The Center for Health Promotion's yoga classes stretch for younger crowd
- Three-year-old Isabella Smith joins others in holiding an airplane pose during a yoga for kids class at the Center for Health Promotion; Thursday, January 10, 2013.
(ALEXANDER COHN / Monitor staff) - Monique Lamore teaches a yoga for kids class at the Center for Health Promotion; Thursday, January 10, 2013.
(ALEXANDER COHN / Monitor staff) - Two and a half year-old Jordyn Leonard watches her mom, Jennifer Leonard, roll up her yoga mat following a yoga class; Thursday, January 10, 2013. Monique Lamore teaches a yoga for kids class at the Center for Health Promotion and at At Om Yoga.
(ALEXANDER COHN / Monitor staff) - Jordyn Leonard and her mother, Jennifer Leonard, reach for a pose during a yoga for kids class at the Center for Health Promotion; Thursday, January 10, 2013.
(ALEXANDER COHN / Monitor staff)
By SARAH EARLE For the Monitor
A longtime yoga enthusiast and a certified children’s yoga teacher, Lamore offers classes at the Center for Health Promotion, At Om Yoga and at several schools. (For a complete schedule, visit moniquelamoreyoga.blogspot.com.) She also offers yoga birthday parties and a summer camp program and hopes to work with area schools to bring the benefits of yoga into classrooms.
So why are you doing yoga classes for kids?
I’ve been teaching yoga because I love children and I wanted to put my time and energy into just helping them to grow and develop strength both physically and functionally, and help them learn some of the things that yoga can provide: how to take good care of themselves and be compassionate and sensitive to others and how to find peace and calm within themselves.
I also have found yoga to be very beneficial for me. I have a degree in social work, so I’m interested in wellness. I thought it would be a great combination.
Yoga is, of course, hailed as a great stress reducer, and in this day and age, even kids are stressed out.
What are some of the other benefits that specifically apply to kids?
Some of the benefits include physical strength and flexibility, coordination, balance, motor control. It’s beneficial to the immune system, to the digestive system. It improves sleep, concentration, focus and attention. I know there are a lot of children who struggle with attention deficits. It fosters resiliency, I think. When you can learn to find calm and peace in difficult situations you’re able to make better choices I guess. It helps kids to slow down and be introspective. It offers an increased respect for others, an improved attitude. It also helps with regulating feelings and emotions
There is some research out there backing the benefits of yoga for kids. Have you been able to witness its effects firsthand?
Yes. I remember one student who was 8 years old when she started my classes. She had a lot of anxiety, and the family was concerned about whether she should go down the medical path. She started taking my class and her anxiety improved tremendously. We were talking at the end of the class . . . and she said that yoga changed her life. . . . She said, “I used to have a lot of anxiety, and now when I feel anxious I practice yoga.”
For my older kids, the 6- to 12-year-olds, I use visualizations with them. I start with having them completely focus on their feet, and we just breathe and close our eyes and all the body parts can relax. And then I’ll go into a visualization. Sometimes it’s lying in the field or the forest. Sometimes it’s a gratitude visualization, bringing a good feeling into their hearts.
I think there’s a feeling that kids need to be stimulated, that things need to be fun, fun, fun. Do you have to modify the practice of yoga a lot for kids?
I feel like I’m pretty animated when I’m with kids, and the classes aren’t super long. We do breath work and then we do songs. I’ll often make up a story or find a story and integrate poses into it. So it might be once upon a time, high in a mountain (we’ll do a mountain pose), under the stars (we’ll do a star pose). We tell little stories, and they love stories, especially the 2- to 5-year-olds. The actual postures take up a portion of the class, but we also do a lot of games. So we might do a yoga obstacle course, or musical mats, where we walk around mats and there’s a picture of a pose in front of every mat, and when the music stops you do the pose. Or you have a freeze dance where everybody dances, and when the music stops I hold up a card and everybody does the pose together. So there are ways of integrating it so that they can have fun.
I always incorporate relaxation into my classes too, regardless of the age. The starfish is a good way to get them into the relaxation pose. They lie on their backs with their arms and legs out and they imagine they’re a starfish. Even if it’s just for a few minutes that they close their eyes and are still . . . I feel like they really like that. They might not lie still for very long, they might tickle each other or giggle, but it’s getting them used to those themes and routines. It will build slowly and it will just become part of what they do and what they like to do.
