Adapting Chair Yoga for Every Body

Finlay Wilson is a yoga teacher and the CEO of Heartspace in Dundee, a charity that develops yoga programmes, community work, and outreach for the people of Dundee and Scotland. Through his leadership over the last 14 years, a diverse community has formed with physical challenges from physical disability, limb loss, and additional support needs.

It's easy to be intimidated by the yoga imagery we see--people doing seemingly impossible physical acts. But yoga really is for everyone, if we can find a way into the practice. Chair yoga is particularly helpful in this regard. You might even say chair yoga is magic, and Finlay Wilson shares the magic of chair yoga so beautifully here. Most of us can imagine ourselves doing some gentle stretching and breathing in a chair. That's the key, just being open to the possibility. Once we start practicing, yoga does the trick. We just do some simple movements, connecting the breath with the body, and as if by magic a sense of peace and calm comes over us out of nowhere. Like a magician, pulling a rabbit out of his hat, it seems like that peace just appears from nothing. The thing is, the rabbit was there all along hidden inside the hat. Our peace is like that rabbit. It's hidden from us, but it's always there just under the surface waiting for us to do some yoga to expose our true nature.