Yoga and time makes me whine

28Jan11, 7am: Silent Hot Yoga with Martina Lee

29Jan11, 9am: Hot Yoga with Deva Biswas

I came out of this class thinking that it was a very easy class... hmmm....

30Jan11, 6pm: Hot Yoga with Anjan Kundu

This was pay-back from having an "easy" class on Saturday! If I ever thought any of the other yoga teachers of East Indian descent were tough, it's because I hadn't had an Anjan class yet. Anjan is Bengali... I'm not sure if there are different styles of yoga instruction based on which part of India you are from, but his style was crazy! It could also be because he's been practicing since he was 8 and competing for many years as well. I find the yoga teachers who compete or do talent-based yoga shows to be quite different anyway. He's tough, bossy, and has no concept of time (or enjoys making light of the passing time), which ends up making me VERY cognizant of time. I wanted it to END! Take note of this and laugh when you read my other post from today about figuring out your talents! I wrote it before this yoga class and will finish it in a bit. Anyway, it was almost ornery the way he would count down while we were holding a position... he'd pause at a number and ask us which number came next, e.g. he would say "three"... we would say "two" and then he'd say "NO!" and start counting UP again! WTF!!! (I can't believe I just wrote "WTF" on my blog, but it seems appropriate) Then sometimes he'd be counting down, "three, two" and then he'd just walk around and adjust people or maybe say something like "further" or "stretch harder." Meanwhile we're all wondering what happened to the "one" and about to curse him, at least I was. I think I even spoke out loud, "alright already" at one point. I did get into some postures I hadn't tried before and the class shook up my routine a bit. I even got all the way down into both sides of the splits with my arms straight up in the air and a slight back-bend. Yes, the yoga competitors always seem to work the splits into their classes... not the first time. Well, I promised to try a new class and/or teacher each week, and it had been getting more and more difficult to do that and stick to my usual schedule. So, I took this opportunity this weekend to do that, and I'm glad I did. I know that I'll chose Anjan for yoga class if I'm in that kind of mood. It was fine tonight, but I know that style won't always suit me. Good to know!

Back on track

22Dec2010, 7am Hot Yoga with Shirley Wong

23Dec2010, 11am Body Pump with Juan, 20 min. sprints on treadmill

24Dec2010, 7am Silent Hot Yoga with Martina Lee

Silence is a virtue...

Very temporary hiatus

10Dec10, 7am: Hot yoga with Martina Lee

11Dec10, 6pm: Hot yoga with Ocean Liang (new teacher)

12Dec10: no yoga :-(

13Dec10, 7am: Hot yoga with Michael Lau

I'm a bit behind on my blog posting but that actually makes me very proud, as I'm trying to put as much as my focus as possible on the upcoming week in Australia. I have an interview

for a job that I've been working on, writing proposals for, getting long listed, medium listed, short listed, and now flown in for interviews. I have to give a seminar as well as go through the

rigours of meet-and-greet with the department and the Centre of Excellence, and so I'm trying my best to keep the blinders and and work diligently until my flight Monday night. It won't be long, and I'll be back to it, though, as I've been saving up some funny stories and a lot of deep thoughts to ponder. Until then... good-aye mate?

What a weekend...

I've got so much to write about, but now is not the time, as I'm absolutely, positively exhausted and have a personal training session with Wallace at 7am Mon. morning. Meanwhile, my topics list is as follows:

1Dec10: no yoga or fitness and TONS of walking

2Dec10: no yoga or fitness

3Dec10, 6:30pm: Power Yoga with Jasmine (Kim joined me)

4Dec10, 12noon: Hot Yoga with Michael Lau (Kim joined me)

5Dec10: no yoga or fitness but TONS of walking

- holding on to pain, if we hold on to it, e.g. after a particularly tough yoga posture or weight-lifting sequence, our body remembers and won't try again...

- practicing no harm, meaning even no harm to ourselves...

- more on time... especially with a loved one

I shall return when I have some sleep!

It's not the time...

28Nov10, 11:30am Power Yoga with Michael Lau

I was in a state of bliss having seen my wife, Kim, for the first time in almost a month, as she finally arrived to Hong Kong Saturday evening about 8pm. It was like we'd never skipped a beat, like two puzzle pieces, different on our own but solidly linked when together, as always...

I left her at 7:30am Sunday morning, as she had to fly to mainland China for a few days, but I will be meeting her in Taiwan on Tuesday, for which I'm quite excited.

We had a big breakfast at the hotel, which I'm not used to unless it's a brunch/lunch on a weekend, but still... so I was quite happy to go back home and relax, go back to sleep another hour, until heading to yoga a bit later. I'm taking a lot of opportunities to sleep lately, which is interesting and a good sign I think. More on that later.

Yoga was good. I like this teacher a lot, but I don't think my body was at 100% this morning. The last few workouts I've had have been good ones, and I think collectively made my body sore. I love that soreness, but I need to realize that when I'm sore, I probably won't be able to do the full lotus or Padmāsana and the crow or Kākāsana with full extension would be difficult today. Remember Jodie, that's ok. I did look around and saw that everyone else was doing full Padmāsana except for me, and a tear welled in my eye. That leads me to touch back on the idea of "comparison" as it seems like a source of a lot of anxiety for me... my intellect, my body and weight, my athletic performance, my yoga... everything. We are taught to compare in life... this is big, that is small, this is white, that is black... and so it must be hard for us not to translate that to everything else in our lives. Especially for me, as a scientist, it is my career to make comparisons, sometimes I even employ sophisticated statistics in order to do so, as the naked eye isn't always enough to sense differences. Therefore, I'm trained to compare, I'm good at comparing, and it's instinctual for me to compare... I quickly acknowledged my feelings and moved on in my practice. Ultimately, I think it turned out really well.

My teacher today also touched on an idea that is important to me... the idea of time. He couched it within the context of his current favourite song by a French artist. The song, titled "It is not the time" touches on how time isn't the issue... it's priorities. I think about this often when I think that "I don't have time" for something. Before the words leave my mouth, I mentally rephrase that I had other priorities that were higher on my list that day, or something to that extent. I think this is a really good lesson for me and everyone else out there... next time we're feeling time-crunched, consider what priorities are occupying your time and which ones are getting excluded... we all have 24 hours in a day, 7 days in a week, etc. We make our own choices, however.

Indeed, "it's not the time"... it's us...