The yoga practice has continued at home for the most part over the last two weeks, even though the studio is open again with limited capacity.
The first few days I was simply not fast enough to get on the waitlist and then given my zen place, decided to do yoga alone at home to recorded classes.
The last few zoom classes my teacher has been trying to give me very precise instructions on one pose.
The balancing stick pose (Tuladandasana) which is a short and sweet pose. . . no I am kidding. We are talking Bikram hot yoga. There is nothing sweet about it. It is a time lapse trip to hell and back in 10 seconds, and that is my PG version.
The idea is to stand on one leg and stretch the hands and legs like you are the rope in a tug of war competition. The number one thing that puts anyone on guard in a hot yoga class is "lock the knee" which sometimes is also refered to as "lock the damn knee" etc. So whenever the teacher mentions locking the knee, or using your inner thighs etc. the brain automatically thinks "standing leg" or the "balancing leg" that is usually unlocked.
Turns out my teacher was talking about the stretching leg. She even told me in two classes back to back "use the inner thighs on the left leg and lift it". I heard it and processed it as "Sarah has got the legs mixed up again. I am standing on my right leg and lifting up my thighs all I can but nothing is moving!"
Then in an act of coincidence, when I was in zombie autopilot mode for a fraction of a second, I let the brain process what had just been heard and accidentally realized that she was indeed talking about my left leg!
She had practically given me a "paint by numbers" type instruction and I had still managed to $#% it up two days in a row!
Funny thing is that the correction made me balance easier and I was not killing my ankles and feet trying to lift from the bottom part of the leg.
The fact that she literally has to beat it into me, on zoom, three days in a row is a testament to the perseverence of the teachers!
Today I was part of a livestream class where you watch the people in the hot room and join the class. The teacher cannot see me on video as they are in the room. Sarah knew I was in the zoom version of the class and she gave me the exact same correction, even though she couldn't see me! This time I was ready and doing it right. Had even practiced it a few times yesterday.
Here is a video showing a before and after.
Normally you take the step everytime you go down but I planted my front foot down in the video for a reason. That way I can superimpose the two versions in photoshop easily..
The other interesting thing is that this concept works well in two of the four poses in the spine strengthening series where you have to lift your leg and push it towards the back!
Some of you might be thinking "hasn't this guy been doing this 2000+ times over 10 years? he must be the worlds dumbest student". Well, I think that sometimes too but then realize that it has nothing to do with the effort or dedication or what type of intelligence you have.
It all has to do with registering certain things. Watching someone end up in a pose just tells you the end result. Which muscles they used to get there is not obvious. They might explain the body mechanics and practially give you very specific instructions but we are inherently biased. We put filters between what we hear and what we actually process in our heads!
I am happy to have realized this. This is not the first time there has been a lightbulb moment and this surely won't be the last.
Just cannot wait for going into the studio and embrace the heat and humidity!
When I am teaching something to my kids, by the third time my voice or body language shows my frustration as a teacher and my kids pick up on it!
A big thanks to my teacher for being soo persistent and patient, even when she could see that I simply was not getting it, days at a time!
It has been hard to do yoga by myself day after day.. but I haven't missed a day this year. Have managed to do a full class with audio recordings from my teachers every day, even if it was the last thing I had to do before going to bed.
We also have a once a week Zoom live class where our world champion teacher watches us patiently as little thumbnails and still manages to correct us as we are doing the asanas in synchronization with her instructions.
Today during the live class she said "dont give up" exactly a few milliseconds before I had officially given up going from the left side to right side of a pose.
The best part is also being able to share things on the group pages and have teachers give me corrections or suggestions on how to improve or go past a set back of sorts. It is kind of like going to a doctor. The better you are able to tell them what is going on in the post, the better the help. You post a photo or video, that is like giving your doctor an x-ray or ultrasound video.. better the help.
For the last few days, I have been trying to improve my practice by taking one pose where we are lying down on the floor and try hold it for 2-3 minutes after finishing the regular class. The reason for this was :
1. doing stuff at home is not same as doing stuff in a hot room at 110 F and 40% humidity. So we cannot push ourselves to the same limits.
2. at the end of giving it everything at room temp, you are still a lot more flexible at end of class than beginning of class, so it makes sense to stretch at least one pose
3. normally we hold poses for 20 seconds. holding for 2-3 minutes might help me go past limits, relax certain parts better and hold other parts of the body consistently.
What surprised me was that my breathing faltered after 2 minutes on many such attempts even on simple poses. The main reason was my attempt to keep the pose "active" and pulling too much which automatically puts the focus from the breath to the constraint and the whole thing fell apart.
When I explained this, my teachers gave me very precise instructions on going step by step to handle this.
Your body is a machine and even though you have had it all your life, it doesn't mean you can put it in certain poses, unless you have a cheat sheet.. there is a step by step method to this madness which will help you get there..
Yoga teachers are hackers.. they are body hackers.. they literally have a cheat sheet for how to make your body do things you thought it could never do!
here are some examples.
disclaimer: these were taken after dinner for show and tell purposes.. based on photographer availability..
I always used to imagine pushing the top surface out and up and towards the mirror in front of me.. that kind of backfires because at the neck area you are conflicted.. the neck has to drop. The idea is actually to push from the back to the front.. imagine the green surface moving up and out and problem solved.. neck still drops. it is easier to imagine things that way. Again what I say may not make sense to you.. as long as one teacher explained it in a way that made sense to me, all is well.
There is no "code" that can be just downloaded into your head to make you do what the teacher wants and do it right.
So far my teachers have been very patient with me.. On one of the pre-recorded dialogues my teacher says "it took me 5 years to do what it says in the instruction. It takes however long it takes.. but patience is the key"..
I am testing the patience of my teachers and they are absolutely sweet about handling all the questions.
Now that I have an extra 30 minutes that is not spent driving to and fro to yoga class, putting that time also towards the yoga. It will hopefully come in handy when the lockdown is lifted and we are able to practice with heat again.
No.. not about wildlife.. it is just another Yoga post.
Wrote this post last year almost around the same time.. this week we almost had a repeat of sorts..
Given the US changes time for Daylight savings and my compadres in Asia don't, I get to do yoga on Tuesdays only after 8PM between November and April, if at all. Given the Yoga studio has teachers who are also creatures of habit, knew it would be one of two guys teaching that class.
Last week being Chinese New Year, I got to go to a 6:30 PM class and planned to do a double. As usual I didn't check the schedule and the Lioness showed up..
When signing in at the lobby she asks me "Did you know I was going to teach? Surprise ?!"
If you just visualizd a smiling woman saying "surpise", United airlines air hostess style .. visualize Samuel Jackson walking out from a door with a gun saying "surprise !#$^&**&^%$!!!" instead. She said it the former way, I reacted as though I had seen the later..
The probability of doing a double halved instantly.
The class itself was interesting.. Heckling was apparently allowed in that class, but for some reason, I did not get the memo. The entire class was put on notice that she was compared to a lioness, but they did not get the context.
Little did they know, that what was more important was that they were Zebras... or Gazelles.. As long as everyone was doing the pose in unison, things were okay. The minute one person went out of formation, they were going to get picked on. They were dead..
There were a lot of facts thrown into the class.. like the length of a human colon being five feet. We even got the dialogue in Spanish for a few mintues.. I have heard the dialogue in Japanese once and Russian once.. and they didn't make a difference. You know what you are supposed to do in the sequence, and as long as the teachers voice modulation is right, push sounds like push in any language and relax or change sounds like an exit strategy in any language..
I did not do the double after that killer class and postponed it for the next day.
It has been an interesting week at work and home with meetings that go late, calls that make it difficult to juggle yoga. We had a guest teacher the next day. A popular teacher who is like a pied piper for yogis. Have been in his class before a few years ago. He has been gifted with an amazing hypnotizing voice and he puts it to good use. You go into a trance and do things you would not normally do. Every now and then you look in the mirror and go "is that really me doing that stuff?".
Between the Lioness and the Pied piper, the doubles were getting postponed almost on a day to day basis. I desperately needed to cheer myself up to go do that double to get me back on track for the sixty day challenge.
This year, I had not planned on putting stickers after every class. It was going to be a silent challenge. I had a good 20 minutes between the classes. So I pulled up a stool and sat in front of the challenge board and decorated with the stickers. After slowly sticking a good 37 stickers, felt really good.
Admired my handiwork for a few minutes and spoke to some of my challenge buddies. They were laughing at my decorations. Walked back into the hot room and did the second class and did justice to that class as well. My friend who knew I was doing a double taught that class. He gave us serial instructions with a short pause after each instruction. Given my brain had limited processing ability, it was great to do it one step at a time! After class I told him and he goes "you have a small RAM?". Given my job is to give people more RAM.. that was funny!
Two thirds of the way into the challenge this time. As long as I don't pick up germs on travel, there is a good chance I will finish.
This year started on a bad note.. and the first three weeks were going from bad to worse to the point where I was just hoping Feb would be a better month than Jan, on a personal and professional side. So far the last ten days have been better than the first 30 for the year.
The very first class this year started with my teacher saying "Intention is better than resolution guys. If most of you are here on Jan 1st because of a new year resolution, change that to intention. If you have intention, you will get there sooner or later. It is a lot better than a resolution". A few days later, picked out an Angel card at the lobby and it was "intention". That was some coincidence.
Last year was brotherhood and sisterhood..
Definitely have set an intention for this year.. will get to where I have to eventually..
A golfing angel is far from the intention I have in mind.. but time will tell.
The yoga journey continues to be interesting. My teachers make it interesting. They push me and I let them push me because I have implicit faith in them. They are my real angels watching over me.. quite literally from the podium. My friends and yoga buddies make it fun. The hi fives, the fist bumps, the words of encouragement keep me motivated. The family is also arranging schedules around to make sure I get yoga done, even if it is late in the night or twice a day over weekends.
There are always ups and downs, but I feel blessed to be surrounded by folks who wish me well.
As most of you know, I have been doing Bikram Yoga for the eighth year running. You also know that I make it a point to do Yoga at least 200 times a year and there is always some new thing that I learn with respect to the Yoga, myself, and the connection between my self and the yoga.
It is a never ending practice to find new edges, improve on posture, breathing, reaction times and being able to listen and implement directions.
Today we had Joseph Encinia come teach a workshop at BYSJ. This is the second time he is teaching this workshop at BYSJ. Two years ago when he came, got to attend his talk but could not attend the workshop because of travel. This time I was lucky to be in town.
It was a four hour workshop which would have gone on for 5 hours were it not for the fact that there was a regular scheduled class after the workshop.
Have posted blogs on special classes and workshops in the past at BYSJ and every one of them has been eye opening. For example, I learned that drinking water was not a necessity in class after the last workshop. Have not had water during class since March 22nd and it is almost been six months. Putting that into practice and sticking to that for day after day to make it the new habit is one of the things that this Yoga teaches me.
Yes, you do something for ~1600 classes (excel spreadsheet says 1597 to be exact) and find out that you are still not doing something right or you are not using the right muscle to do the right thing (it might look okay in the mirror but you are not doing it right) and you start correcting it. Maybe after another 200 classes there will be another correction, but it has to be made the new habit or else this doesn't work.
Joseph was amazing today. He did a demo before class to go over the entire sequence in under 10 minutes. Then he broke down every pose and explained the do's and don'ts. Some of us also got to go show him our poses that we thought were messed up and he helped figure out what was wrong and what needs to change.
When he started doing this and everyone took our their phones to take videos, I looked at it through the iPhone and said "no. I just want to record this in my brain.". You know how sometimes you are in a national park and you just put your Camera back into the bag and just stand there and take it all in. It was like that. Have the beginnng few minutes of the workshop in this video. (I am sure BYSJ will post more information or Joseph will post information on his website)
He was not going to show us fancy poses but how the breath moves through the body and that he demonstrated in 4 hours with is own body as well as ours with amazing clarity.
As in most classes, even if I learn a 100 things, only 5 stick to my mind and can be made into a habit. The rest wait. Folks who know the yoga poses will be able to follow the below. Someday when I can show the difference between pre and post, will post a video of myself doing things the right way. That day will come sooner than later.
Ardhachandrasana or Half Moon pose: Have always struggled to push myself at the end of the half moon pose because of my attempt to keep up the breathing at 80/20. Keep 80% of the lungs full and just breathe 20% in and out. However, my lungs have had difficulty doing that, towards the end, trying to breathe. Today I learned that the trick is to use a lung, instead of both lungs. There is one lung that is compressed and one extended in Half moon pose. Use the extended lung to breathe comfortably. Apparently the "flower petal blooming" is to help drive that point home when the teacher says it in every class! The flower petal blooms from the inside out.. that lung was supposed to do that. I never got that in all these years.
Dandayamana Janushirasasana (standing head to knee) : The second thing I learned today was that the three bandhas or locks have to be done for a lot of poses. In some poses only two are used, in others three. But the pelvic lock is mandatory. You lose that, you might as well come out of the pose and start all over again. I had no idea how many times I was unlocking it and trying to relock. It simply doesn't work that way. There are also poses where that lock implies pulling your navel straight back in vs. pulling your navel back and up. Again, these are things that you get to see only when you see a teacher demonstrate this up close and personal. I was on the floor and Joseph was standing 6 feet away and I understood. Many teachers have tried to show us this from the Podium and I still could not see the difference.
Purna Salabasana (Full Locust pose) : The third thing I learned was the shoulder joint when rotated outwards makes it easier for the neck to curve upwards. This might seem intuitive to some, but it was not obvious to me. There is always a balance between strength and flexibilty, and maybe my body is different or my brain is, but it was another thing that I understood only after watching this close.
Tadasana (Tree pose) : Number four was that, a little pull in the inner thighs can straighten your legs and knees in multiple poses. Locking the knee by default pulls the legs outwards and to compensate, pulling in your inner thighs up works wonders.
Janushirasana and Paschimotthanasana (Head to knee pose and stretching pose) : The last one was ingenious. When doing a separate leg stretching pose, if you push the bone below your big tow away from you, it magically straightens your entire leg on the floor. Just recently one of my task masters, Brad, taught me how to pull my ankle bones towards each other to rotate my feet right. That correction has been going on for almost two months now..and this gets added to it!
Those were things to remember and apply. Then again, there was what he left us with. No amount of teacher instruction, workshops is going to improve what we do unless we OWN it and work hard for it.
We had a girl in the class who has been going through severe arthritis for 20+ years and we could literally see the surgery marks on her for various corrections, and she showed us what real dedication, drive, intent and intensity meant. I have no excuse after seeing that.
Joseph himself had a heart attack at the age of 13 after he had a lot of treatments for his Arthritis and he turned his life around. He is vegetarian and does Yoga every day!
He almost choked when he said "some of you lucky to be here without any chronic conditions. some of us are here because of chronic conditions. Doesn't matter why you are here. Own your practice and you will see results. Some of us have to work a lot harder and overcome challenges, but at the end of the day it is the same for everyone. don't be stubborn. don't be too patient. Dont be too determined in a stubborn way. have the right intent and intensity in your practice"
On a side note to my wife and kids and other close friends who keep asking me "how come you do all that yoga and never have six pack abs?".. Joseph answered that one too. Six pack abs are good for body building but it is difficult to back bend with those and back bending is key to a healthy spine. So I would rather have my back bend than a six pack, not that there is anything wrong with a six pack.
The thing that impressed me most was how down to earth Joseph is and how sincere he is in spreading the knowledge he has acquired over time and by experimenting with his own body.
Was really happy that BYSJ brings teachers like this for such special workshops, so regular students can learn more and improve. We also get to see stuff up close and personal and understand body mechanics, something that is difficult to do watching Youtube videos or even teachers on the podium doing the occasional demonstration.
This was a beginner workshop, but in a way I was glad to take this workshop now and not six years ago. Most of the stuff he said would not have registered then, as I would have constantly doubted if I had certain muscles he was talking about. Takes a few years to realize that we all have the same muscles.. just that some are never used or activated in normal life, and we use the most dominant ones to make the poses look like the end result without doing it right. . . slowly things normalize and the body changes.
The learning and discipline continues. Maybe the next time Joseph shows up, the top five things that I managed to remember at the end of class will be the new normal!
On Sunday, an experienced and expert Yoga teacher, Mary Jarvis was to visit Bikram Yoga San Jose and teach a class at 10AM followed by a special posture clinic class from Noon to 4 PM... at least that was the plan.
She did come and the regular 90 minute class at 10AM went till 1:15. Almost everyone in the room just stayed the entire time trying to grasp every little detail of what she said. She chose her words carefully and she gave us perspective on the Yoga practice itself. It was a window to what was possible and why. The how of it was secondary. It was personalized depending on the student and the day and time of class, a function of everything else in their mind and life.. but she was not going to judge us as long as we tried.
We got a 15 minute break and continued. There have been a few special classes over the years as part of practicing Yoga that helped improve the practice and produce light bulb moments. This class was up there on that list.
At this point everything in class looks like "BM" and "AM" .. Before Mary and after Mary, which is why I call it a new marker on the Yoga journey.
Since Sunday I have been in three classes including tonight and I started thinking of some little things first.
1. No fidgeting in class. You stay still in the pose and in between poses. Apparently she ate flies that sat on her face just to avoid fidgeting. Her teacher(Bikram) threw her out of class for fidgeting in between poses.
2. No water during the class. If you breathe through the class, you don't need water (her words, not mine). Apparently there were no water bottles allowed in the days she learned yoga and in her studio she asks teachers to lead by example. However she doesn't insist on students giving it up but asks them to try.
3. 4. 5. ... 655.. the rest can wait. I was going to try 1 and 2 first.
First class AM, too much fidgeting but at least I was conscious of it. Also avoided water till half way point when we got to the floor series.
Second class AM, 3 fidgets and they were pre-meditated. There were many that were subconcsious but didn't know it. Also almost made it without water for 80/90 minutes. Just before we went to the final stretching pose I caved. Went for the water bottle.
Today was class 3. I did not fidget knowing it. There were 6 instances where subconsciously my hand was going to my forehead to clear sweat and every time my hand went up, brought the other hand up to do a Namaste in front of the mirror. I am sure the folks around me were thinking "what a narcissistic asshole Namastaying himself after every third pose... but it doesn't matter. What was important is that I was in "eyes wide open" mode the entire 90 minutes. It is amazing to realize that there are points in the class where I had no idea what I was doing.. at least prior to this class, and I have been in Jesssica's class a gazillion times and I think I pay attention to her. Apparently not a 100%. It is not easy to be conscious of every little movement.
One thing that was sacrified to be that conscious was my face had this intense stare throughout the class and I did not smile. Maybe that is the next step in the evolving process. Stay alert and smile.
As for the water bottle, didn't touch it today. It was there, inviting me all the time, taunting me, tempting me.. but made it through the class and all the way home. Drank water after a shower. Nothing bad happened by skipping water. So far so good..
Sometimes a special teacher can make a world of a difference. Mary Jarvis has made two small dents in my practice within a week. Will see how many of the rest of her words of wisdom sink in and make a difference over time.
Sunday, March 28, 2021 at 12:26PM ;)
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