Larger Women and Yoga: Getting Creative

Tarot Garden by Baxter Bell

by Baxter

On my last teaching trip to Portland, Oregon, in February 2011, I was asked by studio owner Vilma Zaleskaite of The Yoga Project in Sellwood (see here), if I would be willing to offer a three-hour session to the students  in her Yoga for the Larger Woman class. You can imagine that as a skinny fella from Toledo, Ohio, I might think twice about such a proposition; but once I got grounded, I realized there was a lot I could share about my experience teaching students of all shapes and sizes, male and female, as well as my insights on how yoga could be a positive transformational practice for healthy aging.

Our first go around in February of this year was so well received that the students expressed interest in having an entire weekend experience of yoga. So I returned this past weekend for a 10-hour workshop with this enthusiastic group of practitioners. Topics we covered included healthy joints and improved mobility, and yoga for insomnia, digestion and metabolism, as well as stress and productivity. In addition to what I had to offer, I opened the floor up to discussion so I could also learn from this group of bright, intelligent and compassionate people.

What may seem obvious, but was often overlooked when these students attempted to take regular classes, is that most modern asanas are not that accessible to larger students, at least not the way they are usually taught. A lot of our work together focused on redefining the poses so that instead of cramming their bodies into the pose, the pose could be slipped onto them in a very appropriate way. I tried to encourage them to be creative, to think outside the “exact” structure of any given asana, and come up with ways to personalize the poses, so they will be more inclined to not only participate in class, but start to practice at home. One of the more experienced students echoed an idea we share with you here often: when she practices at home regularly, she feels better on many levels, but when she doesn’t, all bets are off. And it was so exciting to hear so many of the newer students already discovering positive benefits to the practice: improved sleep, mobility and ability to handle everyday stresses, and an improved relationship with their bodies.

Stay tuned for my next installment about how the practice changed the way one of these students dealt with unexpected stress....