Over the last two months a lot has happened but in the midst of all the other things that kept me busy, Jan and Feb saw me do something very difficult.
My 20th attempt at the 60 day hot yoga challenge at Bikram Yoga San Jose.
It does not matter how many times one does this before. Every challenge is “a challenge”.
This year, I was really looking forward to a conference in Arizona towards the end of Feb / Early march and some business travel. So I did do a bunch of doubles early on to finish the challenge a week ahead of the 60 days. My finishing class was jointly celebrated with my teacher Sarah. (but we were not the first to finish this year. one guy had us beat by a week as he was also traveling).
When the challenge was done, realized that this years Challenge party was going to be right on the day the challenge ended. Missed the party for th first time because of a prior commitment to volunteer all day at South India Fine Arts for two back to back concerts. One cannot be in two places at once, at least not with my level of yogic practice.
Wrote my note of thanks and had San read it at the party. Really proud of my girl as she also finished her 3rd challenge two days later. There is no pic of me collecting a T-shirt this time. Here is my celebratory photo with Michele who still has the same glow around her since the day we met, while I age gracefully over 20 challenges?!
San talking for both of us at the challenge party!
Life is funny. So glad to have finished the challenge a week early. Flew back home after a biz trip right after finishing the challenge and was having a post dinner snack of ribbon pakodas. There was a stone in my mouth which I thought was from the pakoda packet. Turns out that an ancient filling from 1993 had come off with a quarter of my pre-molar. To top things off the gum on my front tooth detached and got infected. Had to go on antibiotics and visit the dentist repeatedly till they could fix it albeit temporarily.
They say “physically, mentally, spiritually”.. it should be changed to “medically, dentally, mentally and spiritually”! Dental is definitely unrelated to rest of the body. Guess that is why dentistry is not covered in the “medical plans”!
Had to pull out of the conference last minute and deal with lots of pain. Still recovering over the last two weeks. The added lesson is that if we get a chance to finish things off, you should do that. Never know what life throws at you!
A heartfelt thanks to my BYSJ family for everything!