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Kids Yoga Teachers of the World – Unite

Yoga Man - the Yoga Super Hero

When I was a kid I loved watching the Justice League, the caped crusaders who banded together to fight evil.  It was exciting to see all that power in one room.

Many years later, one of my first yoga students owned a very popular restaurant in downtown Toronto.  She came in one day talking about a new restaurant opening down the street from her. You might think she would be upset about the competition, but she was actually happy. Over the years their location had become known as a “restaurant district.” Great eateries banding together actually helped their bistro businesses boom. It was a lessons on how to be creative rather than competitive.

Banding together isn’t just for Super Heroes and Restaurants

Today I want to tell you about the incredible way Kids Yoga Teachers from around the world are banding together to create something good for all of us.  Here’s how you can be part of it.

Leah Kalish, founder of Move with Me Yoga, is a finalist in the Partnership for a Healthier America – End Childhood Obesity Innovation Challenge.  She is now 1 of 10 finalists vying for the top three spots, to win prizes that include a lot of exposure for kids’ yoga!  If we all band together to get votes we can put her into the top three.

It’s just great in so many ways. You help children because:

“Pre-schoolers who are overweight or obese are five times more likely to stay that way.  Pre-school is the key time to instill healthy physical activity and self-regulation habits that will last a lifetime.”

–          Leah Kalish, Move with Me

It’s also great because you can:

Win One of 65+ Prizes from the Kids Yoga Community

Equally inspiring to me, is the support the Kids Yoga Community is showing. To get people to vote, over 65 kids yoga prizes have been donated by Children’s Yoga Leaders from around the world.  These include Young Yoga Masters prizes:

  • The Frog Yoga Alphabet Teacher Training Double Pack
  • Yoga Man vs. The Stressor, Yoga for Boys Teacher Training

    The Frog Yoga Alphabet - one of the prizes to be won.

Here’s how you can band together to promote kids yoga.  Then if you want, enter yourself for the draw for some great prizes:

  1. Vote now for Move with Me Yoga in the Innovation Challenge Contest here.
  2. Then Enter the Raffle here for a chance to win one of the 65+ Prizes (see the full prize list here too).
  3. Tell your friends and get more entries for the 65+ Prizes here.

If You Believe Yoga Can Help End Childhood Obesity – Vote Now

Not only will you be helping a wonderful kids’ yoga teacher, you’ll be helping to get kids yoga recognized as an innovative way to end childhood obesity.  Which in turn adds credibility to all the kids’ yoga teachers of the world.

Do what you can to help. I’d love to see a Young Yoga Masters blog reader walk home with some sweet yoga for children loot.

Please leave a comment if you have any questions or any problems filling in the info.

Yours truly,

Aruna Kathy Humphrys
www.YoungYogaMasters.com

P.S.  At the time of this post Move with me had slipped to 4th place in the voting (5 votes behind the important 3rd place spot).  We need your help to get to 3rd or 2nd place.  Get kids healthy and get kids yoga recognized too! Vote now.

Character Development: Cooperation

( In my city, Toronto (Canada), school teachers guide kids on themes of Character Development. I went to the Yoga In My School specialist, Donna Freeman, for some yogic insight about them. Thank you to Donna for this monthly series.)

Cooperation in Partner Yoga

Cooperation is Necessary in Partner Yoga

Cooperation:  The Essence of Yoga

by Donna Freeman
www.YogaInMySchool.com

The essence of yoga is cooperation. Yoga, coming from the Sanskrit root yuj, means union, or joining, a coming together of the body, mind and breath to create greater harmony.

In a yoga class you may hear the instructor encourage participants to “not sacrifice the breath for the pose.” This means, to use all aspects of yourself in collaboration with one another in order to achieve your personal best, never allowing one part to suffer because you are too focused in another area.

We all have a tendency to do exactly that in our daily lives. It is all too easy to become un-balanced as we strive to meet goals, deadlines, and personal expectations, or the opposite, become complacent and unmotivated, even depressed, if there is a lack of symmetry and equilibrium in our bodies and lives.

A regular yoga practice will help to create greater communication between the body, mind and spirit, allowing each individual to access their intuition, their inner voice, their individuality. They become more genuine with themselves, and can then take that off the mat and into the world.

By discovering and respecting who you are, you also begin to appreciate and value others. Hopefully you will realize that the way you do things is not the only way in which they can be accomplished. There are many roads to perfection and each of us is engaged in our own personal journey. We can aid one another along the way. Helping, assisting, strengthening, lifting, providing the needed support to bring out the best in all.

While this is true in an individual yoga practice it is accentuated whenever partner and group poses are used.

Something incredible happens whenever two (or more) people work together doing yoga. From the basics of synchronized breathing to extreme acro-yoga postures, trust, connection and interdependence are prevalent.

When performing partner and group poses the participants must communicate with one another. They need to work together, to cooperate, to connect and feel supported while doing the same for others. Working at this level reinforces the need for one another as the poses cannot be complete without a partner.

Partner yoga increases feeling of acceptance as you relax into your partner’s support. You become more in touch with one another, physically, emotionally, and mentally. And there is always an element of playful fun and exploration as you discover new ways to work together.

The relationships and skills developed while doing partner and group poses can then be used in other tasks which require team work and interdependence.

Cooperation is an essential skill. It will lead to greater happiness, deeper, more meaningful relationships, and contentment. As we come to know ourselves and others through practicing yoga, we increase our ability to cooperate and are well on our way to achieving these aims.