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Zelda Kimball, 75, a retired social worker who danced with Martha Graham when she was younger, practices yoga daily in Piermont, N.Y. "The breath is a connection with the world around you. You take it in and incorporate it, using it to energize yourself. I feel like Samson, breathing this strength into the core of my being," she says. At the same time she feels a deep calm. "In a dance class you're always looking in the mirror, but much of yoga is done with the eyes closed, which relieves you of all those ego needs and has a quieting effect on the mind." It's not the serenity alone that keeps Kimball practicing yoga. She credits it with helping to restore her health after she suffered a heart attack 15 years ago.
"I wish everybody did yoga! We'd be a better country," says Maggie Boepple, 52, chief lobbyist for a law firm, who has taken yoga classes for four years with teacher Ellen Saltonstall in New York City. "It relaxes your body and clears your head. It's a great antidote to lobbying!"
The good news is that just about anybody can do yoga. "People say, 'Oh, I can't do this. I'm too stiff.' But one reason you come to yoga is because you are stiff," says Saltonstall, 50, who uses props such as straps, blocks and cushions to adapt poses to every level of ability. Two-thirds of her students are over 40; half are over 50. "It's never too late to start."
QI IS THE KEY
Most Americans have heard of the Chinese martial art Tai Chi, but fewer are aware that it is an offshoot of a vast system of exercises collectively called Qi Gong, which is an integral part of traditional Chinese medicine. Just as a Western doctor might prescribe a course of antibiotics, so a Chinese doctor might prescribe an herbal broth and a round of Qi Gong (pronounced chee-gong). And just as healthy Americans pop a daily multivitamin, millions of healthy Chinese start the day with Qi Gong to maintain health and promote longevity. Now Americans are joining them, performing the slow, deliberate, trancelike movements of Qi Gong in parks and studios across the U.S.
If breath is the secret to yoga, qi is the key to Qi Gong. According to traditional Chinese thought, qi--or energy--flows through a dozen pathways, or meridians, in the body. Blockages in the meridians cause weakness and disease. Qi Gong, like acupuncture and acupressure, unclogs the meridians and promotes the free flow of qi.