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The season is winding down. Routines change, friendships have grown, priorities change. As a player, what should you do now? When practice time comes and there is no practice, what do you do? When there are no games to prepare for, what do you do with your time? Here are a just a few thoughts I had as to how to recover and prepare for the next season. 1. Take 3 - 4 weeks to relax. It has been a long, physically and mentally draining season. If you want to improve, you have to give yourself a chance to recover. 2. Catch up and get ahead of your schoolwork. 3. Talk to your coach and evaluate your season. Talk about what you did well and what you did not. Determine the areas you need to improve on. Discuss the things you would like to do and how to accomplish them. 4. After taking a month off, start on your off-season workout program. The program should be about 75% skill work and 25% play. 5. Develop your shooting stroke. If you want to become a GREAT shooter and raise your percentage, it MUST happen during the off season. It's just TOO difficult to develop these skills and improve during the season. It must be done during the off season! 6. Start a strength training program. Your objective should be to gain strength from now until the end of the summer. 7. As you enter the summer, add more play to your workout. You should be at about 50% skill work, 50% play. Don't neglect your weight work. Great strength gains can be made during this period. 8. Go to camp. Learn form other coaches, play against different players. The more diverse your summer experience, the better player you will become. 9. When the summer is over, your routine changes. GET AHEAD in the classroom. Once the season starts, it is easy for your schoolwork to slip. 10. Change your workout routine to 25% skill, 75% play. 11. Switch you strength training routine to an endurance and strength maintenance routine. 12. A week before the season, take some time off. Get ready to go.

1. Tokyo, Japan Metropolitan area: 34 million people City: 12.5 million people Tokyo is by far the largest urban region in the world. Despite its size and complexity, Tokyo has a very efficient public transportation, which accounts for almost 80 percent of all daily journeys in Tokyo.

1. Tokyo, Japan Metropolitan area: 34 million people City: 12.5 million people Tokyo is by far the largest urban region in the world. Despite its size and complexity, Tokyo has a very efficient public transportation, which accounts for almost 80 percent of all daily journeys in Tokyo. Urban Detail: Tokyo Bay has been gradually filled up to create more space for housing and offices. Odaiba, an island entirely created out of waste material, became one of Tokyo’s most interesting tourist spots with futuristic architecture, shopping, and entertainment centers. (Photo: Miki Yokoyama)

Apple Inc. has surpassed Wal-Mart to become America’s No. 1 music store, the first time that a seller of digital downloads has ever beaten the big CD retailers.

Video game companies and other software makers are selling more of their products as downloads rather than CDs.

Songs could be downloaded faster than movies or TV shows, both legally and illegally.

ORIGIN OF THE CELEBRATION Section: Festival The start of the New Year has been celebrated in China for more than 3,000 years. New Year was a time when the farmers gave thanks for the harvest and prayed to the gods for a good harvest in the coming year. This was the one period in the busy farming year when there was time to have a celebration and when the family could get together, relax, and be merry. Chinese New Year begins with a New Moon. The Lunar Year is calculated from the time it takes for the Moon to travel around the Earth, while the Western (Gregorian) calendar is based on the time it takes for the Earth to circle the Sun. The orbits of the Moon bear no relation to the time it takes for the Earth to go around the Sun, which is why the Chinese Lunar New Year is celebrated on a different date each year. In China the New Year was renamed the Spring Festival, in 1911, when the Western calendar was officially accepted in China. However, it is still commonly known around the world as the Chinese New Year. Chinese years are named after one of twelve animals. These have been used in the same order to name the years since the sixth century A.D. Each animal is said to have its own personality and emotions, which are present in people born within its year. ~~~~~~~~By Sarah Moyse This article is copyrighted. All rights reserved.Source: Chinese New Year (0-7613-0374-X)

RELIGIONS AND RITUALS Section: Festival Although the New Year celebration is not mainly a religious one, many Chinese will visit a temple at this time of the year to make an offering to the Buddha or to the gods in the hope of making the New Year a good one. Ancestors and gods are honored with ceremonies in the home around a family altar decorated with flowers. Incense and candles are burned at the altar. At important family banquets the ancestors may be recognized as "spiritual guests" and first offered food that is afterward eaten with the meal. The Chinese have three main systems of ideas that are important to them: Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism. Although these systems are very different, many Chinese follow some or all of the rituals associated with them just to be safe. Confucius lived in the fifth century B.C. and spoke about the value of good behavior in private life and in government. He said that politeness, honesty, courage, and loyalty were what made good people. He believed in self-development through education and thought that people gain in wisdom as they grow older. It is part of the Confucian tradition to honor parents and ancestors.

Daoism comes from the teachings of Laozi, who lived at the same time as Confucius. His book, the Dao De Jing (The Way and Its Power), describes the way (dao means "way") to live at peace with nature so as not to upset natural balances. The Way involves balance between opposite forces. They are called yin and yang. While yin is dark and female, yang is the opposite, being light and male. When yin and yang are balanced, there is perfect harmony with nature. Unlike Confucianism and Daoism, which started in China, Buddhism came from India and is based on the teachings of the Buddha -- a holy man. Buddha taught that people need to let go of earthly desires and become fully aware of what they are doing in the present. Buddhists believe that after death each soul moves on to another body, which may be animal or human. What one is chosen for in the next life depends on how good or bad the person has been in this life. The Chinese also pray to other gods, holding the view that the more gods who can look after them the better. The important ones are the Kitchen God, who watches the family in the home, the Jade Emperor, who is the most important god in heaven, the God of Wealth, who determines how wealthy people are, and the Door Gods. ~~~~~~~~By Sarah Moyse This article is copyrighted. All rights reserved.Source: Chinese New Year (0-7613-0374-X)

Beijing Olympics

China's environmental

Choked Waters

New York Giants running back Derrick Ward showed off his hurdling skills as he leaped to avoid a tackle by Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker James Farrior. Ward led the Giants with 80 yards from scrimmage, and the defending Super Bowl champions scored 12 unanswered points in the fourth quarter to beat the Steelers, 21-14.

canine group called gazehounds, which hunt by sight and speed instead of smell and endurance. It also mentions that gazehounds proved a valuable check against predators.

Having dogs hunt buffalo was not common practice on the frontier

hunt primarily by sight and speed rather than smell and endurance, as scent hounds do

Pollution at the nation’s 3,500 ocean, lake and bay beaches resulted in more than 25,000 closing or swimming advisory days last year, 28 percent more than in 2005, and the highest number in the 17 years that records have been kept, according to a new federal report released Tuesday.

he prime culprit was storm water runoff

Another 1,300 days were attributed to sewage spills and overflows.

James Blunt Carrie Underwood Rihanna Pussycat Dolls Natasha Bedingfield

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