Yogis bond, stay active in chair yoga class
Cindy Trimble, of South Ogden, hangs her head and arms over her chair to stretch her back and neck on Tuesday, Dec. 6, during the weekly Chair Yoga class at the Eccles Community Art Center in Ogden.
Allison Berlin leads her weekly Chair Yoga class at the Eccles Community Art Center in Ogden on Tuesday, Dec. 6.
Allison Berlin leads her weekly Chair Yoga class at the Eccles Community Art Center in Ogden on Tuesday, Dec. 6.
Allison Berlin, left, leads her weekly Chair Yoga class at the Eccles Community Art Center in Ogden on Tuesday, Dec. 6.
Tamra Dursteler, of Ogden, wraps her arms around her body to stretch during the weekly Chair Yoga class at the Eccles Community Art Center in Ogden on Tuesday, Dec. 6.
Allison Berlin leads her weekly Chair Yoga class at the Eccles Community Art Center in Ogden on Tuesday, Dec. 6.
Ruth Ann Morrill, of Roy, holds the back of her chair as she stretches her back out during the weekly Chair Yoga class at the Eccles Community Art Center in Ogden on Tuesday, Dec. 6.
OGDEN — Yoga instructor Allison Berlin said there was a time when she thought the older people of the world weren’t stressed out.
Then she started working with a group of older women, teaching a once-weekly chair yoga class.
“You’re still worrying about your kids, or grandkids, or whatever, and so they have a certain amount of stress,” Berlin said. “To be able to help them with that, help them be in the moment, it’s great.”
Berlin has about 15 years of experience teaching yoga. She was teaching Gentle Movement Yoga in the Pleasant Valley Library when she noticed some of her yogis were struggling with the wide range of motion required, balance and being on their knees.
That’s when she decided to incorporate a chair.
“I just noticed that was something they kind of needed,” she said.
Now, the classes are in Eccles Community Art Center’s Performing Arts Building and on a recent Tuesday, eight ladies were in attendance.
Berlin coached the group through slow, controlled movements with lots of breathing, as soft music played through a speaker.
“Check in with yourself,” she said. “See what’s happening in this moment and how you’re feeling.”
Tamra Dursteler, 75, said she attends the class because it keeps her grounded and flexible so she can play pickleball and garden.
“If I don’t come for a couple of weeks, I get stiff,” she said.
BRIANA SCROGGINS/Standard-Examiner
Instructor Allison Berlin rubs essential oil on the neck of Tamra Dursteler, of Ogden, during the weekly Chair Yoga class at the Eccles Community Art Center in Ogden on Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2016.
Margaret Large, 67, compared the class to church.
“I have tried the regular yoga, but I only lasted like one class,” she said. “It’s too hard.”
Berlin has her class sit on chairs for most of the hourlong class, doing arm, leg and torso stretches. The class also uses the chairs for balance during poses that require standing.
“I love it,” Berlin said. “Every yoga is amazing to teach, I feel really blessed, but there is a different energy here. There’s a gratitude and an appreciation.”
Cindy Trimble, 63, has vertigo and said going to yoga has helped with her balance.
BRIANA SCROGGINS/Standard-Examiner
Cindy Trimble, of South Ogden, stretches during the weekly Chair Yoga class at the Eccles Community Art Center in Ogden on Tuesday, Dec. 6.
“It’s calming and soothing and you honor yourself when you do it, so that’s fun,” she said. “It’s always fun to spend a little time with yourself, or on yourself.”
Some research backs up how the ladies felt.
A study published in a 2015 volume of Aging and Mental Health found yoga helps people 60 years old and older battle depression and anxiety.
Worldwide, one in three women over age 50 will experience an osteoporosis fracture, according to the International Osteoporosis Foundation, but a small pilot study conducted by Dr. Loren Fishman, medical director of Manhattan Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, found 10 minutes of yoga each day increases bone mineral density with no injury.
The Washington Post also reported Gale Greendale, a professor of medicine and gerontology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, found in a 2009 study that yoga can decrease a curving of the spine called hyperkyphosis.
But for Large, the reason she practices chair yoga is simple.
“It’s an hour of ‘ah,’ ” she said, smiling.
Those who are interested in attending Berlin’s chair yoga class should contact the Eccles Community Art Center at 801-392-6935. Individual classes are $8 for members and $11 for nonmembers; a pass for eight classes is $56 for members, $72 for nonmembers.
Contact education reporter Anna Burleson at aburleson@standard.net. Follow her on Twitter at @AnnagatorB or like her on Facebook at Facebook.com/BurlesonReports.