Shape Shifter

Story/Video posted April 22, 2019 in Sports by Georgia Kelly

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     The stereotypical high school field hockey coach, maybe of someone yelling. A yoga teacher, is often a quiet and calm person. Most people would never think that they could be the same person. In fact, Bethany Mink is both. Mink is a tough authority figure filled with a zen yogi- esque persona.
    The two personas she attains were not always hand in hand. Mink started field hockey at a young age and played for Penn State University’s D1 field hockey team. Having such a strong personality, Mink never saw herself as yoga teacher. Her journey to yoga and finding her inner peace took a long time.
      After college, Mink did not have a plan for her future. She took a job as the head field hockey coach at State High in State College, PA.
Being so young and inexperienced as a coach, Mink felt she needed to be even more stern and authoritative. She came off “scary” and “intimidating”, something she was her whole life, as she gave off a tough exterior.
      Mink started taking yoga classes at PYP (Power Your Possibilities), the studio she works at now as a teacher, when she was a student. She took all different types of fitness classes, including yoga, which she only saw as a workout. As time went on, Mink started paying attention to her mind, not only her body during yoga practice. She soon joined a 40 day program at PYP, which helped her begin to focus even more on her mindfulness and brought her more peace.
     Eventually, MinQmV0aCBzaG93aW5nIGhlciB0YXR0b28gd2l0aCBoZXIgRmllbGQgSG9ja2V5IHN0aWNrIGFuZCB3aGlzdGxlIG9uIHdyaXN0IA==k decided she wanted to go to Level 1 Yoga Teaching Training, but with no intentions of becoming a yoga teacher. However, her mind was changed and after being asked once again, if she wanted to teach yoga, she said, “yes!”                                                        From teaching yoga, Mink started to realize that maybe the two personas of yogi and sheriff could actually work together. She realized her firmness during coaching was confidence, and that she brought that confidence into the yoga studio. Mink, also realize, from yoga teaching her ability to bring peace to her coaching was possible.                                                                                                                                                         Coaching for her second year had way more calamity and not as much intensity.  Mink realized her firmness from coaching is not aggressive, but confident and brings that into her yoga practice, while bringing the peaceful part of yoga to her coaching. She is excited to continue combining the two personas of authority figure and yoga teacher into one person to bring balance into both positions.

 

 

 

Photo gallery: Showing Beth's day 

 

 

Beth doing her favorite yoga pose

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Beth coaching the goalies

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Beth doing an exercise demonstration