Poses We Do (To Varying Degrees)

I've been dreading this post a little bit, because it's the hardest part of camp to explain. So I made a deal-i-o with myself that I can do it, but not in crazy detail. If you know me, you know how much I can talk, and you know how much I love details! But I am going to give a more readable, breathable version of my self here this time. Here goes:

Butterfly

Boat (yes, the seated boat)

Roly Poly (rolling front to back hugging our knees - awesomely fun to do together!)

Candlestick (shoulder stand) - this obviously runs the gamut from lying down with legs sticking up in the air all the way to some pretty amazing full shoulder stands by the older kids. I help them a lot on this one.

Fish (starting with Fish Faces to make it more fun, because this one is challenging for small bodies!)

Cat/Cow - complete with lots of noise :)

Dog

3-Legged Dog - can also be hopping 3-Legged Dog

Baby Donkey Hops

Big Donkey Kicks

Dog Walk (walking around in Dog pose)

Handstands at the wall - endless variations!

Seed pose - we often need a rest after all the handstands :)

Dancer's Pose with one hand on the wall for balance (or not)

Star pose - this is what Half Moon pose is called in kids yoga - we do it leaning on the wall, mostly.

Snake - now I do this differently than a lot of people - we get down and slither around the room pretending to be snakes and hissing and making up things like snake names. There's a lot to be said for kids pretending to actually be animals and just going the whole 9 yards, as you well know :)

After Snake we grow our legs back and stand up for Tree pose

Airplane - kids yoga version of Warrior III

Bridge pose

Savasana with eye pillows

Now just a couple of details I think are so essential that if they're left out we may as well be playing T-ball:

Yoga breath (also called Flower Power breath in some kids classes) - gentle breathing through the nose. Our skulls make something like 28 movements/adjustments for every nostril breath, and zero for mouth breathing. Super important for the health of the skull and hence for the health of the whole being. But it should be gentle, natural breath - yogic breathing is not a good idea for kids at all. There are many reasons for this, and in many ways it's not all that great for adults, either, unless they find their natural breath first. So when you're doing yoga with little ones, just touch your nose every so often to remind them to breathe, and make sure they understand it's easy, gentle breathing in yoga.

Also that alignment, for kids, is irrelevant - the best thing is to model something (if they don't already know what shape to make with their body for a particular pose) and let them do it completely on their own. Physically putting them in positions is less than ideal because at the age I'm working with (and my own age, as well!) a huge part of the learning experience is actually seeing something and just giving it a shot. Whether they do it backwards, halfway, or totally 'wrong'  it's fine - it's great, even! They're figuring out so many relationships between body/gravity/up/down/forwards/backwards, etc...they'll get it all eventually if they keep playing around with it :)

No pressure :) I sort of started to talk about this with breathing and letting them figure things out on their own...please remember that 'yoga' really is an imaginary concept. There is no 'canon' of poses - there are no definitive yoga movements - almost nothing is known about what yoga was, originally, and it's changed so much over the years that none of us are doing 'real' poses. We're doing 'stuff' and we call it yoga because of the conditions we create in which to practice this 'stuff'. Right and wrong, etc don't apply very well in yoga. If you run out of things to do or feel at a loss, just start making things up, or have them invent some new poses :)

Love to all, and see you in the morning at camp!

Once the half pints are in the yoga room...

The last post covered getting from the studio front door into the yoga room...the next step in our morning is a little transition play time. This is pretty straight forward, as play times go...we talk about sharing, playing well together, walking instead of running, using our words instead of our hands (i.e. grabbing, pushing, etc.) to communicate what we want and need, and helping (putting everything away together). It's a nice time, and we also play catch with balloons or just look at books together.

After putting away the toys, books, and balloons, everyone chooses where they will sit that morning for yoga. I set up a big rectangle of mats every morning before the kids arrive, so after play time we migrate to the yoga mats. The kids choose their own spot, which often results in some photo-worthy clumps of tots with huge gaps in between. They rearrange themselves once we get to the poses that require more personal space. We all sit cross-legged (to the best of our ability) and tune in with an Om, with a daily reminder about using our yoga breath (breathing through the nose).

The next paragraph may just break your heart open, so take a breath yourself if you haven't seen this part of class before.

The bell ceremony:
We have a couple of types of bells at the studio - one Tibetan bell on a string, and one on a little post with a piece of wood to strike it. I start off, modeling how to handle the bell and how to ring it. The kids are enthralled by the bell - there is a hush in the room as they watch me ring it, wait until the sound dies away, and then ceremoniously pass it to the child to my left. They then recieve the enchanted attention of the whole group as they ring the bell and pass it along to the next child. One of these days I'm going to get this on video for the parents - seeing these little ones in hushed silence as they wait for a dozen of their friends to ring the bell is pretty stunning. Just yesterday, a little one who was too scared to ring it the first day took what seemed like an eternity and almost rang the bell at least 3 times before deciding to tap it ever so gently to produce a faint tone. The respectful, encouraging silence and subsequent elation on the part of the group as this tot meandered through this experience was very moving. This sort of thing happens all the time in toddler yoga, and is one of the big reasons for this blog : class is not chaotic most of the time - we actually get a lot done, and in fine style. Some of the more experienced half pints are so good with the bell that they have certain sound they can reproduce every time by striking it with their own personal technique. Death by cuteness is something I worry about sometimes, but I figure it'd be a pretty nice way to go if comes to that.

Thanks again for reading this installment about the half pints and their yoga practice with me and my great helpers (without them, we'd never get to this level of harmony and I appreciate them infinitely!).

Summer camps begin tomorrow!

I'm so excited to start camp tomorrow with the half pints! I figured this is a good time to start my series of posts on how camp runs, and why, step by step. First, I'd like to talk about getting to camp and coming into the yoga room. The way they come in can positively affect how their morning starts off, so it's worth a short post. It's wonderful if the kids can do this independently (of course this isn't always smooth sailing, and we can definitely roll with whatever does actually transpire). This is what we're working toward, and some days it happens, some days...not so much :)

Kid walk in to the studio lobby (on their own if possible).

They take off their shoes and store them in one of the cubbies.

They bring their bag with their snack, refillable cup, diapers, etc over to the area by the door of the yoga room and put that down with the other bags.

They walk into the room for a little transition time playing with toys, balloons and/or reading with their camp mates and me and  my assistant. We're so lucky to have assistants this year who have been with camp for at least one summer and who truly enjoy working with the kids. I start getting emails in the winter inquiring about summer camp - needless to say, it's a delight to work with these fun, creative, caring young women, and the kids adore them.

All of this may seem like detail mania, but it does help the kids feel like they have some ownership in the process and ultimately it leads to smoother drop-offs and it also helps at pick-up time that they know where their things are and can gather them up "all by themselves" (the toddler mantra!).

Much love to all the folks who bring their children in to do yoga with us - can't wait to see you, whether it's for camp or a drop-in class!

-Amy