Glasses are clinking and so many selection at Y’s…but
I am sticking to water …
Kathleen Holm of Yoga Flow SF introducing Wah!
“Wah’s music allows us to get to that place, we, through our demanding physical practice, with hard work try to get to – she gets us there without that hard work.” – K.H.
Yes, it’s just sublime:) Tranquility – Peace – harmony – it’s all there.
There’s nothing like a LIVE experience…”ichigo-ichie” time, a treat to conclude a stressful week.
************************* what’s a “small” loss *****************************
Having preached about how we need to have a full range of feelings, the whole spectrum, I must say I hate feeling badly. I have been feeling awful all week to be honest; but been busy so distracted myself from feeling truly awful… We have to be brave to allow ourselves to feel lousy. So many wonderful things are happening in my life but I actually have been feeling badly because… I lost my i-pod. Doesn’t that seem very silly? So shallow even ? It’s just a material object…it’s just a little “thing” – keep telling myself that – It’s just an i-pod. Hard to imagine that I actually think about it at night re-tracing my steps to figure out how I could have lost it…no clue.
Why let something so little ruin your day despite the distractions and make you sit up at night wondering and wondering ? It’s been almost a week of looking and looking to no avail. Well… if you think that each song in there was maybe $1-$2 from i-tunes… I have lost couple of hundred dollars of music in my playlist plus the hardware itself… To think that some unknown person may have my i-pod and a chunk of my musical library is a bit… disconcerting to me because in a way, it’s a personal belonging. To me, that i-pod was my personal library that I can draw from to calibrate my own mood… so… I feel a great loss. Now that I reminisce about it, it had dvd’s & my daily flow yoga practice as well… Sayonara, Baron Baptise flow sequence … big heavy sigh of loss.
Embarrassed to admit I actually panicked realizing that I don’t have my playlist for my Thursday morning class but… luckily I have my i-phone with my own mishmash of music… which ended up being used. Can you imagine, I am grieving so much over this little nothing of a thing, in the scheme of things. So if I am so sad over this, what it’s like for me when it’s something even more valuable? More tangible, more costly… It’s not pleasant.
This loss has brought about a re-visit in my thinking about the playlist and the place of music in yoga classes in general. Musical taste is personal. I had started as a sub for a community center class few years ago and when I walked in, I was determined to change the Hatha class (thought boring back then) into a Flow class (hypnotic fun !) so I had rather upbeat music in my track… uhhm, well, apparently the teacher who I was subbing for used nature sounds and very relaxing atmospheric music and can you imagine? I walk in and play tunes I selfishly think is “cool” – soooo not so cool as this couple approaches me after class and the wife said – ah, we worked all day and come to yoga really tired in hopes of de-stressing and relaxing for the evening before winding down and turning in so maybe …a bit? (change the music is the message). I was like … oh… I’m so sorry. I did not know – I thought you’d enjoy the get-happy selection and you wanted to be “energized” from a tiring work day. Wrong.
On the other hand, I was subbing for a vinyasa class at a sports gym whereby I brought in everything I loved at Wanderlust, latest in yoga music and … while some students loved it; others who were used to the regular teacher’s electronic music found it to be way too upbeat – looking back, I admit perhaps 2-3 songs were not really suitable. I made a mistake – I was merely playing music I WANTED to listen to.
SO… a playlist for different styles of yoga class requires some careful considerations. I also once got a complaint that the student wanted silence – absolutely no music- which is really the way taught by the gurus or in a classical setting – as I have been to many stern, strict, quite serious classes – of course, there is no music. I could even say that in a serious yoga class, there’s no music. Thus, it’s a totally valid request. Silence is golden, no? Well, to some, silence is excruciatingly uncomfortable and for regular yoga classes (there’s no music in Bikram hot yoga studios…), students are there to bring yoga into their everyday life, not to check into an ashram for a silent retreat. And so …at that point, a statement by one of my favorite teachers came to bear…which is, “You can’t please everyone.” You cannot please everyone and you can get very very drained if you try (which is what I used to do). Hate to say this but “it is what it is.” I am sorry. While it really depends, I happen to think beautiful sounds are integral part of that joy and liberation you feel in some yoga practices. If it’s just a BGM, I don’t need to play it.
I sometimes think I am creating more work as no music class will save me so much time and effort – as I no longer have to think about its affects and could just concentrate on the sequence or the cues or my readings or assists or … so many other things I could be doing to focus – I am perfectly fine with no music and serving as a guide without any music but it’s more about sharing I think. Sort of like opening the window into your taste or your world… As long as the music is not a distraction, I think the vibration of sounds mesh well with our practice. If not, I would turn it off. But really… I love sounds; I love the vibrations of human voice …it reverberates and harmonizes the nervous system.
Anyway, since I don’t have my i-pod, all this talk may be a moot point as there’s no choice to have or have not music anyway. I do, however, feel for my students if they have to bear through my chanting or singing (joking … pray I will find my i-pod by the next time…). Losing something, losing anything that’s dear to you is always so so SO difficult. Any loss makes you feel awful and very difficult to just shrug and move on. If I am having a tough time just getting over losing a mere little i-phone, imagine how hard it would be dealing with a loss of greater nature such as …. fill in the blank. It can be debilitating, devastating. So … practice of yoga helps in making you more resilient emotionally without turning you into a hard unfeeling cookie…
At Y’s Birthday Party, a comment is made – I would do yoga if there was a class called “yoga for inflexible guys”…everybody laughs – Really? Did you know it’s better to be inflexible than flexible? Why? Being inflexible, you are less likely to hurt yourself by over-stretching. Also, as your senses are on high-alert, you have the ability to “feel” so much more. The inflexible ones are more aware with the tiniest slightest millimeter of a movement…You possess the precious gift of heightened awareness – more sensitive than someone really flexible – you can be like a gumby doll doing a pretzel pose but … you may not feel much of a sensation… and that’s not so great in yoga. Is it?
Besides, eventually you will get there:) A little more Flexible AND Supple … with bounce in your steps:)
Buddha’s birthday coming up! Celebrated at a local Buddhist temple… Party time:)