Four Trophies and a T-Shirt

After we finish the 60 day challenge at Bikram Yoga San Jose, there is a "Challenge Party" a couple of weeks later. Everyone who finishes collects a trophy and says a few sentences about what made them take up the Challenge, what they learned over those 60 days and their Yoga experience in general, especially if they are first time challengers.

This year was my 5th time finishing this challenge. Did share my thoughts on the challenge at the party.

The question that lot of you have asked me can be summarized as "you go almost every day when you are here? so what is the point of this 60 day challenge?" and the short answer is?

The challenge makes me realize what I take for granted. Normally if it it raining outside or if I have a fever, sore throat, too many meetings that go in late and are stressful, I have the option to say "will skip today and go tomorrow", but not during the challenge. Once that day is past and the last chance to go to class at 8:30PM is missed, that day is not coming back. 

It teaches you that when it is time to make a choice between having a dinner and crashing vs. going to yoga late at night or doing back to back classes over weekend to make up for travel, the tougher decision is the one you have to make when challenged. That spills into real life, when it is time to roll up your sleeves and do the right thing by your work or with your kids or family. 

This year, the trophies changed to a T-shirt. The family likes this move as they would rather see me in newer T-shirts!

 While colleting that shirt, had an idea to take a shot of me doing balancing stick pose (Tuladandasana) with the awards on my back wearing the new shirt. 

However, this is take 6/8 and it required the support of wife and both kids to execute. In class you hold it for 10 seconds. I had to do this pose for more than a minute and a half back to back .. guess the knee locking went to the dogs by take 6 and the leg is not as high as I thought it was and the head is not as low as is should be! Need to put a mirror on the sidewall of the new home studio to help me make adjustments.. 

There is no substitute for a mirror!

As a wise man once told me (translation : as Brad Colwell told me two months ago), "pain is temporary, but a photograph is forever!" . Should have done a few more takes.. but the folks got tired of having to place those trophies on my back within that 10 second window and take them back just when I could hold it no longer. 

I also had to put up with snarky comments after every take like "your posture sucks. Your leg is not up yet. why can't you just hold on a little longer".. I wanted to launch into a long lecture on "come and do this 6 times back to back and then talk .. etc. etc." but held back. I needed their co-operation and they were giving me their valuable time for this crazy idea of mine. So took a few deep breaths, smiled and said "please, one more try"!

See, the yoga helps!

Now for the usual graphs and charts. There was travel and bugs during this challenge as previous ones, but rain or shine (more rain than shine this year) and sickness or health, showed up and did the best I could. You can see that the last three years has seen me finishing the challenge with lots of doubles, thanks to travel. Sometimes I just wish to be able to do this yoga once a day and take that for granted, but you all know my lesson learned already.

This is the weight chart. Have to analyze this throughout the years to see trends. Within the 60 days, seem to go from a 150 to a 140lb range in last few years possibly because of Christmas vacation weight gain?! 

Here is the data since the excel data collection was more or less regular.. 

It has been stable more or less over the last five years and that is a good thing. 

Have made new friends over the years and during the course of this challenge and learned a lot more than "don't take things for granted". 

Definitely recommend folks to try this 60 day Challenge, even if you are new to Yoga. It is a morphing experience. You definitely start as a larva and come out a butterfly in those 60 days or something close to that, and you learn to assimilate a few things on the way and leave a few things behind as well that don't serve you!

On a side note, my wife never tried dancing but was my biggest critic when she watched me dance. Now we have three people who are armchair critics of my yoga poses. 

Sadly, they are getting very good at the critiquing thing and their points are all valid! 

So there is more to work on....

Party time, taking some things for granted

This is our fourth year at the annual IBM Christmas party for Children. Those of you who have been reading this blog long enough know that each year we put a caricature comparison of the kids done by the same Artist year after year..

This year is no exception!

Big Al actually remembered the kids this year! This year they have finally outgrown those same tee's they wore three years in a row. Both of them have mature faces now!

We also did the usual face painting, cookie decorating, getting balloons etc.

For the first time we attended the magic show and it was a ton of fun. Have never seen the kids this animated or happy in public in a long time. At Disney it was awe and wonder struck faces. Here is was pure glee!

Jr. gave me a nice pose. The little one erased part of her X-mas tree and was refusing to pose.. she is turning into a mini me. Cannot stay still in any place for more than a few seconds... she was just whizzing through the whole thing!

They do a really great job of decorating the place each year with a different type of tree (one year is green, one year is white, etc.) and the whole thing is extremely well organized!

We are all aware of the real Santa. Still the allure of sitting on Grandpa Claus and getting a picture is fun! The kids loved it.

If you do look at the youtube video link in this post, have tried to explain the issue on the video in the Youtube description. If you have any pointers towards the real problem or a fix, please let me know...

Another year has almost rolled by and is coming to a close. It has been a tough year that is coming to a close. Counting days at work, at home, over the phone with relatives..

Hope we count down the remaining days without any major issues!

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Party wear

We went to a company party. We were supposed to dress "business casual".. so while dad got the entire family all dressed up based on the "business" word, the rest of the folk at the party were focussed on the "casual"!

Dad did move a few eyes when he walked in wearing his tuxedo. It was quite a feat, trying to fit into an outfit after six years. Came home and had stomach cramps. After all, you cannot hold your tummy in pants a full two inches smaller than your current waist size, that too for two full hours. By the time we put on seat belts in the van on our way back, the pant buttons were off!

We did have a great photo shoot though!

My darlings were thrilled to dress up as usual!!

The tux episode has sparked a renewed interest to actually do some physical exercise, eat more salad and less ghee fried jeera rice, buttered up tortillas, etc. and basically fit into that tux without the extra effort by end of this year!

Hmmm... only time will tell!

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Sweet November

November is definitely a festive month in the house.

All four of us, my sister, my father in law are November borns. Add to that my parents wedding day, which happens to be today! and we are perpetually making calls wishing people back and forth between India and the US.

We had "The Amazing Magic Vijay" perform Magic in our living room for the birthday. This was the best idea that San has had for a birthday party yet! The house was saved from sugar high kids, thanks to the Magic Show. They sat in the same place for more than an hour! They even formed a straight line to collect their animal shaped ballons, a feat that topped the magic show, in my opinion.

Here is a picture of the little one, with what would be the kid's equivalent to a hangover, the next morning..

My little ones are growing up! Sigh!!

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What are you waiting for?

We are at a Halloween party. After the pumpkins are carved, the little ones have paraded, diapers changed, milk bottles finished, eyes rubbed by tiny tired little hands and ready to go out the door so we can put the kids to bed and await awakening troubles on a Monday morning, when Jr. is still waiting...

She had the look of a person who felt that the proceedings were incomplete. Granted that she had fun playing with her sister, cousins and a bunch of friends, ate good food, was a princess, etc. but there was something bothering her!

When questioned further, we realized that she was actually waiting for the ceremonial "goody bag". Well what is so ceremonial about a goody bag? I will explain!

The fact that she was innocently expecting a goody bag at a halloween party was misunderstood by the adults as a sign of weekness. But is it really?

The poor thing was admonished for wanting a goody bag at every function, when in reality we have conditioned her to associate the end of any party with the collection of afforementioned bag! "Not fair" cried Daddy!

Flashback to the early eighties.....................(yeah, lots of dots means long flashback).......

We are at a wedding which has just finished (this is day 2 of a three day south Indian wedding).

Me : Amma (mom), let's go home. At least let me go home. It is boring here
Mom: Wait, we cannot just leave yet
Me : Why? There is a cricket match going on. Srikanth will have hit a few sixers and probably gotten out by now!
Mom: We have to get the "thamboolam". xyz said she will give us one and only then we can go!
Me : (thinking) God damn "thamboola pai" with the little saathukudi(grapefruit? gooseberry?), two betel leaves and a rasiklal betel nut packet! Is it really worth waiting for!

My mom taught me that, this bag with the fruit, leaves and nuts was a token of respect from the families in the wedding to the guest. It also signified a "send off" of sorts to the guests! I do not know the religious significance of this "thamboolam" tradition..(surprisingly Wiki didn't come up with anything!).

The goody bag at parties in the US is the modern day "thamboolam" and we are just carrying on a tradition, albeit slightly differently.

The only unfortunate thing is that we did not give Jr., clear direction on what parties ended with the goody bag. In India, we get the "fruit and nut bag" for weddings, first birthday ceremonies (aayush homam's), baby showers (seemandhams), confirmations (upanayanams) etc. There is no clear pattern to this people!

I think Jr. is beyond blame here.

Finally, the goody bag for this post. Proudly presenting, this years princess and darling devil..

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