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... 

Yoga competition - No it is not nonsense

In a funny twist of fate, I ended up in a Yoga competition. There is no other way to describe it.  Bikram Yoga San Jose, where I pretty much live outside of the house, turned 14 over the weekend. To celebrate the anniversary, the teachers were asking some of the regular students who kill themselves trying to outdo their reflection in the front mirror to do a demonstration of their good poses. Raised my hand and said "I will do it".. 

Think Revathi in Mouna Ragam movie saying "I will identify the guys" without realizing the consequences... (not all of you will get that one, sorry). 

Last Saturday there was a "practice session" to co-ordinate the demonstration. So I stay back after class to see that there are a lot of teachers and two or three students and they are all practicing a 6 poses in 3 minute routine. My turn came to demonstrate and I did 4 poses from the usual sequence we do every day and then there was a blank stare. The coaches looked at me and I looked back at them going "what?"

They said "do you know any poses other than the ones we practice?" and I said "no. I have been doing the same thing over and over again for 6 years now and havent really tried to do more". They said "no problem. can you sit in lotus pose?". Answer was yes. Their eyes lit up. Can you now do a peacock pose in lotus position? 

Being a good sport (I have not tried a peacock pose since college days when we would do that pose on the edge of of writing desks in the lecture halls) did try that and failed. Finally after a few other options were tried, I also had 6 poses to show. We practiced that 3 times over 2 hours and just before I was about to go home, the teachers tell me "by the way, there is a competition in the afternoon, same day as the anniversary party. the same three minute routine, but in front of some experienced judges and an audience. why don't you do it there as well? it will be quite an experience!"

I said "will think about it. I have a Asia trip the day after the anniversary party. so it is going to be a hectic week.". What I didnt tell them was that Pongal festival was this weekend and I really wanted to eat a lot of pongal, and one cannot do demonstrations, leave alone compete with a stomach full of pongal (rice, lentiles, jaggery and clarified butter are the main ingredients.. the key ingredient being the ghee). 

Did try that routine every day after class was over and was not doing very well on the special poses. They had to be held for 5 seconds minimum and was able to do only 2-3 seconds. Had also bruised my knee in the process of trying the options during the coaching session and it was not making things any easier. 

Thursday rolls in. I am at the yoga class at 8:30 in the night. One of my coaches asks me "are you ready for the competition" and I give him the spiel about the bruised knee and not wanting to embarras myself in front of a large crowd and esteemed judges when I cannot hold things for more than 2-3 seconds. He goes "See, I see this all the time. On that day, you go up on stage and the adrenalin kicks in and you go an amazing job. You will have to try it for the experience. Why don't you try it in front of your classmates tonight?"

It is close to 10PM and teacher told the class at the end "please give Sundar 3 minutes of your time. He is going to do a bunch of poses in a competition over the weekend and he could get used to an audience!". 

After an exhausting day at work and having done yoga for 90 minutes, gave it a shot in front of 30 odd people and surprisingly my coach was right. He is usually right, and is even more correct when he doesn't make any sense. Somehow was holding things a lot longer in front of a crowd. Guess the human body is very good at making chemicals that help you in certain situations! I did it in 2 minutes and 40 seconds and the teacher said "you have time. you should hold poses longer, but ok job!"

So went home and signed up for the competition. Initially was thinking "who am I competing with?", what does this even mean? etc. etc. To me the only competition is with yesterdays Sundar, when it comes to yoga. Still, this promised to be an interesting experience. 

Yesteray afternoon, went in front of a knowledgeble yoga crowd and some big name judges and gave it a shot. It was an interesting experince. I had zero expectations of winning anything. All I wanted to see was :

1. Not fall down

2. Hold the poses for the minimum required time

3. Manage the time so that I don't rush and finish too fast or go over the 3 minute time

4. Smile through it all and have fun

Did accomplish all 4! Did it in 2 minutes 59 seconds. Used every bit of time and held poses for more than 5 seconds on all poses. They were not my best poses. Sometimes I do a better job in class, but it is interesting what happens when you are put on a spot. Your brain and body, mostly brain start doing tricks on your confidence. Muscles that usually don't shake during the poses start acting up.. 

It was the longest 3 minutes of my life. It was like that guy in the Wanted movie who has his heart beat slow down to the point where he can start seeing the wings of the fly and he can shoot their wings down.. 

For a few seconds I could not hear anything, see anything. It was just me and a point on the judges table in front of me. Everything else faded away! 

Once the three minutes was over, I felt the same thing that we feel at the end of a 90 minute class. Your body is in bits and pieces and your mind is a blank. The reset button was hit! 

Yes, why a Yoga competition? is a good question. Why not? is a good answer. If you are a regular yoga student, you should try this competition thing. It is a new "rush" and a new "high"! 

and if I can do it, anyone can do it! 

ps. I did not have my cell phone with me in the room, but BYSJ has pictures and videos on their FB page.. you can check it out there. 

Birthday with a bang!

Last year I happened to be in India for my birthday and spent the day with my college buddies. It was amazing. These guys made sure I had a great time.. even gave me birthday bum(p)s! 

To top things off, I had a nice glass of Mishrambu that was topped off, and it was the rangeen (colorful) type! Translation : it had bhang.. just enough to make me sing "happy birthday to me" by myself over and over again!  (Let it be known that, by buddy in the picture had the plain version)

 

After that, spent two days with my parents in severe weather conditions and miraculously made it out of Chennai before the heavens opened and shut down the airport! That was last year.. 

This year, the birthday was also celebrated with a literal "bang". On the whole, the day was full of ups and downs. It was one of those work days worth forgeting. Then things took a turn for the better and the evening turned out to be nicer than the morning. One mintue we were at Bhavikas having dinner, all smiles and we came home happy. Wrote a nice post about it, and while I was hitting the Publish button, there was another bang! This time it was an injury, which thankfully ended up being something recoverable. Went from happy to mad to happy to sad every 4 hours. 

We did manage to do a mini trip to LA to meet my sisters family. It was shorter trip compared to original expectations as my long weekend was reduced as I flew out sunday morning.  Spent a day at Universal studios and visited the Malibu temple on the way back home.

Was happy to see my sister and family after almost a year and a half and spend a day and a half with them!

The trip was worth it just for that one Photograph!

It was raining very heavily and we took 8 hours to make it back instead of the usual five. We were all glad to make it back in one piece after that drive. 

Was in two minds that night on going to Asia the next morning, but the family decided that I should be done with work travel for the year and they will manage with help from friends.

That morning my rudhraksha necklace broke and the beads came flying everywhere in the room. With construction going on, my odds of finding all the beadsl were slim. Also thought it was a bad omen of sorts. Given I like to challenge bad omens (pissing off my family and going against bad omens is a habit from childhood), decided that what has to happen will happen. So travel was on.

After searching for the beads everywhere, found 108 of the 109 beads. A rudhraksh is tied to your soul once you wear it for a long time and custom is that it gets burnt with you, when you are cremated.  Also wearing 108 beads instead of the 109 can make one dizzy, or so say spiritual gurus. I had no time to find the lost bead and rushed to the airport with a heavy heart.

There is something special about this necklace. It is made of seeds from the rudhraksh tree and is completely organic material in a silk thread, but it flags in the body scanner at the airport as metal, every time! The TSA agents always look surprised when I pull it out and they ask "is it on a metal thread and I go, NO! Silk thread". Somehow it must be absorbing millimeter waves or is magnetic. Either way, the fact that it absorbs radiation says there is more to it than I know. Maybe someone else who has the time can study the radiation absorbing properties of these beads!

The first thing I did after coming home from Asia, was launch a search for the missing bead, and found it! Tomorrow will be spent in remaking the necklace. 

There were many life lessons learned in the last week.

One : Should enjoy time with family, every chance I can get. All it takes is one mistep and things can go from happy to sad. 

Two: I might think of work as another home and colleagues as an extended family, but it may not be reciprocated. At the end of the day, work remains a means to an end and I should keep that perspective.

Three:  Should trust my gut feel on people and events. Even if my track record is not that great, at least I can own the fall out a 100%

Four: Should always remember Karma! It gets me, all the time!

Could write a chapter or mini book on all four of the above, but there are consequences which I am not going to be comfortable with. So will use the third and fourth lesson and leave it with this blog post!

Two birthdays.. very different experiences. A blog post that describes mood swings should end on a happy note. So here is a photo of the little one I took the day before my birthday which is as cheerful as the world gets for me!

That smile can keep me going to the moon and back.

This year(correction.. two years) I have travelled more than enough miles to go to the moon over hundreds of hours of flying and walking around airports and being driven to airports, hotels etc.    That smile can bring me back from any distance, in an instant!