Mar 26, 2018
Betsy Gelb explored all sorts of
new ways to exercise before deciding that yoga resonated most
deeply for her. In fact, within her first year of practicing, she
immersed herself into an intense yoga teacher training. Having
recently met Betsy, as my new yoga teacher, I was delighted to have
a teacher who confidently and gracefully embraced aging (she
recently turned 70), challenged us to cultivate upper body strength
and shared her philosophy about breath, yoga, health, silence and
the power of turning inward. Betsy says that her niche in yoga is
that she is simultaneously the oldest and the youngest: she
typically is the oldest person in the class, however having come to
yoga so late in her life, has the youngest practice.
I discovered that before she found yoga, Betsy had a full, diverse
career. She was a psychiatric nurse at a methadone maintenance
program, taught nursing at St. Vincent’s Hospital, was a
psychiatric nurse supervisor at Jacoby Hospital, was a teaching
fellow at NYU, wrote a curriculum for mental health nursing and she
was the editor for RN Magazine.
In addition to her extensive work in the field of nursing, Betsy
was a docent for the Whitney and Guggenheim museums, taught art
literacy in NYC schools, ran her own women’s clothing business,
offered baking workshops a local bakery called “Taste the Love” and
collaborated with her husband, musician/composer Larry Gelb, in
writing the book for their musicals.
One of the musicals Betsy and Larry created, “Love So Dear” is
based on the true story of how LSD was introduced into the United
States. Betsy shares intriguing details from her thorough research
of the corruptive relationship between the CIA and LSD. I was
fascinated with my yoga teacher’s depth of knowledge and wisdom in
such a wide range of topics.
Links:
www.imaginmusic.com
YouTube video of the recording, "God is in the
Mayo", from the musical "LSD"