Six-time world skateboarding champion Nyjah Huston recently visited the Isha Institute of Inner-sciences in Tennessee, where he explored a range of topics with Sadhguru including sport, the adventure of skateboarding, the need for balance for sportspersons, and SaveSoil.
Meet your Teacher
McMinnville, TN, USA
Transcript
You know much about skateboarding or no? I think I'm a bit too young for that. I've never ever filled in an application form for a job. There is no adventure without danger. You must be pretty good at riding if you can just cruise off into the jungle and not fall. Above all, Balance in life. Come and do some yoga. You will do your tricks much better. I love that, I love that, Yes. If you balance, You're on board with life. So Nigel, Wonderful meeting you, Man. So nice to meet you. Yes, Sir. Especially in this place, It's amazing. You are on four wheels, A young man. I'm on two wheels for my age. Yeah, I got to say it's pretty impressive. You know, The motorcycle that I had here for last few years, I took it to London and from London I rode all the way to India, 30, 000 kilometers in hundred… No way. Yes, In hundred days, Twenty-seven nations. I went through Saudi also. Hundred days? Yep, Through the desert. Around the engine, It was fifty-two degree centigrade. Like I was drinking about six, Six-and-a-half liters of water. Just, It just was evaporating. I don't even see sweat on my body, Just going away. Yeah. Oh, That's so sick. How long ago did you do that? Hundred days. How long ago was that? Twenty-twenty-two, Just a year ago. Wow, That's so sick. I would love to do something like that. I love riding bikes. And this was part of the Save Soil movement. Yeah. We had six-hundred-and-ninety-one events on the way. Wow. And you know, People worked to magnify the message of the soil. And in hundred days, We touched 3. 91 billion people. Yeah. Today, Eighty-one nations are in the process of framing soil policies because of that. Wow. But my motorcycle didn't come back. It stayed back in India, So I settled with this. So you don't want… you don't want to ride at home? Huh? You don't want to ride at home? No. Oh, That's amazing though. When did you get into riding bikes? Long time ago? I started riding when I was twelve. Wow. But for thirty years, More than thirty years probably, Thirty-thirty-one years, I never sat on a bike, Nor did I even think about it. My work got me busy. When I was doing a rally for the, You know, To save rivers in India, It's called Rally for Rivers. So from southern tip of India to Himalayas, I was driving. So when I came to Bangalore, There people had heard about my riding. Because at that time, I was one of those who rode probably the maximum. Like in a year, I would do like 60, 000, 65, 000 kilometers. Yeah, Wow. Those days, It was a 250cc two-stroke engine. Two-stroke? Yeah, And roads were hardly there. The two-strokes are sick though, Those are sick. I crisscrossed India on that. So when I came to Bangalore, All these kids brought one motorcycle and said, Sadhguru, You must ride. Thirty years, I had not sat on a motorcycle. I was wondering, Can I really ride once again now? I chose to ride a little late in the night so that the traffic is low in the city. Then I found that I haven't lost a day. So since then, I'm doing all my intercity travels on the motorcycle. So here we are, Still the wheels are rolling, So it's okay. What about skateboarding? Somebody gifted me one a couple of years ago. I haven't pulled it out yet. I think I'm a bit too young for that. A few more years and then maybe I will. A few more years, You're getting there. No, It's sick though. It's so nice to meet and like conversate with you because a lot of the videos that I've seen of you, I've seen you talk about people making the most out of their lives and not being so stuck in their everyday life where they're doing the same thing and working the same job every single day and just not fulfilling their life. I feel like that's something I've always been really thankful for as being a skateboarder is because we have a lot of free time outside of skateboarding and then also our job is to do what we love. It's also like a new experience every day. Like I was saying with the street skateboarding, I just came from Toronto before this and we were skating around the city for three days straight, Me and Dhamma right here. It's always new. There's new progression. There's new ways to excite yourself all the time so it never gets boring. If life allows you to do what you really care for, That's the greatest privilege. You should never complain in your life, Ever. Yes. If you're doing what you care for, What is the complaint? There's no complaint. Yes, I agree. I'm always so thankful for that. I don't know what I would be doing if I didn't. Even the cows agree. Yeah, I always think like, Damn, What would I be doing if I didn't start skateboarding? My dad got me into it when I was super young, Like five years old. So I was kind of just brought into it. But I feel like it fits me as a person so well and I truly love it so much. I could never be the type of person to work in an office every day. I didn't know what I will do with myself, But I knew one thing that I will not ever work for a living. In my life, I've never ever filled in an application form for a job. Yeah. Never. Wow. I never filled a job form that I need this job. And you know, My parents, My father especially would worry, What are you going to do? But I don't know, I'll do something. Yeah. If nothing works, I could easily go out into the jungle and survive. Many weeks I've survived by myself in the jungle. I said, I'll go into the jungle and live. But I'm not going to, You know, Work for a living. That was never my thing. Just couldn't even think about it, That you have to do something just to earn a few dollars or rupees or whatever at the end of the month. That's not something that could ever fit into my mind. So, Never applied for a job. Yeah, No, Me neither. Yeah, I love that mindset because I feel like those type of people that think about life in that way are the type that like, No matter what, You will figure something out, You know, Even if it might not be your dream job of doing what you love to do, Like me with skateboarding. Dream is a very fluid thing, You can always change the dream. It's easier to change the dream than the reality. Man, This place is so nice. So peaceful out here. So peaceful. This is about a quarter of the size of Atlanta City. So we will be building a yogic sitting where for people to live consciously. We'll have some surfaces where one can skate. It's crazy. You actually have a rail over there by where my room is. And it's pretty gnarly. It's the one that like goes down and flat and it's called the kinked rail. Maybe, Maybe I could hit it. Maybe. It's a scary one, But might have to give it a go. But it's a wooden one, Right? No, No, It's metal. Metal? Yeah. Yeah, One day it would be amazing to have a skate park out here. I'm picturing like ramps like going through the trees and it would be so sick. That's like a dream of mine to skate in a place like that. Can't you fix a little bigger wheels on it so that it will take… Some dirt. …all the little bumps and things better? Some dirt, Yeah. Yeah, They make some dirt boards where the wheels are like little off-road wheels. Yeah. Yeah, I think there's lots of stuff we could talk about as far as, You know, The pain in skateboarding. And it really takes a certain type of person to be able to get back up time after time again after taking so many hard falls and the pain and the bleeding and hitting your head, Concussions, Ending up in the hospital and still being willing to do it. So, Yeah, What's your take on that and that kind of mindset it takes in a person like that? Well, There is no adventure without danger. If somebody thinks they'll do adventure without any danger, They'll end up with a venture. So whether you want to do ventures in your life or you want to do some adventure are two different ways to look at life. So, Is it… is it necessary everybody should break their bones? Not necessary, But it may happen. With all these many, Many years of riding and crisscrossing India, I've never had a fracture or a broken bone on a motorcycle. It was always something else, Field hockey, Flying, Hang gliding, These kind of things and just running wild in the forest sometimes. There are other creatures who set traps for you. Your foot just sinks there and breaks something. Those kind of things, But I never broke a single bone, Only once. There's a hill and one day, You know, The road is very interesting to ride. One day I thought, Why don't I just go down without the road? So without thinking what is there, I just went on my motorcycle. Boom, Ba-dum, Ba-dum, I just went over the rocks and through the bushes and everything. Yeah. I didn't fall off, I just somehow managed to ride down. Can't see anything, It's all wild bush. One tree branch came and hit my left ring finger, My ring finger shattered. But I kept going and I came to the bottom without falling down or breaking anything. Only my ring finger was broken. That's the only broken bone I had on a motorcycle. That's so interesting because I've… surprisingly, I've never broken a bone either. I fractured a bone, But I've never broken one. A fracture is break only. The only one I've ever actually broken is my pinky finger. So that's… that's funny to hear you have a similar story. I went a little higher. Yeah. But you must be pretty good at riding if you can just cruise off into the jungle and not fall. So I respect that. Balance. Above all, Balance in life. Mentally, Physically, Emotionally, If you're balanced, You can do everything to the best of your ability. This is one thing that most human beings lack. They may be intelligent, They may be talented, They may have many capabilities, But there's no balance. Once there's no balance, All your capabilities turn against you one way or the other. So one important dimension of yoga is to bring geometric balance, Chemical balance, Energetic balance, And make sure that you're in tune with everything else around you, Quantum balance. And of course, There's consciousness, Which is absolute balance. So without balance, Anything that you attempt, Small things will become extremely difficult. So with your kind of sport, Balance is very important. Yeah. But it's important with everything actually. Balance need not necessarily mean you're walking a tightrope. Even to walk with ease, You need balance. Anything you want to do effectively, You need balance. If you have geometric balance, Your body will be balanced. If you have energetic and chemical balance, Everything inside will be very balanced. Beyond that, If you're balanced, Then you are in tune with what's around you. Everything works for you. The world works for you. The nature works for you. The very source of life works for you. When everything works for you, Then you can play. Otherwise, You have to work harder. Yes, Sir. I agree. This is one of the things I actually wanted to ask you about the most is, So with skateboarding and street skateboarding, And if you skate the big stuff like I do, The big handrails, The really dangerous stuff, We often get ourselves in situations, And I know Damo kind of has the same thing sometimes with hesitation. So like, You know you can do something, But you know… I mean, You're scared to do it and you know the consequences of what could happen. When you're in action, Hesitation is the worst crime. It's the worst, Yeah. You know, We used to go hang gliding in a mountain called Ullathi in South India. It's a peak where nearly eight hundred feet drop, The wind comes and rises like this. If you jump off the peak, It'll throw you up at least hundred, Hundred-and-fifty feet up. But when you look down, It's eight hundred feet drop. Yeah. So, Everybody tie up their nerves and scream and run and last moment they'll stop. Once or twice and third time you jump. There are some guys who'll do that the whole day and they never jump. Yeah. Whether you trust the wind or the gravity, Which is going to dominate. You see everybody going up, Not down, But still, It's like that. So, The important thing is, We have… a human being has a vivid sense of memory, Especially of painful things. And there is a present moment where to experience and to act. And there's a future that we can plan and create. But to be able to be in action without carrying the baggage of memory with you is the most important thing. If you carry yesterday with you, Your today becomes very heavy. You can't float, Nor can you fly, Nor can you skate. If yesterday you have to carry on your head, You're not going to fly in this moment. Yeah, That makes sense for sure. Yeah. I've definitely been dealing with that as of recently because I… like I said, I'd never broken a bone before. But I did tear… had my first serious injury. That's the scar right there. I tore my ACL. And that was like almost a year ago now. And I was doing what I normally do, Skating a big rail. And so, Since then, That was my first surgery. So, I'm like, Every time I skate something that's any somewhat dangerous, Obviously that thought is kind of in the back of my head. But I feel like if I'm really like serious and I'm getting in the zone of really concentrating on trying something hard, I'm pretty good at like keeping it in the back of my head instead of thinking about it too much. Obviously, It's still there sometimes and it sucks, You know, It sucks to have that memory and… The weight of yesterday. Yeah. You can't do anything today. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting how the brain works, Huh? It's just like some… some memories… No, No, Your brain works the way we want it. Yeah. Unfortunately, Most people are making it work accidentally. So, It's a disaster. When your hands and legs, Limbs can work the way you want, Why can't the brains work the way you want? It's just that they never taught you how to do that. That's what the yogic science is about. Yeah. That your brain should work the way you want. Otherwise, What's the point? Anything in you, If it doesn't work for you, If it works against you, You can do without that part. Speaking of that, What's… what's your thoughts on like just this day and age and how like so many people are suffering from like anxiety, Depression and overthinking and just that whole aspect. There's no such thing as overthinking. People are not thinking enough. I like that. Their thoughts are so frictious. There's so much friction. Yeah. If the wheels of your skateboard have lot of friction, Will you go anywhere? They need to roll smooth. The brains also need to roll smooth. But there is so much friction. Because there is friction, They think they're thinking too much. There's no such thing. See, If you're driving a tractor, Which has got lot of friction, If you go at forty miles per hour, You think you're going very fast. You ride this one, You're going hundred-and-twenty miles per hour, You don't know. Because it's just going without friction. So, Same goes for you, For your body and your mind. If your mind is in lot of friction, If you have ten thoughts, Then you think you're overthinking. Well, You can have 10, 000 thoughts or a million thoughts per day and still be cool if there's no friction. The problem is friction, Not too many thoughts. There's no such thing as too many thoughts. Nobody is overthinking. They're not thinking enough, If you ask me. I like that. I like that way to look at it. Yeah. There are tools and methods as to how to make your mind function the way you want and your whole human mechanism is such a fantastic mechanism. If you make it work for you, It'll do wonders. If you make it work against you, Oh, It's a torture. Yeah. Yeah, That's another thing that kind of ties back into skateboarding. It's like sometimes, Like in a contest run, A lot of the times the format will be you just have one minute on the course to do your run and do as many tricks as you possibly can in that minute, And you have to land them all if you want to place good. A lot of the times we're doing tricks that are not super hard for us. We've done them so many times before, But I guess either thinking about the trick too much and not doing it naturally or maybe not thinking about each trick at a time enough and kind of thinking about the next trick and then you fall. And then you're just like, Oh, Like, Why did I fall on that? It's an easy trick, But it happens. I'm saying for most human beings, The problem is either they're carrying their estuaries on their head or they're already lifting the cup. They're too much in the future. Uh-huh. Instead of being present in the moment. I mean, Don't even have to say that. What you're doing if you don't do it well, Where is future I'm asking? The step that you're taking right now, If you don't take it properly, Next thing is you will be falling on your face. If you try to take that step that you will do ten steps later now, You will fall on your face, Isn't it? With every aspect of life, Not just with sport. Yeah, Yeah. With everything. This is the whole problem. Human beings have a fantastic sense of imagination only because they have such a vivid sense of memory. This is what sets us apart from every other creature. The birds are beautiful. What's wrong with the cows? They're also fine. The raccoons are also wonderful. Only thing is they don't have a vivid sense of memory like us, Which makes our life so rich. And a fantastic sense of imagination which allows us to create so many things in life. But this is what human beings suffer. What happened ten years ago, They're still suffering. What may happen day after tomorrow, They're already suffering. Yeah. So, This is showing up in every aspect of life. Maybe in skateboarding, They'll literally fall on their face. In other aspects of life, They do fall on their face, But not everybody is watching. Yeah. Yeah, Life. Life is interesting. Life is interesting. We can spend some more time out here. Good, Good for the mind. Good for the soul. Not just the place, There are things we can do which can set you up in a competition. Well, We won't teach you skateboarding, But we can teach you how to keep yourself. Yeah. Whether you're on a skateboard or just on this planet. Because all of us are skateboarding on the planet. It's spinning and boom, Going at a great speed across the… you know, Around the sun. Yeah. If you're not in balance in every way within you and as a person, As a life, As a body, As a mind, If you're not in total balance, Then what you do will become mediocre. If you give enough time, We can put you through things which will… both in terms of strength and balance, We can do things that you have not imagined. Yes, Yes. When I rode last year, This 30, 000 kilometers, I was sixty-five. Everybody said, Sadhguru, You won't make it in hundred days, 30, 000 kilometers across twenty-seven nations. I said, You leave it to me and we'll see. If I don't make it, At least people will save soil. Then I spoke to some transcontinental riders, Young people who ride across continents on motorcycles. I said, Sadhguru, Maybe with your energy you can do this, But your back will be ruined for sure, Hundred percent. There's no way in hundred days, 30, 000… hundred days anybody stays on a motorcycle, Your back will be ruined. Well, I'm fine. So, We can teach you something which sets you up. I must tell you how I got into this yogic practices. I was only just over eleven, Maybe around twelve. When we went to my ancestral home, My grandfather's place, One of the sport for all the boys was, There was a well about eight feet in diameter. In summer months, We always go for vacation where the water is at least sixty to seventy feet below the ground level. So, We jump into the well. You have to go down straight. If you go like this, Your brains will become a smear on the wall. And for coming up, There is no foothold, There is no step, There's no ladder, Nothing. Just rocks you have to hold and come. You're just on your fingertips like this. By the time you come, All your fingernails will be bleeding out of sheer pressure. I'm pretty good at that. But one day, An old man who was over seventy years of age was just standing there and watching us quietly, Looking at us, Doing this. Then he just came and without a word, He just jumped in. I thought this old guy is finished. But he came up faster than me. I didn't like it. I asked him how. He said, Come and do yoga. So, That's why I'm telling you. Come and do some yoga. You will do your tricks much better. I love that, I love that, Yes. Nice meeting you. Love that. Yep, I'm into it. I want to be able to keep doing what I'm doing for as long as possible and keep the body healthy, Keep the mind healthy and balance on the board and off the board. Sounds like that's the key. If you balance, You're on board with life. Sick, Love that. Thank you and all the best for you. Yes.
4.5 (12)
Chethak
August 12, 2024
This was very nice and informative and insightful. It was helpful to hear these people talk. Thank you so much for sharing about all these things
