YOGA AND THE BODY ECLECTIC

Yoga and The Body Eclectic

I have become somewhat long in the tooth. I am amazed to realize that I have witnessed events on the planet that have taken place almost one hundred years ago. So it goes without saying that I can attest to significant changes that have occurred in our North American society. One of those things is how much more youthful we have become. We are now, more often, living healthy lives beyond three score and ten.

One of the reasons I have been struck by this is an appreciation of how different my life is compared with the one experienced by my parents. My father passed away at sixty-seven. He was still employed full-time when he died of a coronary. My mother passed away at eighty-nine, after some years of ill-health.

We have all heard the saying that seventy is the new fifty, or some such expression, extolling how people are living healthier and longer lives. Life expectancies have soared. Why is that? Is it the medical systems we have put in place, the new drugs, and the new medical procedures? Have we learned to eat better? We are always hearing about new health rules that seem to be the opposite of what we have been taught before.

I suppose some of these things have had an important impact. One thing I know for sure. The behavior I have as an eighty-five year old is much different than what we would have observed when I was young.

I am engaged in active physical activity at least five days out of every week that I am alive. At least three days of regular cardio and two sessions of yoga every week are in my regimen. I walk briskly down the sidewalk every day like a teen-ager. I do take the elevator, but sometimes it is the stairs. No contact sports, tennis or golf but I do a lot of walking. My body has learned to do things in my older age that previous generations gave up on too soon.

A case in point is the yoga. I do know that some people can bend themselves into a pretzel. I can’t do that. But I can sweat and strain to slowly undo the effect of years when I didn’t pay the attention to my body that all of us should. And an old body can learn, even if it does so much more slowly than one that has not yet got set in its ways for many years. We didn’t realize the price we were paying for our inactivity over the years.

What is very different is the whole atmosphere around adopting a healthy lifestyle. Everybody always wants to talk about their adventures in exercise of one sort or another. If you are doing nothing, you have absolutely nothing to say. There is peer social pressure to get with it. Do something! Anything! You owe it to your body!

In my day living a life of drink and debauchery had a sort of romantic appeal. That stuff was definitely on the outs once we reached the age of majority. Millennials of today like to have a good time but they are also pretty serious about getting on with it. And they all work out, or run or bike or do something physical.

That wouldn’t be true in the circles I inhabited when I was growing up. And we looked enviously at those who were living life with abandon. Regular exercise at a gym, forget about it! I myself still feel a little out of it that I don’t seem to have any dramatic vices. I always wonder if I am just too boring!

My Bride and I live in Vancouver these days. When it’s summer, the people around here go around with the minimum of clothes. Whatever you are, it all hangs out for people to see. The great thing about this place is that so many people we see are beautiful. It’s a pleasure for the eyes, the heart and our self-discipline. We have to walk, run, bike, work out like them if we don’t want to shame ourselves. It’s a great incentive to do the necessary.

What winds me up in a thrilling sort of way is how adaptable our bodies are. If I decide to remake my life in some way, as long as I pursue my course with reasonable moderation allowing gradual adaptation, my body always seems up to the task. Even painlessly. Or painfully, if one is impetuously enthusiastic! My body seems to always be ready to learn new tricks. Isn’t that fabulous? Our bodies are eclectic, always open to learning the new and different if we but ask.

That means we can also do new stuff with our minds if we so choose. I’ve been experimenting with that. I can persist with the effort of exploring new boundaries of thought, new skills I never thought I had a use for. Having painfully learned these new skills, I can persist, or abandon them as being too laborious. I don’t have to do that after all if I don’t want to, if there is nobody around to impress with my new acumen. I’m retired, after all.

Sometimes it’s easier to let the kids do it for you, isn’t it? We know we are heroes; we don’t have to keep proving it to ourselves. The real heroes are the bodies we are lucky enough to inhabit. Isn’t it a good idea to take the trouble to take good care of them. You betcha!

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