The original natural family living magazine, founded in 1976. Reader-supported
and trusted by thinking people around the world who want positive alternatives
to high cost, high consumption lifestyles for themselves and their families.
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||
|
from Natural Life Magazine, May/June 2009
As a yoga teacher and a single mom of two very strong-minded girls, I decided to begin teaching classes to children, since, as with most things, the younger you begin yoga practice the easier it becomes. I spend a great deal of my time around children between the ages of four and fourteen, and have noticed that they sometimes find it hard to enjoy the simpler aspects of life due to all the stimulation they experience in their lives. They need to learn to be happy with who they really are in peace and harmony, enjoy their own company and, most of all, love themselves. So I began my mission to help children naturally access the tools from within so they could understand their true selves and true personalities. Teaching yoga to a group of ten- to thirteen-year-olds is a challenging but positive experience. They absorb all they learn with pleasure and enthusiasm, which is truly heart warming. Our practice is kundalini yoga as taught by Yogi Bhajan. It is a very balanced and positive practice, which works on the process of uncoiling our energy so that we are able to know and understand our true potential. Our class structure consists of the following: We tune in with a particular kundalini yoga chant, “Ong namo guru dev namo.” It means, “I greet the wise teacher within me and outside of me.” We are all true teachers inside ourselves and being aware of this is of great importance. Then we warm up our bodies with gentle stretches. We then begin a set of positions that are known as a “kriya,” which means “action.” Kriyas come in a particular structured format not to be changed unless the timings are reduced for each position. Each kriya stimulates a certain area of the body to . . . To read the rest of this article, subscribe to Natural Life's digital edition, which includes access to this and other back issues. Indra Singh has been studying yoga for twenty years and trained to be a yoga teacher in the U.K., U.S.A. and Brazil. Her main practice is kundalini yoga as taught by Yogi Bhajan. She specializes in teaching children’s yoga and yoga for children with special needs, and the benefits of yoga for the pregnant mother and her unborn baby. She currently lives with her two daughters, ages ten and four, in the UK. |
|||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||
We often think of children as carefree, with very few worries, and forget
that they go through stress just like any adult. In today’s society of peer
pressure, consumerism and bullying, children need to be able to find a safe
place to release their worries and concerns.
