Yoga Through our Ages

April 5, 2006

It’s been kind of fun to watch Yoga be ‘discovered” and brought into our culture. I found it right out of college almost 30 years ago, and was blessed to be in one of the first Iyengar yoga programs in the states, right in our own Ann Arbor.
Mary Palmer had found B.K.S. Iyengar’s book, “Light on Yoga,” and being a take-charge sort of person, decided to go study with the man in India. There was no institute as there is now: class was a dozen people in Iyengar’s living room, (many of them now senior advanced teachers in various countries). She brought his teachings back and persuaded her teachers to go study with him every year. The little program at the Ann Arbor ‘Y’ had a direct pipeline to a man who is now known as the “Michaelangelo of yoga” (NY TIMES).
The media often portrays yoga either as something young beautiful folks do, or shows the more extreme poses as a kind of unattainable joke. I wonder, would I have been intrigued to start yoga with that introduction?
I’m glad younger people are finding yoga, I was the only college age kid in my first class, but I was quickly humbled and inspired by the older folks around me doing arm balances and other asanas with surprising endurance, flexibility and calmness. My teachers were mothers of older children, so I never thought of quitting when I became pregnant, and they helped me right through.
When I was raising young children, whatever I could get of a practice and class helped me stay grounded. Often my practice was simply being patient and appreciating them. When they were older, if I was being especially crabby, they would ask, “did you do your yoga today?” I was a weird Mom; their friends would come over to play and see me in a headstand ( “ umm... your mom... ). Now in their 20s, both my kids practice yoga, and sometimes get to class themselves.

A few kernels:
• Yoga is possible at any age, and has something to offer that’s appropriate to any time of life.
• It can give you tools to handle changes and keep strength, flexibility, balance, serenity and agility, even as you move from teens to 20s, and certainly beyond.
•  It’s work and takes some time but often everything else goes so much better that you have time left over.
• The different methods vary a lot. Find one that meets you where you are and helps you grow from there.
• The word yoga means connection. It promotes a sense of lightness and freedom in the body and to all the layers within. It takes you from the nuts and bolts of joints muscles and bones inward towards what animates you.
• Advanced poses are built from strong simple ones. It’s the mindfulness in the process of acheiving them that stays with you.
• Take your time, you can do yoga for the rest of your life.
• Begin!


Mary Reilly is a senior certified teacher in the Iyengar tradition. She has studied at the Ramamani Iyengar Yoga Institute in Pune India numerous times, most recently, this past January. Her yoga studio, North Woods Yoga is located in downtown Petoskey. It’s schedule is at northwoodsyoga.com.