Thomas DeVillers
The banjo makes sounds that carry a country mile. I could hear the plink of the high G string from the street, even before I found the class in James Madison Park. The Banjoga class, that is.
It’s yoga with banjo music. It’s banjo music with yoga.
I play the banjo, but I don’t know a note of yoga. So when I heard about the weekly, Sunday-at-noon class, I had to check it out. How will these two things go together? The banjo, which for many is the most anxiety-provoking instrument in the cabinet, and yoga, the quiet staircase to serenity.
“If they can put people in a peaceful place while the banjo plays,” commented a friend, “more power to them.”
It may have been the most beautiful day of the summer. Gulls flapped and squawked through cloudless, blue skies. Tall sails criss-crossed out on Lake Mendota. In the soft grass over by the basketball courts, four students formed an arc with their mats. Sun straight overhead, they cast no shadows. They faced the lake and their teacher, certified yoga instructor Hanna Hermanson, who guided them through some warm-up poses in a soft, soothing voice.
So far pretty normal.
Behind Hermanson, seated on her own mat and facing the class, Alice Bradley played the banjo like a Buddhist monk — from Appalachia.
I recognized the song. In fact, I know the song. But given the eccentric context, I couldn’t place the title. It was a tune from the deep clawhammer canon that names songs after people. “Sally Ann” or “Bill Cheatum,” one of those.
Bradley made the song her own. More to the purpose, she made the music the aesthetic property of her fellow classmates. Her playing was supple, balanced, flowing. The notes washed over the outdoor classroom, as Hermanson, wearing a “Life Is Beautiful” T-shirt, whispered, “shoulders roll down” (a few measures of banjo). “Smile” (a few measures of banjo). “Left hand behind....”
A couple jogged by on the sidewalk and slowed to a stop for a look.
Hermanson and Bradley have offered the weekly, by-donation Banjoga hour since Memorial Day. It’s their creation.
Bradley, who also practices yoga, played banjo one night at Hermanson’s apartment. The next thing she knew she started playing for some of Hermanson’s classes. At first the classes were apartment-bound, but they soon moved to the park.
“This combines two of my favorite things,” says Bradley. Playing for the yoga class, Bradley says, gives her “a sense of community and a feeling of flow, responsiveness.
“I might have a set list. Or not. I try to integrate what they’re doing into what I’m playing,” she says. “I’m listening to the teacher, too, and integrating what I’m playing.”
For her part, Hermanson believes live banjo music makes the ancient practice “more accessible, less intimidating.”
It turns out that the number five is an essential part of yoga. Knowledge of the five elements, earth, water, fire, air and space, allows the yogi to understand the laws of nature so as to attain five aspects of better living: health, power, knowledge, wisdom and happiness.
There are also five strings on a banjo.
Banjoga student Megan Turski has been in the class since the beginning. She brought several previous years of practice to the experience, and says Banjoga “brings lots more connection with the teacher, with the other students, with the moment. Everything feels more sincere.”
“Other yoga done in the classroom, I don’t want to use the word ‘clinical,’ but this is more natural,” says student Jacob Bricknase.
I bet even Earl Scruggs would agree.
Next Banjoga class: Oct. 2, 6 p.m. in james madison park.
Fall classes will meet: Outside as long as weather permits.
Winter classes will meet: In “creative indoor spaces. Maybe a greenhouse.”
Biggest misunderstanding about yoga: “That it isn’t for everybody or that you have to be flexible.”
Alice Bradley’s favorite banjo tune: “I Dream a Highway,” by Gillian Welch.
Popular banjo joke: What do you throw a drowning banjo player? His banjo.
