After over twenty five years of service, Chris Davis retired as an assistant chief of police at the Fayetteville, NC Police Department with service duties consisting of patrol, investigations, internal affairs, and training, and as the Investigative Bureau Commander where he supervised over 150 employees. Prior to law enforcement, he served over three years serving in Operation Desert Storm and Desert Shield and ultimately leaving the US Army with the rank of first lieutenant. He is a certified yoga instructor (CYT-500 hours) and created Yoga911 in 2019 to help serve others through the incorporation of yoga and meditation practices in combination with his passion and expertise in resilience and operational performance.

Retired Major Mark Voelker (USMC) shares yoga path and how developing a practice has helped him develop the mind-body connection, learn to make better choices off the mat, and be a teacher and leader for others in need. He’s a certified yoga and meditation teacher, Warriors at Ease graduate and Level 1 instructor.

Mark is also a team lead at Semper Fi Odyssey (SFO) where he works with injured and combat-wounded U.S. Marines and other service members through their transition back to a life out of uniform but continued service to the country. SFO is a six-day, holistic, transition-assistance program that provides injured and critically ill active-duty military service members and veterans an opportunity to not only gain valuable employment resources, but also life-planning skills to assist with their re-entry into the civilian sector. Primarily focused on their career advancement, SFO also reinforces the significance of mental, physical, spiritual, emotional, and social well-being, to ensure long-term success for these individuals.

Christina Hickey is the Executive Director of Warriors at Ease (WAE), a 501(c)(3) organization founded in 2011 whose pioneering co-founders were involved in some of the first clinical studies funded by Department of Defense and Department of Veterans Affairs involving the use of yoga and meditation as an adjunct therapy for combat-related health conditions. In response to the success of these early studies at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, the founders developed a teacher training curriculum to meet the growing demand for specially-trained instructors who have the knowledge and skills to share yoga in a way that is safe, effective, and relevant for warriors and their families. This conversion kicks off an eight-episode co-branded series to highlight six graduates and the evidenced-based, trauma-sensitive yoga, meditation, and breathing practices curriculum of WAE has made an impact on their lives.

Warriors at Ease is a 501(c)(3) organization. This content is not intended to imply endorsement by the Department of Defense, Department of Veterans Affairs, or any federal entity.

Former litigator and corporate banker Larry Drexler entered his first yoga class curious but apprehensive. He soon realized the impact and perspective that yoga provided within his work and relationships, specifically the place of power and autonomy residing between his breath and thoughts. “When you’re a litigator, when you’re a lawyer, you’re trained to be an attack dog. You’re trained to be aggressive all the time. And what I learned was by taking a breath and stepping back, that space gives you so much more – I stopped being competitive and started being collaborative. I became a better lawyer, colleague, and person.”

Growing on the ponds of Canada, Riley Cote dreamed of playing in the NHL and eventually made it. However, after five years in the intense role as an enforcer for Philadelphia Flyers, he realized he wasn’t living his true path. Shortly before retirement, he found yoga as a means to physical, mental and spiritual health and well-being. In this conversation, Riley shares his story of shifting his mindset from living in the competitive mode of fight-or-flight to exploring spiritual freedom through yoga.

Neil Taylor is many things – a musician, a meditation teacher, a yoga teacher, and a bodyworker. In this conversation, Neil shares how travel and lifestyle as a professional musician forced him to address health and wellbeing and led him to a meditation retreat that sparked his spiritual path. For Neil, yoga is about connecting with what is most important – our awareness. As he explains, “We all have a physical body, thoughts, emotions, and an underlying sense of consciousness itself. As we become aware of these different aspects of our human experience, we can become more skillful at navigating the inward path and tuning into what is more important.”

In his early twenties, Ryan Burnes carried a mindset of invincibility and bravado instead of the authentic version of himself that simmered beneath. He initially found yoga through the recommendation of a chiropractor to deal with back pain from years of pick-up hoops, but later, as he discovered the mind-body connection, the practice “found him” and offered the insight he was seeking into how he should be living his life.

In 2015 Phil Sussman was a captain in the US Army who fractured his spine in two places during a training exercise. After struggling through the physical, mental, and existential pain of his trauma, and in his words “hitting rock bottom,” his wife suggested he give yoga a shot. Soon after that first class, Phil’s nascent practice began to not only pull him out of his pain and suffering, but also gave his life meaning and purpose again, ultimately leading him to create a brand, community, and movement called American Yogi.

Johnny Gillespie is the founder and owner of Empowered Wellness Studio and the creator of The Balanced Athlete®, a functional fitness program that teaches people how to mindfully move their bodies in a safe and more integrated manner. In addition to being a registered 500-Hour teacher with Yoga Alliance, he is credentialed and certified in strength and conditioning (CSCS), personal training with the National Strength and Conditioning Association (CPT), and a meditation teacher trained by David Nichtern, senior teacher in the lineage of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche. In this brief but packed discussion, Johnny shares his passion and perspective on yoga, fitness training, Buddhism and finding the right yoga teacher and practice.

Former emergency room physician, Dr. Ken Starr, got introduced to Bikram yoga in 1996 while doing a rotation as a fourth-year med school student at Stanford. In this conversation, Ken, a board-certified addiction medicine specialist, shares how the adaptability of yoga can be a resource and solution for working through the emotional and physical stress that manifests in the body.

Sit or lie back and let Chelsea Duke, owner of Glow Yoga of Eugene, take you through a short guided meditation that helps anyone reconnect after their practice, or any time when they need a moment to check out - and check in.

Chelsea Duke, owner of Glow Yoga of Eugene, has been leading a range of yoga instruction and training with the athletic department of the University of Oregon since 2013. In our conversation Chelsea shares how she’s incorporated a style of yoga focused on joint mobility, injury prevention and restorative practices to help men’s teams dominate their game, and lives, on and off the track, field, court, and course.

Michael Susi is the director of global wellness at LinkedIn where he created and scaled its health and wellness program to meet the needs of sixteen thousand employees. In this conversation, we talk about his path from coaching and training to leading wellness at the world’s largest professional network and how he reimagined the wellness program by designing initiatives around the pillars of thoughts, breathing, hydration, nutrition, movement, and rest – aspects that are found among the many qualities of yoga.

Ten tips from Derek to jumpstart your practice and get yourself on the path to becoming a stronger, wiser, and more balanced self before you know it.

The second of two interviews with Dr. Dan Bornstein, associate professor in the department of health, exercise, and sport science at the Citadel, the military college of South Carolina. Dan leads one of the only graduate degrees in the nation designed to meet the growing demand for exercise science specifically designed to work with military personnel and first responders – those considered tactical athletes by occupation. In this conversation Dan speaks to the mind-body benefits of yoga and shares how the integrated fitness progress programs used by top sports athletes has influenced the training for special operators and is now becoming a basis for holistic health and fitness for all members of the military.

Greg May is the Director of Athletics at Saint Thomas Academy in Minnesota and a former college hockey player who has coached at the top high school and college programs in the country including the University of Minnesota, where he was director of hockey operations. After highlighting his experience working with the Gophers, Greg goes into detail sharing how yoga became a key component of off-season conditioning as well as in-season training for his high school teams and the impact it made on many of his players both physically and mentally.

Andrew Stackhouse found yoga nearly fifteen years ago as a means to complement his path to sobriety and was instantly hooked on the physicality of the practice as well as its humbling and empowering qualities. “Stack” shares his well-earned perspective from being dragged to yoga by his wife to ultimately becoming a teacher and co-owner of a studio in Southern California and defies the image of the typical male yogi with his motorcycle-riding, Metallica-listening and energy drink-fueled presence, and yet also personifies everything that is the 21st century man: thoughtful, experienced, and committed to sharing the practice of yoga with everyone at The Center Studio.

Derek Sabori got into yoga as means to recover and balance out his jujitsu training and got hooked by the physical practice and the intellectual challenges in pulling off an advanced inversion called parsva bakasana – more commonly known as side crow pose. Soon his passion and appreciation for the benefits of yoga lead him to found a yoga apparel company called Kozm and creating a killer pair of hemp, cotton, and lycra shorts that have become an instant hit.

With three decades as a high school physical education teacher combined with thirty years of service in the Navy and Army Reserve, Craig Shimel has amassed a ton of perspective and knowledge around life, community, service, and fitness. In the mid-1990s he helped pioneer the integration of functional movement and yoga in youth fitness after teaching himself simple sun salutations exercises by watching Rodney Yee’s beginner’s yoga VHS tapes in his living room.

Bolsters, blocks, belts, chairs, and even walls can safely offer support for weak muscles and unstable joints as practitioners navigate nagging injuries and challenging yoga poses (“asanas”). Combined with an experienced Iyengar teacher, the use of props can also help unlock a subtle, unexpected awareness within. Today’s guest is Andi Wirz, a friend and native of Switzerland who has been teaching the Iyengar method for twenty years and led classes at two of the most respected backcare studios in the country, Samamkaya and Yoga Union.