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Yoga that’s truly relaxing and meditative can be surprisingly hard to find these days. (If you’ve ever found yourself doing biceps curls in a “yoga” class, you know what I’m talking about.) And while there’s a place for yoga classes that feel more like interval workouts, sometimes you need a practice that allows you to slow down and reset.

One antidote to the yoga trends that make your heart race (like “snake yoga”—yes, you read that right) is somatic yoga, a practice that combines somatic movements—where you focus on how an exercise makes you feel by moving your body as gently and compassionately as possible—and yoga postures and that emphasizes the mind-body connection.

But what, exactly, is somatic yoga, and what makes it so different from the kinds of classes you’re probably more familiar with? We asked two veteran teachers to explain, and to share the benefits of this unique practice.

Okay, seriously, what is somatic yoga?

Somatic yoga classes typically include yoga poses you already know, plus somatic exercises, which are typically simple, small movements aimed at promoting more awareness within the body.

But in somatic yoga, it’s often not so much what you’re doing that’s unique, but how you’re doing it. “We’re practicing holding our attention on what we’re doing throughout the entire practice,” says Lisa Tatham Flynn, a New York City-based teacher certified in Hanna Somatic Education and trauma-informed yoga therapy. “It’s a first-person, internal, lived-experience practice,” unlike in some other types of yoga, where you may be focused on your body from the outside in.

Not all somatic yoga classes look exactly the same, and different teachers may have different approaches (some may incorporate elements of yoga therapy, for instance, or Feldenkrais Method). But here are some ways that a somatic yoga class might look and feel different from other forms of yoga.

1. It’s about how you feel, not achieving a posture

Unlike in other forms of yoga, where the focus may be on achieving a posture or a movement with the correct form or to the fullest extent, in somatic yoga, the actual shapes that the body is making aren’t so relevant, says Armen Menechyan, a Los Angeles-based teacher specializing in yoga therapy and somatic practices and founder of Pür Joy.

“There’s no right way that a posture needs to look,” Menechyan says. Instead, somatic yoga encourages moving within a range that’s comfortable for your body, and approaching the movement with a sense of playfulness and exploration.

2. You’ll probably spend lots of time on the floor

The first thirty to forty minutes of Menechyan’s classes are often spent on the floor, moving from a relaxed, lying down position. In the Hanna Somatic Yoga that Flynn teaches, students relax on the floor between postures, taking a minute to “notice the sensory feedback that the movement generated,” she says. “There’s information coming from the skin, muscles, joints, bones, and your peripheral nervous system up to your sensory corte