Notes from a musician's journal.(Marking Time)

I go to yoga class to remember how to play and teach the piano.

It certainly didn't begin that way. I started going to yoga for the physical exercise, thinking it would be a good complement to the Pilates, walking and biking I regularly do. As I get deeper into the practice, however, I have discovered that the real work of yoga is only superficially about toning my body; instead, it is reminding me how to live. In particular, it is reminding me how to be a practicing musician and teacher.

I think the revelation came in a yoga I class--one of those fundamental classes, which centers on establishing the foundations of breath, alignment, length and awareness. Although I can and do take upper-level classes, I have found that when I do, the challenge of surviving the more difficult poses is so great that I compromise everything yoga should be about, just to get through the class. True, upper-level classes stroke my ego, but at what cost? If I have to compromise my breath, awareness, posture and alignment just to survive, perhaps I don't belong there after all.

I have learned this lesson slowly, to be sure. After all, I have a lifetime of practice being an over-achiever. Give me a hoop to jump, and I will jump it. Higher. Faster. With my eyes closed. If it hurts, I must be doing it right. If it is really hard and I think I might die from the effort, clearly I must be on the road to sainthood.

This mind-set hasn't worked in yoga, much to my surprise and dismay. Instead, I have learned that the path to achieving difficult poses is not to try harder but rather to back up the pose to the place where I can learn from what my body is telling me, to the place where I am no longer compromising breath and awareness to survive. I have learned to not assume anything--but rather to explore during each practice session, each class, where my body is on that particular day, what it needs, how far I can comfortably push and stay honest with my breath and awareness.

Surprising me most of all, the practices I am learning in yoga class work on the piano bench. I realized that l often practiced the ego-gratification habit of learning something quickly at the cost of good, thorough music making. I discovered my students doing the same thing--compromising notes, rhythms, tone, posture and breath to get to tempo, or just survive. None of us want to slow down, sit quietly, breathe deeply and learn something more organically. We don't practice the patience required. We haven't learned the stamina demanded. Somehow I have to slow down my accelerated learning process to the point where I can stay honest about what I know about the music and the limits of my technique. Regularly, I must remind myself to back up the music to the place where I can handle the notes, the tempo, the physical demands and still manage to be aware of my breath. Daily, I tell students that they can't sacrifice notes to speed; that if they say they can only play fast I will know they can't play slow; that repetitions slumped over keyboard with their feet crossed under the bench aren't doing much good. "Where are your feet?" I prod my students, "Are you breathing?" "Check in with your breath," my yoga teacher tells us. "Are you sacrificing length for mobility?"

It was that beginning yoga class that opened my eyes one day. What I realized is that I don't much need complicated yoga poses. Difficult yoga poses don't change me much; they just make it hard to breathe. What is changing me in profound ways are the little things--the precision of doing more accessible poses well, the clarity of learning to hear the voice within myself, the peace I have found by sitting quietly and breathing deeply. What I really need is not challenging yoga poses, but reminders of the basics over and over again: Breathe. Observe the length of your spine. Really straighten your legs. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. Truth is, that's most of what my students need as well. Yes, of course, they need new concepts and fresh music that builds week after week upon their growing skills. But more than that, they need a safe place to practice making music where the focus is on the most basic elements. Starting with the fundamentals of posture, hand position, sound production and breath while playing slow, simple scales and warm-ups every lesson wouldn't be a waste but a good weekly reminder of the fundamentals ...