The purpose of this meditation is to free the joints and send yourself kind messages about your body.

Relax the body in a position that is comfortable for you. Feel the body just as it is now. Give yourself the gift of release, create no effort, force nothing and let the body just go.

Focus on the breath, make no changes to the breath just allow the body to breathe itself. Bring the breath and the body together moment by moment by following the breath with the minds’ eye. Feel your whole body breathing, the whole body alive. Give your mind permission to stay open and awake.

Imagine that you are walking through a beautiful estate garden. You see a path ahead and begin your journey. The path is covered with moss and you are barefoot. Squeeze the toes and imagine that you can feel the softness and coolness of the moss underfoot. Then release the toes and continue to walk down the path. With each step that you take, you open and close the toes and feel the moss rise up between the toes cooling them. Your knees and hips glide effortless as you softly walk making your way further down the path.

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There will be times when your senior yoga clients will come up to you and say, “I don’t feel like I’ve made any progress with yoga?” I love this question and have to help remind my students that they have made tremendous progress.

As the teacher, I can observe the nuances and changes that have occurred in my students over time. From their first child’s pose with their heads stacked on several blocks to their present calmness as their forehead touches the ground and from their first diaphragmatic breath in what may have been forty years, to the smooth, calm and silk like breath they employ today, I see how they have improved. But, being their witness isn’t the best tool for helping your students gauge their own progress.

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This week I arrived early to set up one of my senior yoga class. I positioned all the mats around the perimeter of the room, folded each blanket into a roll for a soft backbend, placed a block and strap near the mat and then left the room for ten minutes. When I returned, I found the clients had moved every single prop, unrolled their blankets, and were lying in Savasana.

As a teacher, we have to have an appreciation for where are students are on any given day. Usually when I intake a new client, I spend quality time getting a good sense of where they are physically, emotionally and mentally. Having a good sense of their physical, emotionally and mental capabilities allows me to work with the client from their starting point, not mine.

Each client in the room may be in the same posture, or hearing the same meditation, but the practice translates into twenty individual versions of their own experience.  So on this particular day, they were in Savasana. That’s where they wanted to be and that’s where I left them. As a teacher, we can help our students and ourselves grow by holding an appreciation for where they are.

You have the mats, the blocks, the straps and are ready to start your first senior yoga class.  But, before you open the doors consider how to optimize the experience for you and your client.   With some upfront planning, you can create a yoga program that will keep them engaged and achieving their optimal health goals.   Here are some tips to ponder and maybe incorporate into a program you are already running.

1. Focus on the comfort and safety of the client.

2. Have a sense of appreciation for where your clients are.

3. Help them witness their own progress.

4. Be in touch with their disabilities.

5. Be open to their instinctive nature. They will ask you WHY?.

6. Allow clients to become active participants in their own well being

7. Offer them multiple sensory learning opportunities.

8. Help them create new mind body habits.

Over the next week, we will journey together as I explore in more depth some of these strategies for fostering a senior yoga program.