Annie Okerlin's Yogani Studios Exalted Warrior Foundation

Reaching Out To Heal
By JAMIE PILARCZYK

The Tampa Tribune

Published: March 22, 2008

Updated: 03/20/2008 05:33 pm

HYDE PARK - The young veterans walk into Annie Okerlin's Yogani Studios, some with their disabilities visible, others with them hidden.

John Shahin limped a bit and used a cane but otherwise looked much like any other 23-year-old.

The retired Marine corporal served two tours in Iraq. In 2004, his Humvee was hit by a bomb, collapsing the side of the military vehicle into Shahin and leaving him with shoulder, back and hip injuries. He also suffered traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder and needed reconstructive surgery to remove shrapnel from his nose and ear.

When his therapists at James A. Haley VA Medical Center said he would be leaving the North Tampa facility last week for a South Tampa yoga studio, Shahin wasn't sure what to think. But by the time the yoga mats were rolled up and the stretch bands put away, he was feeling better and relaxed.

"I have a limited range of motion in my arm, and this made me work hard," the Riverview man said of the hourlong therapy. "I'd recommend it. Part of that is the staff, though; they were really nice, and they kept correcting me."

Through her Exalted Warrior Foundation, Okerlin provides yoga therapy, coined warrior yoga, to military personnel at Haley and Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington. The foundation came about through two of her Yogani clients and a little bit of kismet.

Tom Steffens, a retired Navy rear admiral who is a consultant from Virginia Beach, attended classes with his wife, Ellie, while serving as the chief of staff of U.S. Special Operations Command at MacDill Air Force Base from 1997 to 2001.

The 6-foot-2 Navy SEAL is "twice as wide as the door frame," Okerlin joked. "You meet him and he's Mr. America."

"I have legs that weigh more than Annie," Steffens said of the 5-foot-1 yogi.

The unlikely duo have a shared belief: the power of yoga to heal. Steffens, a 10-year yoga veteran, talked with Okerlin about bringing yoga to Walter Reed.

"God puts things in the right places," Steffens said. "She's a naturally uplifting person. She draws out the best in people, and that's what she does with these soldiers: draws the best out in them. These are life-saving, marriage-saving techniques."

In April 2006, a month after Steffens arranged the military connections, Okerlin was on a plane to Washington, worried about how she would be perceived by the soldiers. She went to Banana Republic to buy a "military hospital pretense outfit."

"I expected them to be thinking, 'Where are the Birkenstocks? Where are the feather earrings?'" said Okerlin, 36, whose mother served in Britain's Royal Navy and father was a U.S. Navy hospital corpsman. "But there was no pretense."

She was greeted by soldiers who had amputations of every kind - big, gruff veterans who left her star-struck.

"It was trial by fire," said Okerlin, mother of a toddler.

She has to limit the swearing in class and breaks assumptions that yoga won't make you sweat.

"They are strong, young and fit, but we're teaching them the art of relaxation," the Davis Islands resident said. "We are helping them to achieve more comfort ... reconnecting the soldier to his body, teaching him that he is whole, just different."
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