It was a Sunday afternoon in the city of Boston. I was sitting in the Boston Opera House, struggling to stay awake. My wife and I were in the first row of the balcony, with a phenomenal view of the stage. The touring production of “Phantom of the Opera” was churning through act one, and my head was doing a bob and weave act.
I tried shifting positions and changing my breathing. I tensed and relaxed my muscles, tried some good old fashioned will power, and finally… I gave in. Sometime during the song, “All I Ask of You,” in one of the most beautiful theaters I have ever seen, I took a nap.
My wife tells me it was only a short nap. I woke to the sound of applause at intermission.
I do love musical theater. I also love naps. I think it’s a bit inappropriate to enjoy both at the same time, but sometimes the human body has its own idea about what is appropriate. Rogue naps notwithstanding, I’ve enjoyed a lot of yoga classes and stage musicals since then. It may come as no surprise when I suggest that musical theater and yoga have a lot in common.
Yoga is enjoying quite a run of popularity. Some 36 million Americans practice yoga, and there are over 6,000 yoga studios in the U.S. The theater is also on a roll. Over 40 million Americans attended a live theater production last year, and there are over 4,000 (non-movie) theaters in the U.S. The great Russian actor, Konstantin Stanislavski, called the theater “a combination of craft, sensitivity, balance, nuance and rigor.”
Sounds like a good yoga class to me.
The practice of yoga and the production of a musical involve a lot of moving parts. For either to work, these moving parts have to come together to create something greater, to connect us to what it means to be human.
On a yoga mat, there are arms and legs, hips and shoulders, bones and muscles, heart, lungs and brain all working to get you feeling better in your human body.
Under the stage lights, there are actors, producers, musicians, set designers, songwriters and playwrights, marketers and box office folks all working together to leave you feeling a little better than when you came in.
A yoga class and a musical theater production both require a healthy leap of faith. The very idea that someone would break into spontaneous song is a little hard for some folks to grasp. The idea that anyone would willingly twist and turn a body around on a yoga mat can be a little challenging for some, too. Both, however, can leave you feeling better in your body, and more connected to the world around you.
Last week, after an afternoon hot yoga class, I noticed an interesting tattoo on the left arm of one of our students. Her name is Monica, and the tattoo shows a gazebo and a meandering dotted line which runs to what looks a city landscape.
Monica told me the tattoo represents her path from the gazebo in the town of Bow to the bright lights of Broadway. From the small town to the big city. From a childhood dream to a modern day reality.
And like most tattoos, there’s more to the story: In this case, a path that renewed, rebuilt and recharged a relationship between a mother and her child. They both have the same tattoo. Yoga means “connecting one point to another.” It’s also what connects Monica and her child, Jo.
When you step on to the “stage” of your yoga mat, you’ve got to start with moving some body parts. You’ll need a healthy leap of faith, and you’ll have to wrangle and rehearse those parts so they start to work together. And they will. You’ll create your own musical, with your own body. It starts with an idea, an intention. An idea that you can feel better in your body, using nothing else but what you already possess. Here is where yoga and musical theater diverge.
At the end of the show, there is thunderous applause. At the end of the yoga class, there is a quiet awesomeness that is uniquely you.
Take a healthy leap of faith and see a musical. You may burst out in spontaneous song. The gazebo in Bow is covered in snow until spring, but you can find the “musical” that is a yoga class every day. You may burst out in spontaneous joy. And take a nap if you need one. Try not to fall asleep in the theater, but if you need some quick shut eye in my yoga class, I’m okay with that.
