COURTESY OF ANNIE OKERLIN
WARRIOR
POSES
type of rehab they were doing
was wonderful, but there was no
inward focus on themselves — it
was all about power as opposed to
stretching and breathing.”
Before long, Steffens had helped
start a foundation, Exalted Warrior, that holds yoga classes for
wounded troops and their families
at the Portsmouth Naval Hospital
in Virginia, the James A. Haley
VA Medical Center in Tampa, Fla.,
and elsewhere.
The military’s embrace of yoga
shouldn’t be a surprise. After all,
yoga — a Sanskrit word meaning to “join” or “unite” — dates
back to 3,000 B.C., and its basic
techniques were used in the 12th
century when Samurai warriors
prepared for battle with Zen meditation. Still, some old-timers are
shocked to find combat Marines at
Camp Lejeune, N.C. and amputees
at James A. Haley VA Medical Center practicing their Downward Dog
and deep breathing techniques.
One early skeptic: Thomas S.
Jones, a wiry retired Marine major
general who likes to mask his love
for Marines with a staccato parade-ground bark and a jut-jawed,
prove-it approach to life.
Some years ago Jones started
inviting wounded Marines to an
HUFFINGTON
01.13.13
intense, six-day retreat at a camp
in the mountains of Pennsylvania
to help them figure out what to do
with the rest of their lives, to set
goals and start working toward
them. He quickly found that the
Marines, struggling with physical wounds and PTSD, had trouble
focusing. Someone mentioned that
yoga might help. “Well, we’ve tried
some ideas that didn’t work out
and we threw them away,” Jones
said dismissively, “but we’ll try it.”
And? “It has helped,” Jones
told The Huffington Post in a
slightly disbelieving voice. Yoga
Exalted
Warrior
Foundation
teachers
conduct
adaptive yoga
classes with
wounded
soldiers at
Walter Reed
Army Medical
Center.