Creating thematic yoga classes can be a lot of fun, especially annual holiday themes such as Valentine’s Day, Easter, Halloween and Christmas. Hope you enjoy this Valentine’s Day class with a focus on the heart.

First, provide some anatomy books from the library in order to examine the physical mechanism and attributes of the heart. Many kids don’t know what a heart actually looks like and this is a wonderful opportunity to introduce basic anatomy. If possible get your hands on a physical model of a heart, one that a Doctor would use, and let the kids handle it to engage the tactile learners as well.

From there move onto some breathing exercises.

1. Deep breathing/diaphragmatic breathing: emphasize a lifted and open heart.
2. Partner breathing, sitting back to back to feel one another’s breath move: talk about how we are all connected through the breath, life force, divine in one another. You could play the Namaste Song here.

Now that they are relaxed, try to find a pulse—a nice, quiet, slow pulse. To bring in some math concepts with older kids you can have them calculate their heart rate or beats per minute of a resting pulse.

For poses, lovely heart openers and heart healers such as those mentioned in The Yoga of a Softened Heart.

• warrior with shoulders back, leading with the heart
• cobra pose
• fish pose
• bridge pose
• child’s pose
• legs-up the wall pose

We’ll then play either Yoga Tag, Freeze Dance/Statues, or Sea Shells (with a Valentine’s theme = Cupid/Candy/Love). The goal here is to increase the heart rate so as to find the pulse again—this time a strong, fast pulse. You can also talk about heart health and the importance of vigorous physical activity in staying healthy.

To change the pace, you can then play Heart’s Hide ’n Seek to increase intuition, sensitivity and awareness. This will also help kids to calm down and prepare for a Loving Kindness Meditation.

For a group activity you can re-create the above photograph getting the kids to work together to create a heart shape with their bodies. If desired, you could take a digital photograph and have each child write a Valentine’s message to their parents which would be sent out via e-mail for Valentine’s Day with a photo attachment.

As always finish with Corpse pose. This time take them through a gratitude guided visualization where they imagine a TV screen upon which come up scenes (like a slide show) of things, people, places, etc. for which they are grateful. You can help them by providing suggestions such as: family, home, favourite toy, teachers, healthy body, nutritious food, safety, flowers, books, ability to walk or run, and so on.

A shout out to The Kids Yoga Resource and Young Yoga Masters for their suggestions. Happy Valentine’s Day!

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“With Valentine’s Day around the corner I’ve been attempting to soften my heart, to open it to the richness and wonder of the world, to increase my ability to connect in a meaningful way to those with whom I come in contact. And so I’ve been contemplating my heart…

As one diagnosed with a heart murmur as a child, I learned early on the mechanics of the heart. Scientifically, it is a muscular organ with four chambers which pumps blood throughout the body by means of rhythmic contractions. However, it is also symbolically the center of our emotional and spiritual life.”

Read the rest of the article on Elephant Journal.

The article also inspired a poem, Yoga of the Heart by Bob Weisenberg of Yoga Demystified, who encourages us to contemplate the infinite wonder of the heart. I am deeply honored, Bob.