Coming to Yoga Later in Life: A Personal Story

by Andy

Beach Road Adventure by Melina Meza

In 2006, life handed me a double whammy. I was diagnosed with both emphysema and Crohn’s disease. I had probably been living with these two conditions for years, but because I had grieved so long and hard after the loss of my husband to cancer in 1998, I had not paid attention to the slow but relentless worsening of my symptoms.

Also that year, two different friends told me, during two separate lunch conversations, “You need yoga!” Me? Yoga? I hadn’t even gone for a walk in nearly eight years. But the universe works in mysterious ways, and as luck would have it, in late 2007, I moved into a condominium that had a fitness center, Anytime Fitness, next door to my building. My 61-year-old body joined the gym, and I began working with a trainer twice a week. Over about six weeks, I was able to gradually increase my hold time in a forearm plank from five seconds to 20 seconds. (This was no picnic, believe me. After 20 seconds, I was completely out of breath and had to rest.)

Soon after I started strength training, Anytime Fitness started offering yoga classes. It was as though the advice of my friends had dropped from heaven into my lap! From the moment I found the mat, I felt like a duck in water. What amazed me was that the negative stories I had been telling myself about my physical abilities seemed irrelevant when it came to yoga. I’ve never been particularly athletic; I’ve never been good at sports. Back then, I spent most of my day at my desk or in meetings, and in the evening, I turned into a couch potato. But yoga changed all that.

The teacher, a gifted young yogi named Maren Marks, had the patience of a saint and the instincts of a master teacher. I studied with her for almost three years, even when I was taking classes from other teachers. On the mat, the optimist in me overcame the inner critic. I still don’t fully know why, but here is what I believe. Even though Hatha yoga is an embodied practice, it is facilitated by the breath and mind in concert. I had happened on an open-hearted discipline that required me to pay attention to my breathing, and that attention turned out to be critical to living well with emphysema. At the same time, yoga was teaching me to fully focus my mind on the activity at hand—I had no choice if I didn’t want to topple over!—and that helped me emerge from a seven-year funk following the death of my husband.

As I just suggested, when I started yoga in early 2008, I could not balance on one foot, so classic poses like Vrkasana (Tree Pose) and Warrior III were unavailable to me, and even front-facing, two-legged poses like Warrior I and crescent lunge—a high lunge with arms overhead or in namaste—had me swaying from side to side while my toes kept grasping for the mat. Adding a twist to a crescent lunge was unthinkable for me.

In every class I took, I immediately fell out of every balance pose I tried. And me with significant osteoporosis! So, one of the first things I learned as an older student was that I had to take care of myself, and that meant increasing my body awareness. After years of self-avoidance, I finally found a reason to reconnect with my body—to get to know it in age, and to use that knowledge to help keep me safe and confident. If I have learned anything at all from starting yoga at an older age, it is that.

Just as I learned that I could improve from five to 20 seconds in forearm plank, I began to realize that yoga was something I could get better at through practice. This was a profound realization for me, and offered a deep motivation to stay with my practice, to be persistent and patient, and to let greater comfort and proficiency come naturally over time. I discovered that in yoga, it always does. Over time, not only can you literally see and feel the positive changes in your body, you also find yourself feeling better in general—enjoying enhanced well-being. 

What I learned in class offered the healthy foundation I needed, but my deepest learning came in private, at home, where I could practice at my own pace. I was always years older than the next oldest person in my classes, and with my breathing and balance issues, I was often not able to keep up with my teacher. But she made me feel so welcome and supported that I didn’t care. I simply thought, “Oh, goodie! Here’s something I can practice at home.” For me, that was a completely new approach to learning. Truly, yoga had allowed me to let go of my ego (my younger self?) in order to open myself to deeper self-knowledge.

If you come to yoga in your 50s, 60s, or 70s, you’ll carry the richness of your life history with you to the mat. There, to my surprise, I learned that my history didn’t limit me at all, nor did my age, nor did my myriad diseases and conditions. But to keep myself safe as an older beginner, I did need to pay closer attention to the postural alignment of my body and the rhythms of my breath, both in movement and stillness, than my younger, softer-boned classmates.

If you are teaching older beginners, know that as we age, our body’s balance systems don’t work quite as well, and people new to yoga need help to safely reclaim those skills. For example, I have learned that for older beginners, one-legged Utkatasana (Chair pose) is an easier one-footed balance than Vrkasana (Tree pose). Know that your older students will have more complicated and diverse physical histories than your younger ones—as we age, our bodies become more unique and less like each other’s. But know, too, that older students are wise and have learned to make thoughtful decisions about themselves. Practice sensitive watchfulness and offer individual guidance, but respect the fact that older students know their bodies better than you.

It’s now been six years since I found yoga, and guess what? I can now enjoy Vrkasana any darn time I please! And Warrior III! And for dessert, I think I’ll have a crescent lunge with a gentle twist. Yoga is for all of us. May your yoga experiences be as fulfilling and sustaining as mine, no matter your age when you start.

Andrea (Andy) Gilats, Ph.D., R.Y.T., is an educator, writer, and certified yoga instructor. She specializes in working with people seeking a body-sensitive, age-appropriate approach to practice. She calls her approach Third Age Yoga  (www.thirdageyoga.net) as a welcome mat to all of us in the Third Age, a sustained era of life beyond midlife but before true old age, in which active engagement and personal fulfillment take center stage. As a writer, Andy has published a variety of articles on wellness and positive aging, and she is the author of Life Slices, a lushly illustrated card deck that invites us to contemplate eight timeless life themes and 52 pathways toward creating a life of purpose and meaning.

Finding the Right Yoga Teacher: Tips for Third Agers

by Andrea Gilats, Ph.D., R.Y.T. (guest poster)

In my yoga teaching practice, I regularly work with people who have had negative experiences in yoga classes geared for younger bodies. The names of these classes tell the story—Power Flow, Yoga Blast, Yoga Sculpt, Hot Flow—you get the idea.

What do these students tell me about their experiences? “I thought I was going to die,” “I was counting the minutes until it was over,” and, most frequently, “Get me out of here!” I’ve come to call these yoga seekers “refugees” because they often come to my Third Age Yoga classes as a haven of last resort. 

Like most of my students who are experiencing aging-related changes and challenges, “refugees” want to learn or reconnect with yoga, but most yoga studios don’t serve them well. And that’s a shame when you consider that there are 76 million baby boomers in the United States who want to stay healthy and vital as they age. We need our society’s fastest growing demographic segment—adults 55 and over—to be self-sufficient, contributing members of our communities well into their 70s, 80s, and beyond.

As we get older, our bodies become more unique and less alike. That’s because we carry our physical and emotional histories in them. And whether it’s because of a chronic condition like osteoporosis, a touch or more of arthritis, too many years of too much sitting at a desk, a joint replacement, or surviving through cancer, we need approaches to yoga that respect our growing individuality so that we can stay safe in our practice and fully enjoy the benefits of yoga.

Don’t get me wrong. Most people in their 50s, 60s, and 70s—what some aging experts call the “Third Age”—are a far cry from needing the chair yoga classes offered in senior centers, but we do need classes that offer body-sensitive, age-appropriate yoga instruction and practice. In that spirit, I hope you’ll consider the following tips as you choose yoga teachers and classes.

Look for a teacher who has experience with older students. This may be someone who is older and more life-experienced herself or a younger teacher who is especially sensitive to each student as an individual.

Notice how your teacher treats her or his students. Is the teacher respectful and compassionate toward each person? Is she patient without unduly disrupting the continuity of the class? Is she fully present? Does she fully engage your attention? As Ram Dass said in his classic book, “Be here now.” That goes for all of us!

Look for a teacher who actually teaches. Rather than someone who simply leads a group through a series of lockstep movements, choose a teacher who demonstrates before inviting you to engage the poses, who thoughtfully tries to answer your questions, and who offers optional and alternative approaches to poses, rather than one “correct” version.

Look for classes in which the teacher can see and pay attention to each student. This is a basic safety precaution, and yet—probably for financial reasons—many yoga classes are just too big. Make sure you have enough room to bring your arms straight out to your sides, and make sure you can see your teacher, especially her feet and knees. If necessary, leave your mat to watch your teacher demonstrate.

Find a class in which you can comfortably keep up with the teacher. Yoga is a journey through your comfort zone, so think first about how you feel in each pose. Are you reasonably comfortable while enjoying a healthy challenge? Or are you counting the seconds until your teacher releases you from your torture? Is your breathing steady? Or do you feel stressed or panicked? Stay with movements and positions that feel like they’re doing you some good, but feel good while you’re doing them. You’re in the wrong class if you don’t feel good while practicing and can’t keep up with the teacher.

Take a short rest during class if you need to. Don’t worry if you can’t keep in step every moment, even in a class in which the pace and rhythm feel right to you. For example, I serve students who are living with chronic lung conditions, so I try to observe their breathing and offer them chances to catch their breath when needed. Just feeling free to hit the pause button for a few moments during class can transform a negative yoga experience into a positive one.

Don’t ever let a teacher touch you without your permission. I learned this from Judith Hanson Lasater, a renowned yoga teacher. And guess what? I’ve found that if I stand right next to my student, and we move together into and out of a pose, that person grasps the essence of the pose more quickly and deeply than if I had tried—however gently—to prod her body into a position that may not have been available to her at that time.

Stay with a teacher who stresses healthy postural alignment. One of the most important benefits of practicing yoga as we age is reclaiming healthy postural habits. Good posture —the natural, stable alignment of our bones—is a key to feeling comfortable and steady in yoga poses. So try not to become impatient when learning techniques for finding healthy posture; they not only help on the mat, but are immediately helpful in our lives off the mat.

And finally, don’t worry if you can’t find all these suggestions wrapped up into a perfect teacher/class package! If you connect with your teacher and feel comfortable with your fellow students, you will probably have a physically beneficial, life-enhancing yoga experience to which you’ll want to return week after week.

Andrea (Andy) Gilats, Ph.D., R.Y.T., is an educator, writer, and certified yoga instructor. She specializes in working with people seeking a body-sensitive, age-appropriate approach to practice. She calls her approach Third Age Yoga  (www.thirdageyoga.net) as a welcome mat to all of us in the Third Age, a sustained era of life beyond midlife but before true old age, in which active engagement and personal fulfillment take center stage. As a writer, Andy has published a variety of articles on wellness and positive aging, and she is the author of Life Slices, a lushly illustrated card deck that invites us to contemplate eight timeless life themes and 52 pathways toward creating a life of purpose and meaning.