Tip of the Week: Yoga is Amazing for Kids!

We have loved seeing the smiling faces of little ones come through our doors since we started the Kids Yoga classes in March. We took last week (April 16th) off for Spring Break, but classes are up and running again starting today! They are held every Wednesday from 4:45-5:45pm in our studio downstairs without the heat. Kids ages 7-12 have been loving teacher Lisa Boone, as she makes it challenging but way fun with postures, music, games and stories.

                                        Our Bikram Yoga SLC Kids

We love this article by Marsha Wenig in Yoga Journal on how yoga is so beneficial for kids. 

Yoga for Kids

When presented in a child's language, yoga can help counter the stress experienced by young people living in a hurry-up world. 

Our children live in a hurry-up world of busy parents, school pressures, incessant lessons, video games, malls, and competitive sports. We usually don't think of these influences as stressful for our kids, but often they are. The bustling pace of our children's lives can have a profound effect on their innate joy—and usually not for the better.

I have found that yoga can help counter these pressures. When children learn techniques for self-health, relaxation, and inner fulfillment, they can navigate life's challenges with a little more ease. Yoga at an early age encourages self-esteem and body awareness with a physical activity that's noncompetitive. Fostering cooperation and compassion—instead of opposition—is a great gift to give our children.
Children derive enormous benefits from yoga. Physically, it enhances their flexibility, strength, coordination, and body awareness. In addition, their concentration and sense of calmness and relaxation improves. Doing yoga, children exercise, play, connect more deeply with the inner self, and develop an intimate relationship with the natural world that surrounds them. Yoga brings that marvelous inner light that all children have to the surface.

When yogis developed the asanas many thousands of years ago, they still lived close to the natural world and used animals and plants for inspiration—the sting of a scorpion, the grace of a swan, the grounded stature of a tree. When children imitate the movements and sounds of nature, they have a chance to get inside another being and imagine taking on its qualities. When they assume the pose of the lion (Simhasana) for example, they experience not only the power and behavior of the lion, but also their own sense of power: when to be aggressive, when to retreat. The physical movements introduce kids to yoga's true meaning: union, expression, and honor for oneself and one's part in the delicate web of life.