Kids are our teachers!

It's true that kids say the darndest things! Our job is not to let their words and whines shake us!!

I recently taught a kid's yoga class at my local elementary school. I have been striving to be "good at" teaching kids yoga for awhile now. I have learned that when kids are involved, the criteria for success shifts, often quite a bit! But I was very happy last week when this particular kid's class went off without a hitch. This is probably one of three kid's classes I could say I feel good about, and I have probably taught close to 30 kids classes!! It's a reminder that the road to being a good teacher is paved with failures and trials. But small moments of success are to be celebrated, as they are the building blocks for a sustainable teaching framework.

Here are some of the lessons I try to employ while teaching... and some of the life lessons the kiddos remind me of... Now, one disclaimer, I am not a mother. Any mothers who read this might roll their eyes and say, "DUH". But these are things that we can all benefit from when dealing with children... or even people in our lives who just act like children!

Breathe.
Most important. These kids run amok. Breathing helps to keep us centered, yes. But most of the time, with the energy of eight 5-7 year olds, you are just trying to catch your breath! Breathe instead of raising your voice. Try tricks to get their focus back, like playing a game ("If you can hear me put your hands on your head. If you can hear me put your hands on your belly"... until all kids are doing what you say), or talking really quietly. Take one breath. Then reapproach.

Resist Conformity
When they get crazy, don't get crazy. Meet their resistance with calmness. Similarly, there is always a kid who doesn't want to do what the others are doing. Let them do their thing, so long as it doesn't become a distraction to the others. Sometimes kids just need a little space. If they all start to drop like flies, change your game plan.

Challenge Convention
This is actually the slogan of my Alma Mater, Clark University. It attracted me to the school and I need it to attract me to kids, too! The constant, "Why?" question every kid asks can be exasperating. Once, I greeted a group of inner city 6th grade boys by doing an arm balance. They immediately thought yoga was cool. When they asked me in the future why they had to do side plank or boat pose, I said because it's part of what helps you to stand on your hands. When kids ask why, sometimes you don't have an answer for them. Sometimes I make a rhyme and say, "Just try!" But it's good that they are asking. The world needs more people who ask why.

Know Your Audience
Engage them. Sing songs with little kids and play games with older kids. If they are bored, change it up. If they are rambunctious, put them all in child's pose. Bring music. Let them dance. Let them use their imaginations. Encourage them, and laugh when they are trying to be funny, be excited when they come up with a new pose, and tell them when they look good in their yoga postures!

Set Ground Rules
I think one reason this latest class went so well was that I started out by explaining that I was subbing for Jill, and that I would do things a little bit differently than her. I then told them that my main rule was that when they heard the bells, to STOP. We practiced getting loud. VERY loud. I would ring the bells, and they would practice stopping. We practiced this three times, and I never had to ring the bell again until class was over! I did have to remind them that I did things differently, but since we talked about it at the beginning, they seemed to remember.

Have a Plan
One of my Sangha sisters, Aasha, told me to go into kid's yoga class with three times as many ideas as I would use. This is such valuable advice. It prevents the faltering between activities when you have so many to choose from. It helps you be prepared when an activity is failing miserably. It helps the kids to stay engaged. And if you can have a cohesive class based around one theme, even better!

Don't be Married to your Plan
Meet them where they are at. If you are trying to force a lesson plan on a group, sometimes it just doesn't work. If they are high energy, let them jump and scream and thrash, but add some upbeat music, pause it, and have them freeze in Tree Pose. If they are just NOT into yoga that day, let them color mandalas or write a yoga journal about what they did in class that they liked.

Take water breaks
Sometimes when you are teaching kids and they are not feeling it, the hour DRAGS BY. The clock watcher in me knows that if I stop the entire class for a water break, I have used up five minutes of class. Sometimes a change of scenery can regroup the kids. It breaks up the class if they are getting tired or losing attention. It gives them something to look forward to when they are asking for water or the bathroom during other activities. "We are all going to take a water break together in a few minutes." To encourage regrouping and re-centering, I tell them that whichever yogi is sitting quietly on their mat after the water break will get a stamp (see reward good behavior, below).

Make it fun
My main aim when I teach kids yoga is to have games that don't promote a winner and a loser. It's about the game, not about who is best. I had plenty of complexes from gym class as a kid, because I am not coordinated. So, I play games that they like. I make them do things that promote group unity rather than competition. If they are liking it, I try to draw it out and fill up more time with activities that work well with that particular group. 

Do What You Know
If you have success with a game, hang onto it. Know what works, what is universally liked. If you loved a game as a kid, try to adapt it to fit a yoga class. Red Light Green Light with yoga poses, SPUD, Freeze Tag, all can be adapted as yoga games!

Reward Positive Behavior
Meghan loves yoga. She follows the class and gets frustrated when the other kids are distracting from the activities. She is engaged, and even wears yoga pants. She listens. She follows along. When the other kids start to get unruly, ring the bell and have Meghan come up in front of the kids. Thank Meghan for listening, for being a good and respectful yogi, and give her a stamp! The other kids will rally for that coveted stamp. And Meghan gets well deserved recognition for being a focused yogini!

Use Props
Kids love toys, games, leggos, tangible things they can hold. If you are going to pick partners, have them choose toys out of a bag. Have matching toys (2 bouncy balls, 2 leggos, 2 pairs of sunglasses, 2 rings) prepared in the bag. This will take the sting out of picking partners. Leave it up to fate! Another great use of props is to have a bag of stuffed animals that are also yoga poses. Have the kids pick an animal out of the bag and show their pose. Then have the kids balance the animal on their head, shoulder, give them a ride on their back. One of my favorite secret props is a battery operated candle. Put it in the center of the circle and see how long the group can maintain silence while watching it flicker. Give them three tries to see how long they can go.

Give Them Time at the End
Factor five minutes at the end of class to let them roll up their mats and put their shoes on. Encourage them to do this with respect to others, and without dawdling. Have them help each other with their shoes. Have them line up. It's a practice in mindfulness if they can stand in line quietly once they have shoes on! It works even better with the promise of a rubber stamp or sticker for those who line up mindfully. At the end, ALL kids get a stamp or sticker for participating and practicing yoga!

Send Love
Kids are kids. They run at a different speed. The same kid who will give you a hard time throughout the entire class will run up and give you a hug at the end. So it's good to remind ourselves not to get frustrated. When the moment arises that you feel tension build, try to send that kid some love and allow them the space in your heart to be a little pain in the patooty. They are just kids, after all.

Breathe.
Remind yourself once again, breathe! Sometimes when I step into a kid's yoga class, I have to realize that I am pretty much their babysitter, their disciplinarian, their boss, for the next 40 minutes to an hour. It's not like teaching an adult yoga class where everyone shows up voluntarily, parts with their hard-earned money, and revels in all you have to offer them. Kids have other agendas. Kids want what they want, and they are insatiable. Breathe. Let them be kids. And let yourself be an adult!

Last year I had to come to terms with the fact that I am not a kids yoga teacher. I love the idea of it, I strive to be "good at" it. But it turned into a big stress factor for me. I am sticking with the subbing of kids yoga because I want to continue in such a way that is sustainable. Maybe one day I will have unflappable nerves and the ability to enjoy wrangling kids in an after-school program. But in the meantime, I feel lucky to have this in my back pocket. It helps me remember that yoga is indeed for everyone!

Transitions

Sometimes when the unknown arises, I start to panic. In those moments I try to picture myself, 17-years-old in umbros, standing on a yoga mat for the first time.

When we first arrived on our mat, that very first time, perhaps we had an idea of what "yoga" was. But that idea was shattered, or at least changed, once we experienced it. When we first arrived on our mat, that very first time, perhaps we had prepared long before that moment. Perhaps a friend dragged us. Perhaps we stormed out of the class and never returned. Perhaps we had to do yoga videos for a year or more before we felt comfortable setting food in a studio. Perhaps we just showed up on impulse. In any case, the first experience of yoga is predicated by some wish to grow, to be more focused, more at peace, or even just more flexible. Every experience of yoga that follows the first is predicated by our positive experience on the mat, or how we felt afterwards. Most people that do yoga discover the same thing: it works.

Yoga takes your tension with an inhale, and expels and releases it with an exhale. Yoga helps the mind to understand what the body is and isn't capable of. Yoga calms the nervous system, and even helps with subtle things like our lymphatic, endocrine, and digestive systems. Yoga brings a presence of mind with effort towards doing something challenging. Yoga encourages an organic, rhythmic process, and stretches out parts of the body that we often didn't know were there, let alone needed stretching. Transitions and challenges do the same thing to our course of life, but also to our psychic system and spiritual growth. When transitions arise we often don't expect them or want them. But they are a roadblock not to be ignored, and they change our path in a way that can impact our lives forever.

Things get hectic every so often and we wonder why. "Everything happens for a reason," is a mantra that brings comfort in the face of the unknown. Why did this happen? Why is this happening to me or to the person I love? What is this challenge in front of me, and am I able to meet it? Yogis say that we are never faced with a challenge that we can't handle, that life hands us karmic experiences that we already have within our skill set to tackle and overcome. That every obstacle is a stepping stone to our growth, that every challenge is an opportunity to create something positive and better for our present and future.

It's spring. We just had the supermoon. For the last few weeks, I have been crazy and stressed, and everyone I come in contact with seems to be feeling the same way. In these moments a simple deep breath wont calm us.  In these moments we lash out at the ones we love, we question everything, we let fear take a hold of us. Sometimes it feels like every situation in my life is shrouded with some kind of drama or misunderstanding, some kind of difference or rift that prevents things from running as smooth as silk. Sometimes it feels like everyone in the world is happier than me, that everyone has their lives figured out and the answer to pure contentedness.

I take my own advice. I take a breath. And another.  I focus on what it is I am grateful for. I breathe again. I focus on the present moment. Relief happens. However fleeting...

When I look back at the course of my life, I can see how I have made it this far. I have faced every challenge and survived. I have lacked grace. I have angered those I love. I have disappointed myself. But I arrived on the other side. When transitions arise, we are ready. The lotus blooms from the muck. Even if we just make small steps every day, even if we are fighting against choking mud to reach for the sun, eventually we do indeed blossom.

When we come to our mats or our meditation cushion we are always striving for our best effort, to practice to the best of our ability. This intention comes from the purest place within, from our innate desire to grow and be better. To be stronger, fitter, healthier, happier, calmer, more present. To be a better person for our families, for our friends, for our co-workers, for ourselves.

When I first went to that bikram class with my mom 14 years ago, I had never heard of yoga and didn't know what it was about. (I also had no idea that you really shouldn't wear umbro shorts to a yoga class.) I sweat my sitbones off. I sat down when it was too much. But I did it. I didn't love it, but I liked it. I wanted to do it again and try other styles. It took several years, but slowly I started a process of becoming a yogi. And now I love it. To this day, that process is ever-evolving, and still has the potential for so much more growth and expansion. Perhaps from this perspective I can start to see that my challenges with my job, with my relationship, with my family, all have the potential to turn out the same way. Yoga has taught me that being comfortable can inhibit growth, that we need to step out of our comfort zone to break through our patterns. Yoga has taught me that we are never handed a challenge we can't meet. As tired as I am, as exasperated and afraid as I feel, these are also indicators that I must be ready. These aren't insurmountable challenges. They are stepping stones along my path to growth. 

Om Shanti. Practice Makes Practice.