Yash Chheda Writing Portfolio

For simplicity’s sake, we usually stick to the two pairs of passive/active flexibility, and cold/warm flexibility. Your passive flexibility will always be greater than your active flexibility, but with proper active stretching techniques you can close the gap considerably. Similarly your warm flexibility will always be greater than your cold flexibility due to soft tissue’s viscoelastic properties, but developing great active flexibility will enhance your cold flexibility as well. There seems

When it comes to becoming more flexible, don’t try to micromanage everything. Follow these guides religiously, & you’ll easily be more flexible than 90% of people. One of the most counter-intuitive aspects of the internet is the ease of accessing information. While information indeed wants to be free, there’s a new set of challenges that crop up: viz. sorting through the maze of information & trying to make sense of what’s accurate/helpful & what isn’t. These mobility & flexibility resources ar

Contrary to popular belief, this is how the body DOES NOT work: 6 meals a day, high carb, low-fat , & long sessions of dead-end cardio. In fact, this is the perfect recipe for how NOT to get a six-pack. In India we have CNG cars, which run on either petrol or CNG with the flick of a switch…CNG is the better option as it is cheaper, burns cleaner and gives you more work output for the same amount of fuel. Our body is like a two fuel vehicle: it can either burn sugar for fuel, or it can burn fat

The Pareto principle (also known as the 80/20 rule, the law of the vital few, or the principle of factor sparsity) states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes SImply speaking, the 80/20 principle states that 80 percent of your results will come from focusing on 20 percent of the work. This principle holds true to fitness as well. From Wikipedia The Pareto principle (also known as thee 80/20 principle) has been applied to training, where roughly 20% of

Rule No 1: Focus on diet first Rule no 2: You don’t need to even think about supplementing with whey for the first year, even if you’re vegetarian. Rule No 3: If you’re not making progress in the gym, it’s almost certainly not because of a lack of protein in your diet. That’s offering a very simplistic solution to a complex issue. It sounds good to say to clients, but it doesn’t do much for the vast majority of them. Supplement companies have made people think it’s very important to take prot

It’s the new year. You’re done with the hedonism of the holidays & make a resolution to get fitter & have the body of a model by the end of the year. You watch your diet, get started on a new fitness regime & hire a personal trainer to keep you motivated & accountable.You’re doing good, with some initial fat loss & some muscle gain, & get compliments from your friends. And then, you get busy with work, family & stuff that comes up. You skip one workout, because you’re tired after a long day at w

Fearful people are easy to control. It’s in the interest of those who are trying to influence you, for whatever reason, to keep you in a state of fear. There’s a meme of negativity in the world right now. It’s a case of divide and rule all over again. The East India Company did it by dividing us on the basis of caste and religion but it seems the current crop of young people doesn’t care that much about communal and racial differences. People prefer interacting with people on the basis of simil

The hyper-dimensional swimming pool, a perfect sphere, suspended in the glittering black of space, yet an island of blues & greens & joy & light. The kids jumping into the pool, I don’t know where they’re coming from, but there’s the blue sky & green grass right in the centre of the sphere. It’s a archetype of the universe, folded in upon itself by some spooky physics, completely self-contained, with no awareness of the existence outside of it’s bounds, a prison where the prisoners are unaw

The red stem glows in the fading light. Crickets & cicadas chirp in the depth of the woods. One of the many elders trees in the forest angled dangerously on the steep slope. The top of the holy mountain was crowned by a silver grey mist. He looked wearily at the hidden peaks. He had a long way to travel, but little daylight left. Yet, he could sense the still sacredness of the place. The shaman he had met along the mountain path, & who had accompanied him to the base of the holy mountain, had

Why do you read, she asked? An innocent enough question, it seemed, on the surface, but the glint in her eye made me feel I’d better make it good. ‘Oh boy!’ I thought, but out loud I said, ‘Well, book reading is for me the same as mind reading, or atleast the closest I’ll get to it. I get to glimpse into the mind of another, develop perceptions and make judgements as they would, put on a different set of mind filters, and see the world tainted by their life experience. Why do you?’ ‘Well, it

I came out into the dark of the courtyard for some cold air & space & to smoke a cigarette. I was surprised to find other people who had had the same idea already staking out territories on the slate covered walkway, which gleamed dully like a singular trail in the forest determined to lead weary travellers in the right direction, in spite of themselves. I found a nice patch of real estate between two couples, one on either side of me about ten feet away each. It’s funny how territorial tende

I’ve been having these deja vu moments since I got here. Fragments of reality looped into the infinite space-time continuum, which I tap into from time to time. Wispy clouds of memories, events & interactions doomed to repeat for all eternity. Is that what we call ghosts or spirits? Like the ghost in the machine, where random lines of code coming together to cause collisions of algorithms & if-then loops, give rise to unexpected  emergent behaviour. Is that all that consciousness is? Localise

Mornings here are a fascinating, even surreal experience. I still haven’t gotten used to it being daylight at 4. 30 am. A lifetime of being attuned to my home town’s circadian cycle is not easily overcome. As yet, because of the limitations of settling a population on rocky slopes, the population remains low enough that it’s peaceful most of the day. Low hanging clouds seep in through the cracks in the mountains, just as alluring as a bead of sweat running down a woman’s breast, making their

Sitting among trees or other natural settings seems to set up certain pattern of neural firing, what is termed as an alpha-wave dominant states by some, a state of active relaxation where creativity & introspective thoughts are enhanced. I also consider this as the default idling state of the human brain, & necessary to spend large amounts of time in daily for healthy long-term mental & emotional wellbeing. We cannot abuse our limited cognitive capacity for extended periods of time & expect to

The town seems to be winding down. Apart from the main chowk in the village, businesses were starting to shut shop & make their way home. I could hear children being scolded for returning home late, dinner was a time for family & socialising. I believe this is a tradition harkening back to our ancient hunter-gatherer roots, when nights were safest with your tribe & a fire blazing nearby. The days hunting & gathering would be prepared to make a feast as thanks for the fruit of the day’s toil.

The sounds of power tools pierces the stillness of the village. The birds try valiantly to compete to be heard over the monstrous wailing, but accepting defeat, make their perch a little farther, so that they too may have the validation of being heard. This need to be heard in humans has always fascinated me. The evening conversations in the cafe were always like a volleyball match between opposing players, with one talking about themselves, sending a solipsistic volley across the table littere

I love the movie Fight Club. I especially love watching it with a bunch of guys, with a few beers thrown into the mix. I’ve talked to so many women who’ve watched the film & thought it was ‘a nice movie’. Comments about Brad Pitt usually follow. :^) The conclusion I’ve come to is the overwhelming majority of the female audience couldn’t relate with the themes presented in it. I suppose the fair equivalent would be me watching the Ya Ya Sisterhood & being left confused by what I was seeing pla

One thing that has been a gamechanger for me is to never buy individual items, but to always buy complete outfits, and buy colours that go together with each other so you can mix & match. Another very important thing you need to do is choose colours according to one’s skin tone. Dark colours look great on fair guys, while darker guys should wear lighter colours (but they almost never do). Mostly you just go light and dark alternates. They always work. If you’re going for the classy casual lo

Writers Block & How to Work Through It – Melanie Garcia (The Writing Center at GULC) PDF Download The Difference between a Music Producer & a Wannabe (Replace ‘Music Producer’ with ‘Writer’