Top 3 Probiotic Products That I Love

Here are 3 probiotic products that work amazingly well for me. In order to get full benefits from your probiotic, you’ll need to follow a few rules listed in a previous blog post.

Top 3 Favorite Probiotic Products:

#1 Economical: Yakult

I got into Yakult when I lived in Japan for the month of September in 2019. I was staying in a small countryside town called Miyama, which fell under the Fukuoka prefecture.

I was definitely balling on a budget at this time of my life, so I needed a great probiotic product that would be effective but not too costly on my wallet. I went to the local store and found several Japanese folk walking around with Yakult probiotic in their grocery carts. I figured I’d give the product a try.

I didn’t get a single stomach ache while staying in Japan, and while that might have to do with staunch Japanese laws surrounding GMOs, I think a lot of it had to do with taking Yakult everyday. A bottle or two was giving me 10/20 billion probiotics and this is what’s most economically easiest for people. I used 2 because sometimes I feel like my body needs more. Yakult is the absolute best way to start your day! I down a couple of bottles first thing in the morning everyday.

#1 Effectiveness: Plexus ProBio5

Plexus Probio5 is the most expensive probiotic product I’ve ever taken, but incidentally has been the most effective probioitic product I’ve ever taken. As part of a Triplex Plexus Combo, which I’ll rave about in another blog post, where do I even begin with this miracle all-natural formula?

Probio5 is vacuum frozen and shelf-stable, meaning that refrigeration won’t be necessary and makes it easier for travel. It has been proven that freezing bacterial cultures doesn’t kill the bacteria but that the bacteria cultures remain dormant. This means that while they’re frozen they won’t be active, but once the Probio5 is ingested and reaches warmer temperatures inside your stomach, the probiotic activates and gets to work! How amazing is that?

Probio5 boasts only 2 billion strains of probiotics, however the real money is in the concoction of digestive enzymes inside the supplement. The chitinase enzyme in this concentrated form helps fight and remove bacterial and fungal overgrowth, thus restoring gut flora balance within the gastrointestinal microbiota.

The herxheimer reaction, which is basically a fancy word of saying detox symptoms, is very strong with the Probio5, so beware. When Probio5 is taken on its own it can cause great fatigue, which is why I recommend taking ProBio5 with Plexus’ BioCleanse and Slim Tea as part of the Triplex combo.

It is said that 90 days of consistent use of the Triplex combo can restore gut flora balance. This is the product that fixed me after the Rio 2016 Olympics when I was experiencing extreme gut health issues and I truly believe that Plexus is a god send, which truly changed my life.

Full disclosure: I’m a salesperson for Plexus and if you’d like to place an order, use my member ID 900152367 — I get a small commission that goes toward funding my Olympic campaign and you’ll get a healthier gut! Contact me here for more details.

#1 Mental Health: Garden of Life: Mood Plus

Garden of Life has concocted the perfect probioitic product with Mood Plus to help regulate mood and promote emotional well-being & relaxation. While there aren’t any digestive enzymes in this probiotic product, the product contains 350mg of organic ashwagandha, which helps settle the stomach in those suffering with nervousness or anxiety. The organic Alaskan blueberries in the pill are also a great anti-inflammatory addition for oxidative stress.

I did notice myself dealing with stress a lot more level-headed and with much more clarity. There’s something about The Garden of Life: Mood that allows for a much less stressful existence. I’d highly recommend this product if you’re not looking to make a big investment yet in the improving of your gut health, but want to see if there’s any truth to this gut-brain axis that research is showing.

Garden of Life: Mood Plus worked amazingly well for my mental health and made me feel much more adept to handling the stress of day-to-day life.

Conclusion

Take your pick of any one of these products, or maybe try multiple of them! But please know that if you’re in the NZ area, Yakult can be found at any Asian foods store like Tai-Ping in Balmoral, Plexus delivers to your door, and the Garden of Life Mood Probiotics can be found at The Health Post store in New Lynn.

Amini Fonua's Tokyo 2020 Fundraising Project

Hi - I'm Amini Fonua, an Olympic swimmer from the pacific nation of Tonga who's training for the Tokyo Games in 2020. I made some headlines as one of the few openly LGBTQ Olympians at the Rio Games in 2016, not so much because I'm from a country where it's still illegal to be gay, but because I publicly criticized a Daily Beast article that outed fellow Olympians, including some from homophobic countries.

I spoke out against the dangers of outing and published a series of tweets that went viral, followed up by a number of media interviews, that helped to get the story retracted, with an apology. The International Olympic Committee ultimately deemed the article "unacceptable, which was actually the first time the IOC had ever acknowledged any LGBTQ presence.

I hadn't been publicly "out" long, and since Tonga is religious and very conservative, I was nervous -- but I was obviously one of the few in a position to speak for the many athletes who weren't ready, or didn't feel safe, being out. That's a decision all of us should make on our own,  particularly when our lives are at stake.

One thing I never expected, just for speaking up, was the outpouring of heartwarming support I received -- and not just from fellow athletes. Outsports named me "Male Hero of the Year," the Los Angeles LGBT Center presented me with its Vanguard Award at their anniversary gala, and Out Magazine included me in its "Out 100" list. And though Tonga didn't welcome me home as a hero, they didn't censor me. Believe it or not, I think I'm helping to change hears and minds there and I've still got a strong chance to earn a shot to compete at the Tokyo Games next year.

Here's the thing, though -- I don't receive any training support from my country. It's not a homophobic thing; they don't support any of their athletes. It's all up to us.

While training for the Rio Games, I spent every hour that I wasn't training or sleeping, working as a barista. I've got a bachelor's degree in Telecommunication and Multimedia from Texas A&M, but it's not feasible to have a full-time job while training for the Olympics. And since my work as a Starbucks barista offers a flexible schedule with health benefits, I'm still doing that today. But because expenses are so much greater than they were four years ago, I'm working close to full-time to support myself, leaving no time for training.

I do have some side hustles that help me get by. I teach private swimming lessons in the NYC metropolitan area, offer mentoring sessions to high school athletes hoping to swim in college, and I’m set to launch my own collagen hair oil mask promoting hair thickness called “Tropikaux” this spring.

I recently moved from the SF Bay Area to New Jersey, where things are cheaper, but it's still more than I'm able to manage on my own. That's why I've started this GoFundMe. I have a very real chance to qualify for the Tokyo Games, my third (and most likely final) Olympics. But for the first time, I'm asking for help -- and I'm more anxious about doing that than I was speaking out against that horrible Daily Beast article. 

Any money I'm fortunate enough to raise will go toward travel & accommodation for competitions, high quality racing suits, training equipment, coaching, health insurance, post-workout recovery and body maintenance (acupuncture), food & nutritional supplementation, and transportation to and from workouts.

I have a few qualifying competitions between now and next summer, both in the US and abroad, but my main competition will be the 2020 Oceania Championships held June 15-21 in Suva, Fiji. I am a two-time Oceanic swimming champion, so I have experienced great success at this competition before.

From the bottom of my heart, I can tell you that any donation you make will be gratefully received and support a stronger LGBTQ presence at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. Thanks for hearing me out!

https://www.gofundme.com/f/4skxp-amini-fonua-road-to-tokyo-2020?utm_source=customer&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_campaign=p_cf+share-flow-1

My GoFundMe Project for the Road to Tokyo 2020

I recently did the “5 Rings to Rule Them All” podcast on Outsports and I talked about starting a GoFundMe campaign for my Tokyo 2020 journey. This wasn’t an easy decision to make and it is still one that I struggle with.

However, when I think about what I’m swimming for these days, I realize I’m swimming for so much more than myself. I’m swimming for queer visibility at the biggest sporting stage in the world. I’m swimming for the LGBT community that still feels alienated and marginalized from sports.

But most of all, I’m swimming for my small part of the world where it’s still illegal to be yourself, alongside 70 other different countries in the world where homosexuality is also illegal. I’m trying to inject hope into an entire generation of young people living in these places to show that you can be your true self and still be successful.

So I write this blog post to let you know that my GoFundMe project for Tokyo 2020 will be going live soon and I’d really appreciate your support. I’m telling you that this journey will not end once I’ve found the adequate funding, it’ll only be the beginning. I hope to share with you all this adventure through my blog and various social media.

It has been shown that GoFundMe projects have a higher chance of being successful if you raise 30% of funding within the first 48hours, so please let me know if you can help and I’ll be sure to let you know once the project goes live!

Peace and blessings,

Amini

How To Take Probiotics

Before sharing with you all my top 3 favorite probiotic products, it’s important to know how to take probiotics so that they work effectively. Here are 3 rules I follow to ensure my probiotics make their way to my stomach undisturbed.

1. Always Take Probiotics on an Empty Stomach

We want our digestive system in a deactivated state when we ingest probiotics. Otherwise the acidity of our digestive system will destroy the probiotics before they get to where they need to be. Minimal stomach acid in the digestive tract is crucial in helping your probiotics get to your gut undisturbed.

I personally like to take my probiotics first thing in the morning, with my magnesium supplement, on an empty stomach, at least 1 hour before eating my first meal. The more time spaced between my probiotic intake and my first meal, the better.

The speed of absorption will vary depending on the probiotic type. If you’re consuming probiotics via liquid, it can take as quickly as 20-30mins for your body to absorb the probiotic product. When taking a probiotic via pill form, it’ll take at least an hour.

2. Avoid Acidic Foods After Taking Probiotics

I find it helpful to avoid acidic foods after probiotic ingestion. This is why coffee is problematic for probiotic consumption and regrowing gut flora. The process of hot coffee extraction leaves a lot of acidity in a coffee cup, so the most effective way of regrowing your gut flora is by abstaining from heat extracted coffee. Try switching to a green tea instead.

If coffee is a must - which I’ll admit, sometimes it is - I wait until after finishing my first meal before reaching for a cup of coffee. If I consume coffee too soon after probiotic ingestion, the acidity from my coffee will burn and destroy all the good probiotic bacteria before they get to where they need to be.

Try switching to a cold brew cup of coffee instead of a regular iced coffee or hot coffee. Cold coffee extraction methods have half as much acidity as hot coffee extraction. Never confuse cold brew coffee with iced coffee either! This is because iced coffee is almost always extracted through heat and then cooled, while cold brew is made through allowing coffee grinds to sit in water for at least 20 hours.

If drinking cold coffee isn’t for you, try switching to a Sumatra coffee bean or a dark roast coffee bean, this is because those types of beans contain less acidity than a regular medium blend. Blond roasts contain the most amount of acidity, so they’re best avoided at all times when trying to get your gut flora back in balance. If you must drink blond roast coffee, make sure it’s as far away from your probiotic consumption time as possible.

3. Patience & Consistency is Imperative with Probiotic Consumption

Most research suggest that it takes at least 6 weeks to see a noticeable difference with your probiotic supplement regime. Yes, that’s a long time, but it’s most certainly worth it once the mind starts thinking clearly, your food starts digesting efficiently, the body starts sleeping better at night, and you begin waking up in the morning feeling refreshed.

Diligence and patience is critical with your probiotic consumption habits. Remember, it doesn’t take much to destroy the good bacteria and throw one’s body out of balance. A few consecutive nights of heavy drinking, a nasty stomach bug (viral or bacterial), or antibiotic cycles can destroy all the precious healthy bacteria that help us with digestion.

It’s best to keep these things in mind when making lifestyle choices! While it’s super easy to reach for a drink and have a good time, sometimes we don’t consider the havoc such things can have on our bodies and digestive system. There’s no problem indulging with alcohol, just make sure you’re replenishing all the chemical elements you’re draining out of your body afterward. This will minimize the damage done to both your body and your mind.

Next up will be my 3 best Probiotic Products that work effectively when taken correctly!

The Importance of The Gut-Brain Axis

Research on the human microbiome has only been developing within the past 15 years, which shows that western medicine is still going to great lengths to understand how much of a connection there is between overall health and the microbes in our stomach. My goal is to teach people how to balance the chemicals in your stomach/gut/microbiome so you can feel better, live stronger, and be happier. The first part is understanding that our stomach is an incredibly important and very complicated organ in the first place.

Have you heard of the gut-brain axis? New scientific evidence is suggesting that there’s a definite link between the human microbiome (gut health) and mood disorders.

Imbalances in gut microbiota are found to be associated with more bodily disorders including: inflammatory diseases (Clemente et al., 2018), metabolic diseases (Bouter et al., 2017), irritable bowel syndrome (Mayer et al., 2014), and most importantly of all neuropsychiatric disorders (Sharon et al., 2016).

Have you ever noticed how people with a stomach ache are always irritable? Nobody with an upset stomach is ever in a good mood. When our stomachs hurt, everything hurts, and everything feels wrong and nothing feels right. Think back to a time in your life when you got a stomach flu, or food poisoning, it can sometimes feel like you’re dying.

This is how I felt when I was training for Rio 2016, I had stomach pains around the clock and my mood suffered immensely. And when I did more research into how many micro-organisms live inside our gut, it all started to make more sense, and I recognized that there’s a serious relationship between the gut and brain, called The Gut-Brain Axis.

Research has shown that the human intestinal tract contains between 10 to 100 trillion microbes. That’s roughly 10 times greater than the amount of human cells (Bäckhed et al., 2005), which means there’s a lot going on in our stomachs at the biochemical level than we ever realized before. We’re all just walking chemical equations, and inside our stomach houses more microbes than what make up our entire body, by roughly 10 times in fact.

The human microbiota - which means all the micro-organisms living inside your stomach - contain 100 times the number of genes than that of the human genome (Bäckhed et al., 2005; Grice and Segre, 2012). So, my dear, there’s are a lot going on between the entrance of your mouth, all the way to your bootyhole. Or if you want to keep it classy like Miss Frazzle from The Magic School bus: your “valve”:

The microbiota make-up in our stomach changes a lot during during the process of mitosis and growth (Clemente et al., 2012), and gut microbiota can be influenced by so many variables such as: genes (Kurilshikov et al., 2017), environment (Chen et al., 2018b), diet (Patman, 2015), antibiotics (Bokulich et al., 2016), prebiotics (Preidis and Versalovic, 2009), and mode of delivery (Dominguez-Bello et al., 2010).

Reducing certain microbes producing short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) was observed in inflammatory bowel disease and autoimmune diseases, and an imbalance in gut microbiota was associated with higher levels of inflammation (Clemente et al., 2018). Furthermore, it has been proven that obesity is associated with a low ratio of Bacteroidetes to Firmicutes bacteria in the stomach specifically, which are 2 out of the 5 predominant bacterial phyla in the human intestinal tract; interestingly enough, a higher ratio of Bacteriodetes to Firmicutes was seen after weight loss (Ley et al., 2006).

Like I said, we’re all walking chemical equations and depending on what’s happening inside your stomach will determine the quality of life you have. I often wonder if there’s a relationship between gut bacteria diversity and the speed of one’s metabolism. Is there a probiotic make-up that will allow people to be more susceptible to maintaining a speedy metabolism rather than a slow one? Research is starting to suggest this and I believe I have the secret to this.

My next blog post will be about my favorite probiotic products, and how I regrew my gut flora to change my entire gastrointestinal tract on the cellular level. It took me 3 months, but I finally regained my everyday optimal health, kept the chemicals in my stomach in check and balanced, all achieved through all natural nutritional supplementation, and changing my relationship with food to that of viewing meals as medicine.

Why I'm Still Swimming

I’m still swimming because I believe I have yet to swim my fastest race. My performance at Rio 2016 was humiliating. I flopped at the biggest sporting event in the world, and I for one would like a do-over.

2015 was a lightening year for my swimming career, and all was working extremely well for me leading up to 2016 before I got sick. “Sick” is an understatement, I got incredibly ill. My issues were gastrointestinal and my digestive system completely gave up on me. I knew something was very wrong with my body, but no doctors were ever able to diagnose my pain and nobody could tell what was wrong with me.

What was supposed to be the most exciting time of my life, training for something I’d worked my entire life for, had turned into a living and walking nightmare. I hate that I’m even sharing this with you because it paints me as such a victim, and maybe that’s why I’ve gone so long without sharing this part of my story, because I want to remain seen as a strong and resilient person, but this is honestly what happened.

Training for an Olympics is no joke, it can be very serious and very stressful. My body giving up on me added a whole new layer of complications to the training process. I would cry driving to swim practice. I would cry driving home from swim practice. I would cry because I couldn’t even finish swim practices. I would cry out of frustration for falling short of my full potential, not once or twice a week, but every single day. I would cry out of frustration with a lack of understanding, truly understanding, what was happening to me and my body. I would cry because I knew something was incredibly wrong, very very wrong, but everybody around me was saying I was fine.

I was repeatedly told by many qualified professionals that nothing was wrong with me, and without a diagnosis to fix the problem, an entire new layer of misery was added to the training process.

This isn’t how training for an Olympic games race is supposed to be. It’s supposed to be serious, yes, but more importantly than that, it’s supposed to be fun, but I was having no fun at all. It was one of the darkest and most depressing times of my life and I’m so glad and grateful that it’s all behind me.

Anyway, long story long, I eventually got fixed by an acupuncturist, but by this late stage of the game it was May, and I only had 2 months left to prepare for the Olympics. I had run out of time and that was why my race was so abysmal: a lack of preparation due to dysfunctional bowels.

Fast-forward 3 years later, I still haven’t found a doctor that could properly diagnose and fix me, so I did what all champions do, I found ways to fix myself. My coach at the Rio Olympics, Sandra Burrow always told me: “A winner finds a way, and a loser makes excuses,” that perfectly sums up the equation of sports. I found a way to fix myself through alternative medicine, but I also got a lot of help along the way. I’d like to give a special shout out to Daniele Albert, my former trainer at Texas A&M, whom was a supreme source of information on how to heal my gut through food. I now see food as a life source, as medicine, and it taught me how to listen to my body after every meal so I can learn how to get to a place of everyday optimal health.

It wasn’t an easy journey, one that took years, tons of research, reading scholarly sources, venturing into the health and wellness blogs, and immense amounts of trial and error, but I finally fixed myself and I’m never looking back.

A big part of why I want to do Tokyo 2020 is that I’d like to help people who are living or who have lived through similar experiences like I did leading up to Rio 2016. I see myself as a valuable resource of information for people who want to get their gut health back in check. Going through the misery and pain of my past gut health issues isn’t going to be all for nothing, my purpose this time round is to pay it forward and help others who are living through these digestive issues. I want to share with the world how I fixed my gut health issues, reclaimed my life and vitality, and allow people to follow me on the Tokyo 2020 journey along the way.

I’m going to swim fast next year, I can feel it. I hope you can all accept my invitation to join me on this exciting journey and incorporate some healthy lifestyle changes into your daily routines as well!

Peace and blessings,

Amini

I Love Japanese Buddhist Temples Pt. 1

Hi, hello, how are you?
I’ve been slack in writing blog posts about this Japanese adventure. We have been so busy with training and cultural activities that it barely leaves any downtime to write. Starting yesterday I made the commitment to write every single day in the small opportunities that this training trip affords me.

Forgive me in advance, I don’t really have time to edit any of these blog posts as I literally have 23 minutes until I need to jump into the van and go to morning swim practice! We are in the last third of our trip and I’m trying my best to balance everything adequately while also doing this trip justice with words.

During our time here we’ve visited 2 different temples and both have been beautiful for different reasons. The first temple we visited, which was a scheduled visit, is called the Kiyomizu Temple in the city of Miyama. Kiyomizu is the name of the triple tower temple as seen here:

The Kiyomizu Temple (Miyama City, Fukuoka)

The Kiyomizu temple is beautiful and the best time to visit is spring, when the cherry blossoms are in full bloom, or in the autumn, when the leaves start to turn a different color and fall. We didn’t get to enter the temple this time, but we could admire the beauty from the outside.

The Kiyomizue Dera (Miyama, Fukuoka)

The main gate of the Kiyomizu Dera was built in 1745 by Sadanori Tachibana and this beautiful archway, along with the Kiyomizu temple, are both designated Fukuoka Prefectural Cultural Properties.

​Beyond these gates, there’s a statue of the thousand-armed Guanyin (Goddess of Mercy), whom is worshiped as a deity of fertility and matchmaking. Countless couples hoping to become parents make the hike to this place and pray. Couples who have recently given birth to a baby come to pray here. In fact, our designated interpreter, Kauro, told us her mother took her to this very temple as a baby after she was born.

There's a smaller shrine on the property specifically dedicated to praying, this is further into the grounds. And above this smaller shrine is another temple with a shrine inside, which was definitely my favorite part of this visit. Inside this temple and next to the shrine were doors that opened up to a beautiful back porch, open to the woods with a calm and serene pond.

Next to a shrine with special Buddhist beads

As a group we sat and looked at the tranquil nature, listening to the crickets buzzing. It was incredibly peaceful and a place many Buddhist monks come for learning and introspection, taking inspiration for calmness from the surface of the water. I made sure to wear some very special Buddhist beads around my wrist while I soaked up the peacefulness and tranquility.

I stood and walked out onto a small platform close to the woods and listened to a cricket chirping especially close on a tree next to me. I love listening to crickets. I love trying to find out where they are in trees, knowing that they’re camouflaged and trying to go unnoticed apart from their loud buzzing. I have a strange relationship with bugs, I seem to attract them and sometimes I feel like I can steer them in directions. Well, not really, but at least I like to think so.

I thought about the time I was at a boy’s apartment in Brooklyn. There were flies flying around his kitchen. I remember opening up the window and talking to the flies, coaxing them with my hands, and telling them to move outside. I talked to them as if they were children: “C’mon now! You don’t want to be stuck in this house, you want to be outside. Shoo! Go on. Fly outside. I know you want to.” We watched in fascination as the 3 of the flies flew outside and into the fresh summer air.

The boy whose apartment it was, had a simpler way of getting the flies to disappear. He swatted them with his big beautiful hands, and used paper towels to scoop up the remnants.

I feigned horror and used an Edina Monsoon quote from Ab Fab, crying out jokingly: “Don’t kill them! In the Buddhist religion, I could come back as one of those you know!” Making a sissy dramatic fuss.

“Death is a part of life.” he said matter-of-factually while he threw the fly corpse into the garbage bin.

As I was thinking about this cute little moment, the cricket quit buzzing and jumped off the tree, revealing itself to me while making a direct bee-line for my face. 3 or 4 feet away from me, the cricket veered left and flew back into the trees to be among nature.

Apparently bugs are attracted to light. Is this what draws them to me?

I giggle, knowing the notion is ridiculous, but in my fantastical, whimsical, creative, and imaginative mind, this is why I have a special relationship with bugs: they’re drawn to light.

I love visiting Japanese Buddhist temples. I always leave feeling so peaceful and relaxed.

Stay tuned for my next blog post, which will be appropriately named: “I Love Japanese Buddhist Temples pt. 2” - in this one I’ll discuss The Daihonzan Naritasan Kurume Temple, which houses the largest statue in Japan!

Konichiwa Fishes!

Howdy y’all!

Coming to you from my fabulous hotel bedroom in the Japanese countryside of Yanagawa, which is in the Fukuoka prefecture. As stated in my last blawg post, I’m spending the entire month of September in Japan for a training camp leading up to Tokyo 2020.

This camp is a partnership between the Oceanic National Olympic Committee (ONOC) and the Fukuoka prefecture. Because the pacific region is still heavily underfunded and ill-equipped to train for the Olympic games, the lovely people of Fukuoka have blessed us with resources to help us train for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and it has all been super kawaii!

While this camp will be fabulous for the 30 day period of September, we still need to find ways to resource our sports training once we all go back to our respective countries. Regardless though, I feel incredibly blessed and grateful for the opportunity to get some really productive work done while preparing for Tokyo 2020, while also seeing Japan and learning about the culture.

All the practices so far have been long course meters (LCM), which is a huge benefit to us as we don’t typically get to practice in Olympic sized pools for swimming. My teammate who is on this trip with me, Noelani Day, trains in the ocean in Tonga! So for Lani, this training camp is incredibly crucial and important.O

We aren’t in Fukuoka the city itself, instead we are in between 2 small cities within Fukuoka prefecture. If you couldn’t tell, prefecture is my new favorite word! I’ve used it 4 times in this blawg post already teeheehee… Our hotel is in the city of Yanagawa, which is famous for its 292 miles worth of wide canals! The city is home to a little over 70,000 residents and reminds me SO much of the town I went to university in.

The pool we train in is in a cute little agricultural city called Miyama. I’m living my Harvest Moon fantasy every time we drive to and from the pool. We’re surrounded by the most immaculate rice paddy and soybean fields. I really should take pictures but I’m just too present in the moment. The farmers here literally use up every square inch of the land available to them to grow crops and it is actually rather extraordinary.

For the first week here I’ve had LMFAO’s “I’m in Miami Trick” playing over and over in my head, except I’ve replaced Miami with Miyama LOL… “I’m in Miyama trick!”

ANYWAY, Miyama is famous for its agriculture and this is what reminds me mostly of Texas A&M, seeing as the A in A&M stands for agriculture. Speaking of culture, I’m in absolute awe of the amount of respect everybody has for each other here, especially for elders. I think that’s really beautiful that there’s an immediate hierachy that’s based on age. If you see a person is older than you, you open the door for them and allow them to walk through first. I think that’s really nice. In Japanese culture, respect is paramount and I’m always operating at my absolute best to ensure I’m not offending anybody and trying to be respectful at all times. This is why I shaved my beard for meeting the city’s mayors.

From left to right: Mayor of Yanagawa city, Kenji Kaneko, Me, Noelani Day, Don Cobb (Noelani’s Granfather and chaperone)

Yesterday we went to meet the mayors of both respective cities, whom gave us really memorable gifts. One was a box full of agricultural treats (from Miyama) and the other was a Japanese good luck charm (from Yanagawa).

I want to express my sincere gratitude to both city mayors: Mayor of Yanagawa city, Kenji Kaneko, and Mayor of Miyama city, Morito Matushima. Both have been so welcoming and the hospitality Team Tonga has received on this trip has been absolutely astounding. A very special mention to Michael Kohn and the Secretary General of ONOC for helping us get to this training camp. This is an experience I will cherish for a lifetime.

With Miyama City Mayor Morito Matsuhima (in the middle holding the flags and Tongan fan)

As for training, we did 10 sessions last week and we absolutely crushed it. While I’ll openly admit that I’m not in 100% perfect form right now, I certainly feel myself getting back there. I love the process of getting back into shape and preparing for the incredible road ahead.

FAF SWAG Gave Me Life When I Needed It

FAF SWAG hosted their “Final Fantasy Ball” last night on Karangahape Road. I’ve always wanted to go to a FAF SWAG ball. They always looked like so much fun on social media! The location was 145 and the competition was fierce. I witnessed the “House of Coven” take out the best house trophy while the “House of Iman” was a very worthy runner-up.

After the tragic events of Friday, this was what my soul needed. I needed to be in a room full of Queer POCs working the runway and striking a pose. I needed to see death drops, vogue dips, and all the workings of magic these entertainers create with their hypnotic bodies.

Even in the darkest of days, we must find ways to radiate love and light. In art we find catharsis. This Britney Spears Final Fantasy wig reveal to vogue dip restored my soul with some much needed joie de vivre. I hope it does for you too: