Photo: wikicommmons

AS A STUDENT OF Tai Chi Chuan [literally translated "the supreme ultimate boxing], I was stoked to hear about this study which came out last month from the University of Florida. It showed, among other things, that people with type 2 diabetes were able to lower their blood sugar over a period of six months by regularly practicing Tai Chi.

Tai Chi is an ancient Chinese martial art. There are many forms, but the root concept is the same: you focus on a series of postures and movements that simulates defending against various attacks. It’s basically an exercise in flow. Everything is slowed down to the point where the motions become a form of moving meditation, a way to concentrate on your breathing and harmonize mind and body.

Over the years I’ve practiced a couple different forms, and each time am amazed at how the ‘effects’ of an hour long session can last for the rest of the day or night. You have more energy, less stress, and you just move better. You pay attention to how you stand up, sit down, walk across a room. You have higher mental clarity.

I’ve also found that doing a little bit of Tai Chi before paddling, surfing or snowboarding helps me perform better. Some of the movements within the forms, such as ‘Needle at Sea-Bottom’, are essentially board-riding stances. And others, such as ‘Wave Hands Like Clouds’ teaches you how to initiate turns using your whole body.

I love it when science substantiates what people intuit for themselves. Tai Chi is healing. It’s something you should consider starting now, or picking back up if you’ve studied before. The key, in my opinion, is having a good teacher. Unfortunately I couldn’t find any solid ‘national’ resources. Please search your local area for Tai Chi instructors. Any other online resources out there? Please let us know in the comments, and tell us what health (or other) benefits you’ve experienced through Tai Chi.

Chicken Tractor. Photo: Jessica Reeder

Pretty much everywhere I’ve been where I thought life is good, the people had chickens. It just makes sense on so many levels. You can get organic eggs, you can harvest meat, the chickens help make the land more fertile–and it doesn’t take a lot of space to do it.

A couple days ago I saw this piece on the recent surge of people raising backyard chickens, which is legal here in Sarasota county. People living even on very small lots can use chicken ‘tractors’ like the one pictured here. Tractors are basically inexpensive floor-less coops that you move from place to place around your yard. The chickens scratch at insects and worms, and their manure goes directly into the ground as organic fertilizer.

Here’s a great resource to find out what the laws are for having chickens in various places around the US. It’s surprising how many urban areas, such as Seattle, allow you to raise chickens. Here’s another good site that sells tractor kits (although they’d be super easy to build yourself if you have carpentry skills) as well as poultry supplies.

As we settle down in Patagonia this fall, we’re definitely thinking about having chickens. I’m tired of buying everything. I want Layla to grow up eating food that comes right from our land, food we raise ourselves.

Community Connection

Anyone raise / raised chickens in an urban environment or using a tractor? Please share your thoughts in the comments below.

Spencer. A young dad. Another day at work. Linville Gorge, North Carolina. Photo courtesy: Spencer Cooke

Growing up, all I wanted to do was go kayaking. All my crew wanted was to go kayaking. As we went to college, we worked guiding rafts, teaching kids how to paddle at summer camps, working at gear shops, whatever seemed to help get you get river time. But nobody–it seemed to me–seriously considered being able to translate paddling into a career.

Over the years I’ve been stoked to see a few people make this happen however. One of them is Matador member Spencer Cooke. In this quick interview, Spencer talks about the realities of kayaking as a career, and introduces us to his latest production, The Eddy Feeling, a film about why people kayak.

David: Hey Spencer, can you give a quick intro on who you are and what you do?

I’m Spencer Cooke, owner and operator of Effort Inc, a media, sales and marketing company based in Western North Carolina. Water has been my element of choice for work and play for the past 13 years.

Effort Inc handles sales repping for paddlesports gear companies Immersion Research and Shred Ready. I also represent and endorse these and other brands as an athlete in whitewater and surf kayaking.

Rounding out the business model Effort Inc offers custom, contract video production and photography in addition to kayaking films sold through my company web site www.Effort.tv and the video site RapidTransitVideo.com.

Rapid Transit is a kayak filmmaker collaborative I began a year ago and through which my new film, THE EDDY FEELING, has been marketed.

Making Linville look easy. Photo courtesy: Spencer Cooke.

What’s it like working as a professional in the paddlesports industry?

On the outside it may appear to some folks that “I kayak for a living” and that is a quick, easy explanation for those who don’t or can’t understand how I make a living.

That comment is for in-laws and grandparents, though there are a ton of kayakers who truly think that a “rep” just goes around and kayaks and competes in competitions. It’s a pretty common misconception.

In reality I spend a ton of time in the office, in the car and on the phone and computer. Making all the sales, marketing and media occur happens only partially on the water but mostly with an ear to a phone and eyes on a computer screen.

Over the years the perks of this occupation have definitely been the fun of travel and exploration through which I’ve been able to collect a large library of photos, video footage and written journals… captured memories really.

I’ve been fortunate enough to have the support of kayak companies such as IR, Shred Ready & Aquabound to help fund paddling and surfing trips to Ecuador, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Ireland, Morocco, Canada (BC, Quebec, Ontario) and all over the United States.

Filmmaking and video production haven’t been the most profitable endeavor but have certainly helped defray the costs of all the travel. I’ve produced or co-produced at least twenty of the most popular kayaking films out there.

How long have you been paddling / filming?

Paddling for 15 years, filming for 11 of those. One of my high school teachers along with my father got me into paddling in 1993. I started out paddling a 16 foot canoe and progressed from there. I have been a national champion twice, represented the USA at two world championships and had a laundry list of top finishes in various disciplines of kayaking.

I’ve been a skateboarder for 25 years and always enjoyed watching skate videos. My desire for the sport of kayaking has always been to do what videos did for me in the sport of skateboarding, which was to get me really excited and enthusiastic about getting out and doing it. Video has the power to get you stoked and it is probably the best learning tool you could have.

Linville Gorge. The most remote canyon in the Eastern US. Photo: Spencer Cooke.

I loved The Eddy Feeling. It’s different than any paddling film I’ve ever seen before. Can you talk about storyline, and what inspired you to tell it?

Yes, I haven’t ever done a real documentary, a serious film, and this film definitely fits that genre. It’s a story about people. Probably only half the 58 minutes actually show kayaking. Everything else is about these people, their lives, their spouses, home lives, their workplace.

It shows normal people living their lives who also happen to enjoy kayaking. More than that it shows how much kayaking means to these people even though some of them may only spend weekends or vacations on the water, at best.

The action junkie is not left dissatisfied though. There is a plethora of footage of that took me three years to shoot from the Class V rapids of the Linville Gorge, and it is all to an incredible soundtrack.

To top it off one of the cast members successfully runs a first descent of an 80 foot waterfall at the end of the film. This is the pro paddler character, not the banker of course. I feel the varied content rounds out the film to satiate every viewer from the teenage hair-boater to the elderly outdoor enthusiast and non-paddler.

Where have you shown it so far? What has reaction been?

It has been shown in theaters in Athens GA, Asheville NC, and Charlotte NC so far and has received rave reviews. Beauty is certainly in the eyes and ears of the beholder. That being said I am happy with this video after spending a couple years editing and shooting.

Let’s put it this way: a non-kayaker friend of mine who has never commented enthusiastically on any of my past kayak films made it a point to call me with his excitement and followed up with an email critique. He said “bravo” and that meant enough to me to just stop right there. My work was finished.

Community Connection

Please check out our review of The Eddy Feeling.

Interested in getting into paddling? Matador has a step by step guide that can help get you out on the river.

Argentina: Centro, Buenos Aires

USD Price: $149,000

Bedrooms: 2 Bathrooms: 1

Notes / Link: This place is fully remodeled and right in El Centro, 2 blocks from Teatro Colon.

Chile: Villarrica, Region 9

USD Price: $110,000

Bedrooms: 3 Bathrooms: 3

Notes / Link: This house is in the town of Villarrica, and has world-class backcountry terrain all around.

Russia: Chystye Prudy Area, Moscow

USD Price: $152,000 (approx.)

Bedrooms: 2 Bathrooms: 2

Notes / Link: Right in the center of Moscow.

South Africa: Jeffrey’s Bay, Eastern Cape

USD Price: $152,200 (approx.)

Bedrooms: 5 Bathrooms: 3

Notes / Link: This pad has a barbecue, garden, and you’re close to one of the sickest surf spots in the world.

Australia: Deniliquin, New South Wales

USD Price: $144,400 (approx.)

Bedrooms: 5 Bathrooms: 3

Notes / Links A full on 27-acre farm near thetown of Deniliquin. Extremely affordable Australian home loans are also available.

Portugal: Evora, Alentejo

USD Price: $150,500 (approx.)

Bedrooms: 2 Bathrooms: 1

Notes / Link: in sweet village of Viana do Alentejo.

Indonesia: Lovina, Bali

USD Price: $107,000 (approx.)

Bedrooms: 4 Bathrooms: 2

Notes / Link: A straight-up private villa on Bali with mature palms / banana trees and some kind of ’split level swimming pool’. Ridiculous.

Croatia: Porec, Istria

USD Price: $150,700 (approx.)

Bedrooms: 3 Bathrooms: 2

Notes / Link: A 3-bedroom apartment with beach only 3 minutes away, along with the yacht marine of Cervar village.

Czech Republic: Prosek, Prague

USD Price: $144,000 (approx.)

Bedrooms: 2 Bathrooms: 1

Notes / Link: A newly renovated apartment with 74 m2 of living space and a 6-minute commute via subway to the city center.

New Zealand: Foxton

USD Price: $125,500 (approx.)

Bedrooms: 4 Bathrooms: 2

Funky designed4 bedroom home.

Primal housemate Quinner, later at Point North. Another day in the office.

Editor’s Note:Please read part 1 of the story here.

Dec. 15, 1997 – Fly Fishing for Great Whites

Tal Fletcher bounced around in the back of a van with twelve other guys all wearing black gear, camouflage, and face paint.

“I looked around at the crew,” he says. “Jimbo was there, M.C., Miles D., Gambler, Dano, Senior, and Quinner, among others, and I wondered who in hell I was to be with them.”

It was Jimbo’s birthday, as well as the night that Joe Montana’s jersey was being retired in San Francisco. In classic Primal strategy, the crew figured most of the attention—police and otherwise—would be on Candlestick park. It was the ideal night for bungee jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge.

Gambler at Auburn

The van dropped them off. They approached the bridge in the dark from the Marin side, then flung a rope up over a girder. Miles Daisher, with monkey-like gymnastic ability, ascended the rope then set up a rope ladder beneath the bridge for the rest to climb. As cars passed by 10 feet overhead, the group dropped into the understructure of the bridge, moving south toward San Francisco.

Some parts had catwalks for maintenance crews, but to get where they needed to go, the group had to cross several sections of thin I-beams with nothing below them but a 230-foot drop off into the Pacific Ocean. They moved slowly—most sitting down and inching along—except for Dano, who cruised around on the beams as if on a sidewalk.

To reach the center of the bridge, they had to climb ladders, slide down poles, and in some sections, climb hand over hand. At one point, their eyes were at tire-level. They peeped out across the road, ducking back down as cars passed by at 50 mph. In another place they encountered a video camera, and had to maneuver around it so as not to be seen.

The group made it out between the two towers, close to the center of the bridge, and set up for the jump. They called it “Fly-Fishing for Great Whites,” because the goal was to jump just far enough to get wet—a quick head-dunk in the Bay before getting snapped skyward on the bungee.

MC with bungee cords

When it was his turn to jump, Tal took a deep breath, then launched off the bridge. There were several seconds of wind and speed, the lights of San Francisco blurring into the darkness of the oncoming water. Then, six feet above the surface, he rocketed back, rebounding several times, gradually coming to a rest, dangling halfway between the bridge and the ocean.

The group lowered a static line through a pulley with a carabiner on the end. Tal clipped in, and the rest of the crew pulled him up, walking backwards on the catwalk tug-of-war style.

The others took their jumps, with M.C—who always used a bullet-like form—going the deepest, touching the water. There were a lot of high fives afterwards, and then the group went back to celebrate, drinking beers and watching videos of the jump that several people had shot via helmet cams.

“I wasn’t sure if it was ‘the ultimate,’” Tal says. “But if it wasn’t, then I don’t know what is.”

Photos courtesy of Tal Fletcher.

This Thanksgiving, the great organization Story Corps is declaring November 28, 2008 the first annual National Day of Listening.

From their website:

This holiday season, ask the people around you about their lives — it could be your grandmother, a teacher, or someone from the neighborhood. By listening to their stories, you will be telling them that they matter and they won’t ever be forgotten. It may be the most meaningful time you spend this year.

We at Matador agree that listening to the stories around us–and helping to share them–makes for a richer, more connected and meaningful world. We encourage everyone to participate in the National Day of Listening . . .simply by recording a conversation with a friend or loved one (check the video guide below).

Primal House member Quinner, another day at the office. Photo courtesy of Tal Fletcher.

1. The Coin Toss — 1993

Dan Osman. Flag.

Six months after graduating from high school, Tal Fletcher sat at the bar in the Beer Garden in Squaw Valley, California, drinking Milwaukee’s Best. The bar was below street level, windowless and dimly lit.

The in-house band, The Beer Gardeners, cranked through covers of the Stones, Credence, Dylan, sometimes hitting just the right combination of pitch and volume so that the old-school ski posters buzzed on the walls.

Nearly everyone there had come off a shift working somewhere on the mountain. They still had on work clothes, work boots, ski boots, Gore-tex jackets duct-taped together. The drinking and lounging was mostly relaxed, with stories of the day’s accidents, mishaps, or particularly good runs recounted over mugs of beer.

Tal was there on a coin toss. After graduating from Redwood High School in Marin County, California, in 1993, he flipped a quarter. Heads, he’d go to college, either at U.C. Davis or U.C. Santa Barbara. Tails, he’d move up to Tahoe and try to get on the ski patrol at Squaw Valley. But even as the coin spun through the air, he thought if it landed heads he’d have to go two out of three.

He didn’t have to: it landed tails.

Miles D skyaking

Tal went to a job fair in Tahoe and learned that his training and experience weren’t enough for one of the highly coveted spots on the patrol. Through his climbing experience, however, as well as his E.M.T. certification, Tal got a job at Bungee Squaw Valley, complete with a ski pass. He moved to Squaw that summer.

The bartender at the Beer Garden, Jimbo, casually pulled draughts—many into personalized mugs—then slid them down the bar. As always, he was sporting his mad scientist glasses, Ray Ban Wayfarers, only with clear, coke-bottle lenses. On anyone else they would’ve looked ridiculous, but on Jimbo they seemed to fit, reflecting, it seemed, his intense vision of the world.

Jimbo ran an outfit called Primal Instinct, which specialized in secret bungee jumps, oftentimes hitting local bridges late at night wearing all black gear and face paint.

Tal kept drinking and snacking on free peanuts, adding to the mountains of shells that would cover the floor of the Beer Garden by night’s end. He noted that for some of the more dedicated ski bums, the peanuts were dinner.

He watched the mugs sliding by. You had to show commitment, good attendance to get your own mug. But for regulars who didn’t have one yet, or for friends and special guests, there was also “the floater.” Tal had been putting in a fair amount or hours in the Beer Garden since moving to Squaw.

“Hey!” Tal had to shout to get the bartenders’ attention. “Can I get the floater?”

Tal glanced at the floater once more, then watched the other bartender lean over to Jimbo and say something. Then Jimbo turned and looked through his thick lenses.

“I don’t know that guy,” Jimbo’s voice rose over the music.

Shit. Tal felt the blood drain out of his face. But then he thought: that’s o.k. I have to earn it.

2. 1993-1997 – The Primal House

Gambler and MC

Over the next three years, Tal would end up spending many nights couch-surfing at Jimbo’s house, the Primal House. Eventually he’d move in, becoming one of the more than 50 people that for at least a few months paid rent there. At any given time, the three-bedroom A-frame housed Jimbo and several roommates, plus Boing, Jimbo’s big German Shepard, and usually two or three other dogs.

The two-car garage was full of every toy imaginable—bungee jumping and climbing equipment, backcountry gear, skis, snowboards, helmets, boots, skateboards, surfboards, mountain bikes, kayaks, motocross bikes, a raft, parachutes, hockey equipment, fishing gear, golf clubs—anything and everything except a car.

The gear spilled over into the house, from bedrooms to the couch in the living room, where there was a climbing wall. After moving on from the first Primal House, the crew set everything back up in another A-frame a few blocks away. In addition to the climbing wall, this one had a trampoline in the living room. The trick was to jump from the loft, bounce off the trampoline, then grab one of the holds, and stick it.

As occurs sometimes in just the right conditions and timing, the Primal House drew together a circle of people that became close friends, brothers. Owing largely to their trust in one another, the Primal crew would collectively push their skills in various skiing, mountaineering, as well as B.A.S.E. and bungee jumping exploits, pioneering new techniques and writing history as they went.

Primal House-mate Shane McConkey utilizing base-jumping skills to ski lines most people only dream about.

M.C

Out of all the housemates, the one who came from farthest away was Mihai Calin Constantinescu, or M.C., as everyone called him. M.C. had come to New York with his mother in late 1979. The two arrived penniless, having fled Communist Romania.

Although he remembered little about his childhood there, M.C. later wrote in his autobiography: “You could never forget the way the Russian Soldiers marched up and down the streets with their high leg kicks, or how there were lines all over the city for food or products.”

M.C.’s father had died in the 1977 earthquake. Only five at the time, M.C. wasn’t told about his father’s death until his mother took him to visit the cemetery a year later. “I believe that on that day,” M.C. would write, “my mother vowed to find a way to leave communist Romania and raise her only son in the free world.”

M.C.’s mother found work in New York as a cab driver, taking her young son with her on rides. Twenty years later, M.C. began his own company, Fast Taxi, hiring many of the Primal housemates as drivers. The first cab was 1973 Cadillac with a monstrous sound system.

Similar to the crowd-gathering effect Jimbo had at the Beer Garden, Tahoe-area locals would wait hours simply to ride in M.C.’s taxi. M.C. drove fast, and when he didn’t have customers, drove even faster, setting his personal record: 180 miles from Truckee to San Francisco in an hour and 50 minutes.

He was on his way to contest a speeding ticket.

Gambler on plane

Gambler

Frank Gambalie, or Gambler, set up his room in what was the Primal house’s sauna. In the mid 90s, he took up skydiving lessons with Jimbo. Their training was not so much for skydiving itself, but for building the requisite skill-set for B.A.S.E jumping, or using a parachute to jump off fixed objects.

At the time BASE jumping was still in its infancy, something undertaken only by a small group of veteran skydivers with years of training. Jimbo and Gambler made their first BASE jump off after having only skydived 12 times.

Over the next several years, Gambler took on a series of high-profile BASE jumps without getting caught. (Except in special situations, B.A.S.E. jumping is almost always illegal.) He had a working knowledge of alarm systems and locks, and dressed up as a technician in order to infiltrate buildings.

Eventually he was approached by Red Bull, which had just come to the U.S. Gambler became one of the first athletes to be sponsored by the energy drink company, paid to travel around the world and BASE jump.

Gambler’s influence over others in the house was profound. A short time after learning to BASE jump with Jimbo, Gambler began mentoring two other housemates, Miles Daisher or Miles D., and Shane McConkey. Both Miles D. and McConkey went on to become Red Bull Athletes, and Miles D. would later open his own BASE jumping school: Miles D’s BASE camp, in Twin Falls, ID.

Miles D prep

Quinner

While Jimbo, Gambler, Miles D., and Shane McConkey pursued BASE jumping, another high-energy house member, Kevin Quinn, or Quinner, began charging a different vision.

Seeking new adventures, he turned to Heli-skiing (using a helicopter to access remote terrain). In 1998, Quinn found a lodge in Cordova, Alaska that wasn’t being used during ski-season. Seizing the opportunity, he set out to create the ultimate heli-skiing experience, one that captured the spirit of Alaska not only through skiing, but every wilderness option from sea-kayaking, surfing, and ice-climbing, to wildlife viewing and fly / open sea fishing. This would become Points North.

Among Points North’s first guests were Jimbo, Tal Fletcher and M.C. “Life there was accelerated, like living in a Metallica song,” Tal said. Over the next several years, he and Jimbo would become guides there, and Miles D. was appointed “the Director of Fun.”

Senior

For more than a year, one of the downstairs bedrooms in the first Primal House was the sleeping quarters / office of roommate Mike Richardson, or Senior. Senior created a magazine, Boards in Motion with the mission (as stated in the inaugural issue Jan/Feb 97) to “always hold true to what we believe in. . .the rider’s potential to ride the boards as an extension of the body. . . the writer’s potential to share the transcendent, curious, raw, and personal characteristics of people and travel; and above all, the cycle of water in nature and the rage of boards in motion.”

Senior’s letter in the second issue, (Nov. 97) described a day skiing with his friends in the backcountry of Mt. Rose.

His letter ended by saying:

Some of the people I saw today, I probably won’t see until early April, when the migration north to Alaska begins. Others, I may never see again. It sounds morbid, but you never really know. The one thing I do know is that my memories of that day will last forever, as will theirs. . .
. . . I urge all of you to pursue your dreams. Drop everything and go for it. . . Touch as many lives as possible in a positive way. Very seldom do we actually get to say goodbye and yes, tomorrow is too late.

Boards in Motion never got as far as the Senior and Primal crew hoped—only 5 issues were published—but achieved something that none of the corporate ski magazines ever did. It spoke not only for the Primal House, but for people everywhere who lived their dreams.

Dano

Although he never paid rent at the Primal House, climber Dan Osman, or Dano, was a frequent couch-surfer there. Dano starred in several rock climbing videos, his long black hair swinging behind him as he flew up cliffs, free-soloing (climbing without ropes or safety gear), at maximum speed.

Dan Osman free soloing at high sped.

Like Gambler, Dano also saw something profound in the act of jumping off mountains, and began experimenting with controlled free-falls. Instead of using bungee cords or a parachute, he would deliberately fall hundreds of feet on a regular climbing rope.

For a decade, the Primal House was home to a crew for whom “home” was a loose term. Most, if not all of them, were more at home jumping off a new cliff or skiing a first descent than anywhere else. If anything, the house served as a place to renew one’s energy.

The code of the house—something that went unspoken, but instead, was directly charged and recharged through each day’s adventures—was that one must stay true to his vision. Inevitably, this led the Primal House brethren to new places, larger but continually intersecting circles. It was all part of the progression.

Stay tuned for part 2 of The Primal Crew, which will run next week.

Community Connection

Check out Tal Fletcher’s profile on Matador.