Saturday, August 22, 2015

Sri Sri yoga – a honest experience sharing

Two of my dear friends recently became Sri Sri Yoga teachers and have decided to organize a course here in Austin. I thought what better way to publicize to an event than to share my own experiences practicing the same. 

What is Sri Sri yoga?
In my humble words, it is a sequence of poses that would take around 30-40mins to complete and if done on a regular basis can improve the quality of the day and life in general

What makes it different from others?
I have explored other yoga studios in the past and none of them offered any take home practice and everyone wanted me to come back to the studio to practice in the studio. With Sri Sri yoga, we have a take home practice. The best part, in the 2 weekends (format could be different now), we were given enough knowledge to take our yoga practice as deep as we wanted to, essentially saying one can tailor the practice to their needs and time availability.

Can I elaborate on it’s impact?
I did the yoga course almost 3 and half years ago but never ever practiced it, let alone regularly. What was the excuse?, very simple, it is hard to find that 40mins of alone time to practice.

But, in 2013 when I was in some sort of low phase (relatively) and wanted to get out of it, upon a friend’s suggestion I took up the challenge to practice Sri Sri Yoga for 40 days and I saw the difference in my energy levels on the very first day.

Ever had the feeling of “floating in the air” or “things are getting done more efficiently” or the feeling of “I can handle this”, yes that is my state of mind after completing the practice and I carry that throughout (most of) the day.

Since then, every time I become aware that my energy levels are not up to the mark than what I expect them to be, I know the trick to get out of it.

If my memory serves right, somebody had asked the question as to what is the difference between this Yoga practice and Padmasadhana and SriRam-ji had said both have similar set of postures but one is designed for a healthy and happy state of mind while other is meant for deeper meditation. I have no knowledge about Padmasadhana but yes Sri Sri Yoga will help you to have happier state of mind. 

The blog post won’t be complete without thanking Sandhya, who pushed me to do the course. Rewind 4 years back, my excuse was, what is the point of learning something when I do not have time to practice?, but she proved me wrong and showed me that one needs to learn when they can as one never knows when it would come handy.

At the outset knowing your Ayurvedic body type and tailoring the yoga practice accordingly would make the practice better and enjoyable. More about that in a later post.

So, good luck friends and have fun co-teaching the course

ps: I was told the course has been renamed to Art of Living Yoga and no longer advertised as Sri Sri Yoga

Monday, August 17, 2015

Rangi Tharanga

I had heard a great deal about this movie called Rangi Tharanga and when Sandhya told me that the director Anup Bhandari was her classmate once upon a time, I definitely wanted to see the movie. In general I would Google the movie before hand and would have had an idea about the plot but this time around I made an exception to the rule and went to the theater blank slate.

So, what is the movie about? 

  • A horror, romantic, suspense thriller with slight amount of action
  • A movie that throws curve ball after curve ball towards the audience
  • A movie that keeps you on the edge of the seat from start to end (no, not like Bourne series) 
  • A movie that re-defines suspense thrillers
  • A movie with some wonderful songs
  • A movie which doesn’t add songs for no reason
  • A movie that has the fewest technical and logical flaws
  • A movie that has the best cinematography along with best story and best direction
  • A movie with the original story, last one with this level of intensity was Kahani in hindi
  • A movie that for the first time ever in my life-time in Austin had 4 shows in a theater and almost all shows were packed
  • A movie that had a good blend of old and new talents
  • A movie that had brand new artists who performed like veterans
  • A movie that is definitely not a family (I wouldn’t recommend for kids) entertainer
  • A movie that in my ratings would be a PG-13    

Great job Anup Bhandari, hope to see more work like this in the future.

If you haven’t seen it and there is a chance to see in a theater do it, its worth the money and time. 

Wednesday, August 12, 2015

Doggy camp and boarding

Recently when we had to go on our vacation, most of the stuff related to vacation like tickets, accommodations and attractions were done in advance. But this time around unlike last time we had a family member who wasn't going to accompany us on our trip and of course she is not able to handle herself by herself either, no she is not old or bed ridden, in fact she is young at heart and in body too. Yes you guessed it right, it was our pet daisy.
Thanks to our Circle C Ranch Facebook page I found a few dog highly recommended dog boarding places that I short listed to checkout
In general
  • There are a lot of dog boarding places in and around our neighborhood
  • 4th of July, Thanksgiving and Christmas are the busiest times and
  • The cost of boarding is in the range of $30-$35/day
  • I can’t comment about the business side but almost all the places I visited had decent number or a lot of dogs
  • Most dog boarding places are plain boarding places and that means they provide a semi private indoor place for your pet and let them out every 3 to4 hours for 10-15mins and put them back inside
  • They in general won't allow group play for dogs or more than required time outside the kennels
  • Some places were ridiculous, they were quoting extra $15-$20 for 10-15mins of group play in a day.
  • One of the places even offered a doggie massage and also human time instead of group time, that would be $10-$20 for 15mins
  • The same place also offered nature walk for the pup but 10mins walk would cost $15, considering I take my dog out for 40minute walk in the morning and something similar in the evening, 10minutes sounded ridiculous
  • After seeing the other places out there, day camp and boarding at our neighborhood petsmart looks very primitive (no outdoor space and cramped play space)
  • Of all the places I visited best I liked was Dog Camp in Dripping Springs and next one was Bobby Colorado training camp
Since I couldn’t get Dog Camp, I had to board her at Bobby Colorado. At the end of 10 days, my pup looked happy and I admit had lost some weight but nothing to worry about.