"Branching Out"

I'm in Chicago for my final training in my 95 hour Children's Specialty Yoga Certification!  http://globalfamilyyoga.com/teaching_yoga_to_teens/

This weekend is tackling the topic of Yoga and Teens.  "People Taller Than Me" is not my strong suit, but seeing as I live with a couple of teens and one preteen, it's good stuff for me to learn!

Here's what I learned at school today:

Partner Poses develop social skills, empathy, trust and compassion.

Many conditions (distractibility, defiance, bossiness) may actually be sensory based.  Sensory Integration is how we take in info through our senses and then respond to the world appropriately.  If this process is "out of whack," yoga maybe a way to balance the disregulation and thereby improve the conditions.

Meditation strengthens your power and ability to control your mind.  Your mind will wander.  That is what it is designed to do--produce thoughts.  Meditation practice strengthens the power to choose to bring the mind back to a chosen point of focus.

Teens have grown up bodies, but not grown up reasoning skills.

Yoga is a science, the student is the scientist and the body, breath and mind are the experiment.

Yoga is a self-initiated practice.  Yoga is happening on the inside.  You can't experience the benefits if you don't practice.

Elements of a Teen Yoga Class:  (1) strengthening (plank, warrior, chair, triangle), (2) challenging, (3) fire in the belly, and (4) resting and restorative

Many of these ideas are good for people of ALL HEIGHTS!  Stand tall on a Thursday!