Technology challenges..

It has been an interesting two days. 

The last few days, there has been a problem at work where a duct spews out bursts of cold air directly above my head. My office has been trying to figure out the root cause and come up with fixes for it by blocking the vent with cardboard, building paper dampers to direct it away from my head etc.. In the meantime, I got a nice cold, thanks to that and the highly changing bay area weather. 

As most of you know, my solution to all ailments is to try doing Yoga in the hot room first before going to the doctor or resorting to any pills. So after scheduling a bunch of late night calls post 11PM, I decided to go do Yoga at 8:30 in the night. It was mildly drizzing when I went into the class and things were, lets say "pleasant".

When the class ended and we came out, there was cold winds and water coming down in intervals in sheets! I am guessing these were more than the 20 mph gusts. This was way stronger. At several points on the way home thought the Leaf was going to fly off the road. There was also a lot of palm leaves falling off the trees and flying around. 

In all of this I did not realize that there was no power in the neighborhood. I drive to the garage and the thing is not opening. I called my wife and she goes "there is no power in the house and the entire area". 

So there I am in my yoga shorts, all sweaty, with cold rain and winds trying to manually open the garage door and park my car inside.. and a gust of wind litterally sends a wave of water into the garage! 

Finally I parked the car and closed the garage door. By now any residual body heat from the yoga class is gone and I am shivering. Then I tell my dear wife "I will go take a quick shower and eat what you have made. good thing we have the flashlights". 

A few minutes later, I realize that the flashlights are the least of the problems. Turns out that the water heater we have installed as part of the new construction which is tankless, energy efficient, reduces our gas bills etc. etc. doesn't work when there is no electricity! It didn't matter anyway. It was not going to be worse than the rain. So that was the shortest coldest shower I have taken after a hot yoga class. 

Then came the dinner part. Wife says "I made stuff for you, but it is all cold. Maybe you can reheat it on the stove because you cannot microwave?"

By now I am conditioned to try everything manual have a low expectation for any gadget. So I know the pilot lamp won't work (it didn't) and use a matchstick to try and light this stove. Turns out that only the back burner turns on without a pilot. These guys have some interlock on the other stoves! 

Finally managed to reheat some stuff and eat with the flashlight and look at my phone... it has <20% charge! 

Went to the battery pack that was given as a company souvenier which is always in my travel bag and that had no charge! 

We both drive a Nissan Leaf. That means if you don't have power all night, we have to fight for the car with the most charge left.. It is a new interesting dynamic in our house.

It was a hard lesson on how dependent we are and how much we take for granted! I managed to muddle through the day and keep my thoughts going. Deifnitely feel better now, thanks to another yoga class, no manual door openings, a nice hot shower, hot tea.. and more importantly a house that is back to 68F instead of 56F!

This afternoon I was thinking about the folks in war zones. People in first world countries have no clue what those folks are going through. We are making it all worse for them by our every day thoughts and actions and what we support knowingly or unknowingly. We also take a lot for granted. The biggest rights we seem to cherish are our rights to stupidity and our right to be irresponsible when it comes to the rest of the world and the planet. At least that is my feeling right now.

A bad vent, a storm for a few hours and an all night power cut are able to make a dent in my life. That is just sad.

Time to spend more time with nature and improve my immunity to cold weather. Also time to do something about all this guilt for everything that is happening in the world! 

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....

Pronate

Before you read further, this is a post on the yoga journey.

Two years ago, on a 10AM class, one of my yoga teachers told me during Eagle pose "Sundar, you are pronating your leg!"

The rest of the class was a blur. As a guy who is proud of memorizing the Barron's GRE guides vocabulary list, a and most of the words in the short Chambers dictionary (early 80's version), I was stumped because that word was not part of my list. Realized it had something to do with the angle of my feet but did not know the precise meaning. 

You know how sometimes you are driving to LA on I-5 and you are almost at Coalinga but you don't remember driving over the last 30 or so minutes and you think "I have been zombie driving thinking of other things.. what if I fell asleep with the entire family in the car? better go take a break and wash my face!" ? It was kind of like that for the rest of the class.

One  minute Mariaelena says "pronate" and the next thing you know, we are all on the floor, and I don't remember anything inbetween, other than how come I missed that word so far! It happens, people.. at least to me! 

After the class I asked the teacher what was going on and she told me that my legs were turned in and my body weight was not on my heel. It took me a year to consciously correct it. 

Few days ago, the teacher shouts from the back of the room "Sundar, your foot is turned in, not balanced!". 

My initial reaction was "no way. I know this is an issue and that is why I check my feet before starting the pose. it is perpendicular to the mirror. you can take a protractor to it".. but given this dude had a track record of being right, I decided to watch the second set. 

Started off with a planted foot that was straight. Then a funny thing happened. Just as I was about to raise one leg and put it on top of the other, my body leaned forward, my heel came off the ground and when I was done, the heel did not land where it took off. . . it had moved. My leg had "pronated"!

It can be frustrating to watch yourself in front of the mirror and face an obvious truth that what you think you are vs. what you are are not matching! 

This happens almost once a week when a teacher points out something to me. 

The big realization though was after class on the way home. I took that well. No frustration these days. A fleeting moment where you go "one more thing to remember" and then you think of it as another blessing and move on, knowing there is more chances to come and eventually this thing will get better.

My ability handle corrections has improved ! That means there is room for more corrections and that is a good thing.. 

Well as a social service to other students and vocabulary students. . . 

Pronate : turn or hold (a hand, foot, or limb) so that the palm or sole is facing downward or inward.

This weekend I better take the camera out and get some photos of me doing yoga, just to compare hwo things have changed over the years! It has been six years as of last weekend since starting yoga. 

So far it has been 1250 classes and I will give myself an A for attendance, B for trying, C for the actual output and D for listening.

The journey continues...