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!

N sided polygons

A pentagon that slowly moved to a Triangle..

One of my teachers was saying "we should all take pictures of us doing Yoga from angles that we don't see in the mirror. It will tell you a lot about what you think you are doing vs. what you are actually doing!"

"Be careful, you might not like what you see" was the message.

Photography and Yoga.. two things close to the heart.. coming together for a greater good?

Why not?

Was showing kids how "pentagon" and "triangle" are not the same thing. I used to do the Triangle pose like a pentagon till three years ago. Then Jim Kallet came and showed me how to sit down properly in this pose.

Later Michelle made a dancing reference and it got better.

Three months back Fire taught me a few things about locking legs.. as well as how to tilt my head before moving my arms and how to twist my head to get my profile to the mirror in the Triangle pose. The idea was to get my chin to the shoulder (I was doing cheek to shoulder).

This is a lot better than the version from 4 years ago but... 

 

I used to think in class that the profile of my face was visible to the mirror.. It is not! Still have to turn my face further up and to my left. 

My right thumb sticks out. It is supposed to be touching the rest of the fingers. 

Shoulders are supposed to be in one line and I thought they were in one line. They are not.

This is a real lifelong process of course correction. Will use this as a reference picture and see how it changes next year same time.

The little one took a video of my balancing stick. My knee is at 150 degrees. Definitely not even close to 180! My body is like a table top, but with a bent leg. Have to get it at least a little closer before posting a picture or video. 

By the way THE TRIANGLE ? it is the space between my thighs, forearm and body.. That gap should be a BIG triangle, preferably a right angled one... 

There is a lot of time to get there.

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!