First Responder Yoga & Mindfulness Training last year
I was delighted on Sunday to find a full and generous discussion of yoga practice that lands close to my heart in this New York Times article for military veterans with content parallel to my first responder trainings a few years ago. Many of those first responders are veterans. It was a triple delight to have two of my students send me a link to the same article. I thought I should send this along to many more!
Link to the NY Times Yoga & Veterans article
Those of you who know me and my mode of teaching know that what I share isn’t the ‘yoga-robics’ common in health clubs nor is it a quasi-religious rendering of an other worldly ‘out there’ experience. Teaching here is inviting the basic elements of attention to the experience of being alive and embodied; offering an attentive presence at the edges of challenge. Exploring outside the box of what should, was, want, control, avoidance, or don’t want. Being here in this moment with all its difficulty and joy, as a practice.
I find that this speaks clearly and directly to folks yearning for practical and no-nonsense integration in their life; heart, mind, profession, body, relationships. In the New York Times article one of the veterans explains, “There is a stereotype that yogis are a bunch of hippie types of people who are not militaristic,” he then said. “But the whole system of yoga is about moral and ethical restraints on behavior and trying to stay calm in challenging conditions.” He related this to his military experience and it is what I found at the heart of my father’s attitude and other personnel while I was growing up in the military. Of course that is at the heart of yoga and mindfulness practice in my book.
Kind Regards — Brant