The Value of a Gentle Yoga Class

There's that pull to spend all your time pushing toward something more. There’s immense pressure on you to take yourself up to the next level. Pressure to lose weight, build muscle, get more flexible, gain more endurance, so on and so forth.

This pressure translates over to every facet of life. And that's generally how we end up burnt out.

We don't need to bring the hustle mindset to the yoga mat.

Yoga has a wealth of benefits, no matter what form of it you practice. However, there’s no shame in relacing and doing a gentler, easier yoga class. In some ways, a slower-paced practice can help you enjoy certain benefits of yoga even more. Yoga is known for its ability to ease stress and promote relaxation; gentler, easier classes will make that effect even stronger.

Plus, it's proven that yoga reduces stress. Multiple studies have shown that a yoga practice can decrease the secretion of cortisol, the primary stress hormone. So why wouldn’t you let yourself relax in a gentle class?

It's okay to do something for the simple enjoyment of it.

Not everything you do in life needs to be about pushing harder, going faster, and advancing yourself in some way. I'm very much a hustler learning to slow down for both my mental and physical health.

It's good to do things for self-improvement and personal development, but also cut yourself a break and take things slower. Chase your goals, but allow yourself to slow down and so something for a reason other than the outcome.

Slower paced yoga classes give you the chance to focus on what’s going on in your head.

“Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor.”

― Thich Nhat Hanh

If you spend a few hours a week hearing about how you should honor what your body wants, do what feels good, and pace yourself when you need to, you’re going to internalize some of those positive messages.

I don’t consider myself a particularly religious or spiritual person, but I actually really do enjoy the strong vibe of positivity that’s present in every class. When you take a slower, gentler class, you really have the opportunity to focus on the mindful aspect of yoga. That’s simple enjoyment at its finest.

Slowing down gives you the chance to go back to basics of form and refine your skills.

If you really can’t bring yourself to stop and smell the incense, look at it this way — slowing down with an easier class will give you the chance to go back to the basics. You can focus on improving the little things about your practice that may get pushed a little to the wayside when you’re pushing hard.

For example, when you’re in the midst of a particularly challenging pose, isn’t it hard to focus on stretching one particular muscle? Or lifting your elbows higher when you’re in eagle?

If you're shy about being the one person skipping a vinyasa in favor of child's pose, try out different classes and teachers.

At my studio, we have a few different levels; Mixed Level, Basic, and Gentle. There are other offerings as well, but those are the primary class types. I’m part of an ashtanga studio, which is all about muscle building, so basic is still more intense than a mixed level class at some of my past studios.

I decided to try a Gentle class since it was what worked best for my schedule that day. The experience was so pleasant that I simply had to write about it. I thought I might feel guilty for not pushing myself as much as I could have, but in the end, I felt like it was a lovely opportunity to practice the basics at a relaxing pace.

If you’re tired or your heart isn’t fully in it, doing a simple practice is better than no practice.

We’re not at 100% all the time. We have days where we slept badly, we’re fatigued from work or any number of things that go a little bit wrong in our lives. If we could do our absolute best performance every minute of every day, we would essentially be robots at that point.

This doesn’t just apply to physical fatigue. We all have periods of demotivation and blue days. It’s just part of being a human being. On those days when you can’t motivate yourself to go hard and push yourself up to the next level, it’s still good to do a gentler practice and get your body moving.

I almost didn't take that gentle yoga class, but then I was so glad I did.

I worried I would be wasting my time and not challenging myself enough. I couldn’t have been more wrong. It’s always worth it to move a little bit. Alternatively, if you’re on the fence about yoga, a gentle class is a great way to safely start practicing. Yoga isn’t dangerous when it’s practiced carefully and responsibly.

I’m always trying to improve and become stronger, which means I am sometimes that person who might push beyond my limits a little too eagerly. However, doing a gentle class was a lovely reminder of what originally brought me to yoga. One of the biggest reasons why I practice yoga is for the simple, blissful stress relief. Gentle classes are absolutely perfect for accomplishing that.

I'll end with one o fmy favorite quotes which really cements why yoga is such an important part of my physical and mental wellbeing.

“As I often tell my students, the two most important phrases in therapy, as in yoga, are “Notice that” and “What happens next?” Once you start approaching your body with curiosity rather than with fear, everything shifts.”

― Bessel A. van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma