The
Fighting Yogis
The art of pugilism, as Howard Cosell once
said, “is chillingly simple: One man purposefully endeavors to inflict bodily
harm on another man.” The practice of Bikram Yoga, a 90 minute series of Hatha
Yoga postures performed in a room heated to 40°C, aims “to
deliver total health through the balancing and strengthening of every system in
the body.”
At first glance, the two practices seem
unlikely bedfellows. And yet an increasing number of Britain’s top boxers have
begun to incorporate Bikram Yoga into their training regimes.“It’s a mad Ying and Yang mix,” says Denton
Vassell, Commonwealth Welterweight Champion, “but it fits as one.”
I caught up with
Vassell in the midst of his preparation for the eagerly anticipated British and
Commonwealth title unification bout with Frankie Gavin, scheduled for 28th
June. Arriving, shall we say, just
a shade later than the time we had originally agreed upon (“What time did he
tell you he’d be here?” jokes Vassell’s veteran trainer Bob Shannon), I
interview Vassell prior to a Friday evening session in the gymnasium he calls
home.
Located in the basement
of Crossley House – an imposing, Edwardian, red-brick building and formerly
home to Openshaw Lad’s Club – Shannon’s Fighting Fit Gym is warren-like, and
Vassell ushers me into one of its many nooks to escape the combination of
pulsing music, shadow-boxing youngsters and a man, resembling a grizzly bear in
proportions, thumping out the frustrations of the week into the abdomen of a
heavy bag.
Carrying the ring moniker
‘Achilles’, owing to his impressive physique, Vassell himself is built more
like a mini Mike Tyson. “I’m pretty muscle bound for a welterweight” is how he
puts it. And unlike the warrior of Greek myth from whom he takes his name, so
far he has proved invulnerable, undefeated in 20 professional contests and with
exactly half his wins coming by way of stoppage. “I’d recommend Bikram to
everyone, but especially if you’re fighting,” he tells me, “I’d do it every day
if I could.”
Equally as effusive
about the benefits of Bikram Yoga are Anthony Crolla, and two of Liverpool’s
fighting quartet of Smith brothers, Paul and Stephen. All three boxers took the
time to chat during preparations for big fights of their own. Super featherweight
Stephen Smith boxes on the undercard of the Vassell vs. Gavin scrap, making his
return to the ring after more than a year out. Anthony Crolla and Paul Smith fight
the very next night, with Crolla taking on Gavin Rees for the WBO’s
intercontinental lightweight strap, whilst Smith rematches Tony Dodson for the
vacant British super middleweight title.
Was there any
hesitation for these fighting men to try Bikram Yoga, I ask? “It sounds feminine,” Vassell concedes,
“but it’s tough!” Anthony Crolla echoes this sentiment, confessing, “Nine times
out of ten, when I’m in there, I’m thinking ‘I just want this class to end!’” None
of the fighters, however, show any reticence in practising an art form that
each of them value as an important part of their training.
“I think its just more
strings to your bow,” says Stephen Smith. “I think the more things you pick up,
the more that can help you in terms of your training.” Elder brother Paul
agrees, adding, “If it will benefit my career, and benefit my training and
boxing, then I’ll try it.”
The fighters all cite
enhanced flexibility and injury prevention when I ask what they see as the
benefits of their practice, particularly Stephen Smith. “With doing the track
work you do find you get injuries quite easily, so I started doing the yoga
more for injury prevention and then when it got to the Bikram, I found it was
better for me to do, it helped with flexibility.”
Perhaps more
interestingly, Anthony Crolla suggests it has helped him to improve his
breathing technique when fighting.. When I ask Paul Smith to expand on this, he
tells me, “It’s good, mentally, knowing that when it gets tough I can
concentrate on my breathing, whereas in the past I wouldn’t have, I would have
concentrated on what was tired and what was hurting.”
When Denton Vassell raises
another similarity between the two practices, I think I begin to see why all of
the fighters I have spoken to tell me that Bikram Yoga is perfectly suited to
fight training. “The little breaks [in between postures], the Savasana, are
just like breaks in fights” Vassell says, crediting these periods of rest with helping
to improve his powers of recovery.
It is the heat in
which the postures are performed that distinguishes Bikram Yoga from other
forms of practice, and perhaps there is another parallel to be found here, the
heat of the yoga studio simulating the heat of the battle. All boxers must
learn to keep a cool head in the stifling atmosphere of a fight; Can Bikram
Yoga help a fighter to master their emotions in the ring?
“It seems a bit mad,
doing a nice, chilled out session of Bikram, but it’s chilled out in boxing,”
says Vassell. “The more relaxed you are in boxing, the more fluently the
punches will flow out, and the more relaxed you are the more resistance you
have to taking punches.”
Paul Smith tells me
that the heat and physically demanding nature of Bikram Yoga allow him to feel
that he can “give that extra little bit in training, push a little bit further,”
and Vassell suggests that his practice gives him a mental edge when stepping
through the ropes. “It’s mentally good, because you can get in the ring and
say, ‘I’ve done something extra for this fight,’ so that boosts confidence as
well. I could fight Mayweather and I’d still feel as confident as I am now.”
Mention of Floyd
Mayweather, the sport’s pound-for-pound king and a man who can be found in the
gym all year round, brings me neatly to my final question for the fighters.
Does the use of Bikram Yoga show that, increasingly, boxers are elite athletes,
in a way that perhaps they were not in the past? “Yeah, definitely,” Anthony
Crolla tells me “I think now, gone are the days where you’d hit the bag, you’d
do a bit of floor work and you’d go running and that was all.”
“Times are always
changing,” Paul Smith concurs, “and things are always happening to evolve and
to further us as athletes. I think Yoga is definitely one of those things, the
fact that we’re trying it now shows that it’s definitely beneficial.”
It is no surprise
then, that all of the fighters predict that the use of Bikram Yoga in boxing
will continue to spread. “Now, more and more boxers are jumping on it by the
week,” says Anthony Crolla. “I reckon there’s a few boxers in almost every gym.
Also, you’re getting higher profile boxers who are going as well, and I think
that’s inspiring young amateur fighters to think, ‘Well, they’re doing it, I’ll
give it a go.’” If Crolla is right, there may be a whole new generation of
fighting Yogis yet to come.
