Wholistic Fitness

Beautiful and Noble Warriors!

I am back in LA…oooof. Tough transition from New Mexico, let me tell you! But I got some good quality book writing, yoga, and bike rides among my old haunts. Much needed for my chi replenishment!

I�ll be back updating this forum more regularly now…and attending to the several hundred emails that have accumulated recently!

Check out this great article from TSN magazine that mentions my wonderful WF Master Student turned HP Yoga Teacher; Grant Couture. In it, several professional athletes are profiled about their use of yoga. Grant, a former pro hockey player, who now owns his own yoga studio in Vancouver (www.wanderingyogi.com) is interviewed in the piece. Great job spreading the Dharma, Grant!

May your Practice sing with spirit and sting with sweat!

I bow to you,

coach ilg

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TSN magazine

Wednesday, September 18, 2002

Phoenix Coyotes goalie Sean Burke practices yoga numerous times a week.

By Reed Holmes, TSN magazine

Three summers ago, Sean Burke was feeling like an old veteran. The 33-year-old goaltender had just finished his 12th season in the NHL.

“I always took a lot of pride in working out and being in good shape and those kind of things, but I started to feel a little bit like I was wearing down,” he said. “I was starting to tighten up a little bit. I just didn’t feel real loose and relaxed a lot of the time.”

Burke started the season with the Florida Panthers, but had been traded to the Phoenix Coyotes in November. It was his sixth NHL team and fifth in three years and it looked like Burke was starting to be treated like a spare part.

Shortly after the season ended, Burke left Phoenix and returned to Florida. One day at his fitness club, he ran into a woman who taught yoga, the ancient Indian tradition that has become popular in North American. The woman convinced Burke to give it a try.

“Like a lot of people, I thought it was a little bit flaky. Then when I went to the first class there was probably 20 people in there and 15 of them were middle-aged women. I couldn’t get through the class and these women were just flying through it, and I was like, all right, let’s check the ego at the door right now.”

While difficult at first, Burke took an immediate liking to yoga and began to practice it on a regular basis.

“I could see that it was something that was very appropriate for what I did,” he said. “The physical side of it – the stretching, the breathing – and the mental side of it as well. The focus required and the concentration, those kinds of things, I thought it really went hand in hand.”

Burke returned to Phoenix for his second season and had arguably the best campaign of his career. In 62 games for the Coyotes, the second-most games he had ever played in a season (he played 66 with the Hartford Whalers in 1995-96), he compiled a 2.27 goals against average (GAA), the best of his career.

“I didn’t have the lower back pain I’d been experiencing, tightness in the hamstrings, a lot of those other things seemed to go away,” said Burke.

Last year, Burke had an equally outstanding year compiling a career-high five shutouts and a 2.29 GAA, and was a runner-up to Jarome Iginla for the Lester B. Pearson Award, an award presented annually to the NHL’s outstanding player as selected by the players.

Burke is one among a growing list of professional athletes that are turning to yoga as a way to recover from and prevent injuries, as well as to improve their athletic performance.

That list includes the likes of L.A. Lakers centre Shaquille O’Neal, Tennessee Titans running back Eddie George, tennis star Pete Sampras, Swedish golfer Jesper Parnevik, heavyweight boxer Evander Holyfield, and Blue Jays first baseman Carlos Delgado.

According to Matthew Solan, an editor at the Yoga Journal magazine, big-name athletes like Delgado, O’Neal, and Burke only started getting into yoga about five years ago.

“These guys are trend-makers that are going to yoga for injury recovery or to help supplement their workout routines or to help with flexibility in certain areas,” he said. “Other athletes are probably catching wind of that and testing it. They probably wouldn’t have done it on their own but they’re seeing a name do it.”

Grant Couture, who runs the Wandering Yogi Yoga Studio in Vancouver, is not surprised that athletes are turning to the ancient tradition.

“It gives you a better way to move,” he said. “With athletics you are always looking the most efficient way to move, to have the best change of directions. It almost works on the nervous system, relaxing it in a way that it is able to respond easier to a situation.”

Couture played major junior hockey in Lethbridge, Alberta and was drafted by the Pittsburgh Penguins in 1982 (#136 overall). He also played four years of his hockey at the University of Alberta.

Couture then got into yoga about six years ago after his competitive hockey days were over. He was introduced to the activity by a world-class American runner named Steve Ilg, who used yoga to compliment his training regime.

Like Burke, Couture took to yoga immediately. In fact, he liked it so much he began to study it and eventually became a yoga instructor and opened up a studio in 1999.

“I went into it because I was feeling a little rusty and all of a sudden I’m teaching yoga and the yoga philosophy,” said Couture. “I would’ve never have guessed I would be doing yoga.”

Yoga developed in India at least 5,000 years ago and was brought to North America in the late 1800s. However, its popularity exploded in the 1960s when the Beatles began to associate themselves with an Indian guru named Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who was a yoga master.

In simple terms, yoga is a series of body postures – forward bends, back bends, side bends, twists – that are deepened and maintained through focus and breathing. While many see it as a way to stretch and get a good workout, others view it as a way to calm the mind, bring emotional balance, mental clarity, focus and concentration.

Emphasis on the meditative and spiritual side of yoga varies depending on the type of yoga practiced, and there are numerous types of yoga out there, ranging from a gentle stretching style to an intense workout style.

Typically, athletes engage in more intense styles of yoga like Ashtanga, which features a rigourous and athletically challenging series of postures or poses that focus on strength and flexibility, and Bikram, which takes place in studios heated to around 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

An increasingly popular style of yoga is Power yoga, which is an Americanized version of Ashtanga yoga and the type Burke practices.

“Athletes want to workout, they want to sweat. They can’t come in and do some stagnant yoga class,” said Libby Maio, a yoga instructor and manager at the Yoga For Athletes yoga studio in Vail, Colorado.