The birds must be crazy

Yesterday, during my yoga class at home (done with a teachers voice recording for instruction) there were a lot of banging noises at regular intervals. Thought someone was throwing stones on my window or a tennis ball.. was already on the floor series and wiped out, so it was easy to ignore and keep going with the class.

This morning was a different story. As soon as the class started there was a thud. Then I saw this bird come and fly full force against the window and hit the glass..

It did it again. . . and again.. so I had to pause the audio, take a 15 minute break to film this angry bird that was distracting me from yoga. 

Bird 1: Sundar 0 

it doesnt take much to beat me.. any small distraction could ruin my focus. so it is a miracle that I can go through any class.

Even took a slow mo video of it. It is a very determined bird.. the way it preps on the edge of the fence in the same location and launches itself at the window. We never furnished the guest room after finishing construction 4 years ago.. so it just has this Dhoti on push pins for a curtain. maybe that is giving it a very strong reflection? Don't know. Have never seen any bird behave like this before. 

I have seen a bird fight with its reflection on our Prius side mirror and go shit all over the window..

but this one is weird! 

After resuming the class I just got used to the bang and thud every 2 minutes.. 

This bird made at least 40 attempts that I counted over a 90 minute period. If only my focus and determination to ignore this noise and keep doing yoga matched that of the bird's to come hit the window!!!

Then again on a positive note, it is end of September and we still have 3 months to go in 2020.. but my yoga attendance has been great as there is no travel!

the birds are all back.. including the hummingbird family. Hope to get some pictures over the weekend just sitting down in one place in the backyard, camera in hand.. it is a meditation of sorts. Keep focusing on one place hoping the hummingbird will come to that flower again! 

In spite of all the antics, the bird made me go outside and watch it post class for 30 minutes and I realized it was not one bird.. there were two taking turns!!

It must be some kind of game..

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.

Why? Why? Why?

Yours truly is back in the US of A. That also means back at BYSJ. 

I did the 60 day Challenge and after that, have gone there a mere 10 times in the last 40 days, thanks to travel and United airlines flying. 

Flying United is like whipping yourself, thinking it is going to somehow absolve you of all your sins. No good comes out of it and all you are left with are scars.. seriously, I have scars now. Given my friends have requested me politely and not so politely to stop sharing rashfies or Xelfies as someone called it, there will be no pictures. 

Flying United.. what can I say?! It is like watching Sigourney Weaver and crew flying around in the alien movie series. You think you came out alright.. you wait for 48 hours and something is tearing your stomach and crawling out! You never know if those damn aliens, sorry co-passengers have infected you. 

Definitely did not start writing this post about "Why? I still fly United". Somehow I ended up there. 

Earlier this week, went to a Yoga class after a long time. There was a LOT on my mind, thinking about work and Jr.'s persistant requests for downloading a Snapchat app. Thirty minutes into the class, finally got to stop thinking about all that and was only worried about surviving the next 60 minutes and being able to stand on one leg. It was a hard fought battle, going from bullshit thoughts that would not stop, to breath and balance. 

Then the floor series exercises started.

It so happened that an ant (that looked like a Pulliar Erumbu, I cannot be sure) had decided to check out my mat and more specifically my hand. 

The next 25 minutes was spent in trying to avoid killing that ant with my hands or shoulders and I did everything humanly yogically possible to avoid killing it. Was blowing it away and it came back. Flicked it gently with my fingers and it came back. It was like the ant had a death wish! Having come into the room to find peace, was definitely not going to go on the war path with said ant. 

The teacher was looking at me funny when we did the "airplane" pose. My plane did a weird nosedive to the left, trying to avoid an imminent crash with the ant.  As soon as this happened, the lady on my left saw what was going on, and promptly squished the ant! 

If a speaker was connected directly to my brain and my thoughts made audible, the emotional outburst in my head would have broken all the mirrors in the room! 

Shed a tear. Maybe it was for the ant. Maybe my spine was still recovering from that almost crash landed airplane. We will never know. 

Now for the last Why?

Knowing that the whole idea of staying in a Yoga room for 90 minutes was to kill all thought and distractions from the mind, how is a teensy weensy ant able to distract me for a good 25 mintues?!

Why?!