Why is slowing down so damn hard?

This week was the first week of a new session in my dance school, Antara Asthaayi Dance. We are still a relatively new school - we started classes in Mountain View in 2019. The usage of the first-person plural 'we' is something I am still getting used to. For the longest time, I felt such imposter syndrome when I'd be writing the marketing/promotion materials for AAD with  the word 'we.' There was no 'we.' It was just me, myself, I, doing this all. Happily, there are now three of us who are on the team at AAD. 

Starting a new class takes a lot of energy. The kids are ages 6-8, and unlike past classes, some of these children have barely attended kindergarten, thanks to the pandemic. Add to that, we're all wearing our masks and 80% of the energy I'm giving to the children is lost. I left the first class unsure - was that a good class? I had no gauge. 

I'm barely two weeks out from having thrown out my hip & lower back. I've taken efforts to get all the help I can - friends & family are cooking meals for me, my colleague is driving me to work, another is helping me teach the classes by physically standing in and doing the dancing for me. I am able to warm up the food for us, and do an occasional load of the dishwasher. But after teaching two hours in the evening, reaching home, getting dinner served on the table -- my body is broken like it has never felt before. I seriously can feel all my muscles on the brink of collapsing any minute now. And yet, I push just a little more - going to the toilet, filling my water bottle for my bedside, plugging in my heated blanket ... until my body collapses on the bed, wishing not to have to move for the rest of the night. 

I have a problem with slowing down. I feel like this injury came at a very opportune moment because as the world is starting to look like it's opening up, I am revving my engine at the start line, waiting for the green light to go  0-100 as fast as I can. 

And this is after all my repeated efforts over the years to slow my life down. Well, it's not slow enough. I took a look at my schedule for tomorrow, and it looks insane to me already: get myself dressed up, and the dance studio room presentable for a Facebook live dance event at 8:30am, Zoom into a book club, serve lunch to me and my son, take a taal class with my guru, teach one hour kathak on zoom, and go out to dinner with a friend in the evening. This sounds like a torturous day, I need to figure out what to remove. I will listen to my body tomorrow, and if I cannot do something, I will say no, and cancel. However sad it makes me to do that. Something's gotta give - and it will not be my body or health. 

So, I am percolating in my slowed down state of life -- really, it is much slower. Each evening, I'm in my bed by 7:30-8pm, and I don't fall asleep until after 11. I have 3-4 hours of solo time for myself, where I am reading, writing, thinking, creating, planning, imagining, fantasizing. A movie/mini-series project, episodes for my Patreon page, a new program in the curriculum of my dance school, contemplating non-profit status for my dance school, grants to apply for, prepping an upcoming AirBnB property ... all in various stages of development. Some will come to fruition - like the AirBnB property, and others will remain a figment of my over-active imagination for years to come - like the mini-series. But if it's about the journey, and not the destination, I'm glad to say I am enjoying this journey. 

Update: I managed to do all the activities on that overly packed Friday without further hurting my body. While I am glad that was the case, I will not use that as the metric of the standard of what all I can accomplish in a given day. I must continue to listen to my body, and make choices to move my life in a leisurely pace, where I can continue to enjoy the beauty of all the small moments.

The last agenda item on my packed Friday - dinner with my dear friend Farah. 

       

 

Lesson learnt, point taken.

Remember all those times you swore you would never do 'said particular thing' again? In my 20's, the phrase usually came up in reference to a late-night out drinking. "Let's never drink again." If I could go back to my 20-something self, I would remind her that it's as simple as 1-2-3 - 1) drinking water, 2) filling yourself up on greasy fast food before you crashed, and 3) two Tylenols and one ibuprofen. When you wake up the next afternoon,, you're golden for your brunch mimosas. 

Hangovers - that was the big change going from your 20's to your 30's. “Newsflash - You had your first real hangover.” And then your second. And a third .... until you accepted that your body of this decade would regularly revolt against your insensitive judgements.

 

On a tangential thread, I recently read a fascinating best-seller called "Why We Sleep," written by a sleep scientist. Aside from the so many eye-opening (no pun intended) things I learnt about how imperative sleep is to our existence ... I also learnt that in the maturation stages of the brain, going from child to adult, one of the last areas to mature into adulthood is the area that makes logical decisions. That explains a lot of the choices I made in my 20's. 

Well, now I've hit my 40's, and am learning the next hard lesson of this decade. You cannot physically exert your body the same way you did before. 

Three years ago, the summer of 2018, I was leading my life at full throttle (as always). My newly formed dance company had been accepted into one of the most prestigious dance festivals this side of the Mississippi - the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival. I was training, choreographing, and musically conducting 9 dancers, 5 musicians, and myself for this world premiere at the prestigious 3,000 seater SF Opera House. It would be my biggest performance to date. Two weeks later, we were premiering an evening length show, self-produced, featuring 90 minutes of all-new repertoire that I was creating/composing/choreographing, and rehearsing 4-6x a week. In between this, I also met with social media superstar kathak dancer Svetlana Tulasi for a brief 24 hour period, where we choreographed, and shot a music video - immediately after which we both parted and rushed off - myself to another 4 hour rehearsal with my musicians, and she to a 3 hour workshop. 

When you're going full-speed, everything is extreme. Your highs are high, and your lows are low. Being on that grand stage was one of the finest moments of my life. I had never seen an auditorium of that grandeur - at least not from the vantage point where I was standing then. I looked out to the audience, and kept looking higher and higher - it was as if the audience reached all the way to the sky. 

I also remember one of the two days of the SF Ethnic Dance Festival performances, I had a terrible depression. The kind where you can't bring yourself to get out of bed - let alone drive 50 miles, do hair/makeup for seventy minutes, and then dance as if you owned the stage for twelve minutes. I remember a distinct moment, when we were in the last one minute of our performance. I had one last set of spins left, and then the finale. I was so tired. Not because a lack of stamina - I was just tired of talking, smiling, guiding my students, making pleasantries with my colleagues, and going about this spectacular day in the most professional/personable way I could. In that split second moment, I chose to "cheat," and do one less spin than the piece advocated for. This may sound silly to you, but for me, it was indicative of a debilitating state of mental health. 

And it's no surprise when you're pushing so hard, that both your mental health, and your physical health suffer. 

We finished both those concerts that summer, and my teaching calendar suddenly was wide open without any major rehearsals. Always needing to keep pushing myself to the brink, I decided to do a 30-day Facebook Live footwork practice something-or-the-other, where I’d share a live practice session of about 20 minutes of intense footwork each day. Thinking back, this choice was made out of fear. Fear that if I don't have an upcoming performance, I will fall out of regular practice. 

Now, I can't remember if it was already starting to hurt, but I have a recollection that in the first week of this footwork challenge, I carried my then six year boy in my 'godi.' As moms, we all hold our kids at the strangest of angles, while multi-tasking other things. My son was probably close to 50+ lbs, but more problematic was the fact that he was 2/3 my height. It is very imbalanced to hold something heavy that is almost as big as you. 

I strained my left hip. The piraformus. I quit my Facebook footwork series within 8 days, feeling like a complete failure, and berating myself for how weak I am. I don't even know what happened for the next year, but I must have gotten used to a low level (like, 2 out of 10) pain in my left hip. Each time I would amp up dancing (usually before a performance), the pain would come back. This pattern continued until 2020. 

I threw my back out for the first time in 2020, a week after the Shelter-in-Place order. Like the rest of the world, I had to switch my work to Zoom, and I taught hours of Zoom kathak classes sitting in my bed, because the other desks in the house were taken by my son and husband. Throwing out my back was one of the scariest experiences ever. I panicked when I found myself STUCK. Like, I literally could not move, and even a slight centimeter of movement caused pain beyond belief. Like, contractions-labor-level-pain (that is always my metric for pain, bc that was seriously the craziest pain I have ever experienced). My cousin-in-law, who has thrown his back out several times, came to my virtual rescue, and taught me exercises to get out of my stuck. My physician cousin prescribed me ibuprofen and muscle relaxers. I had learnt my lesson - I would never allow myself to get to this point again. 

Never say never. 

Cut-to, exactly a year later. In the last 12 months, my back has gotten to the "almost thrown out" stage at least 3x. Each time, I would slow down, do my physical therapy for a few weeks, and then go back to my normal life. 

The same thing happened two weeks ago. I slept on a soft mattress, and then tweaked my back while showing my students how to do pushups with proper posture (irony at its best). My back was on the verge of getting thrown out - so I took my standard precaution, and slowed down for about a week. Then it felt better, and I amped up my practice and did 4 solid practices in a matter of one week. I was feeling sore after the last practice, and did yoga the next morning - and after a seemingly innocuous downward dog, it happened. 

My body said a big "Fuck you" to me. 

My left hip completely seized up. I couldn't stand. For THREE DAYS. Each time I would stand, an acute pain would emanate from the exact place my original injury of three years ago, and it would spread. Within 30 seconds, the pain would be so much, I would have to sit down, and could feel my thighs spasm for several minutes afterwards. I couldn't sleep, because there was no position in which I wasn't in pain. And from a mental point, I was bored, depressed, and freaked out. My fatalistic thinking took over - what if I could never dance again? It worried me that the pain had not reduced in these first few days - that this time I had really messed it up in a permanent sort of way. But, fortunately for me, on the third day, the pain became ever so slightly less. Over the next few days, I could stand for a few minutes at a time, and stretch a little. I could feel that the pain was just the same little hip injury from 3 years ago, screaming and shouting at me to take care of her. 

 

I am allowing myself to feel the reality sink in. I'm in my 40's, and I have to do things differently. In my 30's, I had to be mindful of alcohol consumption. In my 40's, I have to be mindful of physical exertion. I CAN still do the physical work as my 30’s - but with all the work that comes along with it. 

I have finally gotten a physical therapist, who will be my regular BFF now. Seriously, bc I will be seeing more of her than most of my own friends. Nowadays, there are all these cool apps that help with accountability of doing your exercises. Last time I was in PT, they were still sending you home with photocopied worksheets of what stretches you needed to do. I probably don't need to tell you that I lost those sheets even before I made it home. 

I suppose my 50 year old self would be looking back at me and saying, it's as simple as 1-2-3: 1) warmup, 2) stretch 3) Self-care i.e. REST. Well, I hope I can heed the wise advice of the 'been-there-done-that' version of myself. No, I change that. I'm not going to hope. I AM TAKING THE ADVICE. Three years of ignoring an injury deserves at least three months of my full attention. And so, I focus on fully healing. Once I am healed, I continue to strengthen. My 40's body will allow me do my dance as I wish, just as long as I remember to do the needful. 

Teaching kathak at the park, while seated. 

Perspective

Today is International Women's Day. I only know this because a bunch of people sent me texts wishing me. I'll be honest, it's not a day that has had much importance to me. It just feels like another one of those days that they have created in the calendar. Like National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day. Ok, not a fair comparison, but you get where I'm coming from. 

When I saw the texts from folks, the first thought that came to mind was, "Oh, I should probably post something about this also." This refers to posting on my social media for Antara Asthaayi Dance. It really wasn't coming from the heart at all, and I had accepted that I wouldn't be partaking in the commemoration of this important day. 

Then at my weekly meeting, my team member presented me with this:

I immediately loved it, and the image/message sent my neurons firing away, sparking a desire to tell my story, whatever that was. 

I composed a short message for my Facebook/IG that touched upon my train of thinking - the irony that kathak is performed and preserved predominantly by women, yet our gharanas (schools) are all headed by men. This thought came to me because I was recently teaching my little girls about the Lucknow gharana, and explaining how it was father who passed it on to son, and he onto his son, etc. I added how women weren't really a part of this, because they were expected to get married and have kids. Even saying the words just felt so strange. I'm sure (and hope) it felt totally alien and incomprehensible to them as well.

Further exploring the importance of this day, a friend had shared a creative project with me, where she was listing out women geniuses. She pointed out how the word genius is almost never associated with women. Such a simple point, but so powerful. I started thinking about the women I would consider 'genius,' and struggled with it. I felt resistance when I tried to put Lata Mangeshkar in that category. She is a legendary singer with thousands of songs recorded, has received the highest honor given to any civilian in India (Bharat Ratna), received honorary doctorates from half a dozen universities and arts institutions - and yet I still asked myself, "But is she is genius?" Luckily, Oprah didn't cause that issue for me. No doubt, that woman is pure genius. I began pondering the women I would consider heroes in my life, or 'SHEroes,' as I believe they are called. Again, I struggled. 

I was in conversation with a colleague, discussing a self-help style book the both of us had recently read. At the author's suggestion of how to do a particular exercise, she rolled her eyes and said, "Yeah, that's such a white man's perspective ... not happening, next!" I stopped in my tracks. I had read the same thing, and responded in such a different way. Realizing I would not be able to conduct the exercise the way he had suggested, I took shame/blame on myself - because I was unable to do it the 'right' way. 

This idea of 'perspective' is not something that should be new, but it feels very new to me. Reading interviews with female filmmakers, I hear them share about their perspective on stories, and I find myself scratching my head wondering "what does that mean?" Why or how would a movie or TV show produced or directed by a colored woman be so different? 

Watching Padma Lakshmi's "Taste the Nation" helped answered that question for me. The first episode brought me to tears and a craving for a burrito, at the same time. I had never thought about how much of what we imbibe is colored by the perspective of the white man. And how that, in turn, shapes my own perspective of the world, and my place in it. 

So, I guess I can say, that I am starting to feel the importance of International Women's Day. But really, this needs to be more than just a day, or even a month. Just like the BLM movement, it needs to be a part of our day-to-day thinking. And I guess, that's why more women, and people of color, sharing their stories is so essential to our society. 

I've since added some names to the list of my (women) heroes: Oprah, Ellen DeGeneres, Michelle Obama, Tina Fey, Kamala Harris, Madhur Jaffrey, Padma Lakshmi, Sunidhi Chauhan, Sitara Devi, Gauhar Jaan, Zoya Akhtar, Saroj Khan, Mira Nair, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Greta Thunberg .... and I will keep adding names liberally, as I continue my ongoing education of the incredible women of yesterday and today, while shaping the incredible women of tomorrow!  

Filling up pages - a commitment to myself

 I am revisiting this blog after over five years. How I got to this place ... I'll highlight the relevant points. 

In 2014, I made a resolution: that I wanted to be an artist. I was surprised to find that exact blogpost where I made that commitment to myself. And that inaugurated a whole series of life-changing events, that unfolded over the next few years. I would tear down the current life I was living, and rebuild from scratch. It sounds like a figurative exaggeration, but it really isn't. I was forced to re-evaluate all of the closest people to me in my life - my husband, my parents, my sister, my Guru (not necessarily in that order), and most importantly, myself. Going a little further. back, I believe that my personal awakening began when I became a mother in 2012, which led to questioning who I am, which has in turn led to so many more, ongoing questions, answers, awakenings, and musings. 

2016 Christmas was when I found myself at ground-zero.  I thought I had hit the lowest point I could possibly go to, and then I would be knocked down further. It was one hit after another. My theme song for that time was definitely, "I get knocked down, but I get up again, you're never gonna keep me down." I can't believe I just referenced a non-Indian song. But, of course, I don't know the name of the song, or who sang it. That would be asking for too much from me. 

2018 was the start of the upswing. The good thing about being at the bottom is that the only place to go from there is up. And slowly, day by day, things started to get better. Sometimes you'd have a good hour. Sometimes a good day. Sometimes a good week. And it has now built to a place where I can say that we've had good years in our rebuilt life. 

Slowing down has been a big focus of mine. But, living in Silicon Valley in this era, even at my slowest, I felt like I was maintaining a slow jog, with an occasional sprint when too many things fell together at the same time. It's a great improvement from the maniacal headless chicken dance I did for so many of my years prior to 2014, but still not where I wanted to be, and I could feel it. 

2020 brought everything to a grinding halt. There was no choice about it. It was as if Mother Nature told the whole world - STOP. JUST STOP. STOP EVERYTHING, AND TAKE A LOOK AT YOURSELVES. 

And, oh, we definitely did. The Black Lives Matter movement erupted within three months of the Shelter-in-Place order taking effect. That has been one of the most profound looking glasses put in front of our faces. Racism was no longer a binary check box - racist or not racist. Now we were forced to look at all our implicit racial biases that influenced our thoughts, decisions, perspectives ... which would then effected our policies, laws, etc.

But on a smaller, personal note, I made the decision to do something for my artistic self in 2020. I joined an online master class called "Creative Mastermind." It was run by a college friend of mine, Srinivas Rao, whose Unmistakable Creative Podcast I used to occasionally check out - and I found that I enjoyed what he was doing: highlighting the lives and stories of people who decided to do something different, and make a life out of it. I decided to commit 1 hour a week for the next 12 weeks to just listening to whatever this course was saying it could help me do - develop systems and pr
actices for being my best creative self. 

The snowball analogy is the best way to describe how I have gotten to where I am now, a year later. That commitment slowly led to more reading, introspections, writing, realizations ... and it crept into all facets of my life. I realized I had been fearing to reach out to a wonderful and incredible artist I had had the opportunity to work with the year before (2019) - but now with the SIP order, I thought maybe he might have the time to teach me online? Best decision ever - as this has grown into a beautiful new relationship, and I have unexpectedly found myself in the loving care of a guru. I feel like a small plant, being well taken care of, but constantly poked and prodded to grow quickly and reach for the sun, moon, and stars. 

I left social media in August 2020, as a part of a 100-day challenge I was doing with the online creative network I had joined. Social media was impacting my mental health. In a random, given moment, when you'd scroll through your Instagram feed ... in five minutes, you'd see 20+ posts, and experience 20+ different emotions - varying from happy, sad, angry, envious, laughter, inspired, etc, etc. It's not to say those emotions are bad to experience,  but IT'S TOO MUCH. My mind cannot handle that many varying emotions in that short of a time span. And then be expected to go back to whatever mundane activity I was doing before that.

Removing social media was like detoxing from an addiction. It was a really well-timed detox, as I managed to survive the 2020 election season. It also led to reevaluating my relationship with my phone. 

Now, those who are close to me have often been frustrated with my relationship with my phone. From missing calls, to not having the ability to look up pertinent information bc I don't have my email on my phone -- my attempts at digital reduction were bringing in enough inconveniences that those closest to me (i.e. my husband) were left frustrated with my asinine methodologies. Reading the book "Digital Minimalism" helped me here by figuring out how to utilize technology to support the life that I want for myself - without being inconvenienced and inconveniencing others around me.

The life that I want for myself. That's a heavy question.  

By the way, in four months of not having social media in my life, I read more books than I had read in the last four years. That just shows how little I read in the years prior - not what a voracious reader I have turned into. Though, I must admit that I am proud that I have already read four books this year, and it's only the beginning of March! 

I've decided to continue with the rest of my life without social media. I have social media for my dance school/company, but not for me personally. The things that I liked about social media - feeling connected to others, and sharing my story. I will find better ways of supporting those two aspects in my life. 

I have been keeping a Bullet Journal since June 2020. I've always loved notebooks. I often would have something that I called "My Everything Notebook," which had everything from notes, to personal journal entries, to phone numbers, receipts, etc. Well, turns out someone figured out to make the everything notebook an efficient system of preserving and planning your life. I discovered that I also enjoy doodling and I'm not half bad at it, thanks to an unending supply of inspiration from Pinterest. Keeping a bullet journal has also reignited my passion for calligraphy and lettering, a passion of mine since I was ten years old. 

Writing is something I've always loved to do, and wished I did more of. So, I put the idea out there in the universe - I want to write more. I have become a believer in an almost simplistic approach to life - you put the idea out there, and then the universe revolves around to bring that idea to a reality. Call it the power of the subconscious, call it god, higher power, call it the force - whatever floats your boat. But try it - you'll be amazed at how simple it can be. 

I was approached by an editor to write a piece for their blog, "American Kahani." I was pretty flattered to be honest. I don't consider myself a writer by any means, though I have been paid for the craft in the past. And so, writing for that blog started turning the wheels even faster, as I further began to ponder, what is it that I have to say? 

With this post, I make a commitment to myself - to keep filling up pages. I hope that this goes beyond my morning pages (three pages of hand-written stream of consciousness at the start of each day), and bullet journal - but also to this personal blog, American Kahani, and my creative narrative writing - where I bring to life all the characters and stories that float around in my head on any given day.