Take A Journey
A Sonic Journey
I’m a huge Fleetwood Mac fan. They’ve been around for 50 plus years and have gone through a few iterations of styles and band configurations. But at the heart of the band has always been a wonderful sound.
"Tusk" is my favorite of their many spectacular albums. They recently released a deluxe version of it, with demos and never before heard alternate versions of songs. It’s a journey through the creation process, where the final version of songs can seem completely unrecognizable from earlier takes. You can hear the songs grow and develop.
This of course got me thinking about the evolution of a yoga practice.
Think back to your first practice. What was it like? Was it weird for you? Was there a language you didn't understand? You were asked to move your bodies in certain ways. Maybe there was anatomy you didn’t understand. Maybe the teacher demonstrated a pose that looked easy but then felt difficult in your body. Your yoga journey is like a musical journey. Your demo might be vastly different from your final version. Your first class may be vastly different from where you are now.
I group students into three broad categories along a continuum: fundamentals (those learning the very foundations of yoga), basic (those with some knowledge of yoga and still working on applying it to their body), and intermediate (those with experience in yoga working to apply the emotional and mental aspects of the practice). The only difference between the three categories is the felt experience. A foundational student is working on where to place their body. A basic student is working on matching the pose to their body. An intermediate student can find intrigue in any pose. They can see how that pose shapes their somatic-emotional response. It is a progression of movement from the most outer layer of yourself (where to stand) to an inner layer of yourself (what is this pose creating for me physically, mentally, and emotionally). It’s refinement.
Recording music is refinement. A musician starts with an idea or sound. As they refine that sound, they play with variations on tempo, pacing, instrumentation, vocals, lyrics, to create a song that fulfills their intention. But here’s the thing that struck me listening to the Tusk Deluxe Edition: we often get sold on the idea that the album version is the perfect version, but it’s not. A song continues to be refined by the musician in live performances, greatest hits, re-recorded, covered, reinterpreted over and over based on mood, age, ability, etc. You name it, it influences the song.
Yoga does that too. At any level of practice, the pose is refined based on the body we brought that day, the mood we’re in, the container the teacher is creating, your ability to connect with the teaching that day, and hundreds of other things conscious and subconscious to you. Yoga is a living breathing practice that is never perfected. There's no perfect triangle that you achieve one day and then you’re done. Triangle changes from practice to practice. As a foundational student, you learn how far to put the feet apart, the place of the hands. As a basic student, you learn the relationship between the lower and upper body, the energetic forces grounding you down to expand up. Then as an intermediate student, the inquiry becomes how has this pose transformed you physically, mentally, and energetically over the course of your relationship to it.
I encourage you to stop for a moment and do one of two exercises (or both)
Exercise 1: Think about a pose that has become more commonplace for you, a pose that is within your wheelhouse. Think back over your yoga journey. How has that pose changed for you physically? What do you see in it now that you did not see before? Think back about how that pose has changed for you emotionally? How did you feel about that pose when you first met it compared to now?
And/or
Exercise 2: Pick your favorite artist, one that has been around for a while. Maybe it's someone you listed too when you were younger and continue to today. Pick a song by them. Listen to the album version. Listen to a live version. How are they different? See if you can find the demo or an earlier version of the song. What stands out about that earlier version? Find a cover of it and listen to another artists' interpretation of it. Take a sonic journey with this song and see how it's changed over time.
