Happy New Year 2009

Today is the first day of the Shinto New Year (Gantan-Sai) and the Western New Year on the Gregorian calendar, the solar calendar used in much of the world, reorganized by Pope Gregory XIII in the (solar calendar year) 1582.

One New Year tradition, of many, occurs in the freezing waters off Coney Island New York. For many years, my Grandfather was the oldest member of the Brooklyn Icebergs, a swimming club who swims in the ocean every day of the year, no matter what weather or temperature, including New Year's Day when air and water temperatures are often below zero centigrade, and sometimes Fahrenheit.

I will post more on the fun and physiology of cold swimming in months to come.

On the New Year, it is another tradition for people look forward and back at their lives and make plans for things to change. The two-headed Roman god Janus symbolizes and names the first month of the year.

To help your New Years resolutions:

• Household Fitness in the New Year
• New Years Resolutions for Fitness Successes - Reader Hall Of Fame
  
• New Year's Resolutions Made Easy
• New Year's Resolutions
• If Better Abdominal Muscles Are Your New Year's Resolution, Try This
• Is Your Drinking Hurting Your Neck?
• Holiday reminder - Fast Fitness - Prevent Death and Disfigurement, Save Lives and Property

The Mahayana New Year will be Jan 11 and Lunar New Year will be January 26
The Baha'i and Persian/Zoroastrian New Year's Day will fall on the Vernal Equinox on March 21.

Happy New Year To All.

Labels: cold, holiday, swimming

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