Nada Workshop

Reading from Tuesday, November 18, 2014 yoga class

I just returned home from a weekend workshop in Rochester, New York on Nada yoga, the yoga of sound.  Sound with a capital S.  It was taught by Francois Raoult, who owns Open Sky Yoga Studio.  I have studied several times with Francois at Yoga East in Louisville.  He is an inspiring teacher who is so authentically real... what you see is what you get.

This workshop called to me after reading the book, "The practice of Nada Yoga" by Baird Hersey... my being in Rochester, attending this workshop stems from this book which I picked up at our library right here in Madison, Indiana.  I now have my own copy and I am currently reading it for the 3rd time.  (It takes me a LONG time to "get" it)

So... Nada Yoga... sound for the sake of sound... like an artist loves color.  Anything can be Nada yoga: voices, a person eating crunchy crackers, chanting OM, humming.  The goal Francois had in mind for this training was to put a dent in the armor of belief about sound/music.  For example, when you hear an organ play, NOT to always associate it with church.

When we practice yoga we are much more in tune with the world around us and will most likely hear sounds you might otherwise not notice.  Yoga helps us hear more, pay attention more.  To just stop and observe, or better yet, just stop and LISTEN, just for a moment, with a totally objective mind.

When speaking of chanting, which Francois did a lot and which we as a group did a lot during the weekend... he said when we chant, the inside of our heads, look like those globes that glow at night that are so popular now.  So a part of  Nada yoga is putting visuals with sound... the visuals we see behind our eyes when we stop and listen.  Whenever I close my eyes and get quiet, like in Savasana, or when I listen to a yoga nidra, or when I chant, much of the time I see swirling colors of purple and green behind my eyes.  I also see these colors when I get a massage.  So.. when you are totally present in the moment and listening, with eyes closed, these images/colors come with more ease.

How you listen to sound...trying not to be so judgmental... to receive sound like a blank tape recorder... you are an ongoing tape recorder.  Seeing with your ears.

There is so much more to say about Nada yoga, but let me say this:  you need to do practices that help you "see with your ears."  Practices such as pranayama, especially Kapalbhati and Bhastrika, Savasana (at least 20 minutes, but not more than 40 minutes).  Like Francois said, you have to be put into a place to get to these inner sounds, which will bring the visuals behind your eyes.  The sound is less likely to touch you when you are tense, so the more relaxed you are, the more the sound will be absorbed into your body/mind/spirit. Be like a sponge when you are in meditation or in Savasana and let it soak in.. sound, colors...it is very important to let sound be absorbed into your body.

Sympathetic Resonance.  Two tuning forks, sitting side by side, tuned to the same pitch, such as C.  You strike one and it sounds and then stop it with your hands, and then the other one sounds without being touch.  It was a dramatic example of the word Anahata, which is the sanskrit name for the fourth chakra.  Anahata, means sound that is made without two things striking...unstruck.  There is sympathic resonance in people, too.  Like 5,000 people chanting OM.  We chanted OM for about 10 minutes and it was so powerful... I felt the sound humming along my spine.  So sounds comes through you... some of it is absorbed and some of it goes right through you.  So.. when the Beach Boys sang about "Good Vibrations", they were onto something.  Sound going through the body does something to you. We worked in pairs with the tuning forks and placing them on the body for sound healing.  So interesting.

Nada is the one sound... it is not playing music, it is LISTENING.  To practice seeing things like you were seeing them for the very first time.   We practice yoga poses over and over, but to watch yourself come into the pose, be in the pose and release the pose...this brings you to Nada.

We chanted only the vowels of our names... we chanted only the vowels in the poems that we brought.  It was a wonderful sound.  Amazingly so!!  When we were paired off,  to begin this exercise, I felt a little awkward, but once you start going, it was magic... a beautiful sound.  We did this exercise to work on overtones.

We participated in a sound journey...giving and receiving one.  We arranged our yoga mats in a mandala type circle.  We began with sighing, yawning, walking around the mandala. and this sighing and yawning evolved into a lovely humming sound/drone...then we rang bells, tibetan bowls...then Francois played the big GONG...then we walked around the circle with shakers, rattles, rain sticks....then Francois again, hit the GONG... we ended with standing around the circle and chanting OM.  We then put our hands on the feet of the person in front of us, to make sure they "came back" from their sound journey.  My only complaint was that it wasn't long enough.

We wrapped our heads with cloth and laid in Savasana for 20 minutes.  Wrapping the head helps bring us to Pratyahara(withdrawal of the senses...it is what we do when we practice yoga nidra).  Francois said, there is no yoga without pratyahara.  If you get pratyahara, you get yoga.

I think this sums up the workshop...at least, touches the highlights.  I need more time to let it percolate.