling hypothermic, and my boat crew could see my teeth chattering." Six hours is for most people only halfway through the swim, at best. And after months of training and thousands of miles and dollars to get to the swim itself, quitting is anything but an option. So how did he do it? How did he find the strength to keep warm and strong enough to finish?

The answer is a little-known meditative technique practiced by Tibetan monks, called Tummo. It is a discipline of the body, mind, and spirit that actually generates heat as an effect. Stories abound of Tibetan yogis sitting in the freezing cold with wet sheets draped around their nude bodies, and drying the cloth not once but several times. Tummo is a Tantric practice in which the yogi consciously gathers the body and mind's energy, and directs it toward a specific purpose. It is a variation of Kundalini yoga that cultivates an inner fire that burns away not only ignorance and ego, but apparently the usual physiological effects that usually accompany sustained immersions in cold water. "I visualize suns warming up my chakras, making them spin rapidly, and sending heat throughout my entire body," says Eddie, who now lives half the time in Chicago (he is an airline pilot with an ORD hub), and has yet to buy a winter jacket for four years now.

Check back tomorrow to read about Eddie's experience with Tummo as he swam the English Channel, and how he'll use it again next week for an Alcatraz swim fund-raiser for the South End Rowing Club.

Please subscribe to this column, and follow me @ilfauno

http://www.examiner.com/yoga-in-san-francisco/swimmer-uses-tibetan-meditation-to-cross-english-channel