Thursday, January 13, 2005 Yoga Day USA To increase the awareness of Yoga across the United States Yoga Alliance, Yoga Journal, Yoga International and others are launching a campaign for Yoga Day USA, January 29th! Please be sure to get the word out in your local classes, studios or community centers. There will be special offers, free classes and lectures on the subject all across the United States. Isn’t it wonderful that the Yoga community is working together to increase the awareness of our country at a time in our world when we need it most?
Wednesday, January 5, 2005 A happy, healthy and prosperous New Year to you and all your YogaKids! I started the new year work week off with a wonderful piece on ABC News in Chicago this morning. As always, it was a lot of fun to share the YogaKids way, although it felt totally surreal to segue in 3 seconds from the previous story on the devastation of the tsunami. The world is always in need of our help, but especially right now. Please check the sidebar for a short list of charities that are helping with the tsunami disaster relief and follow your heart. A special thanks to 7-year-old Michaela Zimpleman, whose pregnant mom drove her 4 hours from Indianapolis to make her TV debut at 6:15 am! She was so excited and was truly a star. Judy Hsu, the morning anchor graciously filed the following report: Connecting Kids with Yoga By Judy Hsu January 3, 2005 — Connecting children with yoga! It is one of the hottest trends in children and fitness. In fact, yoga is now being taught in some schools starting with pre-school age kids! Marsha Wenig is the creator of an award winning program called, YogaKids. She's been teaching yoga for over 20 years. Marsha says when it comes to teaching kids yoga, it's all about fitness, fun and feeling great by using sound and movement as learning tools. Through her program, Marsha has adapted traditional yoga moves to make it easier for kids to enjoy. For example, the traditional Downward-Facing Dog pose becomes kid-friendly by the addition of big puppy feet, wagging tails and barking. Marsha has taught yoga to her own 2 kids and she says "they were happier, more self-assured, calmer. In fact, a recent study has proven that children who do yoga feel better about themselves and even get better grades". The study was conducted by Program Evaluation and Research Collaborative Charter College of Education. The study apparently showed that students who had high participation rates in yoga had fewer referral or discipline problems. At the end of that study, about one-fourth of the yoga participants were significantly more physically fit compared to overall district fitness levels. Marsha believes you can start teaching yoga to kids as young as three. The key is having a program that makes the poses and concepts easy to understand for the children. "It should be like play for them", Marsha says. Some of the benefits of yoga for kids are: strength, flexibility, ability to focus, connecting with oneself, knowing how to self-sooth, and balance and harmony.
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