News — poses

The benefits of yoga in general are well known.   These same benefits are available to kids to learn and develop as they grow.   These same characteristics, benefits and skills can grow with them as they age.   Unlike learning yoga as an adult,  the challenges for kids often involve retaining their interest.   Using a Milkshake balance board adds an extra challenge to performing the poses that have a way of keeping the youth engaged with Yoga and their practice.  Kids remain focused due to the extra mental effort needed to keep their balance.

Here are some common examples of kids yoga poses performed on Milkshake balance boards:

Here is another set: 

What you should find is that if you have your child follow along an adult while they do a yoga routine,  with them on their milkshake board,  they will be equally challenged and will remain engaged.  

So, you just received your brand new balance board.  Congratulations! Here are some stretches and balance moves to get you started.  It's important to do them in a sequence, as some of the stretches go hand and hand.  For example, the cat/cow poses go together because the cat pose is the counter stretch to the cow pose for your back.  Snake and Mouse poses also go together.  Have fun!

Let's start with something easy.  Sit in the middle of your board, facing the "MILKSHAKE boards" logo.  

 Airplane Easy Pose: (criss-cross apple sauce) or put your arms out to your sides as if you are in an airplane.

Now pretend to fly like an airplane.  Hold each stretch for a few deep breaths.  

 Cow Pose: let your belly drop down with your back bent like the letter U.

Cat Pose:  arch your back up like a mountain and look down under your belly at your legs behind you.

Do cat/cow together as they are counter stretches to each other.  Inhale for cow, exhale for cat.  Repeat 10 times.

 Mouse Pose: curl up like a ball on top of the board.  Feel your belly breath against your legs as you remain in this pose for 3-5 deep breaths.  

 Snake or Cobra Pose:  From mouse pose, slide your feet out from under you and make sure that your feet are together, legs, and seat are firmly placed on the board behind you. Then, lift your chest up from the board and feel the stretch.  

After Snake Pose, do Mouse Pose again for the counter stretch (snake and mouse can go hand-in-hand).

Downward Dog: In downward dog, you will want to make a triangle with your body.  

Upward Dog:  From downward dog, drop your belly and keep your legs and belly off the ground, arms shoulder width apart.

Elephant Pose: Standing up, keep your legs straight and let your torso, head, and arms hang down.  Clasp your hands together like the trunk of an elephant and sway or pretend to drink water.

Now, slowly come up and pretend to splash water on your body and back.  You can also spray water all around you.

Mountain Pose: Stand tall on your balance board.  Take some deep slow breaths.  Then, try standing on your tippy toes.  For an extra challenge, stand on your tippy toes and look up at the sky.

Tree Pose: An all time favorite....while standing tall, take one heel and rest it against the opposite leg.  Then, let your "branches" or arms grow.  Remember to repeat with the opposite leg.

Have fun with these poses to get you started on your board.  Remember to always be careful and share your MILKSHAKE board with your friends.  

Yesterday, while teaching a yoga class out in the boonies, the kids gave me a brilliant idea of how to teach animal or plant life cycles through yoga.  It was a lot of fun and we had some great discussions while doing the poses, such as "what is the difference between a cocoon and a chrysalis?" Anyway, rather than just doing butterfly pose, we decided to make up a pose for each part of the life cycle of a butterfly.  We did the same thing for frog pose.  Here's what we came up with for the two, and of course, if you have any other ideas, please add them.

Butterfly Life Cyle:  We started out in mouse pose (egg) and then hatched into a caterpillar, which we decided should be like a snake pose.  The caterpillar ate leaves and wiggled around.  Then, it turned into a pupa or chrysalis.  This pose could be lightning bolt pose or a headstand.  Finally, the pupa opened up and a butterfly appeared...butterfly pose.

Frog Life Cycle:  Again, we started with mouse pose (egg).  When the egg hatched, the little tadpoles swam in the water.  Superman/Supergirl pose could be used for the tadpoles or a variation of snake pose.  The legs of the froglet start to grow and before you know it, there are a bunch of froggies jumping around.  The kids loved this so much!

Some other ideas could be to have a tree grow from a seed or an island grow from an active volcano at the bottom of the sea.  Yoga is a great way to explain science and history in a fun fashion! Enjoy.