A Quote by Dean Potter

My mom was a yoga teacher back in the 1960s, so I observed a lot of the practice. It's movement of the body with awareness to the breath, which you can do with running, push-ups or walking on a piece of nylon tied between two trees.
I do cardio for 35 to 45 minutes, whether that's on the elliptical or walking or running on the treadmill - I switch back and forth because I can get bored at times. Then, I'll go do some weights - I'll do some bicep curls, push-ups, sit-ups.
When I was a teenager, I did a lot of pull-ups and push-ups. Every night before bed, I'd do 150 - in sets of 30 or so. Looking back on it now, I'm not totally sure that's the best way to improve as a climber. But it did make me a lot better at doing pull-ups and push-ups.
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.
I've never enjoyed my running more. I also do 200 sit-ups a day, 60 push-ups, and a lot of stretching. I've had some back issues. I think the stretching helps with that.
In terms of working out, I'm in the gym, maximum, twice a week, but for a pretty intense period of time: two or two and a half hours nonstop. Most of the exercises are body weight. We're talking pull-ups, chin-ups, decline rows, elevated push-ups.
Yoga is not a practice - the word 'yoga' means union. It does not mean standing on your head, twisting your body, or holding your breath. Yoga means to know the union of life. When you experience everything as a part of yourself, you are in yoga.
Pay attention to the gap - the gap between two thoughts, the brief, silent space between words in a conversation, between the notes of a piano or flute, or the gap between the in-breath and the out-breath. When you pay attention to those gaps, awareness of 'something' becomes - just awareness. The formless dimension of pure conciousness arises from within you and replaces identification with form.
But I would assert that despite the wide variety of yoga options and individual preferences, there is one universal element: the union of consciousness and movement, breath and awareness.
I'm really into the basic idea of Kriya Yoga. The breathing that goes on in Kriya. Other than that, it's just communicating with the universe and getting the inspiration for different kinds of breath. Basically, I'm into the movement of breath and the shapes of breath. The different kinds of sequences of breath. I like doing that a lot.
I have a spiritual practice which helps to keep me grounded and centered. Yoga is vital because it keeps me in full awareness and connection with my breath. I keep a gratitude log, which helps to remind me of all the blessings I experience daily.
My career began somewhat accidentally. In the 1960s, I started a practice in the fledgling field of mind-body healing. Around that time, it was completely in its infancy. I had been developing a protocol to use body awareness as a tool for stress reduction.
I started doing yoga in college, so that has just become a staple of a self-care routine for my mind and my body. My body craves it at this point, so I do it two to three times a week, sometimes more. I practice Vinyasa style yoga and sometimes mix it up.
Regarding perfection, that's a very difficult question. I can say that I have superseded most in my sadhana [practice]. I am in it, and my mind and my intelligence gets better in my sadhana, and it reaches a certain place. When I stretch, I stretch in such a way that my awareness moves, and a gate of awareness finally opens... My body is a laboratory, you can say. I don't stretch my body as if it is an object. I do yoga from the self towards the body, not the other way around.
The awareness that we cultivate is what makes yoga a practice, rather than a task or a goal to be completed. Your body will most likely become much more flexible by doing yoga, and so will your mind.
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.
Remember that breath walking - as with any meditation technique - should not be pursued with a grim determination to 'get it right.' The point is to cultivate openness, relaxation and awareness, which can include awareness of your undisciplined, wandering mind.
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