My Yoga Journey
“If I knew I was going to live this long, I’d have taken better care of myself.”
– Mickey Mantle
“Now after having done prior preparation through life and other practices the study of yoga begins.”
– Rumi
Those two quotes kind of sum up the history of my life, and my current situation.
I have been a bouncer and a bodyguard, a law enforcement officer and a private investigator. I have been stabbed, shot at, set on fire and thrown down flights of stairs. I have been crashed-up, smashed-up, beat-up and considered DOA. I have volunteered for duty, rifle slung over my shoulder (waiting in the rain, anticipating my position to be overrun by terrorists) while other men, in tears 😪, were escorted from their posts.
When I wasn’t doing this, I was fighting bare-knuckle 👊🏽 in underground face-offs or getting my bones jarred in brutal Judo 🥋 matches. My Tokui Waza (favorite techniques) were Sutemi Waza (sacrifice throws) and Maki Komi (body crushing) practices followed up by Shime Waza (strangulation ways) to finish the opponent off, if needed. I remember having to explain to my dentist 🦷 all the cracks in my choppers, which were occasioned by gritting my teeth as I choked a fellow Judoka (Judo player) into unconsciousness.
Those were good days 🌤.
But you can only choke-out, knock-out, and disarm so many assailants before you have come to the full measure of the matter. After standing in the gap for so long and seeing the madness in men’s (and women’s) minds, if you’re lucky (like me) and haven’t had your brains bashed out or made the "obits" (obituaries), you begin to consider the futility of the whole thing. You may even become a little cynical.
“What profit hath a man of all his labor which he taketh under the sun?
The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.
Is there anything whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us.”
– Solomon (Ecclesiastes)
It’s at this stage of life that you really start to look for something new.
“Pain makes man think. Thought makes man wise. Wisdom makes life endurable.”
– Sakini, Teahouse of the August Moon (1951)
After 35 years of playing Rock’em-Sock’em Robots 🤖 (yes, I am dating myself now) I had more bridges in my mouth than Manhattan, and enough scars, tears and dislocations to bring my chiropractor to his knees.
Once, my chiropractor brought x-rays of some poor fella’s neck into the exam room. I had been a medic for three years, so at first glance I knew that poor SOB was certainly a paraplegic, or worse. My chiropractor seemed agitated. He asked me quietly, three times, if I could see the x-rays. I answered, impassively, “Yes.” He then began to scream and shout, gesturing wildly,
“These are your x-rays! This neck has two broken vertebrae! These are the x-rays of a dead man. YOU should not be alive!”
I guess I was honored?! I thought that doc was going pass out, right there. Good thing one of us was healthy!
I started doing Yoga quite by accident. I had met this attractive and engaging yoga instructor while I was studying for my baccalaureate degree at Indian River State College. She was teaching yoga per gratis to veterans and civilian first responders and she needed someone with medical and martial credentials to assist. We paired off teaching, sharing our trade secrets with the attendees; I with my CQC (Close Quarter Combat) skillset and she with her soothing, healing yoga expertise. We were fire 🔥 and ice 🧊. Opposites attract 💞.
As we continued to work together on her veterans yoga initiative, I seriously undertook the study and practice of yoga, and I began to train in the art of teaching yoga. You see, the West often ruins thing with its consumerist philosophy. Sex sells and Capitalism rules. I wasn’t about to get involved with what looked like some trendy “California Girl” 🧘🏼♀️ cult. It seemed to me that yoga was for lean Caucasian girls wearing three times too small compression pants. While that view could be beguiling, I didn’t see myself joining in their company. I could not have been more wrong. 🙃
Unfortunately for me, I kept getting older. (Don’t you hate that?) My back and knees didn’t want to pull those big bar-bending 🏋🏽♂️ dead lifts, and my shoulders were beginning to tell me stories (sad ones) about heavy bench presses. I felt the walls closing in. Mortality 😵 is a bitch and reality bites! Repetitive motions and heavy loads had worn my joints. I needed to find a way to maintain my strength. I had spent my whole life, a fighting man.
I began to do research. According to Vedic traditions of yesteryear, women were discouraged from yoga practice. This new American “girls club” appeared to be a manifestation of Western commercialism. I discovered that the earliest yogis practiced on the bare earth or on straw mats. They did not have fancy outfits, or use yoga mats, blocks or straps.
I also discovered that yoga was a required regimen of all ancient Indian military personnel. Rajas demanded their fighting men continually practice yoga because it made them limber and quick; just the thing to avoid sword 🗡 cuts or spear thrusts. What’s more I discovered that yoga exercises closely paralleled the earliest and longest-lived martial art of all time; Kalarippayattu. Kalarippayattu is a martial art from Kerala, South India which utilizes medieval weapons of a conventional and non-conventional nature. It is rich in, philosophy, ritual and tradition. Kalari means battlefield. Payuttu means imparting. It is a combative art that is acrobatic and down-right deadly! That's more my style 😉.
The Buddha was said to have taken Kalarippayattu to China, teaching the Shaolin at Henan Province the eight animal styles of this unique Indian fighting style out of which the Chinese developed The Five Animal Styles of Hungar Kung Fu! The Chinese taught Kung Fu to the Okinawans who blended it with their indigenous forms of wresting, Tegumi, and Shima (Okinawan Sumo), creating Okinawan Te; better known as Karate, the Way of the Open hand. The rest is history.
At last, after my long journey, I had made it home again! Lao Tsu said:
“To go far is to return” (Tao Te Ching)
Hallelujah! Yoga is an asset to my Eastern and Western boxing practice. Yoga strengthens the core adding stability; the legs, adding endurance; flexibility, adding speed. Yoga makes you mentally tough as well. Feeling for your edge. Holding postures as you measure your breath against muscles that begin to get shaky with fatigue. Yoga helps me stay calm and is an enhancement to my meditation. I practice almost every day. The breath practice helps me to be serene; to remain present. As a psychotherapist, I find those two skills invaluable. The breath practice helps me stay with my clients as they unveil the often, deep and labyrinthine extents of their suffering. The breath practice helps me maintain empathy and clarity; to find a cadence in their stories. This assists in sustaining a place of compassion for them. Accommodation, assimilation and acceptance can be enhanced through learning how to control one’s breath. Life is in the breath. Yoga is a life-changing practice.
If you had asked me twenty (20) years ago if I would ever be doing yoga, I would have laughed 😂 and laughed 🤣. Now my days are not complete without it.
🙅🏽♂️ Never say never.
Check out our schedule to practice with Paul.
