Skip to content

Where different views on Israel and Judaism are welcome.

  • Home
  • Subscribe / donate
  • Events calendar
  • News
    • Local
    • National
    • Israel
    • World
    • עניין בחדשות
      A roundup of news in Canada and further afield, in Hebrew.
  • Opinion
    • From the JI
    • Op-Ed
  • Arts & Culture
    • Performing Arts
    • Music
    • Books
    • Visual Arts
    • TV & Film
  • Life
    • Celebrating the Holidays
    • Travel
    • The Daily Snooze
      Cartoons by Jacob Samuel
    • Mystery Photo
      Help the JI and JMABC fill in the gaps in our archives.
  • Community Links
    • Organizations, Etc.
    • Other News Sources & Blogs
    • Business Directory
  • FAQ
  • JI Chai Celebration
  • [email protected]! video
Weinberg Residence Spring 2023 box ad

Search

Archives

"The Basketball Game" is a graphic novel adaptation of the award-winning National Film Board of Canada animated short of the same name – intended for audiences aged 12 years and up. It's a poignant tale of the power of community as a means to rise above hatred and bigotry. In the end, as is recognized by the kids playing the basketball game, we're all in this together.

Recent Posts

  • Settling Ukrainian newcomers
  • A double anniversary
  • Deep, dangerous bias
  • Honouring others in death
  • Living under fire of missiles
  • Laugh for good causes
  • Sizzlin’ Summer in June
  • Parker Art Salon on display
  • Helping animals and people
  • New LGBTQ+ resource guide
  • Innovators in serving the community
  • First Jewish Prom a success
  • Prince George proclaims Jewish Heritage Month
  • Community milestones … Wasserman & Feldman
  • Düsseldorf returns painting
  • קנדה גדלה במיליון איש
  • Garden welcomes visitors
  • Spotting disinformation
  • A family metaphor
  • Hate crimes down a bit
  • First mikvah in B.C. Interior
  • Check out JQT Artisan Market
  • Yiddish alive and well
  • Celebrating 30th year
  • Get ready to laugh it up
  • Supporting Beth Israel’s light
  • Na’amat to gather in Calgary
  • Community artists highlighted
  • KDHS hits all the right notes
  • Giving back to their community
  • The experience of a lifetime
  • Boundaries are a good thing
  • Mental health concerns
  • Food insecurity at UBC affects Jewish students, too
  • Healthy food Harvey won’t eat
  • חודש שלישי ברציפות של הפגנות

Recent Tweets

Tweets by @JewishIndie

Tag: exercise

Don’t sit in your chair all day

Don’t sit in your chair all day

Dr. James A. Levine studies the health benefits of adding more movement to our lives. (photo from James Levine)

We are sitting too much – both at work and in our off hours. And all this sitting is doing us damage. But it’s not only about our health. It’s about how much we could be getting done, both professionally and personally.

When people read health-related articles or listen to health news, they “mentally categorize this information as health information. I think that is a mistake,” said Dr. James A. Levine, president of Fondation Ipsen, which, under the auspices of the philanthropy network Fondation de France, tries to promote scientific knowledge. “This isn’t about health. In the workplace, it’s about productivity: data suggests productivity – widgets produced per hour – improves by about 10 to 15%. In school, academic performance improves by about 10%, compared to kids who don’t engage in these activities and trials. Thinking about this as a health issue underserves the reader. Really, it’s about having a vital, exuberant, productive, happy life.”

While Levine – author of the 2014 book Get Up! Why Your Chair is Killing You and What You Can Do About It (St. Martin’s Press) – is a proponent of movement, he said sitting occasionally is not a bad thing. What is contributing to ill health, he said, is our culture of rolling out of bed, getting into our cars, sitting at an office desk and then driving back home to sit some more. Many of us shop online, order in meals, watch TV, play video games, check texts, email, use social media and go to sleep. Many of us are spending well over half the day, every day, seated.

“I think approximately 28 different chronic diseases and conditions are associated with excess sitting,” Levine told the Independent. “They range from excess body weight and obesity to metabolic conditions, such as diabetes, high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease, to certain types of cancer, such as breast cancer … to mental health issues, such as low mood and depression, to mechanical problems in the body, such as back and joint pain, and all the way through to quite interesting and quite subtle conditions, such as impaired productivity, lower innovativeness, and so forth.”

There is no simple solution. “It’s easy to conjecture that a few simple tricks can solve problems like this,” said Levine. “But, if you think about it logically, if it’s taken society 50 years to get us down onto our bottoms, there can’t just be a few simple tricks to get us up. The modern workplace is actually designed to keep people seated, because it was felt, incorrectly at the time, in the ’50s and ’60s, that, if you kept a person at their desk, they’d be more productive. But, in fact, that’s been proven to not be the case.”

image - Get Up! book coverFor some, like Levine, getting movement back into our lives means getting a walking desk. For others, it may involve having meetings with colleagues while we walk.

“Our brain neuros are continuously changing through neuroplasticity,” said Levine. “So, in other words, you can take a person with the brain structure of sedentary and convert them, through intervention, into a person who moves more. The reason this occurs is through neuroplastic factors that change the brain’s structure and biochemistry in response to, in this case, intervention.”

The younger a person is, the more neuroplastic their brain is and, hence, more adaptable, he said. The opportunity for an intervention to have the greatest impact is in childhood. As we age, it is harder for us to change.

“We did studies in primary schoolchildren which were fascinating,” said Levine. “We gave them five-minute motion stimuli or games during their lesson and we found that there was a disproportionate response in the children. In other words, if you give children a little nudge, they’ll move a great deal. You just have to give them permission to move. We found that, in slightly older children, ages 11-14, if you give them the same lesson, the children will double their daily activity. If, at the highest level, you alter the structure of the classroom, whereby movement is permitted … children will double their daily physical activity merely by changing their environment.”

For children, he said, the freedom to move will result in a 50% increase in activity; for adults, it will result in a 25 to 30% increase.

A first step to getting on a healthier track includes reading up on the topic, alerting your mind to the need to activate your body. When it comes to action steps, Levine advised people to start small and build on that.

“Look for two activities a day that you did seated, but that you can also do walking – things like weekly meetings with your manager, walk and talk,” he said. “Every lunch time, I won’t sit for half an hour. I’ll eat and sit for a quarter of an hour and walk for the other 15 minutes. I do it every single day. Every week, I’ve watched my kid go play hockey in the arena. Yeah, I’ll be there in the beginning, but I’m going to do a half an hour walk. We’re not talking about adding exercise. We’re talking about transferring sedentary time into moving time.

“My meetings are walk and talk. When I go out with my kids, we always walk and talk. When I go for an evening out with my wife, we walk to the opera or movie, or before dinner. If your evening out is too far to walk from home to, find a place to park your car that is walking distance to the venue. Park there and walk. While standing desks are good, moving while standing is even better. If not possible, consider placing your phone away from you, so you’ll need to get up to answer it and walk around your desk while you talk.

“Then, commit to your plan,” he said. “Yes, you’ve found five opportunities during the week to get up and move. You’ve built environmental cues to remind you to do it – on the fridge, the desk – and check it off on a weekly basis when you’ve met your goal.

“The last and final step might surprise you, because it may seem counter-intuitive, but it’s equally important to the other steps – get a good night’s sleep.”

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

Format ImagePosted on May 17, 2019May 16, 2019Author Rebeca KuropatwaCategories BooksTags exercise, health, James A. Levine, office life
An aerobic experience

An aerobic experience

Daniel Brenner’s klezmer aerobics workout and performance was inspired by the Klezmorims. (photo from Daniel Brenner)

Rabbi Daniel Brenner – who grew up in the small Jewish community of Charlotte, N.C. – has come up with an aerobic workout set to klezmer music.

Brenner graduated from the Reconstruction Rabbinical College which, at the time, was led by Rabbi Art Green. He began performing in 1987 with the late comic legend Chris Farley at the Ark Improvisational Theatre, and has been doing theatre ever since.

In rabbinical school, Brenner created the one-man-show Faster, Rabbi, Drill! Drill!, which won an All Out Arts New York playwriting award (2000). He also wrote a series of Chassidic folktales/plays for Philadelphia’s Theatre Ariel and has had a play produced by New York’s Vital Theatre, in addition to producing a handful of Purim shpiels. Today, he performs regularly with the band Midnight Nosh, on guitar, and lives with his wife Lisa and their three children in Montclair, N.J.

“Growing up, my home was a place that other people came to experience Judaism,” Brenner told the Independent. “There were no other Jewish families on my street, so my home was a site where many non-Jewish people experienced Judaism for the first time.”

photo - A big part of Daniel Brenner’s inspiration came from the Klezmorim’s Streets of Gold
A big part of Daniel Brenner’s inspiration came from the Klezmorim’s Streets of Gold. (photo from Daniel Brenner)

Brenner’s love of music came early on, as he listened to a mix of Shlomo Carlebach and contemporary American folk. In the 1980s, Brenner’s parents went to a Klezmorim concert and came home with their record Streets of Gold.

“I was ecstatic listening to the music,” said Brenner. “I couldn’t believe that we had music that had so much soul. As a kid, I was enthralled with Michael Jackson – music you can dance to. But, when I heard the Klezmorim, I was like, this music is just as good for dance. I loved it.”

While working out and listening to klezmer, Brenner thought of how amazing it would be to lead a class using this music. Originally, he thought of pairing it with Zumba, but then decided that klezmer aerobics would be the best fit.

As he worked on the idea, he realized this could be more than just another class. “I really tried to think of what story it wants to tell,” he said. “That really helped me get to the place where it was a full narrative, and a full show about the relationship between someone in the 1980s and someone in the 1880s.

“I thought about it in terms of the two great shifts in human past civilization, recent history – the shift away from agricultural, industrial, rural to urban that happened in the 1880s, and then also the 1980s, the shift between the industrial era and the digital era. I wanted the story that I told to be about that shift.”

Brenner started researching moves that would reflect, as closely as possible, the 1880 dance fashion. He discovered Steven Lee Weintraub, who teaches Jewish traditional dance, and engaged him in private lessons. Brenner videotaped these lessons and practised intensely to get a good handle on the movements and to effectively incorporate them into his repertoire.

“I told my beloved, I told her, keep in mind that I want to do this over the next decade, so she understands I’m definitely thinking long-term about what I want to do with the project,” he explained. “My goal really will be to work together with local klezmer bands in various places around the world to create an experience for people – to perform a show as a way to not only teach dance and tell the story, but as a way to connect people to the local klezmer scene who may not experience it otherwise.”

Brenner has created ’80s Klezmer Aerobics, a family-friendly, interactive dance-storytelling workout wherein “the 1880s meets the 1980s.” In the show, Brenner plays an aerobics instructor and leads an audience-participation workout, as he tells the story of a dancer, Levi, and his apprentice. The audience learns the traditional Old Badchen dances that Levi learns and creates when he runs off to Warsaw.

“I feel that the fun ’80s Klezmer Aerobics and the experience is going to be a draw for a lot of people,” he said. “Then, I also feel like giving people the opportunity to hear live klezmer music is a rare thing. In anyway I can, I want to help people dig the stuff I dug when I was a boy in N.C., putting that record on for the first time.”

In addition to the family-friendly version, Brenner has been considering splitting the experience into two parts – one as a matinée for the family and one in the evening, attracting a different crowd.

Since being performed last November, there have been a few shows in different venues so far. Brenner is working with some Canadian friends to create shows in Canada, having received a few inquiries about it from Jewish community centres.

“I’ve also heard from New York, Atlanta and North Carolina,” he said. “I hope to take it around the Jewish world.”

For more information, visit klezmeraerobics.com or check out Klezmer Aerobics’ Facebook page. There are also videos available on YouTube.

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

Format ImagePosted on May 20, 2016May 18, 2016Author Rebeca KuropatwaCategories Performing ArtsTags aerobics, Brenner, exercise, interactive theatre, klezmer
Personally tailored workouts

Personally tailored workouts

Ariel Ziv (photo from Ariel Ziv)

Although it seems like just yesterday that many of us were making our New Year’s resolution to hit the gym more often, the first day of spring has already come and gone and summer is just around the corner. Yet much work still lies ahead to achieve that “beach bod.” Not to worry, Ariel Ziv, a Vancouver-based health educator, fitness trainer and developer of Warrior Kickbox, can help.

Ziv, 31, was born in Calgary and lived there until the age of 6, when his Sabra parents, educators at Jewish day schools, returned home after 30 years in Canada. Raised in Jerusalem, Ziv completed his schooling and then did the mandatory stint in the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), serving in an elite unit in the navy. As an officer, he trained new recruits for combat, ensuring that they could cope mentally as well as physically in high-pressure situations that require integrity and teamwork. Ziv described his five years of military service as a “life-changing opportunity where I met my best friends for life. It is a privilege to serve our country and contribute as best we can.”

Like many young Israelis, Ziv went traveling upon completion of his IDF service, embarking on a four-month trip to South America. However, he was atypical in that, “I was the only backpacker that was working out!”

In Bolivia, he went to a gym for a drop-in session despite the “crazy altitude” that made it hard to breathe. Also in Bolivia, his travel buddies were chauffeured from site to site on a three-day jeep tour of the salt flats while Ziv ran alongside the vehicle. In Colombia, he ran on the beach every day.

Ziv returned to Israel from his post-army trip and enrolled in an intensive, six-month personal training course at the Wingate Institute, Israel’s National Centre for Physical Education and Sport. All aspects of the education were holistic in scope and took into consideration the different needs and abilities of diverse clients, including pregnant women and those with many different types of injuries. Ziv complemented his personal training certification with further accreditation at Wingate in group training for kickboxing, spinning, pilates, core and stretch classes.

From there, Ziv pursued an undergraduate degree in business management at Ben-Gurion University. However, “before I even set foot on the campus, I applied for a job as a personal trainer at Great Shape, the largest gym in Beersheva!” Ziv worked there for two years, during which time he met Chen, his wife, who is a dietician and yoga instructor. He was subsequently promoted to the position of gym manager at the Rehovot branch, where he supervised 20 personal trainers and hired and trained new instructors. Ziv also taught at fitness conventions across Israel. In fact, in 2014, he was one of only four kickboxing instructors from across Israel selected to participate in the first annual Kickboxing Convention in Tel Aviv, where he was voted best instructor by attendees.

Ever committed to continuing education, Ziv traveled to Finland to study CrossFit, a fitness regimen based on constantly varied functional movements – the core movements of life – performed at relatively high intensity. At the time, CrossFit – now a global phenomenon – had not yet arrived in Israel, so Ziv received his Level 1 and Gymnastics certification in Helsinki.

Back in Israel, Ziv channeled his passion for health and fitness with his education and training into developing a unique fitness concept called Warrior Kickbox. The practice combines simple, non-contact martial arts movements with functional training exercises that mirror daily actions – sitting and standing, pushing and pulling, lifting and carrying, bending and squatting. According to Ziv, Warrior Kickbox highlights the importance of “how to use one’s body correctly in day-to-day life” to prevent injury. He taught Warrior Kickbox in Israel until his move to Vancouver in late 2014.

Ziv had decided that he wanted to share his fitness talents outside of Israel. Although it was hard to leave “home,” he and his wife had visited Vancouver several times (his sister lives here) and he said it “was always in my mind to move here,” in part because of the health-conscious, fitness-oriented lifestyle of Vancouverites. His goal is “to do the maximum and have a positive impact on the community.”

Certainly, Ziv has kept busy since arriving here. He acquired his mortgage broker’s licence and works with Averbach Mortgages, he volunteers with the Canadian Red Cross and, of course, he is a personal and group fitness instructor to clients of all ages and abilities. He teaches fitness classes for seniors at the Legacy Senior Living retirement community – and was interviewed on CTV Morning Live about the benefits of fitness for seniors. He leads a family-oriented fitness class at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver (JCCGV) and has taught krav maga (Israeli self-defence) to elementary school-aged children through Temple Sholom. Ziv also teaches his Warrior Kickbox at the JCCGV twice a week and, recently, Inside Vancouver recognized the class as one of Vancouver’s top workouts.

The fun, high-energy, calorie-burning workouts attract a diverse group of people of different ages, gender and abilities. Accordingly, Ziv provides options for each exercise, catering to the range of different fitness levels in a class. He circulates regularly among clients to ensure that they are employing the correct technique.

A 60-minute class at the JCCGV passed quickly because of Ziv’s motivating enthusiasm and that of those in the class, including one middle-aged woman who amusingly shouted out general words of encouragement throughout the hour. The upbeat workout music, which ranged from Israeli classics to club electronica, also helped.

Rachel London, a 33-year-old mother of two and a JCCGV member, started personal and group training with Ziv approximately three months ago because she “saw him training other clients at the gym and was so impressed by how hard they worked and by the results they were getting.” She said, “Since starting training with him, I have not only gained physical strength and increased my fitness level, I have also gained confidence in my ability and potential to surpass what I thought were my limits. He is a master of creating just the right workout for you, whether you are a first-time exerciser or an advanced athlete.”

Ziv is committed to the success of his clients and finds personal training meaningful and rewarding.

“For me,” he said, “that’s the main thing – changing people’s lives [and helping them] keep healthy lives.”

One exceptionally noteworthy success story is of an overweight middle-aged man in Israel with whom Ziv worked for several months to help lose 40 pounds responsibly so that he could donate a kidney to his son.

Of teaching fitness in Vancouver and in the Jewish community, in particular, Ziv said, “I want to have a positive impact in the community [and] I really feel that [the JCCGV] is home for me. I love coming here. I love the people. I love saying Shabbat shalom, speaking in Hebrew, and playing Israeli music in my classes.”

Alexis Pavlich is a Vancouver-based freelance reporter.

Format ImagePosted on April 15, 2016April 13, 2016Author Alexis PavlichCategories LocalTags exercise, fitness, health, JCC, kickbox, training, Ziv
This week’s cartoon … April 3/15

This week’s cartoon … April 3/15

For more cartoons, visit thedailysnooze.com.

Format ImagePosted on April 3, 2015April 1, 2015Author Jacob SamuelCategories The Daily SnoozeTags exercise, psychotherapy, thedailysnooze.com
Proudly powered by WordPress