So, your joints hurt (tell me about it). Not good. The discomfort starts limiting your mobility. Worse. You start feeling tense, perhaps even scared of moving one way or another. Even worse!
Then one day you decide you’ll no longer shovel snow, or open a jar of pickles or squat down and back up to grab something that dropped. Oh-oh. You have just begun the cycle of “shrinkage”.
Yes, as we age our bones and muscles lose mass. We weaken. But – FACT – we actually can do things to control how much and how fast.
Some very good news for the over-50 crowd is that health professionals are focusing more on the older body and what can work to BUILD vitality, no matter what your birth year. More focus on GROWTH, less on DETERIORATION.
You’re not over the hill. There is no hill. There IS a path, and you’re just further along it.
Modern western medicine is starting to look way more closely at complementary modalities, such as Gentle Hatha Yoga, Qi Gong, Somatics and the Feldenkrais method – to name just a few.
Complimentary in the sense of working WITH your current regime or health advice.
These approaches respect individual physiques as they are; no over-idealized youth fixation. They don’t expect you to do the splits or bend like a pretzel.
Here’s what these modalities have in common, and why they work well with most older bodies.
- They put a PREMIUM ON CALMING the central nervous system. You begin from a place of ease.
- They start with STABILITY; a secure connection to the ground beneath you.
- They AVOID EXTREMES that would take the body into pain. In other words, they go small.
- They assume that YOU ARE A WHOLE PERSON, with talents and strengths. You are not just your sore hip or your swollen knee and you have resources.
- They’re NOT “ONE AND DONE”. They are processes meant to improve ordinary daily life.
And bonus – They are pleasurable!
Here’s a link to a video you might enjoy. From a complimentary modality known as The Feldenkrais Method.
Notice how simple the movements are, how small in range, how slow the pace. These are moves I use in my own classes – easy pathways toward greater ease and fluidity.
Enjoy!
