Yoga Girl

This is Susan... my star student.

She's 62 and has osteoporosis.

For the past year and a half, we have worked religiously twice a week to help her regain range of motion, loosen painful muscles, restore balance and focus.

It's working.

We thought that today we would take some pictures of her favorite poses...

or the poses in which she feels she has made the most progress.

She is an amazing artist... (thus the mats and frames).

Tension in her shoulders makes some poses challenging. We always take time to focus on her shoulders and found that the yoga ball is the greatest shoulder opener... for her that is.

Dancer is her fave. She loves how graceful it looks.

When I first started working with her, there seemed to be a stiffness in her body...

and emotions.

I have used lots of spine openers to find that "flow and bend" we are looking for.

I would normally have her looking over her left shoulder in this twist, but she looked so pretty like this... so I left it.

When we first started doing Upward facing dog, she had virtually no bend in her back.

It was a year into our practice together that I suggested the "Head Stand". She had never given it a thought before because she just didn't think she could do it. Well... she could, and she giggled the whole time at how much easier it was than she expected.

In "Pigeon", she insists on her back leg being straight instead of knee bent to the side. She likes the challenge and has made great progress with it.

In the beginning she couldn't hold her upper body up like this. We always went as far up as we could and then straight into forward fold. Today she can hold this pose for quite a while.

I've had so many older women say they can't do yoga. It just isn't the truth. ANYONE can do yoga. I would challenge anyone who thinks they can't do it to take at least 2 yoga classes.... then they can decide.

Courtney