Snowboarding isn’t new to yoga (neither is snow for that matter!), and X Games champ Jamie Anderson certainly isn’t new to yoga, either. After winning gold in the first ever Olympic slopestyle event at the 2014 Sochi Games, Anderson spoke about her affinity for yoga. “When you do it, you feel like you’re really overcoming an obstacle,” she said. For Anderson, those obstacles are something like landing three complete turns in the air, aka a 1080, which she was the first woman to do last year.
Gearing up for this year’s X Games starting this weekend, Anderson spoke with The Cut about her wellness routine, her yoga practice and why she’s always writing positive messages to herself.
Her day is something like a wellness guru’s dream. She starts with a green drink in the morning, an “amazing combination drink that has a lot of different superfoods and algae and Chinese herbs,” and then “I’ll use my infrared sauna, where I do my meditations and yoga, then shower.”
What?? That’s exactly like our mornings! Minus the sauna. OK, and the daily green drink (we try, ok?).
While she enjoys yoga on a daily basis it’s not necessarily considered a workout for Anderson as much as it is a space to let go.
“Doing a little bit of yoga under the sun on the water is really, really magical,” she says, as evidenced by her instagram posts.
All of the practice and commitment has paid off in her sport.
I don’t even know how I used to do it before. When you’re a kid you’re more like a ninja: You don’t really care and you’re more flexible. But as you get older, you really have to work harder to feel that way. That’s why yoga has been such a benefit to my snowboarding, because I feel so good in the air. I feel like I can crash and kind of roll out of it, or have a little bit more ease with the reality. If you’re tense, you’re a lot more likely to get hurt — and not look very cruise-y. I try to make it look fun and easy, kind of like a dance.
She’s also a stickler for eating as clean as possible — “let food be our medicine” — and taking on wellness as an entire lifestyle, with positive thinking and affirmations playing a big role in her regular routine. But it’s not all happy thoughts and snow angels. Yoga is helping her face her biggest critic too— herself.
“I think we’re all pretty hard on ourselves and we’ve got to remember to give more grace. Sometimes we’re our own worst critics,” Anderson said.
“I’m a Virgo so I like my stuff perfect. When I don’t perform at my perfect I can be hard on myself. I’m learning to be more easygoing.”
So far, it’s been working pretty well.
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