Women take note: yoga gets better with age
I started practicing yoga when I was just 15 years old, with then-unknown TV yogi Lilias Folan.
Little did I know then that yoga would become my anti-aging secret.
Lilias, now her in her sixties, can confirm this with just one look at her - amazingly vibrant! I know, I've seen her up close.
Lilias taught gentle yoga on an obscure cable channel back in the late 1970s and she has often been quoted as saying she could never be sure if anyone was really watching.
Well, Lilias...I was watching. Every morning at 6AM and every evening at 11:30PM.
Lilias and I have something in common: we are both women who stuck with yoga throughout our lives thus, and we both discovered the secret: yoga helps you age better, and yoga gets better with age!
If you're starting out older, no worries...because yoga also turns back the clock. Stiffness, soreness, tiredness, ailments of age can literally disappear with a regular yoga practice...especially if that yoga practice is hot yoga.
I met Lilias about five years ago at an Omega Yoga Conference in NYC. She is WAY taller and more stately than she appeared on the small screen - even past age 60, she towered over me (not tough to do - I am 5'1"...but she dwarfed most of the women AND men in the room!) as I walked up up to thank her for being there all those years ago. I felt like I was meeting my Guru.
Here, Lilias shares her thoughts on how yoga, like a fine wine, just gets better and better.
How did you first discover yoga?
In the mid 1960's I went to my family physician... I wasn't sleeping well, I was out of shape and my energy level was low. I was hoping for a quick cure, a prescription note and a handshake, because that was often the expectation back then. Instead, he determined that nothing was wrong with me but suggested I get involved in an exercise program.
Around that time I also discovered a book called Yoga, Youth & Reincarnation by Jess Stearn. The inspiring transformation he described in his book touched my heart and fed a spiritual hunger I'd had since I was a child.
Soon after reading Stearn's book I started taking yoga classes at the local YWCA and instantly felt better after the first class. Eventually, I was guided to an ashram in upstate New York where I met Swami Chidananda, then president of the Sivananda Divine Light Society. He lit the torch in my heart and inspired me to love, serve, meditate and realize my divine potential.
How has your experience with yoga evolved over the years?
Years ago I was teaching in a television studio for my show Lilias! Yoga and You. At that time, I was literally teaching to a red light, not a living, breathing being.
It was difficult since I wasn't physically connecting with my students but I never felt alone in the class. Through the power of television I connected with people of all ages and various backgrounds.
Teaching on television taught me how to teach to many levels. Today, I am able to connect with students on a more personal and tangible level through in-person classes and teacher training programs in Cincinnati. This is a very different teaching experience from my days in television! Now, I focus more on how to inspire students to take yoga and put it into their lives so they can learn about themselves by connecting with their inner landscape.
What is your hope for the future of yoga in the United States? My hope is that yogis can continue to soften their hearts, join together, break down the barriers that separate us, and continue to send out love, light and healing to our planet.
| Check out Lilias Folan's latest book Lilias! Yoga Gets Better With Age which will be available soon at http://www.myyogasecret.com |
Rhonda Uretzky, E-RYT
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