Yoga for Older Women

Yoga was always meant to be an individualised practice, adapted constantly to the uniqueness of individual bodies and how they change from day to day. Perhaps nowhere is this change more dramatic than in the perimenopausal and menopausal years, and yet, very few Yoga teachers -- or fitness instructors in general-- adapt the practice to women's bodies as they age. As a result, older women are often stuck in classes that are unable to meet their specific needs, having accepted that hot flashes, mood swings, skin dryness, stiff joints, muscle pain, insomnia and weight gain are simply things they need to suffer, no matter how extreme the discomfort. 

Over the past 10 years, Sunaina Mathur has been watching her body change, and adapting her Yoga practice and teaching to accommodate those changes. Through extensive research and debate on the hormonal and physical changes that menopause brings, she has developed yogic practices of asana, pranayam, chanting, meditation and visualization as healing modalities specifically menopause. 

Over this week-long retreat, Sunaina will be working closely with participants, always focused on this body, this day, this moment, this state of mind. Each morning will begin with Yoga practice, followed by breakfast, and then a short theory or Pranayam session to understand the ways in which menopause is changing our bodies. After lunch, we will take the afternoons off for rest, walking, meditation, or simply taking time to connect and speak openly to one another about the ways in which out bodies are changing. We will meet again for a Yoga session before dinner, and then allow the evening to give way to bonfires, stargazing, local music, and good food. We will also set aside one whole day for rest, recovery, and community, since the goal is as much to connect with others in a similar life moment as it is to connect with our own bodies. 

The hope, overall, is to create an ease with talking openly about this moment in our life journeys, validating our own and each others’ experience, owning the unease we feel-- and then, to rest, recover and together begin a journey of comfort and healing!

About the Teacher

Sunaina Mathur began her with alternate therapies over 25 years ago, with an initiation into Reiki and then training till the Master level. Along with that she  trained in clinical Transactional Analysis from ICTA Mumbai as a mode of psychotherapy, followed by training in clinical hypnotherapy from the California Hypnosis Institute.

In 2004 she joined Studio Abhyas, the yoga studio of Navtej Johar, and found working with the body and the breath far more effective than any intellectual mode of healing. In 2010, she got her Yoga Teacher's certification from the Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram ( KYM), Chennai. Her work now focuses on yoga using Asana, Pranayam, Vedic chanting and visualisation for ongoing wellness. She works with both, groups and individuals, focussing on the mind-breath-body connection.

Over the past 5 years, Sunaina's work has extended to using yoga as a tool for rehabilitation and for therapeutic purposes with people recovering from injuries or surgeries, pre and post-natal yoga, yoga for people afflicted with mental illness and/or addiction and athletes in training . While she stays true to the KYM fundamentals of yoga practice in its attention to breath and co ordinating all Asanas with the breath, she also use techniques borrowed from Pilates, dance and Somatics to improve focus on alignment and the movement of breath within the body.