The unruly teacher

It is 60 day challenge time at Bikram Yoga. So I go whenever I can. My timetable is all over the place. Started a day with Yoga at 5:30AM, so I could come home just in time to wake up the little one and drop Jr. in school. After what was a very very long day at work, thought I would end the day with yoga as well by going to the 8:30 PM class. My plan was flawed as I ended up working till midnight. But that is not the topic of the post. 

Got to the hot room and was pleasantly surprised to see the noise level in the room being high, a good ten minutes before class. Usually folks are very quiet in the room and if they have to talk to someone, they talk in hushed tones. 

Turned out that someone had invited a whole bunch of their unsuspecting friends to come do Bikram Yoga for the first time. There were group pictures prior to the class and a lot of smiling and giggling and I was thinking "these people have no idea what they have signed up for!  this is going to be an interesting class". 

Five minutes into class, a few more folks rolled in and they were all first timers. It was definitely going to be an interesting class.

The group was not particularly receptive to the teachers instructions. Refusal to give up chewing gum, taking pictures with cell phone when the teacher was not looking, talking, random walking around the mat, drinking water while others were trying to balance on one leg, and the list goes on. It was like they were checking off an endless list of "don'ts" on the Yoga etiquette printout that we used to get as beginner students. Then a few people started leaving the room, 30 minutes into class.The teacher did her best to stop them and make them just stay on the mat, but they did not listen to her.

Something snapped and I got mad for a few seconds. Then I looked at the teacher who came back to the podium from the back of the class. She had a very determined look on her face, to make sure the rest of the students gave it everything they got. It was like watching world class management in action. It is easy to have a bunch of students who are all responding to your dialogue. It is not easy when there is a walkout of sorts going on. With amazing grace, she kept the class going and pushed everyone to do their best. 

When I saw her take her two deep breaths and go "this is very unusual for a Bikram Yoga class. You guys, focus on yourself in the mirror", something changed. I went into "look only at yourself, look only at yourself" mode. Got  tunnel vision at my reflection and that changed the class entirely!

It was like I was alone with myself and everything else disappeared. This was a very unusual experience. My eyes went "bokeh" on the background ! Didn't think that was even possible. 

Usually I am beat at 8:30 in the evening after a long day that started before 5AM, but there was a steely determination to do my best, lead by example, not let down a teacher who was giving it everything, and most of all, do the right thing by myself and work as hard as I could after having made it into the room.

After class, I told the teacher "you really inspired me today, the way you handled the class and kept going" and she smiled and said

"well, they were all your teachers Sundar. they taught you the importance of focusing on yourself". 

and that was so true!

Every day we learn things, in the most unexpected ways.

Resistance is futile

Recently, one of my favorite yoga teachers told the class "what are you resisting right now? find out and let it go. it is like driving. you see the red light. you want it to be green, but it is not. it is red. you are all tense. if you accept it is red and relax till it becomes green you are much better off. I used to tense up at red signals.. now I acccept. whatever it is you are resisting, be it the fact that your water bottle is almost empty, something at work, some local tension in your body.. let it go!" 

At first I was worried for the teacher because this dude is very happy go lucky and for a few seconds I saw a side of him that I have not seen before... a very philosophical deeply introspective person. There was a seriousness in his eyes when he said it that was a "I have been here, done that and I am not saying this to be taken lightly"

The very next day, another favorite teacher of mine comes back to the hot room. Have missed him the last three months because every day when I start doing the standing bow, I will start wrong and correct myself and would think of this guy. The last two three weeks, there is no correcting, but that tells you that any changes to the practice over the last many years has a 2 month plus time to take permanence. It is not easy to break habits. 

So "El Fuego" shows up and is watching me.. he even remembers what he told me before leaving and at that moment I get "teacheritis". It is a condition where the fact that the teacher is watching you makes you conscious, and you try to do the best you can be, over do it, and fall off in a small heap on your mat.

After a few attempts I pulled off what was the best standing bow to date and he comes and pulls my leg and hand "up" and says "you have fixed the hand to chin and the kick, but now you are too down and you push your hip out in the last moment.. start working on that"

It is going to be another two months to get that one down!

As for resistance, that part is absolutely true. You can go from San Jose to San Francisco in the same car and spend different amounts of gas depending on how you drive. If you drive without constant braking, you get better gas mileage and don't wear off your brake pads. If you speed up and slow down with minimal use of the brakes, it is a much more comfortable ride.

My recent experiences in the yoga room are all about the brakes. I can do the poses. Have significantly improved over the last year. Can also do the class without sighing or any heavy breathing. So the breathing is getting better. The real issue is to focus and be in the room instead of having the mind wander.

Takes me 20 minutes sometimes to forget work, home, the guy who tailgated me for no reason etc. before the class. Then when we get down on the floor and are lying on the mat looking at the glass or ceiling, it is the little corrosion behind the mirror, the one tile that is slightly off on the ceiling, or an ant that is about to die when my 747 lands on it (we fly like planes in the yoga room at one point). 

Have been working consciously to reduce this 20 minutes down. So far it is ~5 minutes.

If that 5 minutes can come down to a few seconds, that would be awesome!

Hathayoga Mathayoga…

2015 is almost done. Today I updated the excel spreadsheet again to review how this year went compared to previous years, as far as Yoga goes..

This year it was 209 so far. That is the best in the last three years! This year also saw 87 travel days. Very happy with this years push to do more Yoga personally and with the way my family pushed me to keep going. 

 

4 days a week should count as "regular" attendance..

and finally the weight tracking... something seems to be off.. I still track my weight after class every day but the weight is now stabilzing around 148 instead of 142. Either I have a new normal or the weighing machine that is ten plus years old has an issue and we need to buy a new one. The wife and kids are thrilled at the prospect of the new machine theory.  

Well, Jr. was supposed to take videos of me doing standing bow and toe stand.. which are two of my favorite poses, but she took pictures instead of videos.

Chin to dimple in shoulder contact works magic compared to cheek in dimple of shoulder, but when you take pictures, the truth always shows! 

The leg seems to be up a lot more now. Calling that as a response to "get your body parallel to the ground" is an insult to my 8th Grade geometry teacher! 

This one though, I like. Can lift off 3 to 4 inches off the heel now and have also managed to have the thighs parallel to the ground and the spine straight. Working on doing this on the right side to match the left.

The one thing that no graph will tell? Kicked out my leg (only left leg) to go from step 1 to step 2 in the "standing head to knee" pose a total of three times this year. Locked the knee for a full 60 seconds only ten or so times.

2016 resolution is to "Lock the knee" for a full 60 seconds and kick that leg out! 

Have become a true believer in the concept of "eventually"!

There are a lot of things that happen in the hot room that were really "not me" five years ago. Based on that, have realized that things happen if one keeps making incremental progress. So there is confidence on locking that knee... even if it doesn't happen in 2016, it will happen...

eventually!

ps. Jr. and the little one would actually like to see me do a standing split. Even that can happen.. eventually!