I attended my first Yoga Soundscape event last evening.
Yoga Soundscape is a yoga class described to: “Warm yourselves up with a uniquely woven yogic experience led by Aarona, fused with live eclectic sounds & beats from DJ Sascha. Then, bliss out to a sound healing musical performance guiding you into a deep Savasana meditation with Tbird & Laraaji. Projected visuals will awaken your third eye with Casey of Projectile Arts.”
It all sounds really fantastic in theory. Yoga with live music and trippy visuals? Sounds good! It’ll be like going to a club and instead of dealing with drunk people and spilled drinks, I can do yoga!
In practice though, I discovered that I liked my live music/trippy visuals and yoga served separately. In many ways, it was because I’m a beginner yogi and I need gentle instruction on what to do next. This session was more like do this! do this! do this! to the music! let the visuals flow through you! get into it! and…it was all very distracting. When it came to the balancing poses where you are supposed to focus on one drishti (focal point), I couldn’t find a single spot on the wall that was not a moving visual. At some points, I felt like I was part of a dance act and did not practice my choreography well enough. I like my yoga in silence, aside from my teacher’s instruction, because I don’t want to be listening to anything, even my own head.
The savasana (meditation) part was great however. It was sufficiently long (I love laying there so much that I find most meditation parts too short in my classes) and they a lady singing (amazing) and people walking around you either: (i) spraying some aromatherapy (I like to call it “hippie juice”) on you; (ii) playing a trippy gong around your head; (iii) singing above you; or (iv) giving you a head massage. I felt so spoiled. When I got home, Pat said “you smell like a hippie”.
I wasn’t surprised to hear that they did this in Burning Man as well. I’d love to go attend one of their sessions when I finally get myself to Burning Man in 2008. But next time, I’d expect a music/light show with yoga instead of yoga with music/light show.
