Each week so far I have put together a new playlist for my yoga classes, and it is something I really look forward to not only creating, but sharing with my students. It gives me a chance to pull out old CDs I haven’t listened to in a while and also to search out new music that will be perfect for the mat.
While setting up for a recent class, my BlackBerry wasn’t working, and the thought of not having music kind of freaked me out. I pulled out my trusty move that always works when my phone is acting wonky—pulling the battery out and rebooting—and that did the trick. Disaster averted.
I’ve been a little lazy about posting my playlists, so here is a recent list that got a few thumbs up, and, actually, I need your help in identifying the artist on one of the cuts. Take a look and listen and let me know if you can help! This playlist did not necessarily have a theme, but I have added a few liner notes regarding my musical selections.
Opening Breath Meditation
“By Chance” · Jim Brickman
OK, I don’t want any crap about using Jim Brickman. The dude is from Shaker Heights, Ohio (woot, woot—hometown boy), and his soothing piano tunes were perfect to talk over as I brought the class into some grounding breath meditation. Jim is one of my go-to guys for soothing piano music for the opening and closing of classes.
Warm-ups
“Ventura Highway” · Mysterious Female Vocalist Cover · America
Please take a listen to this really cool cover of the classic America tune. I got it off a compilation CD someone made for me, but I lost the cover jacket that had all the artist details. I would really love to know who sings this, so please leave a comment if you know who this secret songstress is. I love the vibe of this cover and felt it was perfect for the beginning of class during warm-ups.
Thanks, Eddie, for providing another subtle way to remind the class to keep their pranayama breathing going. Check out this super cool live version of the band performing “Just Breathe.”
Standing — Sun Salutations and Balance
“I Wanna Love You” · Bob Marley
I think it should be an unwritten rule that every yoga class playlist be required to have at least one reggae song. Mat dancing optional.
“Maha Deva Soulshine” · Wah!
Playing this song made me feel like I was a DJ in a yoga disco dance club. Just Shiva!
Head over to a table at the gratitude cafe! One more positive affirmation song for good measure and Jason is pretty damn cute. Check out this video – love the brass in the background.
Floor — Back Bends, Heart Openers, Hip Openers, Abdominals, and Twists
Forgot how much I loved this tune, and when I heard it again recently, I knew I had to add it to a playlist. Give it another listen; it is perfect for the beginning or end of a class, and the drum beat rocks.
So, you pop out of the womb at birth, and the first priority of your life is to take that all-important first breath. Then, for the next 80 plus years (if you’re lucky), you pretty much take breathing for granted. Our ability to breathe goes on auto-pilot, and we don’t think about it much until we start gasping for air after walking up a huge flight of stairs, see an incredibly gorgeous person who takes our breath away (I love that feeling), or—gasp!—have to speak in front of an audience. I have to admit (because this is a week of confessions) that I have always been guilty of ignoring my breath.
When I started practicing yoga, I knew that breathing was an important part of the practice. I always figured that the concentrated deep breathing for over an hour had to be responsible for the awesome way I felt after class. It wasn’t until this past year that I got totally turned on to the amazing benefits that can come through a regular practice of breathing. Exercises for breathing and, in particular, breath meditation have helped me reduce stress, gain mental alertness, heal areas of pain throughout my body, and can even get me high. Breathing has so inspired me that I decided to create my very own breathing theme song (well, it’s more of a song parody sung to the tune of “I’m a Believer”). Spoiler alert: This is going to be cheesy…but fun!
I’m a Breath Believer
I thought breath was something we did just to stay alive
Meant for keeping blood pumping through my veins
Breath has always done its job
That’s the way it is
I never knew it could bring me so much more!
Then I started to breathe and meditate, and now I’m a believer
Not a trace of stress in my bones
I’m in love, I’m a breath believer!
I couldn’t do my asanas without her if I tried.
I thought breath was more or less a given thing
Seems the more I focus on it, the more I get
It’s keeping me grounded
Gives me a natural high
It brings relief to all my aches and pains.
Then I started to breathe and meditate; now I’m a believer
Not a trace of stress in my bones
I’m in love, I’m a breath believer!
I couldn’t do my asanas without her if I tried.
I have to give a shout-out to the genius of Neil Diamond, who wrote the song, “I’m a Believer,” that went on to become an international hit for The Monkees and has been covered by bands like Smash Mouth and Eddie Murphy to name a few.
The confessional booth is still open. Are you a breath believer? Let me know when you started to fall in love with your breathing.
On January 10, I got on the soapbox and proclaimed to the blogosphere that my goal for the year was to dive into the wonderful world of meditation. I didn’t come right out and say it, but my hope was to log a few minutes every day and slowly build up to marathon meditation sessions. My goal (I always have to have one, and if you are practicing Patanjali’s eight limbs of yoga, this one just happens to be the motherload) was to attain Samadhi.
Samadhi is the highest state of wisdom, a place in which the mind cannot and does not pose any questions. It is pure, organic, unadulterated inner peace and tranquility. According to Swami Rama, the author of Meditation and Its Practice, “the highest of all joys that can ever be experienced by a human being can be attained through meditation.”
I was on a quest for that joy, but I was also realistic in knowing that I would eventually fall off the meditation bandwagon for periods of time when life gets hectic. I just didn’t think it would be so damn quick. In January my meditation was in full swing, and I had some pretty awesome sessions. But February hit, with lots of assignments to finish up for YTT, family, and work obligations, and somehow meditation got squeezed out of the equation. The paradox is that when we are truly stressed out and harried, we need meditation the most.
It was the last week of February, I had been off my daily meditation routine for a few weeks, and, like an addict, I knew I needed a hit of meditation and I needed it bad. I had lost my meditation groove, and I wanted it back!
Enter Melissa Cugini, the owner of Nirvana Yoga, and her Mix it Up Monday classes that just so happened to have a meditation theme that week. I walked into Nirvana Yoga stressed out after a long day at work and was quickly transformed by the peaceful vibe of the studio. Nirvana Yoga resides in a beautiful, historical stagecoach building in Richfield, Ohio. The high-beamed wood ceiling, along with dimmed lights, faux candles, and mellow music makes for a zenlike experience.
Melissa started the class off with guided breath meditation, followed by a gentle asana flow, a few restorative yoga poses, and a deliciously long session of meditation at the end of class before wrapping up with savasana. Melissa had all the right moves and all the right verbal cues to bring the class into a peaceful meditative state. As I went through the meditation practice, I felt my body melt into my mat, and I journeyed off to that still happy place that I always hope to visit when I meditate. Each exhalation brought more and more joy.
By the end of class, I felt like butter. My groove was back and I was picking up a vibe from the rest of the students that they were feeling just as groovy.
Thank you, Melissa!
That class helped me rekindle my love affair with meditation. I didn’t realize how much I had missed it, how much I had needed it until I sat in utter bliss at the end of that class, bathing in the effects of just letting my mind relax for a few minutes. It’s kind of like any vital appliance that you utilize day in and day out—you gotta give the poor thing some rest.
I know it is not always easy to do what we know is best for our bodies and minds, but I learned an important lesson that night: If I’m gonna get my groove on, I’ve got to take the time (even if it is only for a few minutes) to give my body and mind the rest they deserve.
I love my work! I love it even more when publishers contact me to write a review about a book. So, you can imagine how happy I was (You know how a dog gets when she’s excited to see you? It was that kind of happy.) when Abrams Image asked me to take a look at one of their newest releases, titled Yoga Dogs. Their e-mail request included photos like the one below, and that was all it took for me to agree with an enthusiastic woof-YES!
I mean, come on; how freaking cute is this poocher in padangusthasana (big-toe stand)? And there are plenty more of these überflexible canines in this artfully designed picture book by Dan Borris.
Through my yoga-teacher training, I was fortunate to learn about the early origins of Yoga Dogs and the common belief that yoga humans copied the movements of various animals as inspiration for what eventually became yoga poses. If you don’t believe it, this book provides photographic and historical evidence of the early Yoga Dog masters and canine spiritual leaders. We should all bow down to the doggies of the world for carefully developing and refining so many of the yoga poses we know and love today (or at least give them some awesome doggie treats).
“If you meet the Buddha on the road, sniff him and remember his scent well.”
The book is meant to inspire all dogs to maintain better health and self-realization through the practice of yoga and provides a fully illustrated guide to yoga created by dogs for dogs. There are 38 two-legged poses skillfully demonstrated by the cutest damn four-legged yogis you have ever seen. Each pose is shown with great form and ease and includes the Sanskrit name, human name, and a list of the benefits of the pose. As a human, you can pick up some excellent yogic knowledge as well. For example, supported shoulder stand has always been one of my favorite asanas, but who knew that it stretches the neck and shoulders, improves digestion, alleviates insomnia, reduces fatigue, relieves stress, and, most important, it calms the brain. I think I need to be rockin’ my salamba sarvangasana each and every day!
“Only when my leash is off can I achieve nonattachment.”
Virasana Hero Pose
We humans should all take a cue from our canine friends. Just take a look at them; they’ve got the deep pranayama breathing down (unless they’ve just finished chasing the UPS man), focused attention (unless distracted by a squirrel), and have you ever watched the way they stretch when they get up? They truly own the trademark for downward-facing dog.
Dan Borris—a professional photographer and the creator of this fun book—has had his images appear in Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, the New York Times, and Smithsonian to name a few. He also is pretty damn funny, as you might have noticed in the quotes from the book that I’ve interspersed through this review. I absolutely love his take on Patanjali’s four keys to life:
“Calmness of mind is reached by cultivating friendliness toward the happy, compassion for the unhappy, delight in the virtuous, and indifference toward UPS men.”
Urdhva Mukha Svanasana Upward-Facing Doggie
I was assured by the publishers that no dogs were harmed during the making of this book, so I’m thinking that some of those superdog poses may have been embellished with a little digital help from Photoshop.
The awesome peeps at Abrams Image were also cool enough to offer me two extra copies to give away to lucky Daily Downward Dog fans, so we’re gonna do this giveaway doggie style. To enter, please leave a comment below, and tell me about a cool yoga-dog experience you’ve had or something you’ve learned about yoga from a dog. If you don’t have a poocher like me (I know it is absolutely insane that I don’t), go up to Dan’s Yoga Dogz Web site, and let me know which calendar dog is your favorite. (I have to admit, I have a huge doggie crush on Tazz.) This giveaway is open to all U.S. residents, and you can enter through Tuesday, March 1 at noon, when the winners will be randomly selected.
Yoga Dogs will be available at a bookstore near you on March 1, and you can order it now at Amazon.com. Yoga doggies rock!
Can I just tell you how much I am digging the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali? I am reading the version that was translated and has commentary by Sri Swami Satchidananda, and it rocks! I was browsing through some of the many passages that I’ve highlighted over the past few months and found a special one that I would like to share. It hit home the first time I read it and even more so as I read it on the eve of my graduation from yoga-teacher training.
In speaking about satya or truthfulness, which is one of the yamas, Sri Swami Satchidananda had this to say:
“Yoga is not a philosophy to be followed with blind faith. In the beginning, it is true that confidence and trust are necessary, but as you continue to practice, every step will bring more and more hope, greater and greater confidence. If we are true Yogis for just one day, we will be transformed and want more of it. It’s contagious, just like any other habit. Once we get the taste, even if the whole world stands in our way, it won’t keep us from our goal.”
I have to admit that when I first started yoga, it took a great deal of confidence to even think I could bend and twist my body into some of the asanas. I had to trust my body, do what felt best on any given day, and trust my teachers to provide modifications and encouragement to gently push me along on my journey. When I first started practicing yoga, my feet were so far off the floor in downward-facing dog, it was ridiculous. Even though I knew there was a good chance those feet would never make it down flat to the floor, I held out hope, made a little progress every week, and stayed on task. You can imagine my joy, when about a month ago, my feet kissed the floor for the very first time! Talk about bringing on greater confidence; that accomplishment rocked my world. If I can get my feet to the floor in downward dog, just imagine what I can accomplish both on and off the mat, or, better yet, imagine how still I can get my mind during practice and meditation.
I don’t know if I’ve ever been a true yogini for a day, but I will tell you this: I am transformed…I am hooked…I’ve caught the bug and it is contagious as all get-out! I’ll be the first to admit (no interventions required), I’m addicted to yoga and thrilled to be certified to teach it. I’ve got a huge appetite for it, and nothing is going to stand in my way of becoming an awesome yoga teacher.
I’ve been working hard to get some classes set up and have just posted my new schedule of yoga classes here at The Daily Downward Dog. If you live in northeast Ohio, it’s time to give yoga a try and come on out to one of my classes! I promise its habit forming but a great habit to have!
