I taught yoga to kids!

I taught yoga to first-graders on Friday and I loved it. It’s still too soon to tell, but it would seem my previous prediction, that I would love to teach yoga to kids, is accurate.

I tried to write in advance about how psyched I was to get into the classroom–I have a decent draft of a post I wrote on Thursday, and then immediately after class I made another attempt. But both efforts became emotional and overlong, and I became self-conscious. It wasn’t till I was relating my joy to a dear yogi friend that I realized the best way to publicly convey my experience teaching yoga to kids is simply to describe them:

Love. Energy. That’s about it.

Okay, maybe that sounds simplistic and New Age-y. Maybe that’s how I’m living life these days. All I know is that it was so easy to be with those little guys, to show them the sun song and watch them get so excited to learn something new. Not everyone was over-the-top enthusiastic and nearly no one stayed still in savasana, but who cares? Every one of those young people was one hundred percent authentic, and it was refreshing to spend time with them.

I suspected kids would be natural yogis, and I was proven right almost right away. After I showed them how to put their palms to their hearts and feel for vibrations at the end of the om song, one boy said, “my body is talking to me!” During sun song (after everyone learned how to make orderly yoga rows) we discussed how it feels to be in mountain and in warrior two. (Strong, good, exhausting, to name a few responses.) At the end, the namaste song was sung again and again, with a final encore due to popular demand. All in all, I’d say class was a success.

When will I teach again? We’ll see. I’m not worried; it’s summer and I’ve got plenty of good stuff going on. But I can’t help but create more lesson plans, so that I’m prepared if another chance presents itself. Because I had fantastic time sharing yoga with first-graders and see potential for myself as a yoga educator: I have lots to learn and much more to give!