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