To Rock Or Not To Rock? That Is The Question...

To Rock Or Not To Rock? That Is The Question...

I recently practiced yoga at a studio whose lineage dictates no music in class. From what I understand, the feeling is that music during asana will take the student out of the embodied experience of asana and into the music. This question of music or no music in class is by no means a new question. But this recent adamant rejection of music got me thinking anew.

There are the "purists" who believe that since music and props weren't used 5000 years ago, they shouldn't be used in classes today. Never mind that what we're practicing today looks nothing like a yoga practice of 5000 years ago which didn't include asana anyway. In fact, by that same rationale, women shouldn't be allowed to practice and men should wear langoutis (lovely cotton loincloths). And never mind that the people practicing yoga  5000 years ago didn't have chairs and f*cked up backs and computers and cars and cell phones and.....oh, pardon me while I digress.

Loincloths. Yumzers.

And on the other end of the spectrum, we have the yoga teacher DJ that busts out killer playlists of contemporary music for you to get your rocksasanas off. Start to finish feels like your in da club, barefoot and sweating like a moose. (do moose even sweat? that's probably not fair to moose. meese? i'm digressing again). Music is part of the SCENE and it attracts a certain youthful clientele. And you get to feel a little bit like Diddy, large and in charge of this par-tay!

Urdhva Dhanuwickiwickiasana

The yoga most of us are practicing these days has it's roots in the Krishnamacharya lineage. And suffice to say, Krishnamacharya and friends weren't likely kickin' out the jams during their practice time. And if you've ever been to a class that plays all contemporary/pop/hip-hop/rock music, you're bound to have hit a day where some song(s) takes you wayyyyy out of your practice and into aversion (please just say no to Katy Perry or Flowbots). Unless it's your own play list, there's just no way you're going to get into everything the teacher selects. And sometimes it's that song that reminds you of something you were doing while it was popular and then you're off on some mental tangent about the U2 show in 1987 and the boyfriend you had and where did that all go wrong anyway?  And, I'm just going to say it - I can't take a class that is non-stop kirtan. Love me some kirtan, really. But I love it when I'm at a kirtan. Krishna Das, bless his ever-loving heart, has a magnificent voice. But after listening to it too much in class, it starts to sound weird to me, like looking at a face upside down does when you stare at it too long. (try it if you don't know what I mean). And the high-pitched response team starts to sound silly and I want to mock them. Then on top of all this, the teacher is saying things. Like, trying to teach us something. And it's real, real hard to compete with Bassnectar for subtle cues. I can't hear and I start getting pissed. Maybe this is just me, just sayin'. So on the one hand, I totally, wholeheartedly agree with the purists. No music!

BUT I thought this was supposed to be a practice of liberation, right? Through the practice we are liberated from ordinary consciousness into extraordinary consciousness, yes? And in that way, music helps a lot of people. Music, reduced way down, is vibration. And vibration is the necessary pre-cursor to change, transformation. When music interacts with your cells, it seems to me that a liberation of body, both physical and energetic, becomes possible. Some yogis have to wear pantyhose and heels or suits and ties and sit inside cubicles all day. The idea of blasting their cells with a little vibration seems helpful as they shift from the work sadhana to the extraordinary consciousness we practice on our mats.

I remember a moment, back in 2001 taking a class with my first teacher, Max Strom, and he chose music exquisitely. (It doesn't hurt that he was a musician prior to teaching yoga.) He matched a movement we were doing so perfectly to the music that was on, it sent me soaring into extraordinary consciousness. It was Moby's "Everloving" by the way, in case you're wondering. That one moment of perfect union (of many) expanded my view of myself, the world, every damn thing. So it CAN work.

The conclusion I've come to on the music issue is that the worst thing is either not using music just because you're "not supposed to" or using it because it makes you seem fun and attractive. Music is just too exquisite to treat like that, in either case. And for that matter, so is our yoga practice.

For the record, I self-practice and teach public classes with music - I try to choose wisely, matching the music to the bhava, or feeling state, of the asana family or sequence we're in. Rather than just blast random music that's fun to listen to, I try to practice that art of finding the right music for the right movement like my teachers Max and Shiva Rea have taught me. And it takes forever to make playlists when you take this mindful approach. What I come up with is certainly not perfect, there are some songs that get me off like nobody's business and I don't think everybody is feelin' it, and you know that right away and learn from it. But the point is, I use and try to choose music very intentionally to elicit a certain freedom from the ordinary. It's not just about the partay.

What do you think?