"Am I too old to start doing yoga? What if I have physical limitations?" Yoga Vlog Q and A

Transcript

[Music] hello everyone welcome to yoga upload I'm Maris Alber today's question comes from the David fabos on Instagram his question is can someone be too old to start doing yoga like with physical limitations all right that's a two-part question first let's deal with the age no one is never too old to start doing yoga no matter what the age we all start out as beginners and these days anyway there are classes for like all ages there's mom and baby yoga yoga for kids yoga for teens yoga for seniors and everything in between so the key really is to find a teacher a class or a style of yoga that suits your needs if you're a beginner no matter what age you are you can go to like a gentle class or a Basics class yoga for beginners class and a skilled teacher should be able to help you learn the foundation for your yoga practice to keep you safe in the poses to modify the poses to help you out I want to show you this um teacher she's the oldest living yoga teacher T poran Lynch I hope I'm saying her name right and she is I think 97 or 98 years old right now you know Still rocking it traveling the world teaching yoga teaching workshops so it just goes to show um what people are capable of you can start a yoga practice you can keep teaching and keep practicing at any age now as for the physical limitations um first of all the limitations might be real disability or it might just be perceived limitations on our part um but either way yes you can practice with physical limitations what what you see when you're scrolling through your Facebook feed or your Instagram feed you see all the fancy acrobatic poses I got to tell you that is not a true reflection of what goes on in majority of yoga classes your practice doesn't have to look like that it doesn't have to be like that we're all different and we all have different needs we all have different preferences so um whether you have any limitations or not your practice is just going to be different from the person next to you so again if you're a beginner it's helpful to go to um a gentle or a beginnner yoga class restorative yoga is not just good for stress relief and relaxation but it can also help you while you're recovering from an injury and now to further drive home the point that anyone can do yoga no matter the physical limitation or disability um I want to show you these two very inspiring men that have have overcome a lot and are now um just big Inspirations to a lot of people first is Matthew Sanford and here he is in a wheelchair because he is paralyzed from the chest down and has been since um he was a young kid that didn't really stop him from from living his life and inspiring other people and now he's a yoga teacher and his students run the full spectrum you know people just like regular people and also people dealing with different disabilities so he teaches yoga in a way um that cater to all different types of students and for people with disabilities especially he's able to adapt the yoga practice he's able to modify the postures so he is a true inspiration and another man that I love for you to know about is Dan nans in 2004 he was in Iraq and because of an explosion he lost both of his legs he found yoga later on and just a few years ago he became a um Baptist yoga the teacher and also continues to inspire and motivate people to practice yoga especially veterans so I know these are two extreme exam examples and that's probably not what you meant the by your question but it does show you what human beings are are capable of it does show you what's possible so I hope that that answers your question and if you or anyone you know needs a little bit of a push to practice yoga they're hesitating because they um think they're not going to be able to do it because of Any physical limitations um please share these stories with them I will link everything in the description box below so you can find um information about Matthew Sanford and Dan Evans if you have any other questions you'd like me to answer write it in the comment section below I'd love to hear from you thank you so much for joining me today and I'll see you next time bye