Wed 3 May 2006
World’s Best Wireless Remote System
Posted by Corilee under Recommends , Teaching Yoga , Music for YogaHere’s a follow-on from yesterday’s post about music. Having the ability to remotely control your music is pretty important in a class. It’s a bit disruptive to pad around the class fiddling with music while your class is trying to focus. And realizing while you’re teaching a pose that you’re competing with the music can be discombobulating - do you stop to change the volume or just holler over the chanting? You need a remote control you can use to tweak the sound right at your mat. But what if your music equipment isn’t close enough to point a remote at?
It’s easy - you need the sexy-named RF Remote Control Extender. I have a studio at home where I teach and this baby works to control the music *throughout* the house. You replace one of the batteries in your remote control with a special one that sends the wireless signal, so you don’t need extra clunky equipment. The replacement battery even recharges itself so it’s really low-maintenance. The little round base station thingy sits in front of your equipment so it can pass your signal to the components, you don’t even need to point the remote in it’s direction. It works like a charm. Last night I was able to start the music, move to the next track, and adjust the volume without moving from my mat - no disruption, no discombobulation.
I’ll also add that ordering from Parts Express was easy and shipping was fast (even to Canada). Here’s an opportunity to focus on playing yoga teacher not DJ.
May 5th, 2006 at 2:27 am
A remote control is a fabulous idea! Yes, it is very akward for a yoga teacher to have to fiddle with the volume, or be stuck with a CD that is almost never the right length or flow for their own unique class.
Even better than a to have a sensitive DJ who is familiar with yoga take care of everything for you. A good yoga DJ can read the energy of the people, the sequence of poses in the class, and create a custom yoga mix that suits the unique atmosphere the teacher is trying to create. They can wotk with the teacher and read her subtle cues to make people FLY duing poses like Lotus and King Dancer, and sink into the deepest crevices of a black hole during shavasana.
But if you don’t know a good yoga DJ to work with, your remote control extender idea is fabulous. thanks for sharing!
-brett
http://yogatones.net
May 5th, 2006 at 2:35 am
I have found that in a yoga class atmosphere, students are extremely sensitive to sound when they first enter the space and are warming up. At this stage, extremely low volume and musical ientnsity is recommended. After you get into the FLOW of full-power poses - the sensitivity and awareness of ambient sound diminishes quickly - and you can ease the volume and track intensity. If you do this very gently, with tantric restraint, tt can be very powerful and deeply emotional addition to the yoga experience.
-Brett / Yoga DJ
http://yogatones.net