The many degrees of "relaxation"

Today was a very special yoga day. Bikram Yoga San Jose had a special class at 10AM with Rajashree Choudhury teaching the class.

We have heard so much about her teaching style and how special her class is from the teachers. So it was a not to miss experience. A lot of times I end up missing classes taught by visiting teachers because of the travel schedule. Was fortunate to be in town to attend this class.

The dialogue in every Bikram yoga class is the same. The time for every class is the same 90 minutes but the teachers are a broad spectrum. On one side we have the high energy fire breathing dragon drill seargents and on the other side we have the hypnotic horse whisperers. Then there are varying mixes of the two combinations. The end result after the class is more or less the same. You are completely drained of thought and you are happy to go out into the world, all zoned out! 

Once in a while you get someone on either extreme who can make you feel more zoned out than you think was possible. Not talking about doing a pose deeper or more correct to the form during class here...

It is about a certain silence in your head that is just quieter than the usual. We should have a scale to quantify silence, that is exponential like the Decibel scale or the Richter scale.

Maybe "silence" is the wrong word here as this is not the opposite of noise. It is more than just the absence of sound. It the absence of any sensory data going into your brain to disturb you. 

We had a great class today where Rajashree took us through the usual 90 minute routine with some tidbits of information thrown in. Most of them were about why we do what we do in class and encouraging us to persevere.  

Then when the poses and final breathing was over and we were all stretched out on the mats, she started talking softly, telling us how to relax. There are one or two teachers who try this by saying "relax your neck, your shoulders, your hips... " and they make you consciously relax your body head to toe. What we heard today was different. It was advice, technique and hypnotism at work. 

After a few minutes of listening to her talk, I had no idea what she was even saying! It was almost a whisper. It was like being submerged in a tank of water or what the astronauts decribe as part of their space walk experience. You know there is a tether connecting you to the world but it seems to be getting more and more distant as time passes.

Got a tingling sensation in the left side of my head after a few minutes into this "whispering shavasana". Usually tingles in the hot room means that blood is flowing to that part of your body for the first time in a long time. Within a few minutes there were tingling sensations all over my brain and at that point the whisper became very faint.

Then everyone clapped for some reason and was back to staring at the light on the ceiling. It was like coming back out of anesthesia after a surgery and staring at the lights or that is the closest I can explain what happened after being "so far out there".

Had been in shavasana for more than 15 minutes. For a person who runs out at the end of 90 minutes on any given day because of a conference call to attend or a kid to pick up from some class on the way home, the extra 15 minutes is a luxury. Today it was a real lesson. Now I know why the teachers say "missing the 2 minute shavasana at the end of class is like working very hard, then forgetting to collect your paycheck". 

Going to stay on the mat after class for longer times, at least on weekend classes or Friday evenings going forward. 

Todays class was like a power surge that forcibly reset the hardware in my head. Now the trick is to relive this experience after every yoga class!

After class we got to talk to Rajashree for a few minutes.  Jr. had come to BYSJ so she could see what this was all about and also clicked a picture.

Wanted to tell her so many things. Wanted to show her how my broken hand is now normal again. How Bikram Yoga has given me a second chance and made me believe in the concept of second chances, but before I said anything she mentions her son wears a Janau and asks me if I do Sandhya Vandhanam every day. Told her that I do it most days but only once a day.

My Bikram Yoga attendance is better than my Sandhya Vandhanam frequency. She says "do that as well! it is good for you"

Jr. was all smiles when she said "your daughter is beautiful". Today Jr. saw almost a 100 people come out all smiling after class and line up to talk to Rajashree. It is my sincere hope she does yoga again soon. Given how busy she is with 8th grade, she could really use it. 

It was truly a "special experience" like the teachers at BYSJ told us over the last few days.

Hats off.. we should really say "Mats off" to Rajashree Choudhury, the "horse whisperer extraordinaire"!

A very special day

Last year, the kids made me choose between spending time with them for "Father's day" or going to the usual yoga class. 

This year, thanks to the UN and Narendra Modi and a billion other folks, today is International Yoga day. So the rest of the world called me to wish a happy father's day, my MIL called me to wish me a "happy Yoga day" and we knew that there was no skipping yoga.

After class the dads get roses! First kid to hug me (after I showered of course) was going to get the rose.. but they were both very quiet. Apparently they had just made the cards and the cards were still wet!

Loved the cards. They are both doing great in the arts department.

Then we had lunch and we saw a note from the yoga studio that said "post pictures of dads doing yoga with their kids". San lined up the camera and initially the kids were reluctant and conscious of their poses.. but then they opened up nicely and were all smiles!

We have many pictures of these two trying yoga poses from years ago.. 

They decided to try the Triangle pose 

 Yes.. we have a few pentagons there.. but they can be fixed in time. The little one has had a growth spurt of sorts. Even after explaining the difference between a triangle and a pentagon, the little one goes "I am doing exactly what you are doing! so stop correcting me!". 

If there is one thing I have to teach her in life, it is "how to learn".

Step 1: Listen to your teacher

Step 2: Don't say "I already know!"

Step 3: Follow instructions to the best of your ability and understanding

After many an aborted takeoff...

We finally flew together. San did a great job and kept clicking in hopes that there will be at least one photo of these poses that will have all three of us doing the same thing. The girls kept joking, laughing and giggling throughout 

Their smiles made my day!

Finally Jr. suggested we try to sit in lotus pose and lift our bodies off the ground. Have been trying to get them to sit in lotus pose, even if for a few seconds to a minute, few times a week. 

They did it with a smile! 

Wishing everyone out there a very happy Father's day and Yoga day!

Same Same but Different

Every year, Bikram Yoga San Jose has a 60 day Challenge that starts in January. This year, I got into the Challenge reluctantly, knowing that there were three possible Asia trips in those 60 days. 

The teachers said "sign up and see how far you go. you never know". Well, they know me, alright! Once they put my name on that board (twice), it was not going to be easy to give up on the challenge. 

It was a torment. I would come back from a trip and look at my star stickers trailing behind the rest of the stars and "sigh" audibly before entering the class. My biggest challenge was accepting the possibility that I might not do 60 classes in 60 days. 

With a lot of encouragement from San and the kids as well as the teachers, and a lot of doubles (do two classes in one day, sometimes back to back) the stars all added up to 60! Finished the challenge and was off to catch a 12 hour flight. 

Given my sanity is constantly tested by a workload that fluctuates by the hour, working across multiple timezones to a point where I am constantly awake, the yoga has definitely helped me from going postal. 

This is not my first challenge. It is my third (fourth if you count the fact that MIL and me did 91 classses in our first 100 days of starting Bikram Yoga in 2011.. back then we did not know much about this Challenge).

Have written about this experience in 2013 and 2014. Went back to the blog and was missing the 2015 post. Looks like I did the usual graphs and charts, wrote about it and never hit the Publish button, thanks to fighting strange rashes that come with frequent travel?! right after the Challenge.

People call me a "technologist".. I am turning into a "technoyogist". What kind of technoyogi does a post on Yoga that involves counting to 60, without graphs and charts?! 

That kind of sums up the whole challenge. It was not steady progress like the previous two years. It was stop and go. Practiced 6 times between leaving work on Friday to coming back on Monday. My original thought was that I would be dead before Monday morning, but reality was something else. Went to work and felt great. So the number of classes you do over a weekend doesn't matter, as long as you hydrate and rest properly. Zico coconut water was and is my best friend now. If some day, I put a bar in the house for some strange reason, it will only have Zico on tap. 

Then came the surprise after the Challenge. Picked up some strange rash and most of March was a wash with work, with family and Yoga. My extended family often challenged me with things like "you do all this yoga and still get sick. maybe it is the yoga!" .. friends were talking about "yoga overdose".. and once the jokes and jibes start, the hits just keep on coming.

Doing yoga does not make you invincible. It helps you optimize your strength vs. flexibilty, makes sure your hormone glands are all firing right, and helps with your immunity so your body can fight things better. My auto immune disorder and allergies are known to everyone close to me. You bring me close to a range of things like dogs,  cats, sesame seeds, peanuts, chinese juniper, shellfish (and a long list of things) and I can go from normal to strugling in a few seconds. My body probably did a better job fighting the rash, thanks to Yoga. 

Can I prove it? No. Can I disprove it? again, No.  The Yogis in the Himalayas had a much better deal than me, because they didn't have to share recirculated air in a tin can with 400 people for 12-14 hours on a regular basis.  This was like wearing a bullet proof vest and walking into a war zone. Chances are you still get shot in the face. 

The same thing applies to the sudden outburst of emotion when I am on a call and one of my kids screams in the background. Just because you do Yoga, doesn't mean you become a stoic overnight or you become a stoic ever. There is nothing wrong with going from zero to angry in 4 seconds. What is important is how long does it take you to come from Angry to zero? if you can do it in three deep breaths with 6 seconds in and 6 seconds out (24 seconds) you got me beat. That is my bench mark today. It takes me 24 seconds (20 sometimes) to calm down from anything. That is all thanks to Yoga.

The weight tracking after every yoga class is still on. Somehow I have either put on a good 10 pounds between July to December of 2014 or the battery change in the weighing scale has reset the calibration! Will post this graph at the end of 2015 and see what it shows. Right now the weight is more or less steady at 145 +/- 2 lbs. 

Why do this Challenge at all?

Is it to feed the type A personality trait?

Is it some kind of death wish?

Is there any difference that I noticed after the 2nd and 3rd challenge ?

What did I gain by doing this?  

Did I even enjoy doing this?

Those were the most common questions I got in water cooler conversations or at kids birthday parties when the guys or ladies are talking about my Yoga experience.

So here are some answers.

The first time I did the challenge, it was purely a "type A" thing. No shame in admitting it. Everyone at the studio was going "ooh" and "aah" about how great this experience was and someone mentioned that this is "not easy" and "not everyone can do it". Well, "I am not everyone" was the theme in my life at that time.. (okay, it is a repeating theme) and we went. (we = me and my mother in law, who is a type A+ personality, who encouraged me to do it. As my only "local parent", she did the right thing and I am forever grateful to her for doing that).

When the challenge was done though, it was a humbling experience, not a power trip. It put a lot of things in perspective. One can accomplish a lot at work and home, but how far can you push your body, within a two feet by six feet space, that we call a yoga mat? Once you do the same thing regularly and continuously, your body kind of starts remembering things and you start seeing changes. I always thought this concept of "muscle memory" was a bunch of bull. I was wrong! My abs never looked better than after that 60 days. 

The second time, I signed up, because January to March is Flu season here. The previous year, I had successfully managed to evade the flu, in spite of everyone in the house having it. Thought of the Challenge as a flu beater and it did help. My work was crazy in 2014 and at the time and the challenge kept me sane.

This time the learning was different. No two challenges are alike. Different year, different set of issues that have to be overcome. Also realized that poses that were not favorites the previous year, became my "look forward to" poses in the next year and vice versa.  It just shows how your body changes over time. At the end of this challenge I really wanted to ask my teacher if she will write me a recommendation for teacher training. My family and collegues nicely reminded me of my commitments, and I put that wish in the "after this job is done" list.

This year, it was probably a type A thing as well. I was fighting with myself and I won. Could not accept the thought of not finishing after signing up. Do not know if that is a good or bad thing. Sometimes I do not like the me, that stares back from the mirror. Do not understand why it is acceptance of that person that I seek, instead of a determined fight to change that person. Maybe that is the first step to eventually changing?

If you have done the challenge multiple times, the biggest changes you will see, are with your breath and your thought process. The poses are not going to magically improve because you do the challenge. Not in depth anyways. Your form will improve but that is something I have learnt to cherish only after many a teacher has knocked it into my pig head that "form is more important than depth". Even today, the teacher told us "going 90 miles per hour into a ditch is not the goal here. Going straight and steady at 35 miles per hour will still get you places".

If you are doing this challenge for the 2nd or 3rd or n-th time, chances are, you are a regular, and every day is a challenge for you. Still, you get to literally see your body change radically over a two month timeframe. Your core strength improves by orders of magnitude!

However, if you have just started on this journey, it is quite a treat to go through this experience. You WILL see changes with your body and your mind. 

The last question always puts a smile on my face. Do you enjoy doing this? That is a tough one. In all honesty, every class, no matter weather the starting state was one of euphoria or depresssion, ends the same way. I come out singing inside my hear in Gloria Gaynor's voice "and I .. I will survive.. and I survived that 90 minutes of fighting, with my body and my mind".

Not sure if anyone in that room actually "enjoys" it while the class is going on. Mostly folks stare at themselves with a frustrated, constipated or angry face except when the teachers crack a joke or remind people to smile. There are three ladies who are an exception to this. They always have a smile on their face. Either they are seasoned pro's, or air hostesses who cannot undo their smiles. Those are my theories.

Every Yoga class is like making mysore pak for me.  It takes forever to make it and you sweat it out in the kitchen, standing in front of a hot stove, but when you taste the sweet after it is done, it was all worth the effort! Walking back to the car after class, looking up at the sky, smelling the cold air (it is usually cold compared to the hot room) and driving back in silence knowing you are better off today than yesterday, always makes the hard work in the class, worth it.

Definitely recommend trying a Challenge. There is a good chance that you will surprise yourself with what you find out about your own abilities! 

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?!

Yeah Yeah, it is another Yoga post...

The 60 day challenge is still on and right now I am 6 behind. There are days when even going to that one class per day becomes quite a challenge and surprise, I get to do a double. 

Then there are days where I go with two sets of towels and a bottle of gatorade to drink between classes, all planned for a double and the plan is abandoned after the first class. 

They say planning is three fourths done.. not in a Bikram yoga class. Plan all you want, every class is a surprise. Have made three sincere attempts to do a double and every time, have had to abandon it at the end of the first class.

Have you ever driven on a road, knowing that it has synchronized traffic lights, but you still get stuck at every damn light, because your speed is just slightly out of sync? That is how this one class was! "If only, if only the teacher gave me an extra two seconds to get my breath back to normal before the next pose" was the recurring thought through 50 minutes of a 90 minute class.

There are folks who show up in the Yoga room after running a full marathon in the morning and they breeze through the class. There is a lady who showed up there till the day before her baby was born and was again there in the hot room one week after delivery! I look at them with awe and use them for inspiration.

There is a big irony that keeps hitting me on a day to day basis. We say the world is shrinking and the internet has brought us closer and we live in a more "social" world. However the "social media" world that we live in seems to separate us more than unite us. It seems to be superficial. People project a life in social media. Not share their life. Everyone on Facebook seems to be living THE life. They have selectively chosen to share their joys, likes and upbeat status reports. That might be seen as a positive thing, but it is only one side of the story. 

I go to drop a happy birthday wish in the Facebook email, aka messenger and see that the only messages I have sent that person on FB is a happy birthday message, year after year! It is not that I don't exchange other emails with that person on gmail or meet that person one or twice a year, but our exchanges and interactions have been reduced to what seems to be, preprinted TELEGRAM messages (if you are not from India and are under 20 you may not get this reference). Next thing you know, Facebook will have an option to select a number and #2 will be Happy Birthday #3 will be "heartfelt condolences" etc.  It is almost getting there.

At the anniversary day at BYSJ, practically every class is packed. I decided to go to the 4:30 PM class and there was more than a 100 people in the room! At least it felt like it. Literally mat to mat! Before the class started the instructor said something nice. He wanted us to say hi to all our nearest neighbors. I had not met or spoken to any of my five nearest neighbors and it was nice to introduce myself to a bunch of "strangers".

It was a great class taught by a very funny guy. Some things stuck with me. He said "stretch your hands up, palm to palm grip, and if you see there is a gap between your palms in the mirror, ask yourself.... WHY?"  We were in another pose and he said "you might have just lost the will to live, but the class must go on.. so push your stomach forward" . We all laughed. Laughing is sometimes the best way to get your breath back. So these days I have a perpetual stupid grin on my face, and it seems to be helping!

There are also some other funnies that seem to stick in my head. One teacher shouts out "grab your elbows each other! If you cannot grab your elbows, GRAB YOUR ELBOWS!".

Another one says "let's get ready for Cobra pose. place your hands on the mat, five fingers together. Align your thumbs with your nipples and press down". This was by far the best and shortest description of the set up that actually clicked for me! It was so simple. No mention of the deltoids, shoulders, etc. etc. where you keep what, figuring out if your hands are too far in or out, etc.  Was wondering why other teachers didn't say that! Then again, what works for my brain, might be a distraction to someone else, who knows?!

There is another teacher who is new this year. This guy does something unique. When the class is about to end and we are in the last breathing exercise, he progressively dims the light and turns off the lights altogether while we still have 10-15 breaths to go. There is a magical effect that happens (at least to me) in the following sequence:

1. I see a shillouette of me and all the folks immediately around me in the mirror. Just the outlines, kind of like when you adjust the highlights and shadows to the extreme slider bar on Photoshop! 

2. Then I can slowly see the details in the shadows. The faces are now recognizable. 

3. This then gives way to seeing only the people and the background goes dark.

4. There is a bright glow around the people. It is like seeing a Thermal image of the folks in the room and they give off a heat signature

5. If I try to focus on the mirror instead of "my reflection in the mirror", I can see a HALO around my head and some of the others.. just like you see in pictures of any god in India! (examples here, here and here and here yes, if Charlie Hebdo was in India, chances are they will draw Mohammad with a halo as well..) 

First I was thinking it is just the natural process of your dehydrated eyes going through a highlights/shadows adjustment.. but that did not explain the halo, only the outlines.

Maybe your eyes get to see near infrared after the yoga class and we all get some x-men type powers, was the alternate thought. In the five classes he has taught me so far, five for five he has done this light dimming and in all those classes, have seen the halo! Not sure if others go through the same experience, but it would be interesting to find out. 

These days I do go a few minutes early before class and talk to people, encourage them, get encouraged in turn and that helps. Every person has a story and they are happy to share their stories. Yoga has now become some kind of therapy when it comes to being social! 

In a world where we are all supposed to be closer, it takes very little to say hi to a stranger and strike up a conversation. My kids might not even have that ability the way they are going. Two kids in the same room texting each other. Their ability to smile only in emojis makes it tragic. 

On the bright side, a Facebook friend started a movement of sorts asking everyone to pick up the phone and call or go meet someone they have wanted to talk to for a long time, but never made it. That made me think..

Why are you so happy about talking to strangers, when you don't have time to call or meet your friends over the years?! 

That will be the focus for the rest of February, as the Yoga continues!