Protect yourself! If you think you’ve been targeted by a scam, click here to get information and assistance from the AARP Fraud Watch Network Helpline!
Sisters Site Logo.svg
Oh no!
It looks like you aren't logged in to the Sisters community. Log in to get the best user experience, save your favorite articles and quotes, and follow our authors.
Don't have an Online Account? Subscribe here
Subscribe

Mary Wilson’s Supreme Shape-up

The Motown star and founding member of the Supremes sculpts her arms and waistline with this stamina-building workout.

Comment Icon
71955-Mary-Wilson-Yoga-by-Rowan-Daly_1540.jpg
Rowan Daly
Comment Icon

Yoga is the best thing in the world for a singer because it helps you to control your breathing. It’s all about taking that deep breath.

I started practicing yoga more than 30 years ago. It has been a physical exercise as well as a meditative one; Hollywood was into wellness and health in those days. In 1994, however, I was in a car accident, a bad one — my 14-year-old son was killed. That’s not something you ever get over. I was shattered emotionally. I had a punctured lung and other internal injuries, a broken collarbone and a damaged chin. I couldn’t comb my hair because I couldn’t lift my arm. I still have not recovered physically or emotionally.

During that time, my best friend, Freda Payne, told me, “Girl, you should come to Bikram yoga.” I fell in love with yoga. With hot yoga, you stand in one place and stretch and sweat, and you get great benefits. I love heat, so I used to do 90-minute classes four or five days a week. I don’t do hot yoga as much anymore, because with age it is hard, but I still do other types of yoga two or three times a week for strength and fitness.

Mary Wilson doing yoga
Rowan Daly



The kind that I do now is less traditional and involves body sculpting — the arms, the waistline. It’s called CorePower. I’m [75 now but] in a class with
20- and 30-year-old kids. I have to sit down once in a while because I can’t keep up with them, but that’s OK. Yoga helps me maintain my energy because in my mind I’m still 15 years old.

Mary Wilson doing yoga
Rowan Daly


Mary’s Favorite Asanas
Wide-Legged Forward Fold
One Leg
Standing Pose
Dancer Pose
Modified Hero Pose