Arshay Cooper | The Healing Power of Sports

TRAINED

Nike

Sleep, Mental Health, Training, Diet, Nike Podcast, Movement, Workout, Nutrition, Exercise, Recovery, By Nike, Running, Health & Fitness, Trained, Health, Fitness, Eating, Nike

4.7 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 2 December 2021

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Growing up on the West Side of Chicago, Arshay Cooper’s fate could have been sealed by his proximity to gang violence. But when he signed up for the country’s first all-Black high school rowing team, he changed his trajectory and led his crew as they navigated a sport that has historically lacked diversity. Now a successful chef, author and activist, he brings rowing to other low-income communities so kids can have opportunities for a better future. On this episode, Arshay shares how rowing gave his team the tools to cope with childhood trauma. Through detailed stories about his experiences as an athlete and mentor, he shows us that there’s no such thing as a lack of talent, only a lack of opportunity. He also explains how we can all leave communities better than we found them.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Oh hello, welcome to trained body and mind, a podcast exploring the cutting edge of holistic
0:06.7	fitness.
0:07.7	I'm your host Jacqueline Byer.
0:09.3	Each episode I connect with the world's leading experts and athletes to talk about mindset,
0:13.7	movement, nutrition, recovery, and sleep.
0:16.5	What we like to call the five facets of fitness.
0:19.1	Today, I'm sitting down with a man who's helping to bring rowing, historically a sport
0:23.7	of the privileged to underserved communities and at-risk youth across the country.
0:32.8	And you out there and the same survival mode that tells you if you hear a gunshot run,
0:38.4	tells you in order to get back to the doc safely, you have to pull for each other.
0:42.4	And to pull for each other, you have to shut up and listen.
0:44.8	Only one person talking at a time and it's sit tall, breathe, you belong here.
0:49.8	And you hear, whew.
0:52.5	For one hour, right, and you're downloading that serenity and you're developing that magical
0:57.5	rhythm, it calms the storms that you go through every single day and before it becomes the
1:03.5	sport of competitiveness, it becomes a sport of meditation.
1:07.8	And that was something that we all needed.
1:13.6	That's rower, author, and activist, R. Shay Cooper, talking about the sense of peace.
1:18.1	His crew finds in the quiet rhythm of their sport.
1:21.5	These men first rode together as high school students in the Westside Chicago of the 90s,
1:26.3	which R. Shay describes as being surrounded by soaring violence and plummeting opportunity.
1:31.9	From these rough waters, they emerged as the nation's first all black high school rowing
	...

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