A Revolutionary Approach to Athletic Training
"My mission is to help athletes, and non-athletes by using yoga in the simplest, yet most efficient way possible to promote their own strength, resilience and energy. This is more than learning a bunch of poses, or getting fit with yoga, it is to develop a precise understanding of how to use yoga to maximize your potential, while protecting your body through life." Do you need to set up a yoga program for you, your team, or your school? Call Julie today to find out what yoga can do for you!
I work with Pralaya Yoga, a system of yoga that offers the modern athlete a revolutionary way to create inner balance and strength. Weight training and cardiovascular exercise are important elements of fitness regimens and athletic conditioning, but on their own can lead to injuries and impeded physical progress. By adding yoga to your training, you will rediscover the energy of youth with restored flexibility, allowing you to use your full reserves of athletic power and reduce the risk of injury. "You're about to learn secrets that most athletes will never discover about gaining strength, flexibility, and energetic flow that will last a lifetime..." Inside you will learn:
Please explore this website to learn more about Julie's approach and the yoga that she practices as the team instructor for the Houston Rockets, the Rice University Football team, and the Rice Men's Tennis team. Come join a class or book a private session to experience this for yourself. You will learn how strong and relaxed you can feel in just a few sessions, and you will quickly enjoy the benefits of adding yoga to your training and to your life. You will see results in your improved posture, flexibility and breathing. Over time you will feel the joy of being strong, resilient and centered in the present moment. Yoga FAQ's How will yoga make me strong? You are probably familiar with weight lifting where you use certain muscles in your body to lift weights, and with repetition, those muscles gradually develop strength. And, maybe you have worked with cardio-training or aerobic exercise to build endurance. Perhaps you train at a more competitive level with rigorous athletic exercise for a sports team or individual competition. But, from imbalances in posture, repetitive movements and exercising over long periods of time, restrictions in flexibility and joint mobility arise, or to put it more simply, you start to feel stiff, maybe even weak in those tight areas, despite the fact that you are exercising regularly! How is yoga any different than my current exercise program? In yoga, your body is the weight, and you lift it and hold it in various poses (asanas) with the muscles held in a lengthened position. When a muscle is held to a point of crisis in a lengthened position, and slowly fatigues to a greater length (an eccentric contraction) it can become very strong. Instead of developing a muscle that is rock hard, such as in weight lifting, yoga seeks to develop a more pliant muscle - one that is strong in a long position. And yes, weightlifting does build muscles that are strong in very specific ranges. But, as my teacher says, rocks are strong, and rocks can break! A pliant muscle - one that is strong when held in a long position, is more durable. It can express more energy and it will not tear as easily. Practicing in this way, working with the muscles held to a point of crisis in long positions also allows the associated areas, the tendons and ligaments to become more resilient, to grow in strength and the associated joint(s) to become more open. At this point a person can express the maximum amount of strength and energy without impairment. This is the kind of flexibility that comes from strength, also called maximum functional flexibility. This is what is happening in a Pralaya Yoga class. What is Pralaya Yoga? Pralaya Yoga is a system of yoga, developed over many years by my teacher; yoga master, Robert Boustany, using staged physical challenges for strength in life. It is a system of yoga that gently challenges one's alignment, as one seeks alignment, not that the poses are easy, but the challenge is to draw out your maximum level of alertness and acceptance in the moment, by using intensity in a pose. By being present and accepting the intensity, one cultivates the mental fire to be stronger inside than the outside circumstances. Pralaya yoga is a practice that uses physical alignment, placing uniform pressure over a joint, and energetic alignment, maintaining open energetic pathways, even in the face of adversity. Its effect is profound and far-reaching, and completely possible for anyone who practices in this way. Words can only take you so far. I encourage you to come and take a class to experience this method of yoga for yourself. The journey of a yoga practice is not just about muscle strength, although it might start out that way. With Pralaya Yoga it is done using watchful presence with gratitude…leading to trust, to counter fears, with love…knowing what is and what can be, and that leads to being present in the moment…because each moment, each breath is precious! I have quoted my teacher and I hope it comes across in the way he intended. What I want to get across is that in time, with practice, trust and strength will develop and together with calm concentration and with patience, the power of the breath will lead to a safe path, to a deeper stretch of you, rather than just the muscles.