Source: yogachick.tumblr.com via Nadine on Pinterest
I was chatting to Karen’s flatmate the other day, and she was telling me that, for a while, the yoga classes she’d been going to were making her angry.
‘Why?’, I asked.
‘It’s the power flow,’ she replied, ‘I hate moving that fast. It makes me angry.’
You know WHY it was making her angry?
Breath.
In order to move fast through vinyasa, and breathe with every movement, your breath necessarily shortens and speeds up. Which makes it shallow.
Stress-pattern breathing, basically.
Plus, you tend to use your secondary breathing muscles in your neck & shoulders when breathing this way, rather than your primary breathing muscles (diaphragm and intercostals). So, what you are effectively doing, as you speed up your breath, is sending a message to your body that it’s under stress.
If you breathe quite fast anyway, you won’t get angry in fast vinyasa classes, because you won’t have to artificially shorten your breath. But if you breathe slowly?
Sorry, you are gonna have to move slowly. Otherwise, you will leave your yoga class agitated and pissed off.
A few deep breaths and slow movements can’t be a bad thing.
Everyone breathes at their own pace – that’s why something like Mysore-style Ashtanga practice is great. Everyone goes at their own pace, according to the pace of their own breath.
Even better, my perfect-world situation? A Free Form class where everyone works on their own, personal and personalised practice, and the teacher is there to help them with alignment and keep them in a safe zone. I used to run classes a bit like that as community events, but only the brave came.
I tend in the direction of breathing slowly, practicing slowly and teaching that way. It’s what keeps my nervous system on an even keel. But when I was younger, I loved a fast practice. You just have to find what works for you, right now. The thing that DOESN’T piss you off. Just, you know, to be crystal clear. Yeah.
Moving from Stability: Understanding the Pelvis in Posture (Online workshop)
Myinsens
Curvy Yoga by Anna Guest-Jelley
Wow. This is why power yoga is making me crazy! I did notice my breathing was shallow and i felt stressed during and after!
xx
hi everyone! i just want to say that as a power yoga practitioner and teacher, power does not mean fast, and my students as well as myself take the time to breathe deep, long breaths…as a teacher, i encourage my students to come into their own rhythm of breathing…that my cues are suggestions and guidance, not orders. i’ve never left a class pissed nor have any of my students to the best of my knowledge. yes, we work TOWARDS one breath per movement, but it does not mean the movements are fast…often the power comes from slowing down, actually. it’s not an aerobic class, even if the heart rate rises, it’s still focuses on long smooth rhythmic breaths. maybe i am just fortunate to live in atlanta where the teachers are generally top notch and helps the students to find their practice in a safe and aware manner with a focus on breath first and foremost. if someone is breathing shallowly or not in sync with their movements, i encourage them to slow down, skip a vinyasa (or two) or simply rest a little until they are ready to move again.
Nice comment Lisa, and I agree, power doesn’t have to mean fast. But vinyasa often does, sadly.
nice to hear from you Nadine..and I usually call my power classes Vigorous Vinyasa or Vinyasa Flow (I know, redundant..lol) or something like that. but i def. don’t rush thru. last sat i had 2 70 somethings, 1 buff soldier on the way to afganistan, and 4 others in various degrees of fitness, and all did vinyasa and all practiced to their own levels as i taught the poses, offering varying increments of options and challenges. to my knowledge, not one was pissed afterward.
) come to atlanta for some vigorous, yet non-angering vinyasa!
Well, if you INSIST…hehe
@nadinefawell, 42 is quite young!
[no, I don't know your age. But according to the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", the answer is "42". Which might be about right.] If so, I am about 16 years older than you …
Remember, in New York City, the teacher talks trash about the (who he thinks is) slacking student, AFTER the student has gone …
It’s not that the walls have ears, it’s that the low-rent studio had no private changing room, and I heard everything … [no, not every last thing, of course, but you know what I mean ...]
@goodg1rl, did you have my pilates teacher teaching your restorative class?
Because I’d had the pilates teacher who had us in a child’s pose-like stance for over 5 minutes (she’d even come over and “adjusted” me further into the stance) … um, I’d had housemaid’s knees for about two days after the class ….
Didn’t make me angry, though, no pilates class ever did … hah … and I’m strange enough to put a lot of pilates into my signature self-sequence of slow-ish flow …
Might I be better suited to a few things other than yoga? ;-]
Hey you guys! Interesting conversation, as always.
shizzknis, I have no idea why the comments box was giving you a hard time! Do you think age has slowed you? Or were you always a slow breather? Which is a GOOD thing, by the way…
amphibi1yogini , wow. I didn’t get that memo, that one has to be young & hot to get good treatment in yoga class. I think I might be glad I live in Melbourne, for yet another reason now
thepickyrabbit? sounds like you are doing just the right yoga for you.
The rest of us just need to be ok with slowing down. Yeah.
OMG! You just diagnosed the problem I was having too!!! THANK YOU!
This is such a great thing to share. I can’t say I leave class mad but this is a great reminder to just listen to your body. I do love that my teacher always tells us to move with our own breath. Thank you.
Ha I’m famous! As the aforementioned angry yogi, I LOVE this post. Wrap me up in a blanket and pop me on a bolster any day of the week, that’s what I call a yoga class. I would totally pay to go to that class, trouble is I can’t find any bloody good restorative classes. Gives me the shits really, one ‘restorative’ class i went to put me in the squat position for minutes! Restorative my arse, my legs hurt for two days after that and i spent the whole time wondering ‘when is acceptable to leave?’. where does one go to go to get restored?!
Ok, so weird- I’m trying to leave a longer comment and can only get the first few lines into the box. It never gets any bigger and my typing gets cut off after three lines. Hence the crappy typos!
I’m a slow breather, too. But I teach vinyasa/power yoga and always ALWAYS mention in my classes that people are free to move faster or slower than I cue. And I do tend to cue slower than the other teachers I know. Maybe that’s because I’m 10+ oyears older tha mst of the teachers at t
This post resonates deeply with me. I swear I am the slowest moving/breathing yogini on the planet. I thought I was being lazy
You bet I have. But the power yoga teacher didn’t want to believe me when I told him; and he took it personally. I am one of those laid-back, non Type-A (but still high strung with anxiety, not perfectionism) types. So my reactions to power yoga are quite complex: I MUST be in a high-spirited frame of mind to appreciate the practice. I usually am not. Power yoga will amplify whatever mood I am feeling already. If I am feeling high spirited, it will just make me tired like the aerobics classes of the ’80s used to do. I rarely feel centered after this type of class (even some kinds of vinyasa, if they are not taught in a manner that meets you where you are that day).
Perhaps if I were young like these teachers, and possibly a more fashionable body type for this East Coast U.S. city that I live in, they might grant me a pass on being where I am that day. Kinda like teacher letting the “flavor of the month” do what they want during class … [then most likely talking trash about them after they've left the studio ...]
I don’t feel you have to be trim and athletic to appreciate Baptiste power style. I think being young/youthful and having the right temperament are what helps. This style yoga is not bendy, rococo or bludgeoning in practice …
I’ve been joking with another yoga teacher on Twitter about starting a studio when she moves to Melbourne. We’d call it the Slow Yoga Studio.
Hehe. I will be there