Ever since I started picking up a rose after doing Yoga on Fathers day (Bikram Yoga San Jose gives out roses to dads on Fathers day when they come out of class.. I love this!), we started taking a picture in our yard with the kids and me.
Did this in 2015 and 2016. Last year Jr. was in India with my parents and I was travelling and we missed this.
This year we were all under one roof. Happy that I did not fly out this Sunday and my trip was pushed out.
Given busy schedules my MIL rushed out and we took the picture on my iPhone. Last two attempts she took the picture on my Canon 5D. (you can tell the difference)
you can see how fast the little one is growing.. those old clothes are all gone.
It was fun to do this..
Jr. barely fits into that jeans and net shirt. My hair still ebbs and flows.. the good thing is that we are all doing well and are having fun.
A big thanks to BYSJ for the nice thought. Keep them coming!
If you have read the book "Thinking Fast and Slow" by Kahneman, you will remember the test he does with data from colonoscopy patients. The patients rate their experience of a long colonoscopy treatment that might have varying degrees of pain throughout the procedure, purely on the basis of the last few minutes of the procedure.. if the pain goes down towards the end, they say "not bad" even if the peak pain level was high or the average pain level over the entire duration was high! This apparently is explained as the experiencing self vs. the remembering self and also explains how folks are impressed with an other wise dull movie that has a fast paced ending in the last few minutes etc.
I just realized the same thing happens to me during hot yoga. During the standing series I start off great and by the time we are just past the 60% point, I have to catch up and really make an effort to breathe and concentrate and sometimes just stand in attention and focus and get back in. Then I give it everything while doing toe stand which is the last asana in the standing series. If I don't do well on the right side, push myself to do an even better job on the left side to get the series to a "happy ending". Even if I stood out for two or three poses during the standing series, I go down on the mat thinking "that was good" simply because of the toe stand.
Then the same thing happens during the floor series. As long as I come back and finish strong my brain evaluates my attempt on the class as "stellar" no matter how crappy I did during the early part of that series.
Looks like a happy ending and all is forgotten. The opposite is also true. Sometimes I give it all I got during class only to end up not doing a 100% during the last five minutes (hanging on for dear life) and even though nothing was missed, come out feeling not satisfied with the effort.
All this might just be the natural way a brain works between experiencing something through the class and remembering only the way it ended.
Behavior or not.. two things are for sure.
1. Going to keep up with the happy endings
2. Going to treat the second set of every pose as a mini ending in itself
Hoping that those will improve the practice!
On a completely tangential note with human behaviour...
It has been almost a month since I started doing this five tibetan rites thing as soon as I brush my teeth in the morning. It takes me 15 minutes to do the five exercises 21 times and while doing it, make tea for my wife. She thinks I have already finished drinking my morning tea. Truth is I gave up drinking tea in the morning to cut down the milk and sugar. Have tea only in the evening on some days. Have also reduced the amount of milk and sugar in the diet. We also switched to 50% white and 50% brown rice. I cannot give up white rice and milk on the diet. My stomach has indeed stopped bloating in the middle of yoga class. There is definite improvements in abdominal strength and forearm strength after doing these exercises.
A few weeks ago I went to say good night to the little one and told her
"I am cutting down on Tea and sugar and trying to eat brown rice and also cut down on milk products"
LO : but you love tea and thachchi mammu (rice with yogurt). that is pretty much all you eat?
Me : I know. But the brown rice mix isn't all that bad. Still drink tea every alternate day in the evening..
LO : rolls her eyes..
Me : maybe your dad is just an idiot ?!
LO : gives me a big kiss and goes "I knew that the day I was born!"
That took me by surprise. Just smiled and gave her a big hug. Well she knew an idiot as soon as she laid eyes on one.. Probably the first idiot she saw! I am happy to be that idiot in her eyes because I will always be "her idiot".
As an experimenter I am now upset. Was it the 5 rites ? was it the reduced tea, milk, sugar, white rice that helped? (also that book said to eat a meal with similar stuff only.. in other words if you eat bread eat only bread.. not mix with rice.. keep the meal to similar fiber contents) Not sure if that made the biggest difference. Always do one split at a time to evaluate the experiment. Use a control split. If you are doing a complex experimental design make sure you can analyze with good confidence and order your variables with decreasing expected impact.
I teach this to people everyday and in what has been a huge experiment on myself, fail to follow my own rules for experimentation. Now to figure out what made the difference I have two options..
Keep the diet and stop the 5 rites or the other way around..
So I am going to keep the 5 rites and go back to my old diet with tea twice a day, finish dinner with thachchi mummu and go back to white rice for a month and see if the belly reappears..
Almost a month ago, after coming back from India.. I started trying this exercise to backbend using the wall for support. Three of my yoga teachers helped demonstrate it for me and gave me tips. The advice was to try this after doing the class when we are already more flexible. Given I end up finishing the class at 10PM, it is not easy to stay back and try this. Usually have to come back home and call people across the Pacific.
Still gave this a shot around 20 times a day.. wouldnt go back all the way all 20 times, but would just stand at work or in meetings and just go "up and back" to try and bend my upper spine. Then come home and try this on the wall. Over weekends, would spend 30 minutes trying to do this with breaks.
It is interesting to see how much change is possible even with limited attempts.
The last clip was from last weekend. Then I had to travel. One single trip where you end up sitting for 12 hours can set you back a lot. I had a window seat reserved, but apparently this one had no "window". So I asked the ticket counter person to give me a window seat that actually had a view. He said "is seat 26 okay". I was tired and said "fine". turned out that this is the seat with the back to the restroom and that means it does not recline as much as the other economy seats and you get the added sound effects from the flush every 5 minutes. Given how tired I was, dozed off for the most part. When we landed, my foot would not go into my shoes! It was swollen! Managed to squeeze it into the shoes and made it home.
Given my panacea for all phyisical ailments is Yoga, went to yoga class right after coming home. The foot became normal again. Tried to do the back bend on the wall, bright and early on a saturday morning and I was back to where I was when starting this.
2018 started with getting over the Flu. I was drinking Delsym at a minute before midnight on New Years eve. The last time I came back from Beijing, two days before X-mas, some bugs hitched a ride back with me or so I thought. So it took me till the 6th of January to go try Yoga again. Even on the 6th I was pretty weak and my plan was to go to anything but the front row and pace myself. There was a new teacher who keyed me in on the 6th and she had no idea it was my "come back class".
"A leopard cannot change its spots", or some such thing... Once I go through those double doors, I am like a new born that has been temporarily put back in the womb and I start kicking in my happy place. Put the mat in the last row and a second later move it to the third and after looking around the room and seeing there is a spot in the front row, moved it up to the mirror. My thoughts during those 90 or 100 seconds of mat moving cannot be summarized in this post. That could be a book in itself. You guys read this blog and you know I am good for it!
Came back the next day and my friend and teacher Jessica gave me a big hug and said "welcome back". She knew I was sick last two weeks but did not ask me anything more. That was probably her way of saying "you know what to do in the room, so I am not biasing you". At the end of the class, Jessica asks "60 day challenge?" like she was asking me if I would like some Gulab Jamun after a meal, and without giving it much thought, wrote my name on the sign up sheet. After that we didn't talk about it. I just came every day as usual, went to China as usual and did doubles on every weekend as usual, heard the sighs from wife and kids when they realized I was doing the challenge, as usual, and finished the Challenge.. and hopefully that becomes "as usual".
There was a Challenge party and we had some testimonials from folks who finished 60 classes in 60 days and they were all inspiring. We had to leave the party after an hour as the kids had to be taken to dinner.. as usual but this year we got to watch the other folks tell us about their journey on Facebook Live! I was telling the kids what Multiple Sclerosis was and after an inspiring story Jr. said she will come join me for classes again. Okay, she said "a class", but I am hoping it is going to be plural.
This year I am kicking out regularly in the standing head to knee pose and it is my new favorite pose.
There are alwasys graphs and charts for a 60 day challenge post..
There was a possibility of an earlier China trip, so I finished the challenge in 58 days and eventually did 61/60 when the trip was not pre-poned. If you think going to do Yoga more than 3 times a week is difficult think again. Coming back from a flu, going to Asia and back for a week in the middle of this, those were easy because I had done those before. One of the days, I had to drive past Sacramento area startign at 6AM, attend a meeting, come back at 5PM, chaired a meetign from 6 to 8 PM and still did yoga from 8:30PM-10PM just to keep challenge going. It is all doable. There are people who have debilitating issues who do the challenge and mine are nothing compared to those. Even if you don't do the challenge, it is okay. Come to the party to hear some really inspiring real life stories!
Still tracking weight..
The excel file was started almost a year after starting Yoga and so far it has close to 2000 data points... (some of them blank)
Here is weight since 2012..
If you notice the excel file there is a total class tracker. Have crossed 1500 classes and the best part is:
- Still suck at this
- Have not given up on it
- Even though my self assesment and self esteem take a beating in that mirror, the end result is positive because every day is usually better than the previous day
- this yoga keeps me grounded. Every now and then I get reminded that sooner or later gravity will win and I will be ashes, but till that day, going to fight gravity every day, every set.
- my teachers and fellow students seem to believe in me and root for me. they see more in me than I see myself and that is a blessing
- learn something new every day, be it class 1, 100, 1000 or 1506..always something new which brings me to class 1500
Have already posted about this special class with Yoga Professor Emeritus, Mary Jarvis. One class can sometimes change your view and attitude to things. This one definitely did for me.
It took me 4 classes after her talk, to give up water during Yoga class. The last one week have left the water bottle in the car. Sometimes I drink a sip or two on the way home. Mostly now I drink water a good 40 minutes after class is over. It is interesting.There is a sudden cool over my face and body and even on the insides while driving back after class. Kind of like what you feel when you drink regular water after chewing mint gum but it feels like ice water. Same thing except all over the body and this is new. Most likely has to do with the "no water during class".
Have also stopped fidgeting during class. No more subconscious wiping of sweat. No moving around mat with the bullshit excuse of trying to make it easy for people behind me who are also moving around, etc.
Currently trying to keep tummy sucked in from beginning of class till the first pose, and failing at it miserably. Confident that sooner or later that will change and can then go to other things that were taught.
One funny thing Mary Jarvis mentioned during the special class which is replaying in my head?!
"the whole goal of doing this yoga is so you can sit in lotus pose without moving and meditate for long periods of time. This pose is almost a half lotus and this will eventually help you get to lotus!". She was telling the entire class that and I was thinking "What?! I can already sit in Lotus pose for long periods of time! Why am I doing this Yoga then? Shouldn't I do that instead?"
Maybe my Lotus sucks.. should make a bumper sticker that says "my lotus sucks" ? Maybe there is a market for it? As a kid we used to sit in Lotus pose all the time. My kids here struggle because they are not used to sitting on the ground all the time. They have "criss cross applesauce" issues. Everytime we go visit the Livermore temple, I sit there for at least half an hour in silence before walking out. Used to do it at home also and manage to sit for 45 minutes. Two years ago I tried to time myself and made it once to 54 minutes.
Maybe the key words were "long periods of time"! How long is long?!
After Mary's class, I wanted to try and see how long in lotus pose but with eyes closed and "no fidgeting". No movement "whatsoever". Turns out it was 44 minutes 11 seconds as caught on timelapse video..
Technology is good. Daughter's iPhone for timelapse, my iPhone for timer, a clock in the background that catches the time "lapsing" and my legs that pretty much went blue after this time. Took me 3 minutes to be able to get up and walk again as the blood returned to my feet!
Doing 1500+ classes of 90 mintue Yoga and cannot even sit in one place without moving for one single hour! If that doesn't put things in perspective for you, don't know what will. There are folks who have stayed in the same place without moving for 1-3 days. I have been fortunate in this lifetime to meet multiple people who have done that and have heard from my grandpa that he has met people who have done the same. Folks who can slow down time... is how he put it.
Going to try doing this to see how long it takes to cross the one hour mark and eventually the 90 minute mark.
Yoga has helped me immensely this year. My stress at work is through the roof and if it were not for the Yoga to supplement the support from my wife and kids, I would not be functioning normally, or even functioning.
A big heartfelt thanks to all my teachers at BYSJ for keeping me sane. You know who you are.. and if you don't know.. there is a graph for it also.
We have a lot of teachers, some are new, some traveling and teaching us for a month or for just one special class and the regular teaching staff. Every teacher gives it a 100% when it comes to doing the right thing for folks in class and all teachers who knew me, showed me no mercy during the challenge!
Well, it is almost time to go to one more Yoga class or as my wife would say "Kazhudhai ketta kutti suvaru!" ("if he is not home, he will be in Yoga class" is the loose translation).
Writing this post made me cheer up. Hope is you read this and are inspired to try a 60 day challenge!
On Sunday, an experienced and expert Yoga teacher, Mary Jarvis was to visit Bikram Yoga San Jose and teach a class at 10AM followed by a special posture clinic class from Noon to 4 PM... at least that was the plan.
She did come and the regular 90 minute class at 10AM went till 1:15. Almost everyone in the room just stayed the entire time trying to grasp every little detail of what she said. She chose her words carefully and she gave us perspective on the Yoga practice itself. It was a window to what was possible and why. The how of it was secondary. It was personalized depending on the student and the day and time of class, a function of everything else in their mind and life.. but she was not going to judge us as long as we tried.
We got a 15 minute break and continued. There have been a few special classes over the years as part of practicing Yoga that helped improve the practice and produce light bulb moments. This class was up there on that list.
At this point everything in class looks like "BM" and "AM" .. Before Mary and after Mary, which is why I call it a new marker on the Yoga journey.
Since Sunday I have been in three classes including tonight and I started thinking of some little things first.
1. No fidgeting in class. You stay still in the pose and in between poses. Apparently she ate flies that sat on her face just to avoid fidgeting. Her teacher(Bikram) threw her out of class for fidgeting in between poses.
2. No water during the class. If you breathe through the class, you don't need water (her words, not mine). Apparently there were no water bottles allowed in the days she learned yoga and in her studio she asks teachers to lead by example. However she doesn't insist on students giving it up but asks them to try.
3. 4. 5. ... 655.. the rest can wait. I was going to try 1 and 2 first.
First class AM, too much fidgeting but at least I was conscious of it. Also avoided water till half way point when we got to the floor series.
Second class AM, 3 fidgets and they were pre-meditated. There were many that were subconcsious but didn't know it. Also almost made it without water for 80/90 minutes. Just before we went to the final stretching pose I caved. Went for the water bottle.
Today was class 3. I did not fidget knowing it. There were 6 instances where subconsciously my hand was going to my forehead to clear sweat and every time my hand went up, brought the other hand up to do a Namaste in front of the mirror. I am sure the folks around me were thinking "what a narcissistic asshole Namastaying himself after every third pose... but it doesn't matter. What was important is that I was in "eyes wide open" mode the entire 90 minutes. It is amazing to realize that there are points in the class where I had no idea what I was doing.. at least prior to this class, and I have been in Jesssica's class a gazillion times and I think I pay attention to her. Apparently not a 100%. It is not easy to be conscious of every little movement.
One thing that was sacrified to be that conscious was my face had this intense stare throughout the class and I did not smile. Maybe that is the next step in the evolving process. Stay alert and smile.
As for the water bottle, didn't touch it today. It was there, inviting me all the time, taunting me, tempting me.. but made it through the class and all the way home. Drank water after a shower. Nothing bad happened by skipping water. So far so good..
Sometimes a special teacher can make a world of a difference. Mary Jarvis has made two small dents in my practice within a week. Will see how many of the rest of her words of wisdom sink in and make a difference over time.
Sunday, June 17, 2018 at 6:52PM ;)
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