Call me a yoga geek, but I just love to experiment using my body as a laboratory (insert evil scientist laugh here). This past week I've switched things up by splitting up my yoga practice. I've been doing 15 minutes in the morning and 15 minutes in the evening. My morning yoga is a Kundalini practice that offers lots of movement and flow. My evening practice is my little experiment -- I've taken a basic Sun Salutation and slowed it down, holding each pose for 1 minute (with a lot of deep breathing). How's that for a simple evening practice -- one Sun Salutation with a 5-minute Savasana.
I just finished with my evening practice before writing this post. Before I started the practice, I was feeling a bit sleepy, getting ready to wind things down for the evening. Now my body feels alive, buzzing with energy. I'm very aware of my heart pumping and it's almost as if I can feel my blood flowing throughout my body. Before I started this experiment, I would have said that my morning practice was the one that got my blood flowing. It does, yes, but it feels quite different than the evening practice. Slowing the Sun Salute down and doing long holds with deep breathing lights my body up in a very deep way.
Interestingly enough, earlier this evening I was listening to a fabulous presentation by Ayurvedic expert John Douillard entitled Love, Sex, and Yoga (you can listen for free by clicking that link), and he discussed how slow yoga allows the prana to begin to move through the density of the physical body so that it can activate the nadi system and redirect your subtle energy towards the spiritual process of contentment (as opposed to achieving contentment from stimulating activities such as adrenaline rush type activities, sex, shopping, etc.). Hmmmmm...very interesting. I sure have noticed that's been my experience since starting this new evening practice.
Why not try this yourself and see what you notice? Slow things way down and hold your poses for 1-3 minutes. Now I'm not saying that it replaces sex, but...it sure does feel good.
Namaste!
P.S. John offers up some amazing wisdom at around 1:02:27 in the video. Don't miss it!
< Amazon.com Widgets
