How Yoga Makes You Feel 20 Years Younger
This month yoga master Maryann Parker will share her yoga story. Maryann, 75, has been teaching yoga for 42 years in the Minneapolis metro area. She has been my teacher for 20 years.
I’m new to Shannon’s blog and very excited to share my many years of yoga experience with you.
I was studying yoga philosophy in college and attending a meditation class at the time I found a “hatha” yoga teacher. Hatha is called the physical path to self-realization.
I was sitting on the floor following a set of “postures” and thinking, what is this possibly going to do for me? I’m short (5 foot, 2 ½ inches) and have always had the tendency to look a bit squatty. Could this help me lose weight and be thinner? I didn’t think so. But since I was born with congenital knee problems, I was unable to do other conventional forms of exercise – so I was “stuck” with yoga.
In my town, Minneapolis, in the early 70s, we had a meditation center that emphasized “joints and glands”. I dutifully took those classes for seven years and then discovered Iyengar yoga. This is a vigorous style that can make you drop in exhaustion. The combination of these two styles brought me to this body at 75 – strong, flexible, and healthy, inside and out. Here’s why:
Joints and glands: The poses I do squeeze and soak your internal organs, rejuvenating them. Your thyroid gland will give you a high-functioning metabolism, keeping you at your perfect weight – no pills or diets, and no stress. Weight loss, if you need it, made easy.
Iyengar yoga: Poses stretch and strengthen your body at the same time. These challenging poses work all parts of your body, even the tiny micro-muscles you never knew you had. Yes, body sculpting. The balancing poses will keep you from falls as you age, and the restorative poses rest that all-too-active brain.
Check me out: 75 is the new 55. We can all have it, with yoga! :)
Maryann Parker
4517 Moorland Avenue
Edina, MN 55424
952-927-9380
