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Devon Levi Meditates In-Game to Refresh, Refocus - InGoal Magazine
Levi shares the details of his in-game routine
ingoalmag.com
Meditation and breathing technique have long been tools used by goalies right up to the NHL to try and stay calm and focused, but Devon Levi has taken it to the next level.
Levi drops to his knees near the hash marks, facing his net, and meditates during every TV timeout, something he tried first at the World Junior Championships to manage the extra time he’d never had in-game before, and has continued into the NHL with the Buffalo Sabres.
“I’m meditating. I’m focusing on my breathing,” Levi explained recently on the InGoal Radio Podcast. “There’s so much chaos going on in the rink, so I close my eyes and kind of just take myself out of it for a second and just focus on my breathing. It kind of calms the nervous system down and allows me to refocus. A lot of times when I’m playing, there’s thoughts going in and out of your head and it’s important to kind of just let them go in and out, so that little break that I have during the TV timeouts kind of lets me let thoughts kind of sit for a second, recognize I don’t need to focus on this and let it go. That’s basically the foundation of meditating.”
The practice has quickly become a focal point on broadcasts and in the media, with Levi telling reporters in Buffalo his choice of meditation poses came from of a shared love with his dad for Star Wars. It’s his personal spin on the “Duel of Fates” scene from Episode I: The Phantom Menace in which Jedi Qui-Gon Jinn (played by Liam Neeson) and Obi-Wan Kenobi (played by Ewan MacGregor) are in a duel with Darth Maul. A force field separates the combatants at one point and Neeson’s character drops to his knees, closes his eyes and starts meditating.
For Levi, the act allows him to refocus and refresh amidst his own nightly battle.
“You’re so focused on stopping the puck throughout the whole 60 minutes, which if you have that full focus throughout an entire game, non-stop with the pauses, that’s like a three-hour focus compared to a 60-minute focus,” he said. “That TV timeout just gives me an opportunity to mentally kind of just leave the rink, just take a breath and focus on something else.”
Levi said the in-game practice refreshes more than just his mind.
“It’s definitely physical too. My body is more replenished from breathing. Mentally, you’re a bit sharper because you’re getting oxygen into your brain,” Levi said. “There are things you end up focusing on during a game that you don’t want to be focusing on. (For example) you just make a save but it’s poorly executed, and you’re hard on yourself and maybe you’re thinking too technically. Me, personally, I’ll take a second and just close my eyes: ‘okay, I don’t need to be technical right now. There’s nothing going on. It’s just me and nothingness, so why am I thinking about technique right now?’ So, I’ll just close my eyes and think about my breath. Now is a good time to think about my breath and when I open my eyes, the present moment says I’m in a game so now it’s time to focus on the play and on the game developing.”
It didn’t take long for other players to try and get Levi out of his zone. Florida Panthers forward Matthew Tkachuk skated up and started talking to Levi while he was mediating.
“Tkachuk chirped me once while I was there, but I was kind of zoned out and just focused on my breath and what I was doing that, so it didn’t really bother me,” Levi said. “I knew (he as there) but it’s just like one of those thoughts that come in, and then they just flow out.”
