yogini aspirational
Top 5 Reasons to Do Yoga
You're not stretching for today—you're rehearsing for your 80-year-old self.
Your mat never cares how late you are, only that you showed up.
Some days you balance. Some days you wobble. Both count.
It's one of the few places where doing less often teaches you more.
You leave standing a little taller than when you arrived.
I call myself yogini aspirational. Every few years I fall completely in love with yoga again. First it was Iyengar classes above The Marsh theatre on Valencia Street in San Francisco. Then the "new" gym at UCSF Bakar Fitness with a legendary Iyengar teacher who had once been a dancer. Every time I return to a practice, I remember the same thing:
There is something about arriving on my mat. No matter what kind of day I've had, once my feet touch it, I feel like I'm home. Like I can reset. Like I can breathe.
These days, when I'm not sweating through '80s playlists in my Active Adults strength class—where the average age hovers around 70—I'm usually on a yoga mat, quietly marveling at people fifteen and twenty years older than me. I'm 58. They're planking. Holding side balances. Moving from Downward Dog to Warrior like gravity negotiated a separate contract with them.
I really want to be these people one day. Again...yogini aspirational. And I keep wondering: If I come a few times a week now, will I be able to do yoga in my seventies? My eighties?
I usually claim the back corner. Glasses off, so no one can really see me (or so I tell myself). Hot yoga is still my favorite, but lately I've fallen for a Yin class. We begin standing, rolling a tennis ball under each foot while our teacher talks about fascia, the liver, the gut, the spine, the strange interconnectedness of everything.
It's winter here in Melbourne. The gym is only a short, flat bike ride away, but by the time I've layered on six pieces of clothing, fluorescent jacket, gloves, helmet, and enough reflective gear to guide airplanes, I look like the biggest '80s dork in Australia. Actually, the biggest dork anywhere. Which, if you've met me, is pretty much on brand.
The wind whips in from the Southern Ocean. Some mornings I arrive soaked and head straight for the locker room so I don't drip all over the yoga studio floor. My bike chain rusts every July from the salty air. Still...I go and touch the mat.
One morning I was late. Someone had already taken my favorite back-corner spot. My personal nightmare. I had to set up right near the front, next to a woman I'd noticed before in both yoga and Feldenkrais. Without my glasses, she became my unofficial instructor. She moved with such ease—balancing on her bolster, twisting effortlessly, completely at home in her body. After class I introduced myself.
Me: Do you mind if I ask you how long you've been doing yoga?
Woman: Since I was 30 years old.
A pause. Then she smiled.
Woman: Oh... I guess that's almost fifty years!
Me: Wow. You're a legend.
(Australians use "legend" differently. It doesn't necessarily mean famous. It means someone who's earned your admiration. And an 80-something year old who can move like THAT is definitely a legend!)
Woman: No... I just really like it.
Me: Well, you really know what you're doing. You're incredibly strong.
Woman: Have you done Pilates?
Me: I have. I've actually been thinking about starting again. What teachers do you like?
Woman: Here, let me show you something.
She walks me into the Pilates room. Demonstrating a plank on the Reformer. A lunge. Downward Dog. Then practically hopped off the bench. We talk teachers. Class times. Movement. Life.
Me: How long have you been doing Feldenkrais?
Woman: About fifteen years. Our teacher is world class. Very good for the brain. It really switches you on.
Me: How did you get into yoga?
Woman: Well... I've spent a lot of time in India over the years.
(Of course you have, I thought.)
I rode home smiling. Not because I'd finally mastered a pose, but because I'd met another version of who I hope to become. Every few months I seem to collect another person for my aging files. Someone who quietly reminds me that growing older doesn't have to mean growing smaller. Sometimes it just means showing up, touching the mat, and knowing that 30 years from now, I’ll still be doing (or trying to do) a plank like her.
anecdōtes:
Welcome to anecdōtes, our weekly writing prompt for those of us taking care of aging loved ones while simultaneously googling “am I having a midlife crisis or is this just Tuesday?”
This Week’s Writing Prompt:
What's one physical thing you do now — walking, dancing, yoga, sex, anything — that you hope you're still doing decades from now? What is it about that activity, specifically, that makes you feel most alive?
dōt.age exists because we’re all navigating the uncharted territory of caring for aging parents, and we need to share our stories.
This isn’t about being a writer—it’s about being human and sharing our messy, unfiltered truths of eldercare.
Each week, we’ll drop a prompt.
You write for five minutes.
No polish, no pressure—just permission to be gloriously imperfect.
If you want to share what you wrote, send it our way and we’ll share it on our Substack so we can all feel a little less alone in this wild mixtape that is our lives.
SEND TO: LNahmie@gmail.com
dōte.worthy
I’ve been reading about chair yoga. how cool!
Chair Yoga for Seniors: A Gentle Path to Strength and Flexibility
Seven chair yoga poses from healthline
Sabrina Gatt shares her powerful story of yoga here and where I learned about centenerian yoga instructor Charlotte Chopin.
In this episode of How’s Your Boomer Laura House discusses movement and mobility and how it is critical to aging well with her yoga teacher Jyll Hubbard-Salk founder of Urban Asanas in Brooklyn.