Yoga: The Fountain Of Youth

by: Jane Pahr

Recently I’ve had the strange experience of being told I’m an inspiration, ‘doing Yoga as I do ‘at my age’. Mostly I just feel like ‘me’, not my age. Yoga is and has been so much a part of my life’s journey , including all the changes and challenges of being in a body. I’m stronger than ever finding that it’s easy to do challenging poses when rather than moving through resistance, you move from the inner core.I’ve been teaching yoga over half my life. What and how I teach has changed, transformed and come back to basics.

“Inversion reverses the aging process” I joke teaching an Introduction to Yoga Class. “Of course, that doesn't mean you won't get lines on your face. Sorry.” Yoga keeps the body supple, the nervous system functioning and the mind growing as practice deepens and changes over the years. Having started with a flexible body, strength was the first edge of awareness. Then came learning to soften within the strength giving up some of the hyper-flexibility that made for a good show but not much awareness. A flexible body can often mask a rigid mind with an appearance of openness. I still love back bends but as so many before me have noted, it now takes longer to move into urdva dhanurasana, wheel, and I've less interest in jumping from pose to pose even though it can be fun sometimes. Yoga is hard work without effort. Effort is always ego and gets in the way, trying to get it right rather than just doing the pose, being in the moment. I must admit, that there was a certain subtle edge of ego when I spoke of Yoga keeping us young. With my small stature and freckled pixie face I’d always looked far younger than I was. However, there comes a time when even pixies with their long lives begin to age.

Last saturday I got up very early to drive to Padua to teach two seminars, the morning with children in the third grade then afternoon with adults, organized by a friend/yoga teacher Carla. The children were vibrant and fun,. Towards the end we sat face to face in couples to ‘observe’ My ‘mirror’ a little girl sat intently studying my face.

“Hai tante rughe,” she said You've got lots of wrinkles.

I took it in good grace. “Hmm, dici? Really,” I replied. An important part of this process is observe without judgement so I need to reflect back the same.

“Si, tante. E i denti... and your teeth?” she went on.

“What about my teeth?” I asked still smiling.

“Sono i tuoi? Are they yours?”

At this point my I was a bit perplexed by the question. Si, sono i miei . Perche ? Why?”

“Perche i vechi mettano i denti fuori... because oldpeople take out their teeth.”

While I knew to her young eyes I must appear old, this was a bit over the top for me. “Pensi che io sono abastanza vechia per metter i denti fuori? Do you think I'm that old?” She considered intenly before responding,“Si,” and going on to ask,”Quanti ani hai? How old are you?”

At this point the teacher of the elementary class overheard ( you know teachers have exray ears). “Mai, chiedi una senora quanti anni! Never ask a lady her age.” Though generally I prefer that ‘teachers’ stay out of the room or enter into the process as particpants, this time I was grateful for her ‘observation!’

In the afternoon at a certain point I shared it with the seminar, all women, and said I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

“Fa ridere...Laugh!”, one of the ladies said and we all did.


I'm reminded of a Zen story. A man sits in meditation on his serene face as he feels his spirot soaring young and free. Then he opens his eyes, looks in the mirror.. "Who is that old man?” he asks. "Surely not me." Solution. Don’t look for yourself in a mirror Easy to say, hard to do. We look. We see ourselves reflected in so many ways and practically all the images of beauty for women are young. Still I thought I’d outgrown that and find myself surprised and a little embarrassed by the amount of emotion surrounding this issue of my face. Tears of betrayal? Vanity? Fear? The body is holding up pretty well and, as of yet, I have only a few gray hairs but the identification with the face as identity goes deeper than this shallow reflection. It seems to have something to do with a more profound sense of self-acceptance, moving away from the surface into the center. We talk of growing old gracefully but sometimes it's a bumpy ride.

In "The Portrait of Dorian Grey" by O'Henry, he never ages until one day his portrait is discovered hidden in his attic. He'd made a bargain with the devil which once exposed was null; he began to crack and disintegrate. I wonder if this clinging to youth is a bargain with the devil. And what this has to do with yoga other than the fact that I've practiced and taught for many years? Darned if I know. Guess it's just the human part showing. But isn't that what yoga is all about at some level, coming to terms with our humanity, our aging, dying daily to be reborn, renewed, reawakening to find not some far off paradise but the joy of existence here and now, in and through this body of energy, light and matter. So, if what we see is an optical illusion, and matter really isn't real, what the heck if it changes form, cracks or sags as long as the fountain is still flowing?

Breathe in breathe out, every breath's a prayer. It’s the attachment that causes pain. I am here; will I cease to exist when this body does? Am I so attached to this form? If I look and truly see, what will I find? Vanda Scaravelli has become a beacon in the yoga world, her image one of mature serenity. Frank White, who started Yoga in his sixties became a beacon to the new generation. A little eighty year old man, shaved head, face a map of battles won and lost whose energy belied the years he'd often pop into an Intro Class to announce, "She was my first teacher. When I came, I couldn't bend farther than this, "shoulders hunch as his hands hover about mid thigh in a painful-looking demonstration of caving in then he dropped into an effortless Uttanasana, forward fold, jumped back to Chatturunga, a kind of push-up then sprang back up and said with a wave and a grin, “Have fun”.

Giving up that grandiosity of youth while glorying in the experience of life and laughing more at one's own foibles. Showing up not showing off. I remember once meeting Patabi jois. Going to spend an evening with him and his assistant, Chuck, I was surprised to find them watching a video of Terminator 2. I screamed while he burst into the same delighted laughter each time the violence on the screen erupted that I'd heard in class. My yoga training had been primarily Iyengar- based with its aura of seriousness, and for many of us control, as though getting the position right all else will follow.

Not long ago a well known teacher, truly an example of enthusiasm and the beauty of yoga came to Italy to do a workshop. She asked me how old I was as we sweated through a strong practice in the heat of the Tuscan summer.


“Fifty five,”I replied without shame.

Her face cracked into a big smile, “I bow to you.”

I think I’m going to start a series called “Yoga Through the Ages.” When you soften and move from the inside out there is a different kind of strength and more power. Feeling in my prime except that I now must wear glasses to read. a few days ago I them on and was shocked to see the network of lines that seem to have appeared overnight. Not that I hadn’t noticed them coming, just that I chose not to read that particular book. I fight the battle with anti-wrinkle cremes but never can quite bring myself to buy the most expensive ones or do more than smear some on my face and neck sporadically. I love the outdoors too much to stay out of the sun and though I try to remember sun screen I don't always use it. Perhaps it's a sense of invincibility, knowing the effects of exposure but ignoring them as though they were true for others but not me. Perhaps, I'd become accustomed to looking but not seeing.

There are so many things I cannot control and must accept, doing what I can. Do Yoga. I'm once again reminded my first teacher, Chad Hamrin, counseled when I moaned, "I can do the positions but my life is a mess. What should I do?" In that sage teacher voice hevoice he replied, "Don't do anything. Do Yoga." I increased my asana practice only later coming to understand that doing yoga meant more than the physical act of doing the poses. Still, it's not a bad place to start dealing with what you can see, touch and feel. I have this image of practice as a gentle unfolding but sometimes it's a violent confronting of my belief system, once again showing me I have one which stands in the way of my experience of union. We all come forth from that deep pool of being into form and at a certain point return. Evolution as an image not literal but figurative shows that the form keeps changing but life continues so that we re-experience that evolution to grow, and grow-up? George Feuerstein calls it "Spiritual Alchemy: The Philosophy and Practice of Hatha Yoga". He also calls it the "walking the razor's edge."

I sometimes feel that the new generation has taken over the Yoga world as it's becoming a business rather than an art. I admit to some moments of envy as I see pictures pictures splashed across the pages of Yoga Journal and read articles full of quotes from mudra to sutra written by those born about the time I began practicing yoga. Oh, there are a few from my generation but we're fading in the new fad. I wonder what will happen as they grow older? How many generations have asked the same question?

They say wisdom comes not to the young or to those who cling to the ways of the past and beauty is, in fact, in the eyes of the beholder. To be a fountain in whose pool others are reflected there is perhaps less need of less need of Narcissus and more Persephone, Shakti, Devi, Kali: you tell me. Lao Tse says, "theThe nameless cannot be named by that which has a name." So, I search for the end to this while continually finding a new beginning.

A few years ago I moved to Italy and became "signora". It still shocks me every time I hear, "Signora." But really, would I want to be a Signorina forever? Faccio fattica di tenere il bene passato! Meglio essere quello che chi sei. Impossible to translate accurately. It’s something like... What a lot of work holding on to the past and missing the present with the gifts of time. Better to be who you are ! It's all a process. I've found that it has been the things I've given up rather than those acquired which brought me peace. I seldom use mirrors in Yoga practice but they can be helpful in alignment . So, if the mirror tells me, “Hai tante rughe...” I can look back crack a smile.

Om Shanti. Namaste.