A Month Later

I wrote last time about trying to summarize an entire year in a blog. Well March reminded me that a month can be just as difficult. Here’s how it went: Drishti’s spitting up and not pooping so the doctor sends us to an ultrasound. Cheerfully the ultrasound technician walks us through the routine she starts scanning Drishti’s tummy, but suddenly, abruptly stops talking halfway. She wraps up, puts the results on a disc and send us back to our doctor…who, after looking at the results sends us immediately to Sick Kid’s Emergency downtown. Early the next morning we get seen to and Drishti’s in a ward room. Another ultrasound, a urine test, and finally a CAT scan confirm neuroblastoma – a mass on her adrenal gland and spread to the liver. Cancer.

A team of surgeons confer and decide on a biopsy to remove the tumour, and a bone marrow test to see if the cancer has spread. A week later, we’re quietly watching the status board in a well-appointed waiting room as she goes under the knife. An incisional biopsy removes most of the tumour (taking it all would have required removing the adrenal gland…and you kinda need that) and a sample of bone marrow is taken. More tests. Days go by. We wait. Bone marrow tests come back negative and she’s discharged a little over two weeks after we went in. The neuroblastoma specialist is now managing us on an outpatient basis – we go in every Thursday so that they can scan the tumour to see if it has grown.

I think I’m still a bit stunned by the whole episode. I think we just went into autopilot and just got ‘on’ with it. You often fall apart and lose control when confronted with the small challenges of life…and then something really really big happens and you go into some kind of zone and…deal with it. We are lucky (at least so far); neuroblastoma is dangerous and even fatal if it goes on with its business unnoticed. We found it in Drishti about as early as you possibly could.

My wife stayed with Dristhi at the hospital. I looked after the other girls with help from my Mum. I’d drive to the hospital with a daily supply of food, clothes, etc.

A couple of days before it all happened, I had taken on the biggest project of my career, two days after the customer signed, I stepped down from leading the project so that I could focus on home. I had the alacrity to think that I could somehow juggle this huge project and deal with this ‘daughter’s got cancer’ business. My executives indicated their backing whichever way I was going with this. A couple of days later I came out of my delusion and realized I must have been off my rocker. I stepped down and was given as much time as I needed to ‘deal’ with what I need to.

We managed. We didn’t fall apart. We acknowledged deep down that this was the experience we needed to be having. We did not resist. We accepted. Now, I’d never wish this experience on anyone and this is going to sound stupid but feel privileged to have gone through this. There’s a new clarity. The bullshit fades into the background. The things you were once afraid of, fretted about, or regarded as important seem absurdly trivial. It’s like yoga…on steroids.

It’ll stick too. I’m not pissing about either. Yoga’s given me perception and perspective. No doubt about it. You know what I mean. I’m not exaggerating when I say that my practice is the biggest single success factor in my career and my life. But this whole business has just accelerated it all. I don’t really mind at all any more what happens to whatever. I’m back at work now now on something interesting…but I’ve applied for a oversees non-profit assignment with an NGO in Brazil or Vietnam. I’m going to India too this year and I’m talking the girls with me. I’m going to take my time practicing in the morning. If I want to spend two and a half hours doing both primary and intermediate before work then that’s what I’m going to do.

Remarkably I practiced 25 times in March. That’s a 100% attendance record. How did I manage that?

A year later

How do you post after a year away from the blog? Do you pretend that you never left and just carry on blathering about what you did today or do you make a fist of providing a whirlwind summary of the year? I don’t know how to go about doing the latter. I wouldn’t know where to start.

I could start I guess with girl #3 born last month. We named her Drishti – my western friends think I’m a hippie and my Indian friends think I’m a right-wing fundamentalist.

I’ve grown to appreciate the importance of Satsang this year. What drove me to blog in the first place was to seek out a community of the like-minded – a support mechanism to sustain and bolster my practice (I practiced on my own, in my basement) and maybe allow me to do the same for others. On a whim about this time last year I volunteered for a Yoga Conference and the experience changed me; I immediately sought out a shala – a place to call my Yoga home.

Last year I practiced 227 times; not a 100% record – that would have been 290 following the Ashtanga tradition (if you were wondering) – but not too bad either. Most of those practices were traditional Mysore style at my Yoga Studio. Typically I drove in early, dropped my wife off at her gym and got into the studio just before seven and I’d practice for 2 hours or so before heading uptown to my client’s offices. I got to know the teachers well enough to call many my friends, and the co-owners as my mentors. I did a 200 hour Teacher Training course there over the winter (to deepen my practice more than anything). My practice is my centre of gravity. My friends have changed.

My practice is deeper and broader. Broader in the sense that I’ve progressed to deeper asanas and regularly do the second series now. Deeper in the sense that I continue to be humbled by insights into ‘basic’ poses that I’d long ago ticked off like so many scout badges. I could do Surya A alone for the rest of my life and never completely ‘perfect’ it. Amen to that.

I’m more tolerant and accepting of alternative approaches to asana and even incorporate some occasionally into my own practice. I’m a bit more skeptical of the ‘church’ if you will, even as I continue to be relatively orthodox in my practice and ever grateful for the teachings. And I’ve grown to appreciate the broader physical discipline – spending time on pranayama and delving into Ayurveda. I’m not saying I’m perfect though – this blog post was catered by Labatt and Frito Lay. But it’s been a good year. All in all, I’m better for it.

Baby’s crying. Time to finish my can of Blue and take my shift.

Like Seven Inches from the Mid-Day Sun

Mercifully the temperatures have come down this past week in Toronto which means the Shala was a mere 28 degrees this morning. (Do they actually heat this place in June? Is this Bikram and no one told me?).

Even when it gets hot again, I think I’ve built up the stamina to manage, and my practice appears to be back down to something like a normal duration. Coming from my 15 degree basement, I took some time getting used it though. It slowed me down at first; I frequently need to towel down to keep the sweat from running into my eyes, and it just pours off me as though from a tap – bringing my hands down in Samasthiti, I sometimes watch it run in streams from each hand and make ‘pud pud’ sounds on my mat like rain leaking onto a carpet

Sometimes I just stopped from plain physical exhaustion – I felt like a car being red-lined. I’d just lie in some improvised Savasana halfway through, staring at the motionless ceiling fan, my face drenched, and throbbing with heat.

Well this morning I was back down to something more typical – 100 minutes. (Whereas one day this month I finished up to find I’d practiced for 2.5 hours!)

Still, walking out the door after those hot practices, taking a deep breath and feeling the cool morning on your face…feels amazing. All I need is that celebrated coconut wala to hand me a cool one.

Good conditioning for going to India this…not that I’m going any time soon.

Doing Asanas For the First Time Again

I must have been a bit of a curiosity when I started practicing at the shala, dropping in out of nowhere like I did. I just showed up at Mysore one morning four weeks ago and kept coming.

Whereas, I gather that most of the yogis ‘grow’ into their practice at the place – for example, they might start off with an ‘Intro to Yoga’ workshop, take a few ‘Yoga Prep’ classes before migrating to led classes (levels 1, 2 and 3). Eventually they could take the ‘Intro to Mysore’ workshop and then ease themselves into the Mysore class.

And there’s me…practicing in my basement like a hermit…and then showing up at DDQW out of the clear blue sky to stake my spot.

Now almost four weeks later I look at how my practice has changed. Most significant is a further realization of how deep, multifaceted and complex each asana is. I am rediscovering and subtly relearning poses that I ‘ticked off’ long ago – small adjustments in placement, emphasis, or nuance. On the other hand, I’m also learning that I’m not as far off in closing the gaps in my practice as I once thought; occasionally during the past week I’ve gotten a quick adjustment or remark from an instructor that ended up advancing an aspect of my practice – bringing me, for example, close to straight-legged jump-throughs, or hand-stand vinyasas; I also ease my way through poses that I once thought gruelling (Mari D) and now routinely get smoothly adjusted into that one pose I once considered beyond me (Supta Kurmasana)…

I have a Shala

I’ll get back to talking about the Yoga Show later, but today marked something of a landmark in my physical practice – the first significant change since I started it three years ago: I took it out of my ‘basement’ and into a shala full-time. I did the Mysore practice at Downward Dog this morning after signing up for an introductory one week; I’ll be extending that into a monthly pass next week.

It’s just a feeling but while I’m still making good progress in some places (backbending for example), in others I’ve reached a plateau. Basically I think I now really need both the subtle tweaks and the firm adjustments that only a regular Shala practice provides.

The practice was phenomenal. Afterwards, I was absolutely drenched. I felt like a rag that had had the dirty water rung hard – twisted and banged – out of it and I felt immense. I couldn’t stop grinning. It reminded me of my first Ashtanga class in 2003.

I’ve gotten used to practicing in my basement or more recently in the gym at my current customer engagement. They’ve at least given me a (more or less) quiet comfortable place to practice. But these are cool places; I’m sure the basement is frequently down in the range of 10 degrees on some practice days, and of course the gym, they purposefully try to keep cool.

The main room at Downward Dog, on the other hand, has plenty of windows facing east and north and the room was intensely warm this morning as Toronto was hot today…even at 6:30 am. I was sweating after the third Surya A and later on would sweat so much that the moisture actually impeded some of my poses; I kept slipping out of Mari D for example and then counter-intuitively the sweat made my thighs and calves ‘grippy’ and made Garbha Pindasana a bit harder to get into. I hadn’t brought a towel as I’d never needed one before.

I got some good robust adjustment in Supta Kurmasana and a few more subtle ones elsewhere. Walking out of the place, I felt they way you do when you leave home. It already felt that good and right. I felt like I belonged to the place. Later, as I drove up Jarvis to Bloor (I should have taken Spadina) with the sun to my back, and the windows and sun roof all the way open, the wind drying my still-sweating brow, I wondered why I hadn’t joined the Shala sooner.

Yoga: The Show and Conference, 2008. Part 1

I volunteered at the Yoga Show and Conference here in Toronto last weekend. Previously I had attended only one such event back in 2004, where I signed up for workshops with Mark Darby, Dharma Mittra and Beryl Bender Birch. The experience had been positive back then; it broadened my perspective and took me beyond asanas really for the first time. I found literature (in Paramahansa Yogananda’s interpretation of the Bhagavad Gita and in Iyengar’s guide to the Yoga Sutras) that fundamental transformed my approach to Yoga. I was also inspired in the company of the thousands of Yogis of all ages who had wandered into Toronto for the show from all over the continent – with their enthusiasm, commitment, and zeal. Also, it was at that conference that I made what now seems to me a common sense realization that being in the company of Yogis makes you feel good – at peace, contented, relaxed and deep-breathing (It seems common sense to me now because I guess I’ve known all along that you absorb the energy, positive or negative, of those around you).

I started out planning to sign up for some workshops and come as a regular attendee, but changed my mind and decided to volunteer instead. What with the return to reasonable work hours, and the wife and girls accompanying my In-Laws to Los Angeles for the weekend, the timing of the show was perfect for me.

I chose to volunteer primarily as a way to ‘give back’ to Yoga (having gotten so much from it); having unpaid volunteers instead of paid staff allows the event to become accessible (i.e. cheaper) for attendees. Also, perhaps after 8 years of practice I figure maybe even I had some modest insights to share with the other attendees (as well as benefiting myself from theirs). Then, there was professional curiosity compelling me; I’m a Project Manager and I wanted to see how a Project such as this one, so far outside my usual business (IT Consulting) is run. Volunteers are expected to be available for 19 hours of work. The work itself is varied and includes anything from assisting the various exhibitors to running workshops (managing the doors, keeping the faculty on time etc). In return volunteers can attend workshops when they aren’t scheduled for tasks (provided there’s room) and have free access to the show floor. We also got to keep our uniforms (a nice bag from Bandha, Yoga Pants from Show sponsors Roots, and a show ’staff’ T-shirt.

Instead of the mandated 19, I must have put in about 30 hours over weekend. The place was addictive. I didn’t want to leave each day – it just felt good to be in the company of these Yogis, whether attendees, volunteers, staff or faculty. But ironically, in spite of intending to give back, and for all the extra time I donated working the show, I still figure I got so much more out of it than I gave.

David Swenson on Pranayama and Bandhas

I heard a wonderful explanation from David Swenson regarding the importance of pranayama, breath bandhas in Yoga and their relationship to Asanas; He used the analogy of an sculptor. To build a statue an artist needs and uses both heavy duty tools and detail-oriented tools. Smash away first with a hammer and large chisel to get some ways to where you need to get…and then use the smaller picks, chisels and scrapers to bring out the detail. You need both

You could use the subtle tools alone but that would take a very long time. You could use the heavy duty tools alone but the end product won’t have the subtle detail you need. The Asanas are the heavy duty tools. Pranayama and Bandhas the subtle tools. The former prepares the body and the nervous system for the power – the prana – that will be released through pranayama, and then contained and channeled by engaging the bandhas.

He Blogs Again

My blogging petered out because I no longer had the time. There is always time of course but for me, in the year that was 2007, where sleep and asanas were themselves scarcely scheduled, blogging didn’t really have a chance.

What a year… a beast that I ended with 115% billable utilization. I spent the summer working 80/90 hours a week and one monumental ‘day’ in July started at 6:00 am on Wednesday and ended at 11:00 pm on Thursday. Predictably it was a good year for the ego – I made a lot of money and increased my visibility in the Company (whatever that’s worth). I also kinda burned out…well I did burn out….and took December off to unwind, rest up, (and fill out)…and gear myself up for a new gig at a new account. I started January 15 pounds to the good. I didn’t do much yoga during my month off. Instead I took care of the household chores that piled up over a year of neglecting home – at least the urgent ones. I played with the girls. I bought proper Christmas presents.

Yoga wise, I would hazard a wild guess that on average I practiced two or maybe three times a week last year. Not so bad except that  there’d be 5 a week of my regular old 4:30 am practices and then a couple of weeks of none at all. That kind of thing.

And now? I’ve shifted into the slow lane for year. This suits me right now. I haven’t worked more than 45 hours a week since January – and haven’t worked a weekend (I don’t plan to either). Since January I’ve been re-building up my physical practice. (In January I was startled to find myself no longer binding Mari A – not comfortably at any rate).

It’s all back now. After a March in which I set a new benchmark for consistency – I only failed to practice on 6 days the entire month (and two of those were Moon days), I’m back where I left off. Which is where? Which is wondering how I get my feet behind my head and starting to peer beyond the primary practice to what lies beyond.

I’m also getting well past my infatuation with our (admittedly gorgeous) physical business – and putting it more than ever in it’s proper context and place. My yoga is broadening again past asanas; which so far involves a lot of reading -  Paramahansa Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi, Gandhi’s Autobiography, Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth, Andrew Weil’s Breathing – all of which have much to offer an aspiring yogi.

That’s all for now. Talk to you all again next year. Just kidding.

Mysore Talk

Mysore’s surrounded by forests in every direction except the one that takes you to Bangalore. That’s what my team lead told me – I have him here for a couple of months to work with us as I ramp up a project. He was born in Bangalore but grew up in Mysore; went to the University of Mysore. He knows exactly where Gokulam is: ‘Eight kilometres from the Hotel Metropole Uncle-ji’ he tells my Dad, before adding for further detail ‘on the road to Coorg’.

I invited him home to spend last weekend with us so that he could enjoy a home cooked meal, and watch a bit of Zee…and escape for a day or so the loneliness of his Hotel Apartment (even Queen West and Simcoe gets boring after a while…especially for this quiet lad who’s not one for going on benders). He evidently loves the countryside though, and he was taken with the lushness of our Niagara Escarpment. He said it reminded him of the Western Ghats.

Most of all he loved playing with Diya which took him back to his own little girl back in Bangalore. Or at least he tried to play with her…he’s tall, thin, mustachioed, and bespectacled and she was quite scared of him…and only really got used to him just before it was time for me to drive him back downtown.

He lives in Bangalore now – one of our firm’s five ‘centres’ in the country. But he’s got his heart set on going back to Mysore…and he’s lucky…our company’s Mysore campus will be ready in 2008 and a transfer is his if he wants it. He’s building a house there on fair sized plot that cost him what a half-decent bicycle would cost here; ‘But that was three years ago Ash’, he tells me before gushing…’now it’s worth four times as much!’ Evidently the corporates are tiring of swollen Bangalore and beginning to decamp for Mysore…wonder what that spells for the place.

Like Sharath he spends a lot of time in those forests and he regaled me all weekend with stories: being chased by frenzied elephants in the night; or spending evenings in shelters that were built by rangers who once scoured the forests for the dreaded, but now dead, dacoit (bandit) Veerapan. His talk of Gokulam, Tigers, Bandits, Forests and ‘the road to Coorg’ made me want to go. The coffee is fantastic in Coorg.

My manager is now contemplating sending me to India for a two year stint. It came up in conversation and I said ‘I’d go’ (rather blithely when I think of it now). I even added that I wouldn’t even have to consider it if I got to live in Mysore…I’d be on the next flight. And now she might hold me to it. Quite apart from the ‘details’ (wife, kids, and the house – on the lush Niagara Escarpment – that we all adore), I’m really taken with the notion. Can you imagine that? Seriously, that is having your nanaimo bar and eating it. imagine keeping your Canadian job and studying Yoga in Mysore for two years…simultaneously. Stuff of dreams innit. Two years at AYRI. Crap…that’s a lot of wonga. I wonder if they have an annual membership.

I suppose I better run this idea by the wife though.

10 Rolfing sessions later…

I had heard some good things about rolfing – particularly as a means to enhance the physical practice. So I gave it a go and went through the standard 10 sessions over the winter. So how do I feel? Any dramatic changes? I have no counter-factual so I can’t say whether my asanas have benefited. I’ve progressed in my poses over the past six months, no doubt,…but whether that’s down to the rolfing I can’t say.

It has had an impact off the mat though. I have greater length – I look longer and leaner in the mirror. Also I feel that I’ve gained an inch or so of height next to colleagues and acquaintances – It’s maybe not so much that I’ve actually added height…but more a matter of standing straighter and therefore getting my full height. In the past, I’d occasionally become conscious of my slouching stance and would force my head up…but it felt unnatural. Now standing tall actually feels right and natural. I also walk differently – my feet land evenly now whereas before I rather walked on the outside edges of my feet. My wife swears that I have a far more graceful gait…apparently I had a something like a bow-legged bounce before. The genuine proof of the change in my walking pattern are a pair of shoes I bought last October – they’re not wearing per the old pattern that’s evident on all my old shoes – i.e. outside edges of my heals and soles. And now I’m very conscious of the outward slant that those old shoes are putting on my feet when I have them on (so I guess I better start replacing them).

I have a greater awareness of my body – that’s really what my sessions have given me. I realize for example that the chronic tightness in my hamstrings is down to the fact that, probably all my adult life, I have been leaning forward when on my feet, with the weight of my body on the front half of my feet. Try it yourself. Stand up with your weight evenly distributed on your feet. Hold your hamstrings…and now lean forward…can you feel them tighten? Well that’s what my issue has been. My hamstrings have been more or less constantly engaged.

So with those kind of benefits I suppose my asanas have improved subtly…but without any massive breakthroughs (which I suppose would have been unrealistic and unfair to expect).

Speaking of asanas, the past three weeks or so have seen me on the mat on 4-5 times a week…the mad hours have dissipated and it’s good to be back to what again resembles a daily practice.