We are grateful for the wisdom, generosity, and kindness of many wonderful people who contributed to this book. In particular, we offer heartfelt thanks to the visionaries at Duke Integrative Medicine (IM) for their encouragement and support of our efforts to bring the healing benefits of yoga into mainstream medical care. Deep gratitude to Duke IM’s founding executive director, Tracy Gaudet, MD; current executive director, Adam Perlman, MD, MPH; program director Linda Smith, PA-C; program coordinator Katie Strobush; chefs Cate Smith and Rebecca Blackwell; business manager Delores Austin; custodian Simon Morko; health center administrator Teresa Keever, RN; and the wonderful Guest Services team for their help in making our Therapeutic Yoga for Seniors Professional Trainings so successful.
Thanks also to the Duke University Medical Center experts who have given so generously of their time and knowledge. For their ongoing support, we are deeply grateful to our core faculty: Mitchell Krucoff, MD; Kathy M. Shipp, PT, MHS, PhD; Francis Keefe, PhD; Jeffrey Browndyke, PhD; Rebecca Crouch, DPT; Rebecca Byrd, DPT; Linda Cates, MS, PT, NCS; Tony Galanos, MD; and Arif Kamal, MD. For their contributions over the years, we would also like to thank Sam Moon, MD, MPH; Anne Kenyon; Evangeline Lausier, MD; Katherine S. Hall, PhD; Kim Huffman, MD, PhD; Gretchen Kimmick, MD; Harold G. Koenig, MD; Matthew Peterson, PhD; Beth Silberman, PT; Burton L. Scott, MD, PhD; Patrick Smith, PhD; Jessica P. Wakefield, MA, LPC; Shelley Wroth, MD; Tara Dickinson, PT, DPT, CCS; Betsy Alden, DMin; Julie Kosey, MS, RYT; and Janet Schaffer, LAc. Our students are among our best teachers, and we offer sincere thanks and warm hugs to those who have shared their yoga journey as panelists during our trainings, including Don Foard, Marilyn Hartman, Patricia Simmons, Ted Purcell, and Julius “Jack” Raper. Special thanks to Sam Sather, BSN, E-RYT, for her help with managing our certification program.
We are grateful to the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health for making our training accessible to more yoga teachers. Namaste to Rasmani Orth, EdD, and Luke Breslin, as well as Kali Girasek and Sheryl Rapee-Adams. Thanks, too, to Jim and Lynea Gillen of Yoga Calm for sponsoring our abridged training.
For their work in establishing yoga as a respected therapy, we offer admiration and gratitude to the International Association of Yoga Therapists—with special thanks to executive director John Kepner and cofounders Larry Payne, PhD, and Richard Miller, PhD, for encouraging our efforts to make the practice available and appropriate for older adults. Thanks also to the excellent editorial team at New Harbinger, particularly Jess O’Brien, Jess Beebe, Clancy Drake, Jesse Burson, and Vicraj Gill. We are grateful to Marisa Solís for her skillful, meticulous copyediting and to illustrator Lynn Shwadchuck for her lovely drawings. Thanks to our models Jim Carson, Liz Downey, Cynthia Ferebee, Len Ludwig, Mary Jane Ott, Bruce Reavis, Jane Wachsler, and Kathy Williams for their patience, enthusiasm, and generosity in so beautifully illustrating the varied expressions of yoga postures.
I extend deep gratitude to the wise and brilliant souls who have nourished me along this journey. Thanks to my Duke colleagues John Barefoot, PhD; Francis Keefe, PhD; and Laura Porter, PhD, for weaving me into the academic behavioral medicine community and encouraging my research passions so whole-heartedly; and to Gwynn Sullivan, RN, MSN, and Jeffrey Brantley, MD, for so graciously welcoming me onto the yoga and mindfulness-based stress reduction teams at the Duke Center for Living. Thank you, Tracy Bogart, for asking me to teach Yoga for Seniors so many years ago and for your inspired and deep knowing that Carol and I “needed to meet.” I offer sincere appreciation for my OHSU colleagues Susan Hedlund, MSW, LCSW, OSW-C; Tina Kauffman, PA, PhD; Carl Davison; Bill Rubine, MS, PT; Kim Jones, RNC, PhD; and Jeffrey Kirsch, MD, for your support, confidence, and friendship. It is a pleasure and an honor to work with you. Thank you to André and Gianna Ripa, for deepening my dance with Spirit. With great love and respect for my primary meditation teachers, I thank Lee Lyon, Mickey Singer, and Joel Morwood; without your clarity and guidance my service in the world would have a very different tone. I bow deeply to the great twentieth-century teachers of the yogic tradition who have illuminated my path: Bhagawan Nityananda, Swami Muktananda, Swami Kripalvananda, and Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj. Thank you to my first teachers, my dear parents, for your love and support along this wild, unpredictable journey. Finally, it is with eternal gratitude that I thank Jim, Grace, and Shankara—the most exquisite and vibrant family I could imagine.
Sincere thanks to Miriam C. Morey, PhD, senior fellow at the Duke Center for Aging and Human Development, and her staff at the Durham VA’s Gerofit program, who invited me to become their “Yoga Lady,” launching my journey into this transformative endeavor. Warm hugs to gifted nurse-practitioner Suzie Crater, who connected me with the Gerofit team and offers continued inspiration. I’m grateful for the support of extraordinary colleagues at Duke Integrative Medicine and cherish being part of this pioneering group of healers. I offer deep appreciation to the many yoga teachers I’ve studied with for more than forty years, in particular my mentor Esther Myers, her teacher Vanda Scaravelli, and her teacher T. K. V. Desikachar. Heartfelt gratitude to my late mother, Eleanor Ostrinsky, who was one of my most challenging and best yoga students, for her devotion, courage, and deep love, which are stronger than death. I am grateful for my wonderful son, Max, daughter, Rae, son-in-law, Peter, and dearest Kate, whose light illuminates my world. And eternal thanks to my remarkable husband, Mitchell, for his extraordinary vision, unwavering support, and boundless love.