Do The Downward Dog Catcher

Damn I hate Downward Dog. If it was an actual dog, I would put it down. Every time the yoga instructor indicates that it’s time to transition into this position, I want to euthanize myself. Whatever sadist thought of this shoulder-grinding aberration of bodily positioning was a sick dog, and deserved to get Old-Yellered with extreme prejudice.

The fact that I even know what Downward Dog is, beyond just a cool bar in Corvallis, is evidence of my embrace of yoga as one of the least-torturous forms of exercise. All forms of exercise are torture, a sort of inverse of Ben Franklin’s possibly apocryphal wisdom that “Beer is proof that god loves us and wants us to be happy.” Exercise is proof that god is dubious as to our purpose and wants us to sweat out a sacrifice just often enough to keep the caloric juggernaut at bay.

If we must exercise, and my love handles assure me that is the case, then yoga balances precariously on the pleasure spectrum of such related endeavors somewhere between those electrode things that give you six-pack abs and playing a round of disc golf. Still, for some reason I find it appealing. When I’m in the moment at a yoga studio, my mind is so occupied by the wholly unnatural pose I’m attempting to contort my body into that all thought vanishes into the void of discomfort. By Maslow’s hierarchy, my desperate need for comfort and physical solace precludes all concerns for past and future. Ahhh, ancient wisdom and shit.

Recently, not content with the misery of yoga alone, I’ve branched out into Pilates, which is Latin for “A yogi rabbit-kicking you in the spleen until you die.” Look it up. Evidently, Pilates was invented to help recovering war veterans who were confined to their beds, which is appropriate considering you have to be a soldier to find this type of stomach pummeling preferable to any other activity. At least it’s not spin class. As Sartre once said, “Hell is other people, riding stationary bicycles beside you in the dark to bad techno.”

All joshing/kvetching aside, in yoga I’ve found a form of organized stretching that actually leaves me feeling more peaceful afterward than when I arrived. Envious of every animal I’ve ever roomed with, and the obnoxiously naturalistic stretches they segue into with the ease of cheese entering my oral cavity, I’ve finally learned to emulate them through the perfectly unnatural act of posing atop a thin rubber mat in the company of strangers.

Being me, I tend to focus on the music of yoga, which might generally be referred to as “New Age.” I’ve never liked that genre name because it conjures images of self-absorbed crystal worship and floppy, loose-fitting clothing that tacky plaid pajamas would be embarrassed to associate with at a networking event for fashion faux pas.

New Age music isn’t all bad, though. Sure, some of it sounds like the composer took gravity bong hits until he passed out on his tinkling, ’80s-timbre keyboard, generating a wall of wank that will vibrate the little-known “brown chakra” to the point of total prolapse. But under the right conditions, a wall of synthesizers, or just a well-played sitar, can create a mental state where the constraints of time collapse, and tentacles deploy from a rift in space to tickle the crack in your cosmic egg.

With that euphemistic barrage of imagery in mind, I present some recommendations for the New-Age-music-hating amateur yogi inside us all:

• Damn near anything from the Berlin School: Think of the Berlin School as Hogwarts for synthesizer wizards. A cabal of like-minded electronic musicians affiliated with the Krautrock scene, its practitioners included Klaus Schulze, Tangerine Dream, Ash Ra Tempel’s Manuel Gottsching, Gunter Schickert, and Agitation Free’s Michael Hoenig. If your only exposure to Tangerine Dream is through its 1980s soundtrack work, don’t dismiss the pioneering electronic music all of these folks created in the ’70s. While some of its albums might not be ideal for the focus of yoga (can’t really imagine busting a Child’s Pose to Schulze’s “Cyborg” or Tangerine Dream’s “Electronic Meditation”), albums such as the “Moondawn,” “Phaedra,” and “New Age of Earth” would all be excellent soundtracks for growing roots and transitioning into Tree Pose. Lastly, while not part of the Berlin School, the group Popol Vuh grew out of the same era/area of the world, and produced some of the most hauntingly beautiful music of the ’70s. From its earliest records, which buzzed with Moog synthesizer, to later, mostly-acoustic offerings, this is music to breathe deeply and dream to. “Hosianna Mantra,” as its name suggests, would be an excellent place to start your journey through Popol Vuh’s catalog if you’re interested in serious meditation music.
• American Primitive Guitar: Back in the late ’50s/early ’60s, John Fahey was an unstoppable force of guitar finger-picking and ethnomusicology. His recontextualization of old folk music forms into adventurous new settings paved the way for a slough of progressive (regressive?) acoustic sounds. Artists such as Sandy Bull, Robbie Basho, and Peter Lang took up Fahey’s torch and mostly carried it proudly. Repetitive acoustic guitar parts blend with minimalist percussion and sitar or other stringed instruments to create trance-inducing worlds of melody and drone. Other recommendations in this realm include Peter Walker’s “Rainy Day Raga” and “Second Poem to Karmela” and Brazilian guitarist Bola Sete’s “Ocean.” If you’re interested in more contemporary musicians exploring similar concepts, check out Jim O’Rourke, Jack Rose, and Ben Chasny while you’re at it.
• Oud music: The oud is a cousin of the lute, but to my ears, the music created with it has a lot more in common with the sitar music of Ravi Shankar (which is possibly THE great music for yoga, by the way). Ali Akbar Khan is its most famous practitioner, and if you like Indian classical music, you must hear “Traditional Music of India,” or his collaboration with Shankar, “Ragas.” Recently, a couple of buddies turned me onto Rabih Abou-Khalil, a contemporary oud virtuoso who ranges from Arabic to Turkish to nearly unclassifiable sounds. On the one album of his that I currently possess, “Odd Times,” he’s backed by tuba, harmonica, and drums, and it works a hell of a lot better than it sounds like it would on paper.
• Fripp & Eno: Robert Fripp is a rock god capable of summoning some of the fiercest sounds a guitar can produce. And yet, when paired with synthesizer and loop guru Brian Eno, his “Frippertronics” take on a liquid quality, bubbling, hissing, and melting into your subconscious. Both of the duo’s mid-’70s albums, “No Pussyfooting” and “Evening Star,” are highly recommended for exploring your inner space, and once you get into Eno’s other ambient offerings, nirvana’s the limit. If this kind of processed guitar sound is your bag, also consider investigating Richard Pinhas and his band Heldon, as well as Sensations’ Fix.
• Drone Metal: Metal likely isn’t the first thing you’d think to listen to while practicing yoga, but then drone isn’t your typical metal. Personally, I find some offerings by the band Sunn 0))) to be about as relaxing as music gets. Whether cranked to muscle-massaging volume or turned down to ambient levels, “Monoliths and Dimensions” is a beautiful, mysterious, and transporting album. Similarly, the band Earth has run the gamut over the years, from fuzzed-out drone to folk and country to slowly evolving compositions of such delicate beauty that they fall somewhere between the post-rock of Mogwai and chamber music. “The Bees Made Honey in the Lion’s Skull” is ample evidence of this period’s hypnotic potential. If you like your yoga with a touch of evil, as Dr. Steve Brule says, “Check it out!”