FOOTBALL YOGIS

GO HAWKS!  Yep, I'm a football fan.  And not just a "Susie come lately, fair-weather, jump on the winning bandwagon fan.  I've been there for years.  My training for being loyal, win or lose, was growing up near Chicago as a die-hard Cubs fan.  If you know anything about sports, you know that is an exercise in fortitude.  Also I grew up with two brothers, I married a jock, and have two sports-crazed sons.  I can't help it.

Anyway, even non-fans may have heard that the Seahawks mounted a come-back in a game last Sunday that catapulted them to the Super Bowl for the second year in a row -- a feat only accomplished by a very few teams.  On my personal blog http://myviewfromhere-donna.blogspot.com I wrote a series of football posts last  year (in the archives January & February 2014) about the Hawks.  I took a fair amount of grief from friends who cannot get behind professional sports in general and football in particular.  I won't go into all the pros and cons, the psychological and sociological aspects of fandom, but the point of this post is to say....the Seahawks do it differently.

I had some ideas about how to tell you about their incorporation of yoga and meditation into their game, but I've been running across articles all week already written about this phenomenon, so I'm going to cheat and just link you to a couple of those.

My favorite lines in this short article:  "It dawned on me that our quarterback was practicing yoga before our eyes! What I was looking at, was the embodiment of a yogi dancing in the fire of life while keeping his inner space as calm and vast as possible."

http://seattleyoganews.com/yoga-seahawks-super-bowl-again/

This is a long article from 2013 talking about the team and how it deviated form the norm, using meditation and yoga in training.

http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/9581925/seattle-seahawks-use-unusual-techniques-practice-espn-magazine hi 

"On this Sunday morning, it starts with meditation with Gervais, whom Carroll began to integrate into the program in 2011, at first working on the fringes as a consultant, then becoming a sideline regular last year.  For the newcomers to his sessions, Gervais keeps them short, about six minutes.  For those with some experience, he prepares longer, more individual meditations.  No one is required to be here, yet about 20 players show up at various times every week to breathe in, breathe out, and open their minds.  The entire roster also participates in yoga class, which players enjoyed so much last year as an optional activity that the staff decided to make it a mandated part of player workouts this year."

Last night I was watching a post-game interview with quarterback, Russell Wilson, who was asked how he kept his focus after playing arguably the worst game of his career for 3-1/2 quarters, with dropped passes, fumbles, interceptions, and facing a 99.9% probability of losing this conference championship game with 3 minutes left to play -- before mounting the miracle come-back.

His reply:  "You just stay in the moment, you know.  I think that's a collective effort; I think that's what we did best and that's what allowed us to make the plays we needed to make and just be in the moment;  play one play at a time and have that kind of quiet mind..."

If 26-year-old Russell Wilson, in only his 3rd year as an NFL quarterback, can clear his mind of negative chatter when the game is all but lost, in a huge hometown stadium filled with 75,000 screaming fans,  I should be able to focus on my breath and asana practice on the mat.  

Inspiration comes in many forms and from many sources.  ©

Namaste...   donnajurene

Photo Credit: ESPN Gallery