08/03/2025
Nashville Predators Hopefuls Pay Attention
I’ve taught development camp for the Preds for over 20 years. The coach will ask the young guys trying out or already recruited, how many of you have done yoga. Where one hand may have been raised all those years ago, this month almost every hand went up.
I had one session this year to give them something new, something they wouldn’t have learned, because just teaching a class they could do at home seemed a waste of time. I wasn’t hired to be ineffective.
The lesson I offered was how to pay attention. They are young enough to be wired for short attention spans, a result of technology and social media.
They also play a game that moves a puck from one point to another faster than the eye can follow.
I tell them yoga is an unnatural practice we do in order to perform natural with grace.
We resist the innate flow and habit that we want in our artistry to make our actions stronger. We discipline ourselves to go against “easy” and easy will come more naturally when we are in the flow of life’s work.
In a yoga pose we pit muscle against muscle to keep from moving. We resist bone in opposition to bone and wrestle the impulse to do the mundane. A yoga routine is antithetical in a way toward getting anywhere. It’s a way to stop and pay attention.
The work is not in the physical effort so much as in perceiving the way in which you get there, how one breath or move or thought affects something else in you, the shift that one choice or change makes in your body and mind. You want to notice yourself in relationship to your own self.
This will make you more sensitive as a team member. This will enliven your instinct in your fast paced game.
Hilary
