My mother got her certification as a yoga teacher in 2008, at age 56. How cool is that?!
Although she first did yoga in the 70's and has been fit all her life, my mom only really started to practice Yoga seriously in her 50's. One of her main motivations was the back pain she experienced from her S-shaped scoliosis, which progressed to "moderate" in her 40's. As many others have found, the only thing that really relieved her pain was Yoga.
Mom started teaching yoga to others (including me!) at lunchtimes in the office, and her love for teaching grew from there. In 2008 she went to Rikishesh, India, and completed her teacher training with a Canadian-based Indian yogi.
My mom has an incredibly serene and grounded practice. She practices with such grace and focus, and seems to just fold effortlessly into a full paschimottanasana or upavista konasana. She believes in a personalised approach to Yoga practice and has been studying the harmony between Yoga and Ayurveda, looking at yoga sequences designed for particular doshas (I wrote a little about these a while back, as you can see here) or to balance the doshas. Some of her widsom I hope to share soon on this blog!!
Anyway, one afternoon on the beach we thought we'd take some partners yoga pictures! It was such a fun experience, so above are some of our best results. It was really hard to do some of the poses because of the slope of the beach and the uneven sand, so our poses are not exactly picture-perfect, but you can see the huge grins on our faces. (I think the one of Tree is really funny because my mom is actually about a foot taller than I am but she was standing on the slope below me so we look the same height). She also helped me practice my handstand in the open... See some successes and failures of that below! It was so helpful to have her guiding me... I worked on engaging my shoulders and my core more and felt pretty happy with the result - a freestanding handstand! Still so much work to do before I will be able to come up into it without first falling backwards... But I feel like I got a taste of how it will work!
I think it's a wonderful blessing that we both share a love for yoga... although possibly a curse for everyone else around us because we talk about it all the time!! :)
Namaste~
So cool! How awesome it is to share yoga with your mom! I'm trying not to be jealous...: )
ReplyDeleteThat is awesome! Yay for your mom and I love the partner yoga on the beach shots... :)
ReplyDeleteWow, you two. So great to see this. Brings back memories ... and is so cool!
ReplyDeleteso cool!! what a fantastic experience.
ReplyDeleteyour mom is awesome. I cannot believe the flexibility!
I think my dad was 55 or 56 when he qualified too. It is so awesome to have these connections with your parents.
ReplyDeleteYoga is probably the only thing that has helped my scoliosis as well - that and a very sympathetic chiropractor.
Such beautiful pictures!
What a blessing to have that connection with your mom! There are so many things that moms and daughters share, but that isn't one that you often come across...how wonderful for both of you!
ReplyDeleteThat is so great and I LOVE the pictures. I wish I had the same connection with my mother ~ must be fabulous!
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