Joy

Better. Less. Finding Magic in the Mundane.
What brings you to yoga?
Why do you continue practicing? Is it about getting a work-out? Is it about relaxation? Is it about an alternate physical activity because of injury? Is it about gaining flexibility?

Thinking about our purpose with our yoga practice can help us define the experience we crave. Slowing our practice and embracing the parameters of what our practice already contains is in essence appreciating this journey. Meeting ourselves at face-value and exploring the beauty within this space.

Fast-paced yoga practices as any active physical exercise can bring fluidity, flexibility and strength to our stressed body as well as lower stress. However, slow yoga, through intentional poses and passive exercises, serves up a larger dose of long-term relief to specifically counter our daily activities. In other words, we can swim, walk, jog and do cross-fit (and we should do the cardio), but without a complement to specifically address our alignment, we will continue suffering pain in the neck, stress in the shoulders, uncomfortable stretching across the mid-back and a weak and painful lower back.

In sum, the chair sucks the flexibility from our body. Slow yoga and passive exercises correct our alignment, build our flexibility, increase our good moods, and help rid our body of aches and pains by alternating work and deep relaxation.

Slowing down the practice for love of the experience can provide some substantial
benefits:
1. Moving slower through a yoga practice builds more strength than moving quickly.
Muscles have to work harder to control movements of transitions and to hold the postures. Movement is therefore more intentional and powerful and contributes to avoiding injuries during transitions. We experience the movement towards the final posture rather than forcing or pushing into it.
2. Slower yoga strengthens bones by holding postures, allowing the body to “find” the alignment and nourishing bones by pushing the muscles to the bones.
3. Slow yoga focuses the mind. Senses become sharper and we begin witnessing sensations in the nervous system. We feel not only the physical effects of the practice but also realize on a more subtle level, how much our mind and mood is affected by how our body feels.

As our relationship with our partner, our relationship with our practice changes over time. In function of our body, our desires, experiences and even trends and fads, we look for stimulation in different places. What if the stimulation you seek is already within? What if it can be released by embracing the stillness in and between the poses? What will you discover there?

Recognizing old habits and creating new habits
One of the benefits of a yoga retreat is the space it provides to recognize old habits and create new habits. Our yoga retreats are complemented in the afternoons with Yin Yoga.

Yin yoga guides us along this path. Yin yoga works deeply with the fascia, ligaments and bones or the connective tissue of the body. Whereas more active yoga styles focus on muscle and bone coordination work, yin moves through the more subtle layers of the history of our body. We store emotions, experiences and trauma in the body on the fascia level. Fascia is one continuous web of connective tissue surrounding muscle from head to toe, literally connecting all parts of the body. If there is constraint in one part of the body, we will feel the effects through the fascia in another part of the body.

The practice of asanas is to address our knots or constraints as defined in the Yoga Sutras. Every mental knot has a corresponding physical knot and vice versa. The fascia stores our physical and emotional memories. Our body is the scene of our story. Our knots can be read as a map to our physical accidents and emotional traumas. We feel patterns; certain emotions are felt in certain areas. These memories are stored in the physical layer of the body until we can let them go.

This is where Yin Yoga can play a huge role in our yoga practice as a transformational experience. Yin yoga creates a space to allow us to let go. By entering into these authentic postures, generally held from 3-10 minutes, we give in to the stillness meeting our body where it is. Without pretense, without desire. With acceptance of where and who we are now, letting the mind relax.  Sometimes with a wave of  emotional energy. As the wave leaves the body, it leaves space for something new. Without the old thought patterns, we remember more vividly who we are and that we are enough. We are reminded of the beauty of everything. And that joy is our true nature.