Against all odds...

This is a Yoga post. Now that you know, it is also a 60 day challenge post.

Bikram Yoga San Jose (BYSJ) has a 60 day challenge every year in January through March. Recently we have a summer challenge as well between July and September. 

I have had the opportunity to take this challenge since 2013 and have finished 5 January challenges. I also tried the summer challenge two years ago and made 46 classes over the 60 day period with 3 international trips thrown in. Last summer, I didn't even bother to sign up. The same three trips were going to happen and doing a 60 day challenge in 42 days with 3 sets of jet lag thrown in was not practical. 

This year, I signed up. You could start any day from July 1st to 15th and from your date of start, you had to do 60 classes in 60 days. Before starting on the long Asia trip, put in my name on the sign up sheet and said "start date : July 15th". Came from India on 16th afternoon at 3PM and promptly went to the 6:30 PM class. Two 12 hour flights with a 4 hour break at Frankfurt on the tail side of the plane was killing my back. It was a good class from my French teacher who has a dark sense of humor. He cracked some joke about the challenge and I was not sure if he was being sarcastic or just practical. Came home thinking "let's put stickers on that board and see how far this goes". 

As it turned out, my family was still in India. So I went at 5:30AM and 8:30 PM almost every day and stocked up. Within a week, work pulled me back to Asia. This trip had a hospital visit in China thrown in thanks to a swollen eye. Managed to come back here without getting quarantined somewhere and my Kaiser doctor said "heat will actually help subside this swelling. you can go to hot yoga if you want". So kept going back to Yoga.

We were half way through and work pulled me to Asia again.

When my wife asked me "you are actually doing the challenge?" I sheepishly told her "I am already done with 45. I have 15 more to go. Currently 4 ahead, so when I come back next week, will be two behind. With your blessing over the next two weeks and a few doubles, I can actually do this!"

They were in disbelief. Given I did a lot of yoga after they went to bed or just before the kids went to bed or before they even woke up in the morning, they didn't realize how much yoga was happening!

Another week in Asia, but this time came back in one piece and healthy.

Once you are at 45 classes, the family roots for you and gets you going. So they let me get away with a few more doubles. Then came a shocker. I was 5 away from finishing and there was a chance that I might have to catch a plane over the weekend on day 58. Was definitely not going to stop with 57/60. So I did a few back to back classes on Friday nights and over last weekend and finished the challenge with two days to spare.

60 classes in 44 days, if you exclude the travel days and having to finish ahead because of potential travel. Odds were definitely slim, but there was some odds, no? When you thinks the odds are stacked against you, take those odds. Challenge it. Who knows, you might actually make it. If you give up before trying, you never know what is possible. That was the big lesson for me. 

Doing the yoga, working hard in class, breathing etc. are not the challenge these days. Balancing work, home, yoga is the challenge. Once I go through the double doors, I kill myself at every opportunity and try to find my new edge.  Have lost all shame when it comes to falling down.  Just focus on listening to the words and reacting with my body. I really don't give a shit what others think about my balancing anymore when I fall out. Just get up and keep going and tell myself two things:

1. I am there for me

2. every day is different

Getting to the yoga class is the hardest thing. Have done 195 yoga sessions this year by September and this has been the worst travel year so far in my career. It is true what they say. If you have time do yoga for 90 minutes a day. If you don't have time, then do yoga for 3 hours a day, because you need the yoga more than you need the time. It keeps your co-workers safe from your insanity. At least it does for me!

This time most of my classes were 8:30 PM. A quiet group of people who come to the last class of the day. Most of them tired and looking beat. Did make a few new friends at 8:30PM and we chat about the challenge and the Yoga few minutes before class. There is no "after-class" chats at 10PM.. everyone just rushes out, including me, which is understandable. 

Also had the fortune of meeting two new teachers. One of them told me in a class "be kind to yourself. don't be too hard on yourself. the one person who can take good care of you, is you!" That stuck with me. So these days while I do push myself, I back off if there is sharp pain of any kind. The other teacher said "you survived my class" and that was interesting. "I survive in every class"  was going to be my response. Turns out she survived breast cancer last year and the yoga helped her a lot. Was listening to her story and on my drive back home was telling myself "SHE is a survivor.. you are hanging in there after a long day. There is a big diffrence! Just go back tomorrow at 5:30 AM and get this done!" Both these teachers were amazing because they made the group work as one. They really focussed on everyone starting and stopping the poses at the same time. When you do that as a group, your energy level goes up and as a collective we do much better than when everyone is doing their own thing. 

While doing 60 classes in 44 days with multiple international trips thrown in, looks like a big deal because it is a "time management" issue, there is a lady who did it in 30 days. She just came every day for "back to back doubles" 30 days in a row and said "I finished". Apparently she also had a time management issue. 

It is doable if you can manage to push yourself. To all those people who are thinking of starting Yoga, or getting back into Yoga class, will tell you this. Just start and try a 60 day challenge. Put that first sticker on the board (we now have smiley face ones instead of stars!) and another one and another one. Before you know it, they add up to 60! 

The nerd in me has to do graphs and charts.. so here are three that summarize what a successful summer challenge looks like for me.

Weight.. the weight.. over this challenge and over the entire data tracking history..

it is stable over 60 day periods. other than that, someday will do a much more detailed analysis on this data to see what else is there to find. 

On a final note, this time I had to miss the 60 day Challenge party. Given it was my first time making it in summer, it was a hard thing to try and be at two places at once. My niece was doing her first solo performance in the bay area after her Solo debut in India over the summer and I wanted to go take pictures of her performance. She did not disappoint. Sometimes you are torn between two things and the yoga actually helps you come to terms wtih your decisions, even if that decision is to skip a yoga class or a Challenge party!

This morning I got my T-shirt for completing the challenge from Michelle..Michelle seems to have figured out how not to age! Have a picture with her almost every year since 2013 and she seems to be frozen in time while the rest of us age gracefully, but still age!

This was 2013! 

This was 2015.. (I have to find the rest of the pictures) 

 and this morning!

Have to learn how to do this "I care and I don't at the same time" thing she does. Sure it is her secret to not aging!

Next challenge is Januray 2018. If you read this and are intersted in doing the challenge with me, let me know. We can sync up class times and go cheer each other through the 60 days! It doesn't matter if you finish. Sign up and keep putting those stickers up.

In the meantime, the Yoga journey continues.. as do the travels!

The traveling Yogi

Got back to US last Sunday. Traveling again tomorrow. It is an interesting life when airports, lounges, planes become a routine part of your life. I spent more time talking to Uber drivers sometimes than people I love and care about. All this will change soon when some accomplishments take a grander stage. 

In the meantime, one has to do what one can to cope with this "lifestyle". My recent trip to India following a business trip, albeit short and sweet has 1000's of photographs and videos, great memories, places of interest, conversations with friends and family that went from sweet to bizarre. All great blog topics, but they have to wait.

In the last 7 days, my plan was to do as much yoga as possible to make up for the last three weeks and the coming week, have only home cooked meals and resist the temptation to eat out at least for this week when I am home and catch up on everything else.

The home cooked meal part was a success. . . 

I can now make a tomato rasam and a cabbage curry with reasonable consistancy. Cooking can be cathartic and have decided that from now on, will be subjecting the family to my cooking at least once a week. There was also some Podalangai Kootu (no pictures) that turned out very well! 

Cooking part was okay. The catch up on everything else was not. I did go to the hospital to get a wart treated and that kept me in an irritated state for almost two days. No pain.. but just plain irritation. Don't know who came up with the idea of treating warts with liquid nitrogen, but we should come up with better ways. This was my first wart and first such treatment. While it was interesting and funny when they did the treatment, it was not funny after I came home. Just plain annoying, like you have an alligator clip squeezing your finger constantly and biting into it. Then caught a bug from a co-worker on Thrusday to the point where my nose was blocked completely. 

Decided to go to Yoga class anyways as usual and things opened up a bit. Today my nose and lungs feel normal again. My morning class went so swimmingly well that I decided to go back in the evening. Both the teachers knew what I was up against and both of them promptly ignored it like good teachers do and proceeded to kick my ass. 

As usual learned a lot in todays class. Sometimes I think I have fixed a mistake only to realize that nothing has been fixed. Have a rule at work for myself and people who work with me. It is okay to make mistakes, but it is not okay to make the same mistake over and over again. Somehow that rule was not followed in Yoga class today. 

It is time to videotape myself doing some poses to see how I change from aligned to crooked. I check at the start of the pose and the guy in the mirror is perfectly aligned. When coming out of the pose, something has horribly gone wrong. Where and how this happens is a mystery that will soon be resolved. There is lot of time in hotel rooms and an iPhone camera handy! 

On a side note, I finally managed to get my hands on this book that was out of print for a long time "A systematic course in the Ancient Tantric Techniques of Yoga and Kriya" by Swami Satyananda Saraswati of the Bihar school of Yoga. It is by far the most comprehensive book on Yoga that I have come across. It is a Ph.D. thesis on Yoga and Kriya. It reads like one for sure!

My college library has records of how many people check out a certain book. My doctoral thesis was checked out only 8 times in the 10 years since I wrote it (that was the last I checked). Doctoral thesis make for dry reading.  Maybe this book while thorough and technical and detailed is lost on folks who are not into Yoga terminology and that is why it went out of print. Nevertheless, strongly recommend this book to get a perpective on why condition the body and the mind and the purpose behind it all. 

Will start blogging about our recent adventures next week. Until then, ta ta!

Technology challenges..

It has been an interesting two days. 

The last few days, there has been a problem at work where a duct spews out bursts of cold air directly above my head. My office has been trying to figure out the root cause and come up with fixes for it by blocking the vent with cardboard, building paper dampers to direct it away from my head etc.. In the meantime, I got a nice cold, thanks to that and the highly changing bay area weather. 

As most of you know, my solution to all ailments is to try doing Yoga in the hot room first before going to the doctor or resorting to any pills. So after scheduling a bunch of late night calls post 11PM, I decided to go do Yoga at 8:30 in the night. It was mildly drizzing when I went into the class and things were, lets say "pleasant".

When the class ended and we came out, there was cold winds and water coming down in intervals in sheets! I am guessing these were more than the 20 mph gusts. This was way stronger. At several points on the way home thought the Leaf was going to fly off the road. There was also a lot of palm leaves falling off the trees and flying around. 

In all of this I did not realize that there was no power in the neighborhood. I drive to the garage and the thing is not opening. I called my wife and she goes "there is no power in the house and the entire area". 

So there I am in my yoga shorts, all sweaty, with cold rain and winds trying to manually open the garage door and park my car inside.. and a gust of wind litterally sends a wave of water into the garage! 

Finally I parked the car and closed the garage door. By now any residual body heat from the yoga class is gone and I am shivering. Then I tell my dear wife "I will go take a quick shower and eat what you have made. good thing we have the flashlights". 

A few minutes later, I realize that the flashlights are the least of the problems. Turns out that the water heater we have installed as part of the new construction which is tankless, energy efficient, reduces our gas bills etc. etc. doesn't work when there is no electricity! It didn't matter anyway. It was not going to be worse than the rain. So that was the shortest coldest shower I have taken after a hot yoga class. 

Then came the dinner part. Wife says "I made stuff for you, but it is all cold. Maybe you can reheat it on the stove because you cannot microwave?"

By now I am conditioned to try everything manual have a low expectation for any gadget. So I know the pilot lamp won't work (it didn't) and use a matchstick to try and light this stove. Turns out that only the back burner turns on without a pilot. These guys have some interlock on the other stoves! 

Finally managed to reheat some stuff and eat with the flashlight and look at my phone... it has <20% charge! 

Went to the battery pack that was given as a company souvenier which is always in my travel bag and that had no charge! 

We both drive a Nissan Leaf. That means if you don't have power all night, we have to fight for the car with the most charge left.. It is a new interesting dynamic in our house.

It was a hard lesson on how dependent we are and how much we take for granted! I managed to muddle through the day and keep my thoughts going. Deifnitely feel better now, thanks to another yoga class, no manual door openings, a nice hot shower, hot tea.. and more importantly a house that is back to 68F instead of 56F!

This afternoon I was thinking about the folks in war zones. People in first world countries have no clue what those folks are going through. We are making it all worse for them by our every day thoughts and actions and what we support knowingly or unknowingly. We also take a lot for granted. The biggest rights we seem to cherish are our rights to stupidity and our right to be irresponsible when it comes to the rest of the world and the planet. At least that is my feeling right now.

A bad vent, a storm for a few hours and an all night power cut are able to make a dent in my life. That is just sad.

Time to spend more time with nature and improve my immunity to cold weather. Also time to do something about all this guilt for everything that is happening in the world! 

Finally locked that damn knee!

Have been sick since my last trip back from Asia. Still managed to go on and off to the hot room as the Kaiser advice nurse told me "you are doing all the right things. electrolyes, rest.. you still have a lot of phlegm and mucous. so put on a humidifier.".. I knew which humidifier was going to be used over the weekend. 

Went to the hot room and stayed put. It did bring out a lot of the mucous. Also felt better by Sunday evening. Did a full days work today and was happy that there was no sudden urge to go curl up into a fetal position and sleep. Being tired physically and mentally doesn't help.

This evening I show up for a class by Mr. Fire, who gives me the most grief in any class, knowing I love him for it. 

Did my best locking of the knee and he picked on me right away. Then he starts giving me readings from his lockometer on the podium.. it is 99.5% , 99.8%.. 

I thought it was at 110% going to 120% and was honestly disappointed to know it was still at 99 something %. Pushed my knee back and was just about to fall forwards as usual, when the teacher looked elsewhere at another student and said "look at your own eyes" and for some strange reason I looked up to see my eyes in the mirror instead of my knee that was 99.8% and like magic, didn't fall forward.

You see, my biggest problem (my perception, not my teachers evaluation) is that I am bow legged. That means, when I do lock that knee (okay it has been only once..) or get close to it, my feet, knees and waist will NOT be on one straight line, like other folks. Maybe, eventually yoga changes bone structure and one can come out of bow leggedness, but that eventually doesnt seem like tomorrow for me.. So I always grappled with this "counter weight" concept.

If you push your knees back and they stick out on the line made by your butt and feet, you have to have a counter weight to balance that when kicking forward.. The minute I lean forward, it is game over. 

Thanks to hearing "look up" I pushed my back, up and towards the back wall ceiling and there was the "counter" to the forward force. 

It takes years to figure out something. Hopefully this gives me a starting point to get from step 1 to step 2 on this pose. 

It is heartening because 99.8% is an F for this pose. There is only two grades on this pose for part 1.

100% locked knee = D, anything less is F! 

Those five seconds were priceless! Will try to repeat this tomorrow and if sucessful  post a video of what I used to do before and what changed. 

Who knows, there may be many of my brothers and sisters out there with bow legs who might take something from my experience!

Yoga competition - No it is not nonsense

In a funny twist of fate, I ended up in a Yoga competition. There is no other way to describe it.  Bikram Yoga San Jose, where I pretty much live outside of the house, turned 14 over the weekend. To celebrate the anniversary, the teachers were asking some of the regular students who kill themselves trying to outdo their reflection in the front mirror to do a demonstration of their good poses. Raised my hand and said "I will do it".. 

Think Revathi in Mouna Ragam movie saying "I will identify the guys" without realizing the consequences... (not all of you will get that one, sorry). 

Last Saturday there was a "practice session" to co-ordinate the demonstration. So I stay back after class to see that there are a lot of teachers and two or three students and they are all practicing a 6 poses in 3 minute routine. My turn came to demonstrate and I did 4 poses from the usual sequence we do every day and then there was a blank stare. The coaches looked at me and I looked back at them going "what?"

They said "do you know any poses other than the ones we practice?" and I said "no. I have been doing the same thing over and over again for 6 years now and havent really tried to do more". They said "no problem. can you sit in lotus pose?". Answer was yes. Their eyes lit up. Can you now do a peacock pose in lotus position? 

Being a good sport (I have not tried a peacock pose since college days when we would do that pose on the edge of of writing desks in the lecture halls) did try that and failed. Finally after a few other options were tried, I also had 6 poses to show. We practiced that 3 times over 2 hours and just before I was about to go home, the teachers tell me "by the way, there is a competition in the afternoon, same day as the anniversary party. the same three minute routine, but in front of some experienced judges and an audience. why don't you do it there as well? it will be quite an experience!"

I said "will think about it. I have a Asia trip the day after the anniversary party. so it is going to be a hectic week.". What I didnt tell them was that Pongal festival was this weekend and I really wanted to eat a lot of pongal, and one cannot do demonstrations, leave alone compete with a stomach full of pongal (rice, lentiles, jaggery and clarified butter are the main ingredients.. the key ingredient being the ghee). 

Did try that routine every day after class was over and was not doing very well on the special poses. They had to be held for 5 seconds minimum and was able to do only 2-3 seconds. Had also bruised my knee in the process of trying the options during the coaching session and it was not making things any easier. 

Thursday rolls in. I am at the yoga class at 8:30 in the night. One of my coaches asks me "are you ready for the competition" and I give him the spiel about the bruised knee and not wanting to embarras myself in front of a large crowd and esteemed judges when I cannot hold things for more than 2-3 seconds. He goes "See, I see this all the time. On that day, you go up on stage and the adrenalin kicks in and you go an amazing job. You will have to try it for the experience. Why don't you try it in front of your classmates tonight?"

It is close to 10PM and teacher told the class at the end "please give Sundar 3 minutes of your time. He is going to do a bunch of poses in a competition over the weekend and he could get used to an audience!". 

After an exhausting day at work and having done yoga for 90 minutes, gave it a shot in front of 30 odd people and surprisingly my coach was right. He is usually right, and is even more correct when he doesn't make any sense. Somehow was holding things a lot longer in front of a crowd. Guess the human body is very good at making chemicals that help you in certain situations! I did it in 2 minutes and 40 seconds and the teacher said "you have time. you should hold poses longer, but ok job!"

So went home and signed up for the competition. Initially was thinking "who am I competing with?", what does this even mean? etc. etc. To me the only competition is with yesterdays Sundar, when it comes to yoga. Still, this promised to be an interesting experience. 

Yesteray afternoon, went in front of a knowledgeble yoga crowd and some big name judges and gave it a shot. It was an interesting experince. I had zero expectations of winning anything. All I wanted to see was :

1. Not fall down

2. Hold the poses for the minimum required time

3. Manage the time so that I don't rush and finish too fast or go over the 3 minute time

4. Smile through it all and have fun

Did accomplish all 4! Did it in 2 minutes 59 seconds. Used every bit of time and held poses for more than 5 seconds on all poses. They were not my best poses. Sometimes I do a better job in class, but it is interesting what happens when you are put on a spot. Your brain and body, mostly brain start doing tricks on your confidence. Muscles that usually don't shake during the poses start acting up.. 

It was the longest 3 minutes of my life. It was like that guy in the Wanted movie who has his heart beat slow down to the point where he can start seeing the wings of the fly and he can shoot their wings down.. 

For a few seconds I could not hear anything, see anything. It was just me and a point on the judges table in front of me. Everything else faded away! 

Once the three minutes was over, I felt the same thing that we feel at the end of a 90 minute class. Your body is in bits and pieces and your mind is a blank. The reset button was hit! 

Yes, why a Yoga competition? is a good question. Why not? is a good answer. If you are a regular yoga student, you should try this competition thing. It is a new "rush" and a new "high"! 

and if I can do it, anyone can do it! 

ps. I did not have my cell phone with me in the room, but BYSJ has pictures and videos on their FB page.. you can check it out there.