IN
MANY CLASSES AND STUDIOS, music is becoming a yoga class
mainstay. We’re not talking about the soft sounds
of the sitar or the quiet chanting of a New Age songbird
sifting softly in the background, but loud popular music,
heavy base lines rippin’ guitar riffs, trance, electronica,
rock’n’roll and rap. Like other recent arrivals
to the shala, including water bottles, blocks and straps,
the addition of music brings with it a similar controversy:
Is it really yoga?
A decade ago, then independently owned Yoga Works discouraged
(according to Steve Ross) music and maintained a hard-line
approach to yoga that emphasized alignment and technique.
“They tolerated it,” says Steve Ross of Maha
Yoga, who is widely acknowledged as one of the men responsible
for bringing music and yoga together in the classroom in
L.A., “because my classes were full and they [Yoga
Works] were profi t-motivated.” Ross, who has logged
a 30-year practice and 20-plus years of teaching experience,
remembers getting criticism from the L.A. yoga community
for playing music in his classes because it wasn’t
“traditional.”
“Neither are blocks and straps,” counters Ross.
In fact, neither is the class structure itself, as yoga
was traditionally passed down from guru to student, one-on-one,
in a secluded windowless hut “well-plastered with
cow dung,” as described in the classic text The Hatha
Yoga Pradipika, by Svatmarama. Yogis of old didn’t
drive cars, eat garlic or copulate, except during specifi
c phases of the moon. As the saying goes, those who live
in glass houses (or eat raw hummus)...
Many teachers incorporate music into their classes as a
means of creating a more expressive, inspirational experience
for their students. In Kundalini yoga, specifi c chants
and spiritually-based music is used for its emotional, physical
and importantly, spiritual effects.
Practicing with music allows students to access moods viscerally,
to process emotions they might not otherwise unearth without
intellectualizing or analyzing them. Yoga Hop’s Matthew
Reyes sees this daily: “Music allows people to tap
into their emotional crap.” Reyes, who is known to
blast Eminem and P. Diddy in his classes, encourages students
to connect with their inner selves by playing slower, softer
selections while students take forward bends and hip openers
before savasana (fi nal relaxation). He cites a recent example
of playing John Mayer’s “Daughters” while
class was cooling down, and witnessing more than a few students
cry.
Dana Flynn, of Laughing Lotus Yoga Center in San Francisco
speaks passionately about music as a foundation of her teaching.
“Music is my God,” she says, quoting Dr. Nina
Simone, a staple on Flynn’s playlist. “You feel
more alive...who doesn’t want to feel more alive?”
“It’s celebratory,” says Ross. “It’s
fun.” Grunting your way through a challenging standing
series while The Jackson 5’s “Can You Feel It?”
blares all around you is fun, well, more fun than grunting
your way through a challenging standing series to the cacophony
of demons in your head.
Vinnie Marino incorporates music in his Yoga Works’
classes to inspire his students. His playlist includes Crosby,
Stills & Nash and Patti Smith, music that catalyzed
social change and community when Marino was growing up;
music he hopes will inspire similar cultural evolution today.
Music “draw[s] in people who otherwise wouldn’t
come to a yoga class,” says Reyes, echoing the sentiment
of more than a few teachers: music as marketing. The old-school
yoga stigma with Hindu deities, incense and exotic chants
intimidates those quick to brush yoga off as weird and foreign.
By toning down Eastern elements, replacing Sanskrit with
English and creating a party-like atmosphere with pop music,
yoga becomes palatable to a broader audience. Music lends
itself to a festive atmosphere and, notes Reyes, “it
works well for Type A people who, if not distracted with
music, would otherwise spend the class in their heads.”
Ross agrees, pointing out that Westerners in particular
“are very heady – always thinking,” and
that music is a great way to get students into their bodies.
“Listening to music or listening itself, can enable
one to develop the skill of a listener, which is the ability
to be receptive, which is of utmost importance to spiritual
practice, to let go of doing, so as to let go of identifying
with oneself as the doer,” gushes Sharon Gannon, co-founder
of Jivamukti Yoga in New York and an enthusiastic advocate
of uniting sacred sound and yoga. “When that happens
what will remain then is the true ground of being; the eternal,
what is ever-present; what does not come and go.”
She defends music as part of a serious yoga practice in
pointing out the fundamental nature of all reality is vibration.
“The world is sound, nada brahma. One who realizes
the mystery of sound realizes the mystery of the universe.”
On this scientists and seers concur: matter (as well as
thoughts, emotions, ideas, etc.) is vibration. Mantra recitation,
devotional chanting, shabdba yoga and nada yoga will indeed
support the realization of the mystery of the universe through
sound. Hatha and Ashtanga yoga, however, with their emphases
on asana, pranayama, meditation, kriya, shat karma, yama,
niyama, pratyahara, dharana, dhyana, samadhi are different
paths.
Although the intellect can rationalize any sensory indulgence
as holy and righteous and supportive of enlightened pursuits,
the simple truth is that music does not coincide with traditional
methods of hatha yoga. As the breath is of the utmost importance
in an asana practice, it is crucial that the student be
able to hear the inhale and the exhale, to monitor and to
regulate the breath along with the movement. As the aim
of yoga is to control to the fl uctuations of the mind,
yogash citta vritti nirodah (Yoga Sutra of Patanjali, sutra
1.2), the mind must be observed constantly, with unwavering
discipline. How is one to observe the movement of the mind
while it is being distracted with a “bumpin’”
back beat and lyrics that glorify acquisition and luxury,
external distractions which also do not support the aim
or path of yoga? Even if Tupac were rapping about compassion,
love and service, while listening to him the mind is occupied
with something external, rather than itself. Kimberly Williams,
an Ashtanga yoga teacher who has spent 14 years studying
with Sri K. Pattabhi Jois in India addresses the positive
aspects of using music in yoga class: “An incredible,
joyous, artistic experience is a phenomenal thing; it’s
not inconsequential.”
Popular yoga, as most westerners experience it, is more
and more a method of creative expression: an outlet of artistry.
“Some students see yoga as an art form and some see
it as a science,” notes Williams.
Williams warns of the pitfalls of adopting this type of
experience as one’s personal practice. “It’s
exotic and exciting; it lifts us out of the mundane and
the mundane is our mind. We have to give up the thrill of
being entertained to face our mundane being...[music] is
part of the path and it can also be a diversion from the
path.”
Marino acknowledges that music can not only distract the
student, but also from their immediate practice: “Music
can excite people to the point that they lose their connection
to their bodies.” “Sometimes I get so into the
music that I stop paying attention to what I’m doing,”
says power yoga teacher Bryan Kest, who doesn’t play
music in the yoga studio, but has been known to practice
to Bob Marley at home. “It’s not for me,”
he says, “but, that doesn’t mean it’s
not good for other people.”
Margo Kellison is a yoga instructor who just relocated
to Los Angeles from Portland where her music-infused classes
attracted students in droves. While plenty of her Oregon
colleagues were teaching with music, playlists weren’t
emphasized over the practice. “This whole music thing
is frustrating for me. You can have the fun aspect of music
in class and not have to sacrifi ce technique and philosophy.
When I look around the room, people are just fl ailing.
Asana [should be] primary. Music [should be] secondary.
And I haven’t found that here.” Plenty of yoga
teachers consider themselves as much deejays as teachers,
putting more thought into their set lists than the practice.
As well, there’s a whole new generation of students
who choose their teachers based on their sound styling,
rather than adjustments or method. The danger, Kellison
points out, is when classes lean heavily on beats and go
light on instruction: sequencing is nonsensical, asana are
untaught, students wobble unguided in poses they haven’t
properly learned and breath is an unchecked inconsequential,
never guided, hardly referenced.
Even if injuries don’t occur, bad habits are reinforced
and long-term damage is likely. Just because the monkey
mind is being momentarily drowned out by The Black Eyed
Peas doesn’t mean the students are in touch with their
bodies. As we move deeper into the body – into the
musculature, the joints, the subtle energy channels and
the stored psychology – isn’t more focused attention
crucial to uncover, release, deepen and expand?
Marino, himself an Iyengar practitioner, is one of the
few wellknown teachers who does emphasize technique and
alignment while also playing popular music in the classroom.
He admits that music can water down the practice. “It’s
not appropriate for beginners,” he says. Marino teaches
intermediate-level classes. To turn on the music and bark
out poses without technical guidance or philosophical reference
nudges the term “yoga” into an aqueous nether-region
which fl oats somewhere between fi tness regime and fashion
trend. “It’s not pushing anyone outside their
comfort zone,” notes Kellison. “It’s not
asking them to look deeper, which is what yoga is all about.”
“It’s baby yoga,” admits Ross of his
own überpopular classes. “But, you can’t
take a kindergartener and throw him into a PhD program.”
As Eastern song, spice and spirituality make their way West,
maybe a gentler, more user-friendly version of yoga with
its accompanying soundtrack is the nudge a layperson needs
to catch a whiff of its mojo. Having dipped their otherwise
reluctant toe into the practice, perhaps the aspirant will
be inspired to go deeper, in this lifetime or the next.
Kest has witnessed the yoga explosion: “From the time
that yoga was created until now, it’s been evolving
and growing and changing... Music is part of its evolution.”
This brings up the question: Does truth evolve?
Even Gannon, who’s been incorporating music with
asana since the ’80s, and is in the vanguard of popular
hatha yoga, takes issue with the notion of yoga evolving:
“I don’t know if we can talk about the evolution
of a system which is already complete and eternal.”
Williams concedes that music combined with asana has its
own merit, one distinctly different from yoga as laid out
by Patanjali, Svatmarama and the masters who perfected the
eight-fold path as an exact system of attaining absolute
freedom. Reyes practiced traditional Ashtanga yoga for two
years, during which time he judged music as an inappropriate
intruder in a serious yoga class. He agrees with Williams:
“Ashtanga takes a dedicated person and, the reality
is, most people aren’t there.”
Ross spent four years as a monk and knows the pitfalls
of a rigid path; he makes a concerted effort to veer off
of the hardcore path, and teaches accordingly. “The
problem with a serious practice is that people tend to take
things too seriously, which means they are not seeing the
fundamental truth of reality,” which, according to
Ross, is joy. “The point of yoga is expansion.”
When the ancient yogis laid down their philosophical precepts,
guidelines and rules, the world was smaller. As our world
expands, so does yoga, with its accessories, mirrored classrooms,
cross-cultural participation and its music. Marino, of the
soothing sounds of the ’70s and the exacting alignment,
concurs: “If you’re really practicing yoga,
you’re looking inward and you’re focused on
yourself and you’re not worried about what other people
are doing and whether it’s ‘traditional’
or not.”
Yoga means union: sun and moon, breath and dispassion,
blocks and straps, kirtan and Kanye. “It’s all
yoga,” coos Ross. “It’s all good.”
Dani Katz is a writer and artist who practices Ashtanga
yoga even when she’d rather sleep in.
