This DVD shows seniors how to do
yoga. Susan Winter Ward leads two men and two women of varying ages in a
relatively gentle set of exercises aimed at beginners. It lasts about 50
minutes, and is nearly all done sitting or kneeling on the floor, so there are
no difficult stretches putting strain on the knees or neck. There’s a brief
period of relaxation at the end. Given the health benefits of yoga and the
need for most people to get more exercise, this seems a helpful DVD. It is
especially reassuring to see real people do yoga and have the same sorts of
difficulties in reaching positions that you yourself have, and the people in this
DVD clearly have different levels of flexibility.

The studio is decorated with
flowing fabric with blue and purple background. The music is a light classical
meets new age, with lots of flutes and piano meandering without being too
catchy. Personally I found it rather insipid. Although the video was
originally made in 1994 and has been recently released on DVD, it felt liked it
belonged in the 1970s. There’s often a tendency to think that seniors like
everything to be bland and boring, but experience and common sense show that
this would be a mistake. However, the decoration of the set and the music are
unobtrusive and so can be easily ignored.

A concern one might have about
seniors using a DVD to learn yoga is that they will get little guidance about
what to do if they already have health problems and find even the simplest
stretches difficult. For example, some people find it very difficult to lie
flat on a yoga mat without pain. Other people have difficulty getting their
bodies up from the ground once they are down. There’s not much guidance here
for people with those sorts of problems, aside from not pushing your body too
far and staying in your range of comfort. Therefore, it would probably be best
for people to check out a yoga class first and get advice from an expert, and
then once they feel comfortable with the basic yoga approach and are able to
start the exercises, then to start using this DVD. Once they have mastered all
the moves in this one, there are two others in the series that present more
challenging positions.

The DVD plays just like a video,
and has no chapters or extras.

© 2005 Christian Perring. All
rights reserved.

Link: Yoga for
the Young at Heart site

Christian Perring, Ph.D., is
Chair of the Philosophy Department at Dowling College, Long Island, and editor
of Metapsychology Online Review.  His main research is on philosophical
issues in medicine, psychiatry and psychology.

Categories: SelfHelp, Movies