The unruly teacher

It is 60 day challenge time at Bikram Yoga. So I go whenever I can. My timetable is all over the place. Started a day with Yoga at 5:30AM, so I could come home just in time to wake up the little one and drop Jr. in school. After what was a very very long day at work, thought I would end the day with yoga as well by going to the 8:30 PM class. My plan was flawed as I ended up working till midnight. But that is not the topic of the post. 

Got to the hot room and was pleasantly surprised to see the noise level in the room being high, a good ten minutes before class. Usually folks are very quiet in the room and if they have to talk to someone, they talk in hushed tones. 

Turned out that someone had invited a whole bunch of their unsuspecting friends to come do Bikram Yoga for the first time. There were group pictures prior to the class and a lot of smiling and giggling and I was thinking "these people have no idea what they have signed up for!  this is going to be an interesting class". 

Five minutes into class, a few more folks rolled in and they were all first timers. It was definitely going to be an interesting class.

The group was not particularly receptive to the teachers instructions. Refusal to give up chewing gum, taking pictures with cell phone when the teacher was not looking, talking, random walking around the mat, drinking water while others were trying to balance on one leg, and the list goes on. It was like they were checking off an endless list of "don'ts" on the Yoga etiquette printout that we used to get as beginner students. Then a few people started leaving the room, 30 minutes into class.The teacher did her best to stop them and make them just stay on the mat, but they did not listen to her.

Something snapped and I got mad for a few seconds. Then I looked at the teacher who came back to the podium from the back of the class. She had a very determined look on her face, to make sure the rest of the students gave it everything they got. It was like watching world class management in action. It is easy to have a bunch of students who are all responding to your dialogue. It is not easy when there is a walkout of sorts going on. With amazing grace, she kept the class going and pushed everyone to do their best. 

When I saw her take her two deep breaths and go "this is very unusual for a Bikram Yoga class. You guys, focus on yourself in the mirror", something changed. I went into "look only at yourself, look only at yourself" mode. Got  tunnel vision at my reflection and that changed the class entirely!

It was like I was alone with myself and everything else disappeared. This was a very unusual experience. My eyes went "bokeh" on the background ! Didn't think that was even possible. 

Usually I am beat at 8:30 in the evening after a long day that started before 5AM, but there was a steely determination to do my best, lead by example, not let down a teacher who was giving it everything, and most of all, do the right thing by myself and work as hard as I could after having made it into the room.

After class, I told the teacher "you really inspired me today, the way you handled the class and kept going" and she smiled and said

"well, they were all your teachers Sundar. they taught you the importance of focusing on yourself". 

and that was so true!

Every day we learn things, in the most unexpected ways.

Resistance is futile

Recently, one of my favorite yoga teachers told the class "what are you resisting right now? find out and let it go. it is like driving. you see the red light. you want it to be green, but it is not. it is red. you are all tense. if you accept it is red and relax till it becomes green you are much better off. I used to tense up at red signals.. now I acccept. whatever it is you are resisting, be it the fact that your water bottle is almost empty, something at work, some local tension in your body.. let it go!" 

At first I was worried for the teacher because this dude is very happy go lucky and for a few seconds I saw a side of him that I have not seen before... a very philosophical deeply introspective person. There was a seriousness in his eyes when he said it that was a "I have been here, done that and I am not saying this to be taken lightly"

The very next day, another favorite teacher of mine comes back to the hot room. Have missed him the last three months because every day when I start doing the standing bow, I will start wrong and correct myself and would think of this guy. The last two three weeks, there is no correcting, but that tells you that any changes to the practice over the last many years has a 2 month plus time to take permanence. It is not easy to break habits. 

So "El Fuego" shows up and is watching me.. he even remembers what he told me before leaving and at that moment I get "teacheritis". It is a condition where the fact that the teacher is watching you makes you conscious, and you try to do the best you can be, over do it, and fall off in a small heap on your mat.

After a few attempts I pulled off what was the best standing bow to date and he comes and pulls my leg and hand "up" and says "you have fixed the hand to chin and the kick, but now you are too down and you push your hip out in the last moment.. start working on that"

It is going to be another two months to get that one down!

As for resistance, that part is absolutely true. You can go from San Jose to San Francisco in the same car and spend different amounts of gas depending on how you drive. If you drive without constant braking, you get better gas mileage and don't wear off your brake pads. If you speed up and slow down with minimal use of the brakes, it is a much more comfortable ride.

My recent experiences in the yoga room are all about the brakes. I can do the poses. Have significantly improved over the last year. Can also do the class without sighing or any heavy breathing. So the breathing is getting better. The real issue is to focus and be in the room instead of having the mind wander.

Takes me 20 minutes sometimes to forget work, home, the guy who tailgated me for no reason etc. before the class. Then when we get down on the floor and are lying on the mat looking at the glass or ceiling, it is the little corrosion behind the mirror, the one tile that is slightly off on the ceiling, or an ant that is about to die when my 747 lands on it (we fly like planes in the yoga room at one point). 

Have been working consciously to reduce this 20 minutes down. So far it is ~5 minutes.

If that 5 minutes can come down to a few seconds, that would be awesome!

Hathayoga Mathayoga…

2015 is almost done. Today I updated the excel spreadsheet again to review how this year went compared to previous years, as far as Yoga goes..

This year it was 209 so far. That is the best in the last three years! This year also saw 87 travel days. Very happy with this years push to do more Yoga personally and with the way my family pushed me to keep going. 

 

4 days a week should count as "regular" attendance..

and finally the weight tracking... something seems to be off.. I still track my weight after class every day but the weight is now stabilzing around 148 instead of 142. Either I have a new normal or the weighing machine that is ten plus years old has an issue and we need to buy a new one. The wife and kids are thrilled at the prospect of the new machine theory.  

Well, Jr. was supposed to take videos of me doing standing bow and toe stand.. which are two of my favorite poses, but she took pictures instead of videos.

Chin to dimple in shoulder contact works magic compared to cheek in dimple of shoulder, but when you take pictures, the truth always shows! 

The leg seems to be up a lot more now. Calling that as a response to "get your body parallel to the ground" is an insult to my 8th Grade geometry teacher! 

This one though, I like. Can lift off 3 to 4 inches off the heel now and have also managed to have the thighs parallel to the ground and the spine straight. Working on doing this on the right side to match the left.

The one thing that no graph will tell? Kicked out my leg (only left leg) to go from step 1 to step 2 in the "standing head to knee" pose a total of three times this year. Locked the knee for a full 60 seconds only ten or so times.

2016 resolution is to "Lock the knee" for a full 60 seconds and kick that leg out! 

Have become a true believer in the concept of "eventually"!

There are a lot of things that happen in the hot room that were really "not me" five years ago. Based on that, have realized that things happen if one keeps making incremental progress. So there is confidence on locking that knee... even if it doesn't happen in 2016, it will happen...

eventually!

ps. Jr. and the little one would actually like to see me do a standing split. Even that can happen.. eventually!

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.

A lot of difference, a letter does make

Master Yoda : Do. Or do not. There is no try.

Master Yoga : Try, not do. There is only try

For someone who is a fan of Yo(d,g)a this is like being in the twilight zone.

One is dealing with the willingness to start something and the other deals with a continous process where it takes a long long time to see results. 

As most of you know, I had signed up for another 60 day challenge at BYSJ three months ago. No one at home really wanted me to sign up during summer as they knew our social calendar was busy and they told me upfront... "no doubles". They were also trying to give me a reality check saying "you are going to miss three weeks to  three different international trips. what are you thinking?"

It was not that they thought doing two classes in one day was tough for me. They could not spare close to 4 hours a day of my time on the weekends I was here. 

Having signed up, used sticker time and conversations with friends to do the best I could. Would do yoga in the morning and catch international flights, would come back after being awake for 36 hours to do yoga, go anytime possible during days I was here.. there is a long list. But in the last 10 days, it became clear, that no amount of doubles could play catch up. So it was 46/60 this time. 

We went to the Challenge party to listen to inspirational stories of those who finished. Folks dealing with early alzhimers, brain surgery recovery, doing it as a birthday present for their spouse, signing up to encourage friends, covering the challenge over 7 different studios and last but not least, a teacher who has been doing Bikram yoga once a day for the last 6 years without a break! It was a truly humbling experience for me and the kids listening to these stories.  

Jr. came home and said "I would like to write a guest post on your blog about how the 60 day challenge is actually stressfull for the persons who live with the person who does the challenge.. it is like you are one of those guys who drinks alcohol and they cannot stop drinking.. you go to one class, then you have to keep going.. and we have to see you spend more time at yoga on weekends". 

I promised my kids that the best lesson from this Challenge and the party was different from the previous ones.

- learned to accept that sometimes you finish challenges and sometimes you do not. Trying makes all the difference. if you can look in that mirror and say "I gave it all I got" and can accept yourself, that is a big deal. the person in the mirror is the most unforgiving of the lot.

- there is always another challenge coming

- did spend time with the kids on the last two weekends doing only one class a day instead of trying doubles. It was a conscious choice and the right one. 

The challenge from my own family has been to do at least 200 classes a year. Have 33 more to go this year. The last 90 days of this year has many more trips, holidays, festivals, school events etc. in the offing. We will see if the 200/year challenge is a success.

One other thing to mention. After coming back from those long flights, I used to walk into the yoga room feeling like the Ra character in Stargate who keeps getting younger after going into a special chamber, or those assasins in the "Wanted" movie who would be all shot up, go lie in a bath of molten waxy stuff and magically wake up with all their wounds healed.

Hot yoga is like soaking in a bath of Iodex (we used to use it for pain relief as kids in India.. it is Bengay and Voltaren all mixed in one) for 90 minutes. Came out feeling a lot better than when going into the room on every occasion.

That has been the one constant in an otherwise varying educational journey. Every day is different, but always felt better after class than before!

A heartfelt congratulations to everyone who finished the Challenge! Will see you at sticker time on the next one. 

Eventually, there will come a time where I can stick to a schedule and do Yoga everyday. Eventually....