Many of you will have seen the recent Yoga Journal blog post about yoga in Canadian schools. Well it’s happening in the UK as well. Catherine shared this news article with me about yoga being taught in schools in Glasgow, Scotland (do click on that last link and watch the video because I can’t embed it here and it will warm the cockles of your heart!).
I trained to teach yoga to children and teenagers a few years ago at The Special Yoga Centre. Despite not having children of my own, I agree with the teachers in the article. Children are the future and health is everybody’s business.
Children’s lives are becoming increasingly pressured and hectic. From an early age they are expected to perform well in school tests, to make friends, to be good at sports and this pressure is sometimes exacerbated by their parents’ expectations of them, whether knowingly or not. Children need a space in which to be themselves, in which to relax and interact with other children where there is no pressure of competition, to do better than anyone else. A place that is theirs, a place where there is no good or bad or expectations of performance.
Yoga is an ideal solution to this problem. Through yoga a child can learn about their own body, how it works and how it moves and hopefully come to love the body they have been given, something I feel especially important as puberty begins. It allows them time for creative play, by making animal shapes, by helping to choreograph yoga sequences to music, by listening to stories or colouring mandalas and they can learn about the philosophy of yoga in an environment which will help them to remember and hold that philosophy in their subconscious throughout their lives.
Many children suffer from stress and bad diets. Yoga postures and movement may help counteract the effects of these. Many children have problems at home that they feel unable to talk about. In a yoga class they can come to express some of these emotions, be it physically or mentally, thus helping them more able to deal with what life throws at them. They also have the time to learn how to relax, something which many people have never truly learned how to do. The ability to relax, if only for a few moments, is very healing.
Through family yoga classes children can form a bond with their parents where there are no outside distractions, something that is very important in these days of two income families, mobile phones and constant communication. By learning to breathe with their parents, both parent and child can relax and enjoy each others’ company.
As many of you dear readers know yoga has been part of my life for as long as I can remember. As a child I learned basic asanas with my parents and felt an awareness of my body that no school PE lesson had allowed me to feel. As a teenager I began to practice yoga quite regularly. I had always been the sort of child who was no good at sports and through yoga I learned that my body did not stop at my neck! That study and reading was not all that I was capable of. I began to be amazed at what my body could do and I developed a body confidence that I think can be quite unusual in teenage girls. Most importantly I learned to breathe and relax which came in helpful whilst studying for GCSEs, A levels and university finals.
In the years since my initial children’s yoga teacher training I have taught children before they are born in prenatal yoga, mums and babies, groups of toddlers, kids with special needs and teenage girls on a one to one basis. I hope I have been able able to give those very things that yoga gave to me as a child. I hope I have been able to help them develop their body and minds in a fun and relaxed environment.
As I embark on a new phase in my career teaching yoga to teenagers I would like to acknowledge how much i have learned from the kids themselves. 
Did you practice yoga as a child? Do your children have a movement practice?
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How are you all doing on week 4 of your Spring into Yoga Challenge? I’m still struggling with dhanurasana, but I think I may finally be admitting to myself that it is OK if my thighs never come off the floor, that my sway back, crooked pelvis and thoracic scoliosis might mean my body does something a little differnt to the next body. It’s all about acceptance people, and that is the hardest thing!
Do let me know how you are getting on!
What I really loved about that clip was how carefree the children appeared; it actually struck me as unusual that they were so happy to be doing yoga regardless of how ’silly’ their friends thought it was! They were obviously getting so much more out of it than they’re used to in their normal lives, something from the inside rather than the outside. As you say – school seems to be all about results and performance, and I think that even in friendships children seek outward results rather than inward satisfaction; this clip made me hope that children are being encouraged to look inside themselves a bit more, and value what they find there over and above the world outside.
I wish we’d had yoga as part of the curriculum – it would certainly have helped me let go a little!
Thanks for the wordpress advice. I do know someone who is good with computers, so I may have to suck it up and ask him. Either that or just fork over money and have a real pro do it! It’s not as easy as it looks!! I’m glad you liked the waynes world clip!!
AWESOME POST! I DID NOT PRACTICE YOGA AS A CHILD, BUT I’M PRETTY SURE THAT WAS DUE TO AVAILABILIY — i wish, though! it sounds like such a great thing to encorporate into a little one’s life!
I did do a lot of dance and I know that helped me a lot in my development/knowing my body, being appreciative for it’s health/strongness/etc.
What I love about doing yoga with kids, is that they do it anyway. Watch them roll around on the floor-hero pose, backbends, shoulder stands, headstands…it’s all the same to them. Altho, at least with my boys, there are a lot of sound effects and movement. Whatever, they are still getting the benefits and, hopefully, body awareness.
Very cool that you’ve done it your whole life. I’m trying not to force anything, but I hope I can keep it up with the lads into their teens…
Oh yes, in my experience boys are far more noisy about it!!!