The "Vrath"

The last 7 days was a self imposed ban on all news feeds. Don't want to say "internet" because I still had to work. There was no listening to the radio, no watching TV programs, no facebook, twitter, amazon, youtube.. nothing. 

Started is last Thursday and went back to the internet this afternoon. It was an interesting experience for so many reasons.

First, did not know I was this addicted to my phone. How it got to this point over time is beyond me. The first two days, there were severe withdrawal symptoms. You see the damn icons on the phone and you have to resist the temptation to click it. It was a lot more difficult than originally anticipated.

Second, I have been shutting out the outside world thanks to this addiction without even realizing it. On Friday morning drove to work without turning on the radio. It was so intense to sit in the silence of the car and hearing the occasional sound that would reach through the closed windows. It was eerie because it was not the "usual".

At lunchtime, I had to look at the food, savor it and eat it. It got to me. So I went and sat with a bunch of colleagues and ate lunch with them for a change. Usually I eat lunch in my office and read the news and the food doesn't go in well as most of the news is negative. Enjoy my lunches now as the smiles of coworkers! For someone who was a very social person, this is a shock.

Later in the week, got to watch Jr. practice saxophone and the little one practice her violin. Instead of listening to them while simultaneously fiddling with my phone, it was an interactive practice. They were amazed that I was actually noticing things all this time inspite of fiddling with the phone. I was surprised by that too.

Every night we watch either "baby photos" or two 5 minute clips of  "How its made"  where the kids pick the item being made. We skipped it because of the Vrath (Vratham as it is referred to in Tamil.. aka Fasting). The one week without internet-news thing was given the name Vrath.. as daddy was "fasting" from the internet of sorts. The kids thought I could have made an exception there, but I didn't want to do it. One minute you are watching "how its made" and next thing you know.. there is something about Syria and the congress clowns that takes your blood pressure through the roof. So stayed clear to maintain the promise.

Finally, when I got back to the news today, it was like nothing had changed. India still looks like it is turning into Sierra Leone from the blood diamond days with a rise in child warriors, politics is still the same, people still talking and arguing about guns, abortions, gay rights, expensive medicines, etc. etc. Given all that, the last week of abstaining from news somehow made me numb to this today. Looked at it for a second and just closed it. Now that there is a realization that none of this matters, just simply closed it and moved on. It sounds simple but it is not easy. I could not do this before. Maybe something was or is still wrong with me, but it took this trial to let things go, news wise. 

The FB feed and twitter feed were a similar story. I did watch a few clips from the daily show in the last hour and laughed.. but that is twisted in its own way. Initially you laugh and later it gets to you. The daily show is like eating my grandma's vaththa kozhambu. When you mix it with rice and taste it, it is divine, but once it reaches your intestines, no amount of buttermilk is going to calm your ass for what is to come. Once in a while she has tricked me with that. Yet again, I digress. 

Starting today, excluding Netflix watching, there will be 1 hour maximum of internet a day and this will not be at lunch time either. It will be after kids go to bed. Deleting all social network apps on the phone as well. 

For someone who does Yoga every chance he gets, I have been feeding my mind crap all this time, outside the yoga room. It is not okay to eat healthy and do yoga and go back to feeding the head with all the negativity, thanks to the phone and internet. Need more positive things in life.. 

Wish me luck!

The many degrees of "relaxation"

Today was a very special yoga day. Bikram Yoga San Jose had a special class at 10AM with Rajashree Choudhury teaching the class.

We have heard so much about her teaching style and how special her class is from the teachers. So it was a not to miss experience. A lot of times I end up missing classes taught by visiting teachers because of the travel schedule. Was fortunate to be in town to attend this class.

The dialogue in every Bikram yoga class is the same. The time for every class is the same 90 minutes but the teachers are a broad spectrum. On one side we have the high energy fire breathing dragon drill seargents and on the other side we have the hypnotic horse whisperers. Then there are varying mixes of the two combinations. The end result after the class is more or less the same. You are completely drained of thought and you are happy to go out into the world, all zoned out! 

Once in a while you get someone on either extreme who can make you feel more zoned out than you think was possible. Not talking about doing a pose deeper or more correct to the form during class here...

It is about a certain silence in your head that is just quieter than the usual. We should have a scale to quantify silence, that is exponential like the Decibel scale or the Richter scale.

Maybe "silence" is the wrong word here as this is not the opposite of noise. It is more than just the absence of sound. It the absence of any sensory data going into your brain to disturb you. 

We had a great class today where Rajashree took us through the usual 90 minute routine with some tidbits of information thrown in. Most of them were about why we do what we do in class and encouraging us to persevere.  

Then when the poses and final breathing was over and we were all stretched out on the mats, she started talking softly, telling us how to relax. There are one or two teachers who try this by saying "relax your neck, your shoulders, your hips... " and they make you consciously relax your body head to toe. What we heard today was different. It was advice, technique and hypnotism at work. 

After a few minutes of listening to her talk, I had no idea what she was even saying! It was almost a whisper. It was like being submerged in a tank of water or what the astronauts decribe as part of their space walk experience. You know there is a tether connecting you to the world but it seems to be getting more and more distant as time passes.

Got a tingling sensation in the left side of my head after a few minutes into this "whispering shavasana". Usually tingles in the hot room means that blood is flowing to that part of your body for the first time in a long time. Within a few minutes there were tingling sensations all over my brain and at that point the whisper became very faint.

Then everyone clapped for some reason and was back to staring at the light on the ceiling. It was like coming back out of anesthesia after a surgery and staring at the lights or that is the closest I can explain what happened after being "so far out there".

Had been in shavasana for more than 15 minutes. For a person who runs out at the end of 90 minutes on any given day because of a conference call to attend or a kid to pick up from some class on the way home, the extra 15 minutes is a luxury. Today it was a real lesson. Now I know why the teachers say "missing the 2 minute shavasana at the end of class is like working very hard, then forgetting to collect your paycheck". 

Going to stay on the mat after class for longer times, at least on weekend classes or Friday evenings going forward. 

Todays class was like a power surge that forcibly reset the hardware in my head. Now the trick is to relive this experience after every yoga class!

After class we got to talk to Rajashree for a few minutes.  Jr. had come to BYSJ so she could see what this was all about and also clicked a picture.

Wanted to tell her so many things. Wanted to show her how my broken hand is now normal again. How Bikram Yoga has given me a second chance and made me believe in the concept of second chances, but before I said anything she mentions her son wears a Janau and asks me if I do Sandhya Vandhanam every day. Told her that I do it most days but only once a day.

My Bikram Yoga attendance is better than my Sandhya Vandhanam frequency. She says "do that as well! it is good for you"

Jr. was all smiles when she said "your daughter is beautiful". Today Jr. saw almost a 100 people come out all smiling after class and line up to talk to Rajashree. It is my sincere hope she does yoga again soon. Given how busy she is with 8th grade, she could really use it. 

It was truly a "special experience" like the teachers at BYSJ told us over the last few days.

Hats off.. we should really say "Mats off" to Rajashree Choudhury, the "horse whisperer extraordinaire"!

Same Same but Different

Every year, Bikram Yoga San Jose has a 60 day Challenge that starts in January. This year, I got into the Challenge reluctantly, knowing that there were three possible Asia trips in those 60 days. 

The teachers said "sign up and see how far you go. you never know". Well, they know me, alright! Once they put my name on that board (twice), it was not going to be easy to give up on the challenge. 

It was a torment. I would come back from a trip and look at my star stickers trailing behind the rest of the stars and "sigh" audibly before entering the class. My biggest challenge was accepting the possibility that I might not do 60 classes in 60 days. 

With a lot of encouragement from San and the kids as well as the teachers, and a lot of doubles (do two classes in one day, sometimes back to back) the stars all added up to 60! Finished the challenge and was off to catch a 12 hour flight. 

Given my sanity is constantly tested by a workload that fluctuates by the hour, working across multiple timezones to a point where I am constantly awake, the yoga has definitely helped me from going postal. 

This is not my first challenge. It is my third (fourth if you count the fact that MIL and me did 91 classses in our first 100 days of starting Bikram Yoga in 2011.. back then we did not know much about this Challenge).

Have written about this experience in 2013 and 2014. Went back to the blog and was missing the 2015 post. Looks like I did the usual graphs and charts, wrote about it and never hit the Publish button, thanks to fighting strange rashes that come with frequent travel?! right after the Challenge.

People call me a "technologist".. I am turning into a "technoyogist". What kind of technoyogi does a post on Yoga that involves counting to 60, without graphs and charts?! 

That kind of sums up the whole challenge. It was not steady progress like the previous two years. It was stop and go. Practiced 6 times between leaving work on Friday to coming back on Monday. My original thought was that I would be dead before Monday morning, but reality was something else. Went to work and felt great. So the number of classes you do over a weekend doesn't matter, as long as you hydrate and rest properly. Zico coconut water was and is my best friend now. If some day, I put a bar in the house for some strange reason, it will only have Zico on tap. 

Then came the surprise after the Challenge. Picked up some strange rash and most of March was a wash with work, with family and Yoga. My extended family often challenged me with things like "you do all this yoga and still get sick. maybe it is the yoga!" .. friends were talking about "yoga overdose".. and once the jokes and jibes start, the hits just keep on coming.

Doing yoga does not make you invincible. It helps you optimize your strength vs. flexibilty, makes sure your hormone glands are all firing right, and helps with your immunity so your body can fight things better. My auto immune disorder and allergies are known to everyone close to me. You bring me close to a range of things like dogs,  cats, sesame seeds, peanuts, chinese juniper, shellfish (and a long list of things) and I can go from normal to strugling in a few seconds. My body probably did a better job fighting the rash, thanks to Yoga. 

Can I prove it? No. Can I disprove it? again, No.  The Yogis in the Himalayas had a much better deal than me, because they didn't have to share recirculated air in a tin can with 400 people for 12-14 hours on a regular basis.  This was like wearing a bullet proof vest and walking into a war zone. Chances are you still get shot in the face. 

The same thing applies to the sudden outburst of emotion when I am on a call and one of my kids screams in the background. Just because you do Yoga, doesn't mean you become a stoic overnight or you become a stoic ever. There is nothing wrong with going from zero to angry in 4 seconds. What is important is how long does it take you to come from Angry to zero? if you can do it in three deep breaths with 6 seconds in and 6 seconds out (24 seconds) you got me beat. That is my bench mark today. It takes me 24 seconds (20 sometimes) to calm down from anything. That is all thanks to Yoga.

The weight tracking after every yoga class is still on. Somehow I have either put on a good 10 pounds between July to December of 2014 or the battery change in the weighing scale has reset the calibration! Will post this graph at the end of 2015 and see what it shows. Right now the weight is more or less steady at 145 +/- 2 lbs. 

Why do this Challenge at all?

Is it to feed the type A personality trait?

Is it some kind of death wish?

Is there any difference that I noticed after the 2nd and 3rd challenge ?

What did I gain by doing this?  

Did I even enjoy doing this?

Those were the most common questions I got in water cooler conversations or at kids birthday parties when the guys or ladies are talking about my Yoga experience.

So here are some answers.

The first time I did the challenge, it was purely a "type A" thing. No shame in admitting it. Everyone at the studio was going "ooh" and "aah" about how great this experience was and someone mentioned that this is "not easy" and "not everyone can do it". Well, "I am not everyone" was the theme in my life at that time.. (okay, it is a repeating theme) and we went. (we = me and my mother in law, who is a type A+ personality, who encouraged me to do it. As my only "local parent", she did the right thing and I am forever grateful to her for doing that).

When the challenge was done though, it was a humbling experience, not a power trip. It put a lot of things in perspective. One can accomplish a lot at work and home, but how far can you push your body, within a two feet by six feet space, that we call a yoga mat? Once you do the same thing regularly and continuously, your body kind of starts remembering things and you start seeing changes. I always thought this concept of "muscle memory" was a bunch of bull. I was wrong! My abs never looked better than after that 60 days. 

The second time, I signed up, because January to March is Flu season here. The previous year, I had successfully managed to evade the flu, in spite of everyone in the house having it. Thought of the Challenge as a flu beater and it did help. My work was crazy in 2014 and at the time and the challenge kept me sane.

This time the learning was different. No two challenges are alike. Different year, different set of issues that have to be overcome. Also realized that poses that were not favorites the previous year, became my "look forward to" poses in the next year and vice versa.  It just shows how your body changes over time. At the end of this challenge I really wanted to ask my teacher if she will write me a recommendation for teacher training. My family and collegues nicely reminded me of my commitments, and I put that wish in the "after this job is done" list.

This year, it was probably a type A thing as well. I was fighting with myself and I won. Could not accept the thought of not finishing after signing up. Do not know if that is a good or bad thing. Sometimes I do not like the me, that stares back from the mirror. Do not understand why it is acceptance of that person that I seek, instead of a determined fight to change that person. Maybe that is the first step to eventually changing?

If you have done the challenge multiple times, the biggest changes you will see, are with your breath and your thought process. The poses are not going to magically improve because you do the challenge. Not in depth anyways. Your form will improve but that is something I have learnt to cherish only after many a teacher has knocked it into my pig head that "form is more important than depth". Even today, the teacher told us "going 90 miles per hour into a ditch is not the goal here. Going straight and steady at 35 miles per hour will still get you places".

If you are doing this challenge for the 2nd or 3rd or n-th time, chances are, you are a regular, and every day is a challenge for you. Still, you get to literally see your body change radically over a two month timeframe. Your core strength improves by orders of magnitude!

However, if you have just started on this journey, it is quite a treat to go through this experience. You WILL see changes with your body and your mind. 

The last question always puts a smile on my face. Do you enjoy doing this? That is a tough one. In all honesty, every class, no matter weather the starting state was one of euphoria or depresssion, ends the same way. I come out singing inside my hear in Gloria Gaynor's voice "and I .. I will survive.. and I survived that 90 minutes of fighting, with my body and my mind".

Not sure if anyone in that room actually "enjoys" it while the class is going on. Mostly folks stare at themselves with a frustrated, constipated or angry face except when the teachers crack a joke or remind people to smile. There are three ladies who are an exception to this. They always have a smile on their face. Either they are seasoned pro's, or air hostesses who cannot undo their smiles. Those are my theories.

Every Yoga class is like making mysore pak for me.  It takes forever to make it and you sweat it out in the kitchen, standing in front of a hot stove, but when you taste the sweet after it is done, it was all worth the effort! Walking back to the car after class, looking up at the sky, smelling the cold air (it is usually cold compared to the hot room) and driving back in silence knowing you are better off today than yesterday, always makes the hard work in the class, worth it.

Definitely recommend trying a Challenge. There is a good chance that you will surprise yourself with what you find out about your own abilities!