Hillhouse Athletes Go With The Flow

Saudae Short walked her left foot forward, steading herself on a yoga mat. Her toes flattened. Breath slowed. She extended her arms, left hand shooting out in front of her. More breath. Around her, 30 track runners, shot-put throwers, and short-distance sprinters morphed into Warrior II.

A freshman at James Hillhouse High School, Short is a member of the school’s powerhouse track team—and one in a growing number of student athletes using yoga as a tool to improve focus and cut down on injury as athletic season gets underway. Last Tuesday, the yoga program held its third half-hour session of the year in Hillhouse’s Floyd Little Athletic Center, which sits right beside the school on Sherman Avenue.

The program is led by Bob Davis, a veteran Hillhouse teacher and coach who discovered yoga after his retirement in 2014. For 36 years, Davis taught special education at Hillhouse. Sixteen years into that position, he picked up coaching track at the school, sticking with it for two decades. During his time, he watched as students overexerted themselves in practices and meets, their bodies struggling to keep up. They would walk away with injuries—sprains, strains, pulls, and tears that felt like they could have been avoided.

Stretching, he realized, was only part of it—students were exhausted and not getting enough sleep. They were stressed out by what was happening at home. And they were, increasingly, entranced and overwhelmed by new technology that seeped into every corner of their lives. By 2014, everyone Davis coached had a phone. They seemed to thrive off of screen time, experiencing a sort of separation anxiety when they were away from their devices.

“What I noticed with high school students is that they’re overscheduled,” he said after the recent class dispersed, and he packed up a fleet of donated yoga mats. “They’re always on the go.”

Davis retired from those positions four years ago, without the intention of returning to Hillhouse. At that time, he had never tried a yoga class. Then three years ago, he walked into Balanced Yoga Studio in Westville to try out a course in Vinyasa flow, a fast-paced yoga practice that has participants “flow” through a series of positions for 30 to 60 minutes. He recalled feeling his muscles stretch as they’d never stretched before. He learned to breathe through it.

“You have to keep breathing,” he said. “Always come back to your breath.”

Davis started taking classes every day, branching out once a week to a studio in Bedford Hills, New York that offered a form called “Katonah Yoga.” He started to explore chaturangas, or extended poses. He adjusted his technique on positions that didn’t feel right. Last year, he opted for his certification when a course came through New Haven. He was, officially, on his way to becoming a yogi.

Around the same time, Davis’ colleague at Balanced told him about a program she was testing out at Hillhouse, giving classes to the basketball team. He offered to do the same with the football team, a course that soon extended to the track and field and cross country kids. Outside of Hillhouse, he found himself giving courses through the city’s Department of Parks, Recreation and Trees, and to The National Coalition of Black Women and the New Haven Police Department (NHPD).

Word of Davis’ work, the bulk of which is on a volunteer basis, spread. Local yoga studio Breathing Room donated 50 mats to the cause. And students started catching on. Slowly. Very, very slowly.

At first, track coach Michele Moore recalled that students put up resistance—many of them had never heard of yoga and were skeptical of the practice. But “some of them started getting more into it … buying in,” she said. Little by little, the classes grew. Most recently, the cheerleading squad has also expressed interest.

“I don’t have proof, but there have been no pulls recently,” said Moore (pictured above). “These kids get really tight, and it’s definitely a way for them to stretch. We already know the benefits, but it takes them a little bit.”

Back in the athletic center, Davis was helping students center their breath. Facing out on their mats, 30 runners were completely still, waiting for the next direction. They moved from rigid table top to downward-facing dog, down dog back up into a salutation. Davis instructed the group to windmill down with their left arms.

He checked his watch. 3:57 p.m., for a class that was supposed to end at 4 p.m.

“Nice right here,” he said, gesturing to a student in the center of the room as he walked slowly through a bright sea of yoga mats. The student’s eyes stayed fixed on a point at the front of the room. “As your left arm is going forward, your right arm is going back.”

Students moved in unison, a few wobbling and steadying themselves. They lowered themselves back down to their mats and took “boat” pose, bodies forming shallow V shapes around the room. At the front, Davis sat back on his own mat to demonstrate, extending his arms and legs as he exhaled, then inhaled, then exhaled again.

4:01 p.m. He ushered the group into savasana, or corpse pose. If he’s teaching after a practice, he noted after the lesson, savasana is usually the point where three or four students fall asleep almost instantly. "And sometimes they need that," he added knowingly.

But Tuesday, they had a whole track practice still before them.

“Allow your body to melt into the mat,” Davis instructed. Students stilled. Even breathing fell to a hush. Another minute sped by. “Give yourself a big hug.”

As students headed to practice, Short hung around for a moment with Argelys Nuñez and Sharmaine Donaldson, both juniors who are also on the track team. Davis praised them for their careful, solid warrior poses as he began to roll the mats.

“Track and stuff, it’s intense,” Short said. “When I do yoga, I don’t think of everything else.”

“It helps me stretch out and become flexible,” Nuñez chimed in. A middle distance runner, he recalled suffering from shin splints and pulled muscles in his calves before starting yoga. But it has an added benefit, he said—he’s come to love it as a chance to steady his mind as much as his body. “A lot of time most of us don’t get this quiet, even at home.”