AARP Hearing Center
For Neil Wertheimer, yoga and retirement seemed like a perfect pairing — until they weren’t.
Dave Urban
This is the second in a series of columns about retirement by former AARP Publications deputy editor Neil Wertheimer. Read his first column here.
I’ve long been the guy neighbors ask to help carry furniture up or down the stairs, or haul bags of gravel to their backyard. And when I play golf with a team, I’m usually relied on to blast a 230-yard drive (that’s good, because I can’t putt). I’m certainly not in the same room as Jason Momoa or The Rock when it comes to fitness (hell, I’m not even in the same building), but overall, I’m a healthy and capable mid-60s guy.
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But I do have one big fitness issue: I don’t bend well. In fact, I barely bend at the waist at all. Much of that is structural. While most humans can fold at the hips like an inverted V, I can barely get to a lowercase r (hardly getting my fingertips to my knees), thanks to the spine, joints and bones I was given. I was that way at 10, and I’m that way now. I was also born with several bones in my ankles fused, making standing on one foot a precarious task. But I’ve gotten this far in life, so who cares?
Well, apparently lots of people. I can’t tell you how many folks over the years, seeing me struggle to tie my shoes or pick up my golf ball out of the cup, have said, “You really should try yoga. It’ll loosen you right up!” I would nod politely — until it was my oldest brother goading me, with his own testimonial on the practice. “I finally know how to stand,” he exclaimed to me not too long ago. “Like, center my body, get over my feet — suddenly, I’m really comfortable standing for long periods for the first time in my life. It’s helped my golf game. You should try it!”
Yoga and retirement seemed a perfect pairing, so I committed. It helped that I had a free membership to a nearby megagym, thanks to my new Medigap policy. Seeing a “Gentle Yoga for 50-Plus” class available at 9:30 a.m. several days of the week, I decided this was my moment.
Nervously and self-consciously, I tried to mimic my classmates as they got ready to start: I removed my shoes and socks, grabbed a mat, found a spot on the floor, got any gear the instructor noted (foam blocks, rollers, long straps), got down on my butt, stretched a little. And then the soft music came on, the lights dimmed, and the instructor began the breathing exercises and a soothing soliloquy about setting all this and that aside and being in the present.
Here’s the truth: The next 60 minutes went badly. I was so insanely frustrated that I wrote a poem when I got home, such was my need to vent. It started:
No, I cannot put my toe in my ear.
No, I cannot stand on one foot, body parallel to the ground, arms stretched in front of me.
No, I don’t bend that way or this way.
Merely lying flat on my back is hard.
Truth is, I nearly fall over putting on a pair of shorts.
Add in 43 years of desk work and family life and suddenly I should be a warrior?
Self-indulgent prattle continued for a dozen more lines until I ended the poem with “Namaste, my ass.”
And yet I returned a few days later. One of my parental mantras to my sons has been, “It’s easy to be good at what you are naturally good at; more impressive is becoming good at something you are not good at.” For a change, I decided to listen to my own advice.
I tried, I really did. After a few more classes, my Warrior 1 pose became respectable. I breathed deeply and slowly. At the end of every 60-minute class, I was sweaty and tired and muscle-wobbly. The yoga instructor said I was “doing great” and urged me to keep coming back.
But after another 10 or so classes, it was clear that competency at yoga wasn’t my destiny. I certainly don’t blame the instructor, who was caring and well-trained and led what seemed to be well-conceived classes that triggered warm applause and hugs and lingering conversations after the lights came on and music turned off.
Even at its most basic, yoga presupposes a level of flexibility and balance that I lack. When everyone else was sitting on the ground, legs straight in front of them, hands reaching over their toes, I could barely stay seated upright, my back all curved and zero percent chance of my hands getting past my knees. Any yoga pose requiring standing on one foot had me next to the wall for support, yet still frequently stumbling. I was a bumbling walrus in a sea of graceful dolphins.
I appreciated yoga’s focus on deep and slow breathing; that, I fully agree with and could follow. Conversely, I couldn’t appreciate yoga’s focus on soul-lifting monologues by the instructor. I’m too weather-beaten, too male, too self-aware to need to be told to be in the present, love myself and smell the flowers while exercising.
So I gave it up. Or so I thought. Turns out the yoga gods weren’t done with me.
Some six months after moving on from yoga classes, I partook in another retirement first: a full-body massage. It had been about 30 years since I had one, and a lovely trip to a mountain resort for a few days seemed a perfect moment for the indulgence. It was an exquisite hour … until I asked the masseuse how I was doing afterward. “I’m glad you asked,” she said. “Your body has very little flexibility. Do you stretch? It’s not healthy to be that inflexible as you age. You really should try yoga.”
And so I’m back on my back a few times a week, decidedly in the back of the room, making sure I don’t swear or grunt as the instructor befuddles me with pose name after pose name (can’t they give you a flyer a few days before the class so you can figure out these poses in advance?).
Maybe I’ll get the hang of it. Maybe my back will unlock a little. Maybe I’ll find my namaste. I’ll never be a graceful dolphin, but who knows, maybe I could at least get to sea turtle level?
Until then, I recommend picking a spot in the room far from me, in case I suddenly fall over and take out the back row.
AARP essays share a point of view in the author’s voice, drawn from expertise or experience, and do not necessarily reflect the views of AARP.
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