fairness

How the Olympics and Yoga Can Inspire Children to Believe

How the olympics and yoga can insprie Children to believe

“I Don’t Want to Play If I Get Out!”

At the end of a kids’ yoga class I announced, “Now it’s time for a game.”

To which one child responded, “Is it a game where people get out? I don’t want to play if I get out.”

Today’s blog post is about olympic spirit and the joy of playing. It includes important yoga philosophy that can help children, especially kids who have trouble with losing, understand why it really isn’t whether you win or lose, its how you play the game.

Competition for Kids: Good or Bad?

This yoga lesson plan aims to show kids that competition is not necessarily good or bad, rather our perception of competition is what makes it so.

When competition is seen as a rivalry, it’s easy to understand why kids don’t like to play. They risk the chance of becoming “losers” rather than participants. The root of the word competition means “to strive together.” In this sense of the word, competition can be a wonderful experience of completely involving yourself in a task, bonding with a team, improving a skill, and striving towards a goal.

Take the example of the school children in this picture. They broke the world record for the largest Olympic rings.

children, competition and the Olympics — School children work together to break the world record for largest Olympic rings

To give kids a fresh look at competition, consider a lesson plan with this insight from my yoga teacher, Yogi Bhajan. He said we all have three minds: the Negative Mind, the Positive Mind, and the Neutral Mind.

The Negative Mind

The negative mind is not negative meaning bad. It is awareness of the negative, the dangers and obstacles that will result from a choice. Simply put, the negative mind may think “if I play a game then I might lose”, which might make someone less inclined to play at all. The negative mind thinks that losing makes a person a loser. It pays attention to all the things that could go wrong in any given situation.

Ask the kids for examples of the negative mind in their life or with family or friends.

The Positive Mind

The positive mind is not necessarily the good mind because of the word “positive.” It’s thinking that helps us see opportunities and pleasant outcomes. The positive mind may think, “I’ll play and I’ll win, and that will make me a winner”. It is the mind that realizes that there is value in trying your best, no matter the outcome.

Ask the kids for examples of the positive mind.

The Neutral Mind

The neutral mind weighs both the positive and the negative, and then decides. It quickly recognizes that everything can potentially have dangers and opportunities that can be evaluated before a decision is made. The neutral mind also sees how both negative and positive events help you grow.

The neutral mind thinks, “I may lose or I may win, but that will not determine who I am. I will play for the fun of doing my best, being part of a team, and becoming a stronger player.”

Ask the kids when they have noticed their neutral mind in action.

Yoga Poses for the Neutral Mind

To strengthen the neutral mind, try yoga poses that raise your energy from the base of the spine upwards. Examples include:

cat cow
bridge pose
bicycle legs
leg lifts

Then move to yoga poses that open the heart:

archer pose
warrior poses
yoga mudra (hands clasped behind the back) while standing, sitting in rock pose, or resting in child pose
bow pose

Squeeze and Release Relaxation

Finish with a body scan for relaxation. Squeeze your feet tight, hold, then release your feet. Squeeze your legs, hold, then release them. Continue through the body, from the feet to the face. This body scan show kids that many things, like tension, can be both harmful and useful depending on how they are used.

Leave a silent period at the end to let the children rest in a neutral space during relaxation.

The Olympics are wonderful example of striving together. Try watching the Olympics together to observe athletes handling both victory and defeat. These athletes can be valuable role models to help children discover the joy of striving, regardless of whether you win or you lose.

With a neutral mind, what matters is playing the game.

Share your thoughts and ideas in the comments below!

Upcoming Kids Yoga Teacher Training Certification

Kids Yoga for Disabilities

First off, take a look at this fun video of two Canadians, Rick Mercer (comedian/host) and Rick Hanson (Man in Motion hero/educator) blowing away all ideas of what one can and cannot do when one has a disability:

Pretty Amazing, Eh!

This Friday marks the beginning of the Paralympic Games in Vancouver. It’s another event that shows how ABLE all people are. The first Paralympics Games were held in 1976 in Sweden and this Paralympics has five sports:

alpine skiing
biathlon
cross-country skiing
ice sledge hockey
wheelchair curling

Here’s a link to a whole page of activities from Official Website of the Paralympic Movement. I’m looking forward to reading this worksheet in my kids classes: A Fairytale: A Class Discussion of Inclusion it’s a great story with discussion questions included.

I also want to try the Sitting Volleyball Skills Sheet with a soft volley ball for younger kids.

When it comes to yoga, are there any limitations that could prevent a child from joining a class? Considering that kids yoga is already so imaginative I think kids yoga can be done by all.

The best tip for teaching yoga to someone with a disability: talk to the person to find out what works and what won’t work for their particular situation. They’ll be able to tell you what they need to make it possible, what they want to try and what they can’t. Don’t make assumptions!

If you’re stuck for ideas – a simple Google search of “wheelchair yoga” produces over 400,000 results!

Finally, this book Susan Laughs by Jeanne Willis and Tony Ross is recommended for discussing disabilities with young kids. It looks like a great book that I’ve just added to my wish list. Let me know if you’ve seen this book or if you have any other ideas for including all kids in yoga classes.

Character Development: Fairness

( 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 bout them. Thank you to Donna for this monthly series.)

Olympians Play Fair and Develop Balance and Strength

Fairness and Balance in Yoga

by Donna Freeman
www.YogaInMySchool.com

Fairness refers to justice, equality and the absence of bias. Children seem to intrinsically know what is fair and what isn’t. There is even a series of advertisements which underline children’s innate ability to know when they are, and when they are not, being treated fairly.

Fairness with Ease and Strength
There are a number of ways this principle relates to yoga. The most prevalent is the ideals of Sukha (easy, pleasant, gentle) and Sthira (solid, durable, strong). The goal when practicing yoga is to have equal amounts of these two opposing philosophies present at all times.

Yogis are always looking to balance the effort with the ease, the soft and the hard. To treat both aspects of the poses with fairness in order to allow the body and mind to expand to its full potential. If Sukha is too much of a focus, the consequence is laziness and lack of will power. If Sthira is stressed, then injury or burnout may result. Neither extreme is healthy, but a balance of the two permits beautiful expression and growth.

Yoga Poses to Teach Fairness
In addition, balance poses teach much about fairness. Poses such as tree pose, dancer pose and eagle pose help to refine the sense of equality. Performing these poses always seems easier on one side, but both sides need the same opportunity to work the pose. The lessons, however, are more than physical. Children learn to focus and concentrate, training their minds as well as their bodies.

Finally fairness is underscored with Satya (honesty). Satya is the virtue of being true to and honest with yourself and those you encounter. This includes in speech and action. The ideal of fairness is completely redundant without honesty. Being able to see the world through realistic lenses helps to overcome selfishness and encourages compassion.

Teaching honesty to children is an ongoing endeavor.
Personal integrity is an elusive but essential aspect of society’s morals. Practicing compass pose (half moon) with an accompanying discussion on how compasses help guide individuals through the storms of life provides a kinaesthetic reinforcement of these ideals.

The principles of fairness and equality are threaded throughout yoga. Children know the difference between right and wrong, justice and injustice. Allow yoga to help develop this knowledge through balance and honesty.

A Tangled Mess: Yoga Octopus – Yoga for Children

Yoga Tag for Children – You’re Out (Gasp!)

Letting Tweens Teach Yoga Class to the Other Children

Class two of summer daycare with the tweens turned out to be more challenging. It brought up a lot of talk with the kids about emotions and about winning and losing.

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.”

Soccer Style Warm-Ups for Yoga for Kids – Why Not?

Because this teacher plays a lot of soccer, the warm-ups were different than what we usually do. We did sitting forward bends and butterfly legs. She led the kids in some challenging leg lifts and everyone kept up with her! (personal note: I almost asked her to switch to the warm-ups I usually teach, but waited to see what her warm-ups were like. They were good stretches and challenging and I felt it was better to let her choose the style, after all she was teaching)

Kids Yoga Game: Octopus Tag

Then she introduced a game invented to turn tag into a yoga game, a game not too different from regular tag. Usually when the person “IT” tags/touches someone, they are out. In Octopus Tag, there are two ends (we used two fences). The kids are all at one end and run to the other end. The person who is “it” tags people as they go back and forth. When someone is tagged they hold a yoga pose until the last person is tagged. The last person to be tagged is “it” next.

Problem Solving – Overcoming the Challenges

This game led to a few problems to work out for the eleven year old girl teaching the class. Each time the kids came to me with a complaint or problem I called the student teacher to help solve it. We all came together, the kids, the student-teacher, and me, and we figured out a solution with the “teacher” making the final decision.

Here are some problems that arose:

Problems Build Leadership Skills in Children

The first time we played the game it lasted about 15 minutes with only one person “it.” The kids who got out at the beginning were getting bored and couldn’t hold the yoga pose for that long. When they complained, I called the teacher and we all had a quick discussion.

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

Feelings Being Hurt – Emotional Intelligence for Tweens

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.

At the beginning of our next class we will have another discussion about emotions and what happened. It is a great chance to discuss emotions, what they are (from a yoga perspective), and tools to deal with them.

The Question of Competition

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.

Games and Stories Build Young Leaders

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!