Author: Rachel Scott

Check out this guest post by Tracy Moore, who has done research on how athletes are using yoga to up their game and performance. Wonderful to see how yoga can help us all toward functional fitness!

When it comes to health and fitness nobody knows their body more than athletes. Many of them have been training since childhood and have perfected their method of not only staying fit but also injury free. Athletes from all different kinds of sports use yoga as a vital part of their exercise regime and in this article we look at four examples of sports stars who count on yoga to help them improve their performances.

Maria Sharapova

The tennis star and Grand Slam Champion is known for being one of game’s most athletic competitors. She has won every Grand Slam at least once and has been world number 1. Mind Body Green reported that Sharapova did a video for Nike in 2010 detailing her yoga regime. According to the health site Sharapova said, “When I do yoga it also allows me to sort of think about what I have to do, how my body is going to go into the next position, and breathing into stretches. It’s almost mentally stabilizing in one place.” Yoga is a great way to refocus the mind especially if you are constantly in highly competitive situations.

Kevin Love

The Cleveland Cavaliers star Kevin Love has invested heavily in yoga to improve his game. In an interview with Stack.com he said, “my business is my body, I thought that yoga would be a great way to make my body feel better, so I’ve integrated it into my workouts.” Yoga instructor Kent Katich, who also instructs LeBron James and Blake Griffin, believes that yoga helps control negative emotions which can in turn lead to mistakes. Everyone in life gets stressed out and annoyed, but it is how we react to those pressures that show how in control we are. Players such as Love and LeBron are successful because they can always keep a cool head even when the game isn’t going their way.

Sally Fitzibbons

Australian professional surfer Sally Fitzgibbons is no stranger to exercise. Her sport requires strength, balance, endurance, and stamina, all of which she has mastered in order to be considered one of best in the world. In an interview with Cooler Lifestyle she named yoga as one of “ best exercises for surfing” due to the need to get “strong enough to withstand all that power the ocean throws at you when you’re out there.” Many people believe that yoga isn’t a valid exercise, when in fact it can be hugely demanding on the body and help increase strength and endurance.

Ryan Giggs

If you ever need proof that yoga can help you stay at the top of your game for longer then look no further than soccer star Ryan Giggs. The Telegraph reported that at the age of 40 Giggs was still playing regular first team soccer for one of the biggest clubs in the world: Manchester Untied. Most soccer players retire if they are lucky in their early 30’s. Speaking to the paper Giggs said “[yoga] strengthens your muscles, improves flexibility, but also keeps you fit and gets you out on the training pitch so you can train every day.” Such was his dedication to the game and his own health that Premier League experts Betfair in their detailed profile on the Wales legend called him “one of the greatest players in the club’s illustrious history.”

Hopefully this has shown you how yoga is used by some of the biggest sports stars on the planet to enhance their game. If it can help them be the best at their sport it can also help you in achieving your goals.

 

Thanks Tracy 🙂

I stared up the hill and really didn’t know if I could do it. I have the lung capacity of a hamster and I was already sitting at over 12,500 feet. And while I may be a good yogi, my leg strength is wimpy. Chickens are stronger. I cry during squats.

But at the top of that 30 minute climb was a powder bowl and a view of the Rockies. And more importantly, I wanted to prove that I could do the climb. I wanted to get off the groomers and push my personal limits. I was doing it on my own, which made the challenge even better. No one was talking me into it. This choice was all mine.

I started up the hill, joining a line of trekkers with their skies and boards hoisted over their shoulders. My expression probably matched what I saw in theirs: rueful and grim determination. I hunched forward against the severe pitch of the hill go keep my balance. With every step, I shoved the toe of my boot deep into the snow to find purchase on the slope. Even so, I slid back several times, and one time fell forward onto my knees. The thin air took a toll on my hamster lungs; I had to stop every twenty steps for some good open-mouth gasping. About two thirds of the way up the climb, I realized that the summit that I had been pursuing was false: after a tiny plateau, there was more of the hill to go.

It was my personal Everest.*

When I made it to the top, I grinned like an idiot even as I sprawled out into the snow to recover. When I finally got to my feet, the view from the top was spectacular, the Colorado Rockies ringed the view like a necklace. The powder in the bowl would also prove to be epic (at one point I screamed, “It’s so fluffy!” like the crazed girl from Despicable Me).  But the true triumph of that afternoon was climbing that hill. I was proud that I had chosen to do something that I knew would be tough simply for the joy and experience of pushing my own limits.

In our daily lives, we can become slowly swaddled by self-limiting beliefs that are cozy, but confining. We become habituated to who we think we are and what we think we can do. When we take up the call to adventure, we elbow our way out of these constraints and create space for a fresh and expansive understanding.We are deliberately setting off into Terra Incognita in order to  experience ourselves freshly in a new world. However, when we embark upon an adventure (whether’s it’s travelling to a far off country, raising a child, writing a book, or climbing a snowy hill), we can never control how it goes. We may fail, we may flourish. But the attempt reveals our capacity to stretch our wings wide and try.

I invite 2017 to be your year of adventure.

Adventures of all sizes will do: trying salsa dancing, taking on a new fashion, meditating, trying a sport, meeting one new person a day, or navigating a challenging conversation. Every adventure – small or large – expands our range of personal possibility.

Step into Terra Incognita – arms wide open – and reach towards the edges of the your own wonderful, wide world!

*Humbling fun fact: Everest is twice as high.

 

George Michael is the last straw.

The list of fallen heroes in 2016 has become too long. David Bowie, Prince, Alan Rickman, Anton Yelchin, Gene Wilder, Gary Shandling, Leonard Cohen. Some, like exceptional author and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, died at an age appropriate time. Wiesel was 87. The sting of his death seems lessened by the span of his life.

But losing so many of our bright luminaries who are only in their 50’s ad 60’s seems…well, wrong. They’re too young to go. For those of Generation X, it’s a shocking wake up call to see our high school heroes die. These are the guys that that we rocked out to – Molly Ringwald and Kevin Bacon style – at our high school dances. For many of us, death is circling coming close for the first time, wagging a finger in admonishment at the comforting thought that his reaping was a few decades away. Not so. He’s at the door.

With the sick and dying sequestered away in hospitals, I often can live in a benign denial of my own mortality. But this year is different. The parade of celebrity deaths is a wake up call. It cannot be avoided. Time’s ominous and relentless hand is visible, clearing a path. The veil of happy immortality that I like to wear over my eyes is thinning, weakening.

Death extends a hand in invitation. Come closer, he says. Why not? I’m always here.

Death’s presence is clarifying. Like a sudden wind, he blows away everything petty and irrelevant. The small stuff loses its grasp and flakes off. The squabbles, the grievances, and our eternal to do lists become paper in the wind. When we let death come close, he whispers his riddle in our ear: “What makes your life worthwhile?” He strips us to the bones of our humanity. We sit naked in the present moment, suddenly awake, attuned to our aliveness. In the clarity of death’s presence, we reconnect to the core values that give our souls satisfaction. We see our loved ones with fresh eyes, feel our bodies in the present moment. We feel gratitude and awe at our own heartbeat. We marvel at the mystery of what it is to be alive.

In the winter darkness before the near year, sit close to death. Let him whisper his riddle in your ear. Allow his proximity to shake you out of your habitual sleepiness and point the way to your connection to your own precious and wild aliveness. Dare. Love. Laugh loudly. Sing off-key. Kindle your light in the dark.

Hold hands with death, and then go boldly dance with life.