THERE IS NO MUSIC DURING CLASS

The more astute practitioners at Portland Ashtanga Yoga have noticed that unlike many contemporary Yoga classes, there is no music playing during class.

In the Ashtanga lineage that I learned this practice, music was not as anathema as it is at more current traditional Mysore-style studios. My teacher, a guy named Tim Miller, used to play restful music during savasana --- when it was still called ‘savasana’ --- and occasionally, during a Tuesday and Thursday morning Mysore class, he might even play low-volume music of some kind.

However, I have taught at Yoga Pearl for many years, a studio that offers an array of yoga styles, during many of which the teachers play music.

I found that during those classes I often listened to the music and the teacher much more than I listened to, or could even hear, my own breath.

It’s my hope to cultivate a sense of moving with one’s own breathing during a Mysore-style class, and this skill is best developed by repeated focus on the breathing.

It must also be said that yoga studios tend to play a certain kind of music, one that’s become a genre of its own, and this genre is one that I consider slightly more enjoyable than the saxophone fuckery of Kenny G. 


That is to say, not very.


Sign up now for the January Intro to Mysore Intensive
Practice 3 days per week for 3 weeks
Class size capped at 5
Times: 6:30-7:30 a.m.
Days: Monday-Wednesday-Friday
Dates: January 6-January 24
Price: $199
Details and purchase LINK: http://bit.ly/1iqiZ2x