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!

An interesting start to travels

It has been an interesting start to the travels of 2015!

First trip of the year.. boarded a plane to Asia. We all sat down and within a few seconds after buckling my seat belts, the lady behind me let out a loud sneeze that sent wind rushing through the gap between my seat and my neighbor. It was gusty enough to compete with the directed air flow from the nozzle thingy above our heads! 

Being the nice courteous dude, I said "Bless you!' and she mumbled a "Thanks!" A few minutes later she did the same thing and we went though the subroutine again that brought back memories of GOSUB and GOTO 10 from high school BASIC class.. 

By the time they made us watch the seat belt video and we were waiting in line to take off the GOTO 10 thingy had been executed more than 6 times at which point I was tempted to change the subroutine from "Bless you!" to "#u%k you!".  If she was that sick and sneezing away, why was she on a plane?! Doesn't she know that I have to deal with critical meetings, watch my food everytime for allergic things in carnivorous countries where even an order of plain rice comes with a few black sesame seeds as garnish! There are enough death traps that one has to watch out for, without having to deal with "flu or flu like symptoms". Does she not care?! 

After take off she fell asleep which was good. Soon the good folks at United cooled the plane down so much that we all went into Cryogenic freeze. I think United is learning too much from Star Trek and other Sci-Fi movies. Pretty soon we will be submerged in some blue fluid and put in capsules before take off. It is only a question of time and you heard it here first!  Their real idea is to probably force everyone (even those 6'4" viking looking guys whose thighs are as thick as my waistline) to sleep by dropping the plane temperature and that way they don't have to serve more folks those pesky drinks and snacks between meal services. 

Things went well till the hotel was reached and after a good nights sleep, woke up to find out... you guessed it.. "flu like symptoms". It was not that bad. A slightly runny nose, spitting some blood into the sink aka sore throat and the best part ? Come back and see blood on my pillow. Was trying to think.. "maybe I was drooling and this blood came from my mouth? or maybe my nose is bleeding because the hotel air is dry?" etc. Later found that the blood was from my ears! 

Three things went through my mind in a split second. In sequence they were:

1. I was in a foreign country

2. Have never had to go through healthcare options in said foreign country

3. Blood from ears invariably means some death sentence thanks to zillions of Sivaji and Kamal movies where blood dripping from various orifices in face is promptly followed by a bald doctor (same doctor in all those zillion movies) checking patient with just his stetoscope, rummaging from his medical bag for some other thing and promptly declaring "you have lymposarcoma of the ear/nose/throat and you have only a few months to live!"

Did a "cut cut cut" to the thought process and decided to ask my colleagues for help. One of them came up with some Amoxycililn (we will not go into the details here) which cost by the way the equivalent fo 4 USD for a box of 24 tablets.. except it was twice the dose. Given that 90% of my visits to the doctor over the last 20 years have ended with a prescription for Amoxycillin, decided it was a safe bet to start myself on yet another course in case the ears were infected.

Turned out it was a wise move! Things got better and all symptoms are gone. Now I have my hands on the US dose of Amoxycillin and some antibiotic ear drops and things are getting to feel normal.

They say "when it rains, it pours!". So while all this recovery was being attempted, my SVTC Jacket which has pretty much been like a school uniform for the last 8 years gave in. The zipper broke. Had to trash it and go jacket shopping.

It has been my observation that in East Asia, they have a lot more variety for outdoor winter jackets. The women have really pretty jackets in a multitude of colors and designs that walking through busy streets will be a photographers dream for catching some "color". Even the men seem to have a lot of options when it comes to jackets that actually fit them in various colors! 

Contrast that with Cupertino where the entire populations jacket supply comes from probably 4 sources.

a. Costco Jackets where the guy's position inside the oversized jacket is similar to an electron in a cloud. 

b. Target Jackets that make guys look like they are about to empty their bowels with one wrong sneeze thanks to the tightness in the chest and waist

c. The ubiquitous gray NorthFace fleece or 

d. A Columbia jacket that takes the puny desi or Chinese guy look like a polar bear cub

It is also important to remember that the average Cupertino resident is probably a desi or chinese dude who is 5'4" to 5'8" height and is a size "Medium". The only jackets that will be left on any local stores will be things with  3 or more "X's" in front of them. One would think that given the demographic the local stores would wisen up and stock more medium.. but no!

Where were we? Yes, Jacket shopping!

We went to a local market ten minutes from the hotel and there were a dozen jacket stores all reminding me of Burma bazaar in Madras in the late eighties (not sure if that place is still there!). Every small 8x10 store had sales people literally pulling us into the store. 

Then we went into a discussion of what is the best brand in this part of the world that is a "copy" of the Nike's of the western world?

My friends were obviously shocked by the US dude who wanted to go bargain shopping for local brands. Explained to them that most of my cloth shopping was done during India trips and the brand name shirt that I am wearing is purchased from a dude who is allowed to sell "rejects" from an export only unit that makes it in India for 8$ when the shirt costs 44$ in the US. They asked me what was the "reject" in the shirt and my response was "it failed a quality inspection from the US inspector. Instead of two spare buttons stitched on the inside bottom of the shirt, there was only one! The discussion turned to "quality" and we went back to more store hopping.

After watching me haggle with the local store keepers they said "Li-Ning" is  like the Nike here to which my counter was "then what is the New Balance here?" and the response was "361 degrees".

We found a nice jacket made by this wonderful company! 

This jacket will give all the above jackets in sections a through d, a run for their money. For that material, stitching quality, attention to detail and price point, it simply cannot be beat!

So from that stand point, this has been a good trip so far. The guys I work with are very thoughtful and understanding. They let me have enough rest between antibiotics to survive the week!

One more week to go in Jan and we will see if Feb turns out to be better!

With all this going on, my dream of finishing a 60 day Bikram Yoga challenge was pretty much dashed. So this year, I get to watch everyone else finish it and that is not an easy thing for me to do. Watching people put up their stars and cheering them on knowing I won't will be my yoga challenge for this year. 

One has to learn to let go, no?!

Missing in action

I have been traveling. That means a weekend presence with the kids, then gone again for the week type thing. 

In between I "put scene" as though I am some stay at home dad by picking up kids from school wearing my sweatpants and sandals. While making conversation with the moms at school, they envy my wife for having such a "house husband" without realizing that I haven't been around much of this month. 

It is fun to watch wife's face go all red and turn to "Bhadrakaali" mode when someone compliments her on having a husband who "shares" with the chores. Hey, one has to get his entertainment someplace, no?!

Then I get to have some fun taking pictures of the pretty girls as they dress up to go some event.

This time, made sure that there is a "family" picture.

 

The girls gave me a lecture on how my t-shirt and pants are not a match to them and why I should also "dress up" when going out. I dress formally every day during my travel. So there is no way I am dressing "up" during the weekend.  

Now that summer is almost here, we will start doing more outdoor activities.  Cannot wait for the long weekend in a few weeks!