Downward-Facing Bach

Six years ago I had a yoga instructor who liked to laugh as she worked with her class. She was the first one who told me it was no big deal I wobbled in Tree pose sometimes, and that it takes years sometimes to get your heels down in Downward-Facing Dog.

She also said that every day your yoga practice will be different, and that's part of life and nothing to be ashamed of or to try and change. Some days you can stretch forever and you feel fluid and graceful, other days your arms are shaking in Plank and moving through poses feels like jerking through gears in a clapped-out car. Even doing the same pose at the beginning of your practice and the end of it, the pose will be more relaxed or less so or tense or whatever. She summed this up by saying:

'Every [Downward-Facing] Dog is different.'

This is sounding a bit familiar isn't it?

So tonight, after a solid 45 minutes of flute (drilling the Don Giovanni overture, the Beethoven 1) I brought out my cello and played through the first movement of the Sinfonia Concertante with the recording. I drilled the incredible series of trills that are up in one octave, down an octave, up a third or something and then down a third (or something… I'm not getting up to get the music right now to check!) over and over. And then drilled the scale passages that go much faster than I think I've played pretty much anything. But I love this piece and I am determined to do it as much justice as I possibly can.

After all of this I bring out the Bach, flip to the Courante from No.3. It's no surprise I am now banging across strings I don't usually, slurs are not where I usually put them and the rhythm goes out the window. Instead of panicking (I think I wore out my panic muscle working on the Mozart) I just smiled and relaxed, and the words of my old yoga instructor flowed into my mind, with a small amendment:

'Every Bach is different.'