"Aging is the inevitable reality of life (and, needless to say, better than the alternative). Although I’d been an advocate for accessible yoga basically since I started teaching a few years ago, I realized that the ability to rethink, reframe, and embody the positive aspects of aging was going to be equally essential if I want to keep advocating.

We live in a youth-obsessed, death-denying, death-defying culture. In addition to my Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube feeds screaming at me with images of youthful hypermobile yoga poses. They are also really screechy about face creams, push-up bras, miracle weight loss diet plans, and devices promising to rid me of my unsightly turkey neck. Lucky for me, advertisers understand that reversing gravity’s effect on my face, boobs, belly, and neck will finally give my life the meaning and purpose I’ve always longed for.

Women are subjected to a lifelong barrage of advertising aimed at our insecurities. Aging women are additionally assaulted with messages that we are losing value, so if we don’t respond, that loss will accelerate.

A Sustainable Yoga Practice Lasts a Lifetime  

I use my practice to feel better in my body and to feel better about who I am, not to lose weight, look younger, nail a Handstand (Adho Mukha Vrksasana), or accomplish anything other than health, self-understanding, and ease of movement. And that’s all I want to teach too.

The great thing about teaching yoga is that the older I get, the more studying I have under my belt, and the more experience I have, the more I have to share, the more people I can help, and the better I become at teaching. And I have lots of role models.

Sustainable Yoga Practice—and Teaching—Get Better with Age

Did you know that famed yoga teacher Indra Devi lived to be 102? She was one of the first women whom Krishnamacharya agreed to teach, and she became well-known in Hollywood in the 1940s and 1950s. She taught Greta Garbo, Eva Gabor, Yul Brenner, and Marilyn Monroe.

Geeta Iyengar taught yoga most of her adult life until she died in her 70s. As the oldest daughter of B.K.S. Iyengar, she carried on his lineage and specialized in yoga for women’s health. Then there are folks like Nischala Joy Devi, whose book The Secret Power of Yoga is a sweet and practical interpretation of the Yoga Sutras; Judith Hanson Lasater, who started teaching in 1971 and is still a tour de force.

There are so many of them. And they all got better with age.

No one wins the rat race. We will all go gently into that good night. But for older women yoga teachers, instead of raging against the dying of the light, we may want to consider raging against the sexism and ageism that tells us to fade away quietly. We may wish, instead, to lay the foundation of a healthier yoga world for the women teachers who will come after us.

The second half or third of life is the best time to step into wisdom, knowledge, authority, service, and power. Yoga is not about how you look, it’s about how you feel. And if you are doing sustainable yoga practice as you age, you will feel “mahvelous.”

Kristine Kaoverii Weber, MA, C-IAYT, eRYT500, YACEP has been studying yoga and holistic healing for nearly 30 years advocating, speaking, and teaching about yoga since 1995, and training educators since 2003. **excerpts taken from YogaUOnline