Happy Summer Solstice!
Join me this Friday 6/21 for a Full Moon ocean dip 🌝 🌊
5AM | Ala Moana Beach Park | beach near the large parking lot
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Lizzie says she “belongs to the weirdos” and that is why we get along. 🙃
When I met her, she was coaching rowing at Honolulu Rowing Club. She started the sport in middle school, encouraged by one of her uncles who rowed.
After experiencing a head injury in high school, she stopped rowing and started doing yoga with another uncle.
It’s pretty cool to have this thing that’s a big part of my life from two awesome male influences.
When she returned to rowing in her 20s she found it transformative as a mindfulness tool. (It’s All Yoga)
She soon decided she wanted to reach populations who had also experienced traumatic brain injuries (TBI) and eventually began coaching adaptive athletes — veterans, and kids and adults with disabilities, including TBI— in New York City.
New York kids are a breed of their own. They are fierce. They’ve seen stuff, they’ve been through stuff. They witness traumatic events—often.
They’re able to check a couple of things off on the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE are potentially traumatic events that occur in childhood).
So Lizzie created a coaching protocol for her athletes after taking a course in trauma-informed yoga.
Her approach focuses on prevention of triggers, mainly:
Make the environment and structure predictable.
This includes an organized and clean space, showing athletes where things are, especially the exits.
Speak calmly, without shouting, or even too much excitement.
If you’ve been in an abusive relationship where there was a lot of screaming, even enthusiastic yelling can create anxiety.
The message gets through and in a lot better if you are calm and enthusiastic for them in a way that they can receive.
Hone your tone.
She points out that our culture typically favors the loudest person in the room, but in rowing, like many things,
…they say the cream rises to the top, but honestly, if you homogenize it, that’s what rowing is about… everyone feeling good at the same time.
Rising tide lifts all boats.
If you’re good to all of your athletes, not just speaking to the Type-A kids, then you’re going to have a more well-knit crew and you’re going to have faster boats.
This carries over into her yoga classes where she uses precise language that is not manipulative and does not push students to the point of pain and injury.
Listen to Lizzie talk about trauma-informed coaching at at this USRowing link. USRowing is a nonprofit membership organization recognized by the US Olympic & Paralympic Committee as the national governing body for the sport of rowing in the US.
If you’re on island, Lizzie teaches a community yoga class on Fridays at 3:30PM in Kaka‘ako, Honolulu at Movement Collective Oahu.
You can also take online classes with her on IG!
Thanks for hanging out with me & Lizzie (& the enthusiastic myna birds of Magic Island who accompany us in the podcast🐦⬛🎶)
Your angry little yogi 👹
Shannon
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