I didn't slow down to "do less," I did it to teach better.

I thought I slowed down because I was fragile. Turns out, it was because I actually wanted to teach.

Back up ten years into my teaching career and I was teaching a lot. I really wanted to. I drove 3+ hours a day to teach three hours worth of classes all over the greater Seattle area. I taught at 6am, 815pm, 430pm on Saturdays and every conceivable time slot in between with the voracious, single-minded goal of fine-tuning my craft.

I dreamt of teaching kick-ass power classes and giving people that “high” of getting their asses kicked in a dark, sweaty room. It was the zenith of yoga culture in Seattle.

At some point during this blur, my focus started to shift. I wasn’t content with superficial answers or things that just looked cool. I wanted to understand why. Why did it matter if my students let their shoulders dip in chaturanga? What actually constituted a good warm-up before Camel? What does it mean to listen to your body? Can we actually do that if everything is moving at the speed of light?

When doubt creeps in, we test. The little scientist in me from my college days was not content with “cause that’s what my teacher said” as an answer for every cue and idea.

So I slowed down. First in my own practice: what did it feel like to sit with discomfort? How did it feel if I moved slower when I stepped my foot through? Did it make things harder? Is harder always the goal? I didn’t figure out all the answers immediately, but there was one thing made abundantly clear: slowing down fundamentally forced me to pay closer attention.

So I took it to my teaching. First, it felt really uncomfortable. I realized I didn’t know what to do in silence. The truth of all the alignment cues came to light: they made me comfortable because it was easy to recite. I challenged myself instead to respond what I saw in real time.

The response was incredibly polarizing and taught me that class pacing is a stimulus.

There were plenty of vocal folks who adamantly disliked this evolution. They weren’t getting the workout they wanted, or found the details boring. Okay, that’s fine.

On the other hand, for the people who loved it, their words landed so much deeper. They felt seen. They felt empowered to make choices from a place of knowledge. They found their autonomy, a softening in their nervous system.

And that is the type of feedback that resonated in my bones. I found my calling.

But this begs the question: for those who enjoyed slowing down, what was it about the shift that made them feel this way?

As much as I’d like to say it’s about some magical Elena-only quality, the truth is, it’s likely about mechanics. (I’d make a terrible salesman and there’s a reason I’m allergic to self-appointed gurus).

When the pacing in my classes were fast, the whole goal was, frankly, to just keep up. And while people can do all sorts of impressively cool things like all the jumping backs and forwards and throughs (but where are all the backflips?), it’s really hard to actually perceive much while they’re doing it. Attention narrows as our brain attempts to prioritize the most important thing. The goal becomes execution.

When I slowed down, attention widened, and people were able to notice what they were doing, how, and what their body was trying to say about it. This process is not always easy or frictionless, however. But this is why the idea of listening to your body is a developed skill we build through repetition and time.

Slowing down creates space for the most basic learning cycle: try, feel, adjust, try again. And I mean this for all of us, students and teachers. I could see what was happening in real time and could adjust for it instead of filling the space with sentences that, by all accounts, would assure I’m seen as competent.

Take chaturanga. In a power vinyasa-ey type of practice, it’s often a drive-by. You get the cue, you do the thing, you stop being in the thing, and you move on. When we slow down, chaturanga becomes a thing you engage with instead of something you gloss over. What changes if you lower halfway, or if your shoulders dip, or if your elbows hug in or your hands go wider? What about if you don’t go all the way down?

Those questions lead to further inquiry, which starts to get us into the heart of the asana practice: can you feel the difference between effort and strain? Or the version where your breath doesn’t become an afterthought?

Less intense, sure, in a “my Apple Watch heart rate is lower than usual” type of way, but as a trade off is infinitely more precise. And precision is the gateway to discernment. And discernment is the tool of real self-care.

The other thing changing the pace did was reduce the feeling of urgency, which in my world, is the sneakiest and most annoying form of pressure. Pressure can make us want to perform and override - it’s that all too familiar slogan of “push through the pain” in action.

When I slowed down and built in time for pauses, observation, and reflection without judgment, I watched something happen in real time: faces changed, breathing steadied, and people felt safe enough to choose. When people feel safe enough to choose, that signals to me their nervous system has finally softened. Because in that softening we are allowed to be honest about what we really need.

Eventually I realized pacing was not just a personal preference or a cop out or a throwaway for those who “can’t do the fast practices,” it was a teaching method. It’s how I made room for real learning that landed in people’s bodies, not just their intellectual understanding.

I’ve been trying to put words to the structure. It goes something like this:

1. Arrive. Give yourself and your student time to show up before you start asking anything of them.

2. Add the stimulus, clearly and one at a time. One idea to play with, one progression, one thing to sense, so people can understand in real time what you’re asking of them.

3. Let it integrate. Pause. Be silent. Give options. Let this be a moment where the information can be observed from a place of curiosity and compassion. This is what makes observations become useable information for the future.

This is the difference between a class to check off on your to do list and a class that, in the long term, changes how people relate to themselves.

And hear me out: I’m not dissing fast practices, performance, or doing hard shit. Those things are regular pieces of my life. What I’m trying to say is that pacing is not neutral. It is a lever. I emphasize this because culturally we are conditioned to think more is better, faster is better, and flashier is the ideal. But is this really the case?

Eventually, this slowing down showed up in other aspects: I taught less classes, I moved further from the city, and I show up in much more deliberate and thoughtful containers.

Not because I got precious or allergic to doing stuff, but because I got interested in what actually sticks beyond the 60 minutes on the mat.

Here’s the truth: pacing doesn’t just change how a class feels. It changes what a person is capable of learning inside that class. It changes whether they leave with a memory of sweating their balls off and feeling like they got run over by a truck or leaving with a clearer sense of themselves (what effort feels like, or strain, what feels supportive, what feels performative, heck, even what feels real).

I get it. “More” is easy to sell. Faster is easy to glorify. Flashy is easy to mistake for advanced.

The harder thing—at least culturally—is letting precision be the flex. Letting honesty be the flex. Letting “I can feel what I need” be the flex.

So I’ll leave you with the question I keep returning to (in yoga and everywhere else):

Where in your life are you moving fast enough to get it done… while skipping over the part where you actually feel yourself in it?

Love & Snacks,

Elena