What is the Best Yoga?
IT'S A LOT LIKE LOVE

Monthly Musings on Yoga + LIfe 
​ANN DYER CERVANTES | DIR MYOGA
​SEPTEMBER 2024

PLEASE LEAVE YOUR COMMENTS BELOW!

​​September is here and our Fall Celebration of the Third Season of Life just launched with Baxter's excellent workshop, Breaking the Aging Code. It was a great start to the season, with 40+ Forest Dwellers signed up to get a new perspective on this stage of life so many of us share.

Speaking of being "of a certain age," I just realized recently that I have been doing yoga for 51 years! I can see now how my yoga has changed throughout my life. Not easier or harder, better or worse, just different. From an unruly teenager to a disciplined young yoga teacher, through the inferno of menopause to the-slow-to-warm-joints of my present self, my practice has supported me through it all. Which reminds me of the words of Krishnamurti: "all of life is relationship."

Yoga is a relationship, and it's been one of the longest relationships of my life. An equally significant relationship, though only 20 years old, is my marriage. I was nervous getting married. I was 46 years old and had avoided marriage for a long time! So, I did what I always do when I'm nervous — research. I asked everyone I met, including perfect strangers, for their secret to success. I got lots of great answers, but the best answer was from the father of a friend of mine. "To do all you can to see that the other flourishes." Wow. So good! I think this is the secret to our relationship with yoga, as well.

The best yoga is the yoga that helps us flourish through every stage of life. The question is not one of style, teacher, level or temperature, but rather what yoga supports you —as Nietzsche urged — "to become who you are." All too often I see students in class frustrated that their bodies don't behave as they did thirty years ago, pushing hard to go back in time. Other students collapse under the notion that it's all an unavoidable decline, an idea we pick up living in an anti-aging culture.  

This was my motivation for putting together this season of programs addressing yoga and aging. While there are very real challenges to getting older, there is a lot of growth, possibility, and pleasure, as well. David Bowie, renowned for aging (and dying) phenomenally well, is famous for saying "I think aging is an extraordinary process whereby you become the person you always should have been." And yoga can help.

​So, the next time you're wondering if your yoga is the best yoga, ask yourself: is your practice helping you flourish? And if the answer is yes, it may be time to renew your vows!
 
A few sparks of Forest Dweller inspiration below to inspire your life on and off the map.  Enjoy — and hope to see you at Saturday's Mountain Yoga Community Picnic!

From the heart --

Ann | Dir MYoga


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1. Received some nice responses to my last letter to all of you, including an email from student Kathy Kahn with this charming poem about learning yoga late in life she recently wrote.

2. Loved this short video that captures iconic yogini both Angela Farmer's wisdom and beautiful presence. "Ageing well means owning all of me", explains Angela. "The parts that don't function so well, and the parts that think they're still young and can still dance."  

3. 79-year-old former punk star Deborah Harry is the inspiration for an edgy new clothing line at Wildfang.  The new designs are based on items of clothing Blondie — who is also the face of the brand  — pulled from her own closet.

ANGELA FARMER

BETT BOLLHOEFER

4. Our youngest teacher on staff, Bett Bollhoefer, wrote this great piece on how the concept of the Forest Dweller is meaningful even if you're only 45 years old. Wise words from a young woman. Inspired? Take class with Bett on Saturday mornings!

5. Last time I wrote I included an article about how listening to new music can improve your mind. Here's an interesting piece on how to get out of your musical rut.

6. "I think aging is an extraordinary process whereby you become the person you always should have been," David Bowie famously said.  This is a great piece on Bowie's thoughts about aging and re-invention. 

DAVID BOWIE

DEBBIE HARRY

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​7. A meditation on growing older and what beauty really means by Ursula Le Guin in which she states “For older people...beauty doesn’t come free with the hormones, the way it does for the young… It has to do with who the person is.”  
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8. The risk of Sciatica and Dowager's Hump (kyphosis) can increase with time, which is why I am teaching a workshop on each this fall, starting September 21 with Yoga for Prevention + Relief of Sciatica.  Come in-person, via zoom or practice to the recording!

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