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.

Don't you have Yoga to do?

That is a question that my wife and kids ask me these days, especially when my responses to their questions are 

- questions 

- have nothing to do with the question

- general answers in a raised voice that don't add any value

I do occasionally answer their questions when there is a lot on my mind, but most of the time my mind is simply not tuned to what is being asked.

This year has been particularly off to a bad start with us getting hit with unplanned spends almost every week.. a broken washer to start off on New Years eve, a rat/squirrel deciding to nest inside the Prius hood, India trips, locked up knees and jaw which came out of nowhere, water main leak bills that hit us months later, a change in deduction rules from IRS which makes us cut checks to them.. the list keeps going.. 

This year has also been tough on the mind with my father taking a fall and the constant worry that he might fall again and the impact this has on my mom, Jr. having to go to college shortly and me being at odds with the wife and kids on the value of a college education vs. real skill development.. 

Let's just say that I am at war with the world.. 

So it is no wonder that my wife and kids would rather see me pack off and go do Yoga, because at least for a few hours I am calm and not belligerent after coming back. The yoga literally knocks the wind out of me and in trying to get my bearings back, I tend to look forward instead of in the rear view mirror. I am able to do that at work but not at home. At work, can always tell myself and folks "let's focus on what has to be done next". There comes a point in your life where your willingness to solve some issues is simply not there because you don't see the value in solving those issues. I maybe at that point now!

This year I signed up for a 60 day challenge with the goal of getting some sanity. It was the one word I put in as the reason for signing up. Having signed up 8 times before and finishing 7/8 times, was not really going for the physical benefit this time. Just wanted to lower my rage. 

There was going to be travel during the challenge and that meant doing some doubles, but that was a known thing and by now it is nothing new for me or the family. However, I stopped drinking water during class last March 21st. Wanted to make that the new normal. So that made some of the doubles incredibly hard, but I did it. Drank a packet of vitamins 15 minutes after class and walked right back into the hot room and did everything.. gave it my 100%. Most of the times, I went on will power alone. Literally willed my body to stand up and do the asanas. 

The main goal of not drinking water was to be able to fidget less in class, what with having less distraction from the water bottle and also to be able to suck my tummy in during forward compressions.  The no water practice definitely helped with the tummy "tuckability" in a significant way.  However, in the 222 classes since no water, the number of times I have NOT fidgeted or tried to unintentionally wipe sweat off my forehead or nose, try to unwrinkle my towel, etc. is ZERO!  Have managed to stay absolutely still for the standing series most of the times but that is only two thirds of the class.

It becomes especially hard when we are lying down on the floor trying to relax. It is one thing to let the body relax.. it is another thing to let the mind wander while the body is trying to relax.. that is when you fidget and by the time you realize it, it is too late.. fidgeting already done.. mission failure! 

At first it used to depress me that I had no control over my own body parts. How could my hand go to my forehead the second I take my mind off of the "no fidget no fidget" mantra? We call it "sub-conscious" for a reason! The trick is to be conscious of every thing for 90 minutes. It is NOT easy. In that challenge I failed miserably.  

One has to take the positives when you get them. From that perspective, I did manage to do Yoga 60 times in 60 days, thanks to all the encouragement from family, friends and most importantly my teachers. That is the big positive. For all the seething internal negativity and rage, there are people out there who care about me, realize that most of my screw ups are well intentioned and calm me down. We have a healthy support group and a great community at BYSJ. We don't talk about our individual problems, work etc.. we do talk about attitudes, approach to things.. be it in the hot room or how to translate that to the outside world and that helps. We talk to each other and get inspired. 

Folks with fused spines, amputees, folks who see their patients die on a regular basis, folks who have to inject themselves every day to just be able to function, folks with PTSD... a long list of people who come and do the yoga to keep them moving and functioning..

Compared to them, my flying across the pacific every three weeks and going over jetlag or fighting joint locking up issues seems lame. 

The usual graphs and charts that I post to remind myself that every year is different but I can still go after finishing 10 challenges..

My average weight has gone from 149 to 152 this year.. but it ahs been going up from 139 steadily over last 6 years at 2 lbs/ year. Guess that is on the trend line. This is the weight graph ever since I started tracking it.  

 

Made new friends this year. Most of the times I went for the last class of the day. We managed to encourage and push each other to finish!

The best part was the party where we got to share our stories and have family and friends present to get our T-shirts. It is a shirt that I wear with pride everywhere, not just because of the soft fabric, but because it was earned with a lot of hard work!

There is a warmth in that hot room (no pun intended) that makes me feel like I am inside my mothers womb (guess at least that is what it would feel like). It is a place of safety where I am at peace. The teachers voices are always a calming influence, even when they are imploring us to push ourselves in their loudest voices! My mind reacts "that is so soothing",  kind of like how after almost 20 years my wife looks cute even when she is yelling at me. Thank you BYSJ for keeping me healthy inspite of my repeated attempts to screw up my body and more importantly for keeping me sane!

The challenge is done but San and the kids keep encouraging me to do Yoga. All credit for anything I do, goes to them... but the T-shirt goes to me! 

Double Double

Over the last many 60 day challenges, have done many doubles. Usually it is a class in the morning and another one in the evening over the weekend to make up for classes missed during travel.

A few times have done doubles with back to back classes.. but it is usually rare and the classes were taught by different teachers. 

One exception was back to back classes taught by Ashley.. gave it my 110% in both classes. 

also got an idea to take a picture after each class and merge them.

Double class, teacher, student..

Actually feel pretty good after doing back to back classes!

the trick is to trust your teacher to watch out for you. They always do!

The challenge continues.. 

Water bottles....

I spent 30 mintues yesterday trying to find my first Yoga waterbottle. It was a "get well soon" gift from Camino Medical group after my surgery. When I started doing yoga and was searching for a water bottle, it was the only bottle I had. That bottle was kept as a memorabilia of sorts and survived many spring clean up efforts from wife and the kids. Alas, it was not to be found yesterday. Not sure if it was thrown out when I was not looking.. Once I left it at BYSJ and got it back in lost and found. That actually made my day!

Initially, I would sip. Then my MIL started putting ice in her bottle and inspired by her, I started using ice cubes. Soon it was mostly ice cubes with a little water. We eagerly looked forward to Eagle pose and the end of it so we could rush to ice water. Water never tasted that good! Those were early days.. first few classes.

Then went from sipping to guzzling. Yes, I was a guzzler once! I was the Hummer among Yogis! The little bendy straw on that bottle was not enough. Started removing the cap and drinking from the bottle. Soon, one bottle wasn't enough the way things were going. At the end of a year of yoga, the pores had opened up nicely, sweat was flowing freely, I had moved to be a front row student and would start sweating even before class began because of the heat in that part of the room. So one bottle became a bottle and a Cup (which Jr. won in a raffle at BYSJ! ) 

The bottle was for water

the cup was for ice

by the time we hit the floor

it was a sight for sore eyes.. 

I am getting carried away here. Then another year goes by and the cup is replaced with a full size bottle. We are now at 2 Liters of water during a class. The rate at which water consumption was increasing, would have had to join or start Waterholics Anonymous. Then came the fancy hydroflasks. These thinks kept the water cold even in a hot room, even if you were a little careless in closing the bottle. So the plastic ones were ditched and replaced with one flask. Had colors to chose from! 

Then I met Mary Jarvis... It has been two months to the day I gave up drinking water during class. For the record, I still drink water till about 30 minutes before class. Go to class without any water bottle. After class I wait for almost 10-15 minutes till I am at the first Stop sign or light and then take a sip. The bottle is there in the car. Now I place water bottles everywhere.. at work, in my bedroom table, in the living room.. kind of reminds me of that Signs movie where Mel Gibson's kid leaves water everywhere. 

For me to pull off a yoga class without water, I have to constantly hydrate out of class. Now there are four bottles being used regularly instead of one! Not over compensating or anything. Still drink the same amount of water, but make it a point to remember to drink an hour before class. 

Now that it has been two months without water in class, I can stop counting and go do this going forwards. Kid crawls.. then kid takes first steps, then walks.. you take a picture or a video of the first steps but after that the kids walking is taken for granted. Every year or two when there is a chance, one goes back to look at those photos and videos of the baby's first steps.. this post is going to be like that for me. Look back fondly and reminisce about guzzling days..

Never thought that I could do this first.

Then thought I could not do this for more than a week.

Now got used to it.

If only locking that knee consistantly could be pulled off with the same enthusiasm!!!!! That would make my day, or week or months!