Every Wednesday around sunset, a group of about a dozen students participating in the Waves of Silence club gather on Alumni Park to unwind through yoga and meditation.
Pepperdine alum Max Doane (’24) founded Waves of Silence as a way to help students build community and connect with nature.
“I just hope that people, when they come, find a breath of fresh air in their week, a time where everything just quiets down, slows down, and they can really connect with themself,” said senior Kevin Zhang, Waves of Silence President.
At each club meeting, students unroll their club-provided black yoga mats and spend the first half of the session doing yoga. Calming music usually plays through a small speaker while the club’s event director Julia Johnson guides the practice.
Johnson, who grew up practicing yoga, was trained to be an instructor at her local yoga studio. She said she considers herself to be a spiritual person and hopes to provide a space of grace, love and compassion through the club.
The second half of each session is typically spent in guided meditation. At the club’s Nov. 13 meeting, attendees followed along with a Wim Hof breathing exercise played through the speaker. Students either laid on their back or sat cross-legged as they practiced rapid breathing followed by increasingly long breath holds.
At the Nov. 20 session, Johnson guided the meditation portion, instructing members to lie down with their eyes closed and imagine themselves being held in a cradle in the middle of outer space, preventing them from falling endlessly. After the exercise, club members expressed praise for her illustration’s immersive power.
Beyond their Alumni Park meetings, Waves of Silence also occasionally hosts free events at Veritas Yoga, a yoga studio located in the Malibu Country Mart. Johnson, who helps coordinate the events, said that they’ve collaborated to host breathwork and sound bath workshops.
Both Zhang and Johnson emphasized that Waves of Silence is inclusive for everyone, regardless of their religious, faith or spiritual backgrounds.
“You don’t have to be anything to come,” Zhang said. “You just have to be you, and show up.”
Zhang, who joined the club during its inception, also said that Waves of Silence has amassed a group of regular attendees at this point in the semester. Sophomore Amir Paridari, a member of the club since last year, said that he’s forged close friendships through his regular attendance.
Paridari said he meditates alone almost daily, and doing it with other people at the club has been a good experience. He also said he enjoys sitting in Alumni Park during the sunset.
Given that daylight saving time ended in early November, the stars are out and the nighttime cold has set in at the end of the Waves of Silence’s most recent meetings. But students remain persistent on stopping their busy college lives to join the weekly hour-long gatherings for the sake of pause.
“There’s always kind of somewhere to be, something to do,” Johnson said. “But here, we get to just be.”
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Contact Henry Adams via email: henry.adams@pepperdine.edu
