Yoga for Seniors

When I was a child growing up in India, Yoga was all around us. It has been a part of our ancient culture through the ages, for thousands of years. We were taught Yoga exercises in school. I remember, when I was maybe 10 years old, our school started daily with a session of prayer, dharma lecture, and a few Yoga exercises. The name of my school was Sanatan Dharam Senior Secondary School. As we grew up, it became part of us, and we didn’t think anything special of it.

In fact the term Yoga is misspelled. The actual Sanskrit word is Yog, without “a” at the end. The ancient Yog teachers were called Yogi.

Yoga became popular in the west in the 60’s, in the days of great discontent when many young people from the west travelled east to explore Indian spirituality and mysticism. It was then that the groups like Hare Krishnas and Maharishi Mahesh Yogi became popular. Somehow, Yog became Yoga and that’s what it is called now all over the world. So, I have also adapted and call it Yoga, so as not to confuse or be confused. I am also moving along with the times!

So, what really is Yoga? It has essentially two parts – meditation to train the mind to be calm and peaceful, and physical stretches for optimal conditioning of the body.

In modern times, Yoga focuses mainly on physical stretching exercises. There are Yoga studios all over the world. It has become a huge industry. A mystifying variety of Yoga programs have been developed, to differentiate from one another, many of which have little resemblance to traditional Yoga. Meditation seems to have been separated from Yoga and there are organizations that offer meditation retreats which are usually very expensive. These retreats often include Yoga practice lessons as well.

Traditional Yoga has two key branches – Meditation for calming the mind, and Stretches for physical fitness. Yoga can be practiced at any age. But one has to be very careful in selecting and practicing the appropriate exercises, based on their own body strength, condition, and capability. The golden rule is – First Do No Harm.

I have been going to Yoga and Ayurveda Ashrams in India once every year for the past 20 years or so. From my learnings there, I have developed a concise program for myself, that is both age and strength appropriate for my age and capability.

In this program, I will share with you what I have learned and is working for me. You may be able to do quite a bit more, or less, depending on your own inclination and capability.

I also try to keep out unnecessary jargon from my yoga discussion as it only creates an exotic aura but does not serve much more useful purpose. To benefit from yoga, one has to simply practice and keep it simple.

Yoga practice begins with learning to breathe correctly. Breathing is after all the essence of life. Life is literally defined by breathing – from our first breath to the last.

But most people do not breathe correctly. For example, people’s breathing may be shallow, deep, uneven, labored, or hurried. Due to incorrect breathing, people develop many types of cardiovascular diseases, such as Asthma, Arrhythmia, COPD, and a variety of other illnesses.

Yoga practices for learning to breathe correctly are called Pranayama. It is a combination of two words – Prana (Breath) + Ayama (Practice or Exercise).

Therefore, I have developed this program that begins with getting ready to breathe correctly, a few breathing exercises, followed by simple stretches.