Kids Yoga

Sitting Under the Wish Fulfilling Tree

Ancient Secrets/Modern Terms
With all the talk about The Secret, the Law of Attraction, Oprah’s book club and everything else, I’m reminded of an Ancient Story that my teacher told me that basically says the same thing. I tell it in my children’s yoga classes regularly.

It’s the story of The Wish Fulfilling Tree which explains How to Guard the Self-Sabotaging Mind. In brief, the story tells of a poor farmer who sits under a tree for shade only to discover it is The Wish Fulfilling Tree. Everything that he thinks of magically appears before him and he is in bliss just thinking of everything he wants. Until….

You guessed it! He stars to worry and “POOF” his worries come to life as well.

“This power works without question or pause and will not judge your wishes, it will fulfill them instantly.” Tulshi Sen, Ancient Secrets of Success for Today’s World

I tell this story to show kids that the Law of Attraction is a great boon, but it can also be a wretched curse if you cannot control your thinking. This is why we do meditation – even with kids. We do it for ourselves and to improve our own lives – not for anyone else.

Free Resources On-line
I listen to these Daily Talks to help me be aware of my thinking. We’ve got to keep a watchful eye on our thinking or it can slip into worry, or worse, so easily. As it says in the latest talk – a good day or a bad day is determined by your thinking. Can you control your thinking?

New talks are being posted regularly.

Upcoming Kids Yoga Teacher Training Courses and Dates in Toronto at this link — Our next Kids Yoga Teacher Training starts soon!

Oneness: Serious or Fun?

What is YOUR Inner Teacher Like?

One of the reason’s I love teaching children yoga is to see the way kids understand the great notions we ponder in meditation, especially compared to adults.

For instance we’ll talk about the idea of Intuition – the inner teacher, the wisdom within. Both adults and children love this but when adults hear about it they get all profound and deep about connecting with their teacher inside, they take it really seriously.

When I talk to kids about it and ask if they’ve heard of the teacher inside, they mostly say yes. Then if I ask for examples, they say things like this one girl did who clearly knew what she was talking about:

“yes I felt my teacher inside one day when I was waiting for the subway and I really wanted to throw my retainer onto the subway tracks, but I just put it in my pocket instead.”

Can you believe she felt her teacher inside wanted her to throw her retainer onto the tracks and be free? It was her mind who remembered she would have a lotta explaining to do when she got home. So she chose not to do it.

Good or bad? Who cares! She knew inner wisdom when she felt it!

“If we are not Conscious of a thing, that thing does not exist for us. Consciousness is our life. When we are unconscious we don’t feel. Life is feeling.”

Tulshi Sen, p. 89, Ancient Secrets of Success for Today’s World

Aruna Humphrys

Teaching Your First Junior Yoga Class

classroom_management — Yoga for Kids may surprise you!

Teaching Yoga to Children Isn’t the Same As Babysitting!

I thought I would enjoy teaching children’s yoga because I liked kids. I was always a baby sitter growing up, I loved spending time with my friends kids and I also loved yoga. What a perfect combination.

I got a class at an after school program my friends kid’s school. At least I would know two of the kids in the class. And soon enough I had 15 kids signed up for the class.

The Illusion of a Quiet Kids Yoga Class Faded

Have you ever heard of a little yoga term called Maya? My illusion of the yoga class quickly shattered. The idea of a bunch of kids sitting quietly on their mats and feeling their inner wisdom did not happen, at least not that session. In fact I may have cried when I got home. I found out that 15 kids is way different from 2 or 3. I found out that adult yoga is way different than kids yoga. And I found out that “quiet” is a relative term.

That was about 10 years ago and I have managed to learn a few things since that time. But I will never forget that first yoga class. When about 5 parents said, “Johnny has trouble behaving in school so we signed him up for yoga.” or “Mary is always getting in trouble for talking so we thought yoga would help.” or “Bobby can’t sit still…yoga.” So many of the kids didn’t want to be there at all, there parents did. What to do about that?

Yoga probably would have helped these kids if I had the skills to teach them. However at that time my best asset was my desire to learn. After 8 weeks of struggling, dreading each class, and spending hours trying to develop lesson plans that would interest the kids, I quickly picked up a part-time job at one of the most highly recommended daycares in my area and started to learn some tools for classroom management and some of the basics of child development.

My next session was 100 times better!

But I am forever grateful for that first yoga for kids class for showing me what I needed to learn and giving me a challenge. That challenge felt like climbing Mount Everest when I first started, but the views from the peaks along the way have been spectacular. It has led to many more challenges and opportunities to feel alive.

What was teaching your first children’s yoga class like?