While teaching one of my senior privates she started off telling me how stressful her weekend was since she had some problems concerning co-workers. She needed something to allow her to calm down.

I proceeded to do some very slow, 3-minute poses that help to unwind and regenerate.

Half way through she told me that in the midst of her upset she realized that she wasn’t breathing.

What a great realization! First hurdle, down!

Then she went on to tell me that in her distress she couldn’t breathe even as she saw that she wasn’t breathing.

Hmmm, I thought to myself. This told me that she was still harboring and relishing in her emotions even though she had the insight of her lack of deep breathing.In cases like this student, it is the lack of deep breathing that keeps her stuck in her emotional mess, locking her out of her body and away from true peace of mind.

My clients are mostly fifty and older, successful type A personalities who rarely stop to eat, no less breathe. So, my new prescription for them is to TAKE A BREATHING BREAK.

When seniors start yoga, many of them have no concept of what it is to take a full breath. Starting later in life to explore yoga, their body is usually pretty well established in holding patterns and bad habits.

Without a full breath, it is very difficult to get movement to penetrate into the upper thoracic/chest and side ribs. Because of this, the attempt to wake up the upper back, chest and ribcage becomes intellectual, contrived and distorted. When they begin to see how taking a deeper breath will reshape the architecture of their body, without a lot of effort, lights start to flash and big smiles are beaming.

Taking a breathing break is simple. Nothing is needed but awareness to stop and breathe for 5 or 10 breaths.

So many students have the feeling that they need special props, a beautiful environment, or special talent to practice yoga but the breathing break only requires oneself and a quiet moment. IT is so available to every one regardless of what level of student they are.

Remember the Sanpalka ‘I am a student of my breath.’ It goes beyond the classroom, beyond the asana, but it is our very spark of life and we are simply harnessing a power that is going on all of the time.

I always want to enlighten my seniors on the common sense of yoga. During your breathing break why not experience how  BRIDGE ARMS (standing or sitting with your hands behind your back, interlace your fingers, palms together and extend your arms back and upwards.) enhances your breathing break experience. Bridge Arms is a pose that embodies the elements of a backbend, but can be employed at any time, any place, and in any situation to partner with simple deep breathing, to bring you out of the slouchy mood, or just too much work and remind you to remember your breath and take that breathing break

I recently read a quote by an actor being interviewed. He was asked what was his favorite saying.

He responded:

“Breathe in, Breathe out… and repeat.”

Once every hour remember your breath,

feel the energized transformation, the magic shift from chaos to calm and have a nice day!

When my senior beginning students ask me what they should practice at home I always prescribe Leg stretches. Never to overwhelm a new student with more things to add to their pressured day, I keep it simple by suggesting to start with just one pose. Simply asking them to hold each leg stretch for only one minute to begin with. So, two minutes of yoga each day in the beginning is doable. Only 2 minutes a day? Why not!
One pose can change your whole day. Seriously, when I ask my students to hold each leg stretch for one minute and that’s it, students are inspired to take it on. The beauty of underwhelming a new student with minimum home practice is that they will typically be inspired to do more, Instead of feeling pressure and guilt for not doing enough. The comments that come back to me prove to me that they have done more then my suggestion and the results are ten fold in their classroom progress. They are super excited by the day-to-day changes and can see for themselves how consistent practice of even one pose a day really does make a difference as they quickly show improvement and change.

My senior students are feeling less hip pain, leg pain and fatigue. Along  with a renewed feeling of lightness from increased circulation, greater freedom of movement in their gait,  they are able to stand longer, walk easier and they are truly seeing the satisfying fruits of their home practice, as simple as it is.

Beginning senior students will come into a yoga class with a bucket load of past information in their minds about their body and their limitations. But there is one main limitation that reveals itself instantaneously when beginning yoga and that is the Hamstrings
Students with tight hamstrings have a hard time moving forward (literally) in their practice as it is reflected in our own language as the old saying goes, if someone is ‘hamstrung’ they are stuck! So it goes in Yoga as well.
Beginning with Supta Padangusthasana is a great start.
supta = lying down, reclining
pada = foot                                       
angusta = big toe
I find that there is so much fear with students when experiencing the sensation (some would call pain) of the back of the legs stretching that they avoid it at all costs.
In acupressure, the Bladder Meridian runs down the back of the body including the back of both legs. First the Bladder responds to the emotion and second it represents our in life. So, in our ambitious society, the hamstrings are very busy.
Supta Padangusthasana offers an efficient stretch to the back of the leg (hamstrings and calves) and when including Supta Padangusthasana with a block giving a more intense stretch to the quads and psoas. These are synergists muscle groups working together that will bring a refreshing feeling of rejuvenation and energy to the entire body. Using a yoga strap will allow any student to find their range of motion without strain and eliminate that element of fear.
Taking these stretches to another level by adding other leg stretches with the block. The block is placed under the sacrum and Supta Padangusthasana is repeated but the focus is now on the quads and the psoas muscles.
As students seek more practice they can add other leg stretches. If students want to increase timings by 2 minutes each variation they can increase home practice to 10 minutes.
People have busy lives, but they also want to feel the independence to incorporate the classroom experience at home. This is a way that inspires without pressure, and leads them on a path of choice, freedom and self-exploration.

One of my teachers, Martyn Jackson, would tell us that the  best time to begin yoga is in your forties.  That’s when children are grown and you have the time and maturity to devote to your practice.

In October I was graced with one of my favorite teaching experience in recent times.  I am teaching 2 classes a week to seniors.  I first wondered what is a senior, or who considers themselves a senior and what do they expect from yoga?  Most of my students are in their late 60’s and up with one woman in her 80’s. Most of them have not done yoga before, others have done some yoga but most of them are having revelations in ways that are completely new to their physical experience.

Yoga therapeutics from years of studying Iyengar yoga, and more recently Yoga Tune-up has given me great tools to break down movements and introduce seniors to various positions, which are not intimidating but amazing therapeutics. YTU also has given me a launching pad to find new and creative approaches to encourage all of my senior students to work within their limitations.

One woman started the first class with a big question  ”Do you think I should even try this since I have a so many limitations?”  I quickly responded,  ”You’ve already started, you are already doing it!”  She now comes to every class with a big smile and leaves even happier with astonishment at her progression. She told me during a balance practice that it was the first time she stood on one leg in 67 years since she had polio as a child.  This Thanksgiving, She spent all day on her feet cooking without pain. For her, and others like her, this was a profound, an empowering and encouraging shift. This is a woman who has only been doing Yoga for two months!

My 82 year old woman could not get down or up without help and said she would bring Champaign when she could get up on her own to celebrate.  I spent that entire class dissecting the mechanics of sitting and standing. From this One can understand the beauty of the classical “chair pose”/Utkatasana.  With all of the elements of Utkatasana dissected the understanding of what most of us take for granted becomes illuminated. One week later she demonstrated how she could now get up and down from a bolster on the ground.  She wouldn’t fork over the Champaign though until she could do it without the bolster. She was in tears as she was showing the class her progress.

What is that we want from yoga? At different times in  life, our needs and experiences changes. When I first started in my late teens and early 20’s I just wanted a great workout. 35 years later my practice and focus has profoundly changed.  For these seniors it is to regain their birthright of freedom to move; to be able to stand, sit, walk, and to lie down without pain.

The Sacrum (sacred bone) must move in and up in order to support the tower of the spine by setting into action the lumbar spine to find freedom and movement.  The hips have to flex to be able to sit down and get up.  The legs have to regain their strength to support the downward decent and the upward lift.  Calves and Achilles must be able to stretch so the legs can find the bounce in the step or the freedom to sit and stand rather then having to lean back and fall on whatever you are sitting upon. As one sits down the thoracic spine extends up to balance the extending slightly backward movement of the lumbar spine.

This is what I discovered teaching to seniors as well in my own practice as I am in the senior category. First let’s bring back the freedom of what our body was created to do.  Regaining  joint mobility, greater strength, recreating the natural curves of the spine, and cultivating greater awareness of deeper breathing.

Seniors are a wonderful group who benefit greatly from Yoga.  They are expressive, emotive, grateful, and very steady in attendance. For me it has been a rewarding, creative, and inventive teaching experience.

Do you know that just one yoga posture can change your whole day? Believe it or not, it can!

There are days when you only have five minutes to spare to do yoga.  That is enough time to find one pose that will refresh you to move through your day with more energy.

The freedom that comes with the study and practice of Hatha Yoga is the ultimate freedom of choice. This is why I prefer a practice that teaches postures rather then systems. Hatha yoga is a gift that belongs to no one system or school of thought. It is valuable information that when one knows the postures intimately, one can pick and choose depending on the match with the state of mind, moods, or needs.

If your practice is to follow a system that allows only a series of postures in a certain order, not diverting from that order and routine, there is little freedom of choice. If you hurt yourself and cannot do that particular practice, then you are missing out on the one gift that may very likely help you find relief and healing.

While you are studying and learning new postures and discovering the magic that is unique to that asana, move through the posture with your breath and you will fire up awareness and insight so you will remember that pose and it could serve you in the future. Notice the change in consciousness that any pose brings to your mind. That quality is unique to each group of postures being forward bends, backbends, twists, standing, balance or restorative.

If you had a stressful day at work, or you have been hit with something that is causing sadness, then yoga offers a way for you to change the extreme response to bring balance and calm back into your day.  If you have been on your feet all day and you are completely overwhelmed with too much to do, there is a forward bend that will take your mind to a different place of calm, or a backbend to energize or a twist to relieve the tension.

Never underestimate the power of one posture.  The choices of postures that are part of your practice are  tools for you to utilize, as you need. If it is a backbend that will pull you out of a deep sadness and open up your chest, helping to relieve your heavy heart, or a twist that will change your perspective on a situation; the power of that pose could be enough to change your day.

Because of your smile, you make life more beautiful.

Thich Nhat Hanh

A smile in any language is still a smile.

Years ago, I took a course in Taoist abdominal massage. The teachings from the master included the practice of smiling to each of your organs. Smile to the liver, the spleen, the kidneys, etc.

When I passed unassumingly by a mirror in my house and caught a glimpse of myself without a smile I was hit by the shocking revelation that I better smile! A smile can absolutely change the vibration, beauty, and energy of how you appear to others and how you feel within yourself. From my reflection I looked older, unhappy, and way too serious.

I decided to smile even when I wasn’t feeling like it. While I sat for meditation, I smiled. When I did an asana I could feel the tension in my face until I changed my expression with a smile. I brought my simple awareness to my class and asked my students to smile while in their posture. It immediately brought a playful easy and fun change to the classroom.

A smile will gain ten more years of life.

Chinese Proverb

How do women deal with aging? Facelifts, botox injections, skin peels, new injections of this and that. This will improve a face with less wrinkles but cannot hide the inner quality that is missing, no matter how much is paid for a great facelift, ultimately as you age your face will reflect outwardly what is going on with you from the inside.

As I am growing on my journey through life; Always with yoga by my side, I know that the true beauty that shows up in the later years of life will radiate from the light of happiness and peace that I have cultivated knowing that this is everlasting beauty. When Yoga and meditation started to show me how I could be thrown around like the wind, I realized that instead of focusing on the outside, I better start on the inside. Meditation offers me a key to see when my emotions are coloring my state of mind and hatha yoga allows me to shed tension from what might be causing unwanted stress that is always reflected in facial tensions.

While practicing Inverted postures such as Headstand, Shoulderstand, and Halasana you will notice how your facial muscles have to relax.  I can never tense my face while doing inversions and I love the image of increased blood flow, and turning all my facial muscles upward.

Yoga is a serious practice as is meditation, but it is a serious practice of fun, joy, lightness, and play. Like all aspects of your yoga practice, remember to smile. It’s free, it’s contagious, and if you do it long enough you will feel those weak facial muscles starting to tone.

After a 5-day stay in the amazing Sequoia’s I had a chance to rediscover, on another level, the essence of Yoga practice. Yoga means Harmony, union, and balance.  Doing Yoga in the vast expansion of Nature is the expression of absolute Union with a powerful force active in Life itself.

We can do yoga to keep the body looking strong and flexible, but what about yoga to rediscover the natural balance of life within our own body. How about remembering our relationship to nature and finding that natural potential movement and freedom we have within ourselves.

As I sat, watched and listened to the roaring creek by my campsite, I began to do yoga. I began breathing in a rhythm that is so easy to forget. Inhaling, exhaling. Inhale up the back and exhale down the front. This is our natural rhythm. Everything in nature moves in a rhythm of harmony. The sun rises in the east and sets in the west. The North Star stays in the northern sky.

We have our own rhythm of breathing, walking, sleeping, waking, and when the movement of breath is stuck, we shift from harmony to disharmony (disease).

Yoga brings us to harmony. Doing yoga out in nature connects us to the environment surrounding us. Doing the Tree pose in the midst of Giant Sequoias with their big feet reaching out and down into more earth-space, I remember to balance with my feet acutely alert to the earth below and body above. My arms reaching as high as the tallest branch and my breath inspiring the intelligence that is guiding me to more and more awaking movement and stillness.

I move to the large flat stones perfect for watching, listening and feeling the force that runs through me as it runs through the creek water. Twisting in the wind, untwisting the accumulation from stress of worry, concern, and just life when my breath becomes shallow and lost. The Twist opens my chest, lungs, heart and my breath can spiral up my spine. The potential to relive and release the burdens resting on my shoulders is as present as my breath is complete.

I choose a rock to lean back over to do backbends, feeling the buildup of tension in my shoulders. Realizing my shoulders were carrying the unnecessary load that backbends freed me from. My hands are rooting into the rock and my breath guiding me to open my chest and heart. The roots of my feet reaching deeper into the ground, so my upper spine and chest can open and expand, recovering more and more freedom.

So many of my students come into the yoga room and find the same spot where they feel they can do yoga. I like to shake it up and have them to move to a different spot. How can you feel free to practice anywhere if you consider one spot to be your one and only yoga space? Be free! Find anywhere to do yoga so that you will be able to feel free to find that true harmony with your surroundings anywhere. Yoga is part of Nature’s rhythm.  The Yoking together of our self to a higher self, manifested majestically within Nature.

Two months ago the rains in Los Angeles broke up my favorite daily pastime of late; my 90 minute hike up in the mountains very close to where I live. I thought that it would be a wonderful opportunity for me to stay home and do some yoga. I thought I would do a head and shoulderstand series. I decided to take on the session from my time in Australia with Martin Jackson. The session is a total of ONE HOUR. Now, let me begin by saying that this is not my usual Modus operandi. I have taken classes where I have had to hold head and shoulder stand for really long times, but other then an occasional 10 min headstand, my home practice of inversions has been very thin.    

To date it has now been day 59. I can honestly claim that this has been almost every day. But now I have decided to write about it. I think someone might be interested in it. At least it might stop me from talking about it with people who are definitely not interested. The bottom line is, I have become a yoga nerd. Truly I say this after much contemplation on it, hence the nerdiness of it all.

Now I am still hiking for 90 minutes almost every day, but I have now added an hour inversion with relaxation, which is now part of the project. But this is the only thing I talk about! I must do this just to see what happens. I am the lab experiment. Will my neck break? Will I use one blanket or two, or three? This is my introduction to allow myself a space to discuss the profound (in my opinion) changes, although subtle, that I have been experiencing daily from this practice.

Day 59 and the changes are constant, day to day. Although the changes are surprising on the physical level but a profound change, which, I can say, has extended beyond my headstand practice into my meditation practice. To be able to sustain the intensity from subtle movements that I have never had in these poses before as well as the mental tenacity to stay in the position with these adjustments demand total focus. Yoga. Excess thoughts are burdens. Baggage.

This intense practice has given me new insight into where I want to be when I meditate.  Isn’t that what yoga is about, to lead us to a calm state of mind? After more then thirty years of practice, another layer of the onion skin is pealing away.

Occasionally I will have a student tell me that they are moving and may not be able to come to class any more. Now,  I do understand that when you live in Los Angeles and with the idea of driving anywhere extra, It feels like an extra burden so you just say NO.  

Regardless, when it comes to Yoga classes that you love, I still don’t have much empathy. Usually the student isn’t moving across the country, state, or city. Usually it is simply to the next town 20 minutes away.

When I first started yoga, I wasn’t teaching, I wouldn’t say that I was yet a dedicated student with any great ambition, I just knew That I loved yoga, I loved the studio and the gifted teachers with whom I was graced to meet and study.  I knew instinctively, with a primal familiarity that I had met something in my life that was introducing me to me.

When I first started yoga I lived far away from the studio where I wanted to study yoga.  I didn’t have a car at the time so I would take a bus 2 hours into Los Angeles  to take the yoga classes that I wanted. Years later, When I lived in Ireland, I knew that I wanted to experience another course with my teacher who lived in Australia, so I flew from Dublin to Sydney Australia. I also traveled to Italy twice to study with a teacher I highly respected. Once when I lived in Dublin, and again when I lived in NYC.

My journey through yoga has guided me in directions that I simply followed without reservation and I was ruthless with my desire to live out my fantasy and satisfy my yoga curiosity no matter where I had to travel to meet it.

These days there are yoga schools on every block. If a student of yoga finds a teacher that makes most sense to their experience both physical and mental/emotional, I would suggest to respect that awareness. That relationship as long as there is growth can take one student very far in their practice.

The dedication as a student that you give to your practice of yoga and the respect you give to your teacher is something that is overlooked in our society today.  Teachers of all kinds are a dime a dozen , but if you find a teacher that you feel is really great, stick with them.  Experience, insight, sensitivity, and generosity are rare and high qualities to find in a yoga teacher.

If it is only a neighborhood move, don’t be quick to discard your class for the sake of convenience.  The drive home after a great, inspiring Yoga class with a great teacher will be transformed to a stressless, timeless part of your day with little concern for those few extra miles of driving time.

There are eight installments from my interview.  I have portioned them in segments.  I sincerely hope that students, teachers and those who are simply curious and inspired will appreciate the sincerity and candid vision from what Martyn says, sees and reveals about himself and his experience with his teacher, his students, and his life.

Shelley Piser

Shelley Piser: How do you feel about the way the The Iyengar associations are moving?

Martyn Jackson: I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all. They are putting themselves up as superiors. You can boost Mr. Iyengar because if you felt that you got something from him and you want to return your love and your affection, but I believe that the majority of Iyengar teachers have ruined his reputation. I don’t think, well I know Iyengar is not like what you read about him. I mean I spent hours and hours a day and I’ve spent months at a time with him. I know he’s changed as a person. God, everybody changes, but the changes are more from the pupils.

It was like Rajneesh. Rajneesh was a wonderful guy, but it was his pupils that went pseudo and that’s one thing that you’ve got to watch. That’s why Mr. Iyengar basically is a loner. He’s an individual but it was his pupils who tried to twist him into different paths and then they misrepresent what he says.

SP: More about the controversy that you have in relationship to the other associations. Would it be because of your teaching method?

MJ: I think so. Yes. Because I am fairly brash and very outspoken. Where I refuse to become a pseudo teacher, I refuse to buy my pupils. If I don’t have a pupil I thank God then I’ve got time to work on my own. If I’ve got a pupil, I’ll teach that person like I’ve got a class. I will treat that person and give him or her everything; where other teachers will, if they get one or two pupils, they’ll say, “I don’t think it’s enough, you know it’s not worth having a class.” I don’t do that and I get very angry, I am very strong. If somebody is devoted enough to come to class, you should be, again, ready there to take them. And there are so many teachers that talk about yoga but they don’t practice.

I know, I have been with a lot of yogis; I’ve been with a tremendous amount of Yogis over 30 years. And I don’t like their philosophies at all because they don’t practice what they preach. They are not really honest with their pupils at all. They will sometimes mislead them. I think when Mr. Iyengar left his small abode in Saba shier and built the huge complex that he’s got now, I think that was the beginning of the deterioration of Mr. Iyengar. Because I felt that he was the personality that should have dealt with one or two people at a time but he would have spread Yoga as I see yoga, as I experience what Yoga is about. Like he says, there are three types of yoga. There is Yoga Yoga, which is he feels, or, I feel is the right yoga where you have to work hard; you have to penetrate to understand the truth. But the others will work superficially. They are frightened to work their pupils hard; because they are frightened they are going to lose them.

SP: In the Iyengar circles, you have a reputation of being very controversial. Why is that, do you feel?

MJ: Because I want to be different. I refuse to be a pea in the pod like the others. I want to set out to be something different, I want to be ME. I don’t want to be Mr. Iyengar. I don’t want to be Rajneesh, I don’t want to be anyone. I want to be Martyn Jackson. I’m not going to write any books saying this is the Martyn Jackson method like there are so many people writing books on yoga saying, ‘It’s this method, it’s my method because I think it’s the best.’

All we are doing is participating in something that is already there and we’ve reached that level of understanding that we feel we can participate. But it’s not MINE.  It’s only because I’ve reached a level of understanding that, “Wow, this is good!” for me but not necessarily for other people.

©shelley piser 2009

Shelley Piser: How do you imagine the next decade, the next 10 years for yourself?

Martyn Jackson: The next 10 years, when I finish this teacher’s course, I’m going to have about a months rest. I’ll spend with my son and daughter and I’ll start by practice gradually, intelligently. I’m not going to start going into it with brute force, I’m not going to go into it saying, “right Martyn, you’re going to be the best again.” That doesn’t suit me anymore. Once upon a time I wanted to be the best and that doesn’t pay. Being the best is just another phase in your life, you know. Because there is always somebody that are going to be better. But,a all you’ve got to do is to work to the best of your ability. You’ve got to pursue, you’ve got to open up areas in your body that you haven’t visited before and you must observe them and you must be thankful for what you can do at this moment and just be honest with it. There must be integrity in everything you do.

I picture the body as the dwelling house of the Lord. And that He’s there all of the time. This energy, what people call G- O -D? It’s there all the time. You must always be cleansing that temple, the body. You must pursue it; you must be honest with it. You must penetrate it so that you can really understand the truth. Because when you understand the truth you understand yourself. And this is what I feel. This is what I feel that I don’t want to be a pseudo person, I want to be a person that shines like a knight in armor, and I want to be a person that is a Godly person; an honest person. I want to have the utmost integrity.

SP: Do you feel that you are still striving for that?

MJ: Yes, definitely. At the moment I’m like fighting off a lot of my old pupils because they seemingly feel a lot for me, which I believe that they do too. I sense that they are protected towards me and that’s why they protect me in such a way that they won’t allow me to do this they won’t allow me to do that. They encourage me to take more time off. I feel that tremendously, but that’s got to break away to go away. I will be leaving the school eventually and just starting something quietly on my own again. Just very quietly. I am going to be more selective with pupils now. Like if you were around, I would ask you to work six months with me, or if you wanted to stay, I would encourage you to stay. Because I think, I have observed you for a long time and you’ve got the potential of really going out there and having people. You can cut yourself off. You can become an individual. If you’ve got somebody really serious, you could work well. Physically you’re ok, you can do the asanas, but, I’ve like to get a better understanding with you that I want to bring your soul consciousness. It’s there, I mean, it shows, It’s there, but there is something a little forlorn about you and there is something a little… Like there is loneliness there that you don’t really understand and this is holding you back. But I feel that it is a learning stage that you are learning but it’s slow, you are not, I don’t know, I sense a lot of fear in you sometimes. But you’ve got a lot of potential if it’s guided properly. That is the sort of teachers that I want. I want teachers, not because I teach them; not because I’ve trained them. But, because I’ve been allowed to participate in their growing, that’s what I like and I’d like to be more selective now because there are a lot of young teachers out there now. You know if they work well and devotionally they’ll make quite good guides

©shelley piser 2009