Yoga_Journal_-_December_2014_USA

88

december 2014

yogajournal.com

TEACHER SPOTLIGHT

connect

Nick Manci

This man’s man of yoga in Flagstaff, Arizona, helps

military veterans find their inner warrior.

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your teacher!

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yogajournal.com

Meal

Spaghetti and meatballs

is in my DNA. My love of

this dish speaks to my

Italian heritage.

Book

I will read anything by

Navy SEAL Michael Jaco

and Chuck Palahniuk—the

author of Fight Club.

Pose

Mountain Pose

helps me reside in

my heart and brain

with deliberation.

Local hangout

Pay-N-Take—a small bar

in Flagstaff where you can

serve yourself a beer and

hear adventure stories.

Escape

Havasupai Indian Reserva-

tion in the Grand Canyon

is the most beautiful place

I’ve been.

in the

DETAILS Manci shares a few of his favorite things.

LAURA ELIZABETH

A former personal trainer and outdoor-adventure leader turned yoga teacher,

Nick Manci is all about the pragmatic and highly physical part of the practice.

His students tend to be just as tough as their teacher. Over the last 15 years,

Manci, who studied Ashtanga in San Francisco with Larry Schultz (teacher to

the Grateful Dead in the late ’60s and early ’70s), has taught yoga to prison

inmates, active Marines, recovering addicts, and veterans.

Is there a reason you work primarily with men?

I’ve always associated my asana practice with a process of destruction—

never looking to acquire anything but rather destroying what’s in the way.

I go directly into the suffering, into the tightest part of the muscle or tissue.

This barbaric way of clearing space is not for everyone, but it does appeal to

a demographic that would not practice yoga otherwise. These are my people.

Do you have female students?

In the past, my public classes were mostly women because, well, more

women practice yoga than men. However, I think there are a lot of women

out there with aggressive energy, and they get a lot of fun out of my intense,

highly physical asana practices.

What do you try to inspire in your students?

My whole objective is transformation—physical and spiritual. For those look-

ing to transform, being taken to their aerobic threshold is where the change

happens. Walls of ego and illusion are pushed back and dissolved; the warrior

within who was strong enough to begin this whole process in the first place

becomes more prevalent.

What’s the top thing you’ve learned through teaching?

It’s that I never know what or who I’m going to get in each class. When

some one comes to practice, I have no idea what that person has been

through that particular day or within this particular lifetime. To consider that

while I’m teaching requires an enormous amount of empathy and responsi-

bility. It forces me to honor everyone, everywhere, across the board.

Why yoga?

Life can be chaotic—especially when the walls start closing in. Yoga

discharges trauma and promotes healing. It cleanses the body and wakes

us up to nonviolent communication. I realized right away, the first time I

practiced, that yoga could save the world! JESSIE LUCIER

To learn more about Manci, visit southwestbikepackers.com.