Children’s Yoga
By Zain Nisar
In bright pink studio five stories above
ground, 5-year-old children stretch on their bellies
and pretend they are fish. Five minutes later, they are crawling
on all fours, barking like dogs. Later, while they listen
to soft music and are draped in velvet blankets, yoga instructor
Jodi Komitor
rubs their feet with fragrant lotion and leads the group in
the ancient art of shavasana, or meditation. |
“Yoga for kids is so completely
different from yoga for adults. It’s very playful,”
Komitor says. Komitor has been practicing yoga since she was
a teen-ager. She started her child-focused New York City studio,
called Next Generation Yoga, three years ago after leaving a
classroom teaching position.
Yoga has many physical, spiritual and dietary aspects that even
some adults have trouble grasping, but Komitor believes having
children practice yoga can be the calming, centering experience
their busy lives need. She says she can start seeing a change
in her students instantly. Parents say children become organized
after class. Komitor says it teaches them tools they can take
with them in life. “You have ballet, you have jazz, but
how many of these |
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kids actually take hat and become
a professional dancer? With yoga, you don’t become a professional,
but you can take the tools you learn into everyday life.”
Komitor says
In a time of crisis, yoga can help children deal with anger
and fear. Lizmaya Santaliz, a yoga instructor at the Hyatt Regency
Cerromar Beach Resort in Puerto Rico, says her son Christian,
7, has used yoga to cope with nightmares since the Sept. 11
terrorist attacks. He had said he was angry and was having a
hard time dealing with these new fears and emotions. “He
went into the water and did some Kunbalini yoga, which is an
active kind of yoga,” Santaliz says. “It helps deal
with anger. Afterward, he said he felt better.” Yoga can
also help children to be more empathic toward others. Santaliz
says she sees a change in her son. “Sometimes we go and
visit sick people in the hospital, and Christian is always the
one who wants to hop into bed with them and give them a massage.”
Har Hari Khalsa, a Los Angeles chiropractor says, “The
question isn’t what happens when we do yoga, it’s
what happens when we don’t do yoga.” He practices
yoga each morning with his three children, ages 3-11. “Doing
yoga increases endorphins and makes you feel good.” Yoga
can be a great activity for kids who may not have a lot of natural
athletic ability. “There is no right or wrong way to do
it. The way one person does a pose or posture is the perfect
way for them,” Santaliz says.
And if your child is a jock, the benefits of yoga can spill
over into other sports. Janet Klaus is the mother of Zak, 13,
who plays hockey in Grand Rapids, Mich. “ As a goalie,
he has to be flexible, and he has to be able to do splits,”
Klaus says. “Yoga helps him with that.” She says her
sons became involved in yoga after reading about professional
hockey players who work it into their regular routine because
it fosters patience and the ability to sit still, important
traits for goalies who aren’t always actively involved
in the game but need the stamina of the other players. Klaus
also supports her son’s interest in yoga because it builds
his strength without the use of heavy weights. “Kids can
get hurt if they lift weights too much when they’re young.
I like that I can see an improvement in his strength without
using weights.”
Diet also is a big part of the yoga lifestyle, but Komitor doesn’t
preach it to children. Her book. “The Complete Idiot’s
Guide to Yoga with Kids,” has a chapter about nutrition,
but she says it’s more important for “yoginis,”
children who practice yoga, to understand the poses and the
meditation first. “My whole philosophy is give them love,
acceptance, make them feel good and enjoy life,” Komitor
says. “I’m not going to harp on them to eat a vegetarian
meal and, by the way, no sugar. I’m very real with the
kids.”
Some parents worry that if children begin yoga too young, they
may not absorb all the lessons, Others think the younger the
better, since it helps with mental and physical balance. “We
started all our children in the womb”, Khalsa says, with
he and his wife doing yoga and meditating together while she
was pregnant. And when his children were infants, he and his
wife started putting their bodies in various positions to stretch
their muscles. And while teens are known as the trendiest creatures
on the planet, many see yoga as a long-term lifestyle choice.
“The bottom line is that yoga has been around for 5,000
years. We all know that it is good for us,” Komitor says,
“If people are going to do it because of the trend, they’re
still getting the benefit of yoga.” |
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Smoke
- Free
Teenagers may finally
be getting the massage. From 1997 to 1999, the number
of 12- to 17-year-olds who took up smoking dropped by
a third. Experts would like to think health concerns
are driving the change, but it could be simple economics.
A pack in 1999 cost $3, compared with $2 in 1997.
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