Jessica Huneycutt advised her story to producer Sarah Fuss Kessler for an episode of The Every day Rally podcast. It has been edited for size and readability.
After sitting within the Saints foyer for 4 days, I believe this receptionist simply actually took pity on me. She despatched this coach an e-mail. He comes out and we speak for 2 hours, and he’s like, “Thanks for the information. Love your enthusiasm, however there’s no precedent for yoga within the NFL. Keep in contact.”
I reside in New Orleans, Louisiana. I grew up as a aggressive swimmer, a junior Olympian. And it was type of like, What’s yoga? Is that like a faith? I don’t get it. Now I’ve been working towards yoga for about 15 years, and educating for about 11 or 12 years.
Yoga helped me to be at peace inside my physique and discover extra stillness, to fight that nervousness and the PTSD that I had felt for a protracted, very long time after being sexually assaulted as an adolescent.
There are occasions the place life challenges us to take a step again and look possibly with a extra macrocosmic lens.
It was 2016, in all probability one of many lowest factors of my life. On the time, I used to be going by way of a divorce and I used to be educating dozens of courses per week at totally different peoples’ studios and barely making ends meet. I knew that it was gonna be powerful. On the similar time, my mom had simply been identified with most cancers, and she or he was given two years to reside.
It was simply devastating. I wasn’t positive that I wished to reside, I wasn’t positive how I may reside.
One in every of my very early academics was internet hosting a yoga retreat in Belize, and I had already performed two separate, 200-hour yoga trainings. Actually at the moment, I used to be educating, however I nonetheless didn’t think about myself a trainer. I simply wished to essentially study.
On that retreat in Belize, we spent per week waking up with the solar, and taking place to the water and working towards yoga twice a day, simply actually absorbing the pure magnificence. I used to be so stuffed with power and life from the setting and the individuals and the state of affairs. The coaching was so pretty.
I made a decision to remain in Belize for a further week. It was simply me and my backpack and a pair bucks in my pocket.
I met a pair who turned out to be these scientists from the UK who had been within the jungle in Belize learning spiders. We obtained to speaking and so they invited me to return to their outpost in the course of the jungle. And I stated sure.
At 7:00 AM, I waited by the facet of the filth street by a cease signal. They picked me up of their truck, with me simply operating on blind religion. It was numerous heaviness in my coronary heart, and I type of felt like, What do you must lose?
We drove for a very long time down a one-lane filth street after which this man seems to his spouse and he simply says, “I’ll get the boat.” And I’m like, “Oh gosh.”
So he comes again a couple of minutes later with this little, tiny motor boat, and the three of us get in.
After I say distant…it was so remoted. I couldn’t even inform how this man was navigating the waters. There have been no landmarks, no signposts in any way. We noticed a couple of crocodiles, a couple of monkeys, and that was it.
He ties up the boat, after which he digs within the floor and uncovers a couple of machetes. And he palms one to me, and one to his spouse, and he takes one himself. And he says, “Keep shut, there are huge cats on this jungle.”
We stroll one other 45 minutes, and we get to their little outpost, which has a water tank and solar energy. The whole lot they should survive. It was actually there, in that distant a part of nature, with two absolute strangers, that I actually was in a position to sit. And simply type of assume and be.
Life is brief, and none of us know the way lengthy we’ve got. I simply knew that I needed to do one thing to vary my life in a approach that it felt like I wished to reside it. I assumed to myself, What do I would like my life to appear like?
My first thought in my coronary heart is simply, I’ve to be in New Orleans. New Orleans has at all times, because the second I first set foot right here, felt like dwelling and has known as me again. For my second thought, I obtained this wild concept that I used to be gonna be the yoga teacher for the New Orleans Saints soccer group.
Perhaps it was a couple of days earlier than or after that journey, however on the time, a good friend of mine was operating a college in inner-city Philadelphia. I began an afterschool yoga program there, and the primary day, like 100 15-year-old younger males confirmed up. And I assumed, Absolutely, one thing is amiss. And I requested this child proper in entrance of me, “Did one among your academics give you further credit score?” And child checked out me and he stated, “No, ma’am, we play basketball and we heard LeBron does yoga.” That’s when it actually dawned on me the unimaginable influence and energy that anyone with a platform like that may have, as a result of I wish to assist individuals heal within the ways in which yoga has helped me heal or in any approach that it may be useful.
After I got here again from that journey, I researched the position of yoga in skilled sports activities. I researched who the energy coach for the Saints was, and wrote a very hilarious-to-me-now report entitled “Yoga for Elite Athletes.” It was a bullet-pointed four-page listing of the ways in which it might forestall harm and get monetary savings, et cetera.
Then I simply flew from Philadelphia right down to New Orleans, and I gave myself per week.
I had my report printed out, and I’d go and sit within the foyer and ask for this coach and the receptionist, the primary day she’s like, “Nicely, is he anticipating you?” And I’d say, “No, ma’am.” And she or he’d be like, “OK.” And I’d sit down and I’d simply sit from 9 to 5.
This continued Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. I wish to say the fourth day this receptionist despatched this coach an e-mail. And he welcomes me again into his workplace and we speak for 2 hours and he’s like, “There’s no precedent for yoga within the NFL. Keep in contact.”
I used to be like, OK that’s it. I’m transferring again to New Orleans. I’m gonna go down there and make it occur. All people was like, “Love you, Jess, however you’re loopy to maneuver right down to New Orleans. It’s not gonna occur.”
I had been down right here for a month or two, and was beginning to actually sweat it. Then I ended up getting a textual content that simply requested me if I may come again out to the coaching facility. I used to be so excited as a result of I assumed, Gosh I’ve obtained a second interview.
After I obtained on the market, he stated, “Thanks a lot for coming again in. There are 90 guys on the indoor soccer area, you could have quarter-hour to heat them up. Good luck.”
I walked out on the soccer area and I’m screaming on the prime of my lungs. “All proper, all people, elevate your arms up by your ears. Bend your knees. Sit again right into a chair.” And whereas they had been sitting in a chair, I simply stated, “My identify is Jess. I used to be a junior Olympic swimmer. I’m educated in Russian kettlebells and pilates and yoga and martial arts. I’m right here to stretch you guys out and preserve you harm free. Fold ahead, contact your toes.” I used to be sweating, screaming, shaking. After which afterwards, I shook the coach’s hand. I stated, “Thanks a lot for the chance.”
He simply stated, “You’re employed. We’ll see you Monday.”
This will likely be my eighth season arising this 12 months.
I’ve taken vows as a Buddhist. And numerous these athletes, my college students, who I think about my academics, are very religious Christian. I’d communicate a really totally different language, however it’s all love.
One thing I say to them is, “OK, nice. Demario Davis, you’re a really Christian man, proper? You’re a person of God. Sure?” “Sure.” And I say, “Nice. Nicely prayer is if you speak to God. Meditation is if you pay attention.”
One of the best and hardest classes that I’ve ever realized all through numerous hardship in my life is to be nonetheless and to be quiet. As a result of, as one among my academics stated to me very early on, you have already got every little thing you want within you. And also you’re gonna want all of it.
Jessica Honeycutt is a lifelong athlete and lover of motion, the humanities, the nice outside and different individuals, most of all, her son. She has been Crew Yoga Teacher for the New Orleans Saints since 2016.
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