#ohnojellifish

Hi, I’m not a professional or anything……..

I’ll talk about two things: music and yoga.

Music

Well, I’ve been writing songs since I was 10 years old. My older brother gave me a guitar for my birthday, and I started writing songs that sucked, and sang alone in my room ‘cause I was too shy to sing in front of people. It was mostly Avril Lavigne, Michelle Branch, Hilary Duff kind of stuff.

I was 15 when I first got invited to join a band. We were called Above The Influence and we kept auditioning for stuff but never actually won anything. Haha! It was fun though. We got gigs at least. Because of my friends, I started listening to Paramore, Fall Out Boy, Panic! At The Disco, All Time Low…. all those bands in 2005-2008, when pop-punk was all the rage and listening to them was the “cool thing to do.”

From 2009-2010, me and one of my bandmates had a very short-lived duo called Buendia Submarine. Around that same time I tried going solo, and had an active Facebook page called Jellifish, which I discontinued because (1) creepy PM’s were creepy, and (2) I couldn’t update it regularly and manage the page all by myself. I was able to join a songwriting contest in my university though and won first place.

From 2011-2012, I was in Almost Six. After a lot of successful gigs and even getting to the semi-finals of Red Horse Muziklaban 2012, we disbanded due to conflicting interests before we could record an EP. (Our original songs are up on YouTube somewhere though, for anyone interested.)

Quite honestly, I suck at managing my own Facebook page or YouTube page. Right now I’m not officially in any one band, but even if I do end up being in one again, I’d like to keep this blog running. I’ve posted songs in other blogs I’ve created before, but I never made it this personal. So imma make it personal. ‘Kay? Yay.

Yoga

This one’s new.

I was never athletic. I was too awkward. No, not the cute kind of awkward. The real kind, the cringeworthy one. When I was 11, I was in a dance troupe and the teacher moved me to the back row so that I wouldn’t be seen. I was that bad.

Fast-forward to college, I joined an Arnis team. Although I only stayed for a year, it made a big impact on me. It brought out a fighting spirit in me that I didn’t know I had. I did my best in every sparring session. And I started to see changes with how I physically felt and moved. Unfortunately, I couldn’t commit to training regularly, and chose the band life over the martial arts life.

I gained a lot of weight after that since I had stopped training, but kept my animal-like eating habits. Unaware of the consequences, next thing I knew I went from 124 lbs. to 145 lbs. I didn’t notice it, and by the time I had, I was already a lot heavier and slower.

My cousin introduced me to yoga a year after I left the arnis team. I was interested in trying it out. My aunt was a yoga instructor, and I had my first official class under her, by the beach with my cousin and other relatives. It was an amazing experience. I started searching for free yoga classes to follow online. I tried to practice on my own, but knew that I wanted more.

I ended up falling in love with yoga. I’m still pretty early in my journey, but so far yoga has (and still is) teaching me to breathe. I suffer from a lot of anxiety, and didn’t expect that yoga would be able to help me so much, but it did. It taught me to breathe through discomfort and tight spots, to breathe in order to balance, and to breathe in positive vibes in my body.

Yoga brought out the fighting spirit I had from back when I was in the arnis team. Late 2014, I regularly went to kickboxing classes and had just started trying out pole fitness classes. I’ve only lost 6 lbs. so far, going from 148 lbs. to 142 lbs. This is the heaviest I’ve ever been, but also the happiest and strongest I’ve ever been.

I still write songs from time to time. But now, it’s not the only outlet I have for expressing myself creatively. I hope to keep this blog running, not just for my music, but for sharing my yoga journey.

So hello there, let’s be friends, I won’t be shy if you’re not shy, gimme a listen and see if you like it. And to those very, very, very few who have followed me to this day, thank you so much for staying with me and believing in me.

- ohnojellifish

Decided to make it a blog for both music and yoga instead. Also, just sharing my About Me page.

I'm not sure just where this leaves me, I find myself here once again

Always thought this time it's over, over and over again

And all of these simple things burned to cinders when you came

I'll deliver something new, hard to see that love is blue

All the stories told are slipping away

As time goes on and on and on

All the things I've said are there to stay

Bury the laughter with my tears

And all these memories will go down in history

As first-place pain, no contest

Too much holding on and slipped

Shaky hands despite my grip

Doubt to give you benefit

It's a choice that we'll forgive

All the stories told are slipping away

As time goes on and on and on

All the things I've said are there to stay

Bury the laughter with my tears

And all these memories will go down in history

As first-place pain,

no contest.

Song Diary #001 - "Pain"

I wasn't supposed to post this on SoundCloud, but I recorded this using my phone and I got lazy to bring out the mic to connect to my laptop and gaaahh.

Anyway, I had this urge to write this. I pretty much just let this song happen on its own. It's been a while since I've done that.

For the most part of this past year I avoided writing because I knew that it would require me to be vulnerable and straight-up raw about things. But something recently pushed me to give this (art, music, scribbling words, whatever you call it) a chance to help myself heal.