Exactly 10 years ago, my MIL and me walked into the old studio of BYSJ to do our very first hot yoga class.. it was not "bright and early".. more like "dark and cold".. but early it was at 5:30AM.
Over the years it has been a journey filled with little joys, frustrations (mostly in the early days of practice) but mostly realization of what this body and eventually mind can do and how things are connected.
Practicing yoga is the one thing I could always count on to bring me a level set every day, no matter the other circumstances that weigh in.
My MIL does yoga at home (whatever yoga works for her) and I have stuck to Bikram Yoga for 10 years now. Have tracked the classes, my weight after coming home (or walking to the bathroom now that coming home after yoga has been reduced to a 30 second thing!) and have been doing yoga very regularly. It has been 2259 classes as of yesterday and hopefully tonight we get to round it to 226 classes a year.
The teachers tell you to practice at least 4-5 times a week and that is about there. 4-5 times a week.
I cannot tell you enough how good this practice has been for me. It is my sincere wish that more people pracice yoga and practice regularly.
My MIL has not been fortunate enough to practice in the latest BYSJ studio. She showed up here on March 13th last year and the studio closed on 16th. We did get a chance to go see the studio, thanks to BYSJ!
Cannot wait for the doors to open again and soak in the heat and humidity!
Today also happens to be Maha Shivarathri, a day for spirituality and a special day that brings back so many memories for me personally. The fact that the 10 year yoga anniversary fell on Maha Shivarathri made my day!
This photo was taken last night by San of me doing yoga..
Incidentally, my first yoga blog post 10 years ago was about being able to do this pose with some semblance to what it was supposed to be. I could not grab my feet for the first 9 days. Finally managed it on the 10th day!
It is a lifelong practice.. just getting started.
Wishing myself and the MIL a very happy Yoga anniversary and a happy Shivarathri to all of you!
A heartfelt thanks to BYSJ and all the teachers for the yoga and everything the yoga has given us!
Not sure how many Star Wars references I have managed to cram into that blog post title...
This is the dairy entry of a hot yoga junkie:
Day 5 of stay in place : In what was yet another attempt to sweat and sweat a lot, progress was made. Ditched the crammed bathroom and restricted movements. Went back to guest room and set up the space heater to "max". It was still luke warm to say the least. Saw my friend Sid's post on the BYSJ group where he was in his bathroom but had a lot more sweat than me.. that got me thinking.. was it because he was still wearing a shirt? So I decide to wear a fleece jacket to force the sweat.
I did sweat a lot more .. but in the jacket. Finally at the end of class two drops of sweat landed on my mat... normally I have two buckets of sweat after class.. calm down I tell myself. Every deluge has to start with a few drops.. I look at those precious two drops and cry.. make that four drops..
My teachers are posting their dialogues as youtube videos. Only problem is the unreliable internet connection at prime time where things start buffering in the middle of the class. I have started recording these in the middle of the night to save them as audio files only. This way the class can go on uniterrupted. Only problem is that there is a loud pinging noise in the middle of holding poses.. Found out that this is the outlook incoming mail notification going through the internal microphone. Matt Newman will have to recite the dialogue to an empty room at midnight for me to record this again.. Last night I actually fell asleep while this was recording.. had set an alarm just in case to wake up after 90 minutes to turn off the recording. Who knew Bikram Yoga dialogues make for good lullabies?!
Had no idea that last Sunday's class would be my last group class. Given everything we know about the virus, we would probably have quarantined ourselves a lot earlier. Good thing is all my friends seem to be doing okay and posting their own solo yoga experiences from crammed bathrooms and other spaces.
Tomorrow will be two years since I stopped drinking water during class. That Mary Jarvis class that changed the water habbit seems ages ago. Last Sunday's yoga class seems ages ago!
I am a social animal of the huggy type. It is not easy to isolate myself, but it is being done. Have been working on a yoga mat all week. It is surreal to be cooped up in a room all day. I see my kids for maybe 5-10 minutes a day. They are on a different time zone within the house. My MIL is still in her own room and watching TV and chatting with friends. We all go for walks one at a time twice a day around the block. The kids have shown no signs of exercising. Perpetually in their beds. I am thinking of going for a family bike ride tomorrow, weather permitting. Things are changing rapidly.. I am the designated shopper for the family. On Monday I made a Costco run at lunch break and this was the situation..
that was one person out one person in with a limit to how many folks who could be inside costco.. but we were all pretty close to each other.. would not call it social distancing... most of the stuff we needed were out of stock.. we do have a lot of cuties.. eating them on a regular basis to get more vitamin C.. which works for colds but not sure if it helps with the new virus..
There are lessons learned in self control, trying to set up the right environments and most importantly hydrating myself. At work we would all walk around between meetings, take a water break, restroom break. At home the meetings just keep coming one after the other.. you cannot just see who is at their desk to go grab the team for an impromptu meeting.. everything has to be scheduled and that means no breaks.
The last two days, I took one hour breaks in the middle of the day to drink water and walk around the block.
The yoga journey continues. Hope we get over the virus soon and get to be in a hot room.. something tells me that this is not going to happen anytime soon... but the community is there and everyone is working on cheering up the others.
Faith is an interesting thing.. it makes you do things that are ingrained in you from childhood. Everytime I lose something and I have to find it in a time sensitive way, subconsciously say a prayer to Ganesha and say "will light a camphor light(karpooram) for 10 paise at the local temple"..
a. we don't get camphor lights in the US that easily
b. there is no 10 paise anymore
c. local temple can be anything but was originally intended for Vembadi Vinayagar, a little ganesha under a pipal tree that I have circled with prayers to remove obstacles real and imaginary..
But it gets done.. and we are not even talking about if we actually found the thing on time or not.
In 2014 my MIL was going for a bone marrow test and in pure panic mode I prayed to my family deity (Gunaseelam perumal) that if the test came negative for cancer, will go shave my head in the temple. That was more of an extreme case of the camphor lighting thing..
Have made at least 6 trips to India since that time but never got the opportunity to go visit Gunaseelam. Faith is interesting.. seeing your family deity is not up to you, it is up to your deity.. or so the saying goes! Guess on this short trip to see my dad, there was no agenda.
Three weeks ago, was lying in a hospital bed myself, dreading some worse case scenarios, which fortunately turned out to be something a lot less threatening. While there, the thought of unfinished business with god somehow bubbled up to the top of the already buffering thought process. What if I died and did not do the "mottai"? After all the bone marrow test for MIL had come out negative!
The original plan was to just go alone with a driver and get things done and get back. Then my parents said the words "Can we come with you?".. In case you didn't get the reason Faith got mentioned three times in the title, "you cannot say no to someone when they ask to come to a temple with you".. My dad was bedridden two weeks ago and he barely started walking again. An adult in diapers who just started walking, coming on a day trip where we spend 11 hours in the car and 3 hours in a temple is no joke.
Somehow, we told ourselves, if it was meant to be, we will make it. I did a risk mitigation plan that would make any project manager proud and we left at 3AM. It was still raininig in Chennai but we were off to a flying start.. We had one stop for 25 minutes and were back on the road.
Given this is my n'th mottai at Gunaseelam, the whole thing was done in 7 minutes.. then came the best part. There was water in the river that flows to the temple! Had a great time taking a dip in the river and have the fishes nibble at me. We were on a deadline and I had to pull myself out of the water to go in and finish the rest of the prayer.
Our driver and some total strangers helped me navigate a wheel chair through the temple. The priest knows our family and was extremely nice and made sure my dad got to see the deity up close.
On our way out a puppy came up and lay down under our vehicle. This one knew how to put on a sad face like a pro..
It was time to drive back. My dad is like a kid who just got his tonsils out and knows that his parents won't say "no" to anything... we just got out of the temple and he mumbles "elaneer.. I want elaneer". He wanted coconut water. Was not even sure if this is coconut water season and we were watching the road for it and sure enough we found a vendor selling fresh coconut water. It is not a good idea for a person of his age to drink that instead of lunch. We stopped at an A2B for lunch and it was really delicious. Had a full course meal. As an added bonus this place had a wheelchair ramp!
Then came the bombshell from my dad "I want to use the restroom". That was not part of the plan. It was going to be diapers all the way. But a kid without his tonsils... is a kid without his tonsils. The restrooms here are not typically wheelchair accessible. They are simply not for anyone who is not fit and can manoeuvre around a potty, a door that swishes past the potty with millimeter tolerance and a bunch of taps and buckets on the floor that are trip hazards. In what can only be described as a houdini move, managed to get my kid to go potty and get him diapy changed. That coconut water was a bad idea. Our driver concurred.
The rest of the drive back was calm and serene. There were cops every 100 feet. So I started counting cops. After 270, I stopped counting. That was only on one side of the road from Dindivanam to Melmaruvaththur. My mind boggled at the efficiency of this whole security apparatus with so many cops just standing on the roadside doing nothing.. then again, maybe this system works, who knows! We actually slowed down to ask one of the cops to find out what the big deal was. He proudly answered "The Chief minister of Tamil Nadu is making his way back to Chennai on the same route!"
We made a dash for it to avoid his motorcade and made it back in exactly 14 hours. For a few minutes after reaching could not find my legs.. had let my dad doze off on me. . . which reminded me of my kids dozing off on me on another recent trip.
It has been another interesting day.
A picture that says it all..
and a short video of the days experience..
It is always a great feeling taking a dip in the river.. mottai or not. Was glad to see my parents smiling again, even if for one day!
Now the only thought in my head is "the mosquitoes are going to get me good tonight with this exposed scalp.. they will suck my brains dry and I might actually wake up smarter!"
My head feels lighter already, both literally and figuratively...
