Music in a yoga class is SO important. In yoga teacher training, most agencies will do a whole section about music selection, genre, sequencing, and volume. And for a lover of lyrics and language itself, sometimes I find conflict in filling a playlist with the songs I love… IF I’m going to talk through them during a yoga class. You know, “inhale up” and “exhale down” can totally ruin the finesse of a carefully crafted metaphor?
And as I began to study yoga more fully, I began to hear echoes of yogic concepts that were so powerfully written into a song that I find it hard not to incorporate them. I mean savasana, after all, is the perfect time to drop a beautiful and profound song and let it wash over your students. Using other people’s words to fully flush out a concept is what teachers have been doing for centuries. But I struggle with how to do this during my yoga classes when people come to sweat and move.
About six months ago I started collecting songs and I built a playlist that deepened my understanding of what yoga is. I titled it “Yamas and Niyamas“ after the first two limbs of yoga that deal with the ethical and behavioral practices. Now, Aubree (my kiddo) and I call it our “Magic” playlist” because we put it on when we are having a bad day or need a little pick me up. They’re just songs with all the right words to guide our actions, but they also serve as a boost for our morality and sometimes our self-worth, much in the same the yoga sutras do.
Now feels like the time to share them with you, Grassroots Yoga Community. <3
Yoga Philosophy through Music: "Between" from Satsang ft. Nahko
Full song here or scroll below.
“Between the life that we lead the one that we pray for,
Give us balance on the past so there’s no need to ask for more.
Between the love that we seek and the love that is already there-
Let it soften my soul and focus my stare.
Between what comes naturally and what you gotta work for-Beneath all of that lies the beauty that you live for.
Because the work, the work is never done.
Soon as the moon falls, here comes the sun.”
Summary and Analysis
There are so many pieces of this song that I love. As the song title illustrates, it is the between part that is critical. In yoga, we bring awareness to “new” things. This is most obviously observed in a new capacity of a longer breath, length of stretch, or endurance of holding a pose like plank. It’s not like “yoga” itself created that shift. No, yoga did not create that shift in and of itself.
Consider the idea that yoga happens all the time.
Yoga is the "doing." It is the doing that happens between the intention to do and the action completion. Yoga is the interim. Yoga is the noticing of everything between what we have and what we want. Our ability to see something discrete and create more there is the forumula provides for an infinite capacity for magic and wonder.
When we use our imagination to expand our breath fully, we are building an awareness of the in between. And in the “between” is where we work.
Although the areas in your life that require work and effort may seem obstacles that stand between you and your dreams, the thing in between the unfulfilled dream and the fulfilled dream is what you must pay attention to. What exists there is finding the balance between satisfaction and dissatisfaction. Yoga forces us to slow down long enough to pay attention and listen to what’s there so that we can truly appreciation the in-between.
So next time you're on your mat, finding yourself reaching for that pose to "nail" it, just know that the yoga is in the reaching itself.
Sending you all peace and love and light!
Emilee
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