In this inaugural episode of Out of the Clouds, Anne is joined by longtime friend and teacher Diana Rilov. Today they will be discussing how Diana came to yoga, aging gracefully, what it means to be a ‘pirate’ and Diana’s personal philosophy about spirituality in yoga.
Anne and Diana met while Anne was living in New York after she decided to take one of Diana’s classes at Equinox. We hear how Diana first discovered yoga as a woman growing up in the 60’s after studying Art History and French, as well as working various jobs before finding her calling in yoga.
Diana tells us about her first experience of yoga and how she immediately knew it was something that she wanted to pursue. She discusses the process of certification to become a yoga teacher and how difficult it was to do so during a time when yoga as an emerging practice. We also hear about her experiences learning under Dona Holleman and her advice for creating her own path: “Be a pirate, get the gold and run.” This means that you should go to many different teachers, learn what they have to offer and take it to use as your own to inform your journey.
Anne asks Diana about her classes and teaching process. Diana talks about the workshop style of the classes that she arranges and the way her intuition guides her, especially when pairing or grouping people to work together. Anne also touches on the Bon Vivant retreats that Diana runs in Italy and how they split working and learning during the day with La Dolce Vita in the evenings to engender balance. Diana also explains her concept of the ‘Spiritual Selfie’ and how she would rather you come to your own spirituality, or not, instead of imposing it during classes.
The two then talk about how perceptions of growing older have changed over the years and Diana’s attitude to aging. They touch on their shared role-model of Ali MacGraw and how Anne first tried yoga with her tapes. Diana talks about the way you become invisible after 50 and how aging is perceived as frightening. She talks about letting her hair go white and modelling at 73 along with what she sees for her journey in the future.
Anne concludes the podcast by asking Diana three questions:
1) Who do you admire?
Ruth Bader Ginsberg, a Supreme Court Judge at age 87 who was the first woman to graduate from Harvard Law School.
2) What would you say to your younger self?
Trust your intuition, when you are older you will care less about what other people think and be able to become the woman you wanted to be.
3) What brings you happiness?
Today it is being safe, grounded and being able to have perspective while the world is in crisis.
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