I am still pondering the question explored last week, "What the hell will happen with yoga?"
We humans are still our ancient biology, highly adaptable, responsive and intelligent, yet slow to evolve. We have nervous systems that operate like our mammalian relatives - fight, flight, freeze response to anything remotely threatening to survival.Yet our modern life is fast, technological and perpetually new. And in reality, less threatening than it was for our ancient ancestors. Our nerves cannot discern between different levels of threat, let alone the difference between road rage or a hungry tiger. Nerves are designed to respond to stimuli, and send a message to the oldest part of our brain, the limbic, to mobilize the body or not. Our consciousness on the other hand, a more recent development of our brain, the pre-frontal cortex, learns to discern.
Yoga gives us a chance to integrate this dichotomy. It gives us time that is intentionally slower and spacious. It gives our nerves time to rest from constant stimuli, real and/or perceived threats big and small. It gives our consciousness and biology a chance to conjoin and communicate with each other. Allowing a pause for consciousness to witness what is happening in the body and discern between what is true or not, an actual threat or perceived threat, past or present.
I believe if we try to bring yoga up to the speed of modernity - we are missing the point, we are missing an opportunity to actually integrate the slow process of evolution and sustainable change that is necessary for our species to adapt to inevitable change.
I've observed in the last 3-4 years teaching yoga, that it takes considerably more time for our nervous system to settle on the mat. Being sensitive to this energy (and sometimes not knowing exactly what it was trying to communicate) I would sometimes feel the desire to move through a power vinyasa flow that would match the nervous energy in the room. Other times, when I listened well, what was actually needed is for the nerves is to slow down, for the nervous system to recalibrate, in the form of slow vinyasa, forward folds, and long savasanas. This later choice always ended well, with restful bodies and blissed out minds (lets be clear, yoga almost always ends well regardless and power vinyasa or the like can also end with bliss.) But the more I chose the power vinyasa route while there was a ton of nervous energy in the room, the more my intuition would tell me otherwise about halfway through - and being too far in to turn around - my solution was "okay, let's make sure we have a good long savasana."
Nowadays, a good long savasana by itself is enough.
This is not an essay on what type of yoga is best for our times. Any type and any amount of yoga practiced will be highly beneficial. That's the beauty of yoga.
Yoga gives us a chance to integrate this dichotomy. It gives us time that is intentionally slower and spacious. It gives our nerves time to rest from constant stimuli, real and/or perceived threats big and small. It gives our consciousness and biology a chance to conjoin and communicate with each other. Allowing a pause for consciousness to witness what is happening in the body and discern between what is true or not, an actual threat or perceived threat, past or present.
I believe if we try to bring yoga up to the speed of modernity - we are missing the point, we are missing an opportunity to actually integrate the slow process of evolution and sustainable change that is necessary for our species to adapt to inevitable change.
I've observed in the last 3-4 years teaching yoga, that it takes considerably more time for our nervous system to settle on the mat. Being sensitive to this energy (and sometimes not knowing exactly what it was trying to communicate) I would sometimes feel the desire to move through a power vinyasa flow that would match the nervous energy in the room. Other times, when I listened well, what was actually needed is for the nerves is to slow down, for the nervous system to recalibrate, in the form of slow vinyasa, forward folds, and long savasanas. This later choice always ended well, with restful bodies and blissed out minds (lets be clear, yoga almost always ends well regardless and power vinyasa or the like can also end with bliss.) But the more I chose the power vinyasa route while there was a ton of nervous energy in the room, the more my intuition would tell me otherwise about halfway through - and being too far in to turn around - my solution was "okay, let's make sure we have a good long savasana."
Nowadays, a good long savasana by itself is enough.
This is not an essay on what type of yoga is best for our times. Any type and any amount of yoga practiced will be highly beneficial. That's the beauty of yoga.
The point is to calm the nerves that are increasingly overstimulated in our modern world. A powerful vinyasa practice can do this when the breath is highly regulated. But, if our nervous system stays in sympathetic mode (fight or flight) on the mat, we are bringing yoga up to speed, so to speak, to our unregulated nervous system. What if we thought of bringing our body, nerves and mind to the speed of yoga? Yoga is deliberately slower, compared to our modern technological world, as its aim is to unite the restless mind (and nerves) with body and spirit, which helps shift the nervous system to parasympathetic mode (rest and restore).
To attempt to answer the question posed at the beginning of this essay, sometimes yoga is boring. Yoga as a practice can seem mundane. Mundane, defined as the day-to-day ordinary, can be very boring. This is especially true in an environment of perpetual newness and stimulation.
We need to remember that our biology is ancient and highly intelligent. When we allow our consciousness to pay close attention and listen to the information being transmitted we have amazing opportunities for not just the bliss of pure presence but also conscious adaptation to our changing environment.
I believe that we can approach yoga as something like an Oak tree that adapts to change of seasons, has roots as deep as its branches extend, is something we can lean into and be supported by her undeniable strength and persistence. I believe we can enter the practice like a river, being in the flow. Sometimes we are the water that overflows with energy, its' force shaping the Earth into the channels that contains it. Sometimes we are the water that is slow and meandering. Often times its both.
