For many children and young adults this half term holiday will be very different. Restrictions and lockdowns in many areas may challenge the most patient of parents and possibly force young adults to become more attached to their electronic devices and reliance on social media.
It’s not an easy situation. To help, I am running free Kids and Teen Yoga classes on Zoom over the holidays to help with their physical and mental wellbeing.
I have taught Yoga in both Primary and Secondary schools for a few years and the results and rewards have been fantastic. For Half Term week though I think it would be lovely to offer a bit of focus and physical challenge for the children and young adults when they can’t be out and about doing activities and seeing their friends.
What to bring:
The classes are always relaxed and fun, so, have a cushion to hand for more challenging balances and also a cosy blanket for a few minutes of relaxation at the end, definitely use a yoga mat if you have one to hand but a rug or carpet will be fine too!
The classes:
Each class is 30 minutes long and will mirror traditional yoga sequences and standalone poses in an easy to follow way. Children and young adults generally soak up the instruction and perform beautiful poses so much easier than adults. The poses improve each time they are repeated hopefully encouraging attention to detail. They will learn to understand how to use both sides of the body and both sides of the brain equally, merging thought and movement equally. They will soon follow patterns and movements to recreate them themselves.
The benefits:
The poses are often challenging enough to focus the mind while negotiating the body and pushing beyond perceived limitations, encouraging perseverance when the pose becomes difficult. Mindfulness becomes prevalent with the flow of the sequence and working in each individual pose. We move with the breath to encourage mindful practice and use fun breathing techniques such as ‘dragon breath’ to release stress and irritation and ‘buzzy bee’ breath to create vibration to stimulate the mind and body before inviting the children to lie in relaxation and stillness. Meditative techniques are implemented throughout.
Kids Yoga
Monday 26 October at 9.30am
Wednesday 28 October at 9.30am
Teen Yoga
Tuesday 27 October at 12 o clock
Thursday 29 October at 12 o clock
Please join the class by Zoom HERE