On July 18, the Dharma Project brought together two NFL players – Atlanta Falcons safety Richie Grant and Houston Texans wide receiver Amari Rodgers – with the Carver STEAM Academy football team to discuss the value of yoga.
“We approached it from the lens of how do we get more boys interested and engaged in yoga,” said Rutu Chaudhari, Dharma Project founder and executive director. “Particularly Black boys, because there is such a strong narrative that yoga is not for them.”
Believing that everyone should have access to these self-care practices regardless of race, location, gender, sexual orientation, or financial status – the nonprofit Dharma Project collaborated with the Department of Corrections, Atlanta Public Schools, Decatur Housing Authority, Refugee Women’s Network and more since 2016.
“When I first heard of yoga in college, I was like that’s for women,” Grant said.
Now he and Rodgers train twice a week with instructor Joe Palese, who led NFLers and Carver players in a short session during their visit.
“It’s about the breathing,” Grant said. “When you’re on defense in the last drive of the 4th quarter, up by four points and the other team’s got to score a touchdown – most people panic. But if you lock into your breathing, you don’t worry about anything else and do what you need to do.”
Grant and Rodgers aren’t alone. Both shared that “at least 50% of NFL players do yoga.”
“If the Saints tight end is doing yoga, I’m damn sure doing yoga – excuse my language – to make sure I get that same advantage,” Grant said.
Yoga showed Rodgers that “everything in our body is connected.”
“Two weeks before I tore my ACL, I had strained my hamstring,” Rodgers said. “A torn quad on one side may affect you on the other side. That’s when I started getting into yoga.”
Chaudhari went to the Carver athletics department last year touting how yoga could improve player performance and reduce injury.
“But the added benefit is in the healing, mental health value and self-regulation that comes from this practice and how that might also serve youth,” Chaudhari said.
Dharma project instructors, Safia Icgoren and Liz Vanderhoff, lead the weekly summer sessions for all 60 Carver football players.
“In the beginning they were like ‘I don’t know how I feel about this – being in this pose’,” Vanderhoff said.
But now Icgoren feels the players “know what to expect and are getting comfortable with their bodies and the movement and the breathing.”
With encouragement from the NFL players and Carver football Coach Quinton Wesley’s commitment to continuing the yoga instruction during the school year, Chaudhari is hopeful that student players will stick with the practice on and off the field.
“If you guys take it seriously, then whenever you are in a high stress situation, tap into that breathing,” Rodgers shared. “Calm down and make the best decision.”
“This is something you can use for the rest of your life,” Grant said.
