After the India trip and father’s day, had still not gone to the Yoga studio for a few days. I really did not want to face the string of condolence hugs. Then came International day of yoga.
We went there to smiling faces. Bikram Yoga San Jose has been home for me for 15 years now. Was not going to miss this. Got to pose with my poster to everyone’s amusement.
Then came July 1st. Was sitting there before class and was reminded that the challenge started. In spite of San giving me the look, signed up. There were conditions. No skipping hikes or other duties. No complaining of any kind as far as time constraints go.
Started on 1st and finished the challenge 5 days early. Felt good to be back in the hot room regularly. It was the best therapy I could ask for. Wanted to do all the 60 classes in my usual corner spot. Managed to do almost 90% of the classes in that spot. Everyone asks me why I pick that spot. There is a back story. BYSJ’s first manager was a wonderful man named Chris Cannavero. He left us too young. He always used to goad me into doing things with his sarcastic wit. When BYSJ moved into the new studio in 2012, he set up thermometers in different parts of the hot room and asked a few of us to keep watching the temperature through the class and report the temperature range. I was in the corner spot and it went to 112 F and for the most part stayed at 108 F. He claimed after that exercise that the corner spot was the hottest.
A few days later I went back a few spots and he called me a wuss for chickening out of being in the hottest spot. After he passed away, I just go to that spot in hopes he is giving me energy when I am about to collapse in a heap or when my brain tells my body to sit down. It may be my imagination, but my % of sitting out poses has become negligible over the years. Just will myself to do it. Now I can add my dad to the list of folks giving me energy every time I put my palms out facing the ceiling.
Every challenge is different, every class is different, every set is different, every side is different. Yoga is something that works on me at glacial pace. It works though!
There was a lot of clutter in my head and yoga helped me still my monkey mind, at least 90 minutes at a time.
A video clip..
A heartfelt thanks to Michelle and all my teachers, fellow students, friends and family for continuing to support me on this yoga journey!
If you have been reading this blog, it has been going all over the place.. to July 2024, then finally to other things.. There are a few things that don’t get mentioned which are reasons for all the anachronistic posts.
Last summer San and me knew there was a 9 day anniversary trip. Still we had signed up for a 60 day challenge. T-shirts make you do things I guess! For me it was a no brainer. The earlier two week trip in February had made me skip signing up for the Winter 2024 challenge. I haven’t missed a winter challenge in years! So the family knew I will sign up for the summer challenge. Given a 10 day miss for travel, we started doing doubles every day in the hot July summer. The first 22 days saw us do 44 classes.. mostly back to back. San had never done doubles before, so I was really impressed and proud of her effort. Then we went on the trip and came back to finish the challenge ahead of time. It was good we finished it ahead.
Just two days before the challenge end date, my mother called me to show my dad in Apollo ICU in Chennai. The prognosis was that he would’t make it by the time I left here and reached him. It was a timely call as I was booked for a business trip first thing the next morning. Cancelled that trip and flew to India.
By some miracle, my dad went from ICU to general ward and back home in the week I spent there. The doctor’s told me that at this point, his condition is expected to be the same for weeks or months. He was home though. My mom was relieved that he was home. Even though the room became a hospital room, he had pulled through. So with happy tears I flew back. Right after coming back we did attend the 60 day challenge party. It was a great way for me to take my mind off everything. Went right back to the regular yoga routine. I was even more determined and sure that if I did this yoga regularly, there might be a quick and painless death instead of a prolonged debilitating disease. No one knows what is going to happen or when, but one can always do some preventive maintenance.
There was no blog posts .. not just about yoga.. There was simply no mood to write anything for the rest of September and most of October till my dad stabilzed to a new routine. Then we had a planned trip to the grand canyon to hike the south rim and that brought me back to Facebook , blogging and a social routine.
Went back searching for the videos of my speech from that challenge but could only find these two pics.. (one done before my dad ended up in hospital) and another from the challenge party. That was my 15th successful challenge out of 17 attempts.
Then it was January again before we knew it. This time my MIL had informed me that she will visit us from Jan to March just to join me for the 60 day challenge. She wanted to do another challenge (having done it once). The two of us had signed up and I signed up San, given she joins me most days. Initially she was hesitant and did not want to do it. She did not even do the stickers to keep track (I was keeping track for her). When there were only 10 days left and she had to do just a few doubles, she got enticed by Michele to complete. The T-shirts were back! They had the right size too apparently! All three of us finished this challenge.
My goal for this challenge was to do a 1000 classes in trying 60 day challenges. Had already done 900 in the 15 good attempts and in the two failed attempts there was another 93. So by class 7, the goal was done. Still the challenge teaches us something about how to carry on when your brain goes on strike and how to overcome adversity.
We did go to the challenge party this time and got to share the experience. You can see the video highlights reel..
One more T-shirt got added to replace the worn out ones..
After three weeks of not being able to go do Yoga much because of nosebleeds, finally made it last two days. Plan to get back to going everyday. Yoga makes me happy and peaceful. It is a reflective time and a meditative time to let go of things that don’t serve me right. It is a great way to reset.
That said, every day, learn something new. Even this morning in class Michelle tells me “Sundar, nothing should happen with the standing leg. just move the hands and the other leg!”. This was while doing a balancing stick pose where I was instinctively rolling forward on my ankle to compensate for the imbalance. Not doing that made all the difference in the second set. Have to remember that in tomorrows class. As we form good habits, bad habits have a way of creeping up as well. Constant attention to detail with a watchful set of teachers helps me fix them over and over again. To all my teachers at BYSJ, especially Michele, Matt and Sarah, who by now know my every move and even pre-emptively correct me , a heartfelt and sincere thank you!
Thank god for teachers!
The best part of this challenge was doing it with my wife and MIL. Hopefully someday, the kids will do a 60 day challenge. One can always hope.. and screw Parkinson’s disease.. Hope they find a cure for this shit so in case I do end up with it, there is some relief. Even if I cannot avoid the physical eventuality, the Yoga practice will definitely help me handle anything mentally down the road. That much I am sure of!
Most of you who know me, have seen this once a year post around the end of March about the 60 day yoga challenge.
BYSJ organizes two of these challenges a year. The winter challenge where you sign up on any day between Jan 1st to 14th and do 60 classes in 60 days (ideally without missing a day, and if you do miss because of unavoidable reasons, do two classes on another day to make up for it). A similar challenge in Summer with same rules.
This is my 13th year of doing Yoga and this was my 13th 60 day challenge. My family doesn't try to stop me from doing this challenge anymore. They know I somehow manage to finish it and I am usually happy doing the challenge.
Given my MIL has been a big part of my yoga journey, it was always sad to hear her say "want to try and finish this challenge at least once in this lifetime!". She is usually here only after Pongal which is Jan 14th and leaves for Seattle after two three weeks. I don't sign up in summer because of travel and other commitments.
This year, she came early just for the challenge. Had promised her that someone (me, San or the little one who is not so little anymore) will drive her to class for those 60 days if both me and San decide to skip yoga. Given that assurance, she signed up.
For the most part all three of us would go to class. The folks at the studio were very happy to see a car load of folks come to class. Then we went to Alaska on a whim to take care of my wife's bucket list item. One bucket was larger than the other bucket.. or whatever.. fortunately MIL managed to do a couple of Livestream classes when we were gone. Funny thing is that when we got back and I had to do three doubles over the weekends to make up, she joined me! It was not easy for her, but she did.
While she makes claims that it is not the same thing doing something at 50 vs 70, my take is that age has nothing to do with it. You do what you can and I think she actually gets more out of the yoga than I do and probably does a better job in most classes given the cards she has been dealt.
Usually it is just a logistics challenge for me but as fate would have it, banged my knee twice on the same day. The last 10 days of the challenge were really tough with the injured knee. Still went ahead and did everything I posisbly could in the hot room every day.
Finished the challenge on March 1st and my MIL also finished it last week! San did 54 classes in the 60 days but she refused to do any doubles on a matter of principle. She has done one challenge before and apparently that is enough for her. She was happy to cheer the two of us to finish. How she can let it go is where we see that she is a better yogi than me.
The knee is not swelling anymore but I cannot do tree pose standing on my left leg and have difficulty doing suptavajrasana and the third part of awkward pose. These involve bending the knee inwards towards the other knee or folding it and rotating it out. Given it is better, my teachers still recomended I get an x-ray or get it checked out. So have an Ortho appointment this week. For almost all things that ail me mentally or physically, have used the yoga to recover over the last 12+ years. Going to see what the diagonsis is. Just because you do yoga, doesn't mean you should bang your knee against car license plate holders and expect to come out okay!
We did celebrate after the challenge with a dinner at Chaat house! Got to share a few words at the Challenge party in hopes that if we can do it, others who are thinking of giving this a try, will actually go for it.
The one thing folks tell me all the time is this.. "Sundar, you do the same yoga everyday.. day after day, year after year.. you do this 60 day challenge every year.. and say you learn something new.. you must be really inattentive or dumb to learn something new in what you do all the time!"
While it is true that the class is the same day after day, my body and mind are not. As different parts of my body get stronger or weaker, more or less rigid or flexible over time, and my mind gets better at listening to the instruction and internalizing it instead of being in zombie mode, there is new learning! All the time!
Going regularly back to back for long periods of time gives you a heightened sense of awareness of changes happening in your body and we get a chance to remember how we did what we did differently(better)!
My friend Arash summarized it beautifully. He said in the language of Buddists.. which we all learn as kids. Ther is Buddha, Dharma and Sanga.
Teachers are our gods here! The Dharma is the fact that they stay true to a hard 90 minute yoga practice and the community that is there at BYSJ is truly what makes us keep coming back.
We heard a lot of folks share their amazing journey and stories at the challenge party. You can check those out on the BYSJ website and other social media. A video of what we shared with folks..
As long as there are not major setbacks, will try to keep going to yoga, try 60 day challenge every year and try to keep this body and mind as optimized as possible to deal with everything the outside world throws at me.
Sangeetha says I am still a work in progress and even today she was trying to "knock some sense into me" with little success. For all that, there is progress. Slow but sure progress.
Strongly recommend you try yoga if you are on the fence. They say "do this for 30 days, it will change your body, do it 60 days in a row and it will change your mind". Can attest to it!
Here's to BYSJ for continuing to improve and transform people's lives, year after year, one challenge after another!
A big congrats to all who signed up and gave it their everything (finishing is a different story, signing up is the hard part!) and a special congrats to my MIL for being a great example and role model for yogis out there.
Very proud of her for finishing the challenge and showing up to class on day 61 !!!
