This morning I had to go to a meeting at Little Man’s school and afterwards spent some time catching up with my co-teacher (since we haven’t been traveling much lately we never see each other). As we were leaving each other, there was an elderly lady with a boot on her foot and a cane about to cross the street. She asked me if I would help her cross and I said yes. As she held my hand and we slowly crossed, I found out she was going to a doctor’s appointment on the next avenue, so I offered to take her the rest of the way. She thanked me and mentioned how difficult it was crossing the street and that if it was more windy, she would be afraid she would get knocked over. In that time I learned that she used to love ballroom dancing and was also a fashion designer but, as she described it, now she “can barely move.”
When we finally reached her destination, I watched her shuffle into the building and my heart ached, both for her and the whole event of aging. I immediately thought, “this is why I do yoga.” Because I don’t want to be relying on canes and other people to get across the street. Ever. Yes, that sounds incredibly stubborn, but I think being stubborn in regards to health and wellness is a good thing. And while I do have good genes on my side (you may remember when I talked about my grandparents here….they’re 95 now), there’s no guarantee that they will prevent my muscles from stiffening up and wasting away on me. I have plans to be a pretty kick ass (pardon my French) old lady and canes and arthritis are only going to get in my way. So, yoga it is.
This is my plan for 83.
In that vein, when I got home I decided to address the thing that has been bothering me since August…my neck (August also happens to be when I turned 30…hmm…). I’m still not sure what caused the wonkiness (that’s a word, right?), although I’m sure there is a connection to the crazy heavy bags that I carry my life around in as I trek around the city every day. At any rate, I turned once again to the wonderful Yoga Today to see what they could do for me, and I found Sarah Kline’s class, Relieving Neck and Shoulder Tension. Perfect, I thought. And it was. Sarah created a restorative class filled with tons of neck and shoulder opening stretches, including my favorite, threading the needle (if you’ve never done it, you should try it right now). Within the first 20 minutes, my neck and shoulders were feeling more open and free. I will definitely be adding this one to the queue. I imagine I’ll have to keep coming back to it if I’m going to be doing peacock pose when I’m 83 (in pearls :)).
Yoga Snax 