Yoga Journal USA – June 2017

(Barré) #1

44


june 2017

yogajournal.com

“YOU NEED SOME YOGA IN YOUR LIFE.”
The first time I heard those words, my
response was, “You’re f--king crazy.” I’m
a dude. I’m a combat veteran. I don’t have
yoga pants. I don’t need yoga in my life.
The suggestion came three years ago
from my friend Anna, who had been teach-
ing for about a year. Luckily, she knew
better than to push me onto a mat while
I was in such a completely unreceptive
state. So she said, “OK, what about
meditation?” I’d read about the benefits
of meditation. I knew that Steve Jobs medi-
tated. Gandhi seemed cool. So I told Anna
I’d try it, and she taught me that the goal of
sitting wasn’t to suppress all of my thoughts
and transcend this plane; she taught me
simply how to be present. After a couple
of weeks, I started to feel a little calmer, and
I didn’t need to chase a handful of Benadryl
with whiskey in order to sleep at night.
While meditation was helping me some,
I was still in a rough spot. In 2oo4, I was
severely wounded while serving in the US
Army during the war in Iraq. Ultimately,
I lost both my legs below the knee and
endured 35 surgeries. At the time Anna
taught me how to meditate, I’d just been
through yet another surgery on my right leg,
and this one was especially challenging—
both physically and emotionally. All of my
other surgeries and recoveries had been at
Walter Reed National Military Medical Cen-
ter, where I was one of many guys who were
going through similar situations; this time,

though, I came home to rehab on my own,
and I felt helpless. I didn’t have a support
system of other vets around me like I’d
always had at Walter Reed. Plus, all the
things that helped me cope with the invisible
wounds of war when I got back from Iraq
had been physical, and now I couldn’t do
them. Everything was a can’t: I can’t climb
a mountain, can’t play golf, can’t help raise
my daughter. I’d never understood how 22
vets a day could take their own lives—until
then. I wasn’t suicidal, but for the first time
I understood how someone could do it.
Anna could tell I was still in a bad way, so
she said to me again, “You need some yoga
in your life.” I caved and committed to three
private lessons with her. The meditation was
sort of working. Maybe yoga would, too.
The following day, Anna taught me
Tadasana, explaining how all poses start
from this one. While it sounds so straight-
forward and basic, that first practice was ter-
rible. I’d just gotten the green light to wear
my right prosthetic leg again, but my leg was
tender after surgery. In addition to the pain,
Anna was telling me things like, “Root down
to rise up,” and all that was going through
my mind was, “WTF does that mean? I can’t
feel my feet!”
I usually get things pretty quickly, and
I was awful at yoga. I left thinking I’d never
do it again. But the following day, Anna
called me to schedule our next lesson. I’d
committed to three classes with her, and a
commitment is a commitment. My second
class was just as hard. We moved into War-
rior I, and my prosthetic legs were digging
into the backs of my knees, where I already
had blisters from my first yoga class. I got
so frustrated that I just sat down and said,
“Can I just try this with my legs off?”
This is a big deal for me—nobody gets
to see me without my legs. But I was so mad
at not being able to do yoga that it overrode
my shame, and so I took off my prosthetics.
There I was, on my knees in Warrior I, with
Anna behind me probably wondering how
the hell she was going to teach me now.
I kept telling myself, I’m a warrior. I can do

this pose. And there, as I was trying to figure
out how to get my hips into the correct posi-
tion, I mentally replayed Anna’s cue I hadn’t
understood the day before: “Root down to
rise up.” I imagined roots growing down
through my body into the earth.
Now, I’m a dude. I shoot guns. I eat
meat. I’m very much a guy’s guy. I’m not
what you’d call hippie-dippy. But what hap-
pened in that moment lit me up from the
inside out. As I rooted down into my yoga
mat, I could literally feel the earth send this
bolt of energy up through my body. Tears
streamed down my face. It was as if the earth
was saying, “Dan, where have you been the
past 1 o years?”
After that, I couldn’t get enough yoga.
By the end of my third practice, I was signed
up for my first yoga teacher training.
Not surprisingly, my army buddies have
been a little hesitant to understand my new
yogi ways. In military culture, you show love
by making fun of each other. And after my
first teacher training, I definitely had a lot of
dudes ask me what was up with “the yoga.”
Then, I was at a golfing event with a
bunch of warriors, and one of my buddies
looked at me and said, “Dude, you look
lighter. Is that the yoga?” I told him it was,
and asked if he wanted to hear more. After
the event, we headed to my house for a beer,
and I’m not going to lie—I felt like a dad
about to have “the sex talk” with one of my
kids. Thankfully, he brought up yoga again
on his own, and I started grabbing my yoga
books and showing him different things I’d
read that had really helped me. I glanced at
his face to see if he was taking it all in and
immediately knew something bad was going
to come out of his mouth.
“Everything OK?” I asked him.
He looked at me and said, “No. Every-
thing’s not OK. Two days ago, my wife found
me in a closet with a gun in my mouth. I was
about to pull the trigger. Then I saw my
daughter.”
It hit me so hard. I didn’t know how to
respond. So I said, “You need some yoga in
your life.”

Y


DAN NEVINS
PONTE VEDRA BEACH, FLORIDA

STYLIST: JESSICA JEANNE EATON; TOP: KOZM; BOTTOMS: MODEL’S OWN
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