One of our Slow Club online participants reflects on the process:

The task for week one was to notice my speed.  I can’t say I honestly managed to do this daily, however I did make a concerted effort to reflect on my speed and to be appropriate in the time I took to do tasks.  One of the things I noticed was that I think and feel calm when in motion under my own steam.  So when I was on my bike or walking I felt very much at the appropriate pace to my activity.  However when I attempted to walk slowly I found myself speeding up to my normal pace – as if my feet had a mind of their own!  During my quick-slow-quick-slow walk I did make sure to look up and around me more as I walked, and thoroughly enjoyed this connection with my urban environment.

Week two asked me to ‘switch off’ some technology for an hour a day.  Hmm, I thought dubiously, what if someone calls, texts, tweets, emails or facebooks me – I won’t be able to answer straight away, panic!  Then I thought about the time before mobile phones, before constant social connections existed – I managed to live without tweets and texts then; maybe it was time to give it a go again…

I kept my weekend technology to a minimum, then from Monday I put my phone away during work hours.   I left it in my locker at work – only checking it at lunch and after work.  Usually I would have it in my pocket to check my emails frequently, and answer any calls and texts as soon as I received them.  I actually felt better able to concentrate on my work with out my phone ‘nagging’ me from my pocket.  This week I was working in a creative workshop, so I was completely isolated from technology in that sense, and… I totally enjoyed it!

The weekly task was to take a lunch break, something that I nearly always do already.  My job is, for the most part, manual so I find having a lunch break is an important part of my day – the opportunity to sit down and rest is vital to my ability to work.  This week however I took a walk on one of my lunches to the canal and had a little sit down there, watching the water. I also made sure to go outside for a part of my breaks on the other days, just for a spot of reflection and daylight.  I found it very relaxing to step away from the noise and conversation of the lunchroom, it gave me a pleasant energetic feeling when I came back that I don’t usually have after lunch.

Week three’s task is to watch my breath and eat mindfully, both outside of my normal habits.  I breath (as most of us do) without thinking, and my meals tend to be social – catching up with my partner, chatting to colleagues etc – so I will have to think strongly about my actions for this task.  I will blog about it next week, fingers crossed I manage to do it!

Bridget Harvey

http://www.bridgetharvey.co.uk

One of our Slow Clubbers considers the first week:

I have just received the first Slow Club instructions and I am looking forward to including them into my forthcoming hectic week, and hopefully picking up some good Slow day-to-day habits for the future.

My normal week either involves working for myself or someone else, sometimes multiple places in the same week, and a lot of diary management to make sure that I get everything done on time and am in the right place at the right time. Managing my time to squish as much as possible into my day seems to be my default mode.

So when I received my first Slow Club email my first thought was ‘at what point will I be walking somewhere that I can make my Slow walk?’ – trying to plan it in!  So that actually became my first point to be aware of my pace – I thought about it and chose not to plan it in – I will just try to think about my speed during my whole week, I think my daily moment will be when I am sitting down for a break as that tends to be the point where my brain races to think about what I should be doing.

I will be blogging next week to say how I got on, fingers crossed I have managed to be a little less frenetic.  Good luck to everyone else who is engaging with the first week of Slow Club too, I look forward to hearing what you all have to say.

Bridget Harvey

http://www.bridgetharvey.co.uk

The good news is that we believe we can offer practical tips to incorporate into your everyday life, along with some seriously playful experiences that can help you slow down and enjoy London. The even better news is we’d like your help for our next Slow Club and are offering a great deal for you if you join us!

Our next Slow Club started on Thursday 17^th February 2011 for five weekly sessions, 7 – 8.30pm, at the peaceful St Alphege Church in SE1, ending with a conversation dinner. The cost is ‘pay what you can’ from £30 to £50 for the whole course. If you’re interested please sign up here.

Pay what you can

Pay fifty pounds £50.00 Pay forty pounds £40.00 Pay thirty pounds £30.00

The Club

During the five weeks you will meet up once a week (on Thursdays) with us and your fellow ‘clubbers’ to check in and participate in slow adventures including meditation exercises, food tasting, play, mindfulness and art appreciation.

We will be working with four themes during this time:

*Finding your own pace

*Switching it off – ( don’t worry we are not going to deprive of your favourite TV shows, or Iphone unless you choose to do so!)

*Being here now

*Creating space

Each week you will also receive an email with your ‘slow actions’ (or in-actions!) which you can do at your own pace. We will offer you as much or as little support as you need, both online whenever you like, and in person at the weekly meetings.

We ran our first Slow Club in 2010, and this will be our second pilot before launching more publicly later in the year. The special reduced cost for this pilot scheme will be ‘pay as you can’ between £30 and £50 for the whole course, plus the cost of the final dinner (approx £15 plus drinks). Any money we make will help support our non-profit organisation in our mission to encourage a slower and saner lifestyle in this big city of ours.

Interested? Get in touch on our contact page or sign up via the Paypal link above.

If you would like to know more you can also visit our Slow Club page to find blogs from people who took part in the first club. Here is what some people said:

‘This made me smile because it helped me see that usually I’m rushing around when I don’t really need to.’

‘I am more aware of different ways of slowing down. And I look at art in a whole new way!’‘

‘I have remembered to appreciate what I have here and now.’

‘Awareness is increased. I am more consciously taking ‘slow routes’ even if only to Tesco’

‘Enjoyable, enlightening, empowering.’

Sounds good? We’ll see you there - Help us to Slow Down London!

Rental Chair Kensington Park by moonjazz

As the keen-eyed among you might have noticed, I’ve not been blogging about Slow Club as much as I’d hoped to. But my reasons for this are very fitting: I’ve been going too fast to stop. So over the past week, I’ve taken this fact and used it as my starting point.

I figured that if I’m really too busy to get along to a farmer’s market or discover new parts of the city – which happens to us all now and again – then slowing down is going to have to come from within my daily situation. There must be something I can do to tap the breaks when deadlines are looming and lunch is being inelegantly wolfed down in front of a computer screen, right?

Thankfully, one Slow Club tip has really been helping out here: breathing. Or rather, watching oneself breathe. It’s a truly marvelous tool for restoring some calm and sanity when everything is going a hundred miles an hour. When you’re stressing out, you’re taking quick, shallow breaths and your heart rate is rocketing. But the moment you take some deeper, slower breaths, your pulse rate drops and you restore your stability. And noticing this transition puts your mind back inside your body, where you can start feeling in control again.

I’ve been trying this different moments throughout the day – on the way to work, between phone calls, while I’m cooking a meal. And the liberating thing is: you’re always breathing, so you can always check in – you have a built-in mechanism for slowing down and connecting with yourself.

I’ve also managed some longer sessions of mindful breathing. When I fit these in before leaving the house, they really help me to start the day with a sense of calm. And it’s worth sticking with too: breathing practices and meditation are increasingly recognised by scientists as helping people reduce stress, regulate their emotions and be more attentive. All that, just from paying attention to something as simple as your breath going in and out. Who said slowing down had to be hard work?

Chris Cox

Image: ‘Rental chair, Kensington Park’ by Moonjazz on Flickr

Did that happen? Absolutely not. If anything, I’ve been whizzing around with renewed gusto – if you live in Hackney you might even have seen me sprinting to the station on several mornings. But I think that’s okay. Just taking time now to pause and reflect on that feels like a step forward. It takes time to reduce your speed. You can’t do it instantly – otherwise they wouldn’t call it slowing down.

So I’ve now put a sign up on my wall saying ‘Slow’, which might make me pause when I wake up in the mornings. George Orwell once said that “seeing what’s in front of your nose needs a constant struggle”. Now I know that struggling is not what Slow Club is all about – but building in gentle reminders seems like one way to keep my speed demon in check.

In more positive news, I did manage to tackle one of my Slow challenges. On Wednesday after work I walked slowly over Waterloo Bridge, watching the lit-up buildings blinking along the banks of the Thames. It didn’t last long – perhaps ten minutes. But it was enough to remind me that London is a beautiful place and that I’m lucky to be living here. Even an insight as simple as that can be lost among the daily grind, when I’m more likely to be complaining that life here is so hectic and stressful. The point is that it doesn’t have to be: you can choose your own pace.

Chris Cox

Image: ‘Home’ (from Waterloo Bridge) by Jimbus.org on Flickr

But while this distresses me, I’m also implicated up to my eyeballs. I spend my weeks madly wedded to work deadlines, cramming in as much as I can and getting by on minimum rest. Hell, it’s only the third week of January and I’m already feeling burned out. So it’s exciting to be signed up for Slow Club, which over the next eight weeks will throw down the Slow gauntlet and challenge me to take my foot off the gas now and again.

According to my first email from the Slow Club team, my first challenge for the next week is simple: just noticing my speed. They recommend picking one moment in the day where your ‘internal speed demon’ kicks in. For this challenge I nominate my early morning routine, which generally involves leaping hysterically out of bed, skipping breakfast and running around swearing about not being able to find my keys. Sticking with the instructions, I’m not going to judge myself about this; but I have sneaking suspicion this is one moment where I could start slowing down.

On top of that, there’s a Slow Walk to take, which may involve tearing myself away from my computer screen one lunchtime. And most excitingly, a Slow Adventure around the city, which sounds like the perfect opportunity to remind myself that London has more to offer than screeching underground trains and heaving pavements of pushy people. Even in the most built-up areas, you can find peaceful places of retreat.

So there’s plenty to get cracking with. I look forward to reporting back with tales of speed, slowness and (attempted) contemplation in the Big Smoke.

Chris Cox

Image by Mike King

We‘ll give practical tips you can incorporate into your everyday life and playful experiences to help you slow down and enjoy the city. We hope that at the end of the course you’ll have a new, deeper appreciation of your life and London.

What’s involved

Each week you’ll get an email with the following:

Slow Instructions

• Daily Task – an action (or in-action!) to do every day this week. This will not be a large time commitment: the task might take ten minutes in the day, or no extra time at all, more a matter of doing something differently.

• Weekly Task –an activity to do at least once during the week –though you are welcome to try it more often.

Slow Adventure

• An invitation to do something new in London – go somewhere you’ve never been, try something different. Suggestions will be offered each week from Hayley Cull, co-author of Slow London published by Hardie Grant, coming out this spring. Your weekly Slow Adventure might involve visiting one of London’s secret green squares, going to a farmer’s market, or into a gallery to look at one piece of art.  Or you can do your own thing – it could be as simple as wandering into a different part of the bookshop. We will also be organising several group activities which you could choose to do as your slow adventure.

Slow Reflection

• Each week we’ll ask you to feed back to us (and yourself ) on how things are going. This will be a very short questionnaire that takes a couple of minutes, with the opportunity for more creative reflection if you feel inspired.

Slow ‘Progress Report’

• We will need you to fill in a slightly longer questionnaire at the beginning and end of the club, and then again two months after it ends.

‘Slow’ friends

To support and guide you during the eight weeks we invite you to:

• Tea meetings: Once a fortnight, the Slow Down London directors will host a cup of tea where you’ll have a chance to meet up with other members of the Slow Club and share experiences.

• Slow Adventures: There will be several opportunities to enjoy an activity together as a group – these may involve a walk, an art gallery talk, a session of ‘slow conversation’.

• Email us or visit our website: You can take part in our web forum, to share images on Flickr and Facebook, and email us if you’d like advice or to share your ideas and comments.

Booking information

We have now closed registrations for our first course, but we hope to run the Slow Club again – if you’d like to receive information, please ‘Sign up for Slow News’ on the right panel of our homepage.

Image by Paul Finn