At Fairview Care Home, no yoga mats are needed for their yoga workouts.
Each week around 30 residents from the care home in Albany, on Auckland's North Shore, gather for a chair yoga session. Chair yoga is a gentle form of exercise that gives a lot of benefits – and it can be done without even leaving your seat.
Divisional therapist Ellen Romero, the driving force behind the sit-down yoga sessions at Fairview, introduced it to New Zealand after she first saw it on YouTube.
Her motivation stemmed from a desire to cater to residents' love of music and enthusiasm for learning. She carefully selects music that resonates with them and incorporates movements and patterns they can easily follow and enjoy.
Romero is a bit of a legend.
Earlier this year she received the Judy Cooper Excellence Award, which is given annually to an outstanding individual who works in the Diversional Therapy (DT) field. The award recognises a registered DT who has exhibited excellence in professional practice by facilitating purposeful leisure activities that increase the physical, intellectual, and emotional well-being of older people living in a support environment.
Romero said chair yoga is perfect because as people age, maintaining physical fitness and flexibility becomes increasingly important for overall health and well-being.
Chair yoga is a gentle form of yoga that's practised while sitting or with the support of a chair, and has gained popularity as an accessible and beneficial exercise option – especially for seniors.
Residents look forward to the weekly session so much they arrive an hour early, Romero said.
Although the sessions start at 11am, the residents are all set to go an hour ahead of schedule.
The session I went along to began with an invitation for us all to smile. A smile lifts the residents' spirits and is always a sure way to improve the mood, Romero noted. It could also be why they stay so young, with many yogis being in their 90s.
Resident and yogi Doreen Gould said she has "lots of fun" and knows she doesn’t get enough physical activity.
Her husband Fred is aged 94 and also takes part in the yoga sessions.
I also met 95-year-old resident Barbara Drew. She has osteoarthritis in her neck and back and finds chair yoga helps with those conditions.
"If you don’t use it, you lose it," she said.
By introducing chair yoga to the care home, Romero said she’s achieved her goal of enhancing the residents' quality of life – physically, mentally, and emotionally.
She hopes to spread chair yoga far and wide because the benefits are so great and it’s also adaptable.
Today’s yoga session didn’t end with meditation or Shavasana – it concluded with wine and smoked salmon blinis at the request of the residents.
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