by Carl Honore
But the physical payoff is just the beginning. Many Eastern exercise regimes teach people to extend the moment by easing them into a relaxed state of readiness. Even in martial arts such as karate, judo and kendo, with their lightning-fast kicks and punches, combatants learn to maintain a core of slowness. If the mind is racing, if they feel anxious and rushed, they are vulnerable. Through his own inner stillness, the martial arts expert learns to “slow down” his opponents’ moves in order to counter them more easily. He must be Slow on the inside to be fast on the outside. Western athletes call this “being in the zone.” Even when performing an act of skill at high speed, they remain unflustered and unrushed. John Brodie, a former star quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, sounds like a Zen master when he talks of staying serene in the heat of battle: “Time seems to slow way down, in an uncanny way, as if everyone were moving in slow motion. It seems as if I have all the time in the world to watch the receivers run their patterns, and yet I know the defensive line is coming at me just as fast as ever.”
Yoga can help achieve that core of stillness. It seeks to sustain a person’s chi—the life force, or energy—which can be hampered by stress, anxiety, illness and overwork. Even those who dismiss the idea of chi as mystical claptrap often find that yoga helps them develop a Slow frame of mind. Through the unhurried, controlled movements, they acquire more self-awareness, concentration and patience.
In a world craving inner calm, as well as the perfect body, yoga is therefore manna from heaven. People do it everywhere nowadays, from offices and hospitals to fire departments and factories. Recent surveys suggest that the number of Americans practising yoga has trebled since 1998 to around fifteen million, among them many professional athletes. Every newspaper travel supplement is packed with advertisements for yoga holidays in exotic locations. My son does yogic exercises at his nursery in London. In many gyms, yoga has knocked aerobics off its perch as the fitness class of choice. Even Jane Fonda, the original Queen of Huff and Puff, now makes yoga videos.
Mark Cohen credits yoga with making him healthy and Slow. As a thirty-four-year-old trader on Wall Street, he lives in the fast lane. His job is all about split-second decisions and, in his spare time, he plays two of the speediest sports around, basketball and hockey. Like many people, he used to scorn yoga as a hobby for wimps who could not do “real” sports. However, when a woman he fancied invited him to her class, he held his nose and went along. On the first night, he was amazed by how hard it was to bend his body into some of the asanas, and yet how relaxed he felt afterwards. Even though he decided the woman was not for him, he signed up for a yoga class nearer his apartment. After a few months of instruction, he was much more flexible. He felt stronger, and his posture improved so much that he threw away the fraying lumbar cushion that had been a permanent fixture on the back of his office chair. He also feels his balance and speed have improved on the basketball court and in the hockey rink. What Cohen most likes about yoga, though, is its relaxing, meditative quality. “When I do the poses, everything inside me slows right down,” he says. “After the class, I feel mellow but also really clear-headed.” That feeling spills over into the rest of his life. “You should see me at work now,” he says. “When things get crazy, I’m just Mr. Calm.”
Yoga also eases Cohen into Slow Thinking mode. Often he arrives at class feeling stressed about a problem at work. After an hour of relaxing his mind and slowly bending his body this way and that, a solution sometimes comes to him. “My mind must be working through stuff on a subconscious level when I do yoga,” he says. “Some of my greatest ideas hit me when I’m walking home after class.”
Others rave about the energy yoga gives them. Dahlia Teale works in a hairdressing salon in New Orleans, Louisiana, and used to go to the gym four days a week to take aerobics classes and work out on the cardio machines. In 2002, she joined a yoga class with a friend. Right away, she felt energized. “I used to come out of the gym a lot of the time feeling exhausted,” she says. “With yoga it’s the opposite—I get an energy high that lasts for a long time.” Teale has cancelled her gym membership and now stays fit through a combination of yoga, walking and cycling. She has lost 6 pounds.
Chi Kung is another Eastern exercise regime whose Slow approach to the mind and body is winning converts. Sometimes described as “yoga with meditation and movement,” Chi Kung is a generic term for a range of ancient Chinese exercises that promote health by circulating chi round the body. In a standing position, and using the pelvic area as a fulcrum, practitioners move slowly through a series of postures that elongate the limbs. Slow, deep breathing is also important. Chi Kung is not about pumping up the heart rate and sweating profusely; it is about control and awareness. It can improve balance, strength, posture and rhythm of movement. Even more than yoga, it helps to achieve a relaxed mind while in an active state. Chi Kung has many branches, ranging from martial arts such as Kung Fu to the much gentler Tai Chi.
In the West, people are using Chi Kung as a way to play sports better. Mike Hall gives golf and squash lessons in Edinburgh, Scotland, and slowness is his watchword. He claims that by using Chi Kung to still his mind he can actually see the yellow dot on the squash ball as it hurtles towards him. Through the slow, controlled movements of Chi Kung, his students learn to move fluidly on the squash court, rather than lurching hither and thither. And they develop a calmness of mind that makes them feel they have enough time to play any shot. “The paradox is that you are in motion and still at the same time,” Hall tells me over the phone.
To see this paradox in action, I arrange to visit his squash club in Edinburgh. A former professional soccer player, Hall is a stocky forty-five-year-old with sandy hair and a slight lisp. He is just finishing off a lesson as I arrive. Right away he stands out from the crowd. While others flap and flail around the court, Hall moves with the liquid grace of a tango dancer. Even when he lunges to make an awkward return, he seems to flow. I am reminded of that famously counterintuitive piece of advice from Jackie Stewart, the Formula One hero: sometimes to be faster you have to be slower.
When the lesson is over, Hall takes me through a few Chi Kung exercises, urging me to think about the movements and to remain fluid. He always comes back to the importance of keeping a steady centre, both in the trunk of the body and in the mind. “For most people, the problem in squash is not being fast enough,” he says. “It’s being slow enough.” It all sounds a little corny, which gives me an extra incentive to take Hall down a peg or two when we finally enter the court to play a game. From the first rally, though, I find myself on the back foot. Hall covers the whole court with very little effort at all. He wins 9–2.
Afterwards, his next pupil, an amazingly fit seventy-two-year-old business professor named Jim Hughes, tells me how Chi Kung is helping him to conquer his addiction to hurry. “Things don’t change overnight, but working with Mike has done wonders for my squash game,” he says. “I don’t do so much pointless rushing about as I used to.” Chi Kung has also helped take some of the haste out of his working life. On consulting jobs, Hughes used to rush into giving his clients feedback. In the classroom, he raced through the material with one eye on the clock. Now, thanks to Chi Kung, he takes a Slow approach. That means setting aside the time he needs to teach his pupils at a suitable pace and waiting for the right moment to discuss a client’s weaknesses. “Instead of yielding to my first reflex, which is to act as soon as possible, I now slow down and give myself the space to consider the options,” says Hughes. “I’m sure I’m a better professor and a better consultant for it.”
The morning after our one-sided contest on the squash court, Hall takes me to knock some golf balls around a local park. The weather is vintage Edinburgh, grey and drizzly. Hall watches me play a few shots with a nine-iron. We then perform some Chi Kung exercises together. Hall talks again about the importance of remaining calm and still inside. He also tells me that studies have shown that swinging too fast actually causes the golf club to decelerate as it hits th
e ball. A slower, rhythmical swing delivers better control and more power. I pick up the nine-iron, determined to put his words into action. Right away, my swing feels smoother, stronger.
Later I compare notes with Lindsay Montgomery, the fifty-year-old chief executive of the Scottish Legal Aid Board and a lifelong golfer. When he first started taking lessons from Hall, he was skeptical about Chi Kung and its promise to harness the power of slowness. Six months later, to his amazement, he had shaved nearly three strokes off his handicap. “Chi Kung gives you a different sense of timing and tempo,” he says. “I tend to do everything very quickly—that’s my personality. But slowing my swing down has made it much smoother. Chi Kung has taught me not to rush, and that has made me a better golfer.”
The East is not the only source of slow, mindful forms of exercise. In 1930s Britain, Joseph H. Pilates devised a strengthening regime based on three very yogic principles: precise movements, concentration and controlled breathing. In a modern Pilates class, people perform special exercises to strengthen the core muscles around the spine and thus improve flexibility, endurance and posture. Though not rooted in a spiritual or meditative tradition, Pilates can also deepen mental concentration and focus. Tiger Woods, the American golfer, practices Pilates and meditation.
Meanwhile, Western sports scientists are coming around to the idea that exercising more slowly can yield better results. The harder we work out, the more quickly our heart beats, and the more fat we burn. But beyond a certain point, the faster-is-better equation no longer applies. Dr. Juul Achten, a research fellow at the University of Birmingham, has found—and other studies have since confirmed—that we burn the most fat per minute when our heart beats at 70% to 75% of its maximum rate. The average person can reach that state by power-walking or jogging lightly. Work out harder than that, pushing the heart rate closer to its maximum, and the body starts using more carbohydrates to fuel itself. In other words, the gym rat pounding manically away on the StairMaster is probably burning less fat than the shrinking violet exercising more slowly on the neighbouring machine. The tortoise and the hare metaphor helps to explain. “The hare looks like he’s achieving more because he’s going faster,” says Dr. Achten. “But in the race to burn fat, I would put my money on the tortoise to win.”
Against that backdrop, walking, the oldest form of exercise, is making a comeback. In the pre-industrial era, people mostly travelled on foot—and that kept them fit. Then came engine power, and people got lazy. Walking became the transport of last resort, a “forgotten art” in the words of the World Health Organization.
As we saw in the last chapter, though, planners across the world are redesigning suburbs and city centres to make more room for pedestrians. My London borough, Wandsworth, has just launched its own Walking Strategy. There are many good reasons to walk. One is that it is free: you don’t need to take classes or hire a personal fitness instructor to learn how to stroll in the park. Many of the journeys we make by car could just as easily—and sometimes more easily—be made on foot. Walking can boost fitness and guard against heart disease, stroke, cancer and osteoporosis. And it is less likely to cause injury than more strenuous exercise.
Travelling on foot can also be meditative, fostering a Slow frame of mind. When we walk, we are aware of the details around us—birds, trees, the sky, shops and houses, other people. We make connections.
Walking can even help ease the itch to accelerate. In a car, train or plane, where the engine always holds out the promise of more power, more speed, we feel tempted to go faster, and treat every delay as a personal affront. Because our bodies come with a built-in speed limit, walking can teach us to forget about acceleration. It is inherently Slow. In the words of Edward Abbey, the enfant terrible of American environmentalism: “There are some good things to say about walking.… Walking takes longer, for example, than any other form of locomotion except crawling. Thus, it stretches time and prolongs life. Life is already too short to waste on speed.… Walking makes the world much bigger and therefore more interesting. You have time to observe the details.”
Alex Podborski could not agree more. The twenty-five-year-old used to ride a scooter to his job at a travel agency in central London. Then, in 2002, when his Vespa was stolen for the third time, he decided to try commuting by foot. Now, he spends twenty-five minutes walking to and from work. His route takes him across Hyde Park, where he does some of his best thinking. He smiles at people along the way, and generally feels more connected to the city. Instead of arriving at the office all pumped up after navigating the rush hour traffic, Podborski strolls in relaxed and ready for anything. “Walking is my chill-out time,” he says. “It sets me up for the day and winds me down at the end of it.” It also pays dividends on the fitness front. Since taking up walking, Podborski feels healthier and leaner. “I’m never going to model underwear for Calvin Klein,” he says, with a wry smile. “But at least my beer gut is getting smaller.”
For a more contemporary take on Slow exercise, look no further than SuperSlow, the weightlifting movement sweeping North America and beyond. Before you skip ahead to the next chapter, though, let’s lay to rest a common misconception: pumping iron does not turn everyone into the Incredible Hulk. SuperSlow makes the average person stronger and leaner without piling on the muscle. And since muscle takes up around 30% less space than fat, many people drop a dress size or two after hitting the weights. Vanity Fair, a bible for those who favour beauty over bulk, named SuperSlow one of the hottest workouts of 2002. Newsweek, Men’s Health, Sports Illustrated for Women and the New York Times have also jumped on the bandwagon.
When I first start sifting through the media reports, the glowing testimonials sound too good to be true. Lifting weights at the conventional speed never did this much for me or anyone else I know. Could slowing down really make that big a difference?
The SuperSlow movement’s headquarters is tucked away in an anonymous strip mall not far from the airport in Orlando, Florida. When I arrive, Ken Hutchins, the man who founded SuperSlow in the early 1980s, is busy on the phone, explaining to someone in Seattle how to become a certified trainer. The delay gives me a chance to inspect the Before and After photographs on the office walls. Bearded, middle-aged Ted took 6 inches off his waist in ten weeks. Thirty-something Ann shed 7 inches from her thighs in under three months. The photos are shot in the warts-and-all style favoured by medical textbooks—no air-brushing, no artsy lighting, no touching up. I find this reassuring. It suggests that SuperSlow is winning converts through results rather than slick marketing.
Hutchins himself is tall, and blessed with the ramrod posture of a four-star general (he once worked as a surgical technician in the US Air Force). He is fit, without being muscle-bound. We settle into a couple of chairs and start talking about the folly of the Do Everything Faster culture. “The modern mentality is that doing something slowly means it’s not intense or productive—and that applies to exercise, too,” says Hutchins. “People think that unless you’re performing a frenzied activity like aerobics you’re not getting any benefit. But actually the opposite is true. It is the slowness that makes exercise so productive.”
How does it work? A SuperSlow adherent takes twenty seconds to lift and lower a weight, compared to the conventional six seconds. The slowness eliminates momentum, forcing the muscles to work to complete exhaustion. That, in turn, encourages them to rebuild more quickly and thoroughly. Weightlifting can also make bones stronger and denser, a godsend for young and old. A study published in the June 2001 issue of the Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness concluded that SuperSlow boosted strength 50% more than conventional weight training, at least over the short term. But power is only part of it. Building muscle is also a good way to slim down because it boosts the body’s metabolism, forcing it to burn more calories all day long. Put on some muscle, keep your diet steady, and the fat starts falling off.
SuperSlow has the added advantage of taking very little time. The workout is so intense
that it never lasts more than twenty minutes. Beginners need to rest three to five days between sessions, more experienced lifters even longer. Since little, if any, sweating occurs—fans keep the temperature in the studio low—many SuperSlow clients work out in their office clothes. Slower turns out to be faster. And safer, too: with its smooth, controlled movements, SuperSlow minimizes the risk of injury.
A SuperSlow workout can also trigger a flurry of other health benefits ranging from higher levels of HDL, the good cholesterol, to stronger, more mobile joints. Hutchins claims that SuperSlow is enough to keep the average person fit and healthy, and that any extra sport is merely a hindrance. Just mention the phrase “cardio workout” and he rolls his eyes. Not everyone agrees, though. Both the American Heart Association and the US Surgeon General’s office recommend a mixture of strength training and conventional aerobic exercise.
Despite the absence of a definitive clinical study of SuperSlow, the anecdotal evidence is winning people over in droves. In the United States, professional and collegiate sports teams have reportedly woven elements of SuperSlow philosophy into their exercise regimes, as have the Special Forces, the FBI, the civilian police and paramedics. Doctors and physiotherapists rave about it. Across North America, SuperSlow gyms are drawing a cross-section of society, from pensioners and teenage couch potatoes to desk-bound yuppies and ladies who lunch. Almost every day someone calls the headquarters in Orlando to find out how to become a certified trainer. Studios have opened in Australia, Norway, India, Israel and Taiwan.
Why has SuperSlow taken twenty years to move into the mainstream? Perhaps because it can be hard to love. For a start, lifting weights is less likely to deliver the endorphin high you get from other forms of exercise. Pumping iron at a snail’s pace also hurts like hell. If you follow the SuperSlow regime to the letter, it can feel more like a duty than a delight. Listen to Hutchins’ description of the perfect SuperSlow studio: “ … low-distraction furnishings with pale wall colours, no music, no plants, no mirrors, no socializing, dim lighting, continuous ventilation, low temperature, low humidity.… Also integral to the ideal environment (is) a strict clinical demeanour.”