← Back to the blog

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.

More to Explore

  • Yes To Higher Aim…No To Lame

    Say Yes to Brightness,
    To Certainty, To Health
    Say no to dullness,
    To doubt, to filth.
    Say Yes to Careful,
    To Enthusiasm, to Aim
    Say no to Careless,
    To Backsliding, to Lame.
    Say yes to activity,
    To Attention, To humility.
    Say no to Heedless,
    Inertia, Instability.
    How to say NO
    To such 9 Disturbances?
    Create a “no” prop
    To play interference.
    A block will work wonders
    To impede interruptions.
    Place between your hands
    To help with deductions.
    Press your hands in
    To fire your inner shoulders.
    Breathe your arms up
    And become a beholder.
    Keep pressing in
    To activate what’s dull.
    Reach the block up high
    As well as your skull.
    Hold a block in one hand
    Lift up your opposite knee
    Tilt to block side
    Finding freedom is key.
    Place the “no” block
    Right between your thighs.
    I know it is awkward
    May your enthusiasm rise!
    Press your thighs back
    Keep your shins fixed.
    Fold Forward, touch the floor
    Breathe steady while betwixt.
    Step back into Downward Dog,
    Bend your knees a lot.
    Press your block up and back
    Notice your train of thought!
    Shift forward into plank
    Lower down flat like a pancake.
    Keep shins pressing down
    Lift thighs up with a mandate.
    Stretch your belly and heart forward,
    Hips back toward your toes
    Open your shoulders
    Like a polyphonic prose.
    Press back to Down Dog
    Come down to table.
    Remove your block
    Keep hands and shins stable.
    Prepare to find freedom
    With boundaries no less.
    In this grounded pose
    We call “No Table Yes”.
    As you stretch right leg back
    Exhale Yes to Higher Aim.
    As you bring knee to forehead
    Inhale No to Lame.
    Your spine arches and curves
    As you continue 5 times
    Try it fast, Try it slow
    Switch sides
    Cause it’s prime.
    Sit is easy pose
    Tune into your frame.
    Each inhale in
    Think Yes to high aim.
    Each exhale out
    Think No to Lame
    May this help you
    Up your game.

  • Namaste

    Said my young friend who wants a connection: “I wave. I shake hands, with no objection. No pain, no remorse, no one intervening a choice I make without much thought or meaning~” “…Is there a gesture that honors each other? That celebrates greeting sisters and brothers? Can you show me HOW to express happiness with social and spiritual significance?” YES, my dear friend, I can show you a mudra~ a gesture of sorts, for kings, friends and sudras. Place hands together from fingers to wrists~ like a knife, cut through difference that may exist. This immediately gets you to the shared ground~ of ALL people, of all cultures, of all sound. It’s a recognition, a united force~ that honors equality of all from the Source. Close your eyes and tune into your own inner light; your divine spark that forever burns bright. That’s the key, my dear friend, you must see your OWN in order to recognize others’ light shown. BLEND your five fingers of action on the left~ with five fingers of knowledge on the right~ to achieve the symbol of perfection the union of opposites; interconnection. FInd the Connection of your brain and your heart; your sun and your moon; your stop and your start. Marry together reason and emotion~ unite thoughts and feelings, stillness and motion. Join positive and negative; hot and cold~ theory with practice, silver with gold~ Wisdom with Method, intellect with instinct~ talent with genius, and feelings with think! Exhalation and inhalation, ,brain and heart~ Align in harmony, right from the start! There is indeed no sphere of our existence untouched by the symbolic significance~ of Namaste~ Namaste

  • Principal’s Office

    Want to be a risk taker?
    Feel more alive?
    Go one foot past scary?
    and deep into the dive?
    We have a suggestion;
    a type of advice.
    Report to the principal’s office
    not once….but twice!
    Once as invited,
    the other time sent.
    Once in your school years,
    with our consent.
    It may seem unusual
    coming from us.
    Report to the office
    Nevertheless.

  • Peaceful Kids

    In 2017, Alpharetta Lifestyle magazine interviewed Sedef Dion, co-creator of Pre-Grounded Kids Yoga, for an article called “Peaceful Kids.” At the time Sedef taught children’s yoga at Life Time Fitness Alpharetta, in classes for children as young as 3. Sedef spoke about what yoga gives children: strength, flexibility, self-awareness, self-regulation and focus, along with tools…

  • The Ground Truth

    Have you ever heard the term “The Ground Truth”? Spies say it when they want to know what really went down, no cover-ups and no interpretations. Apparently in life or death spy situations it’s important to know the ground truth in order to move forward in the mission. In NASA, the ground truth is part of the calibration process where a person on the ground makes a measurement of the same thing the satellite is trying to measure at the same time. The two answers are then compared to help evaluate how well the satellite instrument is performing.