GO, BUDOKON! - Mimi Rieger Yoga

JANUARY 5-11, 2013
MUS E
FITNESS
:: DORENE INTERNICOLA
GO, BUDOKON!
New exercise mixes yoga with martial arts
B
Photo courtesy of SportsClubLA
udokon, a workout programme developed in 21st century America, blends
the ancient mind-body practices of yoga
and martial arts into a programme that
aims to reward followers with conditioning, mindful meditation and progressively coloured karate-type belts.
‘‘Budokon is a yoga, martial arts and meditation
trifecta,’’ said Mimi Rieger, who teaches the not-soancient practice in gyms, studios and workshops in
the Washington, DC, area.
A yoga instructor since 2003, Rieger, founder of
Pure Fitness DC, is one of around 400 teachers
worldwide who are trained in Budokon, which did
not exist before 2002.
Although mainly done in the United States, Rieger
said she will teach Budokon in Turkey, Denmark
and Sweden next year and workshops are also scheduled in London, Germany, South Korea and Japan.
She says the hybrid offers the student an intense,
full-body workout as it blends the integrity of the
martial arts movement with the fluidity of yoga.
‘‘It’s like a beautiful symphony of the two,’’ said
Rieger, who is among the first women to get a
brown belt in the Budokon sequence of six belts:
white, red, blue, purple, brown and black.
Budokon, which is Japanese for ‘‘the way of the
warrior spirit,’’ began in 2000 as the brainchild of
Cameron Shayne, a martial arts expert and yoga
enthusiast from Charlotte, North Carolina, looking
to solve a dilemma faced in his own practice.
K
C
M
Y
E
‘‘Through martial arts I experienced meditation;
both yoga and martial arts share self-reflection, but
both suffered from the same disease of being stripped
down to a westernised workout,’’ said Shayne, founder of Budokon University in Miami, Florida.
A typical Budokon session begins with 20 minutes
of yoga sun salutations to, as Shayne says, ‘‘lighten
and open the body,’’ followed by a martial arts
segment of explosive, dance-like movement. The
end is a guided meditation.
‘‘There is no breath count; we don’t stop,’’ said
Shayne, who describes the movements as snakelike.
Observers will note echoes of Tai Chi.
‘‘Modern yoga can be very angular. Our primary
series is a circular, continuous transition practice,’’
he explained.
Adam Sedlack, senior vice president of UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) Gym, a national chain
of family fitness centres specialising in mixed martial
arts training, believes the novice should begin with
a specific practice before tackling hybrids like Budokon.
‘‘It’s more efficient to take a karate class, then a
yoga class, and then a tai chi class than it is to
combine them,’’ Sedlack said, ‘‘so the individual
can focus on individual skill sets. The beautiful
thing about mixed martial arts is that you’re learning
a skill while you’re working out and burning calories.’’
He notes that martial arts is as much about the
confidence of walking down the street with your
head up high as it is about learning to kick and hit.
Richard Cotton, of the American College of Sports
Medicine, said Budokon can offer a challenging
change for people at more advanced levels of fitness.
‘‘If you’re a yoga or tai chi purist, Budokon is not
that, but it is variety, and variety is rarely a problem,’’
he said.
He points out that one needn’t do Budokon, yoga
or Pilates to have a so-called mind-body experience.
‘‘Running, strength training and certainly golf
can be a mind-body experience if you’re staying in
touch with your body,’’ he said. ‘‘You can have a
mind-body walk.’’
A few years ago Shayne began offering a separate
Budokon yoga practice because some people found
the martial arts aspect of his practice intimidating
or confrontational. ‘‘It became a necessity to give
that audience what it was asking for,’’ he explained.
People either love Budokon, he added, or they
hate it and that’s fine with him.
‘‘I don’t need a million people doing Budokon. I
don’t need someone who walks into class looking
for a quick fix,’’ he said. ‘‘I need people who feel it
as an art.’’ REUTERS
11