keep it simple, stupid!

KISS, an acronym US Navy meaning 'Keep It Simple, Stupid', in 1960 was created on the principle that most systems works best if they are kept simple rather than made complicated. This principle has been applied broadly to Engineering, Design, and Software Development. But the most foundational and simple of all systems is our own system: the system of the body. And from the body it can move outward to our own personal lives. 

Ayurveda is the sister science of yoga,  a centuries old practice of self-care and health. In Ayurveda, winter is the season of Kapha. Kapha is the energy of water and earth. It is cool, slow, dense, and stable. Kapha season is the season of warm, filling comfort foods like stew and pot roast. It is the energy of bundling up and staying inside, hibernation and conservation of energy. This season serves as a reminder to us to move slower, do less, nourish ourselves. To be caretakers of our own bodies and minds, treating ourselves as something precious. Kapha also reminds us to ground ourselves and provide a stable foundation from which to move. Kapha is not the most flashy of the seasons. It doesn't have colorful flowers or brilliant green grasses or boisterous outdoor markets and block parties. Kapha is understated and essential. The plain white t-shirt in your closet, the nutrients hidden in a nut, the quiet acts of care you perform for those you love without fanfare.

I hate to be one more person on the internet complaining about how fast our lives move these days, but it's true. With our YOLO and FOMO and #hustle we get caught up in the momentum of always moving on to the next thing, always go go go.  Our society is inextricably focused on productivity, leading us to avoid rest because it doesn't feel "productive" -- meaning, it doesn't have a demonstrable output. In reality, this couldn't be further from the truth. Resting is the state in which our body  and mind process everything from thoughts to sensory input to food, it's the time in which the body repairs itself. The bodymind is incredibly productive while at rest.

Even in yoga we can see this in a preoccupation with fast-paced flow, always striving for more complex poses or "deeper" variations. What we miss is the depth that exists in the absence of our striving. In truth, yoga doesn't need to be complex at all. The earliest yoga texts show us that the first yoga poses were simply different ways of sitting. There was no Full Wheel pose, no Handstand, no standing balances. The point was to find a comfortable seat so that you could stop moving for a moment and simply breathe. 

Coming back to this foundation in yoga can be cathartic. We can spend a lifetime exploring the same handful of foundational poses in yoga and never get bored because each day the body is different, each breath is different, and therefore each time we enter the same pose it will be different and feel different.  This week my class is focused on exactly this principle. The cessation of the striving and being carried blindly forward on momentum, and the return to simplicity. Being ok with doing a little bit less, moving a little slower, keeping things simple.