Gravity

The principle of Minimum Effort becomes easy to practice with the use of gravity as a friend. Let us use the universal language of film to visualize this.

When panning left or right, let gravity move you, allowing the moving body parts, such as the limbs, to move slightly downward in a large arc. When tilting down, move towards the gravitational pull along your line of least resistance. Most often that would not be a linear movement down but a small circling, like an aircraft landing.

Tilting up then is the only movement that seems to defy gravity. But meditating on this movement helps us see that defying gravity is impossible and sets up an unnecessary duality, for and against. Once in meditation my arms shot up and were suspended in the air.

That's when I learned that letting go of human resistance allows our bodies to move with gravity in all directions.

There are no straight lines in nature. No up and down. Yoga is about letting go.