YogaKids , livre ebook

ABRAMS BOOKS - Marsha Wenig , Susan Andrews

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153 pages

English

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The innovative YogaKids(R) program offers more than just poses: It blends traditional yoga and its benefits with new theories of multiple learning styles in a comprehensive, imaginative, and playful approach to education. The best-selling YogaKids(R) video (a Parent's Choice award winner) has been helping kids-and their parents-discover the pleasures and benefits of yoga for more than seven years. With this book, Marsha Wenig's fun and child-friendly course is expanded and enriched for parents, teachers, and caregivers. YogaKids(R) presents more than 50 carefully selected poses, in clear, easy-to-follow, color photographs, paired with special activities that stimulate children's verbal, spatial, and artistic skills. The book includes special yoga routines to cover a multitude of common situations, such as calming down, getting ready for a test, or even riding in a car, as well as help for children with special needs. Parents learn the physical and emotional benefits of each pose; children discover that learning is fun, that exercise feels good, and that taking care of their bodies is easy. - Designed for kids and adults to use together - Integrates yoga with verbal, spatial, and mathematical learning - Follow-up to the best-selling YogaKids(R) video, a Parents' Choice award winner - Two new videos to be released this fall - National author tour - National print and broadcast publicity - Online marketing

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Publié par	ABRAMS BOOKS
Date de parution	01 janvier 2015
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781613128077
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	3 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0420€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Copyright 2003 by Marsha Wenig
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.
Published in 2003 by Stewart, Tabori Chang A Company of La Martini re Groupe 115 West 18th Street New York, NY 10011
Export sales to all countries except Canada, France and French-speaking Switzerland: Thames Hudson 181A High Holborn Ltd. London WC1V 7QX England
Canadian Distribution: Canadian Manda Group One Atlantic Avenue, Suite 105 Toronto, Ontario M6K 3E7 Canada
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Marsha, Wenig
YogaKids : the whole-child program of learning through yoga/By Marsha Wenig
p. cm.
ISBN 1-58479-292-2
1. Yoga, Hatha, for children. 2. Exercise for children. I. Title.
RA781.8.W465 2003 613.7 046 083-dc21
2003042448
Designed by Susi Oberhelman
Illustrations on these pages by Laurel Izard
YogaKids is a registered trademark of Dancing Feet Yoga Center, Inc.
The exercises in this book are gentle and safe provided the instructions are followed carefully. However, the publishers and authors disclaim all liability in connection with the use of the information in individual cases. If you have any doubts as to the suitability of the exercises, consult a doctor.
This book is dedicated to children everywhere: Learning yoga at a young age will bring peace and light to us all.
In loving memory of my parents, Ruthie and Eric Loeb.
Namaste to my magnificent family: Don, Dakota, and Kiva. I love you.
Contents
Introduction
Foundations of YogaKids
How to Use This Book
YogaKids Sequences
Base Poses
The Poses
Peace Quiet
Senses
Four-Legged Friends
Shake Like Jelly
Brain Balance
Strength Courage
Feathers
Connecting
ABCs
Moving Grooving
Wet
Pattern Rhythm
Shape Form
Edible
Upside Down
Completion
Elements More
Awesome Anatomy
About Chakras
Chakra Chart
Visualization: A Magical Cloud Carpet Ride
YogaKids with Special Needs
Affirmations
Song Lyrics
Musical Musings
Reading Comes Alive with Yoga
Branches of Your Brain
The YogaKids Classroom Experience
Books on Yoga, Children, and Teaching
Acknowledgments
Index of Searchable Terms
Introduction
S wami Satchidananda, one of the most famous yogis of our time, was once asked in an interview, Are you a Hindu?
No, he replied. I m an undo.
Over the past twenty years, two things have transformed me: yoga and motherhood. Both forced me to come undone, and in time, to come back together. The word yoga means, to yoke. Teaching yoga to children has inspired me to slow down, has demanded that I practice what I preach, and continually allows me to educate in ways that encourage a peaceful mind, a healthy body, and a creative spirit. By bringing my two deepest passions together in a labor of love, I have been able to serve myself, my family, and my community.
YogaKids teaches children to bunny breathe in order to boost energy when they re tired, to release their anger with explosion sounds in Volcano, and to focus before tests with Take 5 breaths. When they practice the Warrior series with affirmations, their bodies grow stronger, and their confidence and self-esteem are enhanced. I love knowing that, at five years old, they re learning life skills I didn t have until my life nearly fell apart.
Back in the 1970s and 80s, I was a heavy smoker, a stressed-out professional woman whose past careers had included TV news producer, public relations VP, film music coordinator, and road manager for the singing group The Manhattan Transfer. Both of my parents passed on in a short span of time. My grief was great, and yoga became my solace.
For someone with a tense lifestyle and an over-active mind, yoga was the perfect antidote. Physically, it made me feel good. Mentally and emotionally, it steadied my nerves and helped me to relax. In a short time, I felt a new ease in my body.
I quit smoking, began teaching creative writing to children in the L.A. public schools, and met Don, my yoga instructor, who became my husband. The frazzled, nicotine-addicted woman I d been years earlier became a distant memory. Don and I moved to the Midwest with our three-month-old daughter Dakota and opened the Dancing Feet Yoga and Retreat Center in Michigan City, Indiana.
While L.A. had a yoga studio on every other corner, Michigan City had misinformation and confusion about the practice. Our aim was to educate people about yoga, and their curiosity spurred our fledgling business.
Meanwhile, I was a yoga mom, learning how to be a mother and practicing my craft every day to help me stay present, peaceful, and healthy. Dakota had been doing yoga with me since before she was born, in utero, and now I enjoyed her willingness to play yoga. I wanted to branch out, share yoga with her and her friends. When her Montessori preschool accepted my offer to teach, I felt confident. After all, I d been teaching yoga to adults for several years, and studying Iyengar yoga for almost a decade.
I was in for a surprise. Two classes later, my frustration nearly overcame me. Teaching children was nothing like teaching adults. I knew what wasn t working, yet I didn t know how to fix it.
Unlike adults, children didn t wait for my instructions, nor were they interested in explanations. They just jumped right in and did the poses with me. They had absolutely no interest in holding poses, or in trying harder or trying again. They wanted to play and have fun. Children live in the moment; those moments move fast, and the questions come even faster. Why is Dog pose Dog pose when it doesn t look like a dog? Dogs bark, nip heels, and lift their legs to pee; they don t look like little pup tents!
It was time to undo what I had learned.
I got off the mat and experimented. Dakota walked me around by my shirt collar in Down Dog while I barked and growled. We rolled around like puppies. She kissed me with licks. We hissed like snakes in bhujangasana, the Cobra pose, and I slithered out of my old skin. After my training from the children, yoga would never be the same. The kids began to call me Mrs. Yoga, and they became my beloved Yoga Kids.
Once I began to tune in to how they wanted me to teach them, we created amazing classes together. I continually modified traditional poses to make these age-old techniques child-friendly and fun. We played games, read books, learned anatomy, counted, sang songs, and put stuffed animals on our bellies as breathing buddies.
Yoga became the springboard to creativity and exploration. We did yoga with nature, and observed animal behavior. We played percussion instruments as we walked in kooky and rhythmic ways. We wove stories with both our bodies and minds. With this interdisci -plinary approach, the classes were exciting, expressive, and alive. The children were hungry for movement through space; though they loved having their own mats, they didn t want to be confined to them.
If I had quieted the children and forced them to learn in a rigid, adult manner, they d have quickly lost interest. But because we learned together, the children responded, and the YogaKids program blossomed.
Often when I leave a school, the children say, I wish every day was a yoga day. Now it can be! This book is an introduction and guide to the YogaKids program, something you and your child can experience together in your home.
Peace begins with me is one of the affirmations the children say in YogaKids classes. This phrase helps them recognize they have the power to change the world, both internally and externally.
In your hands is the power to help your child develop a strong body, gain respect and love for herself, and discover a place of stillness and peace. YogaKids is a stepping stone on the journey. It brings that marvelous inner light that all children have to the surface. Watch them shine!
Namaste, M ARSHA W ENIG
Foundations of YogaKids
A t its most fundamental, the YogaKids program is about learning. Children are insatiably curious, and that s a wonderful thing. In the early days of the program-when YogaKids was just my daughter s preschool class and me-I faced dozens of children who d never heard of yoga. Their spontaneity and constant questions both exasperated and inspired me, but I knew we could learn so much together. I was committed to teaching them yoga in ways that worked on all levels, from the physical to the subtle.
I wanted to engage their brains and hearts as well as their minds and bodies. In addition to the movement, we talked about animals, feelings, death-whatever came to their minds. I longed to use the practice of yoga to stimulate their capacity to learn and educate them completely.
People always say children are like sponges, and that s true, but each is a different kind of sponge. Children absorb and process information through moving, seeing, listening, touching, and even singing. Using all of these, we help develop every aspect of a child s mind, body, and spirit. No two children learn in exactly the same way.
Eight Intelligences
You may have heard of Howard Gardner s theory of multiple intelligences, developed in 1983 and described in his first book, Frames of Mind . Gardner named the seven intelligences all people exhibit: verbal/linguistic, logical/mathematical, visual/spatial, musical/rhythmic, body/kinesthetic, interpersonal, and intrapersonal. The more ways information can be processed, the more likely it will be stored in a variety of networks, and the more accessible it will be. It s like cross-referencing your mind: no matter which route you take to retrieve the information, you ll be able to get to it.
In the mid-1990s Gardner added naturalist to his list of intelligences, bringing the current count to eight: eight ways in which we understand the world,