Say Cheese!

I am a YogaKids teacher.  I teach yoga to kids ages 2 years to 10 years.  It is awesome in many many ways.  Today reminded me why!

We were doing a class about colors and the first color we were doing was RED (it being the first color of the rainbow).  So the pose we were doing was the fire engine pose.  Now, I fully understand that there is no such thing as the fire engine pose in traditional hatha yoga.  But YogaKids is not about tradition.  It is about playing yoga, learning to move and control your body, exploring themes using yoga as a spring board and - most of all - having fun.  We adapt traditional poses to be more fun and engaging.  Kids - especially 2 year olds - don't hold yoga poses.  So I often find ways to trick them into it without them ever knowing what good things they are doing for their bodies.  For instance, when we do boat pose, we sing Row Row Row Your Boat.  Then we do the second verse and hold the pose a second time while singing "Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream.  If you see a crocodile don't forget to scream!"  Screaming and laughter ensues and the kids have done 2 sets of a difficult pose for about 20 second each.  Some adults won't even do this.

So back to the fire engine pose.  It is actually Dandasana with Paschimottanasana or the Rod Pose with Seated Forward Fold.  This is not a well-loved pose.  So what we do is we drive our fire engine ("walking "on our bums) to the fire, hit the brakes (forward fold time!) and put out the fire.  I will spray the "hose" and the kids roll over into Plow Pose...or some childish variation thereof. 

Before we take off on this fire-fighting adventure, we buckle out seat belts.  CLICK.  We reach up tall and grab our imaginary steering wheels out of the sky.  The I say, "Now, we need one more thing to start our fire engine!  What do we put in the ignition to start a car?"

In unision, 14 excited little faces said "CHEESE!"

Yes, that's rights, my sweet little YogaKids.  We need our cheese to start the car.