Bow and arrow of love

This week was fun as we continued our exploration of pranayama breathing techniques. We started with talking about the breath and how important it is for life. Then I explained that Pranayama meant "life breath or life force." We talked about taking in fresh air and releasing stale and stagnant air. We blew our noses and did some breathing by holding one nostril on inhalation, then switching holding nostrils and exhaling. They had to focus on this and coordinate. When they are thinking and focusing, they aren't making lots of noise!

yoga challenge pose. We got a book with tons of poses in them and we looked at what seemed to be an impossible pose. A man had his knee over his shoulder! Impossible the kids said! I said - let's just try it. At first I just let them experiment on their own and then one student screamed he'd done it! The other kids tried and they could sort of do it too! I thought this was a good exercise in trying things even though they seem impossible. It wasn't a pose they could injure themselves on and hopefully it opened them up to new possibilities in seeing things.

cat and cow pose with animal sounds

pigeon pose- one of the most difficult

squat pose

one student couldn't resist the urge to jump up from squat

We created bows and arrows with our feet and hands - boys were using killing language initially, then I said they were shooting bows and arrows of love. They shot me and I swooned in happiness. They switched to this game!

they all want me to take their pictures in poses - it is motivating I guess. They also like to look at them and I think it is a good mirror for them. I also see adjustments I could have made that maybe I didn't see in all the chaos that sometimes becomes my class.

I led them on a magic carpet ride in svasana today. They requested it unanimously. We went to the South Sawyer glacier, slid down the glacier as it was calving, and sailed back over the channel. I also imagine us getting wet so I can spray the rose water on them - they never know where it will be, this time it was from the blow holes of whales - I told them it smelled like herring. (I was kayaking once and a whale surfaced near me and surrounded me with the smell of herrings. It was both terrifying and exhilerating.

A few kids couldn't help but try and open their eyes during svasana. I just reminded them to close their eyes every time until I finally got about thirty seconds of stillness out of them.

Namaste - "the good in me sees the good in you." I think they really enjoy this part of the class and, like svasana, is a staple of our class.