Letting Tweens Teach Yoga Class to the Other Children

In this past blog  post I told you how the kids in my tween class are going to teach the class this summer.  This week, one of the tween-teachers was away, leaving one girl to teach on her own. Did she still want to do it? You bet!

We met for the class outside on the grass under a tree. It was warm and sunny. The student/teacher started off with “tuning In.” Ong Namo Guru Dev Namo (Kundalini yoga style) which she translated as “Let’s say hello to the wise teacher inside you.”

She decided that we would increase the number of people “it” to three. Kids could sub out if you did a yoga pose.

At this age feelings can be hurt very easily. One girl protested getting tagged out and refused to leave the game. Then another girl got tagged out by her best friend and felt it was a grave betrayal.  Their friendship was over – at least for the rest of the class.

For tweens, emotions can run high and the idea of what is fair and not fair is very important.  We had to take some time during the game to talk to the kids as they dealt with these issues.

My teacher, Tulshi Sen, says that every question is a quest.  Our quests are what make like worth living. I know that many people do not like to play games where people get “out.”  Personally I don’t teach “out” games in class, mostly because they bring up a lot of issues that are hard to deal with in a short time, like all the problems I mentioned above.   Plus you don’t want the kids who are out just sitting around watching.

Some kids like to play games where they “get out.”  One of the biggest challenges we face in life is overcoming our fears, including fear of getting out/losing/failure.  It is tempting, like Arjuna in the first chapter of the Bhagavad Gita, to not want to fight at all. The whole Bhagavad Gita is a story from the battlefield, with Krishna (Arjuna’s Consciousness) encouraging him to fight the battle ahead of him and teaching lessons about facing fear.

Stories have been told through the ages to build heroes. These games in the playground may be useful when we later face the battles of life.

The girl who was the teacher is a natural leader. But she was faced with the challenge of the game she chose, she had to handle the conflict and make decisions. It was hard and she rose to the task of it.

After the game was over she led the kids in a relaxation and asked them to lie down and imagine they were in their magic garden and all their worries and problems were gone.

She helped them release their problems and by handling all the issues that came up, she built her own confidence.  Although the class was challenging, it is by facing challenges that we grow, not by avoiding them.  She took the tangled mess of Octopus Tag and turned it into an opportunity to practice her leadership skills.

I’m always glad when yoga teaches kids more than just how to stretch!