A decade of practicing anything..

Exactly 10 years ago, my MIL and me walked into the old studio of BYSJ to do our very first hot yoga class.. it was not "bright and early".. more like "dark and cold".. but early it was at 5:30AM.

Over the years it has been a journey filled with little joys, frustrations (mostly in the early days of practice) but mostly realization of what this body and eventually mind can do and how things are connected.

Practicing yoga is the one thing I could always count on to bring me a level set every day, no matter the other circumstances that weigh in.

My MIL does yoga at home (whatever yoga works for her) and I have stuck to Bikram Yoga for 10 years now. Have tracked the classes, my weight after coming home (or walking to the bathroom now that coming home after yoga has been reduced to a 30 second thing!) and have been doing yoga very regularly. It has been 2259 classes as of yesterday and hopefully tonight we get to round it to 226 classes a year. 

The teachers tell you to practice at least 4-5 times a week and that is about there. 4-5 times a week. 

I cannot tell you enough how good this practice has been for me. It is my sincere wish that more people pracice yoga and practice regularly.

My MIL has not been fortunate enough to practice in the latest BYSJ studio. She showed up here on March 13th last year and the studio closed on 16th. We did get a chance to go see the studio, thanks to BYSJ!

 

Cannot wait for the doors to open again and soak in the heat and humidity! 

Today also happens to be Maha Shivarathri, a day for spirituality and a special day that brings back so many memories for me personally. The fact that the 10 year yoga anniversary fell on Maha Shivarathri made my day! 

This photo was taken last night by San of me doing yoga..

Incidentally, my first yoga blog post 10 years ago was about being able to do this pose with some semblance to what it was supposed to be. I could not grab my feet for the first 9 days. Finally managed it on the 10th day! 

It is a lifelong practice.. just getting started.

Wishing myself and the MIL a very happy Yoga anniversary and a happy Shivarathri to all of you!

A heartfelt thanks to BYSJ and all the teachers for the yoga and everything the yoga has given us!

The body hackers

It has been hard to do yoga by myself day after day.. but I haven't missed a day this year. Have managed to do a full class with audio recordings from my teachers every day, even if it was the last thing I had to do before going to bed. 

We also have a once a week Zoom live class where our world champion teacher watches us patiently as little thumbnails and still manages to correct us as we are doing the asanas in synchronization with her instructions. 

Today during the live class she said "dont give up" exactly a few milliseconds before I had officially given up going from the left side to right side of a pose. 

The best part is also being able to share things on the group pages and have teachers give me corrections or suggestions on how to improve or go past a set back of sorts. It is kind of like going to a doctor. The better you are able to tell them what is going on in the post, the better the help. You post a photo or video, that is like giving your doctor an x-ray or ultrasound video.. better the help.

For the last few days, I have been trying to improve my practice by taking one pose where we are lying down on the floor and try hold it for 2-3 minutes after finishing the regular class. The reason for this was :

1. doing stuff at home is not same as doing stuff in a hot room at 110 F and 40% humidity. So we cannot push ourselves to the same limits. 

2. at the end of giving it everything at room temp, you are still a lot more flexible at end of class than beginning of class, so it makes sense to stretch at least one pose

3. normally we hold poses for 20 seconds. holding for 2-3 minutes might help me go past limits, relax certain parts better and hold other parts of the body consistently.

What surprised me was that my breathing faltered after 2 minutes on many such attempts even on simple poses. The main reason was my attempt to keep the pose "active" and pulling too much which automatically puts the focus from the breath to the constraint and the whole thing fell apart. 

When I explained this, my teachers gave me very precise instructions on going step by step to handle this. 

Your body is a machine and even though you have had it all your life, it doesn't mean you can put it in certain poses, unless you have a cheat sheet.. there is a step by step method to this madness which will help you get there.. 

Yoga teachers are hackers.. they are body hackers.. they literally have a cheat sheet for how to make your body do things you thought it could never do! 

here are some examples.

disclaimer: these were taken after dinner for show and tell purposes.. based on photographer availability..

I always used to imagine pushing the top surface out and up and towards the mirror in front of me.. that kind of backfires because at the neck area you are conflicted.. the neck has to drop. The idea is actually to push from the back to the front.. imagine the green surface moving up and out and problem solved.. neck still drops. it is easier to imagine things that way. Again what I say may not make sense to you.. as long as one teacher explained it in a way that made sense to me, all is well. 

There is no "code" that can be just downloaded into your head to make you do what the teacher wants and do it right. 

So far my teachers have been very patient with me.. On one of the pre-recorded dialogues my teacher says "it took me 5 years to do what it says in the instruction. It takes however long it takes.. but patience is the key"..

I am testing the patience of my teachers and they are absolutely sweet about handling all the questions. 

Now that I have an extra 30 minutes that is not spent driving to and fro to yoga class, putting that time also towards the yoga. It will hopefully come in handy when the lockdown is lifted and we are able to practice with heat again.

Here's to teachers!

Ill wind blows no one any good

My yoga teacher told me this and I had to go Google it. Somehow never came across that one in the past. 

The idea is that even in the depths of an overwhelmingly bad situation, someone has something good come out of it. 

What is the context?

Well, I usually have at least two if not three Asia trips in the middle of a 60 day challenge at BYSJ and that means I am doing a lot of doubles to finish the challenge. This year, the trip has been pushed from 5th to 13th to 27th to now March, because of the ill wind that is called Coronavirus. While it is all doom and gloom, I have managed to do yoga 44 times in 39 days without missing a day so far. 

It is great to be able to do yoga once a day without missing a day. I now really envy people who don't have to travel as part of their jobs. 

While the travel cancellation has been a good thing, the challenge has not been a walk in the park. Three weeks ago, I bought some mixture from the local Indian grocery store. One bite and I thought it had some stone in it. Then the pain hit me and I realized a big chunk of my pre-molar tooth just broke off in the back. The molar was already removed six years ago. 

Was in a lot of pain that night. My dentist was nice enough to come on her day off the following morning to try and do a temporary fix. Then she found that the tooth in front of it was hanging on for dear life. The gums were not gripping it. So they cleaned it, put some gel in there and now I am brushing my teeth and gargling antibacterial stuff after pretty much anything goes in my mouth with the exception of water. I have the broken piece as a souvenier.

There were 4 visits in the last 14 days.. I still managed to do the 8:30PM class after the anesthetic wore off. I am not allowed to do Yoga after taking Ibuprofen. You need to be able to know when you are stretching to the point of creating pain and the ibuprofen will mask that. San was calling me an idiot three times a day for not taking pain killers, but you have to do what you have to do.. for the 60 day challenge!

The last week while going through all this, I was also stuck. One thing that I look forward to after every class is putting a sticker on the board. The sticker is only a token and there is excel sheet to track every class anyways, but the sticker is joy. It was not like there were no stickers. There were.. but not the same ones that were handed out the first four weeks of the challenge. 

The front desk folks at BYSJ told me that they could not find the original stickers anywhere after trying at many stores so they had to switch stickers. I have difficulty eating bagels if they don't fit precisely after coming out of the toaster. Changing to a different sticker in the middle of the challenge was bugging me..maybe it was the tooth doing the bothering.. but it doesn't matter. Found the sticker at Michael's and got the one last packet of stickers they had of that type. There is just enough blue stars in this to get me through the challenge.

It felt good to put a bunch of stickers back on the board. Next challenge, I am going to get my own stickers. Maybe something unique.. now that I have discovered an aisle full of stickers at Michaels! 

It is not over till it is over.. still have 16 to go... hopefully I will finish it, ill winds or otherwise.