Meet Kelsey Hood, one of the newest certified Sage Yoga for Athletes teachers. Kelsey grew up in Iowa and played soccer at the University of Minnesota, then professionally for five years. She lives in Grimstad, Norway, now, where she is the premier specialist in yoga for athletes.
Kelsey’s experience at every level of sport makes her a particularly sympathetic and empathetic teacher to athletes at every age and level. She’s intimately familiar with the demands of high-level performance and the life of a traveling professional athlete, so she designs and teaches sequences that suite exactly where an athlete is in his or her training cycle. At the same time, she remembers her progression from youth player, which means she’s great with young athletes as well. Her unique experience means she knows exactly what runs through the body and mind of an athlete in yoga class: how it feels to be fatigued in class, and how it feels to find your mind won’t turn off in long-held poses. She holds space in class for athletes to meet their bodies exactly where they are. And she cues clearly and sweetly, with plenty of time for athletes to investigate their own experience. Kelsey is a boon to the field, and I’m glad to have worked with her.
Fun fact: Kelsey, as a transplant to Norway, is the first certified teacher to list curling as a special interest! (Those who’ve taken my five-day intensive know we use curling as a test case.)
Want to follow in Kelsey’s footsteps and spend five days with fun colleagues exploring how to teach yoga to athletes of all sports and levels, and learn a little bit about curling? Join me at one of these three intensives in 2018:
- Yoga for Athletes Five-Day Teachers’ Intensive at Kripalu in western Massachusetts, January 28–February 2, 2018
- Yoga for Athletes Five-Day Teachers’ Intensive at 1440 Multiversity in California, April 22–27, 2018 (enrollment online soon)
- Yoga for Athletes Five-Day Teachers’ Intensive at Carolina Yoga Company in Carrboro, NC, July 9–13, 2018
