Get Started Teaching Yoga for Kids

One great thing about teaching the teacher training course is there is time for questions and answers. And I’m not the only one answering! I have ten plus years experience, but you’re also tapping into a the group’s experience. For instance this course had lots of yoga teachers from different styles (Moksha, Hatha, Anusara, Flow, Ashtanga, Iyengar, Kundalini, Hot) plus other teachers, therapists for kids, parents and grandparents.

The question and answer time is fun to hear what people are wondering and what others have to contribute. Plus for every question someone asks there are usually a number of others who are thinking the same question.

One question from the course was something like this:

This made me think twice although it sounds like a simple question. It actually gets to the heart of what happens to us when we start something new.

First, my answer: Yes, but….

I looked back on some of my recent classes and I recognize my nervousness, especially before the first class of a series. Once I meet the new people and we get to know each other a bit, the nervous lessens.

But that first class I pull out my favorite activities, songs, and themes. While I’m teaching I tell myself to slow down when I’m talking. I make sure I don’t stuff the class too full, I remind myself I can’t teach everything in one class. Let the class be yoga: awakening, challenging, connecting with the students, the students connecting within, and hopefully a little community forming. And my favorite reminder: don’t rush.

I could see others in the course were nervous about their upcoming kids yoga classes. What exactly should I do? How do I do it? It was great to see all the great ideas that came out of the practice teaching sessions on the last day of the course.

One thing yoga and meditation can prepare us for is nervousness. My teacher, Tulshi Sen, gave a great talk about the mind and how it gets a hold of us. I think this often happens in the form of nervousness. He often says that when we can think the way we want to think, we may feel nervous but we can also enjoy it!

We can enjoy the nervousness of a new adventure. Does that blow anyone’s mind away? I know it did for me for a long time. I thought nervousness had to render me sleepless and I hate to say it, sometimes wimpy.

Nervousness does not have to be bad. It can be fun and exciting.

That question in the class helped me realize the shift I had gone through. I could see others who were on the verge of this shift as they break out of their boxes.

It is a truly powerful experience to see yourself change and unless we give ourselves opportunities to experience it, we will never know.

So thanks to everyone who came to the course for this experience. There are a couple of other questions from the course I’ll cover in my next posts.