You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘kids’ yoga’ tag.
Four times a year, Lynea and I conduct our Certification Workshops. They’re among our favorite events. We love seeing how practitioners creatively apply Yoga Calm activities as they share the 5 class plans they create as part of the certification process!
Each of these class plans is based on a Yoga Calm principle and tailored to a specific setting and population – a great way for our instructors to apply what they’ve learned to real world scenarios. They also serve as wonderful models and a source of inspiration for colleagues. They’re a way for professionals to share knowledge, highlight teaching topics and encourage best practices.
In 2012, our updated Wellness course series is designed to provide even more examples of and training in the creation of class plans. It’s a powerful way to learn the methods, explore the principles and apply the specific activities of the Yoga Calm system.
Even more exciting is the development of our online library of class plans – part of our new, enhanced website, which we’ll be launching early next year. Soon, you’ll be able to search Yoga Calm’s entire directory of over 500 class plans, using keywords specific to your needs. Imagine doing a simple, Google-like search to find a class plan for a 5-6th grade special needs class…or teen group…or preschoolers…or OT clients in a clinic; or finding a Community-themed plan for use at a treatment center….
Be sure you connect with us via Facebook, Twitter or email for news about these and other new courses and tools.
Meantime, we’d like to share one class plan with you, which was submitted by school psychologist Wendy Holley-Boen and is noteworthy for its use of mirroring activities, which stimulate the brain’s mirror neurons. These cells are found on either side of the head and are what allow us to experience what others are experiencing by mimicking their physical behavior.
Interesting, huh? But it gets even more amazing. UCLA professor Marco Iacoboni theorizes that mirror neurons tie us to other people’s feelings. His brain scan research has shown that when a subject looks at an image of a smiling face, the neurons that tell our muscles to smile fire up just as they do when we really do smile. And when a subject mirrors the smile, the area of the brain associated with feeling happy fires up even more!
This, says Iacoboni, is a consistent result. Mirror neurons, he believes, can send messages to the limbic – that is, the emotional – system in our brains. It’s possible that these neurons help us tune into each other’s feelings. That’s empathy.
Iacoboni strongly believes this is a unifying mechanism, allowing people to connect at a very simple level. Another researcher, V.S. Ramachandran, suggests that the development of these neurons was a key event in human evolution as a social species, conferring a survival advantage.
Other research has suggested that dysfunction in the mirror neuron network may be involved with autism.
But back to Wendy’s class plan. Tapping into the power of Yoga Calm’s student-leading method, the following Community-themed class plan is a brain-based method for developing empathy and compassion.
Yoga Calm COMMUNITY Class Plan
Class: Kindergarten
Facilitator: Wendy Holley-Boen, School Psychologist
Class Plan
Today we’ll be focusing on working together as a community.
You’ll find detailed instructions for each activity below in our book Yoga Calm for Children.
Belly Breathing, using Breathing Sphere
- Have one student come up to lead 5 breaths while another student counts the breaths. Tell the group to notice the teamwork that goes on between the two students.
- Have everyone breathe while using their hands as a “magic ball,” expanding and contracting in unison with the leader.
- Have the leaders choose a few children to give them a teamwork compliment.
Mirror/Human Activity
- In pairs, have the students practice yoga poses we have learned. One person will model the pose; one will mirror them. Switch.
- Discuss the power of being part of a team: How did it feel to lead? To have someone follow? To follow?
Trust Walk
- In pairs, have one student close their eyes and stick out their index finger.
- Have the other student gently guide their classmate around the room by their finger while watching their facial expressions to make sure they feel safe.
Trust Walk with Sensory Adventure
- Do Trust Walk again, this time handing the eyes-closed partner different objects from around the room (e.g., stuffed animals, flowers, soft fabrics, etc.).
- Discuss: How did it feel to keep your friend safe? To be kept safe?
Mirroring Circle
- Have one person leave the room and one person chosen as leader.
- Have the group practice following the leader, mirroring their movement.
- Have the person outside return to the room and guess who the leader is.
Back Drawing
- Form a circle, sit down and turn to the right.
- Place your hands on the back of the person in front of you.
- Using the back like a piece of paper, use your fingers to draw a story on each other’s back about finding a new friend.
- Now draw a gift the person in front of you might like.
- Lean forward and whisper what gift you would give them!
Learn more about mirror neurons, via PBS’s NOVA.
Mother & child image by Henning Mühlinghaus, via Flickr
The benefits of yoga poses aren’t always apparent to kids. In fact, the poses can sometimes cause frustration, for in asking students to work at holding poses, we’re asking them to start being present in their bodies and to push past boredom and impatience. Hearing children complain, some teachers and parents can’t see beyond those frustrations, and the students drop the practice.
Children are just like us: Even though we know certain things are good for us, we sometimes resist, get bored, give up. But kids who stay with the practice do come to appreciate what we’re teaching them to do. I remember one boy who “quit” yoga for several months before returning to class, saying, “I forgot how good this feels to my body.”
I find it’s important to educate adult Yoga Calm users about the benefits and to help them know that while students may complain about it – like they do any practice – encouraging them to stay with it will give them life long skills.
Here are a few things I do to help kids understand the yoga and enjoy it more:
- I tell stories about my own practice: how sometimes I get bored in downward dog and that I’ve been practicing for 30 years and sometimes don’t want to do yoga, but I remember how important it is to be physically strong and want to be strong for them. I encourage them to tell me why they want to be strong physically and ask them how the poses are helping them become strong. If this is discussed in class, they’ll become able to verbalize reasons for staying with the practice.
- I teach students to practice opening and closing their bodies – either in relaxation or in a walking game – and let them know that at any time they can close their body if they need personal space. I give them lots of permission to “go in” when they need to and make sure they see how I value closing as much as opening.
- Using a drum and moving through the poses quickly can help lift energy. Sometimes when a class is dragging, I do a “sun salutations”-type flow to the count of two. This gets the kids moving a little faster, giving them less time to notice if they’re bored or tired.
- I ask the students to lead poses and determine how long to hold them – for instance, for how many drum beats to hold Plank. I find that they’ll work much harder if they are led by another student and deciding for themselves which poses to do (a lesson built into our Flying Eagle DVD). I also ask them to think of a goal they have and find a pose that will help them achieve that goal. Some choose physically strengthening poses and others choose heart thoughts. Continuing to ask them to verbalize why the poses are valuable to them helps them stay with the practice, and you can share those insights with parents, administrators or others who may ask about the benefits of physical poses.
- Similarly, sharing the value yoga has for you with your students can also help. Children’s bodies know that yoga is valuable, but sometimes they have to tell the brain why it is important, especially when the mind is sending negative or frustrating thoughts. I find that kids love hearing real stories about adults. You can also find good stories at the end of Yoga Journal that are both inspiring and appropriate for children.
- Peppering in new games and activities can also help keep a class focused and energized just by giving an element of surprise. Keeping abreast of new activities is one big reason people stay in touch with us and colleagues they’ve taken Yoga Calm trainings with. Community is such a big part of what we do – not just as teachers, counselors and other professionals who work with children, but as human beings.
Recently, I read a powerful and poignant story about a boy who watched a moth emerge from its cocoon. The moth struggled to release itself from the cocoon, so it stopped to rest. But the boy thought it was stuck. He got scissors and cut open the cocoon so the moth could be free. The moth died. The boy learned that the struggle to emerge was essential to the survival of the moth.
I try to remember this when the children are struggling or I hear others say that yoga sometimes agitates the children. But if we make it too calm, the children won’t grow through the difficult process of emerging.
- Lynea
We were thrilled to get the news last fall that one of our Certified Yoga Calm Instructors, Rochelle Gladu Patten, MEd, had been named Minnesota Middle School Teacher of the Year by the Minnesota Alliance of Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance (MNAHPERD).
A Physical Education Specialist at Susan B. Anthony Middle School in Minneapolis, Rochelle has been a key player in the success of the district-wide implementation of Yoga Calm over the past couple years.
We’re very proud of her accomplishment and thought you might like to learn more about this top teacher’s use of Yoga Calm in the classroom – especially how it’s been received by kids and parents, and how its blend of social/emotional games and physical yoga provide extra help for kids as they navigate the challenging transitional years from childhood to the teen years. So we asked her to share. Here’s what she had to say.
I started practicing yoga four years ago at Lifetime Fitness center in Highland Park, a neighborhood in St. Paul, Minnesota. Kathy Flaminio was my instructor, and she encouraged me to take the Yoga Calm classes offered by our school district (Minneapolis Public Schools). After one session I was hooked and knew this could make a difference not only for me but my students as well.
Kathy’s support was a major factor in my becoming a Certified Instructor. She convinced me that I could provide these wonderful tools for my students, which I have been doing for about two years now, consistently thrilled to see how much they enjoy the yoga. I know they understand the connection between the breathing and the body. Teaching them to listen, be grounded and feel the support of their community has made a big difference in how they feel about themselves. Emotional development is so important at this age, with hormones raging and all the self-doubt they endure. Yoga Calm practice supports students, and they learn to believe the feelings they have are normal and that the community will provide for them. I know my students have learned how to calm themselves, become better test takers, focus and de-escalate when in crisis. Students have shared how knowing their inner voice has helped them.
I feel my students benefit from listening and connecting with their breathing while settling into their poses and feeling their inner strength. We ride the breath and spend time letting go all that it takes to come to the mat and be in the present moment. I remind them that this is about them – their favorite subject – and that the word “yoga” means to unite and connect. When we have to cancel a class because of a school function, the students are disappointed.
In the Minneapolis Star Tribune last year, there was an article about yoga in the schools. Our school – Susan B. Anthony – was highlighted because a parent had told the reporter about us. Parents are thrilled that we practice yoga! They’ve told me time and again that they think it is the best for their students.
We are proud at Anthony of our inclusion model, working with the adapted physical education program and the sixth grade students in yoga practice and other activities. I work toward teaching my students the intangibles of positive self- esteem, connection, compassion and support of one another and the classroom community.
My hope for them is that they will be able to make a difference in the lives of others if they understand who they are and how they are part of a community.
Yoga Calm works well in Physical Education Classes in middle school. Try it and watch how kids grow as a result of their personal connection. Teach poses, go slow, use the worksheets, calm music, mats, scents – it all adds to the experience. Go for it!
Congratulations, Rochelle, on your impressive achievement! Keep doing the great work you’re doing!
For more information on how you can become a Certified Yoga Calm Instructor, please see our Certification info page.
Because breathing patterns have such a profound effect on our general health and mental states, breath awareness is at the heart of almost all yoga practices. Breathing interacts with and affects the cardiovascular, neurological, gastrointestinal and muscular systems. It also has general effects on sleep patterns, memory, energy levels and concentration.
Watch a baby at rest and you’ll see a good example of healthy breathing. The pattern is relaxed, slow, and wavelike, with every bone, muscle and organ moving with each breath. Unhealthy breathing, by contrast, is rigid or inappropriate to the situation and often exhibits excess muscle tension.
While abnormal breathing patterns vary, they are often high in the chest, overly fast and shallow. Often, there is no pause at the end of the exhalation, or there may be breath holding or gulping. Such habits reinforce feelings of tension, agitation and anxiousness. By contrast, a healthy breathing pattern elicits a relaxation response, shifting the nervous system from fight-or-flight mode to a state of relaxed alertness.
In Yoga Calm, one of our favorite ways of teaching and encouraging children to breathe healthfully is by using a geodesic dome made of jointed segments. By lightly pushing or pulling it on opposite sides, you can make it expand and contract, accordion-style. The movement serves as a visual model for the type of breathing we want the kids to imitate by helping them see and synchronize their breath with movement.
The teacher or other supervising adult may lead the group or – something we like to do – encourage one of the kids to lead, establishing the breathing rhythm. As the leader slowly expands the sphere, all inhale deeply and slowly through the nose, from the belly. The leader then pauses, emulating the short, natural pause that happens at the “top” and “bottom” of each healthy breath. As the leader contracts the sphere, all exhale through the nose just as slowly.
This efficient diaphragmatic breath is like watching the waves at the beach, with each breath swelling up from abdomen to chest and back down again.
The expansion-contraction cycle may be repeated as many times as necessary, but we find 5 to 10 cycles to be effective for helping the group calm and focus through this simple breath work.
Rhythm and slowness are two keys to using a breathing sphere effectively. By consciously slowing our breath, especially the exhalation, we can facilitate the relaxation response even more and develop some control over how our nervous system responds to our environment.
In the classroom and school environments in which Yoga Calm is most commonly used, such breath work lends itself readily to focus and mindfulness, preparing students to learn. Speeding thoughts slow. The body as a whole relaxes. Body and mind become centered, grounded. Thus, many teachers, counselors and administrators start their classes off by leading students in breathing with a sphere. Some schools have even used these breathing practices at assemblies or over the school intercom to calm and focus their students.
With the powerful visual representation of a healthy breath, no other words or descriptions are necessary. This tool can be effectively used by teachers who have no yoga experience and is particularly useful for second language learners, visual learners and children who struggle with anxiety and self regulation.
Synchronized breathing in a group exercise is also useful for developing a sense of community and safety as the group’s energy coalesces by breathing together. Simply, we are affected by each other’s breathing patterns. Conversely, it’s hard to relax and concentrate when we are around stressful breathing patterns. And when teachers learn, practice, and model healthy breathing, their classes become calmer and more productive, with corresponding benefits to everyone’s health and well-being.
An earlier version of this article originally appeared at Yoga In My School.
We live in a world of buzz and hum, light and noise, constant motion. We’re constantly multitasking and living in future tense. We’re bombarded with information, both through electronic media and the physical environment which seems ever more crowded and cacophonous as marketers and advertisers fight for our attention. When we’re not plugged into electronic gadgets to stay connected with people, we’re plugged in to tune others out, including ourselves. In this world in which overstimulation is the norm, quiet and stillness can be scary.
Paradoxically, they are also desirable, especially as key elements of the practice of mindfulness.
We understand mindfulness as an antidote to the two ways of being that have become predominant in our culture: running on autopilot or trying to attend to so many things at once, you can’t be said to be paying attention at all.
But mindfulness is more than just paying attention to what’s happening outside oneself. It’s also a practice of developing awareness of what’s happening inside oneself and one’s physical being in the world. As mindfulness expert Jon Kabat-Zinn writes, “Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way: On purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally” (emphasis added).
Robert Crum/Flickr
As such, mindfulness has far-reaching effects, impacting things like stress levels, memory, emotional regulation, impulse control and goal-directed behavior.
It’s not hard to see why the teaching and nurturing of mindfulness is coming to the fore in educational circles, being as it impacts so many areas of children’s wellbeing and achievement, including behavior, social-emotional intelligence and learning preparedness. While the formal study of mindfulness is relatively young, the research that has been done is quite positive. Dr. Amy Saltzman describes some of it in her paper “Mindfulness: A Guide for Teachers,” where mindfulness is presented as a “foundation” for learning:
In a randomized controlled trial conducted by Maria Napoli, Ph.D., first, second, and third graders who participated in a bi-weekly, 12-session integrative program of mindfulness and relaxation showed significant increases in attention and social skills and decreases in test anxiety and ADHD behaviors.
In studying second and third graders who did Mindfulness Awareness Practices for 30 minutes twice a week for 8 weeks, Lisa Flook, Ph.D. and her colleagues at the Mindfulness Awareness Research Center at UCLA documented that children who began the study with poor executive function had gains in behavioral regulation, -cognition, and overall global executive control. These results indicate Mindfulness Awareness Practice training benefits children with executive function difficulties.
A study conducted by Amy Saltzman, M.D., in collaboration with the Department of Psychology at Stanford, with 4th-7th graders and their parents, showed that after 1 hour of mindfulness training for 8 consecutive weeks the children demonstrated increased ability to orient their attention, as measured by the Attention Network Task, and decreased anxiety.
At the same time, though, we often see that teaching mindfulness in the classroom can sometimes come across as little more than relaxation. There is, of course, an important role for relaxation, especially with respect to reducing stress – which is toxic to attention – integrating experience and developing imagination and positive thoughts. But although relaxation can nurture mindfulness, this is not its main function. It is not mindfulness itself.
Because children have a natural inclination towards stimulation and engagement, we’ve found that an integrated approach to teaching mindfulness – including physical movement, cognitive processes and social-emotional skills-building activities – is most beneficial. Simply put, kids’ minds want to be engaged and their bodies need to move.
This is where a holistic approach such as Yoga Calm is especially valuable, as it is able to fill rivaling needs through integrated processes. For instance, activities and class themes that incorporate the Yoga Calm principles of Stillness and Listening – activities such as Pulse Count, Tree Pose and Volcano Breath – get children using their bodies while also learning to be aware of what their bodies say and how they respond when in use. Social-emotional activities such as Strong Voice help children to find their personal strength as well as outside support, underlining the connections between mindfulness and pro-social behavior. For it’s vital that children not just focus in on themselves but engage with the world, forming relationships with others and understanding the relatedness of the world and all that’s in it.
Consequently, Yoga Calm’s classroom-tested approach can help meet the need to provide character or values education, as well. For underlying the practice of mindfulness is a clear ethical approach to the world. In the words of neuroscientist Dr. Richard Davidson, who put it so eloquently,
Ultimately, we envision an education system in which young people are recognized and educated as cognitive and emotional, ethical, and social beings whose lives are deeply interconnected with others; one that lifts their spirits and engages them fully in active, meaningful learning, and that cultivates the positive qualities necessary to be a caring and contributing member of the world community in the coming years The world’s contemplative traditions are a precious resource that can contribute to the education and development of people who are compassionate, ethically responsible, and in control of their mental lives and who, as a result, are positioned optimally to meet the extraordinary political, social, and spiritual challenges of our time.
leah pritchard/Flickr
Physical exercise has more than just physical benefits. For instance, as we wrote a while back, when kids exercise more, they also tend to achieve more academically. In Spark, John Ratey provides ample support for this as well as the many other benefits of exercise for children and adults. For example, exercise also has a positive effect on mood, emotions and psychological well-being – so much so that exercise is now prescribed for conditions such as depression. (And some say it should be prescribed even more.)
For a long time, when people talked about the psychological effects of exercise, they usually focused on endorphins – opiate-like compounds released by the pituitary gland and hypothalamus during exercise or when we’re excited or in pain. More recently, research has looked at the possibility that changes in dopamine or serotonin levels during exercise might be involved.
The truth of the matter is that we don’t yet completely know why exercise makes us feel good mentally as well as physically, but some intriguing research out of Princeton may bring us one step closer to understanding this important phenomenon.
According to a report on the study published late last year in the New York Times, there appears to be a difference in neuron response between active and sedentary rats.
Scientists have known for some time that exercise stimulates the creation of new brain cells (neurons) but not how, precisely, these neurons might be functionally different from other brain cells.
In the experiment, preliminary results of which were presented [in October 2009] at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in Chicago, scientists allowed one group of rats to run. Another set of rodents was not allowed to exercise. Then all of the rats swam in cold water, which they don’t like to do. Afterward, the scientists examined the animals’ brains. They found that the stress of the swimming activated neurons in all of the brains. (The researchers could tell which neurons were activated because the cells expressed specific genes in response to the stress.) But the youngest brain cells in the running rats, the cells that the scientists assumed were created by running, were less likely to express the genes. They generally remained quiet. The “cells born from running,” the researchers concluded, appeared to have been “specifically buffered from exposure to a stressful experience.” The rats had created, through running, a brain that seemed biochemically, molecularly, calm.
In short, exercise was shown to reduce anxiety.
Notably, the changes don’t happen overnight but, as other research cited in the article has shown, emerge over a period of weeks. Nor is it entirely clear yet how these findings translate to human activity – although one of the reasons rats are so commonly used in studies such as this is that their metabolisms and other bodily functions are so similar to those of humans.
However, we do see – both in research on physical education and in our own work with students – much lower anxiety levels after some weeks of regular physical movement relative to anxiety at the beginning of the course. In fact, a good number of kids whose parents enroll them in Yoga Calm courses are there precisely because of anxiety and related mood disorders, the parents looking for ways of helping their children cope.
Similar results are reported by teachers, nurses, counselors and other school workers who have brought Yoga Calm to the classroom. The blend of breath work, physical activity and social-emotional games not only helps ease anxiety but also gives children tools for coping with anxiety and big emotions when they do arise – and they will, invariably. They are a part of life, after all. But by giving children – and ourselves – the means to handle them when they arise, we allow them – and ourselves – a way to thrive in spite of such difficult feelings.
We recently ran across an interesting blog post by a mother who grew concerned when her daughter told of her class doing yoga at school – “not because I was opposed to the movement,” she writes, but because the particular practice involved activities that she considered “meditation.”
As I brushed her hair, unsnarling the tangles within it, I had an important conversation with Elisabeth. I let her know that I felt uncomfortable with this kind of yoga….that it began as a form of worship to another god, and that we are not to be emptying our minds or allowing others to tell us what to meditate upon, rather, we are to fill it with things of the Lord. I fully understand that we are in the public school and cannot expect them to cater to our beliefs, so as a family, we needed to problem-solve as to how we would respond. This was a time that we would need to draw a line and make a stand for our daughter and our faith. Together, we discussed the options….
While the daughter chose an option that included meditation on Bible verses during the meditation time, this ended up being unnecessary after the parent and teacher spoke together and came to an agreement that seems positive for all concerned:
Elisabeth’s teacher is a kind, young, wonderful woman. And as I laid out our dilemma before her, I told her that as a family, we try to stay away from yoga or anything that would ask us to think about spirituality in a way that is not in line with our faith. In that moment, she stopped me and apologized for not having thought the implications through. Would I rather it not be called yoga? With a smile hidden by the phone’s receiver, I replied that it wasn’t the name, or the movement that bothered me, it was the meditation. She completely understood and explained that because PE had been reduced this year, she needed these wiggly children to have some additional movement in the classroom. One of the moms happened to teach yoga, and volunteered her time to lead it. What the teacher had originally wanted for the children was the stretching. What had been brought in was the meditation as well.
I explained that I understood completely, and that I agreed that the children needed the additional exercise. However, as long as the meditation was involved, we would need to find another alternative for Elisabeth. I spelled out the options, making it clear that I didn’t want to disrupt the classroom in any way. After asking her opinion about which approach would be best, she said that she didn’t want Elisabeth to feel excluded or singled out. Her suggestion? She would talk to the mom and ask that all meditation be removed and that the exercise would be limited to the stretching. “Would you and Elisabeth be okay with that?”, she asked. Would we? You betcha! She promised to monitor the situation and that she expected Elisabeth to communicate with her if it ever crossed a line that she felt uncomfortable with.
We quote this at length for a couple of reasons. For one, this is one of the most thoughtful posts we’ve yet run across on the Christian objection to yoga and provides a reasonable and rational model for making those objections known. We commend the mother for taking those concerns to the teacher – and the teacher for working with the mother to ensure that the practice of yoga in the classroom in no way infringed on anyone’s personal faith or spiritual practice.
The post also highlights why, in developing Yoga Calm, it was so important for us to make it a wholly secular program. It uses no Sanskrit, meditation, chanting or religious concepts. Children are never asked to empty their minds or to think or say anything other than, “I am strong; I am in control; I can do it; I can be responsible.” Consequently, in our seven years of teaching it to children and with nearly one thousand teachers currently using Yoga Calm in public schools, we have had very few instances of teachers, staff, administrators or parents objecting to its use.
Of course, yoga, in and of itself, is not a religion. This confusion arose in our culture because Yoga evolved over thousands of years in the context of the spiritual and religious traditions of India. The practices of Yoga were appropriated into most of the different religious traditions of the East. When these teachings were first transmitted in the West, they were often taught by teachers who were also practicing one of the many forms of Hinduism, Sikhism or Buddhism. The pure teachings of Yoga were therefore often mixed with the cultural and religious associations of the particular teacher.
Over the years, new styles were developed and added so that today, 17 million Americans currently use some form of it in a wide variety of settings, from professional sports programs to health clubs, hospitals to churches and synagogues. Indeed, there are many expressly Christian adaptations of yoga. For instance, Catholic priest and certified Kripalu yoga teacher Father Thomas Ryan has a number of books and DVDs on the subject, including Reclaiming the Body in Christian Spirituality and Let Your Body Be Your Prayer. Many other books likewise teach a Christ-centered yoga, including titles such as Yoga for Christians, Holy Yoga: Exercise for the Christian Body and Soul and Invitation to Christian Yoga.
Nor are school-based yoga programs restricted to public schools but can be found in places like Aurora, Colorado’s Regis Jesuit High School. As a feature in the Denver Post put it earlier this year,
How does yoga…fit into the curriculum at a Catholic prep school?
“Ultimately, it goes back to the definition of yoga, which is unification, yoking of body/mind. That has everything to do with the Jesuit idea of Cura personalis (care of the individual),” said Missy Johnson, the school’s World Language department chair and one of two yoga teachers.
Regis boys in grades 9 through 12 do not chant, but they do meditate.
“Over the four years I’ve taught yoga at the school, only a couple of parents have been concerned – especially about the meditation aspect,” Johnson said. “I remind them that meditation was important to St. Ignatius (of Loyola, founder of the Jesuit order) and other Catholic mystics.”
Indeed, when schools are looking at adding any new activity, a key consideration is to determine its appropriateness, not just lump it into a category because of its name or to disqualify it because something like it once was used in a religious context. In fact, if one-time spiritual or religious practice were the criterion for disallowing an activity in public schools, we would have to stop activities such as choir, lacrosse and character education programs. Even writing classes would have to be banned, for they have their roots back in the day when only monks were taught to write so they could transcribe bible and hymn verses.
Thus, when the religious issue comes up, we invite administrators, teachers, parents and other interested parties to review Yoga Calm thoroughly, considering it on its own merits and proven benefits to children.
Learn more at yogacalm.org.
Upon completing our Integrated Approach to Wellness 1 workshop, Debi Doyle, a school counselor in Mukilteo, Washington, wrote to us about how she’s been applying Yoga Calm in her work with kids:
Lately, I have been focusing on breath work with my students, trying to decide how to fuse this with the social skills lessons we already do. Recently, I discovered one way.
On Mondays, I see six classes, and on this particular day, a second grade class was the first to come. As they did, I remained seated, quietly moving a Hoberman sphere in rhythm with my breath. It was my first time using this tool, and I was very curious to see how effective it could be with the variety of classes that I see.
Without a word, the students entered in their normal fashion and sat in a circle on the floor. In less than a minute, the room was filled with 25 peacefully breathing second graders.
I asked if the students knew what their bodies were doing as they watched the “breathing ball.” One of the boys answered, “I’m breathing along with it.”
At this, I gave him a turn to sit in my spot and use the sphere. As he did, I got a small drum out and drummed in rhythm to his movement.
After a while, I asked another student if she would like a turn and asked the first student if he would like to take a turn on the drum. I briefly explained the drum’s purpose to him, and with that, the pair of students began, with the class silently following for a bit of time.
I then asked the class if they had any compliments for the pair. Without question, they received some of the most heartfelt and sincere compliments I have heard a group of students give.
All this activity was a perfect transition to talk about our breath at play, rest and while learning. Using the Hoberman sphere, I showed them their recess breath, running to line up, a few big sighs and then how each of them could calm their minds and bodies just by using their breath.
In another class, I gave the sphere to some kids on the Autistic spectrum. One who rarely has a successful time in my room was able to enter my class and join us quietly that day. Without a word, he watched what was going on and followed what he saw. I gave him a turn with the sphere, which he did really well. When it was his turn to drum, he worked very hard to figure out how to find a quiet rhythm. At first, he banged loudly. Then he adjusted to a quieter strike but took the stick back with great force. I noticed many of his classmates cringing at this, then relaxing when they saw how gently he struck the drum. We saw that he was just using an arcing motion to beat the drum – the best way he found to make the sound soft.
As I watched, I noticed how I had to bite my tongue a couple times to allow him to find his way. I became aware of how often we jump in to correct those who learn in an unconventional manner. Instead of him getting the message, “You can’t; let me show you,” he was able to experience, “You will figure it out; you are capable.”
I love learning from kids.
During the following Compliments activity, many of this boy’s peers were able to express to him how they liked how he had adjusted his drumming. They told him how they saw how hard he was concentrating. No wonder he came in the next week all excited for more! This kid had rarely gotten any communication from his peers, let alone positive words. Now he was being noticed for his teamwork and perseverance.
I am really beginning to see how beneficial it is to use what I have learned in Yoga Calm and integrate it into the Second Step lessons in the classroom. At this point, I am not sure the kids would let me go back to the way we did things without Yoga Calm.
Used by permission
by Amy Halloran-Steiner, Certified Yoga Calm Instructor
Recently, our family camped on the bank of Oregon’s Metolius River, on a second annual event there with two other families and a total of six children under age four. I did plenty of yoga with them, letting them choose their favorite poses from Yoga Calm for Children. We did plenty of Mountain, Tree and Downward Dog. We posed as eagles (adapted for their ability, of course), each waiting to pounce on a mouse.
The third morning, I noticed the kids restless and in need of distraction, munching graham crackers and wandering about. So I asked them, “Do you know the Graham Cracker Pose?” Usually knowledgeable about whatever the topic, the two oldest girls looked at me quizzically. So, I led: arms straight up to the sky, wrists bent at 90 degrees, fingers activated, tips pointing toward one another to make the upward edge of the cracker. The kids grinned and assumed the pose. Then we swept downward, doubling at the waist to break our graham cracker in half, because where else would be insert the – you guessed it – marshmallow?!
“Come on, Kids,” I said as we moved into a “Marshmallow Pose,” holding our heads high and circling our arms in front of us, as though holding a big ball in front of our belly.
“But what happens when the stick…?” offered one of the kids.
“Okay,” I replied. “Now we stand tall and thin, arms up, palms together, fingers pointing at the sky. Don’t bend and poke anyone near you, good roasting stick!”
“What about when the stick holds the marshmallow over the fire?”
Marshmallows, once big and activated, now relaxed and melted down to the ground. “What’s next?” I asked.
“Chocolate!” they screamed. So we made ourselves into smaller rectangles: again, arms up on either side of head, with wrists cocked and fingers pointing in to make the top edge. Then we bent, doubling at the waist again to lay our Chocolate selves down on the Marshmallow before returning to Graham Cracker. Voila! S’mores! And for us, also, the birth of “improv yoga” – a way to distract, entertain and stretch us all.
These children remind me that a child’s interest, when ignited, is the force that moves the world, or at least makes us giggle. And to giggle is a wonderful thing.
Image: Virginia Pike-Russell, via Flickr
For a recent Yoga Calm workshop, school counselor Bonnie Cannon wrote an insightful commentary on her developing awareness of yoga as self-study and how this may benefit the children she works with. We asked if we could share her good words on our blog. We were happy to hear, “Yes.” Thanks, Bonnie!
The primary understanding that I took away from this weekend workshop, which I had not recognized before, was that yoga is self-study.
I had been teaching students poses, facilitating games and guiding discussions designed to elicit understandings and connections on a theoretical level, and the students had been responding positively. But I realized during this workshop that the teaching could be more powerful and more effective by helping students to connect, explore and understand their physical experiences as well.
With that in mind, I will now be asking more experiential questions: “How did that feel?” rather than, “What can we learn from that?” Most students are encouraged to spend an inordinate amount of time in their heads during the school day, and very little attention is paid to what is happening in their bodies. In fact, often they are expected to ignore or suppress what is happening in their bodies.
But our bodies, our feelings, and our thoughts are intricately connected, and students will be most successful if we can provide a balanced educational experience that encourages them to understand what is happening in their bodies, how that affects what they are feeling, how that in turn affects what they are thinking, and how all of that affects their ability to learn and retain information presented in the classroom.
Students are not taught in a vacuum. A student who is experiencing high levels of chronic stress will not be able to attend to, retain and recall information as well as a student who is able to recognize stress in the body and release it.
The self-study focus of yoga and Yoga Calm helps students to better understand and recognize what is happening in their bodies so that they will be able to make decisions and take actions that benefit their bodies and maximize their ability to learn and reach their full potential. This can happen in targeted, direct ways such as learning to recognize when the body is hungry and the effects different foods have on it, and learning to fuel the body for optimum performance. It can also happen in less tangible ways such as experiencing the good feelings that come with giving and receiving a compliment or support during a task, and then continuing to compliment or support others, thereby increasing ones own confidence, self-esteem and serotonin levels, as well as creating a more positive, cooperative learning environment, all of which will ultimately lead to increases in academic performance.”
Read more on this topic here.
