There are many more twists and variations, especially when you delve into arm balancing poses and inversions. However, a large number of these require strength, balance, technique and other essential skills in order to perform. They are definitely something to work toward and have fun with but, many teens may not be ready just yet to take on the challenge. The ones covered here are great for High School PE classes, athletic teams, and teen yoga classes.

Yoga Twists for Teens

Half Lord of the Fishes Pose (Ardha Matsyendrasana)

Sit on the floor with legs bent. Place your left foot on the outside of your right buttock, left knee facing forward along the ground. Step the right foot to the outside of the left knee with the knee pointing straight up. Hug the raised knee and sit up on your sitz bones. Inhale and circle the right arm behind you, placing the hand on the floor as you exhale and lengthening the spine. Inhale, raising the left arm. Exhale place the elbow on the outside of the right thigh. If this isn’t possible simply hug the knee. Inhale and exhale two more times as you continue to deepen the twist throughout the entire spine, pressing the elbow against the knee and looking behind you. Binding Variation:If your left shoulder can clear the right knee (be on the outside of the knee), you can try to bind the arms. Circle the left hand toward the right hip and thread it through the hole between the legs. The right arms reaches behind the back to clasp the left fingers. Voilà, you are a pretzel! This is the quintessential twisty yoga pose and always a class favourite.

Revolved Chair Pose (Parivrtta Utkatasana)

revolved chair pose

Stand in Mountain Pose. Inhale raise your arms overhead. Exhale bend your knees and hips as if you are sitting in an imaginary chair. Inhale extend through the upper body, exhale, twist to the right, bringing your hands into prayer position, and placing the left upper arm on the outside of the right thigh. Look down at your toes or to the right, whichever is comfortable. Hold for 3 to 5 breaths. Inhale and return to standing. Repeat on the other side.

Revolved Triangle Pose (Parivrtta Trikonasana)

Stand with feet wide apart. Inhale raise the arms to shoulder height in line with feet, ankles should be directly below hands. Turn your left foot in slightly (this is your brake). Turn your right foot out 90 degrees. On an exhale turn your torso to the right bringing the left arm to the front, right arm reaching behind you, and squaring your hip points to the front as much as possible. Inhale, lengthen the side body, actively reach the arms apart, and ground through your big toes. Exhale, reach your left hand down to the ground or onto a block while the right hand reaches high. Beginners can look down or to the side. More advanced students can gaze at their raised thumb. Hold this pose for a few breaths. Exhale to release the twist. Inhale to return to standing. Reverse the feet and repeat on the other side.

Revolved Side Angle Pose (Parivrtta Parsvakonasana)

Stand with feet wide apart. Turn your left foot in slightly. Turn your right foot out 90 degrees. (So far the same as above) With hands on hips, turn your torso to the right and square you hips forward. As you do this lift the left heal off the mat, rotating on the ball of the foot. Exhale and bend the right knee to get your right thigh parallel to the ground. Keep the left leg active. On the next exhale, rotate the torso and lean it down with the left arm on the inside of the right foot, right thumb in the crease of the right hip, pressing the thigh down and back. If this is easy, inhale come up slightly place hands in prayer position, extend through the side ribs and then twist further by placing the upper left arm on the outside of the right knee. As with all twists, lengthen the body on the inhale, deepen the twist on the exhale. Hold for a few breaths. Inhale to come up. Exhale to release the twist. Reverse the feet and repeat on the other side.

Be the first to like.

Like

Unlike

Journaling has long been a tool for achieveing better emotional and mental health. It is a remarkable device for easing concerns, identifying hopes and fears, allowing the creative process to flourish, and connecting with your inner self. Journals help to identify your personal wisdom and realize that you are wiser than you once believed as ideas and solutions flow from deep inside. The process of uniting your conscious and sub-conscious mind through ink and paper, in black and white, empowers and enlightens, connecting us with our true selves and shining a light on who we truly are.

Adding journal writing to your yoga practice allows you to access these transformative benefits and takes the process from being simply a physical experience to becoming a window to the soul. 

You never know what you will learn till you start writing. Then you discover truths you never knew existed. – Anita Brookner

There are two way to use journalling: prompted or free flow. Both have their advantages and disadvantages as well as a place within the yoga journal experience.

Prompted Journaling & Yoga

Prompted journaling is when the teacher assigns a topic for students to journal. For example: “We’re going to do Pigeon pose and I want you to pay attention to what your hips are telling you. We’ll then spend a few minutes recording the thoughts and feelings this pose generates.” Journals also are a wonderful place to record personal affirmations, set goals, and recognize our strengths and weaknesses. Topics I’ve used include:

• Comfort is relative – how do backbends teach this idea?
• How does doing Fish pose help you look at life from a different perspective?
• What do you feel while doing Eagle pose? What do you feel after?
• What images come to mind while doing Warrior pose?
• Let’s write an affirmation for Mountain pose. Everytime you do Mountain Pose repeat this affirmation to yourself.
• Which is your favourite yoga pose and why?
• What do you want/need to get out of class today?

Free Flow Journaling & Yoga

Free flow journaling occurs as an organic result of the yoga experience. Allowing yourself to simply reflect upon the experience, identifying and putting into words your thoughts, feelings, insights, etc. while upon your personal yoga journal, is an enlightening endeavour. It is not uncommon for yoga asanas and breathing techniques to release strong emotions. We often hang onto negative emotions such as fear, anger and sorrow because we have not dealt with them adequately in the past. Our bodies remember and hold these feelings deep inside. A regular yoga practice will release this negativity and tension, allowing us to return to a state of happiness and relaxation. Journaling these experiences will hasten emotional recovery and is widely used as a self-discovery and therapy tool.

How to Use Yoga Journal Writing

In children’s classes I almost always provide a prompt. This helps the children get to the journaling without wasting time on wondering what to write about. Younger children can draw a picture of their feelings and insights while older ones can put these into words.

Teens and adults are more familiar with the journal writing process and can adapt it to the yoga classroom generally without difficulty. Since this is the case I will use both techniques while encouraging them to ponder and explore their yoga practice. Yoga classes that begin with setting an intention are a wonderful place to start if students seem stumped for a topic to journal.

Entries by my students have ranged from sketches and quick insights, to lists and pages and pages of emotional outpouring. The lovely thing about journal writing is you can’t get it wrong. It is a snapshot of who you are today. There are a number of fantastic yoga blogs which serve as journalling for the authors. Some of my favourites who share the more emotional/trans-formative side of their yoga practice include:

• Everyday Yogini – Nona’s life through yoga coloured glasses
• Grounding Thru the Sit Bones - Brenda shares her life & revelations from the mat
• It’s all yoga, baby – Roseanne probes into yoga culture and community
• Karmaspot’s Blog – Jen shares thoughts on yoga for kids and parents
• Lifebloom Yoga – Abby’s creative expression of yoga in her life
• Linda’s Yoga Journey - Linda explores the world and her personal yoga journey
• The PranaMama – Amy provides yoga from a Mom’s perspective
• The Queen of Bohemia Cleans Her Own House – Sydney connects yoga and emotional recovery
• YogaChickie- Lauren writes about her life and the insights gained from yoga
• Yoga Demystified – Bob entertains and educates through poetry and probing questions
• Yogic Muse – Brooks reveals her personal journey one yogic step at a time
• Yoga With Spirit - Amy applies yoga to her life

Be the first to like.

Like

Unlike

A recent article in The Oakland Tribune reports on the power of yoga to help relieve stress in schools in the South Bay area: a tough part of town known for gangs, drugs, violence and low socio-economic conditions. It started as a pilot project and how extends to a 6 weeks program for entire Freshman class. Administrators, parents and students who have participated have noticed a difference in how they manage stress. 14-year-old Gina de la Rosa recently stepped away from a classroom confrontation after remembering to breathe and realised, ”I don’t have to scare teachers.”

At schools hard hit by neighborhood violence, gang pressure, parental job loss and homelessness, the centuries-old Indian discipline of yoga may turn out to be an effective tool in helping young people cope with both crises and day-to-day life.

This is great news for everyone. The more teens who can be exposed to yoga and access its benefits, the more can use the breathing exercises, relaxation techniques and asanas to cope with the stress of growing up in the modern age. The four years of high school are often considered the most stressful time of life. Providing youth with tools to stay calm, manage their anger, and combat the negative effects of stress is vital.

Yoga is well known for its stress busting qualities but many teens don’t have access to the practice. Yoga classes geared especially for teens needs and interests are often hard to come by so this program is great news. And taking it to kids in high risk neighbourhoods – FANTASTIC!  Street Yogais another program doing similar work. If you are interested in helping de-stress teens, a great resource to help teens manage stress while building self-esteem is Indigo Teen Dreams by Stress Free Kids.

I think Alejandro Adame, 14, an Overfelt freshman, summed it up best when he said, ”You just take a moment to not get angry.” Now if we all can simply follow his example.

Be the first to like.

Like

Unlike

One of the reasons I love teaching yoga to kids and teens is to celebrate their uniqueness. Each individual brings something different to the mat every time they practice. It is wonderful to see them try Crow pose and succeed or, thanks to their natural flexibility, be able to touch their feet to their head in King Cobra pose, or finally be able to stop moving and truly relax when doing Corpse pose.

Lately there has been a debate raging around the yoga community regarding developing competitive yoga with an eye to having it accepted as an Olympic sport. Some find this philosophically wrong as yoga is about acceptance and personal growth. While others enjoy the individual challenge that the competitions emphasize.  To see the two sides of the argument visit YogaDork‘s Competitive Yoga:Vicious or Vindicated: Ask Bikram and the flipside at the Bikram Yoga NYC blog Yoga Competition: Perspiration and Inspiration.

Today NY Times enters the fray with this article on how Rajashree Choudhury (wife to Bikram) is trying to build momentum for competitive yoga in North America and the Yoga Community’s response to that effort.

From what I know about yoga competitions I tend to agree with Michael Alba, a yoga teacher in Boston, who is quoted as saying, “It perpetuates the idea that yoga is for lithe-bodied contortionists.” A concept I completely disagree with. Yoga is for every body. See Yoga Accessible to All.

Competitive yoga is yoga at its pure physical extreme. Even Choudhury admits “We are not trying to judge any kind of spirituality when they are out there.” I think that is exactly the point. Yoga is, after all, a body/mind discipline and yoga competitions simply celebrate the physical aspect in a quick three minute performance, even if part of the path to achieve that physical performance was spiritual, mental, and emotional.

Jon Gan, a Bikram Yoga instructor and Director of the United States Yoga Federation, hopes that yoga competitions will help inspire yogis and non-yogis alike. “When I was a kid, I played tennis, and whenever I watched players on Wimbledon I’d want to get out there and play like them,” he said. “It inspired me. I’m hoping the same kind of things will happen here.”

Maybe, maybe not. In the meantime I’ll continue to teach all kids, teens and adults, regardless of ability, strength, flexibility, body shape, or special challenges, how to harness the many benefits of yoga and access their personal path to acceptance and understanding.

Namaste.

Be the first to like.

Like

Unlike

Today’s post is a reflection on the life of Ruth Ius, a wonderful woman I knew growing up. It came about as I pondered upon Chapter #6 Joy, from the book The Wisdom of No Escape, by Pema Chödrön, this month’s Namaste Book Club book selection. You can find the complete article on YogaBear.

These reminiscences came about thanks to the Navajo teaching that each day when the sun comes up, it is a new sun. “As soon as the children are old enough to understand, the adults take them out at dawn and they say, “The sun has only one day. You must live this day in a good way, so that the sun won’t have wasted precious time.”

I encourage you to live today as if it were “precious time,” to find the joy in the moment and to share that joy with those around you. Live well, live today.

Be the first to like.

Like

Unlike

Recently I read a wonderful story about an Apple Snail in the post Life Lessons from a Fish Tank written by Grounding Thru the Sit Bones. In essense it spoke of our reactions to change–the welcome and unwelcome ones that come into our lives. It seems the fish were rather traumatized by changes to their tank, apprehensive and skittish, and slow to accept something new into their environment. The Apple Snail, however, cautiously but pragmatically explored, then embraced the changes.

Then, as I surfed the web, I ran across Developing Personal Practice -Changes a great blog post from Lifebloomyoga detailing how your personal yoga practice will and can change depending on your needs at any given time. Some of the factors which determine why your personal yoga practice changes include:

• life cycle
• climate/seasons
• physical fluctuations
• mental fluctuations

I think all yogis have felt these subtle differences, and know they impact the view we have from the mat, or even our desire to get the mat out of storage. I find some-days I can’t wait for my hour of solace through breath and movement and other days I can hardly care. (There is of course the guilt on those days which forces me to at least practise pranayama while walking the dog.)

Change is inevitable. Our reactions to change determine much of our happiness. Do we welcome the ebb of and flow of life? Are we fearful and slow to accept like the fish? Can we adapt and incorporate changes broadening our experiences and viewpoint? Do we allow ourselves to explore different aspects of our personality: the calm, the energetic, the strong, the weak, the hard, the soft? (You knew I had to mention sukha/sthira and were just waiting for it, right?)

Personally I feel that this is one of the beauties of yoga. It changes and adapts with us. It can give us what we need, when we need it. As we recognize within ourselves the constancy that is the individual, the inner self, and learn to be true to that voice, we can incorporate change into our lives with an open heart. So I propose that you open yourself to change and ponder the example of the Apple Snail. Not the mightiest of creatures, but one who shows great courage and gracious acceptance in the face of change.

Be the first to like.

Like

Unlike