The hyper-macho culture of the U.S. military may sound like an odd fit for the sitar-soundtracked ambience of a modern yoga studio, but wounded vets in two of the nation’s most respected rehabilitation hospitals are learning that the ancient physical art can help heal modern wounds.
Groups of soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center (WRAMC), Washington DC, and the James A. Haley Veterans Hospital, Tampa, Florida, now have the option to attend regular yoga classes, sometimes accompanied by a physical therapist, through a program run by certified yoga instructor Annie Okerlin. Okerlin’s Exalted Warrior Foundation, a nonprofit based out of her Tampa facility, offers “Warrior Yoga,” a program designed to help hospitalized military personnel improve general well-being and reduce the effects of serious injuries, including amputations and other musculoskeletal damage, head injuries, burns, spinal cord injury (SCI), and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Okerlin began developing the program in 2006 after connecting with yoga student Tom Steffens, a retired Navy rear admiral and former SEAL who got hooked on yoga after his wife dared him to try the practice. After enjoying the benefits of the practice for six years, Steffens approached Okerlin about bringing yoga to WRAMC. Steffens, who called yoga’s centuries-old methods of breathing, relaxation, stretching, and exertion “life-saving, marriage-saving techniques” in an interview in the South Tampa Times Tribune, arranged the military permissions for the venture, then Okerlin traveled to Washington DC to instruct her first class of wounded vets. The program received enthusiastic reviews from participants. One of them, Army 1st Lt. Brian Brennan, told the Washington Examiner that the classes “meant so much” to him. “It raised my morale,” the 23-year-old bilateral leg amputee said. “It helped me stretch muscles I didn’t know I had. I got more relaxed and focused. It helped me clear my mind, and I found the hope to go on with my [physical] therapy.”
Okerlin’s instructional method, which she has passed on to a number of volunteer instructors, involves customizing each pose to fit each student. Students with burn scarring, for example, may perform very limited stretching, while students with PTSD may perform poses traditionally believed to improved calm and focus. Addressing potential culture clashes also takes specialization. Okerlin told the Times Tribune that she has had to limit swearing in the class and surprises students who arrive not expecting to sweat.
Okerlin added a session at Haley Veterans Hospital thanks to the work of another yoga student, Richard Salem, JD, founder of Enable America, a non-profit that helps people with disabilities gain independence. Through Enable America’s Vet Connect program, Okerlin received funding to also bring the yoga program to Haley, and is now considering the possibility of expanding. She told the Times Tribune that with a hoped-for annual budget of $100,000, she could run the WRAMC and Haley programs and add another program at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland.
Yoga “teaches wounded vets that they are still strong they way they are,” Okerlin told the Examiner. “They learn to find comfort in themselves and their own body. For me, it’s a way of thanking them for all they’ve put themselves through and for sacrificing so much.”
For more information, contact Annie Okerlin at 813.251.9668 or visit www.yogani.com
