Olympics

3 Olympic Themed Kids Yoga Ideas

The weather today in Canada is cold and snowy, perfect for getting cozy in front of the TV to watch the Olympic Games. This morning I was up early to watch the women’s moguls competition. One Canadian athlete made it to the podium and one lost control on her run and went out of bounds and did not finish the race.

In post-event interviews, the medalist described persevering through challenges with sickness in her family and her sister getting cut from the Olympic team.When she got to her last run she said she let all that go and claimed the moment as her moment to shine. She got the silver medal.

The other athlete was in contention for a gold medal but experienced an agonizing defeat. She fought back tears as she shared how difficult it was to lose her standing, but she had to accept there is nothing she can do to change it now, she will hold her head high and move forward.

I like watching these athlete’s courage, the strength it takes to put yourself on the world stage. The victory is euphoric, but most athletes at the Olympics compete for a personal best, knowing they will likely never land on the podium. There is always the risk that you will experience a “personal worst” moment, and you must be willing to take that risk.

While I’ve certainly never participated in the Olympics, I know the courage, dedication, and commitment it takes to put yourself out there. Just teaching a yoga class was difficult at first, then moving to part-tine business, and eventually to a full-time career in yoga. As a trainer, I see new teaches work through their nervousness in their first kids yoga classes too.

We all “go to the Olympics” in our own way, which is why it makes a great theme for kids yoga classes.

Consider sharing the sports ideas and also the difficult parts of competing and dealing with winning and losing. Here are three ideas ways the Olympics theme can be used in your kids yoga classes this week.

3 Olympic Themed Kids Yoga Ideas

1. How the Olympics Can Help Sore Losers

What if kids don’t want to even risk playing a game because they don’t want to lose?

Helping Sore Losers by Using the Olympics and Yoga — Click the image to read the full article.

2. Olympic Yoga and Valentine’s Day

Building a pyramid to talk about the foundation of doing your best as an athlete or whatever you strive to do. Lots of winter Olympic pose ideas here!

three kids make a pyramid like the podium of the Olympics and discuss the founations of success — Try mini pyramids like a Podium for an Olympic Valentine’s Day theme, the top can be either kneeling or standing. Make sure you have mats or a spotter.

3. Olympic Games that Build Concentration and Focus

More yoga poses for the Olympics and how your lesson plan can be adjusted to suit for different age groups.

family yoga, families doing a rowing arms pose that can be used in an Olympic themed lesson plan — Rowing Arms in a Family Yoga Class. Rowing can be adapted for different settings and age groups.

Sometimes when you start teaching kids in September, it can be difficult to find new ideas and lesson plans for the end of the year. Let’s get inspired by the spirit of the Games and the universal drive to reach for our own personal best, and give kids a gold medal yoga class.

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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!

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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.

Olympic Kids Yoga and Valentine’s Day

A Gold Medal Week

for Kids Yoga Lesson Plan Themes

Those who work with kids know it can be a challenge coming up with themes for kids yoga classes. Often we turn to current events for ideas and this week we’ve hit the jackpot!

Not only are the Olympics happening, but it is Valentine’s Day too.

The Olympics are pretty easy to connect with yoga poses. You can ask the kids about their favorite Olympic sports and how yoga could help them in that sport. Don’t forget all the concentration poses like archer below or tree pose. Work both the physical and the mental muscles.

Summer Olympic Kids Yoga Poses

I’ve posted in the past on the Summer Olympic Games:

Olympic Rowing for Forward Bends including some partner yoga,
a Rowing Game that builds Concentration (using a Caller like they do in the boats with a lot of rowers),
Archery and Archer Pose

Winter Olympic Kids Yoga Poses

But now it’s time for the Winter Games and a whole new look at the Olympics:

Rowing is very similar to the Luge so we could use the two ideas above again,
Snowboarders, skiers, and Ski Jumpers need to know about mountains so I include: Mountain Pose, Volcano Pose, and Avalanche Pose and these videos from Janet of Children’s Yoga Books show some great ways to do these poses.

Avalanche Pose – Kids Yoga Winter Olympics

Volcano Pose – Kids Yoga Winter Olympics

Partner yoga: There are team sports at the Olympics, so do some team building activities by making a Podium (see the picture above). Children make a small pyramid, starting with everyone doing cat/cow pose, then having one child kneel or stand on the base. If the kids can do it safely you can move onto a larger pyramid. You could also tie in the ideas of what it takes to get to the podium (see below) and the children in the base represent the head, and the heart and add more characteristics like practice, dedication, and ideas the children come up with to be the foundation for getting to the Olympics).

kids in yoga class climb on each other ot make a pyramid — Discuss the foundation it takes for an Olympian to get to the Olympics.

The Heart and the Head Come Together for Kids Yoga on Valentine’s Day

Now with the Olympics and Valentine’s Day coming together it is a perfect time to talk about the Romance between the Heart and the Head. How does the head – the logic, the mind, the calculations – come into play for an Olympic athlete training to shave a fraction of a second off their time?

How does the heart – the dream, the dedication, the quest – come into play? Why don’t those Olympic Athletes quit when it starts getting hard? How do they stay calm when the big day arrives?

Both the head and the heart are developed by a top athlete and we need to develop them too. Not only for a healthy body, but for our dreams, our aspirations, and our goals, which make a healthy life.

The heart leads the way to what we care about, whether it’s the kids we love, in our career, providing for our families, or in our hobbies. Then the head follows through on the heart’s desire to help us get to our goal.

They make a perfect pair! We marry both the head and the heart for a perfect Valentine’s Day – or a Perfect 10 in an Olympic Sport.

Aruna Humphrys
www.YoungYogaMasters.com

P.S. Please share your ideas for Yoga Poses for the Winter Olympics or Valentine’s Day in the comments. You can also get tons of other yoga theme and game ideas in the Young Yoga Master Kids Yoga Teacher Training. A training that counts as a Registered Children’s Yoga School with Yoga Alliance.

One World, One Dream – What is a Dream?

Daring to Dream or Playing if Safe

The Russian Gold Medalist on the Trampoline, 2000 (picture from CBC.com)

Before I go into my next topic on how to get new classes to teach in daycare, I want to finish off the Olympics with a bit of a spiritual discussion.

One World One Dream – What is a Dream?

The theme of the Olympics this year, is One World One Dream. They used the word Dream to represent the spirit of the Olympics. Spirit is front and centre and not overlooked.

They don’t want everyone to go to sleep and start dreaming the same thing. This dream is really a Vision of the World that we can all share. A Vision that goes beyond the circumstances we find the world in now. A Vision that transcends our problems, in which we imagine everyone to be united (one world) and happy.

Some yoga teachers frown on mixing yoga with any spiritual elements – especially in children’s yoga. They are worried it will be too risky or may offend some one’s particular beliefs.

My Dream – Everyone Finding Their Own Bliss

In my yoga program, the goal of the teacher is not to get the children to think like I do, but to get the children to be able to think for themselves. To get the children to have their own Vision.

Thinking for yourself is thinking “out of the box.” The “box” is our circumstances and conditions. I feel like a success as a teacher when kids imagine and dream of living the life they want to live – not the life they are told to live. This is the true “union” of yoga – union with spirit, not living in the karma of our conditions.

I abhor a play it safe attitude – turning yoga into a stretching class without acknowledging the spirit. What I love about yoga is how it opened my heart, soul, and imagination to reach out and enjoy life. I am grateful to my teacher for showing me this and how much happiness I have felt living this way.

If I can pass on these teachings, then the Spirit of Yoga is alive.

Yoga as an Olympic – The Spirit of the Games

If Yoga did become an Olympic Sport I think we could give out medals for:

Imagination Pole Vault – who had the most imaginative solutions to world problems
Laughter Relay – for how much happiness one person can spread
100 Meter Dash from Negativity – for how quickly you can rise above duality

This is my dream for the Yoga Olympics of the future. Who else will dare to dream?

P.S. Olympic Yoga: Finish off the Olympic theme by asking the kids to find a way to create the Olympic rings using their bodies. Did you know the Olympic rings are the most recognized symbol in the world? The silver medal goes to McDonald’s and in third place Shell!

Aruna Humphrys
www.YoungYogaMasters.com

Olympic Games that Build Concentration and Focus

Olympic Yoga Games that build concentration and focus

Practicing Mindfulness: Concentration in Action

Olympic Themed Lesson Plan for Kids Yoga

This week has been great having the Olympics on TV. The kids are really interested in them. In one daycare I taught three Olympic classes, each 30 minutes long. We did Olympic yoga poses like:

Archer Pose for Archery
Downward Dog for Diving
Triangle Pose for Javelin and Shot Put
Warrior Three for Balance Beam
Rowing movements for Rowing

The theme worked with kindergarten age (4-6 years), junior school age group (7 – 8 years), and also senior school age group (9 – 10 years).

Creating Games In the Kids Yoga Class

One thing about teaching yoga that I recommend is going into a class prepared with a theme or idea, then stay open and flexible to new ideas that come up. It keeps the classes more interesting when you allow your lesson plan to be adjusted.

For instance in the rowing exercises we started with singles rowing which turned into a listening game. “Toes” meant reach forward and touch your toes, “back” meant lean back. I started off calling these out and occasionally switching them around to mix it up and see if the kids are listening.

Kids love a challenge like this. With the younger group we were laughing and having fun with this simple game.

The Lesson Plan Changes for each Age Group

The older classes are more outspoken and more imaginative. I offered those doing the pose a “promotion” to caller. They got to call out toes or back, and try to trick their friends. Some of them made up their own calls and movements too, which really kept everyone concentrating – with a big smile!

The older children chose a final group pose involving everyone rowing one imaginary boat that took teamwork and concentration to move together.

Get to Know Your Kids Through the Games and Activities

One interesting thing: a child who is talkative or interrupts can often become quiet and shy when they are asked to speak in front of people. It may seem like they have a natural ability to do public speaking, but this is not always true.

As teachers we can find this out with games and activities the many sides to each child and offer opportunities for them to build skills that are lacking. It also gives clues for future class themes that will help the kids grow and develop themselves.

With the Olympic yoga poses and games, kids build focus and concentration and time flies by. Just like the real Olympic Games we can enjoy the fun while it lasts.