The Beauty in Hidden Structures

We are so busy moving ourselves around in the world,  that, like buildings, we see mostly the facade in passing. One of the gifts of living in a transitional bustling neighborhood of a major city is that there is constant building and tearing down so that, along with facades, all the inner structures are revealed coming and going.

Walking to teach my morning vinyasa class, I was stopped in my tracks by this gorgeous metal support structure. Light pouring through parts of it, it's undulations, shapes, reflective nature and span was strikingly beautiful. Just half a block further on, there is another one of these -- so it isn't any one-of-a-kind marvel at all -- that is covered in all the next stages of building with no light in it, and few of its textures revealed. In a week's time, they will both be invisible above ceilings and below floors.

Class was all about this in a subtle way starting with slow rocking in the hip sockets to feel how the thigh bones seat and mindful rolling through the sitting bone supports, to reveal spinal support even as the weight shifts.  Eventually we moved into standing sequences, unfolding and refolding with the breath, and allowing the hidden structures to do their work deep in the interior of each asana (posture). Yet their presence could still be established, felt, and explored.

Walking to my next class I caught a glimpse of a building being demolished. It has stood for decades, though this demolition has been elongated over the last few years it is active once again. At the moment, the remaining structure is like a gem hiding in its case. I think of the breath, its textures, its stalwart nature, its foundational strength, its subtle delicacies.  How grateful I am to live in this moment in a human form that I can explore at so many levels, cultivating awareness of the details and technicalities and the grand scale of the overall plan!

Music & Silence

Breathing. This is the sound I hear of oceans and wind, of expansions and contractions. Releasing whispers. Releasing sighs. When I teach, I most often use music as a way of shifting the orientation of my students away from the external world and into their own energy lines and their own bodies, yet music remains external. It is like a prop that helps extend your spine by lifting your hand on a block, the music disappears and reappears when you need it. That is, if it is doing what I hope it is doing. Music can work against the inner rhythms at times, a mood introduced with words or associations that is distinct from the practice. Yet often a person will not even know what the music was during a class, and simply flow along. There is so much going on, after all.

Yet practice in silence is so deeply tuned to the breath in the body, that I begin to wonder how we ever practice with music at all. The sounds of others breathing can be more powerful and supportive than the music, encouragement to deepen, to let it go, and to feel less isolated. Of course sometimes those exotic sighs from across the room will be distracting! Or that particularly vibrant Ujjayi sound will introduce doubts about one's own quiet waves...

I am not one sided on this, and find music in classes can bring flow and sustain effort, ease tension and even tease out humor in a tough moment. But I am not listening to the music as I teach. Truthfully I hear it when it distracts me, when it intrudes into the silence. I feel it settle the students into the closing asana as we prepare for Savasana, and then I want deep quiet for them.

Yoga with Music or No Music

When I first started teaching yoga, one of the things that occupied my time and attention was the making of playlists for my classes. The music gave me a sense of time, and could change tempo and mood to help ease, loosen, encourage, soften, and relax. I worried about lyrics and whether the sanskrit would put people off, or if I could use the variety of genres that appeal to me. I had a few classes where the music making gizmo wasn't working, and even a few where the early questions and explanations simply expanded into the class itself without my ever turning the music on.

In my own practice I have used playlists to experience them before I use them in classes, or to provide my practice with exactly the same qualities that they do for a class: Indicating duration of practice, enhancing the level of energy and relaxation, and subtly signaling shifts in meanings.

Yet I thoroughly dissolve into silent practice. I have taken several kinds of classes that use no music, and I am beginning to sense that there is a greater depth of inner focus. The asana practice is a meditation on the breath. It is not simply an instructional pattern of physical postures for which we coordinate our breathing in order to get a greater physical result. The more deeply I investigate silent practice, the more my own practice is drawn in that direction.

When teaching those for whom a personal practice is not yet part of their experience, or for whom the taking of a class is for the purpose of introducing specific aspects of practice, I find the music adds valuable dimensions to the experience. There is another layer of communication taking place through the use of music and this can convey something nonverbal and deeper than the language I use. It also changes the very nature of the spaces in which we share practice, and in some of my classes this is really a magical and important aspect of the time we spend. In the homeless shelter, in all the clinical settings, and even in private spaces, the music in combination with a change in lighting helps students make an immediate and important inner shift towards that inner voice, towards releasing unnecessary effort, towards attention.

I guess this is something that I will keep investigating through my own experience and my students' experiences. I am grateful that my understanding of yoga is not some absolute set of rules, and leaves me deep in exploration of every aspect. It is a new place of self knowledge to find I do not have to have definitive positions on things, nor authority, nor routines in order to be effective and useful.