A Tribute To Our Yoga Teachers On The International Yoga Day!

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We met our Guruji for the first time, the lady with the white dupatta! We admire her a lot!

I had been doing yoga for many years now! But only for the past 4 years, I do it very regularly, thanks to the teachers from the above yogashram.

The International Yoga Day was celebrated last Sunday itself by our centre, since this day, 21st June, is falling on a working day, Wednesday.   They had been celebrating for many years now.  But we, 6 of us who learn yoga at our complex itself (the teacher comes and takes 4 classes a week for 9 of us ladies on our terrace!) joined this celebration for the first time.  Our class is for an hour.  We usually do one set of Suryanamaskara, i.e. 12 nos., on 2 week days' evenings and 2 sets mostly on 2 days' (week ends) mornings since the weather will be cool in the mornings. When the teacher coaxed us to join the celebration and pushed us to do more sets, i.e. 4-5 sets for the past 10 days, we found it very difficult to do....or so we thought! Still we never dreamt of doing 108 suryanamaskaras and 208 aasanaas, AT A STRETCH! But we did! She, the teacher, had assured us that it would not be difficult since we do it with so many people around us!

Nearly 300 odd people, mostly women and some men, joined at the venue (Rani Meyyammai Higher Secondary School, Adyar) at 5.30 on the morning of 18th June, '17.  I noticed that more than 20% of them were above 50 years of age, myself included! More than 50% of us opted for doing both Suryanamaskara and aasanaas and the rest joined for doing just the aasanaas.  We were given token nos. and asked to sit at the allotted places on two floors of the school auditorium.  Though we were given juices and water bottles, we were asked to sip only water till the programme was over.

The programme started with our usual prayer.  On the way to the venue we were discussing about how much we might do and it didn't cross 6-7 sets! Our teacher Rathi Madam started the mantras and all of us started bending stretching, rhythmically...in a bit  slower pace than we usually do at our classes.  A 70 year old lady was doing easily in front of me! Some small children also were there...they were too fast and were waiting for us to finish! And all of us ladies from our complex, finished without taking any break! After shanthi aasanaa for 2 mts., we started doing aasanaas.  Till, nearly 100 aasanas we were fast and did without feeling tired.  Then we started looking at each other discussing if we should stop at 108! But we somehow finished 208 aasanaas!

Our ages were 64 (me!), 61, 56 and so on...we could do it at our age was because of the good teachers we had.  They never pushed us but coaxed us to do difficult aasanaas slowly.  If they taught tough aasanas one day, next class was with easy aasanas like spine relaxation, extra breathing exercise etc.  The 208 aasanaas we did after the main suryanamaskaara, have helped us to recover from the body pain fast later on.  All of us had thigh and back pain for a day or two.  We are back to normal on the third day and attended our usual class.

My friend saw a maami wearing brahmin type of sari and doing the namaskaaras.  She was very comfortable, it seems.

We hope to continue as long as we can!  I had written a post earlier too about yoga here!

Now, to some pictures from the Yoga celebrations:

Getting ready!

They gave us a prize too for being regulars in the class! We got medals for doing Suryanamaskara and asanaas, separately....altogether 2 medals each and a cup! We will display it in our complex and lure more ladies to join our class! IT IS GOOD!

Our namaskaarams to all our teachers!
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I AM A Health Freak! Does It Help In The Long Run? YES!

Surya Namskaar

Where shall I start this article about myself?! Well...I was always worried about getting FAT! So, from my young age, I never fancied fried foods, sweets etc.  If I have lunch at a function, I skip my dinner, mostly, or just have curd rice.

When I was young, I and my brothers and sisters used to walk to school, which was around 3 - 3 and half Km. from home.  I was working for a few years...again running to catch a bus or train and then walk for 20 mts. from the bus stop! I never thought it as stressful at that time...young age?! After my two sons joined school, I started doing exercises, which continues even now!

I learnt yoga seriously when I was 35.  I was in Hosur at that time where I had many friends.  We asked a master to come from Bangalore once a week and teach us yoga! I learnt Surya namaskara from him and do it even now! I feel that this has all the postures - important postures of yoga and activates all parts of our body.  I used to do 12 namaskaras and it has reduced to 5 now, though.  After doing other small exercises and yoga postures, I finish off with surya namaskara.

I thought since I take care of myself so carefully, I will always be healthy.  But I became a diabetic at the age of 53 and BP also joined shortly.  Stress? Maybe.  It was after menopause.  I have heard that many women get some sort of permanent ailment after menopause which hurt me a lot for a long time.    Is it true? But I couldn't believe I had diabetes! But, thank god,  I never felt weak.  Learnt Sudarshana Kriya (Art of Living).  It is very good.  But after doing it promptly for 6 - 7 months, somewhere I stopped doing it! I am going for walks with my husband regularly and do cycling in the exercise cycle (regularly!).  Sometimes we skip walking but I see to it that I do some sort of exercise everyday.

I noticed a few years back that I was waking up early, at about 2 or 3 am in the morning and never went back to sleep. This aggravated slowly and for the past 3-4 months I started full 'no sleep nights' continuously for 3 to 4 days often.  I was not able to sleep even for 15 mts. in the afternoon. Then sleep again for 3,4,5 hours for a week or so and again 'no sleep' nights. My doctor asked me to have dinner early and walk for half an hour before sleeping.  No, it didn't  work.  Hot water bath before sleep...oohmm, no, it didn't work.  My Ophthalmologist asked me to take a tsp. of poppy seeds in hot milk before going to bed...I took it for more than a month.  No reaction. More than not sleeping, I was worried about the side effects of it.  Will my memory weaken...or some nervous problem crop up, etc.  As per doctor's advice, I took .25 mg of Anxit for a few days.  He said that it will regularise the sleep.  I used to wake up at 1 am even after taking the tablet.  Funny thing is, I never felt weak.  I was doing the regular household work as usual.  My relatives used to call me in the morning and ask 'thookkam?!' (sleep?).  I don't like to watch TV at night.  I read sometimes.  But my eyes became tired after sometime.  My son was playing 'sleep inducing' music...but it didn't help! Both husband and son used to look at my face often after 9 pm.  If they think that I am feeling sleepy, they would switch off the TV, put ear plugs in my ears (they think that I might wake up with the stabilizer or road traffic sound!) and compel me to sleep.  10 mts. and I will wake up and sit up! Sometimes I was so restless that I was not able to even lie down peacefully.

Then one doctor told me, 'never go for sleeping pills, go for meditation, stop worrying about mundane things. Family means, problems will be there.  You have to take care of your health.'  My son took me to a 'therapautic yoga' teacher. She is a student of Yogacharya Krishnamaachari.  She taught me breathing exercises.  I practice this exercise everyday.  I used to get headaches in the early mornings on 'no sleep' days earlier (it was not there in the morning!).  I feel better mentally, now.  I am back to the old active self, my relatives say.  OK, I don't sleep for 7-8 hours, but at least for 5 hours, now!

I feel I am coming out of all health problems because of the Surya namaskara I was doing all these years and now breathing exercises.  This is the first step to meditation, the yoga teacher said.  I was going there once a week for 3 weeks.  Now, once in two weeks.

Tension is the worst enemy.  I had some skin problem, though it has reduced now, because of tension.  No medicine can cure ailments which come because of tension. We must keep on telling ourselves that 'we will cross this phase soon'.  Life is full of ups and downs.

Now, do warm up exercises, surya namaskara and then 'inhale....exhale' slowly'! You will feel good!


Picture courtesy: Wikipedia

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