The following is a transcript of this episode. It has been edited for clarity.
Intro: Yoga. Everyone who practices it says it’s one of the best ways to stay limber and strong and midlife and beyond. It’s also therapeutic, helping you reduce stress, get better sleep and stay emotionally, physically and spiritually balanced. Yoga can also address one of the most common age related health issues: decreased bone density. Yoga practitioner Julie Newbold is on the show today to tell us how yoga can help with all of this and more. If you’re new to yoga like I am, she’ll tell you how to begin. If you’ve been at it for a while, she’ll tell you how to adjust your practice to adapt to your body’s evolving needs. So stay tuned—we’re gonna go with the flow.
Welcome to More Beautiful, the podcast for women rewriting the midlife playbook. I’m Maryann LoRusso, and I invite you to join me and a guest each week as we strive for a life that’s more adventurous, more fulfilling and more beautiful than ever before.
Maryann: Welcome back. My guest today is certified yoga instructor Julie Newbold, who specializes in helping her students build strength and balance, with an emphasis on bone health. Hey, Julie, welcome to the show.
Julie: Good morning. Good to be here.
Maryann: So nice to have you. I would love it if you could start us off by describing your yoga philosophy and your teaching approach.
Julie: Yeah, thank you for starting with that question. I think what makes yoga yoga is the attitude you bring to the mat. And then secondly, the breath at the center of the practice. And by attitude, I mean, for example, how do you show up? You know, we all have incredibly busy lives. And perhaps you’re a person who is just go, go, go, drive, drive, drive, push, push, push. So when you come to the mat to practice yoga, can you use that time to begin to understand, hmm, where does my body have limits? Maybe today, it’s my shoulder. Maybe last time it was my hips. Can you see the limits, and honor and respect them? And not always necessarily push past, right? Pauses in yoga are so powerful. So can you take a pause and say, I see that threshold, I see that limit, and maybe today, in a very gentle and methodical, persistent way, I’ll continue. And then always the breath at the center of the practice, because your breath is a barometer of how skillfully you’re practicing. You know? Maybe you’re in a particular shape, and you find you’re holding your breath, you’ve stopped breathing. That’s a really important piece of information, right? So can you keep it smooth and deep and even throughout the entire practice? I also don’t think Yoga should get harder and harder. I think when you have a challenge for yourself and you master that particular challenge, or that shape, or whatever it is, then you just move on to the next challenge. Right? So not necessarily harder and harder. And I absolutely believe—I’ve proven this myself within my own body—yoga teaches us that everything’s connected.
Maryann: Yeah. And you know, going back to your point about not pushing yourself, that is contrary to how many of us have worked out for years, maybe decades, right?
Julie: Yes, yes. And yoga can be such a beautiful, complementary practice to whatever else we all enjoy doing in our physical lives, right? It can bring a sense of balance, for sure.
Maryann: Right. And you know, there are many branches, styles and traditions of yoga, as well as many intersections, like you pointed out to me earlier when we talked, with other physical movement practices. Can you give us a quick rundown of some of those and tell us which types of yoga are incorporated into your practice? I know you do hatha flow, right?
Julie: All yoga is hatha yoga. That’s two words, sun and moon, and the joining. That’s what the word hatha means. So every style of yoga is, at its heart, hatha yoga. But as you mentioned, there’s a huge range of practices. There’s yoga nidra, which is all about conscious sleep, and you do the whole practice lying down on your back.
Maryann: That sounds great. [Laughs]
Julie: Exactly. Super appealing on many, many days. There is restorative yoga, designed to calm down the nervous system. There’s yin, which targets fascia—so it goes beyond muscles, beyond bones, it targets fascia. And then there are the more vigorous practices. There’s the school of vinyasa, which is very flowy. You think of up dog, down dog, chaturanga, and all of that. And there’s also a sangha yoga, also called mysore yoga, and that’s a specific sequence of poses. And there’s only certain people in the world that have ever achieved all of the sequence. It’s a very rarefied air. And then there’s always beginner classes. So yeah, my style is hatha flow. You know, I like linking things together, I like a little bit of movement. But my training is with a lot of anatomy emphasis, which I love and geek out on. And I’m familiar with all of the styles. I’ve gone down some of the paths a little more deeply than others. And it’s now all this, you know, compilation of what and how I teach.
Maryann: Very cool. And the way yoga is taught, by the way, has evolved greatly through the years, right, as we’ve learned more about human physiology. Can you tell us more about that?
Julie: Oh, absolutely. So, with respect to science and technology…That’s what I love about where we are right now, at this point in our lives. We’re in 2022. We have so much science that has informed more than we knew decades ago. And science today is showing us what we have practiced for thousands of years through yoga. For example, I mentioned fascia earlier, and yin. And it’s only been since 2007 that the world has had an agreed upon definition of what is fascia: that which connects us all. And only Harvard, gosh, less than 15 years ago, had one of the very first conferences on fascia. So that’s one example. Another example is bone density. We talked about that. Do you know, Maryann, the ability to do a bone density scan is only 40 years old?
Maryann: That’s unbelievable—only 40 years old?
Julie: 40, yes, since the 1980s. So that ability to understand what’s going on in the bones and then take that scientific medical information and translate it to these poses, and how do you do things differently. So that’s another huge area of study. And then the breath. Oh my gosh, there are so many fantastic scientific studies on the breath that are showing us that this conscious linking of breath and movement can do so much for healing. An example of a study is Johns Hopkins University Holotropic Breathing, which is heavy, intense, fast breathing. It’s a lot like the breath practice and yoga of Breath of Fire, or cupola bati. And they’re doing Hopkins research to understand its effect on PTSD, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Maryann: Wow. And that goes back to what you pointed out earlier, that yoga is about joining body, breath and mind, right? It’s all connected.
Julie: Three tools in yoga, right? Every time we come to the mat, they’re always with us, just body, breath and mind.
Maryann: Yeah, that’s great. I love that one of your priorities, Julie, is to empower your clients by helping them continue to feel strong as they age, because who doesn’t want to feel strong as we age, right? And according to your practice, what’s the key to practicing yoga and feeling strong well into old age? And just for our listeners out there, we’ll address those of you who have not never done yoga like myself, as well as people who have been doing it and want to address their practice and kind of help it evolve. But, what is the key to practicing it as you age?
Julie: Yeah, in middle age, absolutely.
Maryann: And older.
Julie: Yep. So, the physical therapists will tell you, move every 20 or 30 minutes. And how much time do we spend at desks in the offices and at computers? So, A) keep moving, keep moving, keep moving, no matter what your age is. It’s superduper important. Our bodies were simply designed to move and not sit. And I would say for someone in middle age, you know, be super mindful of what is your available and appropriate range of motion, going back to attitude and being non judgmental. When you are in your 40s and 50s and beyond, let go of the attitude of what I did in my 20s. Gosh, I used to be able to put my head behind my foot, behind my ears. Let go of that attitude and say, what is it that I would like to do? How do I need my system to respond? Maybe I want to hike five to seven miles effortlessly. Maybe I want to plan a bike ride around Europe with a group of friends. Or maybe you simply want to be able to get up and down the floor from ease to be able to play with grandkids. So then, how do you need your system to respond? What sort of strength do you need? What sort of mobility do you need, in order to foster that and enable that within yourself? But it really boils down to keep moving, keep moving, keep moving. And so many people come to yoga for flexibility. I really like my students to understand it’s about strength and mobility in the body, in the breath, and in the mind.
Maryann: Yes, and in your practice, you emphasize bone health, especially after you were diagnosed with a bone related issue. Can you tell us about that, and why you’re so passionate about helping women maintain their bone density and strength as they age?
Julie: Absolutely. So, I have a form of low bone density called osteopenia. Many people do. And it’s a function of aging, for women and for men, but women have a greater propensity for lower bone density after menopause. And once I understood that I had low bone density, it prompted a whole series of questions for my yoga teaching, for myself and my practices. Oh my gosh, so what do I need to do to keep my bones strong and healthy? And that’s catapulted me down this path this last year in understanding all I can about that, and how to keep myself safe, but also how to translate that information for students to keep themselves safe and strong as well.
Maryann: For any women out there who are wondering if they even have low bone density, how do we get tested? How do we find out?
Julie: Great question. Talk to your doctor. The type of scan is called a DEXA. It’s a dual energy X-ray absorptiometry. And you need the scan, which takes a couple of measurements around your hips and around your spine. And then you get numbers, which your doctor will translate for you. And it’s that range of numbers that determines if you have the low form of low bone density osteopenia or higher on the spectrum osteoporosis. And if you have it—and again, it’s so common, it’s a function of aging—the goal is keep what you’ve got, and don’t lose any more.
Maryann: Right. So is the strategy the same for women who have low bone density as it is for those who just want to keep it that way? They may have good bone density, but they just want to prevent any deterioration? Is it the same approach?
Julie: Speaking for me as a yoga teacher, yes, I would do similar things if somebody said, hey, Julie, I want you to help me develop my practice focused on strength. And I spend all day in the office hunched over my computer. What can I do? I would teach them a lot of areas in the body to strengthen the deep postural muscles, the core. And we would work on things that undo forward folding and flexion, and undoing and opening up all of that. So yeah, I would use a similar approach. And again, strength plus mobility.
Maryann: Yeah. And is it possible through exercise to actually increase bone density? Or would your treatment have to be in conjunction with things your doctor might prescribe?
Julie: Yes, so I’m not a doctor, so I can’t speak to the world of medicine. And when it comes to when folks on the osteoporosis path might need medication, that’s a doctor question. But with respect to strengthening…Absolutely focus on strengthening, so that you don’t lose what you’ve got. Yoga as a weight bearing practice—for example, down dog, strengthening shoulders, or some of the other standing poses where you’re strengthening legs, all of that is weight bearing—yes, that is a form of weight training. And then, you know, sometimes in my yoga shapes and poses, I might add cork blocks. We add a little weight with a two pound cork block when we’re doing a little bit of arm work, and that adds a little bit of strength into the practice. I don’t feel super skilled at talking about weight training. That’s not an area of study that I’ve personally gone into.
Maryann: If you already have low bone density, and you’re scared of exercise, how do you ease women into that?
Julie: I love teaching beginners. Absolute favorite audience to teach. The first thing that I would say is give yourself permission not to create a particular shape. Absolutely trust your own instincts. This is never a teacher knows best approach. And actually, there’s a phrase in Sanskrit that I think is so beautiful: Ong Namo Guru Dev. And the phrase means, I bow to the teacher within. And that is simply saying, and honoring, we are each our own greatest teachers. So when people first come to me, I always say you absolutely have permission not to create a particular shape. And also, when I’m teaching my public classes, I have these handy dandy little cards. And the question is, would you like hands-on assistance? And you can see one side says, no thank you. And the other side is, yes you can. So in my public group classes, where it’s impossible to pay attention to everybody and give everybody personal time and attention, right, it’s a way to empower students to be self responsible. And maybe they like a little bit of assistance in a particular shape or pose, or maybe we’re trying something new and they’re saying, oh my gosh, just let me be here by myself on my mat, please don’t touch me, I’ll figure it out. So it’s a way for me to communicate. And I view assistance as very differently from an adjustment. So as a teacher, I would never push a person into a pose. I don’t do hands on adjustments. That’s for your chiropractor, your osteopath, your physical therapist. But by assistance, a little hands on, I might touch your head to encourage a little bit of length. I might place my hands on your shoulders or on your pelvis to encourage the brain communication to those tactile sensations of whatever it is we’re targeting. And I would absolutely encourage someone coming to a class for the very first time to say, hey, I am brand new. And I think it’s really hard. I applaud people who want to try something new. Moving differently requires an inordinate amount of mindfulness. So I think just coming to the mat, trying the shapes for the very first time, and you see what comes up. And then of course, in a public class, you’re looking around and saying, I’m not sure what this is, how are other people doing it? Oh, OK, now I understand. So give yourself maybe three times, right? One to experience it, two to feel a little bit more like, oh, I know what’s going on. And then by your time you’re at your third class, and your third go around with various shapes, it’s like, OK, I know what I’m doing. So now I’m going to focus on the breath.
Maryann: That’s nice. You know, you just hit on a pet peeve of mine with exercise classes, when instructors loudly call you out. That makes me so embarrassed, and it kind of takes me out of the zone that I want to be in. I remember taking a bar class when this instructor just for some reason latched on to my name, and just kept calling it out the entire class. And I never went back. So that’s probably why I’ve never done yoga, I’m afraid of that. So I like your approach, how you kind of asked your client beforehand what they like. That’s good. So, I’d love to go over some of the other benefits of yoga that are particularly sought after in midlife. And one of them is balance.
Julie: With respect to balance—and let’s say you don’t have any issues in your body, congratulations, right. Sme of us have good balance, some of us don’t. And coming into one legged poses or such that can challenge the balance is a really interesting technique. Because again, the amount of concentration and focus that you need to have to be doing something on one leg just brings this unique challenge to a particular pose. So fun to always play with balance. And with balance, the key is mixing it up. Never do the same thing over and over and over. Always have new balance challenges. But joint mobility, oh gosh, that’s kind of a big one. In my classes, I like to say, OK, let’s do this, right, oiling the hips, oiling the shoulders. Speaking about our human physiology, we have certain joints that are synovial joints, and they have these little capsules in them. And so you actually want this stirring action. So joint mobility, there’s a way to use yoga and movement to get those joints oiled. Really important for the health of not only the bones, but the muscles and all the tissues and cells around it.
Maryann: I know we talked a little bit about this, but muscle strength is such a big benefit of yoga. And I know you said you don’t really do a lot of related muscle work, but I’ve seen some women who only do yoga, and they are ripped, Julie. They’ve got these beautifully sculpted arms. I mean, I’m not saying we should do yoga for the aesthetics of our bodies, but I mean, it does work the most muscles, right?
Julie: Absolutely. So many of the poses are such beautiful poses of strength. You think of down dog, and it takes a tremendous amount of core strength to do your down dog. So many of the poses do. I love teaching core and getting people into the center of the body. But think down dog, think any of the warrior series, think of your strong legs, think of poses that involve the back, like Salah Barcena or Locust Pose, strong back. So absolutely, yoga can be used to build strength. And again, we can just use our own physical body and that weight bearing mode, or maybe add a little bit of weight with a block or hand weight or something like that.
Maryann: Yeah. And it’s funny, because a lot of women I know complain about this weight redistribution, especially after menopause, and a few women I know talk about getting fat in places where they never had it before, like the back and under the arms. And it’s really interesting, because not too many forms of exercise address the back muscles. So that’s a very unique thing that yoga does touch on.
Julie: Yeah. And not all poses. And for me in my pursuit of understanding low bone density and what I need to do differently…There’s certain poses that I’ve not always taught every single class or that I’ve not practiced myself every single day, but I have become a much bigger fan of those poses that do entirely strengthen the back chain of muscles all the way from the calves through the hamstrings through your back, all up into the the back of the neck and into the skull. Because again—I think this is so true for everybody in the Western world—strengthening the back, especially the deep postural muscles that go up the back of the spine, helps undo this, hm, I’m over my computer, and I’m hunched all day.
Maryann: I’m doing it right now, and it doesn’t feel great.
Julie: Well, actually, you remember Ruth Bader Ginsburg?
Maryann: Of course.
Julie: Bless her heart. And if you remember her shape in old age, she had that forward leaning hunched over position. I don’t know if you remember when she passed awa and she was lying in state, and people were coming in paying her respects. Her personal trainer came, and in front of her casket, got down and did three pushups.
Maryann: Yes, I do remember that. But you know, she was so focused, like many people are, on the core, right? And doing all those planks. Maybe she needed some yoga for the back.
Julie: Absolutely. Plank is fabulous. Plank is a beautiful all body pose. And when you’re doing plank in a healthy, strong manner, you’ve got a ton of core going on.
Maryann: But yeah, I don’t think there’s enough emphasis on the back muscles. And just the thought of that, Julie, of that stretch, like, it feels so good just thinking about it. What about weight control? Because that is—you know, again, not to be vain—that is something very real that creeps up on us as we get older, this inability to maintain our weight. Can yoga help with this as well?
Julie: I think so, and more from the aspect of meditation and mindfulness and breath work and, you know, going back to the pause. So I think the practice of yoga, and that special kind of paying attention, you take your practice off the mat, right? So you spend an hour, you’re doing all these things. And in the end, the instructor is taking you through a variety of things. You might have a brief little meditation at the end. But then you take your yoga off the mat and you go home. And it’s eight o’clock at night, and you have a habit of going to the refrigerator and opening it up at eight o’clock at night, or going into the cookie jar. And that practice of a special kind of paying attention, that practice of pausing, might make you begin to say, OK, what am I doing here again? I really don’t need those extra three cookies, nor do I need that bowl of ice cream at eight o’clock at night. So I can say, for me and myself and in my physical body, my yoga practice has made me much more conscious of what I eat and how I eat and when I eat, all sorts of things like that. And we didn’t talk too much about it, but I know you were asking me about the styles of yoga. There’s also an intersection with all sorts of other disciplines. There is ayurveda, which many people say is the sister to yoga because it originates in India. It’s this natural medicine that’s also over 3000 years old, but there’s so many beautiful practices along with ayurveda like cleansing and detoxing and then re-adding in herbs and spices and oils, and it just makes you feel so good.
Maryann: You know, I have a beautiful ayurveda cookbook, which I use often. I’m going to put it in the show notes. It’s lovely. But see, Julie, this is why I don’t have a cookie jar. For the reasons you described, I will not buy a cookie jar. But you know, my kids went to a progressive school, and they talked about being present and mindfully eating and mindfully walking. And it got to the point where [my children] were like, enough with the mindfulness, we know how to be mindful. But I think that’s so great, because our generation was not taught that, we had to kind of learn this on our own.
Julie: Yes, absolutely. And that mindfulness comes with the intersection from Buddhism. And, you know, it’s just paying attention. And giving our attention to anything is such a gift, right? But mindfulness is just a special kind of paying attention.
Maryann: What about stress reduction? Stress is a big, big contributor to midlife issues, and so many of us are just overtaxed. We’re juggling so much, especially in this sandwich generation where we may have teenagers at home, or we’re paying for college, or we have elderly parents who might be ill. How do we use yoga to just maintain that sense of balance and calm? I know this ties into other things you’ve mentioned.
Julie: Yes, it is so interrelated, but yoga is a beautiful practice for stress reduction. And, you know, Maryann, I don’t think you have to believe in anything at all—you certainly don’t even have to believe in yoga—to enjoy the linking of breath and physical movement, and then experiencing that joy, and that calming that comes from linking breath and movement. So yoga, gosh, can help in so many ways with stress reduction. So one, let’s say you’re going to a public class for an hour, that’s an hour of self care. Self care is a form of compassion for yourself. So that’s one. Two, all sorts of breath techniques, beautiful breath techniques for slowing down and quieting our nervous system. There’s other breath techniques that are nice in winter, when it gets a little colder and you want to rev things up and heat things up. So all these beautiful breath techniques can contribute to a much more calm, nervous system. And gosh, yoga nidra, which I mentioned in the beginning, is a specific yoga practice all about relaxation, and it’s so lovely to do yoga nidra at night, and then just go to bed.
Maryann: Oh, it sounds lovely. I’m getting just really zen just hearing you talk about that. [Laughs] What about better sleep? Again, something extremely important, and something that many of us are lacking in our lives.
Julie: And, you know, I use my breath practices at night. We all wake up in the middle of the night for various reasons; sometimes we’re worrying about something or the mind starts spinning, or sometimes you even just have a crazy song running through your head. And so I use certain breath practices when I wake up at 4am and I’m not ready to get out of bed. And I’ll just lie there and breathe, and hopefully eventually go back to sleep. Yeah, a lot of good, powerful, self calming tools and techniques.
Maryann: And we did end up speaking about people who have never done yoga before, and you gave some great tips on how to get the courage to try, and how to approach your first lesson or class. What are some of the first poses that you might teach a newbie? And you know, how do you get your feet wet?
Julie: As I mentioned, I love having newbies, and I love having beginners. And I often start people down on their back. Again, just because in Western society, we’re rush rush rushing, right? So you take the time, you’re coming to a little practice. I’d start down on our back. And I use a pose called constructive rest. Your two feet are on the floor, your knees are up in the air, but you’re lying on your back. And I love to start with that in order to teach people spinal alignment, the natural curves of the spine and what that feels like, and just allowing that, sinking into the floor, into the mat, allowing the back body to settle. And then I start with breath. So we do just a tiny bit of—and you can even do this as we’re talking—as you inhale, you say to yourself, I am breathing in, and as you exhale, you say, I am breathing out. And congratulations, you’ve just meditated. So we take a few breaths in this beautiful relaxed pose, and we start turning our attention a little more inward. And then I would start with some more movement. Probably, in an hour class, I might spend 10 minutes on the floor before we come up to any standing poses.
Maryann: And speaking of meditation, is yoga in itself a form of meditation?
Julie: I believe that yoga is a form of meditation. Absolutely. I’m not trained in things like mindfulness based stress reduction and other beautiful practices. But you know, all these things are so complimentary, and all of them can inspire each other. It is absolutely all good. What I like teaching in meditation—and I have, you know, some private clients that just say, nope, Julie, I just want to be strong, let’s not do any of the meditation stuff. And that’s great. Fine, I totally get it. My meditation practice comes more from the Buddhist lineage, I would say.
Maryann: Yeah, and we all want to find activities that we can keep doing, right? Isn’t that essential? Like, when you’re in midlife, you’re thinking, OK, what is my body going to be able to handle 10, 20, even 30 years from now? We have a mutual friend who plays tennis all the time—you play with her, I think? I’m not sure if you play with her, but she has a lot of tennis partners. But, you know, tennis is a great one. Yoga, certainly. Like, how important is it for women to find those activities that they love that they could just keep doing?
Julie: Oh, so important. And keep mixing it up. You know, I started a new sport during the pandemic, I started pickleball. Never played pickleball in my life.
Maryann: You and a million other people. [Laughs] Please demystify pickleball for us. Tell us why it’s so great—I want to know. Because every tennis court is disappearing, and there’s a pickleball court up.
Julie: I know. Our mutual friend has a little complaint about that, for sure, in San Francisco. Pickleball is just a ton of fun, but I love the community. And it’s very, very welcoming. And you do not need to be an expert. I happen to be. I played tennis in my past life. But you don’t need to be a tennis player. You play with a wiffle ball, the court is smaller. I really enjoy playing doubles, because you can have a conversation with everybody on the court because the court is smaller and the games are shorter. One game to 11 points or win by two probably takes 15 minutes, you know? And it’s just, again, it’s the fantastic community of people. And I find it a very welcoming, fun sport.
Maryann: The first person that I knew that started playing pickleball was my uncle, who at the time was in his late 70s. And I just thought, oh, that’s an older person sport, you know? But I know people of all ages who are playing pickleball now. Like, 20 year olds are playing pickleball now.
Julie: Absolutely. And even 11 year olds. I’ve seen some very excellent 11 and 12 year old players out on the courts where I usually am.
Maryann: [Laughs] OK, I might try yoga and pickleball now, thanks to you. Let’s go back to one other thing you said about yoga: joining body, breath and mind. You mentioned to me when we chatted a couple of weeks ago that listening to your body signals and honoring and respecting them is a huge aspect of yoga. I like the fact that you use the term “respecting and honoring.” Why is it an honor to practice yoga?
Julie: Well, it comes down to love, right? Loving yourself in the body that you’ve got. But to expand on that question a little bit…I think our bodies are constantly communicating with us. 100% of the time, even while we’re sleeping. And sometimes it’s in the form of a whisper, and maybe we don’t hear it, or we hear something and we don’t pay attention. And then sometimes, like in a physical practice, our body will start shouting at us. And then our drive kicks in and we think, no, I hear ya, I hear that sore muscle, I hear that stiff neck, but I’m gonna keep going on exactly the same way I am. Well, I think an injury is the body’s way of saying, stop, you are not listening to me. Therefore, I will take care of myself. You got to stop. You got to heal. So I think that learning to listen to our bodies, to honoring those whispers, those signals, that form of stop, and learning to respect that is a form of discrimination—meaning discriminating in differentiating, is what I mean—between the signals. It’s super important. And you begin to quiet the mind, so that you can open up the heart. And you can ask yourself, do I really need to keep pushing through? Or is that threshold today just enough? I see that limit. I’m going to take a pause. And I’m just going to stay here and breathe.
Maryann: I love that. Well said, that was beautiful. So Julie, what about if you have been practicing yoga for a long time? Is it possible to hit a wall, or really listen to your body, as it’s telling you, you got to change it up, this is not working for me? Does that happen with yoga?
Julie: I think any pattern that we get stuck in is probably not beneficial, and probably not very healthy. So I’m a big believer in trying something new, mixing things up. You know, whether you’re trying a new sport, or trying some sort of new activity, or trying some yoga pose that you’ve not done before. I also think it’s really important, you know, going back and thinking about middle age is, to have the approach of doing what you can with what you have right now. Let go of what you were able to do in your 20s, or what you think you should be able to do now that you’re in your 50s, and just do what you can with what you’ve got right now. True of anybody in any age.
Maryann: Right, just keep moving. Can yoga be therapeutic? Like, say you’re out there playing pickleball and you pull something.
Julie: Absolutely, there’s a whole line of yoga therapeutics. And a lot of great physical therapists—Well, actually, it’s gone in both directions. I know a fair number of physical therapists who have said, I know a lot about the body, and I want to know more about his ancient practice, because I see so many benefits in my students. And then in the other direction, I absolutely know beautiful yoga teachers that are often physical therapy school. So it’s a beautiful blend. Is there yoga therapy? Absolutely. Not my particular specialty, but yoga as a form of healing, and complementary to what your physical therapist is asking you to do? Beautiful.
Maryann: Yeah. How has your personal yoga practice evolved as you’ve gotten older?
Julie: Oh, gosh. I probably started practicing in my 20s, and when I was in my 20s, it was for flexibility. And then in my 30s, when I was having kids, there was a beautiful studio where I practiced that had both prenatal and postnatal yoga. And that was so fun, again, for the community that it offered of other women going through a like minded path. I would say in my 40s, you know, when work was intense, yoga was a way for me to take care of myself. I remember in my 40s, working so hard to make a certain teacher at a certain time of day and to get to that particular class, because no matter how many students were in class, the teacher took the time at the end, when you’re in the final pose of shavasana, to go around and give everybody this beautiful little hands on extra weight at the shoulders opening up that was just so lovely across the chest. And oh my gosh, I would just think about that all day long, and say, I gotta get to that class tonight, I really hope she does that nice little opener. So in my 40s, you know, again, the yoga practice changed, go, go go, but I need to come to the mat and take care of myself. And then in my 50s, I was super curious, having practiced yoga for so long. I was so curious about all the poses, I wanted to know more about yoga history and anatomy, and I wanted to have the time to go much deeper. So that’s when I did my yoga teacher training. And then I had the good fortune to work at my corporate career and teach just one class a week, which was a ton of fun. And then I won the lucky ticket to be an assistant at another yoga teacher training class. And that’s how I got my 400 hours certificate.
Maryann: And it’s true that people do have their favorite instructors that they will bend over backwards, reschedule their lives, just to get to work with.
Julie: Absolutely.
Maryann: Is it a very personal thing? Do you connect with certain people? Because it is this mind-body thing, right? And it’s so emotional in a way. Do you find that that happens with students and teacher a lot?
Julie: Oh, gosh. You know, people start a yoga practice for all sorts of different reasons. And I think as a teacher, it’s important to simply meet the student where they’re at.
Maryann: What are the main reasons? What are your clients telling you are their big reasons for joining the class?
Julie: Well, A) strength. B) My life is super busy, and if I don’t schedule time with you, I’m not going to do anything. Yeah, that one’s a big one. Another one is, hmm, I’ve never really started on yoga before, but I know I want to keep going with my golf game, or I want to keep going with this or that, so I want to add a little yoga in to let that be complementary. Another is simply, I know it feels good, so I’m here at class, and I just want to feel better. So all sorts of reasons, you know? Students come to yoga for all sorts of different things. It’s such a broad and deep practice, and we have so many beautiful teachers here in the Bay Area, there’s just a wealth to choose from. So I think everybody can find a teacher that they’re really going to gel with and feel like they’re going to learn a lot from them.
Maryann: Right. And I can’t think of a better time to start than right before the holidays when our stress levels are probably going to rise despite our best efforts. We need a little me time, a little meditation and movement, right?
Julie: Absolutely.
Maryann: Julie, is there anything else you’d like our listeners to know about yoga, whether they’ve been doing it or they’re new to it?
Julie: Know that yoga is always there for you, regardless of your age, or regardless of where you’re at in life. You know, yoga is always there for you if you’re a ready and a willing student. And I would also say that yoga can simply complement all sorts of other activities. Maybe you’re a runner, maybe you’re a rock climber, maybe you’re a surfer or a biker. Yoga can be complementary to whatever you choose to do with your physical movement time in your life.
Maryann: That’s great. And tell everybody where they can reach you online, if they’d like to get more information.
Julie: My website, which is yogajoywithjulie.com. I’ve got a lot of information on my website, as well as how to reach out to me if you’re interested in private lessons. And I’ve got a workshop coming up in February, specifically on bone health, with a friend of mine who is a holistic nutritional coach, my good friend Leslie Dicke. So we’re excited about that workshop that we’re offering in February.
Maryann: Sounds great. And you can also find Julie’s information at morebeautifulpodcast.com. Julie, thank you so much, this was such a lovely conversation. And I may be joining you in the studio one day soon. Thank you.
Julie: Thank you, Maryann. And I’d like to say namaste, which means, the light in me honors the light in you.
