The Sports Yoga Hawaii Story:
Sports Yoga Hawaii was founded in 2010 by David Onoue. After graduating from college, David starting playing soccer again in an adult league and loved every moment of being on the field playing the sport that he loved to play. The only problem was he hadn’t played since high school, so he was out-of-shape and ended up injuring himself frequently.
He took the advice of his boss (at the time) to try yoga out and after resisting for about a month and a half he finally tried his first Power Yoga session out. After that session he was hooked.
With the economy still in a recession, David ended up losing his job along with a few other co-workers and now had to start all over again. Like most American who lost their jobs, he had a hard time trying to find employment. David applied to over 50 different positions but to no avail.
During this time David was able to take his yoga practice more seriously and attributes yoga to helping him control his stress. But there was one big problem…David wasn’t able to find a sport specific yoga session for soccer players. He saw these yoga for athletes books, dvds, podcasts, etc. but all of them just focused on a routine that all athletes can do.
So he made it his mission to become a certified yoga instructor and create a program for soccer players. After a few longs months, David earned his instructor certification in December of 2009 and started working on what was to become a new fitness program that is inspired by yoga: Sports Yoga.
David created Sports Yoga to offer athletes a way to incorporate yoga into their current training, in a language and method their bodies can understand. He wanted to go beyond traditional yoga, and practice a more intensive style that looks at the way athletes move and how they train, and incorporate it into a yoga based workout.
After a few months of tinkering, he was ready to unleash Sports Yoga out to the public.
David started offering sessions to his friends at various public parks, constantly getting their feedback, and it came to a point where he was ready to find a studio. After months and months of searching he finally found the right location in Kahala, and Sports Yoga Hawaii was born.
Sports Yoga Hawaii was featured on OC16′s Career Changers (video above) and in Lei Chic which lead to this segment from Living Lei Chic: