After the Hawaii football team’s spring practice on Thursday at the Ching Complex, the interior defensive linemen gathered in a circle to stretch and go through yoga poses.
“It’s a two-fold thing,” said Jeff Reinebold, who is in his second stint with the Rainbow Warriors after also coaching the D-line in 2006 and 2007. “Psychologically, it’s a period where you can de-compress at the end of practice. We always stretch around the Mountain West logo because that’s our goal, to be Mountain West champs.”
Reinebold said the session offers a “physiological benefit” because of the amount of running in practice.
“When the ball’s thrown 40 yards down the field, they’re going to run 40 yards, not 4,” Reinebold said of his group. “That’s an awful lot of running on a big body. At the end, we can de-stress the body with yoga and the stretches that we do. Typically, defensive linemen are stiffer in the hips than they need. That’s a way to take 10 minutes and attack a problem. We don’t attack people, we attack problems.”
The coach nicknamed “Sun God” because of his outdoor yoga routines has brought unique techniques to training. During a D-lineman session, the players will pair off and then shadow box.
“We all thought it was crazy at first,” D-tackle Daniel “Sauce” Williams said. “He got us out here throwing jabs and swinging hooks. But when we sat down and watched (video of the drill) … the jab helps our punch, our stab, our cross-chop swim move, and us turning our hips (and) getting around the edge to get the sack. He’s old school, but very wise.”
It was 30 years ago when Reinebold, now 66, began studying taekwondo. He also had been a fan of boxing and “the science of hand-to-hand combat, which is what (D-linemen) do for a living.”
A close friend, former boxing champion Vinny Pazienza, taught Reinebold about striking and how boxing punches are related to D-linemen’s moves. “It comes from the ground up in your hips,” Reinebold said, “and all the things that make a great pass rusher and interior defensive lineman.”
Reinebold said boxing is a way to “train that area without making it a monotonous thing. It’s cross-training. They enjoy it. They also fancy themselves as the next heavyweight champion.”
Reinebold often shares the approach of Gichin Funakoshi, who is credited with introducing karate to the Western world. Funakoshi often said it took 30 years to perfect the front punch.
Reinebold told his players: “think about how many times (Funakoshi) had to throw a punch — the most simple punch, the most fundamental punch —in karate just to master the state of unconscious confidence, when it happens and you don’t even think about it.”
Reinebold said: “We can’t get 30 years on the practice field. We work really hard on visualization when they go back to their rooms. ‘See yourself. See the move over and over again.’ That’s how you get those 30 years we don’t have.”
Anthony Sagapolutele, who rotates between nose guard and 3-technique tackle, said Reinebold received a strong endorsement from former UH defensive tackle Michael Lafele, who is Sagapolutele’s father-in-law.
“It’s been nothing but a blessing since he came in,” Sagapolutele said of Reinebold, who was officially hired last month. “(The drills) are a little different from what D-lines usually do. It really does convert from the drills to on the field. It all makes sense. It’s not like he’s telling us things to make our egos feel good. It’s nothing like that. Everything he teaches us, there’s a purpose behind it. … As he explains it, boxing and football go hand in hand. We’re still striking people. We’re still being violent. We’re going against another opponent. Violence is key to what we’re doing as a D-line.”
Reinebold said: “We work hard on a finite group of skills because they’re not natural. You can’t go down to the beach in Waikiki and pass rush somebody. It doesn’t work that way. You have to take an unnatural group of movements and skills and train them to the point of unconscious confidence.”
