WE DID IT

The month of March was filled with courage, persistence, stamina, joy, fear, dreams, somber and many more… Basically, it was a great depiction of LIFE.

It all started with the ski-racing in mind.  We had total of 7 races to go in 4 weekends.  A ski race means: starting your mornings early, shoving the kids’ feet into ski boots, rushing the kids to the events and then waiting for hours in the cold, coping with your kids’ emotions while keeping them moving, holding your breath while they are racing, trying to keep it together no matter what the situation is…  It is a roller coaster of feelings on top of your regular day.  You keep learning more about your kids and about yourself throughout the experience.  You get proud, upset, happy, sad, all at once.  Happy to note that we came out of this month stronger than we entered it.  Kaya placed 34th among 107 boys in his championship.  Ela came in 10th in one of her races. We did it!

In the midst of ski racing, we had birthdays to celebrate, both family and friends.  It is always an extra joy to find the gift or the surprise for the birthday recipient.  These birthdays make me appreciate life year by year.  Hence we do push ups for each year of the birthday person’s age. Our youngest celebration was 9 and the oldest celebration was 94! We did it!

As the birthday wishes, dreams and hopes were being celebrated, I was able to treat myself to an early birthday dream… Something I worked on for many years (19 to be exact), something that I put many thoughts into it, something that meant a lot to me… A symbol of my family got tattooed on my arm by my favorite doctor’s daughter.  It all happened in my home with the support of my husband and my kids.  We did it!

And then came the end of the month.  Right when we were happy that most of our ski races were done and that all the birthday celebrations were helping us build those chest muscles, we had to say goodbye to a very young member of our ski team community, Ela’s close friend.  The first week of April will be dedicated to that cheerful little girl’s life as we workout.  We are still learning how to process those feelings as the month is coming to an end.

Life is filled with all these mixed emotions and constant curve balls.  AND life can be very short.

My focus is to memorialize those beautiful moments and thinking twice before I react to things.  Ironically, one of our Train and Smile themes in March was to “memorialize”.  At the time, it was all about birthdays not losses. Now I look at the below class in a different lens.

High Five to all of us for managing though the emotional roller coasters.

Ela’s race morning

Kaya is up next!

Birthday Celebration continues…

Take a Rest

By now, we all know how important “sleep” is for our bodies.  The way I explain it to my kids is, the moment we fall asleep, little workers in our body starts working on anything that needs attention.  If we don’t fall asleep, they don’t get to work and we end up overusing our body - regardless of how old we are!

So now let’s take that “sleep” concept and apply it to our workouts.  Just like our whole body needs a rest, in the form of sleep, our muscles also need a rest, in the form of “taking a break”.  When you overuse the same muscles over and over again, doing the same activity, the muscles fibers don’t get the chance to repair themselves.  Eventually, they either get super fatigued or, even worse, injured.  Therefore, rest days are very critical.  Those rest days don’t only help with the muscle fibers but they also help with the emotions.  Resting creates a boost for the future activities, both mentally and physically.

The month of February was very special for me and for my family, because we were able to take one weekend off from skiing.  And the best part of it was that it was not planned.  It was a last minute decision and therefore, we didn’t have the chance to plan anything else for the weekend.  We ended up doing “nothing” and truly resting.  It was an amazing morale boost the following weekend when we pulled into the resort.  For a change, the kids were not complaining and the parents (Derek and I) were filled with energy to ski with and without kids.

Just like sleep being critical for your health, taking a break from time to time is also very important to be able to reset.  Amazingly enough, the body learns how to quickly recover when you allow it to take a rest.

I hope you all prioritize your rest as much as your sleep.  Hight Five to you for letting the recovery happen!

when we take a rest, we build a bowling course from legos

We can also take a rest by playing with the snow. Can you spot Ela?

Focus

Focus… easy to say, hard to do - especially for me.  Every year, as I select my word for the year, I think through actions that would be impactful to my life.  Last year was all about “embrace”- embracing what I have and what I don’t have.  I certainly needed remainders along the way to keep my attention on “embrace”.  It wasn’t an easy task.  Therefore, once 2025 started and January took off as quickly as it did, I realized that what I really need to pay attention, is to be able to “focus”.

At any given moment, I have multiple things to juggle.  As much as I call it multi-tasking, we all know that it ends up being one thing at a time with less attention since the brain has the other “multi-tasks” in there.  I know that my “multiple things” are not going away.  However, I can be better at “focus”ing on one task at a time, even if that means I get a smaller portion of that task done but with FULL attention.  How many times do you grab your phone to search for something but then you get carried away with an email or an article or a post?  That happens to me very frequently.  Or while you are in the middle of a task, a ping/call/text comes about your household/family/friend where you get sidetracked from your task?  That also happens to me a lot.  I loose my attention on the task at hand and move on to something else without finishing the initial task or by finishing it haphazardly.  Where this lack of full “focus” hurts is with my family - I loose my train of thought and cannot even finish a sentence during a conversation with my husband or I try to play with the kids while I am cooking which ruins both the game and the food.

January hit the full family with sickness within the first week.  As painful as it was to lay on the sofa all day long, the sickness (it was probably the flu) gave me the opportunity to truly “focus” on what I need to do.  My only task was to get better.  And for those of you who know me well, that meant “getting better with no medicine or pain killers”.  By the third day, as I was dealing with all sorts of body aches but no fever, I decided to focus on the task at hand - to get better.   Not taking medicine was a personal choice and clearly it wasn’t doing its magic.  I ended up with two Advils so that I can get up and prepare myself my hot lemon tea and anything else that can help me to get better.  It worked.  Thinking through my options clearly without getting distracted with other “stuff” certainly helped me to get better.  Therefore I made the decision to “focus” more clearly this year.

Focusing not only on the task but also at the moment is also part of this year’s theme for me.  Kaya turned 10 this January, which means that the years go by very fast and I do not want to loose those moments.  So, if I am playing with my kids then everything else can wait, inclusive of dinner prep. I already have the muscle memory of ditching my phone while getting the household ready for the evening but now I will try harder to bring that muscle memory whenever I am working on a single task that doesn’t involve my phone.

Talking about muscle memory, here is a great class from January, where the focus was on the core.  This was also special class since we celebrated Kaya’s 10th birthday.  What I really enjoyed in this class was that we used pushups to focus on the core without putting the emphasis on the core - if that makes any sense.  Give it a try and do NOT multi task!!!

High five to all of you who can complete a full workout session without loosing your focus!

focus is on “having fun'“

never left my side through out my sickness

kaya’s team practice on Slalom - pure focus and determination

AND ELa’s team prior to the race…

Embrace the New

At the beginning of each year, I pick one word to focus on through out the year.  This was started as a work activity and became a part of my annual routine.  For 2024, my word was to “Embrace” so that I would focus on embracing what I have and what I do not have.

Ironically enough, the last month of 2024 brought the concept of “Embrace” to the top of my mind as I was forced to accept the big change in my vision.  You see, my whole life I have been the one with the perfect vision.  I hardly needed to go to an optometrist. However, lately my squinting became more of the norm and given that I hadn’t been to an optometrist for the last 6 years, I decided to take the plunge.  And as a result, I ended up with readers.  “Readers” might not be a big deal for everyone, but it is for me.  It means “embracing what I do not have any more” and at the same time it is refreshing because it is something new.  I am still getting used to putting them on and trying not to look at a distance with them.

It is extra special to end the year with something new.  Accepting and embracing what I do not have made me feel strong.  And it feels good to feel strong as 2024 is coming to an end.  I hope you all either had the chance or will have the chance to flex that “embrace” muscle!

And now as we think through those muscles, here is our Train and Smile class that focused on stability of those muscles while having fun with an empty cardboard box.

Happy ending of a year and a start of a new year!

Say or Write

Feelings are tricky.  And this November was filled with many of them - mostly happiness, gratitude, thankfulness, cheer and some tears.  Despite all the crazy rain in San Francisco, November was still that “warm” month.

What I love about November is the gratitude that surrounds us AND the thankfulness in the air.  This year, it was extra warm and cozy because my parents came for a visit.  Hence the blend of many different feelings - all good, except the sadness due to departures.

Their visit reminded me how much better I am in “writing” about my feelings than “saying” them.  Looking into my parents’ eyes and telling them how much I miss them everyday and how much I love them, is hard.  I tend to turn things into goofy comments, tight hugs and kisses and stop the actual words from coming out of my mouth.  However, when it comes to putting these feelings on a piece of paper, I can write books.  For me, written words make everything sound more correct than spoken words - for no reason.  So many times, I wanted to look into my mom’s eyes and tell her how happy I am that they are here.  Instead, I joked around saying that she is doing her cleaning and cooking job right.  I wanted to tell my dad that he was an amazing help in being the kids’ UBER while I was on a business trip but instead I joked about his stress of getting the routine down.  There are times that I hope my loved ones know me well and other times I don’t want anyone to “assume” that my goofy comments mean love.  That’s why I resort to mini notes or surprise messages so my feelings are on the paper and there is no need to assume.

This blog kept getting delayed because I wanted to “write” about the feelings correctly.  I didn’t want November to come across as a sad month because it wasn’t.  But it was a month that represented a lot of feelings, which can be tricky to write about.  As I think back, the biggest feeling was “LOVE”.  The departure tears were due to LOVE, just like the arrival hugs were.  Missing each other is also due to LOVE.  Cheesy but true. :)

The consensus for November was “Don’t cry because it is over, smile because it happened”…. As I think about that quote, I want to say - just feel the love, because it all happened with love.

What is your preference? Say or Write? Don’t say neither because it is never fun to try to guess the feelings.  After all feelings are tricky.

As we talk about tricky feelings, exercise usually induce those tricky feelings too - typical love and hate relationship.  How about you give the below exercise a try and let me know if it makes you smile when you are done or makes you angry at me (with a followed happiness, of course)

Either you “say” it or “write” it, HIGH FIVE to you all for getting it out!

here is to Happiness and love… ANd Happy birthday to my little baby!

party time for our youngest!

departing eyes do not know what to do

Up and Down and All Around

After a month like September, October allowed me to get back to myself by creating beautiful sceneries around me.  Since I was a kid, I have always enjoyed looking up, down and all around to find things that no one might be noticing.  As I grew up, this childish game became my outlet of clearing my mind and entertaining other’s minds.  Back in 2000, I even decided to start a Blog called “What’s Up” so that I would share all those that are unnoticed, with the world. Even though my blog idea never came to life, I never stopped to pause and look.

Lately, (for the last decade), my life has been all about “go/go/go” with pure focus on a direction.  That being said, I hardly ever forgotten to take the time to pause to look up, down and all around.  What made September so hard was the fact that I couldn’t pause but also I couldn’t “Go” because I couldn’t pause.  Therefore, the fact that October let me enjoyed the little nuances around us, I was able to see the light even in the dark.

What do you think I saw in October?  I wonder if you have noticed them too… I saw a beautiful moon set at 7am in the morning.  I saw a sunset that resembled a fire.  I saw a comet at 8pm on a Sunday as we were driving back from Tahoe.  I saw a sparkle in my daughter’s eyes in the morning of Halloween, from excitement.  I also noticed a dead mouse under the leaves, in the middle of the side walk.  It was beauty, it was excitement, it was disgust… regardless, it was not right in front of me, it was all around me.  I truly liked being able to notice them all.

Of course we should be looking at where we are headed to, both literally and figuratively.  However, there needs to be moments to pause so that the direction that we are traveling to takes a whole new meaning.

Even during your workouts, I would highly recommend to take that pause.  There are multiple ways of doing it.  For me, the main two ways are: 1. Taking an appropriate rest in between my strength training sets while focusing on something that is totally different than my workout, 2. Finding items around me that can become my workout.

This month, one of the items that we used was a hand mirror.  It allowed us to focus on ourself while creating a very different tool as our workout equipment.  Let me know what you think about the below exercise:

Big high-five to all of you who can notice the unnoticed…

buried behind all those wires is an amazing Moon trying to set!

Behind us and gorgeous…

look what’s up! a smiling rainbow…. :) LIFE is good!

Just a Hug

After such an uplifting August, I do not know what happened to September.  It was a tough month overall.  As I look back, I cannot find anything specific that made the month difficult.  However, it felt like I walked around with a dark cloud over my head.  As the month approached to an end, the dark cloud slowly dissipated and finally let the light come through.

The support I had from my community was the biggest help to get out of that cloud.  However, the key was to let my community know that I needed their “hug”.  It wasn’t easy to admit and it wasn’t easy to ask for it.  I was upset with myself for not being able to get out of that dark cloud on my own.  I knew that the people around me had more serious issues to deal with.  Why bother them with mine?  Why add to their list of things to worry about? Was I just being a drama queen like my daughter?

Coincidentally, I had assigned a theme of “hug” for the Train and Smile session.  When I first assigned that theme a month ago, I was thinking of my mom’s birthday and how I would love to send her a “hug”.  Who would know that the theme would come in handy to admit that it was ME who needed a hug that week.  It started with me joking around it initially, however, then it became real.  I realized that no one around me knew that I was going through some tough days.  The moment I admitted that I needed some mental rest, everyone (including my dog) was there to support.   What I really wanted was that warm “hug” and I got it from, both physical and virtual.  My non-cuddling dog even cuddled with me and didn’t leave my side.

That physical strength transfer of a sincere, tight hug is the best light to any dark cloud.  I am never shy of giving that hug to someone who is in need and now, I know that I have to be better at asking for it when I need it.

When I came up with the below routine for the Train and Smile session, I wanted to everyone to practice that tight hold, hug, squeeze. Grab your sofa pillow and let’s practice the “hug” while sweating and working those muscles.

A big hug to you all…

A cheer-me-up snack - Avocado, peanut butter, meat sticks... warm hug by food. :)

Something New

Have you ever wanted something and then successfully talked yourself out of it? I have… many times… for good reason.  However, once in a while, there are those that I can’t stop wanting, no matter how hard I try to talk myself out of it.

August was all about going out of the routine, trying new things… It was a very refreshing feeling despite the fear and uncertainty of stepping out of my regular boundaries.  With the spirit of trying new things, I thought of one thing that I wanted for a long time and decided to get it - a small piercing in the cartilage of my ear.  You would think it would be easy and straight forward.  It was not… I don’t know how many pictures of ear piercings that I viewed in Pinterest to select the correct location.  I had no clue that every single part of our ears had a different name. I, then, had to think through my regular routines - using EarPods, wearing helmets, etc, so that the location of the piercing wouldn’t cause inconvenience.  And finally, I decided that if I get my “rook” pierced, I would have the least interference with rest of my activities, and It would be subtle and pretty. This level of thinking happens when you decide to get a piercing in your 40s as opposed to teens.  Luckily I already knew where to go for the piercing - the same place that I got Ela’s ears pierced 3 years ago.  I went through another “analysis” as I was trying to decide on my day - it had to fit with kids’ school pick up and after-school activities.  Finally, I made my appointment for the last Monday of the month.  I picked up the kids from school, did our grocery shopping and then I told them that they would accompany me for “something”.  3 of us went into the Tattoo and Piercing shop.  They were almost as excited as I was.  It was weird to be on the chair while my kids were standing up on the corner - the roles were reversed for a change. The piercing was quick, easy and not that painful.  What was very surprising was the expected healing time of 9 months.  Now I have one more thing to look forward to - selecting earrings for my piercing 9 months later!

Being able to step out of the routine, to perform outside of my comfort zone and to get a tiny wish list item done felt very refreshing.  I even brought the theme of “something new” to our Train and Smile session.  Below is one of the workouts we did in the month of August, while focusing on “Something New”.  Grab a ribbon and follow along for a quick 30 minute exercise.  Why wait? Step out of your routine and give this workout a try…

A big high five to you for each time you step outside of your comfort zone…

Something new - we went to a movie theater :)

Something new - new grades, new teachers...

And something new - didn't i say it is subtle?

Into the Nature

The entire month of July, nature surrounded me whether I wanted it or not.  It made me look deeper and closer.  It made me embrace everything that it has to offer - mosquitos, dry dirt, sap, wild flowers, lakes, rocks…. I will admit that some of it wasn’t that easy to embrace, like mosquitos.  However, in overall, the nature re-trained me to go with the flow.

I took many wrong turns in long and hot hikes.  And yet, in all of them, I managed to get back on track, even with complaining kids and a whining dog.  In each of those hikes, we created a new adventure and ended it with a big smile.  I can’t help but think about my life like those hikes.  Each “wrong” turn is a new addition to the overall adventure.  It is unknown what is at that turn but once I leave myself to the flow, there is a junction back to the main path. To me, leaving myself to the flow, does not mean just following the wind. It means, paying attention to everything around me to tell me the story or show me the path.  It could be the flowers around or someone else’s foot steps or the view to the end point.  And as I pay attention to everything around, that’s when the flow appears and I get to enjoy the unintentional turn. Again, just like my life…

Given that nature was everything about July, it was also one of my chosen themes for the Train and Smile weeks.  Bringing a piece of nature to our workout was definitely great.  I challenged my participants to go out and find a rock that is about an ostrich egg size. That way, there is also the challenge of paying attention.  I bring that same challenge to YOU.  Whether you did the class with me or not, how about you go out and find a rock to complete the below workout?

Here is my high five for you for all of your “wrong” turns (not so wrong) that lead you back to your path!

look at the detail. and the color...

when alpine doesn't even want to continue...

...we still managed to find gems on the path!

there is more to find on this path

Memory Lane

Traveling back home to Turkiye with my family brings out many feelings.  Happiness is the overarching feeling which embraces excitement, curiosity, joy, gratefulness, empathy, pride and a little bit of sadness…. Most of these feelings stem from having my kids and my husband walking through my childhood memories (and rest, from missing home).

For the last couple of years, kids and I have been digging into my old boxes that my mom had saved.  Kids learned a lot about walkmans, cd players or old school landline phones. They also listened to numerous of my stories that was related to one simple object like a key chain.

This year’s focus shifted slightly away from my boxes to the wardrobes, specifically my mom’s and my grandma’s.  As I was getting amazed with my mom’s high school outfits, my daughter was equally impressed with my grandma’s closet.  I found myself trying my mom’s high school graduation dress that was made by her aunt while Ela was putting together a fashion show with my grandma’s summer clothes (just like I used to do when I was her age).  Each dress had its own story and we had plenty of time to listen.  Kaya also joined the fashion show with his own picks.  He made sure that he was a part of this journey in the memory lane.

All of a sudden the stories that started with the objects, evolved into stories related to the experiences - like the sunsets. I realized that the kids started to get curious about everything around them.  “What did YOU wish when watching the sunset when you were our age?””Did you also like jumping into the water from the shore?””How did these hills look like before?”  Those questions were for everyone, inclusive of my 93-year old grandma.  I could tell how she was finding herself in that magical world of memories, most of which included my grandpa who passed away 5 years ago.  Even though there were tears involved, bringing the past to the present was filled with smiles.  And watching my 6 year-old not leaving the side of my grandma and creating a whole new memory, was precious.

I don’t know how much of these stories from the memory lane stick with my kids.  However, I know that these stories help them see the people around them with a different lens.  And these stories help the story tellers to stay in that memory lane just a little longer.

Guvercinlik is the little village where most of my stories and my dreams were built.  Every June I look forward to spending time with my kids in that village and re-living those memories with them. This year, I also had my grandma join us which made it even more special, because all my childhood summers were spent in that village with my grandparents.

As most of you know, I continue to teach my classes no matter where I am - even if I am deep into the memory lane.  Here is a class, focused on balance, dedicated to the heat of Guvercinlik and filmed in my childhood place:

Big high five to those of you who can find that balance between the past and the present to move forward to the future.

with my grandma

story telling is in full swing

kaya’s part in the fashion show - jacket is from my grandma, outfit selection is purely Kaya

Powerful Mind

Flexing the muscle of my mind ends up being more effective than flexing any other muscle in my body when I am faced with a big physical challenge.  However, I tend to forget about that special muscle very easily and quickly.

For the last 4 years, every May, I have been participating in the Murph Challenge.  Here is the link that explains the history of the challenge: https://themurphchallenge.com/ .  In general, this is a big physical challenge that consists of a 1-mile run followed by 100 pull-ups, 200 pushups, 300 squats and ending with another 1-mile run while wearing a 20lbs weight west.  As it sounds, it is VERY challenging.  Modifications are allowed so I generally ditch the weight west, instead, I do the challenge in 6700-feet elevation.  I also break the pull-ups, push-ups and squats into 10 sets.  Regardless of my modifications, the challenge is still big and very physical.

This year, I integrated an added stress into my challenge and decided to beat my time from last year.  I had completed the last year’s challenge in 35 minutes and 36 seconds.

As the Memorial Day weekend approached, I tried to find excuses in my mind to skip the whole workout.  Why do I need to do it anyway?  Wasn’t I tired from all the traveling across the country within the last 15 days? Shouldn’t I focus on spending time with my family?  Shouldn’t I get ready for my trip to Turkey instead? Even though my excuses were very convincing there was a part in me “wanting” to go through that challenge.  The weekend was filled with work in our cabin so as Monday approached, I had even more excuses for not doing it.  Then on Sunday night, my mind showed its power. I had a dream where I was going through each of my 10 sets.  I felt the tiredness in my arms, the sweat on my back and the heavy breathing.  When I woke up, even though I wanted to say “I did it”, I felt ready to tackle the challenge.  We started the morning with a 1-hour family hike up in the mountains and then I head over to the gym to face my challenge.  This year, I decided to do this at the gym so that I can measure my 1-mile run to the point - given that running is my LEAST favorite part of this challenge.  I won’t lie,  the last 1-mile was the WORST but it really helped to be on a treadmill and watching the distance go down.  I completed the challenge in 31 minutes and 37 seconds!  I ended up beating my time by 4 minutes.

Thinking through the challenge as opposed to dreading it, made me stronger when the time came to face the challenge.  Mind is a strong muscle that I need to remember to flex and to train.

Now, I challenge you to think about one of your dreaded physical activities.  Then walk yourself through each action you need to take to complete it.  And do it.  My high-five is up there waiting for you once you are done!

FAMILY hike prior to my murph challenge

my timier when my last run was over!

Dream or Reality

It was a warm morning on the Mediterranean.  I was sitting on the rocks by the water, hoping for the ripple to turn into waves.  My feet were touching the salty water as I was flipping the pages of the magazine on my lap. The pages were filled with images of colorful windsurfers under the Golden Gate Bridge.  I wondered what San Francisco looked like. Those pages made me dream every night about a life where windsurfing is no longer a summer sport but it is way of life.  I wanted it.  I wanted to pursue my passion in a way that I would not be dependent on anything but the wind. I was 11…

I had this plan in my head: If I can go to the US (where I have NEVER been) for college, maybe I can move to San Francisco and earn enough money to afford my own equipment to windsurf under the Golden Gate Bridge.  And MAYBE, I can even windsurf after work.  It was truly a made up dream in my head but at least it was somewhat achievable (filled with A LOT of “maybe”s).

I graduated from High School with dual diploma - International and Turkish.  I got accepted to multiple colleges in the US and also placed in a good university in Turkey, which is much harder than taking SATs.  I got into UCLA but waitlisted in Berkeley. A family member, who used to live in Berkeley, recommended that I stay on the East Coast for college due to the distance to home.  We took her recommendation and I ended up at UVA.  My last year at UVA, as I was making a decision between a company in SF vs. Capitol One in Richmond (to save enough money for SF), my advisor reminded me of my dream.  All of a sudden, the decision became really easy and I ended up moving to San Francisco.  I found myself a studio that cost almost my whole pay check but I was still very happy and excited to be in my dream city.  Within months I found a way to get to the beach.

Guess what?  My very first time in the water, I ended up with a broken equipment, in the middle of the fog where I had to flag down another windsurfer for help.  We both safely made it to the shore right on time - before the tide took us both into the ocean.  That experience was scary but hooked me even more to my passion.  When I bought my very first windsurf board (and it was brand new), with my own paycheck, I actually slept with my board on my full size bed in my 6th floor studio (with no elevator). :)

For me, dreams are part of reality, as long as I do not loose sight of the path to get to those dreams.  Now, how about we use “reality” as our tool for a workout.  As this month’s workout, I will share with you a class we did this month under the theme of “Back to Reality”.  As our tool, we used our cell phones.

Workout with your phone!

High Five to those who chase their dreams…

I hope he will never stop chasing his big dreams…

Embrace

Every year, I have been picking “one” word to focus, for the rest of the year.  This has been a challenge given by my team, at work.  This year, I picked “embrace” so that I am reminded of embracing what I have - negative or positive.

Some of you already know that I have gone through a 9-month long program at work around Women in Leadership.  It has been intense and eye-opening.  Most importantly though, it allowed me to look inside (a little too much, for my liking).  As I dove deeper into myself, I was made aware of the parts of me that I am not happy with.   As much as I try to fix some of it, there are some aspects of my personality that is here to stay, like my impatience.  I learned ways to cope with it better but I was also taught to accept it and more forward.  It is ironic in a way because prior to the program, I was already on the path of “moving forward” (in my opinion) but the program made me pause to think.

I will admit that one part of “embrace” helps me in giving myself some slack.  I have many ideas when it comes to strength training and providing to my community.  And I constantly feel like I am letting down my community by not providing enough.  The month of March was a great example.  I failed my timelines of publishing my blog.  Having a busy life should not have been an excuse.  By mid March, I knew that my blog would be about “Embrace” but I couldn’t find the inspiration and time to write about it.  As each week of April went by, my guilt grew bigger.  Then I paused… I “embraced” the fact that I had other priorities that needed my attention.  I focused on my weekly classes (Train and Smile) to provide my passion to my community.  And finally, I came in peace with the fact that I am a month delayed in publishing my blog.

YOU are my community, whether I know you or not.  My purpose is keeping you healthy, strong and also sane by sharing my workouts, tips and personal thoughts.  If, at any point, I fail on it please let me know so that I can correct path.

Thank YOU for being my community and give yourself a big High Five for being YOU!

EMbrace the moment just like that frozen tree… :)

Restart?

Last month it was all about Relax and Reset…. Naturally, what comes after a “reset” is a true “restart”.  Therefore I started the month of February with the mindset of “restart”.  After all, I used January (and all its surprises) to ground myself.   

My initial thought of February wasn’t very promising for a “restart”.  The month ended up delivering many more surprises. From dog emergency care visit to unending family sicknesses… Therefore it made me think about the timing of the restart.  When would be the right time to restart? Would there even be A RIGHT time?  I felt like a sprinter at the start line, waiting for the “GO”.  I was so concerned about the false-start that I was listening to every single sound very carefully, almost too carefully.  The moment I would hear that “GO”, I would be ready but until then I was tense, waiting.  As I thought about my posture at the start line, I realized that my “restart” was, by no means, a race.  It was supposed to be a “crawl, or a “walk” or, even,  a “jog” but not a “sprint”.

The moment that sprinter at the start line, stood up and relaxed her shoulders and legs, I got to take a deep breath to re-evaluate the month of February.  I did have my moments of “restart”.  They weren’t as grand as I visualized but they were still successful restarts.  The most notable one was, yet again, with Alpine. As I came out of January with a more relaxed mind about how I should interact with my puppy, I was ready to restart with him in February. And it worked!  Basically the “restart” had happened on its own, without me waiting for that right time.

he listens and stays in peace with kaya for a minute! :) (that is success)

Going back to my sprinter, I have a challenge for those of you who are runners. How about restarting your running, with a focus on your form? Have a friend or a partner (or your kid) film you while you are running.  It will help if you are not aware of the filming. Then watch your movie in slow motion. Here are the main things I would like you to check:

1. Your arm position: How are you using your arms?  Are you bouncing at the elbow or doing a full roll at the shoulder?

2. Your feet: How does your stride hit the floor? Do you let your leg do a full rotation?  Do you allow your foot touch the ground from toe to heel or do you just hit it at the toes?

3. Your upper body: How is your stance?  Are your shoulders rolled forward to cover your chest or is your chest completely open to the direction you are going?

From the questions above, you can already guess what the most important things to consider while running - Your Shoulders, Your Legs and Your Chest… The reason why your shoulders are #1 is because most of us tend to forget the importance of upper body while running.  Given how powerful shoulder muscles are, they should be used fully during running so that the legs can get a break.  The importance of the legs is clear.  The focus should be on efficiency of the usage more so than the importance.  And lastly, the chest… We all know that our heart is hidden right in there. When shoulders are rolled forward and the runner is hunched over, guess what happens to the chest!  It is hidden, which means the heart is squeezed in.  Therefore the pumping of the heart is even harder.  Given that your heart beat is an important factor of your endurance, you would want to allow room for your heart to beat.  Therefore the chest needs to be open.

Now here are two exercises that can help you with the restart. :)

Give yourself a high five for all the mini restarts that you had in February!

After a week long sickness, she was the second fastest in her team! (and always in style)

Relax and Reset

Wow… what a start of the year!  Whoever I have chatted with, had some sort of a crazy story about January 2024.  The good news is that it is now in the past.

As the days of January were going by, I was thinking of relaxing so that I can get ready to reset.  It was definitely a roller coaster of a month but reminded me to pause.  In our daily lives, we often pause to reset without even realizing.  For example, how many times have you started to write an email and then deleted a sentence (or a paragraph) to re-write it? Or how many times, right before dinner time, you have realized that you don’t have the correct ingredient so that you changed plans?  These are just small examples of “reset”s and before each reset, there is usually a period of time that we breathe and think. I visualize that time as “relax”.  So as I was thinking through some of the setbacks that we went through in January, I decided to apply the concept of “relax and reset” to our family.

As athletes, both Derek and I are very used to “keep going” - like the energizer bunny.  Even though, we take good care of our bodies, there is only so much that the body can put up with. The challenge of being on the go constantly is that it feels like there is no time to “relax” so that we can reset.  Therefore we go until we hit a wall.  My wall wasn’t as hard but still it was hard enough to let me pause/relax.  The reset process is exciting but at the same time a little nerve wracking because we both want to make sure that we come out of the reset stronger than before.  And that’s why the concept of “Relax and Reset” became the part of this year’s resolution.

Workouts are a perfect way to show case our new year’s resolution.  The body gets used to certain moves and certain workouts - even if they are hardcore workouts.  Therefore pausing from time to time and reseting to basics can be very helpful for the muscles.  During one of our Train and Smile sessions in January, we focused on the theme of “Relax” and we used a “dining chair” as our tool. As a tribute to a crazy month of January, below is the video of the moves that we did in one of our classes where we focused on “Relax” theme.

High Five to you all for leaving January behind!!

mother and son “relax” time before he turned 9

when the family was not hitting a wall… :)

Out of Control

2023 came to an end totally out of control, with its own flow… And that flow continued into the beginning of 2024, hence my super late blog.

As I look back at the year, there were many times where I was reminded to go with the flow as opposed to having intricate plans for the day or for the week. However, somehow, I kept forgetting about not having detailed plans that I control it to the smallest detail.  Ironically, some of the most memorable moments of 2023 were those that I had no control over the flow.

The biggest one of those moments was getting a puppy.  Not knowing what to expect and what to do almost forced me into that flow as opposed to the control.  It felt like I was riding a wave.  You let the wave take you to wherever it goes, as opposed to dictating where the wave needs to go (which is impossible).  I will admit that there were (and there are still) times where I either missed the wave or I got crushed by the next one.  However, in overall, it feels good to let go off the control a little because that is the only way I can truly “listen” to my puppy’s needs.

The letting go off the control worked very similarly with the kids too when we finally stayed in San Francisco, for a change, in October.  We made “planning” a game, when we put all of our wishes for the weekend in a bucket and pulled out only 3 per day.  All of a sudden, our day turned upside down, in the best way possible.

Even with Train and Smile, I let one week (out of 52) to go with the flow, because I couldn’t figure out how not cancel a class when there was NO way for me to teach two classes.  Once I focus on “how I can teach for 1 hour” as opposed to “At what time I should teach my Wednesday Afternoon class”, everything worked out - the wave carried me to the shore!  I ended up teaching a 1 hour boot camp class on a Saturday and I was able to bring back memories (and moves) from decades ago.

And lastly, during the final days of the year, we totally lost control over our days, which forced us to ride a whole different wave.  This wave was bigger than usual.  And it gave me anxiety to let go off the control.  However, once I did, the ride was awesome.  I even lost track of the days.  The only plan that we made was to celebrate the New Year in the mountain.  We then stayed up until past-midnight as a WHOLE family, which had never happened before and was never in the plans.

For 2024, of course, I have plans but I will manage the control over those plans with a very loose “leash”.  Since my main goal with this site is to keep my community motivated and fit, I will approach to it from a different angle and see how it will work.  I hope you will stay tuned and join me in my new approach of keeping you fit!

Big high five to all of you for riding another wave of your life in 2023.  Keep it up for 2024!

6pm on 12/31/23 as we headed up on the chairlift to pick up our torches to come down the hill at night

12:36am on 1/1/24 - ALpine is also attached to me…

Gratitude as the Attitude

Since I have started writing these blogs, every November has been the same - something around being Thankful! This time around, I will continue the tradition but will twist the story a little bit.

If you are reading this blog because of the email that you have received from me, then I know you enough that I would have a story about us and how thankful I am for you. If you have randomly found this blog, then I am thankful of your time for reading it.  I am grateful for ANYONE who has been in my life.  The level of gratitude varies, but at the end of the day, everyone contributed something into my life and into who I am.  Therefore, thank YOU!

And here comes the twist… My gratitude story is not about a human being, it is not about those who deeply shaped me or those who continuously supported me or those who never left my side when I was down.  My story is about a recent addition to our family, my four-legged son, Alpine.

It was not an easy decision to adopt a puppy, especially knowing that the majority of the work would be on me. I had plenty of people questioning the family decision.  For those of you who know me well, those questions did not deter me from the decision of getting a puppy.  Puppies are super adorable (from a distance).  And they require a lot of attention (more than a baby, in my case).   They grow bigger much faster and they learn habits right away.  No wonder a one year old puppy is equivalent to a seven year old kid.  Over the last 5 months, as Alpine pushed me to the edge of my patience (and continues to do so) nonstop, I realized he is actually my trainer.  I kept practicing to stay within my patience and not falling off of that edge.  It is not always easy but practice makes it better!  We are still a work-in-progress but I do believe that we have made big leaps (at least me).  Here is an example: Up until November, whenever Alpine grabbed something that he wasn’t supposed to, it was a chasing game around the table (as humans it is pretty much impossible to win). As I practiced my calm, I realized that if I stop and talk to him gently AND tell him “it is not yours”, he was dropping it on the floor.   He taught me to get to calm from peak anger! That’s when it occurred to me that I am truly thankful for him.  I use my learnings from him at work and with kids AND they work. Alpine still manages to drive me absolutely crazy but as long as I see him as my trainer, that craziness calms down very quickly.

The twist in this story is that I will never know if Alpine knows how thankful I am for him.  Showing thankfulness is beyond giving him some treats.  Therefore all I can do, is acknowledging his help to me and doing my best to act with that thankfulness, making gratitude my attitude.

When it comes to exercise, there are certain moves that can drive us crazy like Alpine.  We do them because they are part of a routine and we know that they get us stronger, but we dread working on them.  Like a pull-up or a push-up… Let’s make them our trainers.  They don’t only train us for strength but they also train us to be persistent.  That is a learning that we can take to any part of our lives.  Most importantly those moves can be your “Alpine”, forcing you to show your thankfulness in your act.

Let’s do some pushups… here is a video for you to use as your guide.  You can modify by being on your knees or even standing by the wall.  Let’s see if you can do all 25 by the end of December!

High Five to all of you for acting with gratitude!

My Trainer and I - 11/30/23

Yes… puppies are cute - 07/13/23

Why Not

Here is a short story for you…

Most of you already know my story of moving to San Francisco so I will skip that part and jump to year 2002 - a year after I moved to SF.  Given that I had a very interesting start to my career in September of 2001, my search for a gym was a little delayed.  Once my work stabilized, then I searched for gyms around the area.  That was when I came across the Embarcadero YMCA.  It was only a block away from my work, the facility was beautiful and my monthly fees were benefiting the “second chance high school” that was in the basement.  It was a perfect match for me.  I wasn’t too into group fitness classes but the Boot Camp class was different…. It was hard core and focused on strength training as opposed to cardio.  I became a regular in the Boot Camp class.  A little less than a year into taking the classes, one of the group fitness coordinators approached to me to see if I would be interested in becoming a volunteer teacher.   I had liked the idea but I was scared because I didn’t know the science behind teaching how to train!  I had been in sports all my life but I was my only guinea pig when it came to training.  I couldn’t imagine leading others in a field that I didn’t go to school for.  Well, after one night of thinking, I said “why not”.  The moment I said that I was willing to try, the Boot Camp instructor started to give me the sections of his class - started with “core” (the last 10 minutes). Meanwhile, I worked on all the YMCA required certifications to ensure that I would at least know some science behind the workouts.

In October of 2003, in the middle of a 40-people Boot Camp class, the coordinator and the instructor surprised me with my “certification” as a boot camp instructor and they gave me a whistle (that I have never used).  I was supposed to be the substitute instructor for the class but the week after I received my whistle, the Boot Camp instructor decided to take off and I was left with the whole class.  Shortly after that I took on a seasonal Outdoor Boot Camp class with a fellow instructor.  And few months after that, I started a Friday morning BOSU Boot Camp class.  All of a sudden, I was teaching (as a volunteer instructor) 3 classes a week.  Those who doubted me due to my size, respected my teaching after taking one class.

I met my husband in the Boot Camp class.  I continued to teach all 3 of the classes during my first pregnancy.  I came back to teaching after 8 weeks of a break due to giving birth.  And during my second pregnancy, I taught my Boot Camp class with a toddler on my back.  And I, again, took only 8 weeks off (doctor dictated).  And until the pandemic, March 9th 2020, I was attached to the YMCA at the hips.  With the pandemic, I started my zoom class to keep my community sane, health and happy…. And that class is still going with some of the same faces from October of 2003!

It is amazing to celebrate 20 years of teaching.  To this day, I am grateful to Ray for recognizing the passion in me and encouraging me to teach.  One “why not” brought me all the way to here right now…. So imagine what you might be missing if you contemplate on a random opportunity.

This month, I won’t share a workout.  Feel free to reach out to me if you would like to workout together so that I can show you some of my old school moves from 20 years ago. ;)

Don’t forget to say “why not” from time to time!

High five to all of you for taking chances…

and she said “why not i can’t have short hair”… and there she is… my mini me…

Out of the Box

In our routine lives, I find it challenging to figure out moments where I can step out of the box and be creative.  When I was a kid, there was no shortage of creativity due to my wild imagination.  I was able to turn a simple 4-wall room into the craziest playground and have fun! To be honest, I can’t remember complaining about being “bored”…

At the beginning of September, I decided to push myself to step out of the routines and find that joyful “ME” again.  It was not an easy task…. Everything in my life was (and still is) timed to a minute. For example, if we don’t leave the house by 8:45, we cannot make it to Kaya’s school bus, which will mean I will drive an extra 7 minutes to his campus, spend an additional 8 minutes there, drive another 7 minutes back to Ela’s campus, look for parking and potentially have her be late to her campus.  Not to mention, all that going back and forth between their campuses would make me miss any 9:30am calls…. Not to mention the pre-departure routines of getting both the kids, the dog and the lunch boxes ready, especially if I have an 8am meeting at work…. There is NO room to be creative - at least, so I thought.  My first attempt in being creative was calming myself down in the mornings and I started to think about what I can do if I miss that minute mark.  All of a sudden, my horizon expanded.  I ended up with an office overlooking the entire Bay at the top of Presidio while taking a call with Compliance.  I got some serious steps in walking in the Presidio with a 4-month old puppy while chatting about one of my critical projects with my team.  I then let this calm, creative juice take over one of the rare weekends that I stayed home.  Since it had been 2.5 months since my last weekend at home, my head immediately went to all the errands that I had to do at home.  I calmed that mind down and realized that for the kids this was also a rare time to be at home.  So I came up with a game plan, totally out of my control.  Kids and I wrote down 3 things that we wanted to do on Saturday.  I even wrote three things for Alpine (our puppy).  We then put all these things into a box and we pulled one item per person.  I had no clue what the kids wrote/drew,  We ended up having a jammed packed day but we did EVERYTHING together: We drew, we played fetch in the garden, we painted Ela’s nails, we cleaned the garage.  I was proud of my kids because neither of them wrote down anything about screen time!  Best of all, it was really nice not to plan a weekend on my own.

I will admit that it is exhausting to get out of the routine and not watching the minute hand of the watch to click through.  However, it is also freeing…

Train and Smile is my main venue of getting creative on a weekly basis.  And that’s why I love it so much.  Just like I was able to turn any room into a playground when I was a kid, now I can turn anything we have in the house into a workout equipment.  There is no limit to how we can get ourselves stronger.  It is important to let the creative juices flow in.

Here is fun routine when we turn a blanket into a balance beam:

1. Fold the blanket on the long end multiple times until it resembles a long line.

2. Place your “long line” on the floor

3. Step on it as if you are on a balance beam.  From this moment on, imagine that the floor is 4 feet down.  No falling off of the beam.

4. Single Line Lunge Pulses: Have your feet parallel with the balance beam - left foot in the back, right foot in the front with about 3-4 feet in between the two.  Your legs will form a triangle with the beam. Come down to a lunge making sure that the front knee stays on top of your front ankle and the back knee comes all the way down to the beam.  Bring it back up to the triangle.  Repeat it on the same side for 10 times and then switch sides without falling off of the beam.

5. Heel Pulse into a Squat: Place your feet perpendicular to the “beam”, heel hanging off of the edge.  Keep your legs as straight as they can be and hip width apart.  Pulse your heels up.  When you bring your heels back down come down to a quick squat pulse and up.  Make sure to keep your knees behind your toes as you are doing your squats. Repeat the move for 12 times.

6. Single leg  jump: Let the right foot dangle off of the balance beam as you stand on your left foot parallel with the beam. Move your right foot, in the air, back and forth to gain momentum and hop with the left foot.  Make sure to land right back to where you took off.  Repeat on the same side for 10 times and then change sides.

7. Repeat 4 through 6, 3 times

Here to a creative day at home… 3 different perspectives of “Cat Kid”

High five to all of us for gettingout of that box to make things more fun!

Learning Continues

Have you ever tried to pause the learning just for a day so that you can take a break?  I have!  And it really didn’t work.  I feel like everything around us has something to teach us, intentional or unintentional.

With the kids’s school year starting, the theme of Learning was very top of mind in August.  The first day of school, I learned a very valuable lesson - “Do not set your expectations based on just assumptions”.  My daughter just started kindergarten and watching her interacting with kids at preschool, I absolutely had no worries for the first day of kindergarten.  She was excited and ready to go - at least that’s what I thought.  When the time came to actually be at the school, all I expected and assumed changed.  She became a glue.  Quiet crying started.  Tears didn’t stop. And I didn’t know what to do.  I tried to listen to my gut but the tears were too strong…. Now that we are ending the second week, things are a little calmer but still not smooth.  Every day, Ela and I learn new emotions and new tricks so that we can both have an “OK” experience at the school drop off.

Wouldn’t you say that she looks somewhat happy?

As parents, we all know that “learning to be parents” NEVER stops. But then, how about “learning about yourself’?  This month, I realized that learning more about myself also continues, whether I like it or not.  At work, I am selected to be a part of a Women Leadership Program.  It is definitely an exciting opportunity and also challenging in the sense that you should be open to learn more about yourself.  As we move deeper into the 9-month program, I watch my sarcasm trying to take over, creating a dilemma between willingness to learn and desire to stay as-is.  Even that dilemma taught me something: My dad has more influence in me than I thought, especially when it comes to being sarcastic.

There is one thing that I continuously learn from everything around me, including the program I am in, is to curb my impatience.  Believe me, it is not easy and I am totally open to learn from everyone around me, including my 4-legged boy.  Breathing definitely helps, as long as I can put my sarcasm aside when I start to breathe to calm down.

Here is a place where I can take my deep breaths and be calm - even if my kids are on a giant truck

Given that learning always continues, how about learning to hold a 45-second wall squat (you can try to challenge yourself for a longer hold too)?

Let’s first get into the correct position:

1. Find an empty spot on the wall

2. Lean your back to the wall - from your shoulder blades down to your tail bone

3. Scoot yourself down so that your knees have a 90 degree angle and your hamstrings (back of your upper legs) parallel to the ground

4. Keep your knees right over your ankles

5. Push your shoulder blades and your lower back against the wall

6. Start your timer!

7. With your feet, feel each toe against the floor -10 seconds

8. Feel your heel against the floor - 10 seconds

9. Bring both hands on your quads (top of your upper legs) and feel the fabric of your pants/shorts/skin - 10 seconds

10. Focus on your breath - through your nose, breathe in (in 4 counts), hold your breath (for 4 counts), breathe out (in 6 counts), hold your breath (for 2 counts) Repeat it, at least for 2 times

How was your squat hold?  Were you able to move your attention away from your shaking quads?  If your quads didn’t shake, try to lengthen each exercise from #7 thought #10 by 5 second increments.

Big high five for all the learnings you did today…. Don’t forget to retain it! ;)