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Certified to Teach Kids Yoga in Middle School

Last night felt surreal.  I was standing in my kitchen with Lee, Amy & Cheryl when they handed me a single piece of cardstock with the words ‘Certified Grounded Teacher.’ I felt my throat clench and my heart skip a beat.  Though I have been teaching Grounded Yoga for over a year, it was this small piece of recognition that let me know that I am now officially recognized as part of one of the greatest movements of my lifetime.Once I received my 200hr teacher training in 2012, I had begun leading my daughter’s classes at school once a week and eventually took over the Tween class at my studio.  I pulled resources from all around- other teachers, online sites, books, games…everything I could find to help create a well-rounded class.  It was a year of growth and some things worked and some failed miserably.  What I did know was that I loved teaching children- their honesty in their bodies and mouths and they way it was starting to create a shift in their perspective. My dear friend and teacher, Lee introduced me to Grounded in early 2013 when she came home lit UP from Level 1 training.  I watched her do Go To Your Room and that’s literally ALL it took!  I knew that something special was going on with Grounded…something that hadn’t been done before…something that was about to change how the world looks at kid’s yoga.  We put a plan together to “sell” our yoga program to our school as a full-time yoga curriculum.  And it WORKED!  I decided to take the Level 1 training just after school started so we could teach the same material and use each other to bounce ideas and begin to try to understand the huge undertaking we’d just landed.Smiling children practicing yoga poses in a colorful classroom during a Grounded Kids Yoga teacher training sessionChildren and a teacher on yoga mats in a classroom with their arms raised overheadThe rest of the school year was filled with Level 2 & 3 and some of the greatest learning experiences of my life.  I was teaching 4-8th grade yoga every day, and high school classes whenever possible.  We met many challenges along the way, especially as it relates to effective communication between us and the teachers regarding expectations.  We also felt the force of middle school resistance and cooler-than-yoga attitudes from a few who just didn’t want it!  We were teaching as part of a school day curriculum, not as an elective or after school club.  Not everyone on their mat wanted to be there.  But it didn’t take long before they, their classmates, teacher and parents began to see a dynamic change happening and word spread quickly about how much FUN we were all having.Some days we got really grounded, focusing on alignment, muscle groups, anatomy and growing roots.  Some days we laughed really big, got creative, wrote in journals and on our friend’s backs.  Some days we cried and talked about bullying and gossip and how it tears down the very fiber of our beings.  We said sorry, we hugged and promised to love bigger and better the next day.  Sometimes we talked about yoga’s benefits for menstrual cycles, surprised our athletes with headstands and 3-stacked planks, and gave a student a special chance to shine with a crow pose he’d practiced for weeks.  We choreographed an amazing flow to One Tribe by the Black Eyed Peas in just 4 practices!  We found out that we really could still our bodies and quiet our minds for a whole 5 minute Savasana and that is was totally worth it! I have watched over them, struggling and resisting until they finally surrendered- into a pose, into an acceptance, into giving into their own grace.  I have seen them create beautiful poses all on their own and teach it better than I could’ve!  I’ve heard them describe benefits of poses I’d never even considered!  It is a completely different experience with children; more honest and certainly more challenging, but in ALL the best ways.  They don’t come in to please.  They come just as they are.I am forever changed by the incredible small (and not-so-small) people all around me.  I can never repay the gift of learning I’ve experienced at their hand; I can only continue on this journey with gratitude and joy in my heart and lightness in my feet.  I wish this to all of you reading.  You are GROUNDED, lucky you.  We are pioneers on this path and have SO much good work to do!  As someone really cool once said, “You have brains in your head and feet in your shoes…Get on your way!”Children standing in a room decorated with string lights during a yoga class Children and adults reaching their arms overhead in a yoga class
Smiling children practicing yoga poses in a colorful classroom during a Grounded Kids Yoga teacher training session

Want to train the way Heather did? All four steps, the dates and what is included: 95 hour kids yoga teacher training and certification.

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  • Inspired by the Velveteen Rabbit…How Teachers Become Real.

    The Skin Horse had lived longer in the nursery than any of the others. He was so old that his brown coat was bald in patches and showed the seams underneath, and most of the hairs in his tail had been pulled out to string bead necklaces. He was wise, for he had seen a long succession of mechanical toys arrive to boast and swagger, and by-and-by break their mainsprings and pass away, and he knew that they were only toys, and would never turn into anything else. For nursery magic is very strange and wonderful, and only those playthings that are old and wise and experienced like the Skin Horse understand all about it.
    “What is REAL?” asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?”
    “Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”
    “Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.
    “Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”
    “Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?”
    “It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”
    “I suppose you are real?” said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive.
    But the Skin Horse only smiled
    – From the Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams –

  • Snow White Yoga

    {Tada drastuh svarupe vasthanam}
    Patanjali’s Sutra Chapter 1, verse 3
    Then the SEER abides in it own NATURE
    Surely, it’s meant to BE~
    To ABIDE in our own SPLENDOR~
    The mind must get real quiet;
    it needs to uncover the truth
    and go on a Cloud free Diet.
    No need to grasp for light
    For it is already here and there.
    Let’s thin out the distorted clouds
    Of ignorance and despair.
    Let’s work with the muddled mind,
    Accept that clouds are blocking,
    Train to be more observant
    Of thoughts that keep on talking.
    Just like the sun up above
    Our LIGHT never dims to slur.
    It does get covered up.
    And distortion may occur.
    Dwarfs mine for diamonds
    In the classic tale SNOW WHITE.
    We mine for JOY
    It’s our undivided RIGHT.
    SNOW WHITE sings joyfully,
    As she tidies up the cottage.
    Birds and animals dance along
    And MiIRROR her BLISSFUL wattage.
    SNOW WHITE glistens KINDNESS,
    and undisturbed PURENESS,
    That exists at the core of her being
    Her true SELF, that’s for sureness.
    In yoga, we use our practice
    To support the removal of clouds~
    To ground into our inner brilliance
    And shine out free from the shrouds.
    “Just whistle while you work
    And cheerfully together we can tidy up the place
    So hum a merry tune
    It won’t take long when there’s a song to help you set the pace ”
    Keep your ankles in line with your knees
    And your knees in line with your hips.
    Clasp your elbows behind your back
    And rise up high on your toe-tips.
    Bend steady your knees.
    Stay high up on tiptoes.
    Whistle or hum a tune
    While you work to hold this pose!
    “And as you sweep the room
    Imagine that the broom is someone that you love
    And soon you’ll find you’re dancing to the tune
    When hearts are high the time will fly
    So whistle while you work”
    Clean the sand trap of cluttered thoughts
    With camel pose in a chair.
    Sit on the edge of your seat
    Place your hands behind you with care.
    Lift the sides of your heart up
    And the back of your heart high.
    Pull your head of the arm bones back.
    Soften both sides of your throat and sigh.
    Sigh your throat back,
    And LIFT YOUR HEART HIGH.
    WHISTLE WHILE YOU WORK
    And allow time to fly.
    Place hands on your lap
    Lift your head back over your heart
    Ground your thighs and feet,
    And Feel the clouds depart.
    May we whistle while we work.
    May we notice our inner states.
    May our inner states be bright.
    And lighten our outer updates.
    May the sound that whistles tunes
    from within our deep heart’s abyss
    Ring loud and ring clear~
    OUR OWN TRUE NATURE IS BLISS!