Bonus: Meet our Seniors

I'm Elaine Nelson and I'm 92 years old. And I'm Clella Schneider and I'm 71 years old. Home for me is in Ojai. Home for me is in Ojai two doors down from her. (laughs) I think I had a friend who wanted to go and she didn't want to go by herself, so she asked me to go along and I did and we've been there ever since.

I came to yoga, as soon as I retired I had wanted to be doing yoga for quite some time but I was working out of town and it wasn't really convenient, and then when I found out that Elaine was doing it, I bummed along with her and her friend. I just wanted to follow along with my friend and I fell in love with all those classes. I've been doing it for five years and every time I come out of that class, I feel so good! I feel just super. That's why I keep coming back. And I come back to yoga, a lot of that is true, but the stretching and things that I do in class, make me more flexible.

I really need to have that constantly, so that's why I keep coming back. I usually start out my mornings with yoga at home, is the way I have been influenced in my daily life. And I may not do all of the exercises and spend the amount of time that I would in class, but I get something done until my cat jumps on me and I can't do anymore. If I have been sitting too long on all my different hobbies, then I just get up and do some yoga and that makes me feel so good. I feel the effects of yoga, mostly in my body.

I'm learning to meditate as well, which calms me and makes me less frantic about things. I feel it in my body too, and also I have no problem going to sleep now because I have learned deep breathing and I just take a lot of deep breaths, and then I just go right off to sleep. I should walk and I don't walk anymore, but I do yoga and that makes me feel good. I try to get out and garden as an exercise but it's too darn hot in Ojai right now to be doing that, and I should be walking as well but I'm not doing it, so the yoga is about it. I design purses, I do ceramics, I do plain art painting, and I work on jewelry.

And so sometimes I just get so involved in a purse, that I sit there for two hours and can't move, and then I pay for it, but I get up and do some yoga, that solves the problem. Other things in my life that, mean a great deal to me is getting together with childhood friends that I've managed to maintain, and also, friends and colleagues that I used to work with. And those, the latter are mostly in Ventura County and the rest of them are scattered everywhere and, I just, two weeks ago I was with six friends in Venice, California, and in September we're getting the grade school and junior high-school girls together for a lunch, and gossip about everything, and those get-togethers mean a great deal to me. Yoga helps keep you young! Because if you don't keep moving, you lose it. (laughs) And I model myself on her, that's kept me, it's something that keeps me young.

(chuckles) If she can do it, I have to be able to do it. My best advice is that you have to keep involved with projects but you (mumbles), you also have to keep involved with people, because your interaction with people, makes you human. Because if you just keep on doing your own projects, well then you're just into yourself. But you have to keep involved with others and that's what yoga classes do. What would I advise?

Get involved in something that you like. You don't have to be passionate necessarily, but something that you like, that you enjoy doing, if it's a job, if it's a hobby, if it's something, and introduce other people to it through your enthusiasm for it, and that way you can share with people and that's the great pleasure in life. To an older man or woman I would say get off your butt and get into the studio. (laughs joyfully) And I would second that! (laughs loudly)