We are all aware that our balancing capacity declines with age, and falling can be devastating to students both physically and mentally. Strong core (I don’t mean just abdominal muscles) helps protect and support the lower back, links the upper and the lower body and makes the entire structure more balanced, stable and efficient. In the yoga world we talk a lot about flexibility and often forget that another side of that coin is stability. Next, we need to make sure that we include some core strengthening work. Therefore, the primary need for most senior students will be maintaining the mobility of the spine. You don’t have to pile them all into one class, but we need to make sure that we don’t neglect either one of those. Since your spine is capable of moving in 5 different directions – forward, backwards, sideways, slightly upwards and rotate – a balanced yoga practice needs to have some combination of forward bending, back bending, lateral bending, axial extension and twisting. Joseph Pilates said: “You are only as old as your spine is flexible.” According to the yoga tradition, spine is both structural and energetic center of the body and we need to take great care of it. Yet maintaining the mobility of the spine is fundamental to any well-rounded yoga practice and becomes even more important as we get older. But often I observe that teachers take it to the extreme, simplifying the movement dramatically, keeping their students on their backs for most of the class and spending more time articulating the joints then moving the spine. Theoretically, Gentle Yoga is supposed to be less challenging then other classes, have slower pace and place more emphasis on the breath – all fantastic ideas. This term is often used to describe yoga classes aimed at beginners and older students what does it mean, anyway? Sometimes it is even used interchangeably with “Restorative Yoga”, which is an entirely different thing. First of all, I believe that the term “Gentle Yoga’ is largely misunderstood. After that initial consultation I am usually in a much better position to make a recommendation about whether private sessions or group classes would be the best fit for them. I don’t charge anything for that meeting, so most people get excited about it right away. It also helps to establish our relationship for the future. Meeting them one-on-one gives me an opportunity to get a better idea of what’s going on, what they need and what kind of limitations they have. I usually recommend that new students, especially if they are 50 and older, come see me privately before they join the class. There are two main ways to approach your work with older students: yoga classes and private yoga sessions.
SENIOR YOGA SEQUENCES PROFESSIONAL
Some of my students have been studying with me for 10+ years – how’s that for commitment to practice? And since many of my students are older professional women, they are incredibly supportive of me as a yoga teacher and a yoga studio owner, which makes our relationship even more special.
This means that they are more consistent in their class attendance, they keep their appointments and they are interested in going deeper, beyond physical contortion. Their priorities often shift from taking care of others to taking care of themselves and yoga becomes an important piece of the self-care routine. My older students usually have established careers or are already retired, their children are grown, therefore they are more in charge of their time. They certainly need yoga, but, understandably, yoga is often not a priority. Why do I enjoy it so much? Well, younger students usually have many more things to juggle in their lives – family, careers, etc, which places great demands on their time and energy.
In fact, the majority of my private clients and students in group classes are older then 60. Personally, I love working with older students. Certainly, older students will have different needs, and this is what we’ll discuss here. I couldn’t help but wonder – how did we manage to distort the yoga tradition in such a way, that it surprises us that people older then 50 can do it? I believe it was Sri Krishnamacharya who said: “If you can breathe, you can practice yoga”. Couple of days ago I read an article titled “ Yoga after 50“, that made it sound as if older students practicing yoga is some sort of a novel idea.
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