When you practice yoga regularly, you get more then you will from jogging on the treadmill catching up on the last season of 'Lost.' When you practice yoga, you use your body and your mind, and you're gaining awareness and intuition.
We are aware of yoga only as a technique to gain physical strength, flexibility, or increased health. And indeed these are potent side effects of the practice. But that is what they are: side effects. To focus on these largely insignificant manifestations is to miss the point entirely.
Yoga will always be transformationa l, even when it stops being cool.
Oh gosh, I noticed dramatic changes in my body after I started doing yoga, but I also think you have to shake things up.
Martial art is a form of expression, an expression from your inner self to your hands and legs.
Yoga has always been a part of my life, and it has had a major effect on me as a person, inside-out.
I've been doing yoga since 1980 or '81, and I've kind of developed my own routine. It's challenging and thorough, but I'm not holy about it. Sometimes I'll watch a tape of Jon Stewart's show while exercising.
Yoga is the only exercise on this planet from which you gain energy instead of burning energy.
Yoga is a philosophy of discipline and meditation that transforms the spirit and makes the individual a better person in thought, action, knowledge and devotion.
Martial arts, when I do martial arts, it's more of a life type of training.
Meditation or religion is a totally different world: it is relaxation, it is let-go - it is not concentration at all. It is not one-pointedness, it is no-pointedness.
Ninety percent of what most yoga teachers do is teach asana practice. While asana discharges stress and so forth, it was never intended to be a standalone practice. The true intent of yoga is personal transformation. What we get out of the privilege of teaching prisoners is the opportunity to focus on our own personal development. You can be of service, and, while helping others transform their lives, you have the deeper opportunity to transform your own. What we teach in prison is how we live our lives.
Yoga probably makes me a better person.
Yoga should not be just an exercise, but a means to connect with the world and with nature. It should bring a change in our lifestyle and create awareness within us.
I have dabbled in martial arts all my life, since I was 7, maybe - tae kwon do, capoeira, Muay Thai. It's always been an interest because in martial arts there is a mind/body relationship.
The different aspects of my activity, whether it's writing criticism, or doing visual work that incorporates writing, or teaching, or curating, is all of a single cloth, and I don't make any separation in terms of those practices.
Spiritual practice is not just sitting and meditation. Practice is looking, thinking, touching, drinking, eating and talking. Every act, every breath, and every step can be practice and can help us to become more ourselves.
I will continue to practice a martial arts form along with the mental and spiritual aspect that come with building a balanced life, and I will continue to incorporate it into whatever films I can.
The shaman is the figure at the beginning of human history that unites the doctor, the scientist and the artist into a single notion of care-giving and creativity.
When I teach a new group of students, I introduce some yoga philosophy, but I don't overload them with information. Just enough so they understand the real tradition behind this ancient practice and that it's not a stretching class. Guys come in and they're a little nervous. I tell them that when they cross the threshold of the door, they're crossing to a different dimension. They're moving from an externally-oriented reality to an internally-oriented one.
Yoga means to bind back, unite. To bring the body and the soul together. For this reason the practice of yoga is a holy endeavor and the teaching of it to our people a very high calling.
When I consider the deeper meaning of yoga, I realize it's about a lot more than simply performing a variety of postures on a mat.
Now I know why yoga is so life-giving for so many. I have never experienced a practice that combines such physical challenge and spiritual wellbeing in my life.
Like music, yoga is a journey -- one that is long enough so you keep developing, and keep learning. I don't see an end to it.
Yoga is sort of like acting because it's something you don't really know about - how it happens, why it works. You just do the poses, and you get the benefits. I like sharing that. And I think I have a talent for touching people, getting them in tune with their bodies.
