The Perfect Room

I've been thinking about the space or spaces where we practice our yoga. I have a nice little room at home. When we bought our house years ago, the first thing we did was have a hardwood floor put in one of the small bedrooms. We never finished the floor...its unsealed. At first we meant to get around to finishing it but I've grown to like it just this way. I've painted the space several different colors over the years. Only one of them turned out to be a mistake...a too cold-feeling lilac. Right now its kind of a warm asparagus green. We've got our yoga props and books. Our mats are always out ready for practice on a moments notice. Cats are allowed to wander in and out. Meditation pillows, candles...its a comfortable space for us and we love it.

But in our previous house, we practiced in a loft open to the sounds of the rest of the house, it was a bit dusty too. We once decided we needed to practice in the kitchen because it was the only place without carpeting! That didn't last long.


Over the years I've taught yoga in a wide variety of spaces. One church gymnasium my students were particularly fond of even though it got reeeaaallly hot in there in the summer. But there were great accoustics for "ommming" and lots of room to spread out. There were spaces that were quiet and spaces with street noise. There were spaces in buildings with no other activities but our yoga class and spaces with lots of other classes....including a pottery studio downstairs, private music lessons across the hall. We could sometimes hear the thump of the clay being thrown. We could always hear the music. Have you meditated to ragtime piano? It's an interesting challenge. Then there was the time a year ago where the walls of the classroom were painted a deep red. People were upset. How are we going to do yoga in a RED room?! (We've managed nicely thank you). There was a space on the top floor of an old building with floors so dusty and dirty that you needed to stay on your mat or your feet got filthy.

Recently one of the studios where I teach has relocated with a new owner. It's only been a short time but change is hard and people are struggling to make it feel like home. I've struggled a bit too. But I've come to realize that as we sit in meditation, as we do our yoga practice, bit by bit we will discover the space where we practice is within. Much as we would prefer not to have external challenges to that practice, they can be part of the deepening of our practice. The deepening of our attention can grow in just such challenging places.



As Jon Kabat-Zinn says...no matter where you go, there you are.

Falling in love

I was listening to an NPR interview with Sarah Powers the other day. There was a lot to love in the discussion. There was one bit that really struck me. She described how we approach yoga in three stages. First we hear about it…we read a book, someone tells us about it. Then we contemplate it. I think that is when we begin to practice. We are “doing” yoga. The last step, she says, is when we pick it up as a tool and use it. What a brilliant description! I was “doing” yoga for years before I realized it was a tool for me to use. No one I ran into ever described it that way (or maybe I just couldn't hear it yet.) You practiced yoga in whatever way the person at the front of the room said was the way to practice. You contemplated their take on things. One teacher I said that he’d healed his back with yoga after an injury. Still there was no explanation. I wondered, “How did he do that?” I ran into teachers who said the most amazing things about the practice. I wondered, “How do they know that?”

Eventually, I had the good fortune to run into teachers who let me in on what seemed to be a secret until then. You pick up the tool of yoga by stepping on to your yoga mat and listening deeply, by letting yourself be guided your own innate wisdom in addition to the wisdom of your teachers and the sages of the past. You learn to trust yourself.

That’s when I really learned to love yoga deeply. That’s when I knew this was a relationship that would last forever.

How to practice Yoga

KURT ANDERSON: When you wake up in the morning and you sit down to practice, as I assume you do, what do you first play?
YO-YO MA: I do something like [plays long, random notes that sound like tuning]. I become friends with the instrument. I try not to tax it too much. It's really like warming up a car or warming up your body. You stretch it. You don't go into a fast run. You don't take it to sixty in three seconds. Because what's funny about an instrument made out of wood, every day the humidity is different. Every day the temperature is different. And wood, as well as our bodies, are slightly different. I think it's actually making that relationship happen.
KURT: And once you do get it warmed up, what are you inclined to play?
YO-YO: I might play some Bach, which is something I started learning as soon as I started playing. And it's also something that's written for cello alone. This is music that is somewhat meditative...I think of the flow of water. The afternoon light playing on leaves. If you see something that is familiar and yet it's different every day. What's amazing is that with a great friend, you could see them thousands of times and you don't look at them and say, Well today I'm really bored with you. ...Bach was a pictorial composer. One of the things that he coded was infinite variety. Instead of materiality, of saying, this is the same thing, I need a new product, it's something new every time.

From Studio 360 (Oct. 19, 2007)
I snagged this from my friend Daron's blog. He always has his feelers out for the most amazing things to share. This made me say YES! This is how I like to practice yoga! So I wanted to share it here too.

Why chant Om?

My idea for this post at first was to get the "official" take on why one might chant Om in a yoga class. Fairly quickly I realized that it wasn't so important to explore "why" from that perspective. Instead I wanted to explore why I do it.

Over the years a ritual of sorts developed to surround my classes. The opening and the ending stay fairly steady, supporting the possibility of creativity and surprise to arise during the asana practice. I like to sit for 5 minutes in the beginning. My intention is to allow time for settling into a deeper awareness of what we've come to class with. What does the body feel like today? What is the flavor of the mind? We pause before stepping into movement.

At the end of class, after Savasana, we sit again for a few minutes.

And then the sound of Om.

Most of the time we chant Om three times. I tell people that "Om" is the sound that resonates in all things. I sometimes ask people to pause and listen for that sound in all that surrounds us in the particular moment...natural sounds, mechanical sounds, inner sounds, outer sounds, nearby sounds, distant sounds. And then we allow the sound to arise, we join in.

Why chant "Om"? It feels to me like an offering of whatever benefits we've accrued from our practice out into the world at large. It brings a recognition that we're all in this together. It re-energizes us before we get up and leave...returning home, or to work, or whatever comes next. Sometimes in the evening, if the energy of the class seems particularly peaceful and it seems like it would be nice not to disturb the quiet too much, we'll whisper our Oms.

Over the years I've noticed who is in the room and what we've been doing during the posture portion of the practice has an effect on the sound in the room. Sometimes the sound is hesitant, sometimes full-throated. Sometimes each Om seems to go on forever, sometimes there is less space for that expansion, we are unsure about our voice.

The sound also feels like a last opportunity to offer up some energy to the body and mind. If we can really relax into the sound, it seems to resonate into every nook and cranny of the body. The image that comes to mind is the sound of the strings being played on a cello being colored by the shape and depth of the body of the instrument.

Last but not least, it feels like an honoring of the event that has just occured. What can I say? Yoga is an amazing practice. People are transformed in large and small ways. Isn't it wonderful to honor a body that feels a little more at ease and a mind that sees even a little more clearly? Even if it's your very first yoga class, isn't it worth recognizing that you've been at home in your body, just as it is, for the first time in what may have been a long time? And who knows what will come of that!

Maybe yoga scholars can give you other reasons for chanting Om that are steeped in ancient tradition. This is why I do it.



Namaste Yogis!