I have been watching a lot of his videos lately. Today I was watching this one and the wisest words were his last. At least for me.
So wise I have played this 3 times and now I am going to write it down for memory and play it again.
“When you start tripling down on what you are and what you’re good at many better things start happening…
Don’t try to do what you think is the right move. Don’t do what you think is the biggest money making opportunity. Do the things that you have always done since you were a kid and triple down and 10x down on that.”
I thought the last 3-4 minutes was pretty interesting.
I have been working on a new costume behind the scenes. I have been in love with caution tape for quite some time. It looks cool and I like the colors. I saw some pics of people making caution tape dresses out of that and duck tape.
They stitched it together. I don’t have any sewing skills or a sewing machine. So I had to come up with a different solution.
The other thing was I had been looking for a one piece suite for a long time. I actually had two different flight suits that I only used like once or twice. They were orange and I tried dying and painting on them and only ruined them.
They weren’t that comfortable either. I made this with a temporary coverall suit that you can get in the hardware store for like $14. It’s pretty cheap and like paper.
So how I did it was like this.
I got double sided carpet tape.
I got caution tape.
I stuck the double sided tape to the coveralls.
I then stuck the caution tape to the double sided tape.
It sounds easy, but it was not. That carpet tape is super sticky. There were wrinkling problems when applying the caution tape.
I was thinking the blue would look good with the yellow tape. But to cover the whole suit in that is going to take a lot of time and money – like $50 in carpet tape.
I have been thinking yellow and black for a long time and since the suit was still white I think painting my face white with the white hair looks cooler and more uniform. However, the white paint sucks. The blue paint is from the same company, but feels a lot better and comes off easier.
I haven’t actually been performing much out on the streets. And I don’t know if making a new costume will actually make me want to do that more. Probably not.
It’s cool to make stuff, but I my interest in doing what I have been doing is waning and has been. It’s kinda like…
Plastic surgery
They say plastic surgery has effects that only last temporarily. It might give you a boost in the short term, but you can’t see how you look. You essentially feel the same and you’ll soon feel like you did before you got the surgery which makes the whole point of getting plastic surgery in first place pointless.
Maybe it’s more about the process than the final product. I enjoy making stuff sometimes. Time flew by when I was making that suit.
Press play
I have about 4 of these signs that I have made. That one with the yellow costume there I originally made to put a phone camera in it, so I could capture the goofy things that people do sometimes. But the quality of the footage I got was pretty crappy.
It turned out that this one actually matches the suite, but sometimes I just think of getting rid of the whole push play thing. That’s another story.
I have thought of doing some artwork on mannequins. It might actually be more fun to make, paint and dress up mannequins than it would be to pretend to be one. Then take those out in the streets with me.
I have a lot of ideas for street performing, but there is a practicality and cost issue with a lot of them. If it’s difficult to get your stuff out there then you’re not going to want to do it.
Wondering what you should do about your torn meniscus? Are you considering surgery? Will it heal? I don’t know what’s right for your knee, but I can share with you what I learned.
I tore my meniscus about 10 months ago. I was in Judo class and a guy (big white belt) jumped guard on my extended knee and hyper extended it. You’re not supposed to do that in Judo. That’s only in jiujitsu.
It hurt and I knew something was wrong as my leg was shaking from the trauma and I didn’t get off the mat for 30 minutes or so. I went and got an MRI and they told me I had a torn meniscus and a bone bruise.
They told me I had an oblique tear or a bucket handle tear on my medial meniscus. Walking was painful.
The doctor said he could do surgery to fix it. Fixing it meant he was either going to cut it out (meniscectomy) – the torn piece or stitch it. When I heard that my face dropped.
He said you could wait a bit to see of it healed. That was around 2 weeks after.
I waited another 2 weeks and it didn’t really seem to change much, saw him again and he said the same, surgery or wait and see if it heals.
I waited.
All the mean while I did some research.
All the results I found on surgery suggested that I not do it. That’s what I gathered. I mean your situation might be different. But most studies out there didn’t show a big improvement with surgery and in some cases they made it worse. More on those studies later.
If you ask a surgeon what should I do with my hurt knee? He is probably going to say “let’s operate”.
Some information suggested surgery based on the degree of the tear. If you had popping in the joint or it’s getting stuck (locking) then that’s probably more severe and might need it.
They say if you had a tear on the edge of the meniscus it is more likely to heal since there is a blood supply. Towards the center of the knee there is no blood supply. They will tell you that cartilage can’t heal there. However…
There are white blood cells in synovial fluid. They don’t tell you that. Later I’ll point out some studies that may oppose that.
I didn’t really have those symptoms. I had pain though with standing and stiffness.
I kept up with my normal routine – minus the grappling. I did yoga and a lot of balancing poses for strength. I started doing one legged squats too.
I did ice initially, some say icing is good and others say it is not. Though both usually say that compression is good.
I got ankle weights and I started this passive exercise to rehab the knee. I still do this and highly recommend it. I committed to doing this daily for at least a year. My other knee also has benefited from this. Studies show that passive exercise CPM can rehab articular cartilage. This exercise is similar.
Foam rolling to massage my legs.
That’s what I did. I had pain for a good 2 months plus.
How do I feel now?
I feel pretty good. I am back to all normal activities and feel mostly normal. I returned to grappling a little more than 2 months later. I occasionally get some muscular pain on the back inside of my knee. Massage helps that. I get a little bit of stiffness in it after sitting cross legged forward folding in yoga.
I think that is mostly muscular. Massage is great and in my experience joint pain is often caused by surrounding muscles.
Doctor and other people said a bone bruise could take up to a year or so to heal.
Advice
Your situation is unique. I would not try to “fix” your problem by having a surgeon cut you open unless you’re confident and your situation is severe. When I asked the surgeon if my tear was large he said probably small to medium. He didn’t know if it was in the “red zone” or not.
Wait. It can take a while to heal. I read online that some people said it can take 6 months or more than a year. The doctor told me if it’s not better in 2 months then it might not heal.
You can always get surgery later, but you can’t change what’s been done later.
Do that passive motion exercise with ankle weights unless it hurts. If it hurts then stop and do it without weights. Also you can lie on your back and do a bicycle exercise where you pretend to ride a bicycle. This is also similar to the CPM exercises.
Compress it. Wrap it with an ace bandage.
Massage the muscles around it.
Be disciplined about exercise but don’t overdo it or hurt yourself more. Do what you can stuff like balancing exercises, one legged squats, wall squats, leg lifts/raises, get a isometric band, etc.
ESLinsider.com is a site that I created for those interested in teaching English abroad. It provides resources such as how-to videos, online TEFL courses, guides and a blog. It’s also a place where you can find out what it is like teaching and living in Eastern Asia: China, Korea, Taiwan and Japan.
I also made an infographic in 2019 about the Youtube stats.
This post will take a look at the 10 most popular videos.
Update: Some of these may no longer be the most popular as years have past since this was originally published.
Most of the videos are how-to videos shot in the classroom. The other videos posted here have to do with culture, money, advice from teachers and teaching ESL without a degree.
In this post on ESLinsider’s reviews I also made an infographic that is kind of snazzy – if you care, lol.
1. Teaching English To Kids in 5 Fun Steps
I took some time to make this one. My goal was to make it informative and fun. This video takes you through a lesson plan and gives you some structure as well as some ideas for class in a fun way.
The majority of the how-to videos were uploaded in 2011 this one was later in 2014 and it’s growing fast. At this rate this video will become the most popular video ESLinsider has on Youtube.
This video was filmed in a kindergarten in Busan, South Korea.
UPDATE: It’s a little tedious to keep track of these numbers so I have stopped doing that, wink, wink.
By the numbers since 2014:
300,000+ views
286 likes
191 shares
“Amazing!!! I have my very first day teaching kids on a EFL context in Nicaragua! I’m pretty sure they will love a class like this one! Thanks!” – iMedia’s comment
2. The Preview – ESLinsider’s 1st Video On Youtube
This video and another longer version were the first to go on Youtube in 2010. This video was a preview of the videos that went on Youtube and on the site. It shows a sample of some of the how-to videos.
This video is a preview of 3 of the how-to videos.
The first one is an icebreaker called “Categramble” that can be used with lower intermediate to advanced students.
The second listening activity is called “One Hand, Two Hands“. This is a listening activity that is used here to tell the difference between plural and singular nouns. It can be used with all levels.
The third one is called “Whispers“. This is a speaking activity that works well with younger students through elementary school and sometimes even older.
This video contains footage from a public school in Changwon, South Korea and a kindergarten in Busan.
By the numbers since 2010:
170,000+ views
220+ likes
73+ shares
“Nice video with very cute kids^^ What is the name of the song at the end of the video? Loved it! :)” – Leyl’s comment
This video is on a channel that was discontinued. The following videos are placed on ESLinsider’s main channel.
3. “Teacher Says” – A Warm-up/TPR Activity For Kids
This activity can be used as a warm up for kids or it can be used for teaching body parts and actions as well. It works well with young kids. If you can’t get them to make a mistake then that probably means they are too old for it or their level is too high.
In my experience it works until about 3rd or 4th grade.
This was filmed in a kindergarten in Busan, South Korea.
By the numbers since 2011:
159,000+ views
78+ likes
50+ shares
“Loved it! Good strategy to teach human’s body parts!” – Shimeny Soares comment
4. “Line Up” – An Icebreaker
“Line Up” is an icebreaker that will work well on the first day of class. It’s a simple getting to know you activity with a twist.
This video was filmed in a public elementary school in Changwon, South Korea. As you can see the students here were adults. They were in fact parents of some of the children that I taught. There was an adult class once a week.
By the numbers since 2011:
119,000+ views
41+ likes
26+ shares
“Great job!!!!!” – Cesar’s comment
5. “Sprite” – A Simple Vocabulary Activity
Sprite is a simple and effective game that works well with practicing vocabulary. Students get a chance to practice writing, speaking, and listening. It’s also fun too as they kids get to move around which is important.
This video was filmed in a public elementary school in Changwon, South Korea. These children were mostly in the fourth grade. I think some were in the 5th grade too.
This was another popular game for teaching vocabulary. It uses music which can be fun and refreshing. This video was filmed in a kindergarten in Busan.
By the numbers since 2011:
43,000+ views
62+ likes
40+ shares
“Haha, they are sooo cute! And he is great at giving dynamic classes!” – Ursula’s comment
8. How much money can I make teaching English in Asia?
However, there a few videos that are growing faster that were added later like the last 2 on this list. So I have included them here. I also thought they would add a little variety to this post.
9. Advice On Teaching Abroad From 26 ESL Teachers
I interviewed about 30 ESL teachers in China, Korea, Taiwan and Japan. One of the questions that I asked them was if they had any advice for newcomers. Here they share it.
By the numbers since 2014:
26,000+ views
170 likes
34 shares
10. Teaching English In Asia Without A Degree Or As A Non-Native Speaker
This video talks about teaching in Asia without a degree or if you are not a native English speaker. Those are the two main requirements (degree + native speaker) that you usually need to teach there.
Teaching without those requirements can be illegal and sometimes it isn’t. It largely depends on how you get your visa. There are some loopholes to that.
I am also not advocating that or not, but rather just telling it like it is. It can be illegal and there are risks, but that being said most teachers abroad probably taught illegally at least once.
There are other videos with more views than this, but this one is newer and growing.
By the numbers since 2015:
15,000+ views
67+ likes
7+ shares
So what other kinds of videos will you find there?
Most videos are how-to videos. You’ll find instruction and ideas on:
Lesson planning
Warm-up and icebreakers
Vocabulary games and activities
Sentence/Q&A games and activities
Teaching tips
Teaching numbers, reading, writing, etc.
Classroom management and more
All of these videos can be found on the site and you’ll also find written instructions below the video that you won’t find on Youtube. They are also organized better on the site.
I have been practicing Jiujitsu for about 20 months or so total on the mat. I have been going about 4 times a week or so and have been going to CCSF for about 2 semesters.
I love it. Jiujitsu is really fun and it’s easy to get totally absorbed with it and just in the moment. They also have some Judo classes there which I have been also taking, but I don’t feel very comfortable standing up yet compared to on the ground.
They have jiujitsu and judo tournaments there every semester. I was going to do the one last semester, but I got hurt. I had a friend at my first school Romelo Melo who said I should do it least once.
I remember I got nervous just watching the one last semester. I was a little nervous come this tournament, but not as nervous as I thought I would be.
For my first tournament I thought I did alright. I won 2 and lost one by points to a take down in “overtime”. Losing by points is not as disappointing as losing by submission. I think a submission only contest would be more interesting.
I wasn’t so sure if I would compete or not, but the thing that made me do it was something my teacher said. I asked him “Why compete?” He basically said to face your fears.
He went on to explain it more, but that was enough for me.
I decided that I would record it so that I could watch it. It’s pretty cool as you can see some things that you could have done differently. You get a different vantage point.
In my first match I wasn’t warmed up. That’s the thing in class you always do some warm-up exercises and drilling before you start to spar (roll). But I guess in tournaments you don’t have that option.
It was pretty sudden and the guy seemed pretty aggressive. I guess I wasn’t very ready as it was my first. He didn’t get close to submitting me once. I did have a couple of triangle choke attempts and cross collar choke, but I didn’t get him.
He won by a single leg take down in overtime. There’s a counter to that which I will do next time. That is with the Judo throw uchi mata. So that’s one thing I learned. So like they say if you lose you learn something.
My second match I did pretty good and won by points. I was adjusting for a triangle armbar when the time ran out. I swept the guy I think a few times and almost got a few submissions.
In my third match I won by triangle choke. It was a good one too. I had my legs in the right positions and I got it from mount and then rolled over to my back. My triangles have been getting better.
I just heard Mike Clough passed away. I don’t know how, but man I wished I had seen him in recent years. My last memories of him were from high school and a bit after circa ’93, ’94, ’95 or so when I last saw him. I have some wild memories of him though.
Here’s some of what I remember:
Mike was a strong guy and had guts like no other and was definitely a thrill seeker. Most of my vivid memories of him involve doing such things like that.
I remember he had this old black Nova SS that he was working on. There was this one day that we took it out for a spin down that dirt road in Woodsville near Wanda Downer’s house. It might have been Swiftwater road??? there by the Ammonoosuc. But we were going like 50 MPH down this dirt road and then he decides to jump off the side of the road into the corn field.
We couldn’t see anything except a wall of green and big ol’ corn stalks. I was shitting my pants and he was laughing as we plowed through all those corn stalks and then jumped back onto the road totally Dukes of Hazzard style.
He had another toy for a while too. It was like a white and blue Honda CBR 600. He used to do wheelies down main street in Woodsville. There was this day that he came and picked me up in Monroe on it and we were heading down route 5 on those straights at 135 MPH. I just felt like if I lifted my head a bit I was going to blow off the back of it.
Then there were the times we would go to the train trestle bridge in Woodsville and jump off. He was the first to show me that spot. What’s that 40-45 feet? Nutty again. Then there was this day Scott Clark decided to do it. He wanted to wear his socks for some reason and when he jumped his sock got caught on that plank and we watched him drop all that distance and land on his side. Hilarious!
There was another bridge in Monroe/Barnet and I remember him and Joe Williams decided to jump off in May. These guys didn’t pause a second and just like ran off it looking very cool and ballsy, so I had to do it too… And when I did I remember hitting that water, it was so cold and I panicked. I thought I wasn’t even going to make it to the shore, lol^^. Meanwhile Joe and Mike were laughing at me there on the river bank.
There was this other time with Alia and the 3 of us were under the influence of something… We were down by the McIndoe falls bridge and Mike suddenly gets inspired to bolt up the side of the trestle. He gets nearly to the higher part of the end, freaks out, starts laughing and climbs backwards down. It looked nuts.
One of the most memorable crazy, beautiful moments I ever had was with this guy. I think the three of us Alia, Mike and I were out driving around near Ryegate, VT. There had been this crazy lighting and thunder storm and we went to Tickle Naked Pond.
Being the geniuses that we were we decided it would be a great idea to go swimming. It was night time and there we were standing in the pond up to our waists in water watching this insane lighting and thunder show. It was awesome. It had stopped raining and you could see the reflection of the lighting in the water. We were both in awe of this awesome planet and the show we were getting.
I remember standing side by side in that water looking at him and saying something like if we had to die now this would be the perfect time to go. There were handshakes and I think there was a bit of howling perhaps. It was one of those “I love you man” moments. Then I remember Alia in the car calling us morons or something and we finally got out.
Those are some of my most vivid memories of Mike. There were others too. There were other bridges, parties and other exploratory missions out in the woods. Despite some of the trouble he sometimes hung out with I remembered my mom always liked him a lot and thought he was kind.
I wish I saw you when I was back in NH last Mike. I remembered one of the last things you said to me – that you were going to come out west and visit me someday.
This guy made me feel like a wimp. You can see him there taking an ice bath. I watched some of his videos on mental toughness. And that’s why I started taking cold showers.
I think this guy Mark Devine an ex-Navy Seal was the first one to give me the idea.
Then I started reading that some athletes and UFC fighters would take a cold bath or shower after a workout.
I figured I had some discipline, but cold showers just seemed impossible. Why would I want to do that? I like hot showers. They’re relaxing and comforting.
But the idea of mental toughness is appealing and goes along with another idea I have been exposed to lately in jiu-jitsu of being comfortable in an uncomfortable position. Like just trying to relax and be patient when you are in a bad position. To not freak out and panic.
Just relax you’ve been here before, you can get out.
I guess it’s the same with showers. It’s cold, it’s uncomfortable, but it’s temporary just relax, you’ll get used to it and then you can get out.
I just start as normal. I shower and wash and then when I am done I gradually turn the heat down until there isn’t any. And I enjoy??? the cold water for a couple of minutes.
I pulled a muscle in my back the other day and initially pointed the hot water on that spot for a while and then turned it to cold for a few minutes.
It definitely had an icing effect and the pain did go away for a while.
Right now I am about 2 hours and 20 minutes away from completing 72 hours of fasting. I plan on stopping tomorrow morning. By then I would have fasted more than 83 or so hours.
I haven’t eaten a thing. I did take one green supplement pill at the end of 24 hours and I have had some green tea in the morning. But other than that just a lot of water and no food.
I first started experimenting with fasting back in April 2015. That was more or less following the Warrior Diet and doing 20 hours of mostly fasting with 4 hours of feeding. And since then I have experimented with 24 hours of fasting with zero food.
After that I got inspired to do a longer fast. What inspired me? I read some something about how the body can regenerate stem cells after 2-5 days of fasting. And since I have had some injuries I thought this would be a good thing to do since it would promote cellular repair and healing.
The first 24 hours wasn’t too hard as I have done that before. I just felt hungry. I did feel more alert and maybe antsy. By the next day I started to feel a bit low energy and light headed.
On the third day (now) I felt nauseous when I first woke up. I still feel low energy and light headed. Morning seemed a little tougher.
I have been doing a lot of meditating which is good to. It’s been raining in San Fran a lot, so staying in, working on my website and taking it easy.
I used to get referral traffic from Youtube, but I hardly do anymore according to Google Analytics. Here’s a look at how it’s falling:
September 24-October 23 (Google Analytics)
This is my traffic from Youtube over the last 5 years with the amount of views on Youtube.
2016: 4 referrals (36,000 Youtube views)
2015: 5 referrals (25,000 views)
2014: 44 referrals (15,000 views)
2013: 196 referrals (19,000 views)
2012: 327 referrals (11,000 views)
Traffic went from 327-4 referrals and I had 3X the views on Youtube that I used to get when I got 80X the traffic.
I joined Youtube in 2011. I have currently over a 1,000,000 views and 4,000 sub. I have more videos than before, but I don’t get it… I have less traffic.
I don’t think I changed much.
Is the traffic calculated somewhere else? I use cards, linked annotations plus links in the descriptions.
Or has something else changed? Is there a new trend? Have people stopped clicking through to websites?
Ironically I also made more money a month when I had 11-19,000 views compared to now.
Old article…
Recently I was searching for the answer to this question. And I didn’t really find much that answered my questions, so that’s why I am putting this out there.
This is based on my experience using Youtube for the last 6 years. The first channel that I started has just a few videos on it. One video has over 150,000 views.
The second channel has a total of over 1,000,000 views with about 190 videos. It has more than 4,000 subscribers.
So how much referral traffic do I get from Youtube? You would think with numbers like those you would get some traffic. Well Google Analytics is confusing and it frequently changes.
Last month I only had 9 visitors to my site from Youtube according to GA and 22,400 views on Youtube. Doesn’t sound like much eh? Well on a positive note, those users ended up spending 14 minutes and visiting 8+ pages which is pretty high.
I wonder if the Youtube traffic is calculated somewhere else too.
A year ago on the same date I had 28 visitors from Youtube and 14,000 views on Youtube. 2 years ago I had 152 visitors on the same month and 16,300 views on Youtube. 3 years ago I had 359 visitors from Youtube and 12,300 views on Youtube.
This is confusing for me. I am getting more views on my channels, but less traffic to my website. Why? I don’t think I really changed much.
So based on the numbers I am currently getting it sure doesn’t seem to be. I am wondering if the links in the video are calculated elsewhere?
I found this post on MOZ about Youtube traffic and that very few actually come to your website and it is more of a good place for brand awareness than it is traffic.
Here’s a video a made of some of the highlights of my day out in the streets performing. It can be a lot of fun. We paint our face blue, dress up, freak some people out, do some shows and beatbox a bit.
I made this video over the last summer in Chinatown, San Francisco.
