Thank you Eight year old Marlie for presenting me with this yoga book you wrote and taught to classes in your school. I appreciate your interesting chapters~ Yoga that keeps me calm Yoga that keeps me Grounded Yoga with more than two people Yoga with two people Yoga that keeps me happy and your very helpful notes~ Remember you will not get it the first time Breathe slowly Remember to lean your beautifully detailed art~ and your permission to share your work on our blog~ I am grateful that you have been a grounded student for three years and you continue to serve your school with yoga. With love, Cheryl Crawford
We chant OM in order to ground our energy in the present moment. When teaching kids who are brand new to yoga, I am determined to invite them into the wondrous world of all that is yoga without pushing them into a place of spooky sounds, weird ways and stuff completely unrelated to anything they’ve ever known. This mantra is a mode of transportation from where we were in our individual lives moments ago to where we are now – together in yoga
As Earth Day approaches this year, I am struck by what it means to truly foster Peace on this planet. I remember as a child, learning about anti-nuclear protestors who chained themselves to fences and were forcibly removed and jailed. These brave souls became my heroines and heroes in the late 1970’s and 1980’s. I was moved to tears singing Dylan’s “Blowing in the Wind” and hearing stories of civil disobedience and the message of non-violent resistance. Later in the 1990’s, when I danced barefoot on my very first Earth Day, a lump would form in my throat when I celebrated each small victory (and the Gigantic Hearts) of environmental protestors who sacrificed so much to save a single tree and worked to preserve open space for our children’s children. Peace.
For many of us, a new year represents a blank slate, a Tabula Rasa. Imagine being able to “refresh” any or all areas of your life. Now visualize this table with two columns, Yes and No. You create your truest life by thoughtfully choosing what goes in the No column and what is a Yes. Everything you say YES to and everything you say NO to matters. What if your yes’s and no’s were tabulated and at the end of a day, week, year, lifetime, you could see how the data, otherwise known as your life, balanced out?
There is a huge difference between going deep and going in. Deeply understanding and knowing something is not the same level of experience as ingesting or taking something in and transforming because of it.
Grounded Kids Yoga 115 Milton Park Court, Alpharetta, GA 30022
Based in Atlanta, Georgia, Grounded Kids Yoga provides in-person and online training, professional development workshops, and ongoing support for educators, parents, and clinicians. We specialize in kids yoga, mindfulness, social-emotional learning (SEL), trauma and pain management, emotional regulation, and impulse control for preschool through high school students. Each year, we serve thousands of children and teens through school programs, after-school enrichment yoga clubs, summer camps, Girl Scouts, 4-H conferences, and yoga studios across Atlanta, the Southeast, and nationwide.