Ten Yoga Questions Answered

Over the years I have been asked a lot of questions about slow yoga. Here are ten of them that I have picked with my answers:  

Question 1. What is slow yoga? Slow Yoga is a complete system of physical and mental attunement that was developed in Ancient India. The word yoga in Sanskrit means to join. Slow Yoga joins the mind and body, breath and movement, resulting in an enhanced physical ability for joyous experience and spiritual centeredness. It brings us home, to the speed of Life and Mother Earth. 

 Question 2. Was yoga developed for men and by men? Has it only recently adapted to the specific needs of women? Yoga has an ancient and long tradition of yogis and yoginis who fine-tuned and developed this art and practice that we now know as yoga. One of the important yoga texts was in fact written specifically for women. Yoga is alive and well in the traditionally matriarchal communities in the state of Kerala in India. Yoga was always intended to be practiced by both men and women (and children!). I grew up in India. In my own family, my first teachers were my grandma and mother. 

Question 3. Can I learn Slow Yoga by studying ancient yoga books? How about DVDs and streaming video? The Slow Yoga that I teach is an oral-kinesthetic tradition. It is meant to be passed down from teacher to student. It is one of the earliest forms of learning-by-doing and is meant to be learned from a teacher. When you learn yoga from a DVD or streaming video you don't have the benefit of a skilled yoga teacher monitoring your movements and making adjustments. That can lead to slight misalignments accumulating over time and causing problems down the road. 

 Question 4. Can you explain the prevalence of multiple schools of yoga? Which school do you belong to? The prevalence of many schools of yoga is a recent phenomenon. In India, where I grew up and studied yoga, there traditionally aren't really schools of yoga but different great teachers. I learned yoga from a teacher who in turn learned it from his teacher going back in an unbroken line many thousand years. I created Slow Yoga not as a school of yoga but rather as a political statement to return to the freedom inherent in the Slow Life and is a part of the international movement to live mindfully. 

Question 5. What is the ideal yoga practice? A short daily practice, lasting no more than 30 minutes, coupled with a good yoga class about once a week. 

Question 6. How is Slow Yoga related to meditation? A Slow Yoga practice can be thought of as moving meditation. Meditation involves stilling the mind and allowing the conscious mind to focus on one's breathing. Slow Yoga allows for exactly that with the added benefit of physical toning and perfect health.

Question 7. What is unique about your approach to yoga? To my knowledge no teacher in America teaches the kind of yoga that I do, prompting me to create the term Slow Yoga. The Slow Yoga I teach works with moving the prana (Sanskrit for life-force) energy through the body in combination with deep breathing and physical asanas or postures. In this way we work on three dimensions at once. It is a powerful and amazingly effective way of creating health, beauty, and longevity. 

Question 8. How is the Slow Yoga you teach different from Pilates and other forms of physical exercise? The Slow Yoga I teach works far more deeply than most other forms of exercise. Working with the body's energy system, breathing, and postures works not only on the sinews but also much deeper on the body's glandular systems. This provides the conscientious student with the possibility of deep transformations unavailable in most other forms of exercise. 

Question 9. I have heard of yogis who can lie on beds of nails, walk on coals, eat glass, bend steel poles with their eye-balls. Are these stories true? Can I get to this point? Yes. These are all true. Growing up in India I have seen all of this and more with my own eyes. If you practice yoga enough you may be able to do all these things if you choose to. But, as my teacher used to say, it is even more amazing if you can live with the rhythm of Mother Nature, eating when you are hungry and sleeping well at night. 

Question 10. Why do you practice and preach Slow Yoga? Because it is fun, healthy, and endlessly fascinating!

Minimum Effort

I wish you all a deep and healthy yoga practice. Yoga, the ancient art of India has been practiced for thousands of years giving its practitioners a long life, a beautiful body, and a serene mind. 

One of the principles of yoga that I would like to emphasize is the principle of Minimum Effort. I know that it seems like a contradiction to talk about a yoga practice and effortlessness in the same sentence. However that is precisely how the Ancients who conceived of the art and science of yoga describe the ideal yoga session. 

All actions, movements, and holds must be undertaken with the very minimum effort required. But how is such an effortlessness to be achieved? Through a continuous focus upon the breath! Breathe deeply using Ujjayi breaths. Concentrate all your attention on rhythmically breathing in and out and soon you will be doing yoga using the principle of Minimum Effort. 

My recommended yoga book is Vanda Scaravelli's Awakening The Spine. This is a beautiful book that could easily have been titled Zen in the art of yoga. Read it or simply enjoy the beautiful images of waves, trees, and yogis suspended in the air with a minimum of effort. 

Peace and Love, slowly,

Abhay

Circles vs Straight Lines

As slow yogis (anyone who does yoga is a yogi) we often find ourselves reaching for our toes in Uttanasana or reaching our heels towards the floor in Down Dog. 

Whenever you find yourself reaching for something in an asana, posture, try moving in a circle rather than a straight line. 

Now that may be counter-intuitive at first. In western culture we are taught to "think straight," and guard against "circular reasoning." I call this the engineering approach. Applying the engineering approach works well when your goal is to build something inorganic and inanimate, a modern skyscraper for instance. It does not work very well when you are dealing with something organic and animate like your body. 

When you want to reach body part A towards point B on your body or on the floor or the ceiling, start making little circles with A. Continue making circles describing a spiral that moves you towards point B. 

The Ancients believed that a slow yoga practice moves energy along the 7 energy centers in the body that we call chakras. 

Chakra, in Sanskrit, also means circle. 

Peace and Love,

Slowly,

Abhay

Get to know your tree

A student once asked me how she could improve her balance poses particularly Vrksasana or Tree Pose. 

“I keep falling over,” she said. 

I asked her, “When you are in Vrksasana, what kind of tree are you? What are your branches like, your leaves? Do you provide shade for a weary pilgrim or a cow? How exactly do you sway when the monsoon winds pregnant with water droplets appear from the south?”

Get to know your tree and over time its roots will take hold. 

Get to know your yogasanas, slow yoga postures, with acceptance, understanding, and humor. Your breath and your imagination are your allies in this endeavor. 

There is no way to fail in slow yoga. Remember this! 

Peace and Love,

Slowly,

Abhay

Grace

Our practice of yoga aims at developing kripa, or grace, in body and mind. The idea of grace was very important to the Ancients and is the foundation of spiritual yoga even today.

The Ancients preferred the natural undulating curves of the belly, gently rounded shoulders, lenghtened muscle fibers. Modern day preoccupations with body fat content and the development of unnaturally shortened muscles (such as the six-pack) go against the vision of the great yogis.

What is it about yoga that makes it so different from western exercise? The yoga asanas, or postures, are designed to lengthen the muscle fibers while at the same time working on the glandular level to create harmony and balance. The major joints,glands, and organs are stimulated and recover their innate abilities to function flawlessly. Western exercise, on the other hand, simply tightens and shortens muscle fibers in an attempt to reduce bulk in some places and add bulk in others. This purely mechnical view of the body can only lead to a machine-like body.

Yoga sees the body as an organic whole and the practice of yoga is the practice of kripa or grace.

Peace and Love
Abhay