User:Elvaago

Introduction

Hello! Thank you for looking me up. I suppose you're going to want to read something about me. Well, who am I to refuse that request?

I was born February 4th, 1976, which makes me a fire Dragon in Chinese astrology and an Aquarius in western astrology. My age? I have faith in you, do the math. I live in the beautiful city of Lelystad in the Netherlands, with my wife, our two dogs and our cat.

My interests vary wildly. To name a few: Martial arts, snooker, pool, darts, sumo wrestling, drawing, films, books, 'alternative' healing, nutrition, and so on and so on.

Martial arts

I was introduced to martial arts when I was a young boy. Judo was my choice because it was readily available at the time and some of my friends were into it. I practiced for several years, but gradually lost interest. A couple of years of athletics and weight lifting were followed by a period of slacking off. In the last few years, my interest has flamed up again. This time by taijiquan and shaolin boxing. I am very interested in learning both of these arts. I was taught at first by Willem Kienhuis and currently I consider Erle Montaigue my main teacher, not only in martial arts, but also in nutrition and general health. Thank you both for your wisdom.

Snooker, pool, darts and sumo wrestling

I love these sports. Not many other sports even remotely interest me. Note, I don't consider martial arts a 'sport' per say, but I do enjoy watching the occasional K1 tournament just for good fun. I play pool at a decent level, but my skills in darts and snooker aren't worth mentioning. My highest break in snooker is 15 and I've thrown two 180s in my life in darts and my best leg is a 15 dart leg. Not very impressive! My favourite players include snooker players Jimmy White and Steve Davis, pool players Francisco Bustamante and Efren Reyes, darts players Andy Fordham and Roland Scholten and of course my favourite Sumo wrestlers Musashimaru and Akebono, both retired Yokozunas or grand champions.

Drawing

I am very, very bad at free-hand drawing. Whatever I draw is nothing what I intend it to look like, so very often I will just draw random things and sometimes nice looking things emerge. I'm a lot better when it comes to using a ruler and a mechanical pencil, to create drawings that use a lot of perspective and depth. My wife is much more talented. She makes the most amazing paintings with brilliant colours and shapes.

Films

I love horror movies the most. Hellraiser, The Exorcist, Evil Dead, Nightmare on Elm Street, The Entity and The Haunting are all among my top favourites. But other genres such as fantasy, action, martial arts, science fiction or even the occasional drama or comedy suits my fancy. Conan the Barbarian, The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, Meet the Parents, Austin Powers, the Alien quadrilogy, Event Horizon and The Full Monty are all movies I greatly enjoy. I devour films and I take pride in having seen at least 1500 movies in my life. You can often find me browsing www.imdb.com to check on movies I've just seen or to find new ones to watch.

Books

Currently I am mostly reading non-fiction books. A lot of them have to do with martial arts, healing or nutrition, but I also have Jimmy White's autobiography and Ray Mears's books on survival on my reading list. I always loved horror novels the most, particularly Stephen King, Edgar Allan Poe, Dan Simmons and Clive Barker. But some fantasy and sci-fi books like The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, Ad Visser's Sobrietas and Asimov's work also appeal to me.

'Alternative' healing and nutrition

The quotation marks are used to indicate that I do not consider this type of healing to be alternative. It is my preferred type of healing and I've successfully helped many people with their problems. I like looking at the whole picture rather than at the specific symptoms. I specialise in relaxation exercises and proper diet in order to help people. I don't follow any single system, but instead I blend reiki with taijiquan with macrobiotics and whatever suits my fancy. As long as it gets the job done.