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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.

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

Watch Where You Aim That Arrow

Archery is said date back to the stone age (around 20,000 BC), and while most people don’t go out and hunt their food with a bow and arrow, it is alive today in sport. This year you can see it in the Olympics.

The Archer Reveals the Secrets of Life

Archer pose requires steadiness, focus, and strength. When you step forward on one foot, hold up your bow and pull back on your arrow and enter the spirit of the archer. The head and arrow should turn towards the target.

In children’s yoga, archer pose requires coordination of the arms and legs. When kids are doing it, make sure the same arm and leg are forward, in the same fashion as traditional archery.

What is your Target?
The gift of Archer Pose comes when we realize that the archer needs a target. If we don’t point the arrow at the bullseye, we won’t hit the target. In life we also need targets, especially those set from our center. Our target is our vision of what we want.

I recommend Ancient Secrets of Success for Today’s World by Tulshi Sen for a beautiful description of Archer Pose. Here is part of it (p. 80):

The Union of the Archer with the Mark

“When the target, the bullseye, the arrow, the pulled bow, and the archer become One, then the archer releases the arrow. The target of an archer is the intention. The arrow is the concentration of the intention into a vision on the arrowhead. The bow is the mind and the archer is consciousness.”

In Archery if you miss the target, you try again. This is Sadhana. An Olympian has to have a strong Sadhana to make it to the games.

In the stone age, if an archer could not hit the target, he went hungry. Now if we do not have a vision for our life we can go spiritually under-nourished. We feel the pain of separation and lack of connection. Life can feel empty without a target.

Teaching Principles of Happiness with Yoga

With Archer Pose we build all the muscles it takes to “go for the gold” and hit the targets that we set. We do not go hungry, but realize that life is a banquet. This is the message we intend to get across when we incorporate the Olympics and Archer Pose into kid’s classes.

Olympic Kids Yoga and Valentine’s Day