A quiet halloween

Today we had a quiet halloween. Given it was on a weekend, was expecting at least a dozen kids to show up.. we didn't have a single kid show up for trick or treat this year. Guess that is what happens when the road has no street lights and the few school going kids all move over to the community living complexes nearby to trick or treat with friends.

Thanks to travel, didn't carve pumpkins this year. 

Jr. and the little one did go out with their friends!

apparently her friend  was "thing 1".. the whole thing was lost on me. at least I should have got a picture of her with her friend and captured the "things".

The little one was a cat. 

The kids did their dressing up by themselves and also shopped for the raw materials or reused old costume pieces. Guess they are both growing up to the point where we don't have to interfere in the halloween department. 

The best part of halloween? They came home and said "Appa, we know you like Twix. So every house that had Twix in their candy, we picked Twix. we will put it in the fridge and you can eat it this week!" 

That was priceless ! 

N sided polygons

A pentagon that slowly moved to a Triangle..

One of my teachers was saying "we should all take pictures of us doing Yoga from angles that we don't see in the mirror. It will tell you a lot about what you think you are doing vs. what you are actually doing!"

"Be careful, you might not like what you see" was the message.

Photography and Yoga.. two things close to the heart.. coming together for a greater good?

Why not?

Was showing kids how "pentagon" and "triangle" are not the same thing. I used to do the Triangle pose like a pentagon till three years ago. Then Jim Kallet came and showed me how to sit down properly in this pose.

Later Michelle made a dancing reference and it got better.

Three months back Fire taught me a few things about locking legs.. as well as how to tilt my head before moving my arms and how to twist my head to get my profile to the mirror in the Triangle pose. The idea was to get my chin to the shoulder (I was doing cheek to shoulder).

This is a lot better than the version from 4 years ago but... 

 

I used to think in class that the profile of my face was visible to the mirror.. It is not! Still have to turn my face further up and to my left. 

My right thumb sticks out. It is supposed to be touching the rest of the fingers. 

Shoulders are supposed to be in one line and I thought they were in one line. They are not.

This is a real lifelong process of course correction. Will use this as a reference picture and see how it changes next year same time.

The little one took a video of my balancing stick. My knee is at 150 degrees. Definitely not even close to 180! My body is like a table top, but with a bent leg. Have to get it at least a little closer before posting a picture or video. 

By the way THE TRIANGLE ? it is the space between my thighs, forearm and body.. That gap should be a BIG triangle, preferably a right angled one... 

There is a lot of time to get there.

The girl with the golden sax

This year, Jr. decided to play the alto saxophone at Golus instead of singing songs. She practiced the weekend before and played three or four small pieces.

She looked majestic in her half sari and the saxophone matched her dress like another jewel!

Jr. has been teaching herself these pieces. Not that confident yet on her ability to play south Indian classical music. We are all encouraging her to practice more. This year her teacher has promised to help her with understanding the complex notation as well as making it easy to play these pieces. Next year, she might play the entire songs.. 

Here is a small clip from this years Golu at a friends place..

She made us proud just for trying!