Another year of yoga

2014 saw me do three (or two depending on who you ask) things

1. Travel a lot for work and figure out ways to cope with that schedule wise

2. Do yoga whenever possible while home and figure out ways to adjust that into the schedule

3. Do the usual things at home when possible (San would give me a D- for that this year.. the kids might give me a B- given they are partial to me)

Travel for work is not a topic for this blog till I start my next gig whenever that might be. The usual things at home do get a blog post or two with a lot less frequency.. that leaves Yoga!

This is an engineer trying to summarize yoga stats. So this post has to have some graphs and charts!

As usual the goal was to try and do Bikram Yoga at least 200 times this calendar year and yet again, I fell short of that goal. Yoga is a process and one gets the benefit as long as one tries in all sincerity. So from that standpoint, will give myself an A+

Can honestly tell myself that I went to the Yoga room at every possible opportunity this year. Given my travel days, the 50% attendance this year is like a 80+ % attendance. It was better than last year.. (just realized that the graph for last year was overwritten by mistake).

For those math geeks, the reason for the double lines is that on some days I did two classes and that messes up the graph.. 

This year it was 181 classes since Jan 5th.  Last year it was 194.. Next year.. again the goal is to go 200 times.. It may be time to find hotels close to Bikram Yoga studios in my travel locations. 

Now for the weight tracking..

Started off flat. After the India trip the weight that was added on seems to have stayed permanently! Either that or the weighing machine had some midway calibration issue when we came back from India and we replaced the battery. It is now holding steady at 149+/-1 lbs when last year it was 143+/-1 lbs for the most part. 

Going to keep collecting this data. Someday someone who decides to do research in Bikram Yoga and weight stability might use this data! 

This year, there was one special "posture clinic" class that I got to attend in October. When I walked into the studio that say and saw that there were only five people who had shown up for that special 2 hour class with the head teacher at BYSJ, was expecting to have the class cancelled. Michelle showed up inspite of her busy schedule organizing the California Yoga Championship and spent more than the alloted 2 hours teaching the five of us little things to remember that improved our postures. 

Something she said that day stuck with me. She said "look at yourself in the mirror. You might not like everything you see there. Some of you look conflicted all the time. It is time to let go of things that you don't like and improve on the things you like when you stare at yourself!"

Today I went for the last class of 2014. Looked at myself in the mirror and saw two people. There is a nice do-gooder spiritual guy on the one side fighting a vice presidential asshole on the other. One of them has to go or a better compromise has to be reached. 

There is also the guy who is happy to just be in the room giving his 110% who has to reconcile with the guy who is perpetually unhappy with falling down, losing the breath or have a symetry mismatch.

Sharing two pictures taken by Jr. this year. (It is good to take pictures of yourself every now and then to see little details)

This is my favorite pose. It takes me all my will power to do this pose knowing that within a few seconds we are all going to be flat on the floor. Can only raise by body clear off my right toe. On the left toe, it is not perceptible. 

The other pose that has frustrated me this year is the Camel pose. Have fallen forward and almost hit the ground more than 10 times this year. Something has to be fixed somewhere. 

Jr. snapped three photos of me doing Camel pose from three different angles. This is a collage of those three shots. The symmetry is off. Something that you cannot realize while doing the pose because you think you are doing it right when reality is far off..

The good thing is that there is no deadline to get any of this to perfection as it is a moving target. It is a "process" and "eventually" this body will find the right balance. 

My FIL asked me last week "Sundar, you are going on all these hikes. Has the yoga helped make things easier? Are you feeling younger?"

My sincere answer was "I am growing older and my body is dealing with that. Yoga is maintaining a status quo! It is not helping me get younger.. but it is helping me not feel older. It is relative!"

Not saying this will work for everyone or this is easy. It has worked and continues to work for me. Maybe it is a good match for my personality and somehow improving on the same routine day after day is something that I can accept as a challenge while others cannot. Maybe the SPC charting guy in me with a manufacturing quality mindset is a perfect match for Bikram Yoga. It is possible.. 

but work, it did! 

Thankful that there is a Yoga studio within 10 minutes from home which stays true to the original Bikram Yoga where a guy like me can still get continued encouragement from teachers and fellow students!

Here's to 2015 and the continuation of the "process"!

Wishing all of you a wonderful 2015. May the next year bring you all that you desire that you know in your heart is actually good for you!

Wrapping up 2014

2014 has been the year of travel!

Have travelled 190000 miles in the last year but mostly for work. Someday I will travel that for the sake of visiting places, experiencing things and getting to write about the experience.

To wrap things up, we visited Las Vegas over the Christmas break for three days with the cousins.

As usual, we crammed a lot of activities in that short a time. 

Saw wonders.. that were Natural

and Man made ...

While the Red Rock Canyon looked like a prime candidate for another Interstellar shoot and showed us millions of years of work done by nature, the Hoover dam puts things in perspective of how man can indeed move mountains in a few years! 

The last picture is kind of a cross between a man made and natural thing. It is Lake Mead. The largest man made lake created by the Hoover dam blocking the Colorado river. The colors in the rocks above the lake are natural and local to the area!

If the USA could do something like this 80 years ago, it is definitely possible to do a project of this size even today! We need another Hoover to get something like this done!

We also saw another type of man made wonder.. The casinos! The kids were wide eyed after walking into the Venetian and it just kept getting better after that.

Then there was some nice food, an unforgettable Magic Show called the Illusions, a visit to see some exotic marine animals in the Shark Reef, etc. etc.

In the middle of all this I managed to watch my High schools 25th reunion on a live feed late at night from the hotel room. 

We just came back from a looooong all day drive! Time to catch some sleep and start editing pictures tomorrow.. 

2014... so far, so good!

Photo tricks

Yesterday met a friend after a long time and she said "Jr. has started looking exactly like you!"

Always thought that looking at the little one gave me that "mirror" and "flashback" feeling. 

While working on the computer last night, did a little test. Took an old photo of mine and cropped just the eyes and nose and asked Jr. and the little one

"Who is this?"

Both of them said it was Jr.'s!

so we decided to take one of Jr's selfies and convert to B&W.. 

She has my eyes and nose.. and her mother's ears and jawline.

Funny thing is that it is somehow not perceived like that by me. This is interesting.

What features make you recognize these similarities? 

How come everyone else around you can see this but you?

Have to go read up on this...

Yosemite National Park - Photoblog

We went to Yosemite with the cousins for Thanksgiving. Finally got to edit the "non- people" photos from the trip.

A long trail to "mirror lake" which turned out to be a dry bed with no water! The board said "mirror lake is a misnomer. it is not a lake"

It is a photographers job to make do with whatever water comes our way while on a trail that promised "lake".. so started shooting reflections of the mountains on any and every large puddle.  So here is a series of photos from the puddle shoot. They are all reflections from small puddles.

Then it was time to see the "lake".. 

the views from this dry bed were fantastic. We had a lone buck grazing there..

We walked by a creek on the way back and I got to photograph anything that caught my eye..

from moss to mushrooms..

For once, a reflection from a creek instead of a puddle..

There must be a lot more water there now after the heavy rains from last week.. but it was a good thing we went during Thanksgiving break. Parking was easy to find, less crowded and the trails were not slippery. That helped us with the climb all the way to Nevada falls on the second day. We spent 6 hours on the trail and my legs were wobbling after the fast descent. Should have paced myself. In trying to catch up with the group after taking pictures, did some bad moves and it took a toll on my knees.

We caught both Vernal and Nevada falls. Vernal falls had a lot more water on our last visit. Still it was a pretty sight. 

On the way to our cabins we stopped by the Swinging bridge. There was some water, lots of clouds and the sunset turned the coulds bright red. It was an unforgettable drive but there are no pictures of the sunset. The legs were trembling and it was time to go drink tea in the cabins!

On the third day we visited two trails while heading out of Yosemite. One was the trail for a Carson falls and the other was Rainbow Push. They were both within 15 miles of the west entrance. It started raining heavily and we had to rush through both these trails. It was a vibrant early morning..

Even HDR images do not match what the eyes saw that morning. 

We made it back through pouring rain. It was a great experience to stay in Yosemite for a couple of nights and spend more time in the park. Our earlier trips have all been day trips with one 2-3 hour hike at the most. 

The cabins at Yosemite lake are strongly recommended. Nice, cozy and a decent kitchen. 

The kids thoroughly enjoyed playing board games and the whole cozy cabin experience!

A big thanks to all those who support the National park system!

Yet another family tradition

Just like carving pumpkins at their cousins place or doing portrait photos after every new dress up session during the Navrathri festival, the Traveling Narayanans seem to have come up with yet another family tradition.

The IBM Children's party that celebrates the holiday season in style.

This blog has photos of the kids attending this party over the last 8 years now. This year the tradition was almost broken because the little one is sick. However she did brave her misery and came with us to take a short break and enjoy the usual activities. 

First, the caricatures by Big Al ! He was almost ready to close and was wondering how come we missed it this year.. 

This year we also made two separate collages, one for Jr. and one for the little one so we can frame it 

The little one is not a baby anymore. You can see her face change all too clearly in caricature!

Here are the rest of the photos.. 

the little one posing like Mona Lisa..

Decorating reindeer cookies with frosting ..

Getting animaloons from the clown..

Then there was the last thing on the list.. Face painting!

Finally, the picture with Santa! This Santa worked for 30+ years at IBM and retired. He reminds me of my own grandfather for some strange reason. Same matter of fact tone when he speaks, same smile.. can't pin point it.. but he does! The team there took this great picture and gave us a printout (this is a photo of that printout)..

Yet another year has gone by! The kids are looking beautiful every year and daddy has gone down.. what happened to all that hair!

Look at the photos from our very first party 8 years ago and you will see what I am talking about. 

It is great to have a blog where you can see how things transform over time. Even when my memory fails me and that seems to be happening more often these days.. the blog is like a search into my own head!

I digress as usual. 

Christmas is almost here. Here is to a wonderful holiday season!

Merry Chirstmas and happy new year to all of you from the Narayanan Family!