Didn't find it?
RSS feed from Feedburner

 Subscribe to this Blog ?

 

Sundar Narayanan's Travelog

↑ Grab this Headline Animator

 

Just another spider on the web
Squarespace
Powered by Squarespace
Archives
Blog Index
The journal that this archive was targeting has been deleted. Please update your configuration.
Navigation

Entries in health (31)

Saturday
Mar262022

A sense of completion

We have hiked multiple local peaks and hills and points around Cupertino area since COVID and the resolution to hike every weekend. We had however, not covered the Fremont Older and Stevens Creek preserve in its entireity!

We got a chance to do just that this morning. We covered 10+ miles in 4 hours and went up 1800 feet, all around this local loop.. from our local Regnart Road all the way to Tony Lookout Trail loop. We started before sunrise and went at a decent pace. Came back in 4+ hours including a chai and photo breaks. Definitely one of the long ones this year, but totally worth the effort. 

We got an amazing sunrise view ..

watch the valley still enveloped by fog

and more fog..

this entire area was lush green and the trails were clean and well maintained!

Loving the macro mode on the new iPhone.. this entire thing with the buds and flowers,  is smaller than my thumbnail! 

we went along the reservoir for a nice chai break!

There are a lot of cute little bridges we get to cross on this trail. Everyone of them was beautiful!

when we got back, the fog was still there.. and beautiful

A morning well spent.. and we will do this again someday when we feel like going on another 10+ mile hike. My legs felt the effort from the morning that I took a long nap after! 

A beautiful hike for spring or winter! 

Saturday
Mar262022

A dozen 60 day challenges

This year yet again, the following sequence of events happened..

1. BYSJ announced the 60 day yoga challenge to start Jan 1st-Jan 14th (start within that window and finish 60 classes in 60 days)

2. Started on Jan 1st, and having gone to class everyday till 6th, signed up 

3. Wife and resident kid protested at first

4. Then realized that once I sign up for something, it is not easy to unsign me for anything

5. Negotiations were done as part of letting me go through the challenge

Go through this routine the first week of January as though it is some kind of WTO or Davos type event, without the private helicopters and fancy locations..

An agreement was reached. I was not to skip any of the all day hikes planned for Jan/Feb and will do doubles to make up, but it will kept to a minimum number of days.

The questions this year were :

You have done this so many times already. you are doing yoga practically every day, so why bother with this challenge?

It is not like you are going to learn anything new after all these years? You better know everything if you have been doing it this long, so just go reguarly but skip this challenge!

First question sounds logical. the second one, oh... that gave me an opening to launch into Sundar's yoga memorial lecture. On any day, I learn something new in yoga class, either about myself on a general basis, myself specific to that day, yoga in general, or something specific about a particular asana. It is a never endiing, continous process. 

Finished the challenge with 4 doubles. There were 4 all day hikes and some of them 10-12 miles with a lot of elevation gain. If there were 6:30 PM classes on Saturday, would have still dragged my ass to Yoga class after those hikes and avoided the doubles.  It was more of a time thing than a capability issue. It was a great feeling to finish. 

The 60 day challenge helps me take any new learning and make a habit out of it. When you learn something new about a part of your body, or a pose or how to adjust to do the pose better, it is important to keep repeating that, at least 10-12 days in a row, for it to stick to your brain so you do it without thinking about it as a "correction".  

It is like remembering Chennai phone numbers when they suddenly added an extra number in front of the 7 digit numbers. You have to think of the original number, add the extra number in front before dialing.. that takes mental bandwidth and slows you down.. it takes a few years of dialing before you don't have to process through those steps and the 7 digit numbers have been overwritten in the head directly with 8 digit numbers. There is no quick "Find all" , "replace all" for my brain! Maybe I am alone in this..

Yoga is like that for me. Have gone to class 2500+ times. Most of the poses are two sets per class. So if you have tried something 5000+ times over 11+ years and they have all gone through multiple sets of corrections, there has to be a faster way to make these updates stick. 

A friend and teacher, Matt told me recently when I quoted "Practice makes perfect!", with "Sundar, you get good at whatever you practice! You practice something that makes it better, you will get better. You practice something  that makes it worse, you WILL get better at making it worse!"

I just was zapped thinking about it. Bad habits are as easy to form, if you work hard! We should scrap that stupid proverb and replace it with "You perfect what you practice!". 

The 60 day challenge is the perfect opportunity to make process improvements (yoga is a process) into habits. Made 4 improvements in this challenge. Two were just undoing bad things that had crept up over time (this happens, don't know why!) and two were new learnings. 

San also signed up for the challenge with me, just to see how far she goes. She did 45/60 and was happy for her. There were two days where the little one was not well or wanted company and they both let me go to yoga. For that and for all the support, silent eye rolling instead of open rebellion, I am grateful to both of them!

Ironically, we had to wear a mask till the last day of the challenge and the very next day, the county declared masks were optional! Did all the 60 classes in the studio, in full heat and humidity, with a mask and without a water bottle.

If you are one of those folks who think it is difficult to do the hot yoga with a mask, do it back to back every day, have worries about having to remove masks to drink water etc.. all of those can be overcome.  That WAS going to be my message.. but now that the mask mandate is gone, just come do yoga!

It has been 4 years since I drank water during a yoga class. One of those things that has become a habit. Has definitely helped minimize stomach bloating during class and compress my stomach a lot more during forward bends. The first 3 days was hard.. then you count day 10, day 100, a year, two years and after some time, just get used to it and when you cross that day on calendar, smile and keep moving. This year I didn't even notice my "no water anniversary" till a few days later. That is when I know, it is time to stop counting for that one!

Have another thing to share that was funny and profound that happened during this challenge. Before a class, we were chatting with a few newcomers. They tell me "You do a great job in the front row. You must be naturally flexible!". Both me and San were smiling after hearing that.  

When I was new to Yoga, used to think that everyone else in that room was naturally flexible and was born with some genes that I lacked for sure. My first class I bent down to try touch my toes and my hands went an inch past my knees. Fast forward 12 years, someone thinks that I am naturally flexible!  

That shows, practiced skill can give the same perception as natural talent. It takes a long long time, but eventually you can get to a certain level of skill with practice. I am planning to do that with music. It doesn't matter if I have any music genes or not.. just going to keep at it and see after a dozen years, what happens. Music and yoga are different.. and I don't know the relative time scales, but going to give it a shot! When the family reads this, their eyes might just roll off the socket.. oh well!

Got another T-shirt this year at the challenge party, to replace the one that is almost dropping off my shoulder from all that washing. Very happy with it.  

Made a lot of new friends this year as well. While I was not fortunate to become a yoga teacher, definitely happy to be a longtime student. If you are one of those people who is curious about trying hot yoga, do reach out. There is plenty of posts in this blog that have explained my journey and experiences over the years and will be glad to share it in person. 

Now, we have until next Jan to negotiate a challenge! You have to keep the benchmarks going.. told my family, it would be good to do a 1000 classes, just in 60 day challenges (that is 17 challenges). So if that goal is accepted, the next 5 are spoken for!

See, simple!

Sunday
Mar202022

Santa Teresa County Park Loop trail

There is this absolute beauty of a trail right in Santa Teresa area. It is the hills next to IBM Almaden. There is a loop trail that starts from Joice trail and goes through Mine trail and Coyote trail, Hidden springs and Bernal Hill to the Vista loop trail. 

It is 8+ mile and pretty steep at places and takes around 4+ hours (by our standards). It is also ~2000 feet elevation gain. A decent workout and a "moderate" trail if you listen to the internet.. if you pace yourself! 

There is a part of this trail at the end that has zero cover. So it is best to do this as a very early morning or late evening hike. The sun setting over the valley is beautiful to watch from the ridge!

The flowers have started blooming across the hillsides.. the poppies should be there in a week or two to add a ton of orange to the yellows.. 

Strongly recommend this provided you have the right hiking shoes!

There is a one mile stretch on the way back where you are just walking on rocks and gravel. Not much of a path and the feet don't land evenly. Many of us almost twisted our ankles, but would still recommend it. 

Here are more pictures.. 

Thoroughly enjoyed this hike.. and the chai at the top of the summit! That is one good thing that has become tradition already over a year and a half of hiking! 

COVID got us started on hiking every weekend to a new trail in the local area. The fact that we have plenty of unexplored trails for months to come says a lot about the natural beauty of this area, the resources used to maintain these places and our luck in ending up in a place like this, in a time like this!

More trails to follow...

Saturday
Mar192022

John McLaren Park and the Philosophers walk

Having stared at the screen too much with powerpoint and also thanks to the blooming white stinky flowers all around Cupertino, the last week has been interesting. In short, the migraines were back. So here are a few overdue blog posts now that I can look at the screen and edit pictures for longer times.

Went with San to SFO for a morning. Had seen posts from a friend who had visited John McLaren park in SFO and taken some photos of the SFO skyline from this park. Wanted to put it on the list on the next visit. Most people in the park don't want to touch your phone to take a photo! COVID has put that fear in people in SFO to a higher level than in Cupertino! Finally a passing Chinese uncle obliged and took this photo for us! 

This park is awesome! They had a beautiful walkway, plenty of benches, manicured scenery, a nice pond with a large trees in the middle with birds, a decent restroom (very important), and trails that took us to a gorgeous view. 

Here are some pictures..

they had things for kids to play, but we saw almost Asian seniors as the only demographic. We stuck out like sore thumbs among the Tai-Chi folks. They knew were were tourists to this park and gave us a silent nod and a smile. Maybe they built this park to be so perfect for seniors? I loved it! 

On the way out we stopped at this cul-de-sac to take this photo of the ocean view! 

A lovely way to spend a few hours. The trail is across the street from the Philosophers walk..it is called Coyote trail and you get an amazing view from the top. If you happen to be in this area and have a few hours to spend, strongly recommend this.

It is one thing to have nice parks in the suburbs. Having something like this in the middle of a bustling city is just amazing!

Saturday
Mar052022

Monument Peak - aka Cow Paradise

After the Yosemite Firefall adventure, finishing a 60 day yoga challenge and getting a week off from hiking, we went to Monument Peak. 

Started in the morning and were waiting for the Ed R Levin park gates to open at 8AM (there is a parking fee of 6 dollars and they accept cards!). Started hiking right away after parking as we knew the 10 miles of hiking across some steep ascent areas would take us 4+ hours and it did. There was also some time for photos planned in for once!

This is ~2200 feet climb and the wind can make it feel pretty cold past a point. You feel you are above the clouds once you reach the peak. (the photo below is not at the peak, but on the way down..)

This is at the peak..

The views were amazing throughout!

Two things stood out.. 

Cows everywhere, some blocking the hiking path and we had to ask them to move nicely or in some cases go close so they wandered off the trails. This also meant cow dung on the entire trail.. so we were all doing a dance, stepping past the dung.. at the end of the trail, we were all cow dung experts! 

Presenting .. The Monumental cows..

The second thing that stood out was the fields of yellow, white and lavender flowers which made for amazing backdrops but the photos somehow did not even come close to what we saw with our eyes! It was just magical walking through that! 

We were the only ones on the trail on the return loop and that made it interesting for the group! 

The place has no cover and this was the right time to go, given it had rained yesterday.  This hike in summer would have been a lot more challenging. The rolling green hills and rain clouds also made it beautiful..

We had chai on top of Monument peak which was a highlight! Chai tastes amazing after a long hike when your fingers are frozen from the cold winds and altitude!

Here are some more pictures! A beautiful golf course you walk along when coming back to the parking lot..

a flower carpet as far as the eye can see with green rolling hills on one side!

A lone tree on the way back from the peak..

watching the clouds move on top and on the reflections in the water below! 

This is an amazing place for a view of the bay!

the vibrant colors on all the rocks on the hillsides..

the clouds shadows moving over the hills..

A view of snow covered peaks and mountains on the next range, from the top!

interesting rock faces..

and last but not the least.. a candid shot .. didn't know the camera was still rolling.. or I would have gotten into this as well..this is my favorite photo from this hike!

all said and dung, loved this hike!  It was a great feeling getting to the top of Monument peak and staring at nature on one side and what humans have created with the sprawling city scape on the other side!

Wandered off to the edge to take a picture and saw this on a rock!! Was just amazed by how much work has gone into creating and preserving these open spaces so we can enjoy it! 

This made my day!

Today was an interesting day of highs and lows. This blog always presents the positive highlights.. and that is a good thing! The lesson we have learnt recently is to grab opportunities to go outdoors when we can..

Strongly recommend Monument peak hike as a loop by going in reverse, from Agua Caliente trail, as an all morning hike.. this time of the year!