A note to those budding yogis and yoginis out there..

So far at least 13 people have shown up at Bikram Yoga San Jose after either seeing my changes or having read the blog. This is 13 we know of who have come and introduced themselves and said "came here through your blog", and that always makes my day when it happens!

Having someone do something this wonderful for themselves is the best gift anyone can give to themselves.

A few tips/ Observations on top of the ones mentioned here and here..

a. In your first few classes get ice cold water or a water bottle with crushed ice and water. In a room set to 105 F, regular water will become warm before the end of the 90 minute practice.

b. Read Bikram's book if possible. It gives you hints (keys) that help you do the poses better (if you can remember the keys). So memorize one hint at a time and do it in the next days class.

c. Your strongest part might become your weakest. Apparently this is normal. The poses I used to love and wait for are now an ordeal. Simply cannot do forward bends with my knee locked. My hamstrings just won't move. Feels like my legs are so weak at times that I worry about collapsing. One of the instructors told me that this is normal. As the body is using different muscles to do different things, some get over worked and some do not get used at all. Now that we are using muscles never used before this often, the body is adapting.

d. If you do have a sprain or feel sore but do not feel pain, try going back into the hot room the next day and chances are you will be fine. Has happened to me three times in the last 98 days. (it is still your call, but try standing in a hot shower and if that gives you relief, chances are going back into the hot room definitely will improve things).

e. Get an extra towel if your car/van has cloth seats instead of leather and put it on the seat before driving after Yoga. If you don't shower at the Yoga place before driving home, your van will start smelling and your kids will simply refuse to share a ride with you. They might not tell you to your face and you might have to figure out why they suddenly prefer to go with Mommy everywhere.

f. get some gatorade or "emergen-c" and drink a packet every day at least the first few days when you start because your body loses salts and electrolytes. You need to replenish those or you will get more dizzy or nauseous and might even get headaches. The Emergen-C is available in most local grocery stores and Target

g. There is this one pose you will do called "Triangle pose". Learn to do it on a wet or slippery surface! Do not rely on a towel to grip your feet to the ground. If you do it on the carpet one fine day, chances are your foot will slip and your hamstrings will take a beating and you will miss a day or two of yoga and the most important one..

h. When in doubt, talk to the instructors, who wait outside the class and answer questions!

So far we have 90% attendance and are still going regularly.

Someday, someday, will be able to stand on one leg and touch my head to the other knee..

still working on that one!

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Yogagraphy - not easy

Having promised pictures of the new me, we tried to do a little photo shoot in the evening. The little one finally managed to give me a cold yesterday. This morning for the first time in 65 days daddy Narayanan felt "sick". There was cold and a sore throat, a lost voice, balls of phelgm and no sense of smell or taste.

Then again, when you are in a room set to 105 F and 40% humidity, a body temperature of a 100 F is < 105 F. Using such supreme logic, went on to do Bikram Yoga today (with MIL of course), much against the overall family recommendation for me to stay home.

Well, 90 minutes and a lot of sweat later, the voice was back, the throat was open and the sense of taste and smell were back. Rested the rest of the afternoon and now feel tired but looks like I have beat the virus.

Trying to setup the camera and lights to take pictures (with Jr. doing the focus on self timer shots) proved to be very difficult.

Did take pictures with Jr. and the little one as test subjects. All I wanted was for them to go stand where my head was going to be in the photos. They did more than that and imitated yoga poses...

Kids are a lot more flexible than adults. They could pull this off so easily. The little one lost her balance and made a funny face, but it was hilarious watching her try to balance on one leg!

Will need some assistance from San or BB to make my next attempt to get pictures of the improved me..

Till then, you just have to take my word for it!

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What to expect when you are .. Bikram Yoga -ing

Have had many requests from friends to document why the first four days of going to Bikram Yoga is a make or break and what to expect.

There are many websites and personal chronicles you can find out there thanks to Google. Actually one such link (passed on by San) is what made me go back.

As most of you know there was a viral infection that pretty much took me down the second week of February. It also left my eyes, nose, throat and inner ear in a bad shape to the point that the local doctors told me that my inner ear canal could have been affected by the virus. Was having a little dizziness to start with occasionally and ended up wearing glasses shortly after our trip to St. Louis and back.

So when we decided to go check out the Yoga, the studio gave us a Pamphlet and a guideline of sorts. This was good.. It said "no eating anything 2-3 hours before the class, drink lots of water the previous day" etc. etc.

So we did drink water, but the word "lots" is relative. For a 38 year old guy who drinks maybe 2 cups of water during a work day and another 2 glasses of water at home.. an extra 2 cups is "lots". That is not enough by a long shot, but you don't realize that at that point in time.

So off we went and did the first class. Both of us tried to do the postures sincerely but our goal (after the first 10 minutes of the class and after the very first aasana) was to simply stay in the hot room for 90 minutes. We met the goal and we came out happy.

The rest of the day was a daze.

1. There was a lot of nausea which faded away after 4-5 hours of the class for the first few days.

2. There was dizziness. Every now and then you feel like everything around you is doing a spin. This also fades away after the first two classes. The key is to drink enough water and keep going pee pee on a regular basis the first four days. That helps you flush out everything that has been stagnant in your body..

3. A purging of sorts of your bowels.. (lots of farting, your stomach exploding in the bathroom and you feeling "where did all that come from?") Trust me, it is good because after the second day my bathroom time has been cut to two minutes max. You wake up in the morning, brush your teeth, drink a big glass of water and two minutes later you can empty out your stomach and be on your way to Class. You also think that you have achieved some way to control your bowel at will (this is a feeling I get, but not sure if there is any real control or it is just me learning to squeeze muscles in the stomach area.. muscles that I did not know I had)

4. Hunger and thirst. Walk around with a water bottle if you have to. Currently I drink 3 liters of water during the day and possibly another 2 liters of water after class and in the night (easily). The 500 ml water bottle gets filled around 10 times a day. You also crave healthy food. I am not making this up. Eat two bananas a day. The bananas were always there in front of me in the kitchen table next to the Grand sweets deep fried Boondhi and my hand will always go for the Boondhi and ignore the Banana.. now it is the other way around. There is a realization that this body is valuable and we should not feed it junk. Do not over eat. Did that the first two days. Then everyone we spoke to said "try to avoid over eating the first few days". Drink water, gatorade, electrolyte solutions, fruits etc. Don't go overboard on rice/naan.

5. Tingling sensation in hands and legs and back part of head. This was my personal experience. MIL did not have this or the hunger. Guess she always controlled her diet. There was a sudden rush of blood to parts of the body which have not experienced this feeling. So the Yogis tell me this is also normal.

6. Bad smell on the first two days. Felt constantly like I was standing next to a public restroom in Chennai on a hot summer day a few times during the afternoon on day 1,2 and 3. My kids who are super sensitive said they did not smell it on me, but it was in my nose. Somehow was constantly smelling a urine smell in my nose and head. This went away in three four days and was replaced by a very sweet smell. Now that smell is also gone. However the kids say daddy smells real nice now after a shower.

7. Bad breath on day 1. Then completely gone. Kids actually verified that daddy does not have bad breath even before going to bed. That is nice.

Fortunately we did not overdo any of the poses in the first few days. We both stretched as far as we could and stopped. So there was no pain, strains etc. Did get over ambitious two weeks ago and tried to touch my head to my ankle, kneeling down on the floor and bending my back. Lucked out on that one. Last week, had my legs too far apart while doing the "awkward pose" and strained my hamstrings and knees. That was taken care of by going back into the heat (thanks to advice from the Bikram web site and book). If you are trying to make a sword of steel and you heat it and bang it into shape and if you have a small blemish, you do not try to beat it when it is cold to reshape it. You have to make it pliable again before fixing it. So, took that advice, went back into the room the next day and "problem gone"!

We did feel a freshness even on day 2,3,4. These days I feel so fresh after the post Yoga shower that it is amazing. You can look forward to the rest of the day. It is like your batteries have been recharged fully!

One thing to note is that both MIL and me had very different experiences. She has done Hatha Yoga 10 years ago in Mumbai for a few months and is in general more flexible than me because she does a few minutes of stretching after we leave the house and walks every day in the evening. So the experiences vary from person to person and your past.

If you experienced any of the above, you are not alone. That is all you can take away from this post. . . and you know at least one guy who had these symptoms kept going and is now very happy.

Final note. I have large huge stretch marks on my tummy and thighs. The BMI on my weighing scale shows that my BMI has changed. That means the fat/protein balance in my body has been disrupted. What does this mean? Based on a lot of internet reading from other people who have done this Yoga here is a summary:

1. Your body is burning calories in the hot room. Unfortunately not all my muscles were in great shape when I started. So the body loses some muscles and fat.

2. The skin starts hanging off in some places (like triceps area, hips, front of tummy etc.) Hence no pictures of the six pack that is starting to show.. there is a seventh pack which resembles a deflated balloon at the bottom of the six pack! This also is normal for people losing 11 pounds in 29 days. Patience is being advised. The skin will shrink with time and with continued Yoga is expected to stretch and get in line with the muscles.

3. The sudden low fat diet that the body automatically adjusts to and the heavy liquid diet makes you lose muscle mass also. So there are recommendations out there for doing additional exercises to strengthen these areas. Most of the yoga students (especially pregnant women) tell you that nothing additional is required. Just regularly show up for class and things get better. Based on looking at some of the bodies in that class, one will have to agree.

The plate and screws in my right hand are still there and in spite of it, can do a whole bunch of aasanas that were originally thought to be impossible. Now the strength is back in the right hand and that alone makes up for everything.

Hope this information helps other folks who are starting Bikram Yoga and are planning to give up in the first 4 days. Please call your Yoga instructors instead of going to a regular doctor. The regular doctors don't understand that these are normal side effects for a body that has not exposed itself to this type of exercise of focus.

DRINK "LOTS" of water. You will know by day 2 what "LOTS" means.

Will post pictures soon.

Happy Yoga!

ps. There is no more dizziness. Can stand on one leg, bend my body like a T parallel to the floor, stretch one hand towards the front and other leg towards the back and hold the pose without falling off.. Inner canal damage?! Don't think so!

pps. This is what Yoga did to the body. What it did to the mind is another story. Won't be able to articulate it that easily. The mind wandered and wandered endlessly and has finally slowed down the last week or so. Will try to write about it tomorrow.

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Experiments with self

Now we have 25 sickness free days (an all time record for the month of March especially since this Blog is a living record).

Facebook has not been touched.

Blogger has been visited twice in 20 days.

The average sleeping time has increased from 5 hours per weekday to 7 hours per weekday.

There has been at least one fruit included in the daily diet. No coffee for the last 25 days. Maximum one glass of tea per day (1/2 cup in morning and evening.. sometimes switched to Horlicks). Fried stuff has been knocked down to a minimum in the daily diet.

There has been at least one shower a day (yes.. shocking as it may seem there was no time for showers or shave on some hectic days in the past)

Now, there is one other addition.

Bikram Yoga for the last 25 days. We (the MIL and me) have been attending a 90 minute hot yoga class every morning from 5:30 to 7:00 for 25 of the last 26 days!

That means we get up at 4:45 and take off. Neither of us were sure if we will continue after the first ten classes but the changes in the body and mind after ten days in the torture chamber were obvious.

People at work who first saw me after 4 days said things like :

Are you wearing makeup? your face is very clear and fair now!
You are very calm instead of your usual trigger happy self. What is going on?
You seem to be very stoic and are quiet in meetings? Are you quitting?
Looking very happy? What is going on? and it was anyone who had not met me in days or weeks.

Had lunch with an old colleague last week (we met after a year) and he said "you somehow look younger this year than last year in-spite of wearing glasses!"

The change was noticeable on the inside as well. There was a feeling of lightness all around, a freshness that hasn't been felt since sitting in that hot spring in Manali last year and a self check mechanism every time the mind was about to launch into an expletive or two be it work related or with the wife and kids at home.

The question that is being asked by some close folks is "Are all these changes because of the Yoga or because of all the other changes like good food, more sleep etc.?"

The answer is definitely "Bikram Yoga". All the other changes and the discipline to make those changes are a direct result of the Yoga class.

Initially there was skepticism about the Hot Hatha Yoga because of what we read on the internet about Bikram Choudhury and the Hot Yoga. For every 10 positive articles there is some gripe about how this is not proven by western medicine etc. etc. After a friend successfully checked this out in Seattle, we went to check out the local studio and see for ourselves.

This is an amazing treat that one can give to ones body and mind.

Have lost 9 lbs in the last 25 days, have a much smoother softer skin. Have had one knee sprain last week (because of overdoing a stretch.. all my doing not the Yoga's) which has since healed by going back into the hot room.

Jr. and the little one cannot stop smelling me. Apparently daddy smells real nice after a shower post Yoga sweating! Even the kids in Tamil school complimented me on how nice Teacher is smelling!

Planning to do this at least 7 times a week from now on. This is the best thing that happened to me since the little one's birth...

A big thanks for this new found happiness goes to the MIL. She joined with me to help her broken ankle mend (while my broken hand builds strength) and even if I felt down on day 2 and 3 and was about to call it a day, she dragged me to class and made sure that I don't quit.

Long live Bikram Choudhury. He has definitely given me a new look at my body, mind and spirit and a second chance at living a contented life.

ps. Do not be intimidated by the fact that you have a big round belly and everyone in the class looks like a cross between Zeus and Urvashi. Just keep trying to do the routine in class and everything else fades away.. including your belly!

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