As his career at Guelph General Hospital winds down, a local doctor has turned to teaching a yoga program in his spare time developed by a former professional wrestler .
Marcel Doré has been a practicing doctor in Guelph for 30 years. He began doing Diamond Dallas Page Yoga (DDPY) about five years ago after seeing an online video showing the transformation of one of its participants.
“I started doing this in 2013 because I had a really bad back, I was out of shape, overweight, a little bit of high blood pressure and diabetes,” said Doré. “I started doing it and started feeling a lot better, the pain started going away.”
Doré was 51 years of age when he said he started to turn things around.
“There’s a famous saying, ‘doctor heal thyself,’” said Doré. “I know what happens. I know this leads to more severe diabetes, higher blood pressure, strokes and yet it took me until age 51 to say whoa! and turn back the hands of time a bit and try to heal myself.”
DDPY is an exercise program that incorporates yoga movements with physical therapy principles. It was developed, in part, by former professional wrestler and WWE hall-of-famer Diamond Dallas Page (DDP).
Doré said Page developed the program while rehabilitating himself after injuries.
“It’s a rehabilitative type of yoga that is really not yoga anymore, but incorporates some traditional yoga, but also has some strength moves, body weight exercises, works on your core,” said Doré. “The nice thing about it is that it’s really good for people with injuries or disabilities, mobility issues, people who have problems with their joints.”
“The concept of DDP Yoga is that it can be for everybody — young, old, fit and not so fit and people of all ages and shapes and sizes,” said Doré.
Doré began teaching classes once a week at the Royal Distributing Athletic Performance Centre in Marden.
“I ended up becoming an instructor because it was working so well for me and I figured the best way for me to keep doing it and stay healthy is to become an instructor,” said Doré.
Now that Doré is easing into what he calls semi-retirement, he is expanding the number of classes he does at the community centre.
“Their classes are pretty cheap and we have had really good attendance, said Doré.
Participants pay $65 for a 10-week session of classes, keeping the cost to $6.50 per class. Participants need to bring a yoga mat and water bottle, no previous yoga experience is necessary.
“That all goes to the community centre and they just pay me by the hour,” noted Doré. “It’s not a big money maker for me, but it’s a nice thing for me to do in my semi retirement to stay active.”
On Sept. 22, Doré will host a special ‘Inspiration Meets Perspiration’ workshop with an appearance by Diamond Dallas Page.
“DDP will talk about his own experience, working through adversity and injuries and how that led to the development of DDP Yoga and then he takes the whole group through a class that takes about an hour,” said Doré.
A meet-and-greet and selfie session with Page will follow.
“That’s a huge thing for people who love wrestling and want to see him,” said Doré.
Cost for the special session is $69.99 in U.S. dollars.
