i like jedis. i do. sometimes i even say i only do yoga so that i might become a jedi. of course as a joke. but not entirely untrue...

lately - as i started re-watching the original trilogy - i started re-thinking my theory about jedis being better than siths. siths are not afraid of the dark side. they are not afraid of anger, hatred or fear. they learn how to use it. if a sith started using the force for good, maybe balance would be brought to the galaxy...

so eyal... 'I call my yoga mahakala: the big black. I prefer the dark side to the white happyhappy. Buddhist people don't like to say it because it is a demon. But it is a good demon. Mahakala is protecting the dharma, because these days lots of things seems distorted and we need some protection.'

eyal is one of the greatest people i have ever met. he is true. honest. no masks. nothing artificial, nothing superficial. plain and simple. he is what he is. i always liked those who are not afraid of the dark side of life. but uses it to become stronger. 'People have no shadows without the sun.'

when i walked up to him after his class and asked him to give me an interview, he instantly smiled and said yes. i told him we could 'bitch about yoga' - as i heard him say many times. he was instantly in. 'Maybe it is a personal thing. Yoga today is about marketing, not about quality. It is very superficial. People get very traditional, very orthodox. They don't experiment. And the taste is changed.'

'I call it lululemon yoga. It is an escape. And it is okay to escape because life in this century is very hard. But it wasn't meant to be like this. As an escape mechanism.' yoga is not about poses. definitely not about bikini bodies doing cirque du soleil hashtaged as yoga. and mostly not about what kind of pants you wear. yoga is life: the way you move, they way you eat, talk, act or react. how you treat yourself and everyone else. the way you face yourself, peel everything off that is not true, that is not you. they way you face your dragons so to train and ride them. the way you try to find balance. between all that white trash and the dark side.

eyal is all this. yoga. the real one. and the best part is, he still knows how to smile...

bpy: At first why did you start doing yoga?

EC: I came across it when i was twenty three. I lived in New York, i did some drugs. I had to quit bad habits. I wanted to be better to myself. I went to a yoga class. The smell of the studio totally felt like home. A few months after i had started, i did it every day. And that's it. It stuck. Now i try to get out. (smiles)

bpy: What did yoga give you that nothing else could before?

EC: On a basic level it is relaxation. Because i tend to be neurotic, and it sets me relaxed. But it also developed to be like a therapist for me. I used to do psychoanalysis, and my therapist said that he felt like yoga was his co-therapist. I think that is what it does to me: it is like therapy. It gives spiritual dimension to my life.

bpy: What is the most important message that you would like to tell people who come to your classes?

EC: I like to work hard, i like physical work. That is my preference. And i try not to be serious. Not to be spiritual. Try to be as real as possible. Be myself whatever that means. And try not to be bullshit. It is very difficult.

Because when you teach you take on a persona. I think my students like my classes because i am trying to be real. I don't play relaxed, i don't put on a face. I am quite an angry person, i have this kind of quality and i am using it. Sometimes i am fierce. I used to be more fierce, now more gentle after having kids. I like to give alignment notes. I try to bring intelligence to the practice. Awareness. I try to stop people from hurting themselves mainly. That is the beauty of being a yoga teacher. To help people chill out and not to do too much.

bpy: What is yoga for you?

EC: It is the way to be in the world for me. Now it is natural, a part of my life. I can't see my life without it. It doesn't have to take the form of yoga. Because it lives within me. So if i even stop practicing, it is there. I think everyone is in yoga. In one way or another everyone is having this kind of experience, whatever they do.

It is my life. I rebel against yoga and i love it. Like a relationship. I hate it and i love it. I hate that i love it. It makes my life better and miserable at the same time.