I will demonstrate some Persian and belly dance movements that you can practice before your yoga practice. Dancing to a music you like is a fun way to warm up the body and connect with yourself by focusing on the moment.

In Rumi’s poetry sama refers to listening to music, usually with the implication that dancing is also involved. The word sama means literally “audition” and alludes to sessions of listening to music. Many Sufi groups listened to music in their gatherings, and often they would dance along with it. Rumi and others even employed the dance as a means of training disciplines, since it can aid in the concentration of the mental faculties and the removal of distractions. Rumi also refers explicitly to dancing by other terms (raqs, pa kuftan). But, as in the case with all the images Rumi employs, music and dancing are primarily inward states, and only secondarily phenomena in the outward world. (The Sufi Path of Love, The Spiritual Teachings of Rumi, William C. Chittick)

Hence sama is the food of the lovers, for within it they find the Image of the meeting with the Beloved.

Sounds and songs strengthen the images within the mind, or rather, turn them into Forms. (Mathnawi of Jalalu’ Ddin Rumi, Book IV, 742-743, Translation by William C. Chittick)