Teen Yoga and the Power of Pause
Pearls For Life; Family Yoga is growing!
This last week we had our first Teen Yoga class at the Solana Beach Library.
What a beautiful time to connect with this generation.
We’ve spoken a lot about yoga being an exercise in flexibility-not just with the body, but the practice itself. It was so much fun to adapt yoga for teens by incorporating relevant music and movements that they can identify with.
If there’s one thing young people can’t do, it’s pause, yet this group was so responsive and the idea of being able to teach this generation about the importance of health – on every level- is a privilege and a challenge.
Teaching kids to pause is huge. Silence and stillness offer very valuable lessons that bleed into other areas. In fact, I have a friend whose daughter was obviously struggling with emotional problems that lead to serious behavior problems that made her a danger to others. The doctors were hesitant to label her with any particular syndrome, knowing that it would be a label she could never shake. After much deliberation, they chose something very simple. They prescribed her a pill for blood pressure. Why? It keeps her from making rash decisions. It helped her to PAUSE and consider the ramifications of her actions – cause and effect. It’s been over a year now and that child is completely different because she is able to pause.
When we learn not to fear silence and moments of personal isolation, we change who we are. We make better decisions. We have fewer regrets.
We had 12 teens show up for the class and at this point, we are looking to offer this class once a month for the next 4 months and see how it goes. Millenials are the easiest marketing tools as social media has made them all experts, so I’m looking forward to seeing how this group spreads the word and brings their friends.
Photo: http://www.thenutritionpost.com/kids/the-high-school-brain-on-yoga.html
