The Freedom Yoga Project- Blog 3- The Definition Of "Hip Hop"

Today is Saturday, July 25th. The day started as my friend Patrick woke me up. I stayed over at his family’s home the night before. We watched Inside the actor’s studio with Johnny Depp , then slid in the DVD of “Dead Man Walking”. Sean Penn. As mentioned in "WRITE NOW” (Blog 2) , I love to read. I recently colored my life with Sean Penn, by completing a transition book on the return long haul from NYC: “ His Life and Times. Sean Penn the authorized biography”. Penn had just become one of my teachers; his life carries a stench of integrity, and I stand in that stench inspired. As the waft lingered, we made Vision Boards. Slicing up magazines to create a creative collage of what I’m designing of my life. Inspiring INTO my life.Book Cover I carried From NYC to HKI would be speaking at an interfaith dinner tonight. I was invited to speak on the topic “Freedom”. I would be sitting there side by side with religious scholars, an ordained Interfaith Minister Peter Llyod, a Lutheran Priest of the Christian church, a Hare Krishna since he was eight years-old and then there was me. What life throws at you can be so odd! Of course this is a dream, and I am the contributer assisting its unfold, one moment at a time.

This day off felt different. I intentionally created the space to be exposed to the space to create. The real conception of what happens in FREEDOM YOGA starts from here: the creative process, which heavily relies on my spirit. In the way a musician leads the breath through a saxophone deducing sound, it’s the breath capacity that leads the spirit through me inducing creation.Blowing BreatheThe breath and the instrument are powerful tools, independently; the saxophone is a brilliant architectural design, and the breath, the birth right of every human being, yet together they create a brand new paradigm, re-creating their solo identity, a whole new world view. It’s a creation of the breath journey - a new wave of frequency that concurrently fuses with the truth already existing, like a ray of sun shining through mosaic glass, creating a kaleidoscopic range of colored light, yet it’s still light in it’s purest form.

Freedom Yoga is yoga, yet it carries the spine of Sean Penn’s courage; the courage of a man that married and divorced Madonna, said “no” to a ten million $US film role for the mere fact that it lacked depth, got on a plane to Iraq, when the world was convinced that “Weapons of Mass Destruction” were hidden under some Persian rug in the region. He is embarrassed by being an actor, because he is much more than that, he is an artist. Like Sean, Freedom Yoga invites you to go beyond the boundaries, to reform the shapes that condition your mind, to step out from the expected and be curious as to what else is there. Here.

It soaks up Johnny Depp’s heart, the man is completely unsatisfied, “If I was completely and totally over the moon about my work and I was satisfied. I would get out of the business immediately. I would leave this work behind. Because I think, for me as an actor, if you get to a place where you're satisfied, you're happy with it, then you're dead. It's over. You're not hungry anymore. You won't try things anymore.” That thought personifies his lust for life, Depp illuminates life’s beautiful unknown, the Freedom that lives in the mystery, and the mysterious urge to lose control by the continual evolution of exploration, and experimentation.

When your full time job is to play, playing itself becomes focus. Freedom Yoga, is yoga, but it’s so much more.

It’s a yoga class by all means, but ignore the gossip, it’s neither a dance class, nor is it a hip hop class, (although it is derived from the deepest truth of hip hop - to make the most out of limited resources). It is the canvas of a painter, the blank page to a writer, the denim of the designer, the empty studio of a choreographer, a welder’s metal and now a playground to the explorer of breath, imagination, and emotion.

Spiritual, in it’s very true nature. As it calls on your spirit to give more then it’s used to. Giving more in the sense of complete surrendering, the ultimate LET GO.

Alignment, increasing one’s breath capacity, or exploring the great philosophies that were born out of the yoga traditions, are the pillars of the yoga zeitgeist. Freedom re-creates all three by marrying them; alignment, breathe, and deep truth, contained in a makeover that asks YOU to participate. You must show up with the open mind of a philosopher, but then be prepared to throw it all away again just to allow your spirit (you may call it your subconscious) and your body to be swept by the music, while your imagination leads you through the rise and fall of your body. In some classes you can fake it, in this class you’re exposed. BIG TIME. The feeling of inability to play puts the truth right in the centre of the spotlight: to play is a choice, and choice is the most powerful energy there is, even eclipsing love; for even “to love” is a choice.

As the mic was handed to me, after freedom was explained from the Christian perspectives, as well as the Hare Krishna angle, I simply said I was born Jewish, and I teach yoga, but my religion is Art, I am an artist. I believe in the truth of expression, creation, and ideas. Freedom is the process of the three coming together and moving apart as solo identities with the sole purpose of coming together again to move apart again; making the most out of limited resources. recreation and re-creation.

editing - Rani Kamaruddin

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