The day before, the man couldn’t even imagine that he, a Marine, would ever train “something like that.”
“I was a tough guy, Marine, thought yoga was a girl’s sport,” she says. “The roommate actually dragged me there by force. Two hours later, Justin already knows he will not quit yoga. We have three free articles to read this month. This is the first of them. Perhaps, however, it is worth considering our inexpensive digital subscription now to be sure that no limit will surprise you?
– The first lesson was a challenge, at the end I fell to the ground almost dead from fatigue and actually lay on the ground in a corpse position. But I felt something I hadn’t felt in years: peace and quiet. Both in the heart and in the head. I started training almost every day, 5-6 times a week, for months.
Washington, July 2019: a young soldier completely falls apart while training yoga at the Washington VETOGA center. The man cries and tells the group that until recently, he only dreamed of holding a gun to his temple and then pulling the trigger because he couldn’t cope with depression. He talks about the decision made that VETOGA would be his last resort before he decides to commit suicide, although he did not really believe that anything would distract him from this decision.
– Then he said that it was only in training with other veterans that he felt again the brotherhood that he had lacked since he left the army. It was the moment when he realized that he would never be alone again and he could rely on us – says Justin Blazejewski.
The former soldier, 40 today, is the founder of VETOGA, a non-profit organization offering yoga classes for post-war trauma sufferers and their families. But not only that: active soldiers, employees of non-governmental organizations operating in conflict-affected areas, as well as civilian workers going on military missions also take part in the classes. Everyone affected by the war. The name VETOGA comes from a conglomerate of the words: veterans and yoga.