As I sit to write this I am grinning ear to ear because my heart could not be more full of love, joy, pride and awe. This morning, I was honored to have two of MY girls (and when I say My I mean students of mine) for over four years teach a full on yoga class to a group of 14 students at the Ivivva Store In Dunwoody Village.
Hi, my name is Keira and I have been doing yoga for 4 years. It has been a great experience. Yoga has helped me calm down when I’m mad. Yoga makes me feel peaceful. Practicing yoga has helped me a lot by calming me down and making me more flexible. It’s fun learning new poses and helping others earn their bandanas. I wish I had started earlier. I had fun earning my bandanas, and if you do yoga, I hope that you’ll have fun earning yours.
Hi! My name is Kendall, I’m 12 years old, and I have been doing yoga for four years. In these four short years, yoga has become a huge part of my life.
From taking a deep breath before yelling at my mom or sister, teaching friends for my green bandana, to even making up flows of my own, I love every part of yoga. I especially enjoy the way I feel after class and the feeling I get from helping younger kids earn their own bandanas.
Yoga has been a steady part of my life, always helping me through a difficult week, a bad grade, or friend and family problems. I hope to continue to practice and learn as I get older.
Hello. My name is Marily Minton and I am 8 years old. I am working on my white bandana and I have been doing yoga for almost 5 years. Yoga inspires me to do big things that will inspire others to do great things in their lives. Yoga helps me in everyday life. For example, if I were about to take a test I might do a breathing pose or if I were about to perform a dance I might stretch by doing yoga. To calm me down when I feel stressed I do yoga. It helps me stretch and relax. When I just get out of a car when I am on road trips I feel all stiff so I do some yoga poses to stretch out my body. I also help my family to be happy and healthy by practicing yoga with them. I use yoga almost every day in my life and it makes me feel proud to know that I am the youngest in my class to complete all the bandanas in the grounded program. I hope my blog will inspire you to complete yours.
Namaste,
Marily M.
“How do you become flexible on the Inside?”That is the question that I was asked by 4th grade student Isabelle at Yoga Club last week. We were working on acknowledging what we could use more of: strength, balance, or flexibility. After meditating to find what we had the least of, Isabelle raised her hand and asked this question. I stumbled for words, trying to be eloquent and honest on the spot. I spoke of the importance of strength and balance in finding inner flexibility… but honestly this answer felt like it came up short. I found myself reflecting on this question for the rest of the day (the class was over at 3:30pm). I consulted some dear friends and got many good suggestions such as taking a walk, for no other reason than to walk.
But here is what I came up with, that resonates as the voice of my own truth.
Being flexible on the inside is a lifelong process. There is a big difference between being loosey goosey with no boundaries, and being open to change and to testing new waters. These two polarities give us a framework for the spectrum of possibility. At the beginning, at the core, and at the point of willingness, is a strong inner truth. This truth is clear, it reminds me who I am, what is most important to me. For some this is a relationship with family or friends. For others their connection to their higher power is the most precious thing in their lives. Maybe for you it’s a sport, or a mission, or catfishing. I check in, sometimes daily, sometimes hourly, with my Truth. Each time I face a new challenge I ask myself “Does this bring me closer or farther away from _________________.”
Flexibility in my teaching this week came in the form of ‘hold on a minute’ and ‘kids’.
I usually have 15-20 people in my classes but this week there was only 8. When I saw the sign ups on the computer and was thinking; but where is Laura, where are John and Sonya? I was a little disappointed; I wanted everyone to be there so I could tell them all about flexibility. But then I realized that I was doing a disservice to the students who had actually shown up, that it was these students that needed my focus and attention, it was these students who had choosen to practice yoga this evening. As always I took my notes about the theme Flexibility, (taken from yet another amazing Omni Webinar!!) into my Yoga class Monday night and spoke during centering. Early on in the Evolution series we do a 3-part Utkatasana pose. Part one is similar to the standard pose, part two is sitting hips to heels and part three is balancing. I had decided to carry on wearing the t-shirt I had been wearing to my first day of Kids yoga camp. It shows a picture of a boy doing revolved chair pose, which in Kid’s Yoga is called ‘hold on a minute’. At this point in the class I invited my students to be flexible, to show up and engage in what was being presented to them even thought it was unfamiliar. I instructed everyone into hold on a minute pose, to hold the pose for a minute and then do it again on the other side!
Sitting at the front desk after class I noticed that there was a stack of Yoga Journal magazines on the side and I couldn’t believe it when I saw that the top copy had a picture of none other than Parivrtta Utkatasana on the front cover!!! I was so excited that I made sure to show all my students as they left the studio. Matt commented that ‘It was very Vinyasa of me’. I asked Rosa how it had been for her. She said she found it tough, the pose and the unfamiliarity. I was pleased that my initial question had allowed her to open herself up to asking me a question about a pose in the series that she never really understood. John said he had also found the pose very challenging. He went on to explain that he appreciated the help with the cueing in class to engage and straightening his knees, as he had spent years playing hockey, where his stance throughout a game is knees bent. For him the elevation in height and the different feelings that come up in his body just going from bent knees to straight causes a sense of anxiety to start rising up inside him. This yoga is complex and fascinating stuff!
I want to tell you how flexibility in my planning made a young girl’s face light up when I offered her the opportunity to teach a lesson to the other kids at yoga camp. How the lesson theme ‘Why fit in when you were born to stand out?’ was tailor made for her. How the lesson plan happened to include a quote from her all time idol Coco Chanel.
The most courageous thing you can do is think for yourself. Aloud.
How this amazing girl, realized how much she loved teaching and wants to do it again and again.
I want to tell you how flexibility in my planning allowed a beautiful boy to share with us his wealth of knowledge about chakras. How he brought in the notes he had written up, how he showed us the stones that represent each Chakra and how he then taught us a pose he had chosen to go with each one.
I want to tell you how flexibility in my perspective allowed a boy, with limited awareness of his physical body, to be successful in crow pose by showing him how to do it on his back. I want to tell you how flexibility in not doing everything myself created a bond between 2 girls as they worked together to write out the word of the day and the alignment action.
I want to tell you how holding space allowed a girl to help her friend find words of wisdom to share with the universe, ‘love life and follow your dreams’
I want to tell you how flexibility in changing the rules of a game allowed even the quietest and shyest of children to be in a space that was unknown and unfamiliar and find the power within them to teach a new pose to everyone.
I want to tell you how allowing time and space for growth manifested itself in a tentative smile grow bigger and bigger on the face of the quietest of little angels over the week. How she couldn’t contain herself and giggled with excitement and sheer delight as we played our very last game. And how it came forth in her writing too.
I want to tell you about how flexible this amazing group of children was. How they showed up and engaged fully in what was being presented to them. How they had loud temper tantrums in the pose ‘calm down’, how they held a pose for one minute and then did it again on the other side. How they sang and chanted ‘I am happy, I am good’ and ‘I am the light of my soul, I am light, I am, I am, I am’. How they told us about accepting and staying true to themselves by doing or not doing things that are expected of them because of their gender. How they wrote phrases like, ‘patience now, you’ll get there’, ‘yoga was perfect’, ‘thank you yoga’.
How they told us what yoga means to them:
Yoga is a peaceful place where you can relax and breath
Yoga is patience
Yoga is an exercise where people calm down
How they worked together to created an amazing mandala and chatted and laughed together as they painted rock with the intention of putting their art out into the world.
How they supported each other as they were tested for their bandanas in the Solid Ground Flow, and how they supported each other in-group poses.
CLEAR BOUNDARIES, NO LIMITS!!
