Aging gracefully

Isn't that what it is all about? 

Jr. has a photo on her phone and every now and then she pushes it to my face.. It has a picture of a boy having a conversation with his dad.. Boy says "dad, I just turned 18" and the dad goes "when I was your age, I was 19!"

Everytime I say something or launch into the "when I was your age.." monologue, she looks down at her phone, finds that picture and holds it up like folks hold garlic or a cross in front of Dracula! 

Apparently I am older and getting to be begrudginly older, mistaking my experience for wisdom. 

Was having a conversation with a friend recently and he was telling me "you should be really proud of yourself for coming to the US and doing so well after all these years. you have worked hard and made it. do your daughters know how hard you had to work?" and my response was "they don't but I am okay with it now. I worked hard so they can have anything they want. why then bring up the fact that they should know the value of that? Didn't I do all this so they don't have to? They will have different challenges in their life and they should give their kids what they didn't have"

It just rolled off my tongue and maybe I was thinking out loud, but an hour later kept thinking about what was said.  What are the challenges they are going to face that they would not want their kids to face? 

My grandfather told me once that does not matter how much money you have or save.. after 7 generations it all goes though a cycle. if every generation does better than the previous after four generations it comes back down again. I thought that was ridiculous.. but maybe it makes sense now. If you are not challenged in certain things in a life time, those attributes may not be things on the "to fight for" list for the next generation, wealth just being one such attribute. It could be freedom, health.. many things and it might be in a family or as a community. I can see now how that can be possible!

The kids are growing up fast and they are sending me into some deep introspection mode on almost a daily basis. They are my kids but sometimes it is interesting to see that their logic and reasoning is very different from mine because they are a product of a different time and place. 

It is not better or worse. Just different. Takes me a few seconds to put things in context and I move on. 

Right now the trick seems to be not in accepting that my kids are the product of the way we raise them and their surroundings, but in accepting that I have changed so much over time. When your world view and your views about yourself change a lot over a few years, it is difficult to not think about your old stance when interacting with your kids.

Fortunately, they are both mature enough to let me know I am full of shit on a daily basis and I am now mature enough to smile and take it in my stride, knowing that they will get to be in my place in the not so distant future.. 

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....

Holi 2017

A lot of folks celebrated Holi last weekend. I had just got back from Asia and was very tired, not to mention going through tooth ache. So we were very happy to celebrate Holi this weekend with friends.

Eveyone was colored.. we saw Indians, Chinese, White folks, Hispanic folks, black folks. . . the pets.. and we pulled in the cops to play Holi as well and they were nice and got colored by the kids! 

There were a 1000+ people in Foster city and the gang went and had a fun time with colors and jumped around to music from the DJ.

Here are a few pictures that just show how big this was.. 

 

and the one shot that made my day of the 200+ taken over two hours..

Happy Holi everyone! May this year bring you a feeling of oneness with everyone around you.. When you are all colored in such hues, you realize what true equality is and happiness is in sharing love!

Today total strangers came and put colors on me and let me put colors on them.. we gave a smile, hugs and wished Happy Holi !!

As long as there is love, there is hope!