A tough 60 day days of Yoga

This summer was going to be busy. Family and friends knew that all too well. There was going to be a graduation trip to Indiana, a hiking trip my wife was part of and a lot of other weekend social commitments, not to mention a severe work load from August 1st. 

There is the usual BYSJ summer 60 day challenge that one can start between 1st to 14th of July and do 60 classes in 60 days. No one forced me to sign up.  I was going to yoga almost every day since 3rd of July and one day I simply could not make it to the usual class because of being held up at work. San went at the usual time and I went by myself 2 hours later. The folks at the front desk said "you look tired and pissed off.. maybe you should put up a few stars on the challenge board and you will feel better?!". That was interesting. I was doing the challenge without advertising it and it has already been 9 days of not missing a day. So put my name on the board and put 9 stars at one go. 

The next day my wife was shocked to see my name on the board with all the stars. She smiled and didn't say anything. When this was announced to the kids at home, they just rolled their eyes. Good yoga for the eyes is what I was thinking. If I can make them do that everyday, maybe their eyesight will be good for a long time! Who knows?

Knowing there was travel, did do 5 doubles (mostly back to back doubles). For some stats, this is the 16th time signing up for a 60 day challenge in 13 years and the 14th successful attempt. Both times I could not make 60/60 were summer challenges. Going to class or showing up is not a challenge. Adjusting logistics also is not an issue, thanks to a very supportive family, friends and co-workers.

The biggest challenge are doubles and trying to drink water in the 30 minutes between two back to back classes. It has been years since I took a water bottle to class. My water is left in the car and I drink water 30 minutes before class and 15 minutes after class. However, doing back to back doubles means that between the two classes I need to drink water with a packet of vitamins and that just sits in my stomach at the beginning of the second class. That was the hardest thing in this challenge.

Have taken 2829 Bikram Yoga classes so far, according to the excel spreadsheet that is still being maintained. 10,000 hours of practice on any skill is required to become a subcounsious expert or so say some books on skill building and expertise. This is still only 4200 hours. If I need the equivalent of a pilots license for my own body and mind, lets just say I am not even halfway there. Maybe before the end of this lifetime will realize something deeper within. Yoga is a slow and steady process. Accepting that there are no shortcuts has already been a worthy experience. 

Over the last few challenges, have realized that after day 30, when you come repeatedly, the mind is not fighting the teachers words anymore. I call it zombie mode.. but not in an auto pilot kind of way.. more in a "I am so beat that I am just going to submit myself to the instruction and do what is being asked". At that moment in class you cannot think much about it. It just happens. After class you realize that you did things that are surprising! Fixed postures with corrections, have light bulb moments and then you get to try it out the very next day and the day after that till it can become a new habit. 

Most of us have the capacity to remember 3 or 5 things tops after a lecture or any lesson. I am part of that majority group. So to learn those 3 things and make them a regular habit is possible only because of pushing myself to do a challenge. You come every alternate day, you just go back to old ways quickly. You have to remember the correction before the posture starts. Once you are in it, it is already too late. You might correct yourself in the second set.. but that doesn't help you make it the default!

Thoroughly enjoyed this challenge for the learning, the chats outside the room before class with my fellow regular yogis, the chance to encourage other folks to have a regular practice and my teachers encouraging me to "let it go!" everytime I walked into class after being on the phone till 2 minutes before class. 

On a side note, BYSJ finally brought back T-shirts as a souvenir for folks who finish! My wardrobe which is 80% BYSJ 60 day challenge T-shirts badly needed a replacement. This years T-shirt is just beautiful. Now I just need to collect a few more over the coming years? (this blog post alone is going to give my family more yoga for their eyes after they roll it non stop!) 

The best thing that ever happened to me in hindsight was that damn accident. If it wasn't for being broken with physiotherapy being able to get me back only to a certain point, would have never found Bikram yoga! What a blessing in disguise that accident turned out to be? There is always fate, destiny, the butterfly effect, whatever you want to call it.. but forever grateful to all powers and unknown probabilities that made me walk through those doors all those years ago!

For all my friends and family, I hope that my doing yoga inspires you to try it, even if for a few days and my sincere wish is for you to find yourself by doing yoga! It is a slow process which might even involve getting lost many times while trying to find yourself..but if you stay the course, magic happens!

Missed getting a close up photo with the ageless Michelle Vennard. There are so many pictures over the years that I made a collage of some of the pics. She is a true inspiration when it comes to walking the walk after talking the talk! .. or in Yogi speak.. she can be as still as she can be silent, during a yoga class! (just realized, that it is literally the opposite of walking and talking!)

One more challenge done. Hopefully many more to come!

The Turkish desi..

San was recommended a Turkish watch by one of her friends and she started watching it.  She had just started and I walked past the family room and said "are you watching something in Turkish?" .. she was surprised that I could recognize it was Turkish by just walking past to the kitchen..

It was a cute chick flick called "Her Yerde Sen". After spending 2 hours watching it, I thought it would come to a happy ending and it kind of went to titles abruptly..

Then she sheepishly tells me it is a "serial" and that was the first episode.. There are 22 such episodes 2 hours long. I get migraines if I watch TV for more than 3-4 hours in a row but this was cute and we hardly watch anything together.. 

So I beg her to watch one episode with me every night.. we were okay for two days.. then the long weekend hit and she just went to episode 18 in two days while I was still at 4! She binge watched the damn thing by fast forwarding 2 hour episodes to under an hour. . . she insisted I do the same.. and I gave her a long lecture on why fast forwarding rom coms to a kiss is as bad as fast forwarding Jackie Chan as he makes all the prep moves before he strikes.. you know the action is going to be amazing, but watching him setup the strike is as important as the 15 seconds of action itself.. the whole buildup of the drama is lost if you fast forward.. 

I am going to watch 1 hour a day and maybe finish this in another 16 days without fast forwarding.. so yes, I am spending the long weekend watching a Turkish serial! 

Then came the part where I surprised my wife with some Turkish vocab.. even the kids were surprised.. everytime I show any proficiency in a language the folks at home automatically assume it has to do with a girl.. 

So here is the back story.. One of my close grad school friends Sedat was from Turkey and we used to live in different floors of the same Apartment complex. It was me, a Bengali guy and my Turkish friend taking turns making Tea (Tea bag tea, Turkish tea, Varanasi Chai) in someones apartment every day and we would watch Star Trek and Simpsons back to back for an hour on week days. A lot of great memories.. 

we would also teach each other phrases on what things were called in Tamil, Bengali and Turkish. Sedat thought it would be a good idea to teach me enough Turkish to pass me off as Turkish in one of his get togethers in his apartment. It was an experiement or prank of sorts. He used to give me cheat sheets to practice and I found some of them to show my wife and kids! (in the process I also found a lot of old photos etc. which was a trip down memory lane). 

there were many such sheets..can't find the rest of them. He taught me conversational Turkish and all I had to do was pronounce every word correctly.. think I did him proud by passing off as a Turkish dude.. He always thought I was a good student. Had no idea of the detailed words but could repeat entire sentences from memory.. 

The good thing is that I can always come up with intersting stories that surprise my kids.. 

Yeah kids.. your dad was cool once! 

You will be fine!

It has been 6 weeks since I stopped drinking water during Yoga class. When I started to give up water during class, thought that it was going to be incredibly difficult.

Over the last few weeks (did miss two weeks during travel) always thought that there will be that "one class" which would get me to run back to that water fountain outside the class. So far, so good.

Think my mind knows now that as long as there was a glass of water 30 minutes before class, everything will be fine a good 30 minutes after class is over. Like Mary Jarvis had predicted on the 18th of March..... "you will not die if you stop drinking water during class. you will be fine!"

This is like starting to drive a battery car for the first time. Initially you have range anxiety. You are not sure if you can go to a place and get back. There is always some variability on the mileage depending on how fast or slow you go locally, which in the Yoga room is equivalent to not giving every pose a 100% in a stupid attempt to "conserve sweating" which is actually counter productive. You know there is no "nearest gas tank" where you can fill up and continue on a battery car.. Eventually when you get the hang of the routes you travel and know your speed, you stop having range anxiety. You know you will be fine. 

What is the worse that can happen? you stop on the side of the road and have to call AAA? You are exhausted on the yoga mat and the teacher has to drag you out by your feet? (well, that has not happened to me yet... but a teacher did joke to a first timer that they should always have their feet towards the door during class and when asked why, replied "that is in case you die here and we have to drag your body out. it is easier feet first towards the door"... the teacher said it with a straight face and everyone burst out laughing)

It has been an interesting month. Two weeks in Asia. First week on business trip, followed by a quick Chennai visit for my nephews "upananayanam" or "Janeu" ceremony. It was a great experience. I was the only one representing the four of us. My sister came as well and after four years my parents got to be in the same roof with all three kids even if it was only for three days. 

My sister and me with parents, while my brother is performing the ceremony on stage in the background. The photo of the five of us was not taken on my camera! So I have to wait for it...

Did manage to take a shot of my mom with all her siblings. The last time I managed that shot was in 2005 when my Grandfather got married to my grandma all over again at the age of 80!

13 years later my uncle has lost a lot of weight and looks like a concentration camp survivor and my mom and aunts have all put on weight and have some kind of health issue or another. They are all smiling and going about their lives and while that makes me happy, wish they would all take up some form of regular exercise. Was giving them the "never too late, never too old, never too sick..." spiel but it did not go very well. 

My grandma is still around and tack sharp!

As soon as I got back home, San and the little one went to India to represent the family at her cousins wedding. There was  no time to catch up on social media or do anything other than manage to go through the routine while getting over jet lag. Made it to Yoga almost every night after coming back, even if it meant going very late in the night. Hats off to all those single parents who come to Yoga class. Now I know why they pick the late night class. 

We had a lot of discussion during the India trip on the impact of my deciding to settle in the US, how time and space can be hard barriers, but how family still holds together thanks to culture and tradition etc. The thread ceremony marks a boy's commitment to learning the scriptures. My brother and myself had our ceremony at the same time and it was a big experience for me. Somehow the meaning of the word "responsibility" came into consciousness after that ceremony. Till then I was happy playing cricket with the boys and I-spy with the boys and girls in Sambandham street without any awareness of the fact that I was not going to be a kid forever. Glad there was a ceremony like that to slap you into life!

There is no such thing for girls and my mother was telling me that the next big function for me was Jr's wedding...

It was great to watch my nephew go through this experience and suddenly tansform into a big boy and start to learn.. with the Gayathri mantra! He has excellent pronunciation and hopefully he gets to improve his memory by reciting things by heart over time. If he keeps up the breathing exercise that is half the yoga done already!

Clicked this one right at the end of the function. The Narayanan family has successfully passed on a male tradition to the next generation! Looks like the boy has the weight of the world on his shoulders and he might as well have. Passing on a quest for learning and questioning and understandign go a long way to the betterment of the world. The most important thing one needs to learn is "how to learn". Everything follows.

Next will be time to pass on female traditions a few years from now..

I had an amazing time paticipating in a function after so many years in India, taking pictures, chatting with relatives, catching up, and most importantly playing with my nephew and niece. 

Instagram filters were a big hit with my niece.. every 10 minutes she would come to me and go "Periappa, doggie ears photo pannalamaa?"  Think we exhausted every filter..

During the INdia trip, I avoided a lot of things that are usual. Said no to "ghee" for the most part, restricted myself to "small portions" of food (as small as my mom would allow) and avoiding a lot of fried stuff. That actually made life easier after coming back. 

All said and done "I am fine!" as is the family.

Pronate

Before you read further, this is a post on the yoga journey.

Two years ago, on a 10AM class, one of my yoga teachers told me during Eagle pose "Sundar, you are pronating your leg!"

The rest of the class was a blur. As a guy who is proud of memorizing the Barron's GRE guides vocabulary list, a and most of the words in the short Chambers dictionary (early 80's version), I was stumped because that word was not part of my list. Realized it had something to do with the angle of my feet but did not know the precise meaning. 

You know how sometimes you are driving to LA on I-5 and you are almost at Coalinga but you don't remember driving over the last 30 or so minutes and you think "I have been zombie driving thinking of other things.. what if I fell asleep with the entire family in the car? better go take a break and wash my face!" ? It was kind of like that for the rest of the class.

One  minute Mariaelena says "pronate" and the next thing you know, we are all on the floor, and I don't remember anything inbetween, other than how come I missed that word so far! It happens, people.. at least to me! 

After the class I asked the teacher what was going on and she told me that my legs were turned in and my body weight was not on my heel. It took me a year to consciously correct it. 

Few days ago, the teacher shouts from the back of the room "Sundar, your foot is turned in, not balanced!". 

My initial reaction was "no way. I know this is an issue and that is why I check my feet before starting the pose. it is perpendicular to the mirror. you can take a protractor to it".. but given this dude had a track record of being right, I decided to watch the second set. 

Started off with a planted foot that was straight. Then a funny thing happened. Just as I was about to raise one leg and put it on top of the other, my body leaned forward, my heel came off the ground and when I was done, the heel did not land where it took off. . . it had moved. My leg had "pronated"!

It can be frustrating to watch yourself in front of the mirror and face an obvious truth that what you think you are vs. what you are are not matching! 

This happens almost once a week when a teacher points out something to me. 

The big realization though was after class on the way home. I took that well. No frustration these days. A fleeting moment where you go "one more thing to remember" and then you think of it as another blessing and move on, knowing there is more chances to come and eventually this thing will get better.

My ability handle corrections has improved ! That means there is room for more corrections and that is a good thing.. 

Well as a social service to other students and vocabulary students. . . 

Pronate : turn or hold (a hand, foot, or limb) so that the palm or sole is facing downward or inward.

This weekend I better take the camera out and get some photos of me doing yoga, just to compare hwo things have changed over the years! It has been six years as of last weekend since starting yoga. 

So far it has been 1250 classes and I will give myself an A for attendance, B for trying, C for the actual output and D for listening.

The journey continues... 

A few words..

After the last Asia trip, I came home okay. Then we ate at an Indian restaurant, which we have only visited once before more than a year ago and both me and MIL ended up with food poisoning. Wife and kids did not get hit although the little one complained of tummy pain, went into a fart spree and then declared herself okay. MIL and me were not that lucky. She was throwing up and I was feeling like an over pressurized cannister that did not know how and when it was going to explode for most of the weekend. 

So my yoga attendance in the last 5 days has been spotty at best. Finally made it back to class this evening. Walked in with low expectations but as usual there is the "now that I have made it past that door, better make the most of it" philosophy that kicked in and started doing the best I could.

It was almost the end of the class and we were doing the final stretching pose on the floor when the teacher mentions my name and says "pull your little thighs just above your knees up and towards each other and then stretch"!

Was trying to process that on the fly, given I have never heard anyone say that to me or another student before. 

The first question was "what are little thighs?" then my brain went "it is something between your real thighs and it is above your knees.. so even if we don't know what that is, just pull whatever muscle you can pull up and towards each other in that region!" 

So I tried to locally clench something in that area upwards and inwards and sure enough, like magic, my body went down a good six inches lower and towards my feet! It was MAGIC !

When we got a chance to do the second set, gave those "little thighs" a big inward curl and was able to repeat the stretch!

Have been doing this for 5 plus years. All it takes is a few words to click at the right time in the right way and there is a world of a difference in the result. 

Have come to the conclusion that teaching yoga cannot be an easy thing. Even if a person can do the poses and internalize how to use their anatomy to make changes, it is very difficult to communicate that cause and effect to another person using mere words. 

For all I know, what was moved may not be little thighs, but the learning continues.