Jason Kelce’s next gig? Yoga teacher

Last Monday, the long-awaited moment finally came: NFL legend Jason Kelce announced his retirement.

After 13 years as the iconic, beloved center for the Philadelphia Eagles, Kelce hung up his cleats. Sobbing through an emotional press conference with his Super Bowl champion brother Travis, parents Donna and Ed, and wife Kylie seated in the front row, Jason admitted: “I don’t know what’s next, but I look forward to the new challenges and lessons that await.”

Sports journalists predict the popular NFL player and podcast host will make his way into broadcasting. 

But I’ve got the perfect next chapter for Jason Kelce. And it’s not what you think.

The guy’s a total yogi — bare feet and all.

As a yoga teacher myself, it’s been literal years since I’ve paid attention to American football. My family and I moved to Switzerland back in 2018, and since then, I’ve been happy to ignore the NFL in favor of European fussball, Granit Xhaka, and the Champions League. Sobering medical reports about the brain damage caused by degenerative disorder chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) have also increasingly kept me away.

But, over the course of the last NFL season, Jason Kelce and his brother Travis have brought me back — and turned me into a fangirl.

New Heights podcast subscriber? Check.

Giggling over memes of Jason topless in below-freezing temps cheering on his brother at the Buffalo Bills game? Check.

Curled up on the sofa with his Amazon Prime documentary, Kelce? Check.

This grounded, authentic athlete is a natural yoga teacher. No sticky mat or stretchy hamstrings required.

Here’s why:

  1. He’s refreshingly genuine. This realness? It’s yoga. Buddhist psychotherapist and yoga teacher Michael Stone once wrote that “Yoga is the practice of learning to be real.” Finding ease in your body, and cultivating true integration of mind, body, and spirit; this is yoga. With the Kelce brothers, what you see is what you get, motherf**kers. Talk of body hair and Dad bods. Jason rocking flip flops and an old muscle tank at his retirement press conference. Admitting to falling asleep at the bar the night he first met Kylie. “Being unapologetically yourself. That’s my role,” he says in Kelce. And it’s so refreshing. 
  1. He’s an embodied athlete. As a professional football player, Jason Kelce is at home in his body, comfortable taking up space and moving with intensity. (I mean, did you see him leap back up into the family suite at the Bills game? He’s an athlete for sure). Athleticism is his purpose and delight (and yes, sometimes scourge), providing “that jolt” of energy when he walks onto the field. This sense of dharma (Sanskrit for true calling or duty), driven by “being the best in the world” makes it clear exactly why it’s so hard to finally step away from it all.
  1. He laughs easily. You can tell a real yogi by how quick they are to laugh. In yoga and Buddhism, wisdom is embodied by a childlike lightness, a sense of wonder and flexibility. We practice to get more light-hearted, more easygoing. This spirit shows up as what yogis call prana (or life force). And Jason’s got it. New Heights is full of good-natured joking. Between Jason’s dry sense of humor and Travis’s head-thrown-back guffaw, it’s welcome soul medicine — especially when the brothers are making fun of Jason’s eyebrows or reminiscing about 1990s video games.
  1. He has a heart for service and integrity. Karma yoga is the yoga of action or work; it’s a service-oriented offering to the world. (Insert obligatoryKarma is the guy on the Chiefs, coming straight home to mereference here). Jason and Kylie both take pride in giving back off the football field on behalf of the Eagles Autism Foundation and via the Eagles Christmas album, which raised $3 million for about 70 nonprofit organizations in and around Philadelphia. Karma yoga aligns closely with satya, which is Sanskrit for the practice of thinking, speaking, and acting with integrity. The outpouring of gratitude from players and fans alike upon Jason’s retirement announcement overwhelmingly  highlighted his integrity as a leader.
  1. He’s all about interconnection. Interdependence rests at the heart of yoga philosophy. The idea that nothing and no one exists alone; we all unfold in and are made real by our relationships. (This concept is called dependent origination, if you want to get fancy about it, and it’s similar to the idea of the “Butterfly Effect.”) The Kelce brothers famously prioritize family. Kylie and Jason’s three toddler daughters feature centrally in their lives. Both Travis and Jason credit “Mama” Donna and “Papa” Ed Kelce in encouraging their great success. The brothers embody this strong sense of relationship, even when facing off against one another in the Super Bowl.
  1. He’s playful. In Hindu philosophy, the Sanskrit word leela connotes the idea that everything is divine play. When you think about a yoga practice — during which you might become a Tree, a Camel, a Monkey, or yes, even an Eagle — you can see how a certain playfulness and non-attachment to identity lie at yoga’s very heart. Jason doesn’t take himself too seriously. From his iconic Mummers costume at the 2018 Philly Super Bowl victory celebration to his infamous post-Super Bowl 2024 luchador mask to holding Pottery Barn tea parties with his daughters, there’s evidence of leela all around. 
  1. He’s both soft and strong. In every yoga pose, we aim to cultivate equal parts effort and ease. This concept is known as Sthira Sukham Asanam, and it’s a great guideline for moving through the world. Jason Kelce is simultaneously soft and strong: a tough-as-nails football player who’s also beloved for being emotionally intelligent. He’s a famously loving “girl dad” to Wyatt, Ellioitte, and Bennett. Both he and Travis admit to being frequently emotional — ”We’re criers” — and often tear up in public. And in his final moments as a professional football player, bombarded by cameras, Jason sobbed through his retirement press conference. Strength and softness personified. This is yoga. 

So, what do you say? Jason’s about to have a lot more time on his hands. Ready for the next chapter? 

Yoga’s great for healing football injuries. 

*

Rachel Meyer is an American writer and yoga teacher based in Switzerland. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, On Being, Yoga Journal, Tricycle, Yoga International, HuffPost, and more. You can find her at www.rachelmeyeryoga.com or @rachelmeyeryoga.

Building a safe(r) container

A student stopped me one day after class and told me this, seven or eight years ago at YoYoYogi in Portland. I’ve never forgotten it.

Isn’t that what we all want for our yoga students? For them to feel safe? 

Last night I taught the B. Yoga Basel TT cohort all about Yoga & Trauma Sensitivity. We covered everything from the basics of trauma theory to Bessel Van Der Kolk and Resmaa Menakem to Gabor Maté to reptilian brains to creating a culture of consent and how to offer quality hands-on assists and trauma-informed savasana options to guru power dynamics to the most burning question of all: whether yoga teachers should even be touching students in the first place. 

Whew!! It was a rich, nuanced, complicated, inspiring conversation — and it made me fall in love with teaching yoga all over again.

From San Francisco/Oakland to Portland to Boston to Basel, I feel grateful to have been a fly on the wall for some of the most thoughtful and progressive trauma-informed developments of the last decade.

Here in 2024, we are serving students more wholeheartedly and creating a safe(r) container for them at the same time. If that’s not ahimsa, I don’t know what is. 

Fat talk

There’s a really rich and wide-ranging conversation about bodies, food, culture, power, gender, and anti-fat bias over at Ten Percent Happier thanks to Virginia Sole-Smith and her new book, Fat Talk: Parenting In The Age Of Diet Culture

Don’t miss it if you have a body or feed a body or even more importantly, want the small humans in your life to grow up with a good relationship to food and their bodies.

There are so many smart moments to shout out, but highlights for me included:

🍳 The wonderful work of Evelyn Tribole on intuitive eating

🍿 A sociological and historical look at how body size (and race and gender) correlates to power 

🌮 Why you shouldn’t force your kid to eat five more bites of cucumber (aka teaching consent and a sense of internalized bodily trust!)

🥗 Why finding a way to move your body that gives you joy (and that you don’t dread) is way more sustainable than forcing yourself to do a workout you hate

🍝 Why the word “fat” shouldn’t be a slur — and how it can/should be reclaimed in the same way “queer” has been

I’ve been following and appreciating Sole-Smith’s work for years. Her 2018 book, The Eating Instinct: Food Culture, Body Image, and Guilt In America was a smart, thoughtful read (although I admittedly didn’t agree with her on everything), and it’s definitely worth adding to your list.

While you’re at it, check out Aubrey Gordon’s 2020 book, too: What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Fat. I love listening to Aubrey’s podcast Maintenance Phase and super appreciate her voice on social justice as related to anti-fatness, bodies of all sizes, health, power, and calling bullshit on much of “wellness culture.” 

January can be such a shitty time for cultivating body acceptance and/or body neutrality, as there’s so much cultural noise out there telling people to control, regulate, Botox, manipulate, and shrink their bodies in service of the new year.

So it’s a great chance to counter the narrative. Just borrowed both of these from the library on my Libby app.

Your turn! 

Trust your goodness

I listened to a refreshing interview with meditation teacher Tara Brach today, and she mentioned this in passing.

Trust your goodness.

Do you??

If you’re interested in Buddhist psychology, Tara’s work is a perfect place to start. This year is the 20th anniversary of her book Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life With The Heart Of A Buddha, and it’s a game-changer.

I’m always amazed by how revelatory and mind-blowing a statement like this feels for folks who grew up in religious traditions that emphasize original sin.

Trust your goodness.

It’ll change your life.

Morning light at B. Yoga

January is my favorite time of year in the yoga studio.

Brave newbies nervously unroll their mats in the back row. Packed classes pulse with eager bodies ready to (re)build a practice. There’s a childlike, not-yet-disillusioned sense of hope.

I teach in this radiant B. Yoga Basel space every Friday at 9:30am.

Join me for a little 🧘🏽‍♀️ and 🎶 and 🫁 and mostly ✨.

Begin again

This is the heart of yoga and meditation.

You can start over in every new breath. You’re brand new every time you inhale. Every exhale, a letting go.

Doesn’t have to be the new year. Doesn’t have to be January 1st.

So don’t get tripped up on the New Year’s resolution bullshit. Every inhalation can be a new year. You can always just leave that last one behind, and begin again.

Evergreen

Some things are evergreen. Like not knowing what day it is in this long stretch of pajama days between Christmas and New Year’s.

Like the way peppermint and chocolate mixed together = a particularly seasonal kind of flavor.

Like the feeling of sitting quietly reading with someone at both ends of the sofa.

Like the fact that we’re all aging, always. Until we’re not. (Do you feel it this year? The aging? I really do.)

Like our Advent wreath. Every Sunday evening in December (usually squeezed between Premier League matches), we read a simple interfaith Unitarian Universalist liturgy to light our candles. We talk about hope, peace, joy, and love, and the moments and people and places that show us what those things look like in real life.

And I love it more, quietly, every year.

Evergreen.

Sacred spaces

The other night we walked over to this twinkly old church for a holiday concert. It was spirited and brassy and singable.

Very few people go to church regularly in Switzerland. The political scene here is completely devoid of the bizarro religious nationalism (aka Christofascism) that’s dominant in the US right now. Needless to say, this is so refreshing.

But it also means that a lot of these beautiful old sanctuaries and cathedrals often sit empty. Many of them — like Basel’s stunning Pauluskirche and Elisabethenkirche — have been transformed into shared public spaces featuring cafes, often used for the arts, lectures, and all kinds of collective gathering.

I love this. It feels exactly like what a sacred space should actually be: an inclusive, welcoming, non-dogmatic community hub thrumming with melodies and bustling with people; a warm beacon in the cold twilight.

I’ve always wanted to teach yoga in a sanctuary space like this, similar to the long-running Yoga On The Labyrinth program at San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral. Maybe 2024 is the year? We’ll see.

Wishing you everything still, quiet, and nourishing on this darkest, longest night of the year. 🕯️✨

Heart-openers to put in your pocket

Winter has properly set in here in Basel.

Medieval chimneys puff smoke, morning temps hover around freezing, and the Christmas markets are back in full swing. It’s exactly the kind of cold that makes you want to hunch over, curl up, and hibernate.

So in class the other day, we spent a lot of time flowing through poses like this: heart-openers, shoulder openers, backbends. When you can remind your body to stay open and warm and loose, your spirit will usually follow — even when the air outside is bitter.

Raja Bhujangasana (King Cobra) is one extreme example. It really doesn’t matter if you ever touch your toes to your head or not. You can get similar antidotes to winter from poses like Cobra, Dhanurasana (Bow), Bridge, Camel, Reverse Tabletop, and variations of Reverse Namaskar (or just grabbing your elbows behind your back) in Tree or a wide-legged forward fold.

Put these heart-openers in your pocket for the days when you’d rather close off and contract. A few minutes of asana can be the perfect counter to the cold. ☃️

Kale Chip meditation

I’ve been making kale chips like it’s my job. 🥬

It’s a super high-maintenance pain in the ass and a totally wonderful moving meditation.

Kale is weirdly impossible to find at supermarkets in Switzerland. You can’t get it anywhere. (What I would give for those cheesy kale chips they used to sell at Trader Joe’s.)

So when the community garden up the street set out a few bunches of Federkohl at the little roadside veggie stand, you’d better believe we jumped on that shit. I grabbed both for 2 CHF each, put my little coins in the Kasse, and triumphantly marched home to show my family.

Kale chips take forever to make and you eat the whole batch in like five minutes. They are such an investment. But a worthy one.

🥬 Wash the kale. (Right away, so you don’t get cute garden bugs all over your kitchen.)

🥬 One by one, tear the kale off the thick stems into small chip-size pieces. Put them in a bowl.

🥬 Salad-spin those puppies to get all the water off. They’re still not dry, so you have to lay them out one by one on a towel on your kitchen counter. Because wet kale = soggy chips.

🥬 Leave them out to dry for literally hours.

🥬 Come back later and drizzle a little avocado oil over them. Massage it all over the leaves. Every last bit. (This is where it starts to feel really meditative. Well, the tearing part too.)

🥬 Spread them out on baking trays. Sprinkle liberally with salt and garlic.

🥬 Bake at 150° C (sorry fellow Americans, I’ve gone to the dark side and don’t know what that would be in F. Google it.) You have to check them every minute after about 7 minutes. And then every 30 seconds. Because they go from soggy to burned in a flash.

🥬 Rotate the trays in the oven constantly. Like you would watch your toddler in Venice. Never looking away.

🥬 Finally take them out. Check that they’re crispy. Sprinkle on nutritional yeast to get that cheesy flavor.

🥬 Eat half of them stealthily as you call your family over. Then proudly watch your kid inhale three trays’ worth and bask in the knowledge that for one shining moment you are a superior parent because he is eating something green.