Roller skating – Now is a good time to learn to skate!

By: Godwin Ives

Roller skating, which is also referred to as inline skating is an extremely fun and rewarding activity for virtually everybody. However, there are several misconceptions surrounding this sport. For instance, many people consider that they are passed the age when they can try and successfully attain the skills necessary to participate in roller skating activities. Alternatively, others think that roller skating requires being in top physical shape. These negative stereotypes are most likely fueled by skate videos portraying the typical roller skater as men or women in their twenties and with impressively sculpted muscles.

Roller Skating [ Photo credit: Sports Information ]

However, this guide is here to tell you that the only thing that could possibly prevent a person from learning how to skate is a major impairment or disability. Of course, an individual who has difficulties walking or keeping his balance is very unlikely to skate, if the condition is permanent. Otherwise, all the techniques necessary for skating as well as the physical aptitudes can be achieved, providing you have the necessary determination. Strength and stamina are among the primary attributes an aspiring skater needs to develop, in addition to balance and coordination. You cannot expect the skates to do everything for you and the effort in learning how to keep yourself up and the ability to withstand the prolonged effort are mandatory.

Moreover, just like in the case of taking the first steps in any new activity, roller skating will require determination. You cannot hope to perform like a professional from the first moments you put on the skates. Yes, you will fall, you will scrape your knees and elbows and the first few times you will probably find keeping your balance exhausting. But with sufficient determination, you will find the strength to get back up there and try again and again until skating feels as natural as walking to you. Once you have mastered the basics of inline skating, it’s your decision whether you want to take this sport further.

In order to learn the more complex moves, skate videos and guides are your best bet. Pay special attention to how the professional skaters perform the more difficult moves in their skate videos, read their commentaries and try to reproduce them. It is unadvisable to skip directly to mind-blowing techniques. Rather than that, take the step by step approach and increase the difficulty of your moves gradually. Remember, even the pro skaters did not suddenly wake up one morning and performed a difficult trick successfully the first time.

It is exemplary to note that many individuals do not practice performance inline skating and this sport is equally rewarding for them. For example, they do it as a recreational activity, for socialization purposes, as an alternative form of green transportation around town or simply to stay in shape. You will agree that competitive inline skating is not for everyone and a senior citizen will probably have difficulties performing the same stunts as a teenager. That does not mean that he should avoid the sport altogether if he is perfectly content to skate for fun.

Author Resource:->  Youtube is oftentimes a good source of skate videos and do you know that there are also videos showing you different kinds of roller skating games that you can play?

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Beware of unwanted guests while fishing

On 6th June, I shared a video warning the fishing enthusiasts for what other than fish they may get hooked on to their fishing line.

Today, while reading the world news, another similar news attracted my attention. Now this is a bit weird as while fishing and almost catching a mythical 13 feet giant squib, the fishermen find a hungry shark coming over and attacking their cache.

Photos courtesy: Al McGlashan/YouTube

Mail Online reports that The Australian Daily Telegraph fishing columnist - and big-game fisherman - Al McGlashan was sailing off the coast of New South Wales, Australia, at the weekend when he came across the carcass of a 13-foot squid.

And when McGlashan got into the water to explore the carcass, he found he was not the only interested party - a large blue shark came and made himself known, before devouring parts of the carcass.


Watch the video of the shark attack:

Read more: Mail Online
Video Courtesy: Dailytelegraphau/YouTube

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Beware while you go fishing

Fishing is one of the most enjoyable and 'in' hobby of a lot of hobbyists around the world. The fishing enthusiasts spend countless hours sitting and waiting for a little jerk in their fishing rods to catch the booty. But sometime you may get something other than a fish - may be a an old boot, under water bush or  even an Octopus.

Yes Octopus - though catching octopus while fishing is very rare, but sometimes it does get caught on to your fishing hook - so beware of such an eventuality and do not panic. Rest assured nothing gigantic as seen in movies would come out but remember it is bigger than the biggest fish you ever hooked.

I came across the following video on YouTube and I thought of sharing it with my fishing hobbyists with a little commentary as shared with the video:

Megapickles, who shared the video adds: Bryce hooked into a octopus which he originally thought was a snag. I was able to get some pretty sweet underwater shots while it was next to his kayak. The octopus was kept and enjoyed. It swallowed a pretty large hook so its survival was unlikely. I used a Kodak Playsport (Zx3) to film this.

It is further added: For the record, I didn't kill it, or eat it. I just filmed it. Also, it was not wasted. Its sacrifice was well respected among those that did eat it. I'm not a biologist of any kind, but a simple search on the internet shows that octopuses are not a rare animal. In fact, there is evidence that suggests they are overpopulated in their range. They have a life-span of 3 to 5 years so I'm guessing because of its size that this one was nearing the end of that span. So, I would rather it be killed quickly and not wasted than it be set free to suffer and starve for the last year or so of its life with a six inch hook in its mouth. 


Video/commentary courtesy: YouTube / Megapickles

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Hunting – an exciting but controversial outdoor hobby

Hunting, like many other outdoor hobbies, is one of the most liked hobbies around the world. Hunting started as a means of living when the first human on earth threw a stone on an animal to eat its meat and use its coat as part of his cloak. Even when other means of catching animal for eating became common, hunting as a passion continued since time immemorial and continues even now. There are many views on hunting as some consider it unethical to kill animals for fun sake and is even considered as crime in some countries. The hunting hurts when the hunters hunt nearly extinct species of animals and birds despite strict prohibition of their hunt.

The real fun of hunting is to enjoy the nature form very close quarters and watch animals and birds in their natural habitat. Besides it is good physical exercise and perfects one’s aim and coordination. Hunting includes animal hunting, like the deer and elk hunting and bird hunting like partridges, turkey, bustards and other fowl.

Hunting is done using many means like guns, arrows and even by specially trained dogs and birds like falcons. The lords and dignitaries are often seen in films running after their hunt with hounds or drum beaters trying to encircle a lion and ultimately killing the beast when adequately cornered. There are stories of hunting lions by kings and emperors while sitting on elephants in India and other countries. One often comes across hunters posing with a hunted lion or a cheetah with one foot resting on the dead animal.

Hunting as a fun should be taken while reaming under some hunting ethics. It is considered inappropriate to kill female animals. It is also unethical and even unlawful to kill animals like rhinos and elephants for their horns and tusks, or zebras and tigers for their coats. This kind of hunting is called poaching and is strongly disliked and prohibited all over the world. Many beautiful animals have become extinct due to excessive hunting like the brown bears of Deosai, Markhor and Marco-polo sheep and blind dolphin and Houbara Bustards in Pakistan

So if you decide to take up hunting as a hobby or already a hunter, ensure you hunt while  remaining within the ethics of hunting and do not transgress.

Related reading: 

Fauna and endangered wildlife of Pakistan

Deosai Plains and its extinct brown bears

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Hobby Types – Travelling

Hobbies are adopted as pastimes, sources of relaxation, education, information and enlarging one’s vision and horizon.  And there is one hobby that encompasses all in one – Travelling. Yes, travelling takes a person from one land to another, see and explore new worlds and places, meet people, see their culture, eat new foods, find new resorts to fish and climb mountains, learn ski on snow covered slopes as the person’s country may not have snow clad mountains at all. According to Samuel Johnson, “The use of traveling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are."

When travelling one gets to know history – rather I would put it this way that one walks through history when visiting ancient remains, fortifications, castles in Rome and Greece. For those who also love art, find great artwork of Michael Angelo in Florence, Italy. Those interested in collecting antiques, coins and other valuables find time to attend auctions in Paris and England and get to see some of the rare collections.

Though expensive, it is all in one hobby that also satisfies one’s intellectual and sensuous cravings.  Those who are good writers pen down their travel experiences and provide a good reading source for those whose best pastime is book reading.  An observant traveler and writers can take the reader of his travelogue actually to the place and the readers feel as if they are there with the writers climbing rusty stairs of a castle or feeling the fresh odour of the Alpine mountains or the aroma of Chalo Kebab in the streets of Tehran. Or when may visit the Kim’s Gun on The Mall, Lahore where the famous British writer Rudyard Kipling sat by the gun in defiance to the rules of the municipality and wrote some of his great travelogues and stories. Or one may lean with the leaning tower of Pisa and get oneself photographed.

A traveler comes to know the heritage of a place and that of older civilizations still reflective from the ruins of a place. Coupled with listening to the locals, the anecdotes allow better understanding of history, people and aspirations. Needless to say understanding human nature is, perhaps, the best part of education. 

Travelling is all fun and more so a stress buster. When travelling distant lands and meeting new people, one forgets about one’s stressful life back home and is fully absorbed in one’s ongoing new experience of a place. Listening to the music by a local group on a roadside café can be amusing. And then if you have a camera by your side, you can preserve your moments and satisfy your hobby of photography and share later with your folks once back home.

A traveler is free as long as he travels – free from stress of the work and problems of daily household. This feeling of being free makes one afloat and lighter in time and space. The hobby of travelling is a hobby of enduring the beauty of God's creativity and skill fullness. If you haven’t thought of travelling, other than your official routine, then take a break today and plan on a small trip to a nearby country or even another city in your own country you haven’t visited before. You will feel lighter and happy. 

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Bird Watching

Nature around us is to powerful and compelling that it takes us out in jungles and wilderness to witness its truth and grandeur. Birds are Nature’s sweetest Vuvuzelas which attract bird lovers around the globe to walk into dense jungles to find them and enjoy their melodious sounds. Along with many other hobbies, bird watching is one of the most widespread hobbies around the world.

Man has always wanted to fly by getting inspiration from the birds flying high in the sky. And this attracted the man to the birds and appreciate it ability to fly. The varying verities and their beautiful cloak attracted people to watch them and appreciate their beauty. This quest further when the quest to find newer and newer species. Since bird watching can only be done in complete silence and stillness, only those who love the peace and tranquility start to bird watch as birds would disappear in a jiffy if these sense even the slightest movement on ground or listen to a faintest sound not familiar to them. The best thing about the hobby of birding is that one doesn’t require a special gear for watching bird. At best one may need a pair of binoculars and water proof boots if one is thinking of venturing into the water.

And when one ventures into it, it is whole lot mysterious, surprising, informative and soul satisfying. One may never know what kind of bird one may find on a particular birding day. The small digital cameras with zooming facility come handy in taking photographs of the unknown species and adding the photos to one’s own database.

For beginners, bird watching, which also called birding, is simply the observation of birds with naked eye or through binoculars. One starts to learn to quickly recognize what group a bird belongs to. This can be done by becoming familiar with the general shape, color, and behavior of birds, and by keeping a running tally of what kinds of birds are generally seen in ones locality or area at given time of the year. As one learns the basics, then bird watching becomes a study of birds and identifying the birds even by listening the bird calls.

No matter how birding is practiced, bird watching is mainly an outdoor recreational activity for personal pleasure and social reasons. The bird watching differs from the ornithology, which is the study of birds using more specific scientific methods and is the job of professionals called ornithologists.

Pakistan is one of the lucky countries where each year hundreds and thousands of migratory birds arrive from the cold regions of Siberia, CARs and Europe to find comparatively warm waters to spend their winters. These birds start to arrive in early November and stay here till March-April, when they start their homeward journey. This provides an excellent time for the bird watchers to satisfy their birding hobby and watch some of the beautiful birds of the world.

I am myself witness to such a site in Sind desert where I found countless migratory birds resting on the green waters of an artificial lake near Sandh and Gabbar. When my jeep engine broke the silence of otherwise calm that prevailed in that remote desert lake, suddenly the entire lot took off and it turned the bright sunny day into almost total darkness as the sky was filled with those majestic birds, specially the black swans, and my favourite.

Besides black swans, Houbara Bustards, Flamingos, Swans and many other species of birds like the Marbled Teal, White-headed Duck, Eurasian Spoonbill, and Dalmatian Pelican throng the wetlands in Pakistan.

My next post will encompass details on bird watching sites and wetlands that attract migratory birds each year.

Related Reading: Come November – the guests season starts (JahoJalal)

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