FORM Fitness

How did I end up starting Form Fitness? (Part I)

Written by Sassan

Chapter I

Back in 1992 as I was starting my junior year at San Jose State,  I came across a Yoga Temple (Ashram) and began my studies of Yoga which included Martial Arts for the following 5 years.  While there, I resorted to adopting this lifestyle in its entirety and assumed a very simple yet demanding lifestyle; this included training everyday from 5-7 am and then again at 6-8 pm, becoming a complete Vegan, and giving up on everything that I knew to be fun.  Before going any further I would like to define Yoga;  Yoga in Sanskrit means "unity".  Unity of mind, body, and soul.  In addition, Yoga is broken down into four parts;  Hatha, Bahakti, Jana, Raja.  Hatha consist of movement and diet which includes martial arts as its cardio portion, yoga postures, and breathing.  Bahakti is the Yoga of love, Jana is the scriptures, mainly the book of Yoga (Bahagvagetha), and Raja is considered the highest level, meaning Royal Yoga which is attained by the great swamis and spiritual masters.  Yoga was founded over 5,000 years ago and spelled out in the book of Yoga,  Bhagvagitha.  In this book you will find the roots of all religions and spiritual beliefs.  It is the blueprint of life, love, and the cosmos.  A beautifully complex read, and for an insight on why we are here.

I'm sure that  the first thing that comes to mind when you hear "Ashram" is a hidden place in the woods, peaceful and quite, with plenty of animals roaming freely in peace and harmony with nature.  This Ashram was indeed all of that but located in San Jose, CA. inside a retail shopping center, approx. 2,000 sq ft. I guess you can call this the Ashram of the 21st century.  The space was simple with curtains covering the windows, hardwood floors, mirrors all around with a small space in the corner devoted for meditation.

My Swami (teacher) was a professor at S.J.S.U. and in addition  was/is a Homeopathic Doctor running a private practice.  He was and is a sweet man whom I consider my second father and will always love him for teaching me, loving me, and guiding me in the right direction.  Life in the Temple was simple; eat well (vegan), train hard (6 days a week), and learn about life, the cosmos, love, and self discovery.  Everyday started at 5:00 am sharp.  The first hour consisted mainly of the martial arts training.  After the warm-up we worked hard for an entire hour.  Mind you, I have been an athlete my entire life, playing water polo, swimming, soccer, Ironman racing etc, yet nothing compared to the intensity of our training here.  Needless to say after the Temple I had discovered how far I could push myself and this continues to this day.  After the first hour we would be drenched in sweat and would get about 2 minutes to catch our breath and to get a drink of water.  Immediately following the first hour we would start the traditional postures of Yoga and end the hour with some breathing and meditation.  Then we were off to our responsibilities in life (school, work, family) and returned that day at 6:00 pm to do this all over again until 8:00 pm.

We trained like this M-F and on Saturdays took our training to Half-moon Bay.  Our Saturdays started with getting in the ocean at 4:30 am (that's right, 4:30 am) where we practiced punching and kicking into the waves.  After 45 minutes of this we then proceeded to run a 10 mile out and back on the sand, followed by an hour of Yoga.  The best part was that once you were in the water you wanted to work hard to keep your body temperature up.

The good news about food was that you had to eat light, otherwise you could not train.  I remember eating like a bird where everything was raw veggies and a full day's intake was around 500 calories.  This was a huge surprise since I, like everyone else, was under the impression that I needed to consume at least a few thousand calories for the work I was doing.  This is where I learned about the quality of calories rather than the quantity of calories.  The toughest part was the first month where I had to allow my body to adapt but once we passed the first month I was able to do this with greater ease.  I started the temple at 180 lbs with 5% body fat and within a month I had dropped 20 lbs and reduced my body fat to 3%.  I slept for only 6 hrs a night but those 6 hrs were solid.  I often fantasize about that sleep and wonder how life would be to sleep like this all the time.

Sundays were our day off.  even if I wanted to train I was not allowed. Swamiji considered this day to be a day to rest and re-charge.  As the days turned into weeks and months, the training got tougher and more demanding.  We started the lecture series where Samiji would train us extra hard followed by 30-45 minutes of lecture on Yoga Philosophy.  This turned out to be my favorite part since I had always hungered for the answes to life, love, and why we are here.  Please note that answers to these kinds of questions are all about self discovery and what one considers food for his or her soul.  So I hope that this section does not promote/demote any one type of spiritual belief.  As Swamaji always would say; an individual's spiritual belief is great as long as it feeds into their soul and helps them become a better human being.

The Temple was demanding, the training was unbelievably hard, now combine this with lack of social life at your prime and you have very little reason to be there.  But for these reasons exactly I found myself gravitating towards it.  I loved being pushed, I loved training like a maniac, I loved the fact that once finished with workouts I would be floating on water.  Words can not describe how good I felt.  My system was clean, my mind was clearing, and best of all I was getting answers to the biggest questions in life.   Seeing the positive changes in me brought to light the Temple amongst my circle of friends and pretty soon a number of them joined.  At first 3, then another and then another.  I was grateful to have all of them there to train alongside with after all; "Misery loves company".  And by having them there I could feel better about missing the Friday night parties and night life.  Instead of hearing them talk about the parties we would talk about how hard the workouts were that day or our latest find in Soy Burgers (Boca being one of the earliest).  Mind you this is 1992-97 where Soy products were only found in what used to be called "Health Food Stores"  I think its safe to say that in the early 90's there existed more dirty magazine stores and health food stores.  Being a fan of health food was an underground thing and to mainstream these were "weird people".  Today healthy eating has become mainstream, organic products are in every store and in the frozen soy burger sections of every store you can find over 20 brands of Soy burgers.  OHHhhhh how far have we come over the past 15 years and how great it is to see this industry grow.  Unfortunately bad habits and lack of exercise has also grown where now it has become a major problem for us and generations to come.

When I first started at the Temple I would constantly find myself defending it and my new lifestyle to family and friends.  My mother could not stand the fact that I would not eat meat or dairy.  And as she saw the change in my body she would try and sneak meat or chicken broth in my food.  This was funny at first but after few months it became a major problem for me.  My body could not handle meat products, esp. with my training regiment.  The broth was heavy and would take a toll on my energy level.  Yes, believe it or not meat is extremely heavy for the body and is the biggest reason behind lack of energy.  Just in case you are wondering if this statement is true or not; try cutting out all meat products out of your diet for 1 week and you will see not only drop of weight right away but also a huge boost in energy levels.  My brother would constantly challenge my new choices and would even go as far as getting into argument over my daily routine.  "god created us to have fun" he would say, "He created Tequila shots so that we be merry and celebrate life"...etc.  I guess change is difficult for everyone including for  those around you, even if its for the better.  Which is precisely why I would encourage my clients looking to better their situation to accept the fact that they are doing this for themselves, that they should only do this for themselves and no-one else.  Otherwise it is destined to fail.  Unfortunately part of being a social creature is to be dependent on family and friends around us.  We care alot about how we view and are viewed by them.  Unfortunately if our circle is comfortable living a certain way and we look to deviate from this certain way, we stand to be judged, ridiculed, and made fun of.  A good example was my brother who would tie family love with partying together for the night or demanding that you take a shot of Tequila in order to celebrate the family love.  (Mind you he is not an alcoholic or out of control partier)  I am merely speaking of regular parties or celebrations which include the holidays and so forth.

It took me about 25 years to realize that I was ultimately in charge of my life and my choices; and to this I felt blessed to have made the changes for the better. The first rule in making the change for the better is to accept the fact that it is only you deciding for you.  No-one else can help or do things for you. Second is to do whatever it takes to move in the right direction and avoid things that can divert your attention from your goal. And lastly; don't give up - commit to working hard. Today I'm 36 soon to be 37 years old and I try and live by these rules everyday of my life.