A special 60 day yoga challenge

Folks who read this blog and know me or even randomly see me on the street (pretty much all of Cupertino) know:

- There is a Bikram Yoga San Jose

- There is something called a 60 day challenge at BYSJ

- and "I did it!"

They might also have concluded that I have only one shirt in my entire wardrobe and wear it all the time, possibly due to some psychological disorder where I have to wear the same shirt.

A more astute observer might have noticed that the blue T-shirt has different levels of fading due to repeated washing over years and therefore, cannot be the same shirt.

This fact has been reinforced over last year, now that there are two additional colors added to the collection. 

Why do I keep wearing this shirt? 

1. It was a T-shirt not bought, but hard earned by doing 60 hot yoga classes in 60 days (miss one and you do two on another day to compensate). A 90 minute yoga class is just that, no matter how many times you have done it before (2390 to date for me, given I have a tracker) and every class is different. You go in with a different levels of physical and emotional baggage and you hopefully come out without it after the class, if you give it your all.

2. It is a really nice shirt. Great fabric. Absorbs sweat after yoga class so the car seat doesn't get the sweat and it fits me nicely. 

3. Navy blue is my favorite color. Most of my clothes are blue!

Over the years, have done 10 of these 60 day challenges. The first few years, BYSJ used to give out little Oscar like trophies. So as of now, have 4 tropies and 6 T-shirts. Have requested the Yoga studio for an exchange program so we can turn in the old trophies for T-shirts, given it is practically the only thing I wear all the time and it is good publicity for the studio and Yoga!

This was my 11th Challenge and it was very very special. My wife signed up for it!!! Why? She was trying to heal her ankle injury and was trying all kinds of things. So I told her to try to do yoga with me as it is a definitely good thing. She came for a few days, saw an improvement and decided to sign up for the 60 day challenge. She was okay with me signing up as well. We were going through a lot of stuff at home and doing any activity with my wife on a regular basis usually ends up being challenging. So I was hesitant at first.

Then I got used to doing Yoga with my wife. Initially I would always try to look back at her in the second row to see if she is overdoing some poses or she is messing up Vajrasana which is great for ankles but only if done right. Then my teachers would all go help her do it right in the first 10 days. We would also plan and try to schedule classes together and it ended up being fun.

We both finished the challenge on the same day and put stickers up. Given my OCD, my teachers saved me a stash of purple stickers in the last week, so I could have the joy of putting up stickers. My teachers and the Karma Yoga helpers at BYSJ keep laughing at me for my sticker anxiety. I had 6 stickers left to place and they were running out of purple stickers. So I went and told them, "this is like doing a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle to find out that you are missing the last piece".  They understood. Next year I have been asked to change colors for stickers every 5 classes or so, try to be in different spots in the yoga room, etc.. in other words, break the routine. That might be the real challenge. As you can clearly tell, wife seems to have no such issues. Puts whatever color is available. We are very different creatures.

It has been 3 1/2 years since I stopped drinking water during class. So the 60 days of doing yoga, in studio with the heat and humidity, without water and with a mask on was interesting, but totally doable. So if any of you reading this are thinking about trying to get back into the hot room, you can do it with the mask. No problem. You will get used to it in two days.(you are allowed to drink water.. I just do this as an additional challenge and it helps me suck in my stomach more during poses)

San and me did yoga together on most days. Sometimes we had to juggle doctor appointments for the kid and would go at different times. Once San's ankle started healing and she started on baby hikes again, we still did yoga after the hikes.

There is something to be said about sweating it out and breathing with single minded focus. My job has not been a cake walk for the last three months. It is more me than the job. Going from being in startups for 15 years to a big company takes some adjusting to. Things that take hours takes weeks, things that take weeks take quarters. All that fire and drive from startup life, hits a concrete wall of layered bureaucracy and quicksand like interactions. It takes some time to recalibrate oneself to the new normal, but I have learned to take enough deep breaths and have fun in the new enviorns. The 60 day challenge definitely helped in this process.

This was taken after finishing 60. Really happy for San as she finished this! For once she gets to talk about the challenge at the 60 day challenge party while I get to cheer her!

My teachers are amazing! They push me, correct me, know exactly when I am about to give up and give me that look that says "how dare you?" at just the right time to keep me going. Forever grateful to them for making me a better person on a daily basis. 

My MIL has wanted to do this challenge with me for 10 years, but never found the time on her travel schedule. Very happy that my wife did yoga with me for a couple of months and thrilled to see her do a 60 day challenge. Hopefully she starts doing Yoga more regularly and comes with me at least a few times a week. It is also my hope that my MIL will also get to finish this challenge in the coming years. 

A very happy Teachers day to all my yoga teachers and all my teachers!! 

BYSJ is a very very special place. It is truly a home away from home. It is a place where you can go in with a lot of issues and come out feeling a lot better than you went in. No other place of exercise, no hospital or temple has beat that for me yet! Watching my wife or kids smile is a close second. A long trip or hike in nature or watching the sunset over the pacifica, is a distant third!

Looking forward to getting a new T-shirt to add to the collection. Now I have one for every day of the week!

Fathers day gifts from family

Most of the families we know went out to some beach, local park etc. We did not go out today. Went for walks around the block, did yoga, took pictures and that was it.  Really did not know how crowded it would be in those places and wanted to go next week when it would be less crowded. 

I love my family for their support when it comes to yoga. They might not all be doing yoga with me, but they do support me immensely. 

They watch me with amusement as I keep trying to do the same thing over and over again. 

Usually there would be a yoga class on Sunday morning at BYSJ and they would give our a rose to take back for all dads and we would take a picture. The missing years are ones where I had to catch a 1PM United Flight to China on Fathers day.. 

Today we had to make do with a small rose from our own backyard but the kids obliged with a picture and even gave me permission to post it ! That is two old photos to recreate in one day!

Then after I finished the 90 minute class, they helped me with a little demo where I wanted to see how close to "sitting in the chair, not below the chair" the awkward pose was.. and if I did indeed straighten my back. It was weird to do this.. but if you have family volunteers this is worth trying to get a feel for what this pose should be like..

The end result was okay.. Need to do a lot more exercise to get rid of some belly fat. Sitting all day in the same place in meetings does not help that much. There was one yoga teacher who would stand only on his big toes and go ballerina style on this.. in another 5 years will try it.

This has been a good day! Wishing all of the dads out there a happy Fathers day. I am not too thrilled that my dad is in Chennai and I cannot even go see him right now if I want to. Hopefully that changes soon. 

My wife and kids made my day!

International Yoga Day

Wishing all of you some Yoga (or other exercise if you are one of those people who spend more time debating and talking about Yoga, its origins, who started it, who it belongs to today etc. etc. and spends less time doing yoga or exercising) on this day. 

We definitely have more daylight today.. so go use that extra daylight to get exercise.

Sometimes worlds collide and Yoga day and Fathers day are one and the same.. and when the Bifrost opens, I can get to emotionally appeal to the kids to take that photo again.

The darlings did it with a smile!

So

the little one outgrew that shirt and it went to goodwill already.. but Jr. and me still have the same things to wear! 

I was surprised that they could both get into Lotus pose.. thought they would give up! Once they got in the lifting part was not hard.  

Wish they are a lot more active going forward and don't end up having to find Yoga at a much older age.. it is right in front of them now!

Go get some workout done! I for one wish BYSJ opens soon and I can sweat freely for 90 minutes and detox. It has been 99 days of doing yoga alone at home with audio recordings or zoom classes and I made it 90 days out of 99. Given all the craziness that surrounds us, Yoga helps for the 90 minutes and a few hours after class or sometimes an entire day if I just do the yoga and stay away from any electronic devices! 

Based on my personal experience, Yoga works! 

I am not trying to sound like a spokesperson for "alldaysmatter".. but then again, if we treated our parents right, maybe there wouldn't be a "fathers" or "mother" day which seems to be a lowest common denominator and a bare minimum towards parents. We live in a culture where Fathers get a card once a year and that is deemed the right thing to do. Happy there is a day designated for this to bring awareness, but IDY is not the one day you do Yoga and forget about exercise for the rest of the year. I dont want it to end up like another Jan 1st for a lot of folks!

Maybe a day for Yoga is what is needed right now to bring visibility. Eventually, everyday will be yoga day. 

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.

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!