Yoga Years: True stories of how yoga transforms ageing

INTRODUCTION

The number of people aged over 60 is doubling (to reach 2 billion by 2050).¹ In writing this book my aim is to draw on the knowledge and wisdom of ordinary people in this age group. I want to share how they are making sense of their lives, living life to the fullest – and refusing to descend into so-called ‘old age’. When I recently celebrated my 60th birthday, I felt blessed to have reached this special milestone. My enthusiasm was soon dampened when a well-meaning (somewhat younger) acquaintance advised me to look after myself, ‘because it will all be downhill from now on!’

Over time, I’ve become increasingly aware of the multitude of negative attitudes about growing older. Far from being harmless, identifying with these mindsets can lead to nasty consequences for our wellbeing, including increased risks of depression and social isolation.² It seems I’m not alone in feeling fed up with hearing stories about the burden of ageing; many others of my generation (and beyond) also agree that a shift in attitudes towards ageing is long overdue.³

For a long time now (over 20 years), I’ve been fascinated by older yoga teachers – their ease of movement, joy, vigour and enthusiasm for life – and they always appear a lot younger than they really are. I wondered what these teachers, with their imbued wisdom and experience, could tell us about this special time of life.

Maybe you’re like me, in the second half of your life and open to hearing fresh, positive stories about ageing – stories that honour and preserve the unique wisdom and knowledge of our elders for current and future generations. Or are you perhaps just curious about the benefits of yoga and have always wanted to try it out for yourself? Possibly (like many people) you are put off by glossy images of lithe, Lycra-clad bodies bending and stretching in impossible poses! Or simply anxious that you’re not flexible, athletic or young enough. Perchance you have no desire to touch your toes, but you want to read about how to live a healthy, productive life with a sense of inner contentment as you age, through making specific lifestyle choices.

Whatever your level of interest, the nine yoga teachers in this collection will help to dispel your doubts and enliven your knowledge about yoga and thriving into older age. The youngest teacher is 66, the oldest 95, and they all still practise yoga – collectively they have over 400 years of wisdom to share. These women will take you on their own humorous and heartfelt, intimate journeys with yoga and offer answers to the many questions you might have, including:

• What is the best approach to live and enjoy life as you age?

• How can yoga help you to navigate the rocky episodes of life?

• How do you find the right teacher?

• What type of yoga should you practise?

• Is yoga a cure for chronic health conditions?

• How is yoga different from a gym workout or fitness class?

In this book, you’ll also read about the challenges these teachers have faced in life (just like us): when their relationships broke down or they suffered from ill health or other crises. But their individual stories show how yoga has helped each of these teachers pick up the pieces, overcome obstacles and move forward in life. Bette Calman (aged 91) and Vivien Vieritz (95) have sustained their yoga practices over more than six decades, while many of the others started yoga later in life.

The teachers here will also help you to understand that there are no limitations to practising yoga: you don’t have be young or fit, or do poses that hurt or injure you. You don’t have to practise difficult breathing techniques that make you dizzy, or sit uncomfortably in meditation postures.

This book offers a fresh perspective on ageing: while none of the teachers here deny that ageing is inevitable, the yoga practices they advocate will provide physical and mental benefits, as well as pathways to places of rest and stillness and inner knowing – thereby shifting ingrained attitudes about ageing. Adopting a yoga practice can help you to find a deeper meaning in life, to cope with everyday challenges with greater wisdom, and to make ageing a process of more – not less – enjoyment.

My own story about yoga

My first yoga teacher Bette Calman, who features in this book, was already in her 70s (and vibrant and strong) when I started her classes. Unlike Bette, who started yoga aged 26, my journey started later in life. While I tagged along with friends to several yoga classes in my teens, back then it seemed far too gentle a practice, and to be honest I found yoga boring. Looking back, I guess that the time just wasn’t right for me and I hadn’t yet found the right teacher or yoga tradition.

So, for many years I avoided yoga. However, things changed when I started a PhD in 1998: my mind was a whirlpool of endless anxiety provoking inner chatter that I simply couldn’t switch off. Like many others in western society who were also struggling with stress, I turned to yoga as a therapy. I found the best part of the yoga class for me was the guided relaxation at the end: this provided a much-needed rest for the mind, a calm space at last, where anxieties about my PhD quietened and my stress dissolved. Now I was truly hooked on yoga and my life hummed along. I also finished the PhD.

In 2007, I decided to take my regular yoga practice one step further and undertake teacher training. I noticed that several teachers at the yoga classes I attended in Melbourne wore little gold badges with the word ‘Gita’ printed on them. Intrigued I asked the teacher after class one day, ‘What’s the Gita badge about?’

‘Oh, Gita is just a studio down at Abbotsford where some of us trained,’ was the casual reply.

I contacted the Gita studio and everything about it felt warm and inviting, from the webpage to the woman who answered my initial phone enquiry. ‘Teacher training only happens every two years,’ she said, ‘and the next course starts this coming weekend. If you’re interested, you’ll need to first attend an interview with the directors of Gita: Di Lucas and Lucille Wood.’

Off I went the next day to a yoga studio I knew very little about, and sat on the other side of a desk from my interviewers, Di and Lucille, for over an hour. They asked lots of questions: Why did I want to be a yoga teacher? What would I give back to the yoga community? I answered as openly and honestly as I could.

After the interview, I was given the welcome news that I’d been accepted into the course. Lucille clicked her fingers and said, ‘Coco Chanel’. Flabbergasted, I wondered what on earth Gita Yoga had to do with perfume or fashion! From under the desk emerged two black poodles: these beautiful ‘Gita girls’ were called Coco and Channelle. They weren’t guide or companion dogs, and unbeknown to me had sat under the desk the whole time! And now, looking back on that time studying at Gita, I recall that Coco and Channelle attended all the yoga classes Lucille taught – they sat behind her, always calm and contented, at the back of the podium.

Thus I took the next step in my yoga journey that weekend to become a yoga teacher. Over the years I’ve continued teaching yoga classes once or twice a week in between my busy work schedule as a university researcher. My own practice has deepened and become much more than just a release from stress – it’s become a way of life, a framework for ethical living, health and happiness, and discovering a community of like-minded people. On a deeper level, it’s helped me to connect to the core of my being.

Now that I’m older I find that yoga is important to how I feel about ageing – and there is a growing body of evidence suggesting that yoga is beneficial for healthy ageing.⁴ My curiosity ignited, I wondered what might we learn from the wisdom of seasoned yoga teachers who have travelled further down this pathway of learning about yoga and its effects on health and ageing. It may have just remained a nagging quest because there were always so many reasons to put off this research project: there was never enough time and I was too busy with other work.

The ‘hurry up’ call came when a dear friend, Barb St John, was diagnosed with terminal cancer. I made the decision to begin the research project in 2017. I searched the internet for yoga teachers aged 60 plus to interview, and others were suggested through my yoga networks. Before interviewing these teachers, I attended one of their classes (if they were still teaching) and found it a lovely way to connect, especially if we weren’t acquainted beforehand. All the interviews were recorded and later transcribed; the selected transcriptions for this book were sent to each contributor for checking and revision rounds before their final approval. In the creation of this book, we have all been co-researchers and taken this very special yoga journey together to gather and preserve precious wisdom for future and current generations.

I learnt a great deal from the wisdom of these women that surprised and delighted me, and a lot more about vibrant ageing and yoga itself through researching this book. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the journey and am thrilled to share it with you. The yoga teachers in this book continue to inspire me and I hope that as you read their personal stories about the many benefits of yoga, and of their own lives – lived well – that you will also be inspired.

#1

TANIA DYETT

KEEPING THE BODY IN GOOD HEALTH WITH YOGA

Ageing can creep up if you are unaware ~ practise yoga to delay the hardening of the body

Tania practising yoga on the beach at Seatoun, New Zealand (Stuff/Dominion Post)

Tania

Teaches us

The pussycat pose.

‘Wag those tails,’ she instructs.

We transform to dog pose.

Laughter then

Stillness.

Seatoun, in New Zealand, is best known for its fabulous scenery, as featured in the Lord of the Rings film trilogy. It’s also the long-time home to 92-year-old Tania Dyett, who teaches one yoga class a week in St Georges Hall, a short walk from her home.

To get a taste of Tania’s teaching style, I attended her Tuesday night class (which ran for 90 minutes). We flowed from one yoga pose into the next and were pampered with a delicious relaxation at the end. During class, Tania also read an inspirational poem and taught us her favourite pose, which she calls ‘my pussy cat’. She started us in the cat pose then built on it, segueing from cat to dog pose, through instructing us to wag our tails! It was fun and brought a smile to my face. Tania later told me, ‘Initially, when I demonstrate this sequence in class students think it’s very unusual. The first time I performed it at a yoga conference the audience laughed like hell! But it’s a good yoga pose to teach because it puts an image into people’s minds of which part of the body they’re going to work.’

I was amazed at how Tania moved down on to, and up from, the floor with ease. It was a testament to her motto that: ‘Keeping your body in good health is a duty.’ However, she remains quite humble about this and explained: ‘The only way I can get up from the floor is by going into downward dog then moving upwards from there.’

Tania has led an inspirational life in many ways and, in her own words, has been ‘a citizen of the world.’ The following is Tania’s tale of how, in her twenties, she attended her first yoga class in New Zealand. Along the way, routine life events diverted her from the yogic path (as they inevitably do) until eventually, aged in her fifties, she became a yoga teacher. Fast forward to today, when Tania is still teaching yoga at the spritely age of 92.

TANIA’S STORY

My early years

My father was an officer in the Russian Tsarist Army, and an assistant of Admiral Alexander Kolchak (a leader of the White Movement, who fought the Bolsheviks in the early 20th century). When Kolchak was executed by the Bolsheviks in 1920, my parents fled Russia in fear for their lives. They travelled on the Trans-Siberian Railway and managed to reach the northern part of China. There the Latvian Consul provided them with a horse each so they could travel deeper into China. They finally reached Hankau, where I was born and spent the first four and a half years of my life.

After Hankau, my family moved to the Dutch East Indies (as Indonesia was formerly known). It was there that my budding passion for playing and teaching the violin was nurtured; this was long before I discovered yoga. I remember the local mayor asking me whether I would prefer a holiday or a violin. I opted for the violin and it was actually a very good one – a