A Warrior’s Way Mark Divine’s specialized SEAL training is attracting bold civilians, too.
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n 2004, navy seal officer Mark Divine was pulled from Reserve duty and sent to Iraq with SEAL Team 1. During his deployment in Baghdad, he dedicated himself to a morning regimen. Upon waking, Divine would tuck away to a spot by a little lake at his Special Ops training base. For an hour he’d work through a self-devised integrated practice—combining breath work, traditional yoga asanas, concentration and visualization with high intensity Crossfit-style movements. He’d finish his morning ritual with a Savasana-like moment of mindfulness, a quiet reflection and centering before returning to the more harrowing reality of war. Within his daily mind-body practice, Divine felt himself become increasingly more grounded. “I found myself very, very certain that a) I would survive and meet the mission, and b) that I wouldn’t be affected by the negative effects of war—which many warriors are,” he
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recalls of his combined physical, mental and spiritual practice. Upon returning home, Divine decided he wanted to pass on his holistic training techniques to other SEAL candidates—developing SEALFIT in 2007. Although he’d eventually launch a training center inspired by his own personal path, Divine’s feeling of balance wasn’t something he had achieved all at once as a grown man by the lake in Baghdad. Divine had devoted years strengthening his mind in conjunction with his body, combining decades of martial arts, yoga and combat training. Long before he became a SEAL, he began his karate training with a Zen Master martial artist. “What was unique about that,” Divine remembers, “is that he had equal emphasis on the Zen meditation as he did on fighting—which was rare.” It would also turn out to be a tenet that would become his focus for SEALFIT. While he rigorously worked to
FROM LEFT: COURTESY OF SEALFIT; EDUARDO CONTRERAS/SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE/ZUMA WIRE/ZUMAPRESS/ALAMY
T HI N K I N T H E NOW, B E I N T H E NOW
Mark Divine draws on both the discipline he learned from years of martial arts and the military tactics he picked up as one of the U.S. Navy’s most elite operators. Opposite: Beach running is a key part of many cross-training exercises, including SEALFIT.