Kids love arm balances. Crow (Kakasana) is the number one favorite. Even little kids can tip up and balance on their arms. What an accomplishment! One reason I think kids love it so much is that it looks difficult, but is in fact pretty accessible to most. While adults may struggle to get into this pose for years, many kids can figure out the logistics of this pose in a few tries. Then they feel like they have mastered something – especially when watching adults struggle with it.

Another favorite arm balance pose is Firefly (tittibhasana). This is similar to Crow in many ways, but a little more complicated. I usually don’t teach this one to kids under age 8.

Last week in my class of 9-12 year old boys, each one was spending time working on their arm balance of choice. The new favorite is Flying Pigeon (Eka Pada Galavasana) and one boy was working on that. A second boy, tipped forward in this pose so his head was on the ground. I then encouraged him to try to take the straight leg up toward the sky. This turned into some crazy Flying Pigeon headstand. I tried it myself. It’s pretty fun. It’s like a wild variation of Crow into Headstand, back into Crow.

Another boy was practicing on his own and when I went over to check out what he was doing, I saw that he had one knee balanced on his upper arm, as in Crow, and the other upper arm under his thigh, as in Firefly. He had his feet tucked up under him. “Wow!” I exclaimed. “You are doing half Crow and half Firefly.” He was stoked. Along with arm balances, children LOVE to make up their own poses. He said, “Ya”, paused for a moment and then exclaimed, “It’s Fire Crow!”

There you have it - the origin of a yoga pose.
 

Yesterday I had the opportunity to observe several yoga teachers at Cass Street School in Milwaukee.

This group of teachers, known as K-12 Yoga, was founded by Susan Solvang and has been dedicated to bringing yoga to every child at Cass twice a week for the last two years. That alone is quite an accomplishment. I was impressed with the infrastructure they had in place. There were three rooms in the school for yoga – one a dedicated space. Several classes went on at the same time and they all had yoga mats, eye pillows, laminated name tags, yoga cards and other props.

These teachers, all well-trained and experienced, were looking to refine their skills and to continue to improve what they were offering to their students.

It’s great for me to have the chance to sit back and see how the children respond to various techniques and to see how teachers direct and redirect the energy in the classroom.

I watched the teachers shine with their communication skills. They consistently used describing rather than evaluating language. They commented on the behavior they wanted to promote and either ignored or gave simple needs-based requests to the children acting in a way that did not contribute toward class cohesion.

Before giving any feedback, I assured them that they too could observe me teach and have much to comment on. We are all in a process of refinement and growth and this peer review is taking teaching to the next level. Just watching them certainly helped me grow as a teacher.

The collaboration among this group of teachers and their willingness to bring in an observer for feedback is something I would love to see more of among children’s yoga teachers. It’s easy to start feeling isolated, burned out or lost in this tiny subset of the yoga world. Connecting with others, giving and receiving feedback and sharing support continues to feed our passion to get this practice to children.

I left the day feeling incredibly hopeful about the direction we are headed in the world of wellness and self-health. This committed group of teachers, who are having a long-term, positive influence on these kids – school wide, is an excellent example for all of us to follow as a way to continue to bring yoga into schools.
 

The theme in yoga class today was “Earth Day.” The hour-long class ran over by a full 15 minutes because the kids could not stop sharing their ideas for how to protect our resources.

For final relaxation, after guiding them through the “True Nature” visualization, I explained the concept of aparigraha, or greedlessness. It’s simply a matter of taking only what you need, and no more. That could be food from the buffet line, or someone’s time or resources from the earth.

Then, they sat up and held their hands in “Whole World” (Hakini) mudra while meditating on this question: “The Lorax speaks for the trees ‘for the trees have no tongues.’ What nature feature do you speak for?” The children sat with their eyes closed, holding the mudra for several moments. Then we shared. Hands shot up. Each child told what he or she was speaking for. One boy spoke on behalf of all wild animals, another for air. One girl spoke on behalf of marine animals and another spoke for the water. They shared their ideas of how we can live our lives in a way that supports the elements rather than destroys them.

As they shared it was clear that this group of 7-10 year olds were keenly aware of the imbalances we live with. They bubbled over with enthusiasm as they shared their ideas. They will invent airplanes that do not run on fuel. They will walk or bike instead of drive. They will continue to recycle and use less Styrofoam. They will scuba dive and take the garbage out of the ocean. They will make signs that say, “Don’t Smoke” and, “When you Scuba Dive, Take The Garbage Out of The Ocean.”

I reflected back to them their creativity and pointed out that this energy they now feel for their ideas is the very fuel that will make them real. “You already know”, I told them and reminded them not to get discouraged by anyone who doubts them. The energy these children had around the topic of conservation is the most potent and renewable fuel we have. It is one of our richest resources to be tapped and as Sri Swami Satchidananda said, “It is up to the adults to help them stay bright, strong and healthy."
 

Caine is a 9-year-old boy. His father runs an auto parts store in East L.A. Caine spent the summer at his dad’s store and constructed his own arcade, made with cardboard boxes from the auto part deliveries.

Caine didn’t get any business, as there was very little street traffic. One day, Nirvan walked in, saw the arcade, bought a “fun pass” and decided to make a documentary. It went viral. It was posted on Vimeo on April 8th and You Tube on April 9th. It’s had nearly 2 million views. They started a scholarship fund that collected $200,000 in a few days.

What happened?

First, Caine was left to fill his time how he chose. His dad was working at the desk nearby and Caine had no structured activities or projects to take up his time. He was free. Both his reasoning skills and his creativity had time to bloom. He was able to think through processes – the format of arcade games, how the tickets come out and the brilliant innovation of the security check for his “fun pass.”

Nirvan, Caine’s first customer and the man who created the flash mob and short film about his arcade, claims in the film, “This kid’s a genius.” Clever, yes, but is Caine much different than most 9-year-olds out there?

And how did this short film get 2 million views in a week? This story touches something within each one of us. We all know, deep down in our hearts that human creativity and potential are limitless. Too often, that potential remains unrealized in both our children and ourselves. To see what Caine has done with stacks of empty boxes, and what Nirvan has done with a camera resonates because we see in this story our own creativity and potential if left to play.
 

Yoga is great. You know it, I know it. After a session we feel more at ease, less stress, more clear, less stiff, more….what is it? It’s that something that keeps us coming back to the mat again and again.

It’s an interesting practice from the East that we try to shape into a form that fits our Western minds and Western lifestyle. This Western mind is looking for “facts”. It needs to be a peer-reviewed-published-on-paper kind of a report to get our attention. It is a mind that tends to take things literally. A video just published by A.G. Mohan addresses this very issue and made me chuckle as I watched.

Sri Krishnamacharya was the foremost teacher of Yoga in the world who recently passed at the age of 101 (in 1989). A.G. Mohan studied directly with him for decades and now shares the teachings through trainings, workshops and videos. This video just posted on the Svastha Yoga & Ayurveda channel titled “Yoga and Injuries”, refers to a quote from his own book titled, Yoga Therapy published in 2004.

He clarifies that the ancient texts are more inspirational than descriptive. The intention was that all students would be learning directly from a “guru.” The benefits given are in a “very poetic form”, are often “highly exaggerated” and “must not be taken literally.” In this book he states, “You will find that they claim that several asanas will “cure all diseases.”

It’s something that would surely motivate us to practice, but is it a fact? That seems as beside the point to someone from the East as keeping track of time and writing things down. It is a very “Western” notion. It is helpful to keep this in mind when learning the life-affirming practices of yoga.

A linear thinking, fact-seeking culture taking instruction from a poetic, inspirational culture could be a recipe for disaster and in fact, as the title of the video and many popular articles today suggests - it has been.

What we do know is that yoga does reduce stress. Stress often leads to and exacerbates disease. When not practiced correctly, the postures may not be as beneficial as they are intended to be. The take-away for me is to stay humble, not to strive for some result but to let the experience reveal the poetry of each posture for its own sake. Then whether the asanas will cure all disease or not isn’t as much the point as it is to simply experience comfort and ease in our body and mind. That is enough to motivate me to practice.
 

 I love TED talks.  Here is one - nearly 30 minutes - on the importance of play.   Dr. Stuart Brown is a play researcher and shares his perspective on play:

"Rough and tumble play is a great learning medium for all of us. Preschool kids should be allowed to dive, hit, whistle, scream, be chaotic and develop through that a lot of emotional regulation…

He goes on to describe the importance of imaginative play, social play and spectator play and says, "Nothing lights up the brain like play."

He states, "The opposite of play is not work, it’s depression."

Today, children's lives can be highly structured.  It is crucial for their development that they have several hours a day of unstructured free play.

Much of the benefits Dr. Brown mentions are experienced in children's yoga classes as well.  Children engage in play by making up stories and poses to go along with them.  They figure out how to move their bodies through human obstacle courses made up of live yoga poses.  There is also a large meausure of imaginative play through visualization and creative expression such as drawing in a typical yoga class.  

Academic achievement is important, but it's value is lost in the absence of a life filled with play.