Yoga for All

Reprinted with permission of the Complete Health Magazine.

Sitting in a circle, nine women look expectantly towards the door. They live in a senior’s residence and they range in age from 75 to over 90. Most are in chairs but their walkers are close at hand; one stays in her wheelchair. They are waiting for their yoga teacher.

In walks Georgia Morrisette, tape deck in hand, and joins the circle. She smiles around her, speaking to each by name. And so begins their weekly session of yoga. The women lift arms, turn their bodies this way and that, raise one leg and then the other. Their movements may be slow but most have a full range of motion. Towards the end of the class, Georgia goes around the circle, resting her hand on each woman’s shoulder, and asks them to recount one memory that brings a smile to their hearts. Then hugs all round and as they file out, rubber wheels rolling silently, a new brightness shines in their faces.

This is what Georgia calls “chair” yoga. She has also been known to teach “sink” yoga (stretches that can be done around the house), “office” yoga for stressed-out executives, moms and tots yoga, teen yoga, and to lead “play shop” sessions that incorporate yoga along with other techniques to increase self-acceptance and esteem. “I guess what I really teach is Georgia-yoga,” she laughs as we sit in the sun-drenched kitchen of her home. She laughs often, her blue-green eyes sparkling. Her streaked blond hair is pulled back with a barrette. Bare feet, blue-painted toenails, black faux leather pants and a lacy black top lend a faint air of glamour that is offset by her friendly, relaxed manner.

Six years ago, two of Georgia’s children, daughter, Alanis (yes, the Alanis Morrisette) and one of her sons, Wade, introduced her to yoga. She followed up with yoga classes on her own and found that her health improved dramatically. Severe lower back problems caused by jammed vertebra and arthritis had made her a regular visitor to chiropractic clinics. She recounts that when her first yoga teacher asked the class to “reach for your toes” Georgia found that her toes were “somewhere around my knees. I thought, well, yoga certainly isn’t for me! But the teacher kept saying, be gentle with yourself, breathe into the tight spots. And at the next attempt I could go a few centimetres farther, so I kept on with it. Now I haven’t been to a chiropractor for two years and the last time I went he asked me what I had been doing, my back was 10 years younger than the last time he saw me! I’ve also lost 20 pounds, my cellulite is gone, and I love the feeling of calm and peace that yoga brings.”

Forty-seven years ago, there was very little peace in Georgia’s life. In 1956, she and her parents and sister escaped from Hungary and came to Canada. Georgia was only ten years old and spoke almost no English, a little girl in a big new country. It was a difficult time. She remembers that she had only two outfits, one to wear while the other was being washed. “I’ve made up for that since,” she chuckles, “my closet is full of clothes.” She did well in school although she confesses that she was “what they would call hyperactive today.” One of the best things about that time was meeting her “sweetheart” in grade 7. Thirty-four years and three children later, she and her husband, Alan, continue to have a close and enduring relationship with each other and with their children. They are expecting their second grandchild any day now. After teaching school for 18 years, Georgia changed careers to become a successful salesperson. Now after, as she says, “listening to her heart,” yoga has become her full-time job.

About two years ago, Georgia sat down, a big sheet of paper in front of her. In the centre of it she wrote the word, yoga. She began to list everything she would need to teach yoga classes in her home, things such as mats, music, books for a small library. She knew that she wanted to teach people like herself in need of stretching and flexibility, she wanted to teach young children, she wanted to go out to seniors’ residences and into high schools. She wanted to offer classes to corporate employees to help alleviate stress. She wrote it all down on that piece of paper. Today she teaches 16 classes a week, some in her home, some outside in schools and in senior’s homes, and has trained a small team of other teachers. All that is yet to come from her list is a TV show and, as a spin-off from that, a video teaching her own particular style of yoga and meditation.

Her classes are popular. “They’re restorative,” one of Georgia’s students says. “I can relax, share, ease tensions and benefit from the positive energy that is created.” Georgia often begins her class with an affirmation, something that the students can carry in their minds while they are doing the yoga poses. And she ends the class by checking in with each student, asking them questions such as, What makes you a beautiful person? “It gives them a chance to participate, “ she says. It is a method that touches many. Her students use words like empowering, warmth, and inner peace to describe their experience in her classes. “As with all good teachers, her intent is clear,” they say. “She wants people to become more aware and to take care of themselves.”

Now Georgia has come up with another way of reaching out to people. She calls it “Play Shop,” a full-day workshop that includes yoga, spirit stepping stones, meditation, guidance towards becoming your own best friend, a pot-luck lunch, Cherokee dancing ("a wonderful way to free yourself up and learn self-acceptance”), journalling, creating personal affirmations, sharing with others, and finally a closing circle to help the participants apply in their own lives what they have learned. “A gift to yourself of that one day can lead to a profound shift in your thinking. There is a need for these things in people’s lives,” Georgia says with a confidence that comes from seeing the benefits in herself.

As I am leaving, Georgia and I talk about the seniors’ yoga class we have just come from, marvelling at their openness, their willingness to try something new. “I often wish that their spirit could be in all of us,” she sighs. In fact, I believe that spirit has found at least one home...in Georgia Morissette.