Hidden Gems

I’m one of those people who is open to the spiritual or philosophical way of viewing the world we live in – I love meditation and the “squeezing the sponge” feeling you get post-meditation leaving you with clarity, focus and an almost endorphin-like happiness free from anxiety and stress. I’m someone that likes breathing and stretching, believing completely that it can assist in well-being, flexibility and faster recovery from exercise and sports. I also have used traditional chinese medicine, like cupping, acupuncture, and electro-lymphatic therapy to alleviate issues like serratus anterior myofascial pain syndrome (if you are doing Muay Thai boxing, or heavy weights on your chest, you’ll know this one for sure).

So, when I was served the ad on Instagram for the Shakti Mat Black I was intrigued to say the least, as during lockdowns it’s been almost impossible to get to a sports massage therapist to relieve muscle pain. The name of the most popular version of the Shakti Mat, namely The Shakti Mat Black is somewhat deceiving because you immediately believe that this is their top of the line model, as typically the black or premium version is often top tier. However, this colour is just their most popular version. Actually green, black and orange versions all offer the same basic Shakit Mat model.

Being the saddist that I am, I skipped basic and went straight to Shakti Mat Advanced, and that is represented by a single colour, the purple version, which is their definitive advanced model. This one boasts more pain, more spikes, more everything!

I can lie down on the Shakti Mat for about 1-2 hours, and will often fall asleep, though I think 20-30 minutes is the optimal time range to garner relief. Typically I will just lie on my back and have that take care of me, however, sometimes I also will utilise the mat on my feet. To be fair, I haven’t been game to stand on the spikes, I have a phobia about things breaking off and being stuck in my feet (after some nasty incidents in my childhood when I kicked a deck and a huge shard of wood went into my foot), and also recently in the last couple of days I stood on some broken glass in the kitchen (I thought I had gotten all the tiny shards up but not to be) and had to go to the clinic to get a local anaesthetic and a quick scalpel removal of said shard, after it had healed over… note to self — the injection of Local Anaesthetic needle into the foot pad near your toes is excruciating, as it is a highly sensitive area… them actually taking the glass out I couldnt even feel…

So what to expect from the Shakti Advanced:

• The first 2 minutes are the hardest to get through, especially if you are tense and stressed out. Your body is holding that pain in and you are going to feel it in full force for that first 2 minutes — stay focused and just get through it
• The next 15-20 minutes can range from relaxing to a kinda of euphoric bliss, akin to endorphins after exercise, deep tissue massage or intense stretching.
• If you can last for 1 or 2 hours you may find yourself falling asleep…
• Once you remove yourself from the mat, you can get an itching sensation (it can actually be kind of pleasant); I feel this way more on my feet, but I also heavily do reflexology. This is normal as it can be the blood rushing to the punctured areas.

If you are open to relief via pain, and need something to destress yourself during these troubling times, I can highly recommend the Shakit Mat, and if you have a very high pain threshold (if you can handle myofascial ITB pressure release) then opt for the Shakti Mat Advanced Version

The product itself is a fairly simple piece of fabric with 4,140 tines (10 rows of 12 widgets with 18 spikes, alternated by 10 rows of 11 widgets with 18 spikes) whilst inside is some kind of foam block.

To wash: You can simply release the velcro straps and hand wash the fabric and spikes as needed. I personally wouldn’t tumble dry the product it is probably best to air dry.

As an application method, I put a towel down on my bed, put the Shakti Mat on my towel and then lie on the mat; I’ll line up a bunch of youtube videos or podcasts on my laptop, and then lie down on the mat and click go on the podcasts, and just lie there and listen whilst I am letting the mat do its work. You might want to put on some ocean/dolphin sounds, or burn some incense or a candle… do whatever suits you — probably the less digital the better, but i put on the podcasts that I have been putting off, because now I am a captive audience.

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NB: All reviews on The Fake Peranakans are 100% DanDan or Dunkle’s own opinions and are not paid for in any way, shape or form. In order to be a good conduit for our audience we’ll only be publishing reviews of things that we recommend – Mum always said, “if you don’t have anything nice to say, then don’t say anything”, so whilst there could be dozens of reviews of things we think you should avoid, we just won’t give them a voice on our website. Please don’t ask us to review your product or offer endorsements as we are not interested in being paid to provide positive reviews for products and services.

Some day the mountain might get ‘em but the law never will…

Whilst journeying for my second time through Cyberpunk as the ineffable V, I was pleasantly surprised to stumble upon this fantastic car the Jen Rowley. The electric orange colour didn’t get me first and it wasn’t until I saw the flag on the roof that the punny car name, Jen Rowley finally made sense.

The General Lee from the classic 80’s TV show The Dukes of Hazzard was Bo and Luke Duke’s 1969 Dodge Charger. The striking vehicle, much like KITT (Knight Industries Two Thousand) in Knight Rider, became the primary protagonist of the show. In comparing the Cyberpunk 2077 model to The Dukes of Hazzard model there are some clear similarities and differences.

Similarities: Both cars share the same electric orange paint job, the number 01 along the side of the doors, and a patriotic american flag (though in Cyberpunk 2077’s case it’s a New United States of America flag – or NUSA flag – whereas in The Dukes of Hazzard it is a dixie-inspired flag).

Differences: In the TV show, the iconic car had both doors fused shut, requiring the lead characters to slide in stylishly through the open windows, whenever they were “on the run”, which was basically the premise of every single episode. In the Cyberpunk 2077 game, the car has automated wing style doors. The other key difference in The Dukes of Hazzard TV show is the car’s instantly recognisable novelty dixie horn (in my youth many cars had this novelty horn because of the show; the other variant the infamous spanish la cucaracha horn was also popular). Cyberpunk 2077’s developers have missed an amazing opportunity to include the dixie horn in the game, and instead you are greeted with a standard beefy blast horn noise.

So what exactly is the car like? Is it worth it eddies-wise? How does it handle? All great questions! For mine, the car is simply iconic and brings me back to my youth. It looks fantastic and is a joy to drive, and it brings me real immersion especially when travelling through 6th street gang territory. Cost-wise it is relatively cheap and will only set you back 58,000 eddies which is a lot less than something like the Aerondight which is almost 4x more expensive at 225K. However, that’s just where the fun begins, as much like in the TV show, the developer’s have held true to the handling as this thing fish-tails all over the place. You’ll want to have your in-game or out-of-game phone ready for all the cool burnout shots you are gonna get! (I recommend the wide blue lanes out in Rancho Coronado for maximum blue-black-orange contrast effect).