Yoga for the Elementary School Teacher ~ Tami Hill

Elementary school teachers face a special challenge in the work place: children. W.C. Fields is credited as saying “Never work with animals or children”, perhaps alluding to the unpredictability of both. No one knows this better than the teacher that, year after year, balances the needs of a classroom like a circus act spinning plates. Children are unpredictable, funny, loud, precious and demanding, and not necessarily in that order. To teach them requires energy, patience, creativity and understanding... and possibly thousands of other characteristics not mentioned here.

My goal when offering yoga to my elementary school colleagues was two-fold: get instructing experience and share what I was learning (and had learned) about balance in my life. Two words became my mantra, sthira and sukha, and I longed to bring steadiness and ease to the lives of others for whom I worked with and about whom I cared deeply. This project brought to my dearest colleagues just that, sthira and sukha, and I am forever grateful for the experience.

The following collection lists my offerings by month/quarter of the school year. Poses, meditations, ayurvedic supports, mantras, and quotes that formed my hour-long classes every Tuesday afternoon, are gathered here. May they be used in the future to overcome the challenges of teaching by creating balance in the classroom and in life.

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Yoga at Midlife: Insights on Samvega and Healthy Aging ~ by Marjorie Ames

“For those who seek liberation wholeheartedly, realization is near.” (1.21)  ~ The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali (Hartranft, p. 98)

Yoga at Midlife

One of the many benefits of the increased integration of yoga into modern life is that, along with more people practicing yoga throughout the United States and experiencing the physical and spiritual benefits, health scientists have begun to take notice. For decades, there has been a strong and accepted link between physical activity and health, to include countering the effects of aging. Emerging scientific evidence demonstrates that yoga and meditation practices can slow physical and mental decline – even on a cellular level – and more importantly, contribute to extending health and well-being.

Popular sources as varied as The New York Times and the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) are now discussing the results of research into the health benefits of yoga to form recommendations for healthy living. …

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Trauma and Mindful Practices to Relieve Suffering ~ by Sandi Marino

“Go in and in. Be the space between two cells, the vast, resounding silence in which Spirit dwells...
Go in and in and turn away from nothing that you find.”

 –Danna Faulds

Many Yoga masters, therapists, and somatic psychologists believe everything we’ve ever experienced is stored in the body. Even when the memory is repressed, the body remembers. While some people think of trauma as a mental problem or disorder, trauma actually occurs in the body. This trauma may be held somatically, expressed as a chronic aches or pains or a sense of injury. While talk-based therapy serves a critical role in the healing process, it fails to address the ways trauma is held in the body. Yoga addresses the somatic experience through physical movement and restorative action patterns, which is why trauma-sensitive yoga is emerging as an effective adjunct treatment for trauma survivors. …

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Yoga and Salah: Similarities on These Paths to Inner Peace ~ by Jameela Ali Nalukandy

My mat, a place of prayer, of meditation, of reflection, of peace and calm. My home! Watching my mother meditating on her prayer mat opened my eyes to the wonder of both Salah (or Namaz) and Yoga. She sat up tall, seated cross legged, eyes closed and she looked radiant. She appeared so graceful and yet so powerful! I wanted to feel the same peace and power for myself and that moment became the catalyst that spurred me on to the practice of yoga. … The focus in both Yoga and Salah is the connection between mind, body and soul. …

In an age where the war cries of fatwas and bans seem to drown out the rational and peace loving majority there is a need to recognize and highlight that which binds us, that which is the same! By doing so we can perhaps tolerate and even celebrate that which divides us!

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Introduction to Office Yoga ~ by Lisa Wingate

(Or: “Taking a Break to get out of our Heads and into our Bodies”)

People working eight hour days in an office may not get to move around much. Office culture is governed by pressure to perform and 'get the job done;' and much if not all work is tied to sitting at a desk working on a computer. Individuals may also sit during their commute on a train, bus, or car. When the work day is over, folks may like to 'unwind' from the stressful workday by sitting in front of a TV or playing on their smart device. Unfortunately, the constant sitting, use of technical devices, and a general lack of varied bodily movement creates unhealthy physical patterns and postures in the human body.

Practicing yoga asana (postures) can give office workers ways to discover and explore their bodies thus assisting them in gaining a 'mind-body awareness'. While many people have taken typing or computer classes, many are not familiar with yoga classes. Through yoga, office workers are introduced to their own habitual postural and mental patterns. Further, specific yoga practices can counter the physical and mental effects that office culture places on individuals. This project exposes and aims to change the office worker's daily physical, mental and perhaps spiritual habits. I will give basic information relating to physical postures encountered at the office and further provide accessible yoga exercises to counter them. This project will show that yoga can benefit office workers' posture and well-being.

I work in a small office at a computer forty hours per week. While I personally have implemented yoga into my daily office routine, I knew that my practice would be beneficial to my coworkers. I attest to the physical and mental modifications yoga practice offers, so I envisioned this project as a means to share this with my peers. The overall goal of this project is to guide my coworkers in exploring their own mind-body connections to ultimately make them feel better during the workday. …

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Through the Lens of Suffering: Why Yoga Helps Heal Despair and Trauma ~ by Margaret McBride

… Through the lens of those suffering from despair, anxiety, PTS, trauma and other ills, we can all learn – or be reminded – how and why yoga helps.

I believe yoga helps because it focuses on being present to what is and what our body feels. Most importantly, yoga gets us into our body and the present moment – where we can find comfort in our own breath, sensations and skin. Breath, movement, meditation and yoga nidra (among other yoga practices) support what is needed for healing from depression and trauma. …

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Welcome to the Beginner Teacher's Guide to Chair Yoga! ~ by Natalia Garcia Valencia

The idea for this project came to me during a level 1 class observation. A few minutes prior to the class start, the teacher was informed that she would have a drop-in student join the class, and that he would require the use of a chair, due to his physical limitations. While this particular teacher's class plan for that day did not include the use of a chair, she proved to be incredibly flexible, accommodating , and by thinking quickly on her feet, she modified poses by using a chair. The class was a success. In addition, I realized, that during the teacher training process, I have been building a "toolbox" of skills, which will all help me, when I begin to teach yoga to my students.

The following pages are designed to give you ideas, to spark your own creativity, and most importantly, to help you, when you find yourself in a bind. Here you will find simple chair asanas, along with modifications, which can be appropriate for levels 1 and 2 classes. …

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Yoga for Teens: A Valuable and Enduring Gift ~ by Jill Schroeder

Ever since I began doing yoga eight years ago, I have tried to instill in my daughters an appreciation for their body and an ability to go inside and calm themselves. One of my favorite sayings has been “You can’t control what happens to you in life, but you can control your reaction to it.” I am not sure where I first heard it, but there is something very empowering in that statement, the knowledge that we can in a very real way control how we approach life. In effect, we can create our own happiness. Yoga provides a great opportunity to teach this life lesson, and teenagers are often a receptive audience because they are trying to cope with life’s increasing demands on them.

A regular yoga practice can provide many physical, emotional, and spiritual benefits for teens. Yoga’s focus on the body, mind, and breath awareness helps strengthen muscles and improve flexibility, promotes relaxation and reduces stress, and boosts self-confidence and body awareness, important to a healthy lifestyle. The poses can help loosen teens’ tense muscles from team and aerobic sports, while the meditation and breathing exercises help them focus and calm the mind, promoting further relaxation. (Lyness) Another benefit for teens with yoga is that it is very low cost; besides the mat, no special equipment or clothes are needed, and it can be done anywhere at any time.

Yoga is a useful “life tool” for adolescents, which can help them blossom into their full potential with a healthy body, a calm mind, and a belief in their own intrinsic worth. …

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Yoga is for Everyone!!! ~ by Susie Crate

I begin my essay about ‘Yoga is for Everyone!!!’ with a quote from Pema Chodron about why it is important to mediate:

‘People often say, “Meditation is all very well, but what does it have to do with my life?” What it has to do with your life is that perhaps through this simple practice of paying attention—giving loving kindness to your speech and your actions and the movements of your mind—you begin to realize that you’re always standing in the middle of a sacred circle, and that’s your whole life. This room is not the sacred circle. Gampo Alley is not the sacred circle. Wherever you go for the rest of your life, you’re always in the middle of the universe and the circle is always around you. Everyone who walks up to you has entered that sacred space, and its not an accident. Whatever comes into the space is there to teach you.’ – Pema Chodron, The Wisdom of No Escape.

I do this deliberately to emphasize the point that yoga IS meditation and therefore for everyone. If that is not enough to convince you, consider my first deep understanding of exactly how it is that yoga is for everyone. It was during the 2011- 2012 teacher training year and all of us 200-hour teacher-in-training yogis and yoginis had gathered for a monthly intensive weekend, this month with master teacher Baxter Bell. He opened one of his session by telling us that one of the best yoga practitioners he knew is paralyzed from the neck down. We all exchanged confused glances and Baxter went on to explain that in reality only a very small part of the practice of yoga are the asanas—in fact the asanas are one of eight parts—and they are there to bring into the physical realm the ‘yoking of mind and body,’ the ultimate objective of and literal translation of the word ‘yoga’ from Sanskrit. He went on to say that having a physical body that can master all the poses is not as important as ‘embodying’ the philosophy. Baxter’s story was powerful for me and it changed the way I understood yoga and my role as a teacher and my approach to facilitating anyone who has a desire to learn yoga, even if they are paralyzed from their neck down.

Later that spring we had another master teacher, Tias Little, who also brought more light to the subject. Tias mentioned several times over the course of the intensive weekend that ‘If you can breathe, you can do yoga.’

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Yin & Yang: A New Approach to Yoga for the Military & Beyond ~ by Unyong Kim

In Taoist philosophy, Yang and Yin describe two harmonious and opposite energies, which remain in constant dynamic balance: when yang energy waxes to its maximum, the seed of its opposite, yin energy is sown, which then waxes to its maximum, while its opposite, yang energy wanes, until the seed of yang is sown with the maximized yin. …

• Yin is associated with the receptive, feminine, deep, spiritual, restorative, while Yang is associated with the active, masculine, surface, worldly, challenging.

• The military is perhaps one of the most yang institutions in our culture, which is experiencing the birth of the yin element.

• Mindfulness meditation and yoga are two very yin practices, which bring balance to the stresses arising from an excess of yang energy.

• On a macro level, yang cultures such as the military, give rise to seeds of yin practices like yoga and mindfulness.

• On a micro level, individuals with forceful, clenched approaches to living, give rise to their own need for centering breath and mindfulness, moment to moment.

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