Movie Yoga
How Every Movie Can Change Your Life by Tav Sparks
Want to be in the movies? You already are!
Read Movie Yoga and become a “Movie Yogi!”
Movie Yoga shows you how to turn on your inner Awareness Positioning System™ (APS). While you watch movies and munch popcorn, you can connect the dots between your own life and what's up on the screen. Sparks describes the epic territory common to all genres of film — action, romance, horror, or mystery. Once you know how to look for it, you will discover your own life by watching it play out in film, frame by frame.
Sparks inspires us with examples from his favorite movies and writes his descriptions with the beauty, power, and surprising force of the film clips themselves (See "Pulp Friction" below). You will never look at movies in the same way again.
REVIEWS
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"Movie Yoga will take you on a holographic journey to the center of yourself as it invites you to ponder, "What does my reaction to that movie reveal about me?" Tav's warm, passionate, personal style will move you out of thinking about it and into the experience of what he's saying. Drawing from a vast library of films that Tav has experienced, he demonstrates how every movie he has ever watched, good and bad alike, has transformed him in some way, and then he offers a technique that you can use to do the same – to walk out of the theatre, at the end of any movie, a deeper, bigger person than when you walked in. This is a book that would make anyone appreciate the work of Hollywood."
~ Melody Jackson, Ph.D., Smart Girls Productions
"In his book, Movie Yoga: How Every Film Can Change Your Life, Tav Sparks draws on his lexical knowledge of the world of movie-making and his vast experience from almost quarter of a century of therapeutic work with non-ordinary states of consciousness. The result is a unique instrument that could transform one of the most popular mass entertainments into an adventure of self-discovery, self-healing, and inner transformation."
~ Stanislav Grof, M.D., Author of Psychology of the Future, The Cosmic Game, and When the Impossible Happens
"As someone who appreciates what it means to get lost in movies, I really resonate with Tav's passion for the power of film. Beyond just watching for entertainment, Movie Yoga parts a curtain on the deeper mysteries that films reveal."
~ H.R. Giger – Visionary artist and Oscar winner for "Alien"
"As a producer, I love that Tav Sparks gives people another reason to be inspired by movies. In Movie Yoga, he takes the film experience to a whole new level. His passion and insight for both movies and transformation are clear on every page."
~ Bill Block, Producer, financier, and CEO, QED Intl.
"Tav Sparks’s passion for film is infectious and truly delightful. But more than that, Tav shows us how one of life's simple joys, going to the movies, can be a tool for deep spiritual and emotional transformation. If you love the silver screen and long for the spirit, read this book!"
~ Jai Uttal, World musician and Grammy-nominated recording artist
"Movie Yoga is an entertaining exploration of the transformation path of movies. It is both deep and fun, two fine qualities in any book. I recommend it highly!"
~ Gay Hendricks, Ph.D., Author of The Big Leap, Co-Founder of The Spiritual Cinema Circle
EXCERPT - CHAPTER 1
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Movies have absolutely blessed my life. For me, movie theaters aren’t just popcorn and M&M hide-outs. They are temples. They are altars. They are the halls of mystery. They’ve become the sanctuary where I go to find myself, to change, to grow. And lose myself, too, to die and be reborn. Who would have thought? One of my most intense passions, movies, has given me over and over again crystal clear glimpses of a wholeness within me, and all kinds of clues about how to make the odyssey toward that wholeness.
Let’s begin with a couple of questions: First, ever dreamed of changing something about yourself that could help you be in the world in a more fulfilling way? And second, ever been turned upside down by a movie? Left the theater a different person than you were when you went in? I mean seriously moved, one way or the other: uplifted, filled with hope, energized, grossed out, devastated, transformed? When this kind of radical thing happens to us, that film, or even that scene, that line of dialogue or that piece of music, can be the key to the highway, the way we can reach that fulfillment we’ve been dreaming of. That’s what this book is all about.
Movies can be transformational. You may already know this, but it could be true in a more profound way than you imagine. Sounds revolutionary. Except it’s not that complicated. We just need to do a couple of things: Pay attention to the feelings we have in one of these overwhelming movie moments, or any kind of movie moment, for that matter. And then come up with a simple way for our feelings to transform us — to work for us, to be our allies. This book’s going to show us how to do this — and a whole lot more — all while we’re having a good time at the movies. Click here to finish reading ...
EXCERPT - "PULP FRICTION” ("WAR ZONE" CHAPTER)
On one level we can call the primal energy, generated in the War Zone, "anger." On another, it’s the biological fury of a fetus struggling to be born. On yet another, it’s power. It could be personal power, could be divine power. Still again, it’s passion, excitement, and creativity. And in the end, it’s just plain energy. There are so many ways this energy manifests in our lives.
Sometimes, it’s not just the subject matter that defines what level of the Hero’s Journey a film is portraying. Every once in a while, it’s the style that gives it away, the way the director does what he does. And this is definitely the case in Quentin Tarantino’s film Pulp Fiction. There’s a segment in this movie so filled with mania, that jittery, over-the-top nervousness that so characterizes energy run amok, that there’s no way to watch it without getting triggered.
In our seminars, we’ll be showing movie segments and be just getting through with showing examples of the depression and stuckness of the Trapped Zone in film. Then we’ll play this segment, and the whole crowd just starts giggling and getting fidgety. The temperature in the room goes up a few degrees. And everybody’s squirming and getting wired out. By the end, the room has exploded in unfocused, raw, free energy. It’s a great time to go to lunch, take a break.
This is the vignette where Vincent, John Travolta, has had a night on the town with his gangster boss’s girlfriend, Mia, played by Uma Thurman. Now Vincent’s a junkie, and Mia accidentally OD’s on his heroin, thinking it’s cocaine. So Vincent is totally freaking and drives to his dealer’s to see if he can get some help. He knows if Mia dies, he’s going to be nothing but a “grease spot.” Click here to finish reading ...
Interview with Tav Sparks - Click here to listen to a July 1, 2009 interview with Tav Sparks by Pat Sendejas, “Let Go and Grow” at Contact Talk Radio.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
 | | Tav Sparks |
Tav Sparks is an author, international workshop leader, and owner and Director of Grof Transpersonal Training, a program which offers certification in Holotropic Breathwork™. He lives in Mill Valley, California, with his wife, Cary, and son, Bryn. His son, Ason, and his grandsons, Dallin and Kellin, live in Georgia. For more about Tav Sparks, Movie Yoga, and Holotropic Breathwork™:
www.holotropic.com
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