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Listening to music during yoga may be taboo for some instructors, but it isn’t for Jessica Skye.
As the founder of Fat Buddha Yoga by day and DJ by night, music is integral to her own practice and her classes – she even holds weekly yoga classes at Ministry Of Sound.
“Although there can be some conflicts between straddling teaching yoga, running the business and moonlighting as a DJ (mostly late nights and early starts), there’s also a huge amount of synergy between the two, namely: gauging a crowd and creating a vibe to carry the energy of a room with music.”
We asked Jessica to curate the first part of our ‘Gym Buddies: Unwind’ playlist, which is perfect for anything low tempo: yoga, Pilates, walking, a light jog, or even your warm-up and warm-down.
The 29-year-old, who set up Fat Buddha Yoga in 2013 as a passion project to create a modern approach to yoga using music and cool venues, said: “Music is such an amazing tool to build energy for a workout, BPMs [beats per minute] can be used to set the pace of a workout or yoga class whether it’s to dig deeper and push a little harder, or a guide to let you know to mellow out and relax.”
Speaking about her selection, she told HuffPost UK: “The tracks are all deep, down-tempo and four-to-the-floor, perfect for the type of dynamic yoga you’ll find at Fat Buddha Yoga.
“Most of them are in a minor key, so tends to evoke more of a mood or feeling when you listen to them… perfect for getting yogis into the zone and guiding the flow of a class.”
Want something a little faster? Try our ‘Gym Buddies: Upbeat’ playlist.