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Our community-centered yoga studio |
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THE MISSING PIECE
By: Kara Ware karaware@hotmail.com
Yoga in chairs is the missing link for our senior generation. In 2003 while working for our rural health care center, New River Health Association, I was researching free local exercise opportunities for our seniors living with chronic conditions. What I found available were walking trails. Walking is not always easy for seniors. Exercise is not always reasonable for seniors. This led me to find chair yoga.
I immediately felt this was the missing piece. Everyone knows we must exercise to maintain health. But exercise isn’t always reasonable and seniors often hesitate to exercise. Seniors being able to perform exercises that would help to improve: circulation, breathing, range of motion, depression, relaxation, and strength all within the comfort and support of a chair was fantastic!
I proposed this to New River Health’s board members. To my embarrassment they laughed me out the door. They were envisioning an exotic form of exercise, which our population would have nothing to do with. However, they didn’t say NO! If fact, later I would read that the 5000-year tradition’s ideal age to begin practicing Yoga was 53. This was said to be the age marking one’s passage into a new stage of life. It was originally designed to develop better physical and mental health as people aged.
Chair Yoga class in Scarbro, WV
So the first week of May in 2003 we offered our first Easy Does It Yoga class. 20 people came!
We began to offer the class once a week. We averaged between 6-10 people per week. Those six consistent members became our community leaders. It was from their remarkable experience of regaining range of motion and better breathing that became our best public relations. People were feeling great! They were beginning to garden again after 9 years, they were beginning to reduce their breathing medications and they were beginning to develop a support group which helped minimize the depression that was reality for many.
Their negative attitudes toward the chronic condition and toward themselves began to change. Their support group and their yoga began to contribute to them experiencing joy and activity in their older age.
We began to offer two chair yoga classes a week and actually graduated some seniors to a back care class where they practiced yoga on the floor.
Six years later chair yoga classes are still being offered at both New River Health in Scarbro, WV and at the Mt. Hope Community Center, Mt. Hope, WV. Both Scarbro and Mt. Hope are extremely under-privileged communities. People now pay a small fee to attend their weekly yoga class!
As we grow older, inactivity begins to become more and more the habit. A habit that is easily created as movement becomes more difficult and perhaps painful. As inactivity grows, so does our lack of self-confidence. Seniors begin to feel hopeless and chained by their chronic conditions. These feelings combined with inactivity lead to difficulty coping with stress. Depression, anxiety and substance abuse can begin to overshadow senior’s lives.
Again, this missing piece can provide a safe, non-strenuous nor painful form of exercise that helps people feel better both physically and mentally. In addition, Chair Yoga helps to improve senior’s self-confidence, which helps them to stay more active in their communities.
Ready to bring Chair Yoga to your community. Ready to be trained to Lead a Chair Yoga Class? |
